Profile Magazine Q1/18

FADY QADDOURA

wants to inspire the next generation of public servants. EMIGRATED FROM PALESTINE,

First, he

Fady Qaddoura Controller, Chief Financial Officer

No matter their function, every executive can have a massive positive impact on their business—but some have the ability to drive impressive results for a multitude of organizations. These executives function as the ultimate business partners, committed to finding ways that other companies can excel and achieve their goals. By alleviating challenges in settings ranging from leadership alignment to proper sales training, these are the business leaders organizations need in their corner. P114

Q1/18

Becoming America’s Most Valued Housing Partner

David Benson brings decades of Wall Street experience to his role as CFO of mortgage lender Fannie Mae 22

The New Meaning of Chinese Food

By creating a brand new spin-off of Yum! Brands, VP and Deputy General Counsel Scott Catlett is changing the way fast food operates in China 76

Perfecting the Parcel Process

Michael McLary is changing how UPS allocates its resources 73

How to Pitch Baseball Tickets

Texas Rangers’ Paige Farragut is refining the ticket sales process by growing fans and selling memories 18

Gillian Fry, Chris Hawpe, Dan Kosmayer/Shutterstock.com

Encouraging Extracurricular

The E.W. Scripps Company and Rebecca Riegelsberger have created a culture where employees feel supported in engaging philanthropic organizations

98

California’s Construction Comeback

The Build Group’s Eric Horn recounts how the company went from a shoestring budget, survived the Great Recession, and became the increasingly diversified construction group it is today 102

In Millennial Fashion

Robert LeBoeuf believes Punch Bowl Social’s style will attract millennial patrons and personnel 142 Sustainability

The Redstone Revolution

How Joe Newberry and Kathy Neyman, in conjunction with Partners in Leadership, revamped the corporate culture at Redstone Federal Credit Union over a five-year period 139

The RV GC

Elizabeth Ganiere’s winding career journey led to Gulf Stream Coach’s legal team, where she’s helped grow the company from her seat 170

How Carlos Rojas helped Sprouts Farmers Market stop wasting food and start changing lives

165

CREATIVE

VP of Creative

Kathy Kantorski

Strategic Content Director

Megan Bungeroth

Editorial Director

Cyndi Fecher

Senior Editor

Adam Kivel

Editors

Joe Dixon

Beth Hyland

Jonas Weir

Design Director

Joshua Hauth

Senior Designer

Jany Zhang

Designers

Anna Beck

Greer Mosher

Photo Director

Caleb Fox

Photo Editors & Staff

Photographers

Kristin Deitrich

Gillian Fry

SALES & ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

EVP of Sales

Katie Else

VP of Sales

Kyle Evangelista

Director of Sales Operations

Philip Taylor

Director

Kim Harrington

Content Advertising Managers

Ellen Aleksa

Christina Brown

Peter Castaldo

Kristina Doukas

Brandon Havrilka

Ben Julia

Ben Keller

Ashley Watkins

Sarah White

Executive Success Director

Anna Jensen

Executive Relationship Managers

Josh Rosen

Jenny Vetokhin

PUBLISHING

Guerrero Howe, LLC

CEO

Pedro Guerrero

Executive Assistant Jaclyn Tumberger

Recruitment Director

Elyse Schultz

Client Services Director

Cheyenne Eiswald

Senior Client Services Manager

Rebekah Pappas

Client Services Managers

Skylar Garfield

Katie Richards

VP, Business Operation

Marc Jerbi

Controller

Nikki Roiland

MARKETING

Managing Director of Marketing

Sean Conner

Reprints & Circulation Director

Stacy Kraft stacy@guerrerohowe.com

Events Director Vianni Busquets

Unpacking Our Purpose

Profile is nearly synonymous with the private sector.

Although we feature executives from nearly every industry, including nonprofits and the public sector, it’s somewhat uncharacteristic to a feature government official in the book, let alone on the cover. So, when we chose the CFO and controller of the City of Indianapolis for our first cover of 2018, we did so with careful consideration. Simply put, Fady Qaddoura is an extraordinary executive with a story we could not pass up.

Even on a surface level, Qaddoura’s story is remarkable. He grew up in the West Bank in Palestine, immigrated to the United States to pursue a degree in computer science at the University of New Orleans, worked at a gas station in one of the city’s most down-trodden neighborhoods to pay his way through college, survived Hurricane Katrina, and enjoyed a blossoming career as an IT executive before leaving it behind to pursue civil service. It’s these facts that first attracted us to Qaddoura, but as we learned more, his story only became more compelling.

As our team worked with him on this feature, one thing began to outshine his other attributes: his passion for his work. In his role as CFO, Qaddoura sees line items in the City of Indianapolis’s budget not just as dollars, but as programs that affect real people’s lives. And his zeal for his work is contagious. In fact, our photo editor, Kristin Deitrich, spent an entire day with Qaddoura, following and photographing him, and she returned with not only a wealth of respect for Qaddoura, but also with an unwavering passion for the photos she took. You’ll find her photo essay accompanying the feature (P. 8).

In these photos, you’ll see Qaddoura doing everything from playing basketball with an after-school youth group to meeting with the mayor. It’s a role that seems to come so natural to him that it’s hard to imagine him doing anything else. It was not that long ago that he was an IT executive; however, he made a midcareer pivot to work for the Indiana state government, starting from the bottom. And perhaps that’s what informs his passion the most.

Subscriptions + Reprints

For a free subscription, please visit profilemagazine.com /subscribe. Printed in China.

Reprinting of articles is prohibited without permission of Guerrero Howe, LLC. For reprint information, contact Stacy Kraft at 312.256.8460 or stacy@guerrerohowe.com.

Profile® is a registered trademark of Guerrero Howe, LLC.

It may have taken him a while, but Fady Qaddoura found where he’s supposed to be, and he’s thriving. Maybe that can be a lesson for all of us.

Jonas Weir Editor

Kristin Deitrich

TALENT

LIVES BEYOND THE LEDGERS

In Indianapolis, Fady Qaddoura measures every dollar’s impact on the city’s constituents

By Mike Hernandez

Photos by Kristin Deitrich

FADY

Qaddoura sits in the nervous system of the City of Indianapolis, and it’s a hectic place to be. Indianapolis has a population of more than 858,000, an average $50 million in structural budget deficit, and a mayor publicly committed to criminal justice reform, neighborhood revitalization, transparency, accountable budgeting, and reduction in homelessness, food deserts, and blight.

When offered the job of controller and chief financial officer, the number two executive under Mayor Joe Hogsett, Qaddoura saw these challenges not as a deterrent, but as a possibility—in large part due to challenges throughout his life, ranging from an upbringing on Israel’s West Bank to surviving Hurricane Katrina.

“My office doesn’t receive compliments; we receive complaints. I could not ask for a better opportunity by which I could jump into all these issues and be a public servant,” Qaddoura says. “If everything was fixed and the city was not facing all these challenges, I would not have accepted the job.”

Back in 2006, Qaddoura had a budding career as a junior executive in IT, having completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science (the first two of many degrees). He was on track to achieving a level of prosperity that he and his family

Controller, Chief Financial Officer

hadn’t known when he was growing up. Considering the challenges that Qaddoura has faced even prior to his path from rising star in IT to the number two public servant in Indianapolis, he’s grown to relish the potential for major change these new challenges offer.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina left Qaddoura, his wife, and their newborn daughter homeless, and the generosity of countless nonprofits and relief agencies helped them back on their feet. Prior to that, he held a college job at a gas station in one of New Orleans’s most violent neighborhoods, where the realities of American life came up against his preconceptions. He also faced his share of challenges in his modest upbringing in the city of Ramallah, east of Jerusalem on the West Bank. There were, however, plenty of opportunities to learn as well.

Raised in the Muslim faith, educated in a Christian school, and born in a Jewish area, Qaddoura learned from an early age to see the humanity in people

Fady Qaddoura heads to city hall bright and early to start his day.

regardless of difference—and it shows in the way he approaches his city’s population.

“In my mind, when I came to the United States, I envisioned a beautiful country with the best of ideals, and I thought injustice only existed in third-world countries,” he says.

Qaddoura immediately saw a range of humanity, from injustice to generosity, in these experiences. That was when he knew had to do more. He decided to change paths, leaving behind a career he had worked hard to build through scholarships, full-time work in a gas station, and what money he had left after his initial trip to the United States.

“I realized I can’t spend the rest of my life just seeking a paycheck and not adding value to humanity,” Qaddoura says. “My life was touched by the kindness and generosity of so many people that I can’t just not pay them back.”

Fady Qaddoura

City of Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN

Qaddoura gets a taste of the Indianapolis Fire Department’s training by stepping into their uniform.

Qaddoura speaks with an attendee of the Mayor’s Breakfast at the Indiana Black Expo.

At an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department staff meeting, Qaddoura updates police chiefs on recent budget improvements.

Qaddoura hits the court during the Summer Servings program, which provides free meals for Indianapolis children.

Qaddoura meets with Mayor Joe Hogsett and briefs him on some current budget decisions.

Qaddoura participates in the city’s monthly Criminal Justice Planning Council meeting.

Armed with a passion for public service, Qadduora reinvented himself at the age of twenty-nine, working for the Indiana General Assembly as an intern. While working for the state Senate and then the House of Representatives, he worked on criminal justice reform, gerrymandering issues, educational policies, and reducing recidivism.

However, Qaddoura decided that in order to impact more than tens of thousands of people, he needed to move from the legislative to the executive branch, helping the state of Indiana implement the Affordable Care Act. With his unique blend of IT, healthcare, and leadership experience, Qaddoura was able to provide live, real-time dashboards of the implementation to then-governor Mike Pence.

It’s a story composed of seemingly disparate experiences and accomplishments, but all the twists and turns have added up to a career as a compassionate public servant. Whether it’s healthcare IT or teaching, legislative or executive, data or philanthropy, Qaddoura always returns to the topic of service.

“I preach to my teams that they don’t report to me; they serve everyone,” he says. “My office is structured to be an honest broker of information.”

Joe Hogsett’s campaign for Mayor of Indianapolis stressed fiscal responsibility, pledging transparent spending and a yearly reduction in budget. But Qaddoura emphasizes the compassionate side of those pledges. If there seems to be any contradiction between these, Qaddoura doesn’t see it.

“When people think about budgets or finance, they just think about Excel sheets, software, and crunching numbers,” Qaddoura says. “Our philosophy is different: behind every dollar, there’s a life that is being impacted. The budget should reflect our values.”

When Qaddoura talks about his research in criminal justice reform, the connection between compassion and what’s good for the City budget seems fairly seamless. One area that highlights this way of thinking is the way that he and Mayor Hogsett, a former prosecutor and US Attorney, approach criminal justice.

“Forty to fifty percent of inmates in Marion County and the City of Indianapolis suffer from some form of mental illness,” Qaddoura says. “Mental health should not be criminalized. It’s a healthcare issue and should be addressed as such.”

Other parts of Qaddoura’s criminal justice research emphasize treatment of people convicted of felonies that’s both compassionate and financially sensible. He explains concepts such as the legal cliff, by which productive citizens lose their livelihoods and even their homes after conviction—becoming dependent on government assistance they hadn’t previously needed and requiring costly work-training programs in prison that they also hadn’t needed before.

Qaddoura serves on the Criminal Justice Planning Council of Indianapolis, and says that the administration’s stance on success in the prison system differs

“I COULD NOT ASK FOR A BETTER OPPORTUNITY BY WHICH I COULD JUMP INTO ALL THESE ISSUES AND BE A PUBLIC SERVANT. IF EVERYTHING WAS FIXED AND THE CITY WAS NOT FACING ALL THESE CHALLENGES, I WOULD NOT HAVE ACCEPTED THE JOB.”

FADY QADDOURA

from many others. “We don’t define our success by how many beds we fill. We define success by how many we keep empty,” he says. “The laws we come up with can strip people from their accomplishments, and taking away people’s livelihood makes them less productive.”

The idea might seem counterintuitive, but Qaddoura bases his initiatives equally on data and research as he does compassion and generosity. Qaddoura is now completing his PhD in philanthropy and public policy at Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy and has been teaching a multidisciplinary history of philanthropy in the United States at the school since 2014. It might be surprising that he takes this work on in addition to his many other responsibilities, but to him, it’s vitally important.

“It’s worth it for the ability to change someone’s life, to tell them they are smart, courageous, and wise,” Qaddoura says. “I aspire to change lives and help people become public servants. It’s what keeps me alive.”

message from

We’re proud to have

Qaddoura’s work day has come to a close, and he heads home to his wife and family.

Indianapolis has great people that work tirelessly every day to keep our people safe, united and healthy. And we’re lucky to have Fady Qaddoura by our side. His support of key health initiatives makes a difference in our daily lives. His efforts help us know that a stronger and healthier future is in the making.

Fady Qaddoura’s

The OneMan Brain Trust

Donald Bollella details the key qualifications for the top patent counsel

By CHRIS GIGLEY

TThe technology that Donald Bollella has worked with is used by the military, as well as automotive, communications, and medical companies around the world. But if anyone can master an understanding of all these different applications, it’s Bollella. An intense intellectual curiosity made patent work his destiny, and Bollella has been working as a chief patent counsel since 2000.

“When I was a college student, I enjoyed literature and languages, and was also very good at science and math,” Bollella says. “A patent attorney falls right in the middle. You have to understand math and science, and you must be able to articulate those ideas in clear, enforceable language.”

Bollella has always been a creative tinkerer. As a seventeen-yearold boy, he created a design that drew the interest of a friend of the family who worked as a lawyer. This friend suggested getting a patent and conducted a patent search on Bollella’s behalf. To this day, he not only still has the results of that patent search, but he’s still mulling over patenting improvements to that very same design. By age twenty-three, while studying at Balliol College, Oxford, Bollella had decided on a career in patent work.

To that end, he proceeded to get all the relevant training he could while at college. Bollella earned a bachelor of science in humanities and a bachelor of science in engineering from MIT, a law degree and an MBA from Boston University, and a master of science in electrical engineering and computer engineering from the University of California, Irvine. All that studying paid off: he recently celebrated his thirtieth year working in the patent profession.

“In my mind, you need three legs on the stool to be successful in patent work: business, law, and technology,” he says. “I wanted to have all three.” Bollella has found that succeeding at patent work requires a blend of right-brain and left-brain strength—something that not everyone has. “I don’t think one dominates,” he says. “My left and right brain have always been swirling together.”

Many lawyers may have the knack for research but cannot translate their findings into a legal document. Others are talented writers but lack the eye for details. And even

Donald Bollella Chief Patent Counsel Irvine, CA

those who are skilled in both areas may struggle with another crucial component of the job: relationship building. It’s crucial, Bollella says, because the technology world is intensely competitive when it comes to product innovations.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re working for a large company, a midsize, or a start-up,” he explains. “The technology can be extremely valuable, and you need to have a network of colleagues around the world whom you can trust and rely on not to leak that information to others.”

Over his extended career, Bollella has been able to forge many long-standing relationships with lawyers, engineers, and scientists because he understands their different languages. “If you’re an expert in the field hiring other experts in the field, there is a basis for mutual respect,” he says. “You understand 100 percent what they’re doing. You know quality work when you see it, and you know when the work is not up to standards.”

Good relationship building can take years of developing trust. But the bulk of Bollella’s network comprises patent attorneys he’s worked with for more than two decades. His network is even more valuable now, he says, with the speed of innovation getting faster by the day. The work may be detail-oriented, but decisions must be rendered quickly on whether to protect a new innovation.

Bollella notes that with his constituency, he has often talked about something he calls the shelf life of a patent. “If it’s an innovation that will be rendered obsolete within the next design cycle, it’s probably not worth pursuing a patent on,” he says.

But if he decides that the new idea offers a fundamental benefit to a platform that will continue to be built on over the next several design iterations, he’ll pursue it. To illustrate his point, he mentions simple, long-standing innovations such as the internal combustion engine and the sewing machine.

“The basic disclosure is filed,” Bollella says. “The patents may have long since issued, but they have a shelf life in the business world well past that if your innovations continue to advance the basic platform. That’s what we look for.”

Since patent applications are now published at eighteen months from first priority, organizations often maintain many of their innovations

Miyoshi & Miyoshi congratulates Donald Bollella on his accomplishments at Skyworks Solutions, Inc.

We are proud of our years of working together with Donald and are inspired by his talent and leadership.

Founded in 1993, Liu Shen & Associates is a leading law firm in China focusing intensively on patent and trademark procurement, strategic counseling on all aspects of intellectual property and enforcement on intellectual property rights including litigation. The firm currently has 430 staff, including 51 partners, 180 patent attorneys with expertise that covers almost all technical fields.

as trade secrets for as long as practicable. Balancing between patent and trade-secret protection can be a difficult task. But as his work grows globally and demands for technology intensify, Bollella’s work protecting innovations will only get more important.

“You have ideas being exchanged through e-mails and other digital communications,” he says. “And the global job market is especially competitive for senior technology folks. If you can’t retain them, in two or three years they’re at the next company. In a fast environment like that, there’s a greater need to patent.”

Having to do this work under ever greater time pressure is just part of the job now. Bollella must rely on his trusted network of patent liaison, outside lawyers, and exceptional support staff (some of whom he’s worked with for over twenty-five years) to work quickly without sacrificing details. But Bollella has proven time and time again that he’s versatile enough to be just the man for the job.

JUDGING INNOVATIONS

With so many improvements in technology happening so quickly, Donald Bollella says that acquiring patents is only part of the picture. A big part of his job is deciding which new idea is worth protecting in view of everadvancing innovation across different technology platforms.

We specialize in intellectual property law and represent major corporations.

www.miyoshipat.co.jp mm@miyoshipat.co.jp

TOKYO | KYOTO

PATENT | TRADEMARK | COPYRIGHT

SOFTWARE REGISTRATION

CUSTOMS PROTECTION

TECHNOLOGY LICENSING

OTHER IP MATTERS

ALL IP-RELATED LITIGATION

10th Floor, Building 1,10 Caihefang Road Haidian District, Beijing 100080, China

T (86-10)62681616 / (86-10)62680066

F (86-10)62681818

mail@liu-shen.com • www.liu-shen.com

“It’s really not a question of yes or no,” he says. “It’s a question of degree. Every patent has some shelf life. You have to recognize if it’s sufficient enough to justify a patent and if so, what additional countries beyond the United States to file in given the business goals and corporate objectives at hand.”

Bollella constantly keeps his eye out for that transcendent innovation that can give an organization a competitive advantage for years—and he’s had several with inventors that include Nobel Laureates, senior professors, and recognized luminaries in various technical fields. Because of the ever-changing nature of technology today, though, he can’t ignore the smaller improvements when building a worldwide patent portfolio. Everything is in play.

“If you’re an expert in the field hiring other experts in the field, there is a basis for mutual respect. You understand 100 percent what they’re doing. You know quality.”

DONALD BOLLELLA

Skyworks Solutions is devoted to R&D, and protecting IP is critical for Skyworks Solutions. Mr. Donald Bollella, the chief patent counsel of Skyworks Solutions, has developed the most efficient and proactive strategy in seeking patent protection globally. With experiences in handling complicated patent/IP matters (such as patent procurement, patent licensing, patent monetization, etc.), Mr. Bollella developed the “global patent prosecution guidelines,” which has been implemented successfully. Lee and Li, with our more than fifty years of experience in handling patent/IP matters globally, started to represent Skyworks Solutions in 2001. Our working relationship with Skyworks Solutions and Mr. Bollella is inspired and enjoyable especially because of Mr. Bollella’s professionalism, leadership, support, and proactive nature, leading to Skyworks Solutions’ success in its patent/IP asset development and accumulation.

Congratulations to Donald Bollella on this well-deserved honor. Liu Shen & Associates enjoys the good working relationship with Donald, and has built a strong partnership with Skyworks. As one of the top IP firms in China, we are proud to continue working with Skyworks to assist the company in obtaining and enforcing IP rights in China.

Since meeting Donald in Munich in 2000, Miyoshi & Miyoshi have had the pleasure of growing our relationship by collaborating on a number of cases including the successful transfer of patents/patent applications acquired from Japanese companies. Providing crucial training for the implementation of streamlined patent prosecution processes, Donald manages with exacting standards, resulting in improved efficiencies.

“Mr. Bollella is simply brilliant! He has the deepest insight in building up a strong, valuable, and enforceable patent portfolio. In 1998, he held an international conclave in Beijing to brainstorm claim amendments, and we filed over thirty divisionals and successfully obtained the strongest patents in China. Between 2013 and 2015, he led our Chinese lawyers and investigators to find infringers and infringing goods in China, including Hong Kong, lodged lawsuits, and successfully stopped the patent infringement.”

–Richard Huang from ZY Partners

SPECIALTIES

PATENT PROSECUTION AND LITIGATION

TRADEMARK PROSECUTION AND LITIGATION

COPYRIGHT

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

ARBITRATION

LICENSING

ANTITRUST

CORPORATE LAW

Suite 2606, Kuntai International Plaza, No.12 Chaowai Street Chaoyang District, Beijing, China, 100020

T (8610) 5879 0066

F (8610) 5879 0088

E zypatent@zypartners.com www.zypartners.com

Selling Memories and Growing Fans

Paige Farragut vowed she’d never wind up in sales, but now, as an executive with the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, she’s found the heart and family in the industry

By ADAM KIVEL

Paige Farragut grew up dreaming of life as an actress. Like many aspiring thespians in need of work, a friend recommended she use her people skills and personality to her benefit in sales. “Even my dad told me I would eventually be in sales,” she recalls. “But I swore I would never be in sales for a career.”

Eventually, she took the leap; now, twenty-one years later, that risk has turned into a thriving career. It helps, of course, that all that time Farragut has been selling something incredibly special while working for a professional sports organization. “You’re selling memories and growing fans,” she says.

Right out of college, Farragut joined the sales team of the Dallas Stars, the National Hockey League team stationed twenty miles from her hometown of Plano, Texas. “I worked in a cubicle and was given the Yellow Pages,” she recalls. Beyond the challenge of fitting into a career she wasn’t sure she’d wanted, Farragut was one of the few women working for the team. The jokes that women don’t last long working in the sports world were good-natured, but frequent. However, not long later, Farragut found herself out of the cubicle and in an executive role.

After three years with the Dallas Stars, team owner Tom Hicks expanded his portfolio by purchasing the Texas Rangers Baseball Club,

BRING YOUR KIDS TO THE BALLPARK

While Paige Farragut cherishes her opportunity to “grow fans” as a sales leader with the Texas Rangers, she’s had the opportunity to see the process closer up: she has been bringing her eight- and eleven-year-old sons to the office and to games for years. “They have literally grown up at this ballpark,” she says with a laugh. “They’ll put my credentials on and run around during pregame while I’m up in my office working. It’s such a blessing.” In addition, Farragut has promised her sons that she’ll take them across the country to various Major League Baseball stadiums on mom-son baseball trips. “I told them we would hit every ballpark before my oldest son goes to college,” she explains. “That is an incredible bonding experience that I have with my boys.”

Paige Farragut

the Arlington-based Major League Baseball franchise. The Stars had just won the Stanley Cup, and Farragut and the sales team were nearly selling out Reunion Arena every night. The opportunity to sell another sport and take on a new challenge was thrilling to her, and soon after she started, Farragut became the assistant vice president of suite sales, leading a team that sold for both the Stars and the Rangers.

Eventually, the Stars changed ownership, and Farragut chose to stay on with the baseball team. It helped that she had grown passionate about the sport the more involved she became. And her job was made even more exciting because so many people love baseball, too. “No matter whom you call or what company you try to reach out to, someone there is a baseball fan. If you can start talking about the first memory they ever had at a ballpark, you end up finding something that works for them and for the team.”

Rather than angle for the next best job, the next promotion, or the next team, Farragut remained determined to be the best she could at the job she had. “I knew if I kept working hard and doing what I’m supposed to do, adding value, eventually I would move up through the company,” she explains. “I’ve been extremely happy where I am, having taken the time to get where I wanted to be, and it’s worked out.”

That loyalty and passion is inspired by the close-knit feel of the organization; Farragut even says the Rangers are like her second family. “You sometimes spend more time with your coworkers than you actually do at home,” she says. “Knowing the people you work with, asking people how their day is, how their kids are, or what they did for the weekend makes a huge difference in what your day-to-day looks like.”

Farragut’s commitment to relationships is especially strong with her team in the sales room. She begins every day by walking among the salespeople, debriefing about the day’s topics. She then goes over sales numbers and meets with managers to collaborate on new initiatives, followed by more meetings and conversations.

Though she meets with many people, Farragut has developed key relationships with Justin Foote, the Rangers’ manager of CRM and analytics, and Katie Morgan, assistant director of ticket operations, and the IT team. “They are amazing partners who help with our analytics efforts and new technology initiatives,” she says. To be able to track and forecast sales accurately, Farragut Kelly Gavin

needs a lot of data, and she needs it to be accessible. The team uses Tableau, which allows for access to data and information on multiple dashboards. These dashboards have information on every game, their budget, promos sorted by buyer type, attendance per game, and more. The data refreshes every fifteen minutes—a long way away from the Yellow Pages in the cubicle.

Although this technology is important, Farragut insists that collaboration is the key to the Rangers’ success. “It’s not me sitting in an office, dictating what kind of initiatives we’re going to do,” she says. “Having people

DIVERSIFYING SPORTS

When she started working for the Dallas Stars, Paige Farragut was told that women didn’t last long when working in sales for sports organizations. Now that she’s worked her way up to a leadership role with multiple teams, she’s working to change that perception. “We try to hire women in our sales room,” she says. “Today, there are lots of women in different departments that run and lead them.” The Rangers’ CFO and general counsel are women, though there are definitely still more men that apply to work in sales. “But we’re always looking to hire some of the best women out there and get them in our sales room,” Farragut says. “I’ve always been of the attitude to hire the best person for the job, whether they’re a man or a woman—but I think it’s great to have women as part of our team and in leadership roles.”

know they’re part of our decisions is key, so when they go work with their respective groups inside the sales room, there’s complete buy-in.” That extends to recognizing staff members for achievements and great service for customers. The team rewards salespeople with “Random Acts of Recognition,” handing out gift cards and prizes when leadership receives word that a team member went above and beyond in their customer service.

With the Rangers moving into a new stadium in Arlington in 2020, Farragut will utilize her vast skill set and collaborative spirit to ensure that their successful run of ticket sales continues. “We’ve interviewed season ticket holders, individual buyers, long-term suites, nightly rentals, past buyers, and group clients so that we can make the best decisions for our clients for the next forty years. That’s also been a collaborative process,” she explains. “The majority of the people we talked to were very excited about the retractable roof—not having to worry about 105-degree days, rain delays, and the threat of weather.”

Beyond new, more advanced stadiums, the baseball world has seen other technological advancements change the way it does business. One that Farragut has been particularly affected by is the move to digital ticketing. “Somebody can buy a season ticket plan today and never get a ticket mailed to them,” she explains. The use of cell phones at the games, she adds, changes the way the team has had to approach its new stadium. “A lot of people look down at their phones during games, so we’ve had to extend our nets farther down the line to protect the fans. You have to make sure the ballpark is a place people can be safe,” she says.

Whether it’s spending decades learning and perfecting her approach to team building and collaboration or ensuring that Rangers fans are moved over into the new ballpark smoothly, every aspect of Farragut’s job relates to maintaining positive, productive relationships. That was further reinforced when she became a parent. “A lot changes once you have little people in your life,” she says. “You have to take care of people, kids that depend on you, and you start thinking about work/life balance regarding your sales and service team. They might have children too, and you want them to know they can accomplish their career goals and have quality family time. You work together to make sure that they meet their needs both at home and in the office. Our sales managers and team understand that family is first.”

A 100,000 square foot world-class dining and entertainment district adjacent to Globe Life Park in Arlington.

Lending a Hand to the Housing Market

How Fannie Mae’s David Benson is bringing all of his experience to bear on his expansive role as CFO

By CHRIS GIGLEY Photos by GILLIAN FRY

Consumers might not realize it, but Fannie Mae CFO

David Benson could make a big difference in many of their lives. He is helping the mortgage financier make the home loan process in America faster, safer, and more reliable than ever before for lenders—and, by extension, for homeowners.

These are not the aims of a typical CFO, but Benson brings an extraordinarily diverse background to the job.

He gained a great deal of experience in his fourteen years at Merrill Lynch, where he worked in various parts of the fixed-income business. He dealt with a number of projects in different parts of the world, one of which led him to work out of the company’s London office for several years. By the end of his tenure, he was skilled at running both US focused and globally focused businesses.

“I was fortunate to get a broad background in fixed-income markets and gain a deep expertise in what was driving the macroeconomies of the world,” says Benson.

The chance to join Fannie Mae in 2002, he says, was simply too good to pass up. It was and still is one of the largest participants in the global capital and interest rate derivative markets. When he took the job, the company was the largest issuer of debt in the private marketplace. He knew his work at Fannie Mae could help grow the US economy.

“There’s something exciting about being a part of something that has a direct impact on housing outcomes for so many families and a direct impact on the broader economy,” he says.

Benson says he also knew he could leverage everything he’d learned on Wall Street at Fannie Mae, although he was still able to learn and gain experience in his new position. “The interesting thing was that with of all the markets I had been involved with on the Street, I had never been responsible for mortgage debt,” he says. “This job completed the cycle of giving me experience in managing every kind of market.”

It didn’t take long for Benson to further broaden his own horizon. He moved from treasurer to being the head of capital markets, where he was responsible for one of the largest funded balance sheets ($800 million) in the world at the time. Then, in 2013, Fannie Mae CEO Timothy J. Mayopoulos appointed him CFO.

“I was not a CPA and had never been responsible for any finance account function,” Benson says.

David Benson EVP, CFO Fannie Mae Washington, DC

Strong leadership. Strong outcomes.

BlackRock and the Aladdin team thank Dave Benson for his continued vision & partnership as a long-standing client. We have benefited from his keen perspective and drive for excellence.

“But it was appealing to be able to marry what I knew about business and the markets to lead other parts of the company I didn’t have direct expertise in and hopefully make the finance function more relevant.”

As head of capital markets, Benson had long been involved in Fannie Mae’s corporate strategy. Moving to the CFO role, where he had direct responsibility for ensuring and growing the company’s financial health, expanded that leverage.

Benson says he wasn’t worried about coming into the CFO role without an accounting background. Instead, he was focused on making the people around him as effective as possible in their roles.

“That ends up being the key to all this,” he says. “It’s not about being the expert. I think CFOs today need to be able to understand the business and the accounting. But they also need to define strategy and be an innovator.”

That last piece has become increasingly important for Benson and Fannie Mae as the company moves forward with its strategy to provide more value to the marketplace in general and improve the housing finance system in the United States.

“We aspire to be America’s most valued

housing partner,” he says. “We need to challenge our own thinking and accelerate the pace of change that is really necessary if you want to reach a different level of operating in an industry that’s so complex.”

“Because of how central Fannie Mae is in the market, if we don’t have an innovation agenda, we could hold the market back,” Benson says. Because of this, he has actively pushed innovation from within and paid close attention to fintech start-ups that have rushed to apply innovations such as artificial intelligence to make the housing finance system work faster and smoother.

“We’re looking forward to being at a point where tech companies that wish to engage in the mortgage industry will come to Fannie Mae first and work with us in various ways to leverage the partnerships that can help the industry,” he says.

The bottom line is taking advantage of any new technology to accomplish two goals: reducing the amount of risk in the system and increasing the amount of digital content the mortgage process uses.

“Today, it could take a couple of months to close a loan,” says Benson. “Our objective is to reduce those cycle times to a number of days.”

kpmg.com

Leadership that inspires

Throughout his career, David Benson has demonstrated true leadership. Leadership that inspires those around him. Leadership that has put Fannie Mae at the forefront in providing availability and affordability of housing for many Americans. Leadership that we greatly admire.

It has been our pleasure to work with David in bringing innovation and transformation to finance.

David, from your business colleagues at PwC, we extend to you our congratulations on this well-deserved recognition and wish you continued success. www.pwc.com

The company has already seen results from its innovation push. Through its Day 1 Certainty initiative, Fannie Mae leveraged its industry-standard Desktop Underwriter system with data validation services that use third-party vendors to validate an applicant’s information digitally before a loan is ever delivered to Fannie Mae. This helps eliminate some of the inefficiencies that plague the current process.

Another new tool, Collateral Underwriter, helps reduce risk for both Fannie Mae and lenders by helping lenders evaluate the appraisals they receive on loans to make sure that values are appropriate and that information on the property is accurate.

With these kinds of innovations already earning raves from the lenders using them, Benson says he wouldn’t be surprised if the mortgage process was half as long in five years as it is today.

“It might be a lot less than that,” he says. “We’re really doing everything we can to drive time lines down. It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of impact this has.”

That’s the whole reason Benson got into this business. The impact he is having on the housing market is direct and real, even if consumers don’t realize it.

SimCorp provides integrated, best-in-class investment management solutions to the world’s leading asset managers, fund managers, asset servicers, pension and insurance funds, wealth managers, and sovereign wealth funds. Whether deployed on-premise or as an ASP solution, its core system, SimCorp Dimension, supports the entire investment value chain and range of instruments, all based on a market-leading IBOR. SimCorp invests more than 20 percent of its annual revenue in R&D, helping clients develop their business and stay ahead of ever-changing industry demands. Listed on NASDAQ Copenhagen, SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific.

Focusing on innovation

These continue to be unprecedented times for financial services companies. From emerging technologies to increasingly complex global compliance issues to shifting demographics, the call for innovative vision has never been stronger.

At KPMG, we work with the world’s largest financial services organizations every day. This experience gives us both global and national perspective, as well as deep insights into the latest trends and most pressing issues across every sector of the industry.

What’s more, it leads to an approach that begins with vision and drives innovation, so we can help organizations adapt to today’s uncertainties and anticipate tomorrow’s opportunities.

Visit www.kpmg.com/us/ thegreatrewrite-financialservices

The Perks of Great Problem Solving

Juniper Networks’ Meredith McKenzie has made Silicon Valley her home because of the innovative, intentional mind-set there

By KELLI LAWRENCE

While she’s mentoring up-and-coming law students, Meredith McKenzie encourages them to ask questions of themselves: “What engages you?” and “How do you like to work?” McKenzie understands the importance of these questions because she says she lacked such self-awareness in her own youth, “stumbling” into technology-related law almost by accident. Nevertheless, she’s made in-house counsel for Silicon Valley companies her niche for the overwhelming majority of her career—and Sunnyvale-based Juniper Networks her work home since 2012.

“I like technology, I like business, and I like the law,” McKenzie says. “So where I’ve ended up, working for companies like Juniper, combines those three things in a way that’s ideal for me.”

It was the technology aspect that grabbed her first. Excellence in math propelled McKenzie to MIT, where she eventually settled on an electrical engineering degree and spent most of her time after graduation designing microchips as a design engineer for Intel Corporation. Eventually, her goal of obtaining a PhD fell to the wayside—she wanted to know too much about a lot of different things to focus so specifically, McKenzie says. Instead, she took advantage of a program at Intel that allowed engineers to transition to the company’s legal department and pursue patent law by obtaining patents for Intel. After a few years, she moved into patent litigation as she moved into her first and only job at a law firm.

Meredith McKenzie VP, Deputy General Counsel Juniper Networks Sunnyvale, CA

As her base of legal knowledge expanded to include further intellectual property areas such as trademarks, copyrights, open source, and licensing, so too did her in-house counsel experience. Juniper, a multinational company founded in 1998 that specializes in the marketing and development of networking products, is giving McKenzie her biggest opportunity yet as vice president and deputy general counsel. She credits a highly collaborative culture—and strong regard for Juniper’s legal department—among its most appealing assets. “It feels like a lot of the decisions are just business decisions, not purely legal,” she says. “But I think the legal department is respected so well that they’re asked to weigh in on nonlegal issues. We have a good perspective of what’s going on not just legally, but throughout the company. It’s really just a different type of problem solving that we do: how to deal with whatever issue or restriction we have in a way that still allows the business side to do what they need to do in a timely and effective manner.”

From her days at Intel onward, a passion for problem solving has been at the heart of McKenzie’s skill set. Nowadays, she’s working with people rather than microchips, but it’s a calm, unflappable method of problem resolution that makes her such a strong in-house asset. “There’s a partnering you need to do with the other people in your company,” McKenzie says. “I don’t think you can just tell them, ‘Here’s the law, here’s yes or no.’ Usually you’re advising them on risk, helping them come up with less risky alternatives.”

The risks vary from year to year. Early in McKenzie’s tenure at Juniper, her team was heavily involved in developing processes for open-source software. One year later, the focus was on standards organizations—not a new issue unto itself, but ever-evolving with regards to intellectual property. This past year, on the other hand, has been all about information protection and security as government regulations begin to play a bigger role in how things get done.

No matter what hot-button issue is at play, McKenzie thinks the best in-house counsel are those that excel at brainstorming multiple solutions, that think outside the proverbial box in a way that helps both sides reach their objectives, and that have a lot of transparency about the amount of risk involved. “It’s like driving a car,” she says. “You know that going one hundred miles an hour isn’t a good idea in a sixty-five milesan-hour zone, but what if you go sixty-six? Is that OK? It’s about working through different scenarios to find what works.”

And as she knows from decades of experience—both with the industry and the specific technology it delivers—what works for one company doesn’t always work for another. “At Juniper, we make and sell a product; that’s how this company survives,” McKenzie says. “So, my role is to enable them to do that: to help them navigate issues they need to address to do that.”

McKenzie also knows that, even with all that experience, the learning process is never really done. New issues and responsibilities make life interesting for McKenzie and her team of fifteen at every turn. But proving her ability to not only get things done, but make significant improvements along the way—it’s a feeling that never gets old.

“One of my general philosophies is that I always talk to my team about how we can make something better,” she explains. “Sometimes it’s something little that no one really wants to talk about. But if it makes something better than it is today, I say, ‘Let’s do it.’”

“I always talk to my team about how we can make something better. Sometimes it’s something little that no one really wants to talk about. But if it makes something better than it is today, I say, ‘Let’s do it.’”

MEREDITH MCKENZIE

In an industry so jampacked with innovation, it can be virtually impossible for those involved to see the forest of progress for the individual tasks that make up its trees. But McKenzie finds these routine reflections on the work they’ve done have a way of keeping everyone motivated and engaged. “It doesn’t feel like we’re changing the world, but we keep progressing,” she says. “Before we know it, we’re looking back five years, and we’ve made all these leaps forward. You just don’t realize it at the time.”

Meredith has that rare combination of talents for fostering a collaborative, team-oriented legal group yet energizing and motivating each of the team members individually. Her leadership and insight have produced continuous process improvements for Juniper while further integrating outside counsel as partners.

–Shumaker & Sieffert, P.A.

Irell & Manella LLP congratulates Meredith McKenzie on her impressive career and is proud to partner with her and Juniper Networks. Irell is a full-service law firm with offices in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California, from which we serve clients worldwide. Recognized for our litigation and trial, transactions, intellectual property, entertainment, life sciences, insurance, bankruptcy, and tax practices, clients turn to Irell as a result of our “strong, demonstrated track record of success” (Chambers USA 2016). Our firm is big enough to handle the largest and most complex matters, but small enough to maintain excellence at every level.

Irell & Manella salutes

Top Woman in Law

Meredith

McKenzie

for her extraordinary achievements and contribution to Juniper Networks and the legal industry.

We are honored to partner with you.

Irell & Manella LLP is a full-service law firm with offices in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, CA. Founded in 1941, Irell is nationally recognized for its litigation and trial, transactions, intellectual property, entertainment, insurance, bankruptcy and tax practices. Irell’s clients include public companies, universities, individuals and leading-edge entrepreneurial companies. For more information, please visit www.irell.com.

Opening Doors for Opportunity

Kathy Twiddy, the newly named vice president, US general counsel for Mayne Pharma, has made a lifelong goal of seizing new possibilities as they arrive

By LORI FREDRICKSON

When Kathy Twiddy looks back on the range of skills she’s been able to build over her career, she attributes part of her success to being willing to embrace any new opportunity. “I’ve never felt like I needed to label myself as one particular thing, and I still feel that way now,” Twiddy says. Having recently been named vice president, US general counsel for Raleigh, North Carolina-based pharmaceutical company Mayne Pharma, Twiddy built her path by developing skill sets across a wide range of positions, both at private firms and as in-house counsel, across the technology and healthcare industries. “I think my career path shows that I have successfully managed a variety of things,” she says. Though Twiddy has always been a natural fit for her field, it took dedication and selfconfidence to get her career started. Growing up, Twiddy always knew that she wanted a

career that would allow her to utilize her skills as a strong writer and an avid solver of logic puzzles. She also had a childhood friendship with a local lawyer, a neighbor who became something of a father figure for Twiddy after her own father passed away. She developed enough of an interest to raise the possibility of getting a law degree with an advisor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and studio art as an undergraduate.

At the time, that advisor shut down the idea. “He said, ‘I’m just not sure that’s for you,” Twiddy recalls. Though she at first took that advice to heart, working for two years for a Raleigh television station, she also increasingly felt that law would, in fact, be a good fit. And after earning high scores on her first few practice LSAT tests,

Kathy Twiddy VP, US General Counsel

Mayne Pharma Greenville, NC

she grew even more confident. “I realized I shouldn’t have listened to that guy,” she says.

Twiddy has carried that renewed selfconfidence ever since. After about two years as an attorney at the firm Poyner & Spruill, Twiddy learned about a new opportunity at IBM, whose Research Triangle Park site in Raleigh was one of the largest in the country. Within two weeks of applying, she had an offer for an attorney position. “IBM was a wonderful training ground,” Twiddy says. As one of only three general attorneys there, she was able to gain experience across a wide range of fields, including software and IP, which were increasingly valuable during the height of the internet bubble.

Twiddy networked a great deal during this time, and was able to move on to new opportunities after she’d built up a well of expertise over her seven years at IBM. First, she developed a new Raleigh branch for the Richmond-based firm Mezzullo & McCandlish. That led to her working as a partner in a larger international firm, Kilpatrick Stockton, where she developed skills in mergers and acquisitions, along with guiding the firm’s practice in software and IP transactions.

Toward the end of her three years there, the internet bubble burst, but her software and M&A experience helped Twiddy to build her career in another new direction: the healthcare industry. As general counsel at Misys Healthcare, an electronic medical records company, Twiddy was able to successfully complete the company’s merger with Allscripts Healthcare Solutions in 2008.

While this was Twiddy’s first experience in, as she refers to it, merging herself out of a job, it led to more exciting work in the field. She was able to bring her new knowledge of the medical field and healthcare regulatory law to a role as senior associate general counsel for Quintiles, a leading contract research organization for pharmaceutical companies. After a few years, she was contacted by one of her prior CEOs at Misys, who had taken on a new role as the CEO of M*Modal, a publicly traded company that was considering various possible transactions. He asked her to be his chief legal officer. “He knew it was on my bucket list, and it’s sometimes hard to get that first public-company GC position,” Twiddy says. “I knew that was my chance if I was ever going to do it.”

While she suspected it wouldn’t be a longterm position given the plans of the company, after successfully negotiating a going-private

transaction, doors opened up. Twiddy then became the vice president, general counsel of LipoScience, a clinical reference laboratory and medical device company, where she was able to bring her M&A skills to the table again during a 2014 merger with Laboratory Corporation of America.

“Shepherding that merger was probably one of the highlights of my career,” Twiddy says. “Even though there are mixed emotions when you merge yourself out of a job, it’s gratifying to be able to help the company through that.” This set the stage for a move into a role as an M&A partner with K&L Gates, an international law firm with offices in Raleigh and Research Triangle Park, where she remained for two and a half years before joining Mayne Pharma. Thanks to her in-house work in the healthcare industry, she is able to dive deeper into corporate transactions and pharmaceutical licensing and regulatory work in this new role.

While she has had many friends who have thrived working at only one or a few firms throughout their careers, she has found that working at many different companies, with many different cultures, has helped give her abilities she might not have had otherwise. “Had I not had all of these roles, I may have still known that people and projects can certainly differ, but I think you get better and better at approaching new things the more you do it,” Twiddy says. “There’s a definite value in getting along with people and being able to impart advice in a coherent, intelligent and nonthreatening manner, and being in different environments helps you sharpen those skills.”

Twiddy notes that building a range of expertise in both tech and healthcare has enabled her to always stay close to home in Raleigh. “Thank goodness I had the exposure I had to some of these things, because it’s really useful today,” she says. “Being able to develop expertise in two industries was a big reason that I was able to stay in the Research Triangle Park area and still have a varied career path and great opportunities. I have never been particularly opposed to moving around, but it’s great to have varied experiences with the convenience of remaining in the Raleigh area.”

Above all, Twiddy adds, she’s enjoyed her career, because the constant change has meant that it’s never been boring. “Some people like change and some people hate it,” Twiddy says. “I have always really enjoyed a new project. Variety is the spice of life.”

CLIENT FOCUS

What truly differentiates a law firm is how it serves its clients. Let us show you what a fully integrated global practice and a commitment to client service can mean for your business. K&L Gates LLP. Global legal counsel across five continents. Learn more at klgates.com.

Good, Better, & Best

Bill Tiszai details why empathy and constant improvement are key to a successful union between the salesforce and the finance office

By BILLY YOST

Tiszai VP, Global Sales Operation, Treasurer

Bill

Belden Inc.

St. Louis, MO

BBill Tiszai maintains a footing in two worlds that might seem to be out of step with each other—but his job is to make sure they’re not. As both vice president of global sales operations and treasurer for Belden Inc., Tiszai leverages his extensive experience in both sales and finance to help facilitate communication, empathy, and growth between departments that don’t traditionally always see eye-to-eye.

Tiszai began his career in finance, and understands why it’s easy to have an “us vs. them” mentality when it comes to the salesforce. “Sometimes the finance staff runs the risk of minimizing the challenge of closing a sale or carrying a quota,” he says. “We sometimes see a stereotype of the salesforce as an undisciplined group of golfers who work part-time. The finance team may look at themselves as the last ones working late while the sales team is out having fun and going home early.”

Fortunately, Tiszai is familiar with the other side of the argument. While at GE Capital, he found himself in a quotacarrying role that taught him not only the pressure that the sales side was under, but how it translated into miscommunication with the operations team. “I think the sales side will look at finance as inflexible and out of touch, and maybe not focused on growing the company,” he says. There is an inherent tension that Tiszai sees as healthy, but that can also create a communication gap between two vital parts of a company.

Bridging that gap can often seem like a herculean feat, but Tiszai sees it a bit differently. “When you bring people to the table and explain what’s happening and the reasoning for decisions, I find that both sides tend to be pretty reasonable,” he says. The goal is to approach a problem with working together in mind, and for each side to treat the other side as a partner who is ultimately working to help move the company forward. When it comes to the sales side, Tiszai says it’s important to keep in mind that those are the people who are hearing directly from the customer about every

“When you bring people to the table and explain what’s happening and the reasoning for decisions, I find that both sides tend to be pretty reasonable.”

BILL TISZAI

single aspect of the company, both positive and negative. “You’re at the mercy of the performance of many parts of your company that are outside of your control but still impact you personally,” Tiszai says.

From a finance perspective, Tiszai believes it’s important for sales team members to remember that there is often more to the story when it comes to what might initially seem like confusing internal decisions. Customers put on credit hold might have previous payment issues with the finance department that sales wasn’t aware of, for example.

“What I try to offer is empathy for both, because I’ve been responsible for both,” Tiszai says. And Belden is working to find innovative ways to remove barriers from that communication process.

In his treasurer role, Tiszai’s team has helped to configure Belden’s global shared services team after moving from a regionfocused structure to a platform-based organization that crosses geographic boundaries. “As we put these teams together, we had to create a global shared services team, reorient the definition of ‘internal customer,’ and harmonize the experience,” Tiszai says. The transition and streamlining is ongoing, but the positive change Tiszai has seen in only a year is substantial. The plan is to continue to drive out waste and harmonize experiences not only between company and customer, but from team member to team member.

In his sales duties, Tiszai’s team is working to create a more customer-centric culture and to drive productivity with sales

Willis Towers Watson congratulates Bill Tiszai of Belden Inc.

We applaud his well-deserved recognition as an outstanding leader.

We greatly value our successful partnership with Belden.

“If you find regular conflict in part of your business or are having surprises, you examine the root cause and work to address the real problem.”

BILL TISZAI

REIMAGINING RISK

Marsh is proud of its partnership with Bill Tiszai and the team at Belden.

For more information:

Marsh www.marsh.com

701 Market St. Saint Louis, Missouri

and marketing. “Our team is currently creating a vision around our potential together, which will drive the improvements and drive out waste,” Tiszai says.

Driving out waste is about creating standard work and constantly examining metrics. “If you find regular conflict in part of your business or are having surprises, you examine the root cause and work to address the real problem,” Tiszai says. Metrics must also be thoroughly examined, as Tiszai says they will inevitably drive behavior; it’s imperative to make sure those behaviors are intended.

Standardizing work allows team members all over the globe to be on the same page, and also produces more effective and predictable results. “We are a decentralized company, and we regularly see pockets of excellence. A centralized team will, ideally, help examples of excellence become a standard for all,” Tiszai says.

One of the biggest challenges for Tiszai, and for Belden as a whole, is that customers’ needs, demands, and expectations are always evolving. What made Belden successful in the past is not necessarily what will make it successful in the future, Tiszai says, and the company has to not only be comfortable with that mindset, but embrace it. “The bar is constantly being raised, so you must continually become better,” he explains.

Tiszai says that working to unify different teams starts with appreciating those on his own team. “There are really talented individuals around me that are smarter or have deeper expertise in some areas,” Tiszai explains. “I think that makes us a better team.”

Best-In-Class

Adam Reed sets a high bar for the policies, procedures, and collaboration that will help lead Acrisure’s continued growth

By JEFF SILVER

Adam Reed is a self-proclaimed insurance geek. Ever since he began working for AIG just after graduating from college, Reed has been fascinated by every aspect of the insurance industry—and driven to excel at the highest levels.

“I had never even seen an auto policy until I started working at AIG,” Reed says. “Right from the start, I saw every part of the business—how policies are created, how they are sold, the claims processes, and all of the other backroom operations—as pieces of an incredibly complex puzzle that have to work together.”

Now, more than two decades later, Reed is general counsel for Acrisure. His expertise, insights, and comprehensive insurance and legal experience are helping him guide the company through its ongoing growth and expansion. The national brokerage firm, which had operations in thirty states, went from about 800 employees and $38 million in revenue in 2013 to approximately 3,500 employees and approximately $1 billion by the middle of 2017. Its aggressive growth initiative has resulted in an unprecedented number of acquisitions,

including the nineteen deals that closed in July of 2017.

When Reed joined Acrisure in September 2016, his initial portfolio was the legal, compliance, and regulatory department. Since then, his responsibilities have expanded to include leading the human resources, risk management, facilities, and administration teams.

“We can’t think about things the same way we did when we were a smaller company,” he says. “That’s especially true of how we think about leadership, infrastructure, policies, and procedures. We must continue to question how we do things and always challenge ourselves to improve. That’s how we can keep providing exemplary customer service to both our internal and external clients.”

To accomplish his goal of developing best-in-class teams, practices, and services in all departments, Reed has gone back to

a lesson he learned from Sherm Sitrin, his long-time mentor at AIG. Sitrin always taught him to gather as much information as possible from as many sources as possible: “Never be afraid of having too much data.” At Acrisure, Reed has implemented that approach by bringing everyone to the table, asking lots of questions, and empowering staff to answer honestly. This has led to candid assessments of current practices and challenges, along with creative solutions to address them.

“I approach assessments genuinely wanting everyone to present their own perspectives based on their personal expertise,” Reed explains. “Without being critical or judgmental, I encourage people to think differently. That leads to new ways we can work together to create value for all our stakeholders.”

His other strategic priority has been to create a unified team, both within specialties and across departments. Based on the mantra “Check your title at the door”—which applies to everyone, including himself—he has helped create a much more collaborative and cooperative atmosphere.

Adam Reed General Counsel

Acrisure

Caledonia, MI

“I want everyone to know that their voice counts,” Reed says. “I might not be able to act on every suggestion, but I need to hear them. Nobody has all of the answers, so I want people around me who know more than I do. My job is to bring it all together.”

One challenge Reed continues to deal with is the development of a new human capital management system that was to be launched shortly after his arrival. After a thorough review of the proposed system, he reached the conclusion that the entire project had to be put on hold and completely reassessed. Because countless hours from numerous departments and a substantial financial investment had already been committed, this could have been a devastating and demoralizing decision. However, the results were quite the opposite.

“I got the full team together, laid out my thinking, and as the discussion continued, everyone seemed relieved,” Reed says.

“Nobody has all of the answers, so I want people around me who know more than I do. My job is to bring it all together.”

ADAM REED

“They seemed to know intuitively that this decision had to be made. Now we’re pivoting as a team and learning together how to build a better system. That’s the kind of full transparency, participation, and collaboration that are the cornerstones of how effective teams must work.”

Reed clearly remembers learning from Sitrin and others at AIG about the economics of a law department. They dictate always lawyering aggressively, but not recklessly, with a dual focus on protecting the company while helping it meet its business objectives.

With that responsibility in mind, he has strengthened the perception of Acrisure’s attorneys as true business partners. “As lawyers, we are as accountable to the business as our clients are,” Reed explains. “Everything we do has to reflect that and reinforce it with everyone we work with.”

As a result, requests for advice and consultations have increased significantly for a broad variety of issues. Reed believes that by being responsive and collaborative in providing creative, practical, and Jordan Haynes

proactive answers, he continues to change the culture within the company. Instead of feeling obligated to speak with their lawyer, clients genuinely want their input to help make the best possible decisions. According to Reed, that is the sign of a true business partnership.

“When you want to build trust, dedication, and cooperation, it’s amazing how effective smiling and saying please, thank you, and good morning can be,” he says. “Using e-mail as infrequently as possible and sitting down face-to-face, allowing others to see your vulnerabilities, and getting to know people and their families before getting down to business does wonders, too.”

GENERAL COUNSEL ACRISURE, LLC

Varnum

warmly congratulates Adam Reed on his impressive record of achievements and advancement.

Insurance group is grateful for our strong partnership with Acrisure and the opportunity to work with a general counsel as talented

ON THE CUTTING EDGE IP

Intellectual property is a continually evolving area of law. Not only do specific laws related patents and trademarks change, but as technology becomes increasingly complex, the views on what can be considered intellectual property also evolve. Despite these challenges, the five executives in this section help their companies navigate this nebulous legal landscape, leverage their IP portfolios, and even shape the views of intellectual property on a global scale.

SAFETY KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES

UL teamwork protects brands and delivers peace of mind

BY JEFF SILVER

PHOTOS BY KRISTIN DEITRICH

NORTHBROOK, IL

PAUL BROWN

The seed for Underwriters Laboratories was planted in an exciting place: the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. William Henry Merrill was at the Fair helping to inspect electrical installations, and that experience showed him the need for a company to evaluate and certify new technology. This led him to establish what is now known as UL in 1894, and the company has become known around the world for helping to ensure consumer product safety ever since. In the last ten years, the organization has greatly expanded the scope of the products and systems it evaluates for safety, security, and sustainability.

Adding to the clout of maintaining 1,600 different safety standards, having its certification mark appear on more than 22 billion products globally, and reaching more than three billion consumers worldwide, Paul Brown, vice president of IP and litigation, is charged with defending UL against lawsuits, managing risk, and protecting the company’s intellectual property portfolio.

“At our heart, we’re a dynamic IP and technology company,” Brown says. “Naturally, that includes testing consumer products, but our IP portfolio includes a wide range of trademarks, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets, as well as software tools and platforms in areas such as sustainability, cybersecurity, and transaction security.”

Brown and his IP department work with UL’s robust anticounterfeiting team and law enforcement around the world. Together, they work to remove products bearing counterfeit UL certification marks from the marketplace and hold counterfeiters accountable for their crimes. These strategies are crucial: counterfeit marks can create a false sense of security that products comply with safety standards, while the truth is that counterfeit products are often low-quality, and, in some cases, extremely dangerous.

By cohosting brand protection conferences with Interpol, Europol, and local government sponsors, UL brings together law enforcement and brand

in

As a result, UL filed a lawsuit against hoverboard counterfeiter Space Chariot and won a summary judgment motion in US federal court. In the published court opinion, the judge found that Space Chariot had willfully counterfeited UL’s certification mark and awarded UL $1 million in damages.

“The hoverboard situation required extensive cross-functional cooperation and coordination to respond quickly and effectively to address the risks to consumers,” Brown says. “And the action against Space Chariot demonstrated the lengths to which we will go to protect our reputation, which is built on trust, integrity, and safety.”

Over the past decade, UL has diversified into a wide range of industries and services. The company’s GreenGuard certification helps ensure that products are within acceptable levels for chemical emissions. The Wercs solution provides chemical safety data sheet authoring capabilities and helps to ensure that global supply chains are in compliance with all applicable regulations. This, in turn, helps assure manufacturers that their products meet regulatory requirements and guides retailers to the most appropriate products for their inventory.

As technology continues to evolve, so does the company. For years, it has been involved in protecting electronic transactions, including mobile payments, EMV chip functionality, and other security services. And, as with hoverboards, its expertise in the performance and safety of lithium ion batteries has extended its reach to everything from e-cigarettes to remote controlled drones.

No matter where the latest technology is headed, Brown believes that there will always be a role for UL to play in developing new standards, reducing risks, and improving compliance.

“Our industry is unique in that customers and competitors are united in improving safety and fighting counterfeiting,” he says. “But I’m especially proud of how UL has raised awareness and helped bring the international community together to actively address these important issues.”

MEET YOUR NEW SURGEON

Frank Nguyen protects Intuitive Surgical’s intellectual property, which is extending the limits of what is possible in surgical medicine

BY JOE DIXON VP OF IP & LICENSING

FRANK NGUYEN

SUNNYVALE, CA

Asurgeon sits behind a console that projects a 3-D image of a patient’s anatomy as they lie sedated on the operating table. The surgeon meticulously maneuvers two controls on a console that causes corresponding movements from instruments attached to robotic arms that will be used to perform minimally invasive surgery on difficult-to-reach anatomy. The image is so clear and the instrument‘s movement so precise that the doctor is able to complete the surgery with minimal incisions and little blood loss or damage to the surrounding muscle or tissue, all while seated at the console.

To some, this might sound like science fiction. To Frank Nguyen, it’s the cutting edge of surgery. Nguyen is the vice president of intellectual property (IP) and licensing for Intuitive Surgical, a pioneering company in the field of robotic-assisted surgery that is bringing its revolutionary technology to operating rooms around the world.

The company’s current suite of products, known as the da Vinci Surgical System, allows surgeons to perform cardiac, thoracic, colorectal, gynecological, urologic, general surgery, and more, with minimal invasiveness and extraordinary precision.

For the past thirteen years, Nguyen has led the effort to improve the company’s already impressive technology by expanding the company’s IP portfolio. Under his leadership, the company’s patent portfolio has grown from less than two hundred to about 4,500 patents and patent applications worldwide.

Building an IP portfolio involves an unwavering commitment throughout the company, from executive management to inventor-engineers. It requires effective management of financial resources and the commitment of inventor-engineers who are willing to go above and beyond their normal workload. Having a robust and meaningful IP portfolio is vital to protecting the company’s technology, which, in turn, impacts the company’s value.

Intuitive Surgical’s strategy for expanding its portfolio involves generating patents internally, as well as acquiring and licensing patents and other IP from outside sources. This places a heavy burden on Nguyen’s team because, in addition to performing traditional patent prosecution work, the team is also needed to identify and evaluate promising new technology, as well as to negotiate and draft relevant legal agreements. As a result, Nguyen has assembled a highly skilled team of lawyers that can do a little bit of everything.

“A patent attorney should do more than just prosecute patents,” Nguyen says. “We expect everybody that comes in to not only do patent prosecution, but also acquisitions, as well as a variety of other legal assignments.”

This has allowed Intuitive to maintain an efficient, cost-effective department. For a company with nearly $3 billion in revenue, Intuitive has a surprisingly small IP team. Nguyen’s team comprises five IP lawyers and three support staff; many businesses of comparable size have teams several times as large. Nguyen’s team reflects the company culture at Intuitive, and he notes that

FLEEING WAR

Many people only experience war through their TV screens or newspapers. But in 1975, at the age of twelve, Frank Nguyen and his family were airlifted out of Saigon—now Ho Chi Minh City—to come to the United States. The family was evacuated overnight with only $100 in their pockets as the Vietnam War was coming to a close.

After bouncing around a series of refugee camps, Nguyen’s family settled in Hayward, California to begin their life in a new country. Eventually, he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and later received an electrical engineering graduate degree from the University of Southern California before attending law school at Santa Clara University. Looking back now, Nguyen never would have imagined a career trajectory like his would be possible.

“Education and discipline are two things I think my parents and my culture helped me with,” Nguyen says. “But the United States provided boundless opportunities.”

effective management of efficient teams has been a hallmark of the company throughout his tenure.

Another critical component of Nguyen’s successful IP strategy is ensuring that Intuitive’s legal department is viewed as a business partner. This means providing ethical and legally compliant paths to successful execution of business opportunities. “You have to provide a reasonable solution that moves the business strategy forward, adds value, and achieves company goals,” Nguyen says.

Nguyen has parlayed this approach into a close and collaborative relationship with the business development team at Intuitive. “My business development colleagues and I have a great working relationship,” he says. “Everything we do is collaborative. We’re always asking: ‘How should we structure this deal? How can we solve this problem together?’”

This fine-tuned approach will continue to pay dividends in the operating room. “The company is currently working on innovations that will make its products even more effective,” Nguyen says. “These new capabilities will enable surgeons to do things that we can’t even imagine right now.”

Haynes and Boone, LLP is an international corporate law firm with offices in Texas, New York, California, Chicago, Denver, Washington, DC, London, Mexico City, and Shanghai, providing a full spectrum of legal services in technology, financial services, energy, and private equity. With more than 575 lawyers, Haynes and Boone is ranked among the largest law firms in the nation by The National Law Journal

THE IMPACT OF LEGAL LIFE

Charlie Krauss is proud of his long legal career, but changing lives with Fresenius Medical might be the thing he has enjoyed the most

BY RANDALL COLBURN

FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE

SVP, GLOBAL IP

CHARLIE KRAUSS

WALTHAM, MA

Charlie Krauss has an obsession with helping others.

But luckily, this obsession is a helpful one: it’s allowed Krauss, through his work in intellectual property, to impact millions of people around the world. As the senior vice president of global intellectual property at Fresenius Medical Care North America, Krauss helps bring life-saving dialysis treatments to market while protecting the company’s patents that allow it to continue to bring crucial treatments to patients.

Fresenius is a world leader in dialysis treatment, with an extensive global presence and more than 130,000 employees. Krauss heads a team of fifty lawyers on the global intellectual property team stationed across three continents. Although managing such a large, geographically distant team might seem challenging, Krauss has garnered plenty of experience throughout his career to make him the right person for the job.

Before he joined Fresenius about two years ago, Krauss honed his skills working on some of the most historic patent litigation cases in US history. While working as an associate at intellectual property boutique firm Fish & Neave in New York City, he was one of the lead associates on a case that ultimately led to the defeat of the Lemelson submarine patent dynasty.

The case involved the Lemelson Medical, Education, and Research Foundation, an organization named after inventor Jerome Lemelson. Lemelson achieved notoriety in patent litigation circles for his method of issuing “submarine patents,” a nefarious practice where an individual keeps patent applications alive in the patent office for several years, with the intention of hitting businesses with expensive licensing fees after the patent is eventually issued.

Krauss and his team used the doctrine of prosecution laches to persuade a judge that Lemelson’s patents were unenforceable, effectively ending decades of patent abuse, Krauss says.

After winning that landmark case, Krauss moved to C.R. Bard, where he was the in-house lead on a case that dealt with a more than forty-year patent infringement saga between Bard and a competing firm, W.L. Gore. That case received a lot of attention in the legal world and was featured on the cover of The American Lawyer magazine in 2009.

The two firms were engaged in a decades-long battle over whether Gore had willfully infringed upon Bard’s technology patent, which was filed by a Bard employee in 1974. After decades of work with the US Patent and Trademark Office, Bard was officially issued a patent for the technology in 2002. The firm immediately demanded

Wolf Greenfield commends Charles Krauss for his leadership and vision in helping

Fresenius Medical protect its intellectual property.

“IT’S ACTUALLY VERY SIMPLE: PATIENTS WILL NOT SURVIVE WITHOUT OUR PRODUCTS.”

CHARLIE KRAUSS

that Gore take out a license to continue using its technology. After the two companies couldn’t come to an agreement about its use, Bard filed an infringement lawsuit against Gore.

After years of arguments led by Krauss and his fellow associates, a judge ordered that Gore pay Bard more than $1 billion in damages for its patent infringement. Even after all of these accomplishments, Krauss began looking for a new challenge. Fortunately, he found a perfect fit at Fresenius Medical. “I joined the company because I loved the challenge of working with a large multinational team that had a sophisticated IP group,” Krauss says.

One of the main challenges he faces is trying to optimize the impact of the company’s intellectual property portfolio. One way he’s trying to do this is by developing a common purpose for his team. He started by having his team come together and define why they do what they do. This resulted in his team developing its own mission, vision, and values. From this discussion, Krauss spearheaded a department-wide project optimizing its policies and procedures worldwide to make Fresenius’s department

more effective, which he said was only possible because he was given the autonomy to implement these changes.

“I’m fortunate to work with an inspired team and for supportive management,” Krauss says. “That support is really letting the global IP team step up into valuable roles throughout the company.”

In addition to Fresenius’s senior leadership and his talented legal team, Krauss says he is motivated to continue improving the company because of the important work it does to help patients around the world.

“It’s actually very simple: patients will not survive without our products,” he says. “It’s crucial that I help the company get these products to market so the company can help these people.”

Krauss is passionate about keeping the momentum he has generated going to allow his team to continue excelling and making an impact. He believes that focusing on personal growth and development within the department will lead to continued and increased success for the company and its patients. That’s exactly what he wants to focus on to keep the company thriving, employees happy, and patients healthy

AN ARTICLE OF FAITH

Tony DiBartolomeo, SVP and chief IP officer for SAP, turned a cold call about a newspaper clipping into a twenty-year career with a company he loves

BY DAVID LEVINE

It happens in nearly every office: newsworthy or otherwise interesting articles are clipped and passed around from desk to desk to be read—or sometimes ignored— and passed on. In 2017, this might happen via email more often than by paper, but in July of 1994, one such article, about SAP, a company that was new to the United States, made the rounds of the Philadelphia law office of Ratner & Prestia. When it landed on the desk of attorney Tony DiBartolomeo, it intrigued him. As a young lawyer at this boutique IP law firm, he was always searching for new business opportunities. “I looked at the article and just called and asked for the legal department,” he says.

That cold-call changed his life. Now, as senior vice president and chief IP officer

at SAP, DiBartolomeo has done his part as the German software company with a US headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, grew from a relatively small firm to a global market leader in enterprise application software and services, supporting nearly 300,000 customers in 190 countries.

When DiBartolomeo was hired as the company’s first patent attorney in 1997, his first major challenge was the fact that SAP was German. “The patent program had a rough start,” he says. “From the German perspective, software was not patentable.” Although he was able to initiate a program, he ultimately convinced the executives in the United States and Germany to add professionals in Germany to help take it to the next level. Shortly thereafter, he took another

position as assistant general counsel for SAP Markets, a SAP start-up focused on public and private electronic marketplaces. When the company retooled and formed a global IP group in 2001, he returned to the IP domain and was named chief operating officer of the group in 2004. He was then tasked with creating and leading an official IP litigation function in 2006.

During that time, DiBartolomeo steered SAP through the two largest IP infringement litigations in its history. In March 2007, Oracle sued SAP for copyright infringement, among other things. A month later, Versata sued the company for patent infringement. “In the beginning of these cases, we only had four people in the IP litigation team,” he says. “We had to leverage the available

Jones Day congratulates Tony DiBartolomeo on his extraordinary contribution to SAP and leadership in the legal profession over so many years. We are proud to be part of your great team. www.jonesday.com

resources across many other legal and nonlegal functions.”

The Oracle case initially seemed disastrous for SAP. “After the trial in the Oracle case, the jury returned the largest ever damages award for copyright infringement in US history,” DiBartolomeo says. “Working closely with JonesDay, however, we convinced our judge to vacate the damages award and the case ultimately settled.”

The Versata case went through a variety of twists and turns, but it ultimately hinged on a newly minted statute that allowed the defendant, SAP, to challenge and invalidate the patent it was accused of infringing. “I wanted us to be the very first company to use this new mechanism because it would be adjudicated on a first-in, first-out basis,” DiBartolomeo says. “So we had it filed on midnight of the night it became available.” But because the mechanism was so new and unfamiliar to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the firm didn’t receive an electronic confirmation of receipt, and DiBartolomeo and his legal team had an associate drive to the USPTO and deliver it by hand at three in the morning. That legal maneuver did in fact invalidate the patent, and though the case was still settled, the move ended up being extremely helpful to its resolution. “We were all very proud of being the first to use this mechanism,” he says.

In 2012, DiBartolomeo was named chief IP officer. He now oversees six direct reports and sixty-some staff members who handle a wide variety of functions including patents, trademarks, strategy, litigation, public policy, and operations. He sees his primary mission as bringing these diverse groups together into

a cohesive unit. “It is critical that all these functions work together,” he says. “Silos, as we all know, aren’t very efficient. And they don’t create a culture that gets the most out of people.”

Creating cohesion wasn’t easy. “At first, we didn’t have that atmosphere, so I made some changes to create a different dynamic that would allow me to get the most of my team,” he says.

At one particular leadership training, for example, he learned about the multiplierdiminisher philosophy. “You want to multiply what people can do to release their full potential,” he says. “We empower our people and let them take chances; they’re highly skilled professionals. We hold them accountable, but they know we have their back and support them. That is the atmosphere in our group and throughout most of SAP. The results have been amazing. When everyone operates like a team, supporting everyone else and helping their colleagues be successful, that makes a huge difference.”

DiBartolomeo’s passion lies in working with the business side of the company. “It’s about getting things done, using the law to drive and preserve your market opportunities,” he says. “It’s that interplay that I really enjoy.”

DiBartolomeo knows that he has been lucky in his career, and he counts that old newspaper clipping as part of his luck. “Most of the individuals that I’ve reported to have been incredible and, frankly, have become close friends, and I want to give that back to the people in my group,” he says. “I absolutely love working at SAP.”



 Global network of trusted experts

Dave Lepori

SAN JOSE, CA

KEATON PAREKH

LUMILEDS

CHIEF IP OFFICER

LIGHTING THE PATH TO THE FUTURE

Keaton Parekh helps guide Lumileds as it spins off of Royal Philips NV

BY PAMELA SORNSON

From its beginning as an acetylene and oil-burning lamp in the 1880s, the humble automobile headlight has evolved into a robust, environmentally friendly, solidstate lighting technology, providing high luminance and best-in-class LED headlight beam performance. In order to continue leading in that field as the world’s biggest supplier of automotive industry lamps, Lumileds will soon be spun off of electriclight giant Royal Philips NV.

The separation of the two companies began in 2014, when Philips determined to divest itself of the auto-lamp company. The challenge was that the patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property of Lumileds were deeply entangled in Philips’s IP portfolio. Lumileds would need to tease out its roster of proprietary IP assets from those of its parent company before it would be ready to launch as a standalone entity.

Enter Keaton Parekh, an engineer/lawyer with more than a decade of experience in IP licensing, litigation, M&A, and patent prosecution. Upon joining Lumileds in 2015 as chief intellectual property officer (and, at the time, the only IP professional dedicated

solely to Lumileds), Royal Philips gave Parekh a blank slate and asked him to build the IP infrastructure of his dreams. With his history and background in doing just that for other companies, he quickly sized up his plan and got to work.

He knew to start with both legal and technical insights. “I never start without a plan, but I always remain flexible because things don’t always go as planned,” he says. “I knew I would have to adjust to market and technology changes, as well as changes in the direction of the company.”

Over the first six months, Parekh assembled an assortment of professionals, including LED experts, R&D patent agents, IP strategists, IP brokers, and patent prosecutors, all of whom would help guide the structure of the new company. Many were people he had worked with in other circumstances, so he was familiar with how they would help move the project forward. All were required to gain information about the company, the technology, the market, and the IP. Additionally, outside counsel was recruited to assist with international IP negotiations and implementation.

STAGE ONE: ASSEMBLING THE TEAM

STAGE TWO: BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Over the next several months, Parekh gathered and docketed more than four thousand IP assets under the Lumileds umbrella, including patents, patent applications, trademarks, trade secrets, and invention disclosures. It quickly became apparent that while having the documentation in-house was a step forward, it wouldn’t prove useful if it was unorganized and not well-labeled. It was then that Parekh’s IP experience really paid off. He and his team developed a taxonomy that classified every IP asset into a logically structured library that allowed them to find gaps, duplications, and other anomalies within the entire set. With this deep comprehension of Lumileds’s IP portfolio, Parekh was ready to strategize what the company would look like after it left Philips behind.

STAGE THREE: DEVELOPING THE STRATEGY

One question that remained unanswered, however, was whether the existing IP portfolio actually covered all of Lumileds’s products and services. Parekh knew that, going forward, he would need exclusive control of all available assets, as well as those not yet secured, to give him the freedom to operate without hindrances and to extract the full inherent value of all corporate holdings. His subsequent search of the newly established library was revelatory. “There were so many golden nuggets of value that Lumileds will use in the future,” he says.

PHASE FOUR: EXECUTION

Parekh and his team then began filling gaps that existed within the library. Sometimes they developed the new assets in-house; other times, they purchased an existing opportunity or licensed use of what they needed. Eventually, the company accumulated twelve IP brokers who scour the IP universe to find fillers for holes and identify trends that will lead the company forward. Throughout the process, Parekh was not only setting up the future entity, but also managing the day-to-day operations of the Philips subsidiary. Headquartered in Germany with facilities in Shanghai and offices and operations in thirty-two countries, Lumileds produces cutting-edge, high-

“I NEVER START WITHOUT A PLAN, BUT I ALWAYS REMAIN FLEXIBLE.”

KEATON PAREKH

performance LED technology that is unmatched for color control and ease of deployment. As chief intellectual property officer, Parekh traversed the globe, sorting out challenges with international regulators, supply chain participants, and other players in the global automotive lighting industry. In 2016, that market was valued at $29.5 billion, and growth of the LED technology industry is projected to exceed a 7 percent compound annual growth rate by the year 2021.

ALMOST ACROSS THE FINISH LINE

Lumileds recently gained its independence, and Parekh is excited about what the future holds. The global market growth opportunity is especially exciting because LED lamps don’t just offer exceptional illumination. In addition to their powerful light, they are also more environmentally sensitive than nonLED options; they are more energy-efficient than their halogen counterparts; and their flexibility reduces the design constraints that face other original equipment manufacturers of automotive lighting fixtures. Accordingly, Parekh is pursuing the “greening” of the automotive world. He is proud of the Lumileds Sustainability Program, which emphasizes superior quality with minimal impact on the environment. Its three sustainability modules include “Green Innovation” (which maintains complete compliance with all regulatory, environmental requirements), “Green Operations” (which ensures the health and

safety of its nine thousand workers, as well as responsibly manages its use of energy and water and reduces its emissions of toxins), and “Supplier Sustainability” (which holds all suppliers within its supply chain accountable for their responsible practices and ethical behavior).

Considering Parekh’s mastery of Lumileds’s deep IP presence and his focus on providing even more exceptional illumination options through the use of green technology, it appears that once the separation between Royal Philips and Lumileds has been completed, the new company’s future will look brighter than ever.

Volpe and Koenig, P.C. is pleased to recognize the accomplishments of Keaton Parekh, chief IP officer of Lumileds. We have seen Mr. Parekh’s insight and leadership firsthand over the last decade and are proud to partner with him and the entire Lumileds team.

With attorneys, patent agents, and technical advisors dedicated to IP strategy, Volpe and Koenig serves a diverse roster of industry-leading clients spanning the technology spectrum. Visit vklaw.com to learn why companies like Lumileds choose Volpe and Koenig to help them maximize the value of their IP.

STRATEGY

Legacy Insurance Meets the TwentyFirst Century

At Crum & Forster, Steven Dresner focuses on client experience to keep a nearly two hundred-year-old company primed for the future

By LORI FREDRICKSON

Taking the helm of a company and its twohundred-year-old legacy comes with some pressure. An executive tasked with this responsibility needs to maintain the company’s reputation among loyal customers, while continuing to innovate to keep the business fresh after two centuries. Not many executives find themselves in this position, but Steven Dresner happens to be in that exact spot. For him, the key to safeguarding the legacy of Crum & Forster— an insurance industry giant where he serves as the senior vice president of business development and corporate reinsurance—is maintaining a laser focus on customer service.

“If you want to deliver a positive customer experience, you have to provide impeccable service,” Dresner says. “That service is a real differentiator in our industry.” Additionally, insurance professionals need to be just as familiar with what they’re offering to those customers. After that,

Steven Dresner SVP of Business Development and Corporate Reinsurance

Crum & Forster Morristown, NJ

the connections between those products and customers are just as important. “The key thing is making sure that the products we offer are connected to the people who need them,” Dresner says. “My role is to make sure our insurance agents know what products we offer and that our own internal people know what producers have a need for those products.”

As a leading property and casualty insurance provider, Crum & Forster has a wide-reaching array of product lines, ranging from automobile liability to product recall to marine business. In recent years, it has also incorporated five distinct operating units, with nearly fifty locations throughout the United States.

One of Dresner’s top priorities has been to find ways to take advantage of the breadth of the group’s product offerings to create new opportunities, particularly in cross-selling to policyholders and cross-marketing to brokers. “The number one thing we’ve done is to coordinate our message for various constituencies,” Dresner explains. “We deal with both retail brokers and wholesale insurance brokers, and our risk appetite and strategy is different for each. I think I’ve really helped Crum & Forster explain our vision for each of those agency groups.”

One of the major projects that Dresner has taken on to maintain Crum & Forster’s high standard of customer service throughout this growth is revamping its website. Until recently, each of Crum & Forster’s various units had its own site, which had made it difficult for insurance agents to navigate. After hearing feedback on this from both retail and wholesale clients, Dresner led an effort to rebrand the company with a new logo and a single website with separate landing pages for each entity.

“When you look to the future, one of the trends is that data is key. Those companies that have the best data and can mine that data will win.”

In addition to enhancing the group’s visibility within the marketplace, Dresner says that this project also tied in to a greater effort to make sure that Crum & Forster’s employees understand the full extent of services that the company has to offer. “The first thing we needed was to educate our own people on the value and broad scope of what we do,” Dresner says. Although different departments focused on selling what their individual entities had to offer, they might not have known how to sell what the group does overall. “This makes it easier for them to know that, when they meet with producers, they represent a bigger organization than they might have thought,” Dresner says.

Dresner focuses on hitting the road to physically meet with hundreds of brokers throughout the country to explain products, along with the organization’s risk appetite and distribution strategy. “The website and

product sheets tend to be of interest, but the better part is the interaction and clarification directly with our partners,” he says. “That’s where it’s really helped explain how we’ve changed over time, and listening to our producers helps us to know how to make it easier to do business with them.”

This is an area that Dresner is well suited to lead. After a thirty-year career in the industry on both the East and West Coasts, he’s created contacts and relationships all over the country. “People do business with people they like, people they respect, and people who will respond to them,” Dresner says. He has made it a top priority throughout his career to do homework before meetings, making sure that he knows what is going on in both the marketplace and in the customer’s line of business.

To ensure that the company is continuing to move into the future, Crum & Forster has also focused on streamlining processes,

“People do business with people they like, people they respect, and people who will respond to them.”

STEVEN DRESNER

with the intention of making sure that the organization has more time to spend with producers and policyholders. One huge process improvement initiative brings robotics into some of the company’s submission processes, allowing business to come in more easily and be analyzed more quickly. Another looks at data, both from the industry perspective and from individual insurance submissions. “When you look to the future, one of the trends is that data is key,” Dresner says. “Those companies that have the best data and can mine that data will win.”

Crum & Forster has also focused on specialty and industry-focused segments to help create more expertise within the group and provide added value to policyholders. As an example, Dresner notes that the group has long had a great reputation for claims handling. Leveraging this, he says, allows the organization to create additional opportunities to broaden relationships with policyholders.

Dresner says he loves working within an industry that ties in to so many ways in which the world is changing. Of the hotbutton insurance topics that the industry has focused on lately, cyberliability has been a priority, as well as the risks posed by the heightened concentration of people living in coastal areas like earthquake-prone California, and a rise in distracted driving due to cell phones. But no matter how much the world changes, Dresner knows that keeping a focus on high-quality products and close relationships with customers will keep Crum & Forster thriving for another two hundred years.

Willis Re is known for its world-class analytics capabilities, which it combines with its reinsurance expertise in a seamless, integrated offering that can help clients increase the value of their businesses. Our global team of experts offers services and advice that can help clients make better reinsurance decisions and negotiate optimum terms. Visit willisre.com.

RT Specialty is a leading wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products and services. Our specialist brokers handle a comprehensive mix of property, casualty, professional lines, transportation and workers’ compensation insurance products from insurance carriers to retail brokerage firms. As an independent wholesale broker, we are a critical intermediary between insurance carriers and retail brokers. We define ourselves through our superior execution on behalf of our clients, which has established us as a leader in the industry.

RT’s mission is simple: we believe clients are best served by an innovative team of professionals who work collaboratively and collectively among agents, brokers, and carriers.

Funding the Future of Engineering

How Meg Lassarat innovated the financial processes at Louis Berger to keep it at the top of its industry

By GALEN BEEBE Photos by GILLIAN FRY

WWhen considering which innovations have had the greatest impact on the world, Meg Lassarat points not to any single tool, but to the Ford assembly line. “A lot of folks think innovation is about new technology, but I think a lot of the greatest innovations are around how we do things,” Lassarat says. “It was that process improvement that really revolutionized manufacturing.”

It’s no surprise that Lassarat highlights a process-based innovation. As chief financial officer at Louis Berger, she adopts a processoriented outlook to reimagine the company’s business functions to develop faster and more economical processes, saving resources that can be reinvested into clientfacing engineering and design services.

Louis Berger is an Engineering NewsRecord top-twenty ranked engineering and construction management company that operates in more than one hundred offices in fifty-seven countries around the world. Since joining the company in 2015, Lassarat has championed the global consolidation of

the company’s business support functions and standardized finance operations as part of the “One Berger” philosophy. Previously, each of the organization’s regional offices operated fairly autonomously, performing functions on individual timelines with individual methodologies. In the financial close process, for example, one office might conduct revenue recognition on day three and another might wait until day twenty. The One Berger philosophy, established by the company’s newly minted CEO and executive leadership team, unifies both client-facing operations and support operations through common goals and standardized practices.

By creating a single model and timeline that is used throughout the company, Lassarat reduced close time from a fortyfive-day quarterly close to an eight-day close every month. She reprioritized the support operations to run nondependent processes in parallel, resulting in a shorter timeline without diminishing quality. “We have the

exact same people and the exact same tools,” Lassarat explains. “What we did was change the process.”

Streamlining the close process allows the company to deliver accurate, reliable, and up-to-date financial information to decision makers each month so they can make more informed decisions to serve the company’s clients. “It gives us better confidence in our numbers and a much stronger knowledge of our financial and operational performance,” Lassarat says. She implemented the change over the course of two months. “Having worked on accelerate-the-close projects in almost every place where I’ve served as the chief financial officer, I was able to bring that experience to Louis Berger,” she says.

After transitioning to an eight-day close, Lassarat worked with other Louis Berger leaders to consolidate the global functions

Meg Lassarat EVP, CFO

Louis Berger Morristown, NJ

“A lot of folks think innovation is about new technology, but I think a lot of the greatest innovations are around how we do things.”

MEG LASSARAT

of HR, IT, and finance and accounting to a centralized, global business center. Before, these functions were split among the regional offices, and as with the close process, each office operated with its own people, systems, and processes. By consolidating these business functions, Louis Berger could maintain better control and consistency across the organization and deliver cost savings that the company could reinvest into innovation and technology for future design and engineering solutions, she says.

Centralizing the business processes required buy-in from both local teams and company leadership. Lassarat first pitched the idea to the leadership team and then to the board of directors, and each time everyone in the room was asked two questions: is it the right thing for Louis Berger, and should we implement the changes quickly or slowly?

The response from the executive committee and the board of directors was unanimous—they would implement the changes, and they would do it quickly. The

ambitious project, which could have taken eighteen months to implement, was completed in seven months.

By consolidating and systematizing these business processes, Louis Berger conserves resources that it can reinvest in the company’s core: engineering. The organization is joining with universities and Silicon Valley partners to incorporate new technology in its projects, and it has developed new uses for drone technology in design, planning, and operations and maintenance.

For example, when working on a theme park, they can fly a drone over an attraction during construction or virtually ride an attraction once it’s completed. This allows designers, engineers, and clients to determine if there are any issues in a safe, predictable, and cost-effective manner. It eliminates human bias and allows for more comprehensive data collection. “With a drone, you don’t have to take samples; you can analyze the entire project,” Lassarat says. “It really allows us to provide highlevel professional oversight during the construction phase of a project and also through operations and maintenance.”

Now that Lassarat has standardized the business processes and consolidated financial data in a centralized location, she is looking for ways to increase data analytics, determine business trends, and anticipate product costs. At this moment, Lassarat says, it is easy to determine what a project costs, but she wants to determine what a project should cost. “I think there’s been too much focus in the past on cost reduction, and your benchmark is what you used to spend to what you spend today,” Lassarat says. But less isn’t always better. By comparing cost levels and determining hidden connections across industries, Louis Berger can more effectively weigh costs and save money, which they can then reinvest into new engineering technologies.

“I expect that we’ll be hiring more statisticians, more economics majors, and more mathematicians who will help us take the data that we have and turn it into information that will help our business leaders make better decisions,” Lassarat explains. “It’s really about funding the future of engineering.”

“Congratulations, Meg, you are an inspiring leader. Having worked with you to understand Louis Berger’s opportunities and challenges, I can attest to your dedication, hard work, and commitment to supporting your team.” —Stu Taub, RSM US LLP, New York Market Managing Partner

It’s always a pleasure to recognize the achievement of our clients.

RSM is pleased to congratulate Meg Lassarat of the Louis Berger Group for being recognized as an innovative leader in finance. rsmus.com

Visit rsmus.com/aboutus for more information regarding RSM US LLP and RSM International.

Building Toward Yes

Stacey Hallerman’s broad, interdepartmental approach to developing a new legal team for Richemont North America makes the legal department an essential business partner

By LORI FREDRICKSON

One of the most influential moments in Stacey Hallerman’s career occurred about a decade and a half ago, during a global conference for lawyers at Pfizer, where she previously worked as corporate counsel, trademarks. During one presentation, the company’s general counsel challenged the lawyers to go back to their desks the following day and say yes to something that they would be inclined to say no to—to offer a more creative, innovative solution. “Fifteen years later, I still think about that,” Hallerman says. “It’s the right thing to do for the company, and it’s very rewarding to see solutions rather than just saying no.”

Over the past ten years at Richemont North America, this philosophy has enabled her to transform her background in IP into a role as general counsel. Having started with the company as its first in-house North American counsel, focusing on brand enforcement and strategy, Hallerman has built her department from the ground up, and she now serves as the vice president, chief legal counsel, and corporate secretary. In doing so, she has focused heavily on cross-

functionality: learning the responsibilities and goals of departments like human resources, finance, and operations and finding ways to communicate with those departments to best serve their common goal. For that reason, Hallerman doesn’t see herself just as legal counsel for the company. “I look at myself and see someone who is a businessperson who also happens to have a law degree,” she says.

This was no small task at Richemont, a multinational holding company for twenty luxury global brands, including high-profile brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chloé, and Montblanc. Prior to Hallerman joining the organization, Richemont’s only in-house legal team was based in Europe, but she saw the challenge of building her role as an opportunity to create something new. “It gave me a real opportunity to develop relationships with the brands and with the business and to provide real-time legal advice,” Hallerman explains. “I tried very early on

Stacey Hallerman VP, Chief Legal Counsel, Corporate Secretary Richemont North America

New York, NY

to impress upon people that coming to me for advice wouldn’t mean getting a no.”

One of Hallerman’s early accomplishments involved building a robust compliance program. She started by analyzing every corner of the business to identify areas that could be improved to mitigate risk. This wideranging analysis gave Hallerman an advantage in building relationships with colleagues in different functions, as she was able to truly understand what each department’s function. The program was a success. “Since then, I think we’ve really moved from a reactive to proactive program,” Hallerman says.

This led to her continuing to work in a heavily cross-departmental way, most closely with HR. When the head of HR left the company in 2014, she served as interim head for almost a year, until Richemont found a replacement. She became immersed in everyday issues with employee relations and performance management and found ways that education could be improved to mitigate risk factors. Hallerman has held weekly meetings with the head of HR since, which, she says, is a two-way street. “I’ve learned about them, but they are also much more familiar with legal areas,” Hallerman says. She has expanded that approach in initiatives throughout the company, including a presentation that she regularly holds for other departments and brands called “A Day in the Life of a Richemont Lawyer.” The presentation helps provide insight into problems that others may face, problems that her department can offer advice on. Hallerman also created a series titled “The Lawyer is In,” in which members of her team work periodically on different floors in order to be accessible to the employee population. Hallerman has also served as an adviser for other team members who, like her, have since created new functions, both in procurement and in global PR and entertainment. As a female executive, other women at the company regularly come to her with questions on mobility and advancement, as well as problem solving.

A good portion of Hallerman’s day is spent on what she calls “Johnny-on-the-spot lawyering,” or answering questions on various legal questions. Other times, members of the company will come to her for advice on issues that aren’t necessarily legal. “My job is a little bit of everything: fixer, office psychologist, crisis manager, decision maker,” Hallerman says. “A good portion of my role is helping people from other departments on brainstorming through problems.”

“My job is a little bit of everything: fixer, office psychologist, crisis manager, decision maker.”

STACEY HALLERMAN

Having that cross-departmental dynamic, Hallerman says, has also been valuable for the company at large: identifying commonalities between departments and finding ways to work together on problems where shared experiences can be an asset. This is particularly valuable at Richemont, which has nearly thirty thousand employees around the globe. “When you come together and discuss opportunities, you start to see that we have very similar issues that we deal with on a daily basis,” she explains.

Looking to the future, Hallerman is eager to continue learning about and working with all the different areas of the business. She is also looking forward to participating in the Cartier Retail Experience later this year, which she says has been an asset for her colleagues. Hallerman is also currently working on a program that would allow employees to swap jobs with team members in other departments.

Among all of her achievements, Hallerman, however, is most proud of growing from an IP lawyer to general counsel. “Regardless of what the subject matter is, I feel like I can get the business an answer,” Hallerman says. “I’m very proud of that.”

DOWN TO THE RETAIL

Employees at Richemont North America are able to participate in the Cartier Retail Experience, a boutique immersion program that provides development opportunities and business insight for nonretail colleagues. After a preparation day of classroom training on the various boutique roles and structures, employees spend 3–5 days at one or two different retail locations. Employees learn how the boutique operates (both operationally and client-facing), participate in its opening and closing, learn how stock is accounted for, and shadow sales associates when they are assisting clients. The program is intended to give employees a better understanding of the “retail reality,” the unpredictability of day-to-day business, and the skills required to build rapport and maintain client relationships. Above all, it helps provide perspective, understanding, and appreciation between the corporate and retail divisions.

• Trademarks

• Copyrights

• Design Patents and Protection

• Right of Publicity

• Online Enforcement • Unfair Competition

Turning the Delivery Business Upside Down

Michael McLary forges a bottom-up approach at UPS

By DAVID BAEZ

Delivery icon UPS has a whole lot of cash to allocate, reporting $51 billion in revenue in 2016. With more than eighteen thousand operating facilities that serve every address in North America and Europe and deliver to more than 220 countries, that equates to a lot of decisions to make as to where to put that money and requires a coherent philosophy to drive those decisions. Enter senior vice president of corporate strategy Michael McLary, who has, in a sense, helped turn the company upside-down.

Working for a global company with such far-flung interests, it seems apt that McLary has roamed the world during his sixteen-year tenure with UPS. After spending four years in the company’s Atlanta hub as global director for marketing strategy, he set out for Singapore, where he developed and executed daily operating plans across forty-three South Asian countries, from India to New Zealand.

In 2015, McLary returned stateside and took on his current role, which involves identifying growth opportunities, figuring out where to compete, and deciding how to allocate resources. It might seem logical for a global company focused on consistent services and quality to centralize such decisions, but McLary says UPS works with a different model.

“Historically, companies take a top-down perspective,” McLary explains. “They look at global trends at the corporate level and work down from there. But one of our big pushes is to have not only a corporate lens, but also a bottom-up view.”

To do that, UPS breaks down its global business into twenty-seven planning units. Every year, each unit completes a marketing and competitor assessment and customer analysis. Those planning views then go back

UPS BY THE NUMBERS

$61 BILLION 2016 revenue

434,000+ employees

4.9 BILLION global delivery volume of packages and documents in 2016

220+ countries and territories in service area

1.6 MILLION pick-up customers

8.7 MILLION delivery customers

1,800+ operating facilities

108,210 vehicles in the delivery fleet, including package cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles

237 UPS jet aircraft

up to the corporate office, which mixes them with its own broader, global perspective to determine strategy moving forward.

Field input comes in, market assessments pick up long-term trends, and then the organization looks at where they might have overpenetrated or underpenetrated and where they see growth going. Because of the nature of the business, where, for example, a Chinese airline is running between the United States and China, not all investment of capital can be attributed to a specific business unit. But the on-theground perspective is crucial to inform those decisions.

“We hear the voices of the people that actually run the business and roll that up to see commonalities and how that can feed into the ultimate objective of the organization: to satisfy customers and drive shareholder value,” McLary says. “Based on that intersection, we start to develop global themes that we can think about over the next decade.”

To do that, McLary and his team need to figure out how to differentiate themselves from the competition, deciding which markets to focus on and the right products and services to offer. When looking at where cash should go and how much, they first analyze global trends and threats, and they then place businesses into four quadrants.

The first quadrant is markets in high-opportunity areas where they are currently making a lot of money and want to accelerate growth. The second quadrant groups businesses where the market opportunity isn’t as great and doesn’t generate as much return. In that quadrant, they want to focus less on growth and more on improving return. The third quadrant comprises mature markets with low growth and high return. The fourth quadrant marks where profit margins need

Michael McLary VP, Corporate Strategy

Atlanta, GA to be improved. Low-risk and highrisk investments are then made accordingly.

“Breaking down the business in this way allows us to identify where we want to focus, what guidance we provide, and what we do to feed the overall portfolio,” McLary says. “It’s about finding the right set of investments to generate and where we need to concentrate on investments to generate a balanced return across the portfolio.”

The bottom-up approach that fuels those decisions creates an atmosphere where everyone lobbies for their needs. Depending on what quadrant the business is in, arguments for resources have to be made accordingly and demonstrate how they factor into the organization’s long-term strategies.

“Cash is finite, and the matrix helps,” McLary says. “If a business is in the lower left, where growth will shrink but profitability improves, that might be a better investment for the organization than the top-right quadrant, which takes advantage of market growth but reduces profitability.”

With such a huge organization, topdown analysis still matters, but McLary notes that the integration of both top-down and bottom-up views leads to the organization’s continuing success.

“We still do a lot around rates and forecasting, but there may be broader insights in the United Kingdom—for example, something they’re seeing that you don’t pick up in a metric model,” he says. “You get communication back and forth between the business unit and the corporate office saying, ‘Here’s what we see and how we can work together,’ and we come up with a better answer.”

The SpinOff That’s Shaping Fast Food Overseas

KFC and Pizza Hut are huge in China. So huge, in fact, that Scott Catlett of Yum! Brands led a spinoff to focus specifically on the company’s business in that country.

By RANDALL COLBURN

Chris Hawpe

Scott Catlett VP, Deputy General Counsel

Yum! Brands

Louisville, KY

On November 1, 2016, Scott Catlett rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, fulfilling a dream that resounds in businesspeople everywhere. Across the world in Shanghai, his colleagues rang the bell at the Shanghai Stock Exchange at the same time. That day not only marked the beginning of Yum! China’s journey as a public company, it also symbolized the ringing in of a new era at Yum! Brands.

The former parent company of Yum! China, Yum! Brands owns KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, and today it helms nearly 44,000 restaurants in 136 countries. Catlett, the vice president and deputy general counsel of Yum! Brands, estimates that the company opens an average of six restaurants per day globally, and about two of those six open in China. “China had become the bellwether for Yum!’s performance,” Catlett says.

It all began with a single restaurant. In 1987, Pepsi—who then owned KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell—decided to open one of its restaurants in China, making it one of the first Western restaurants in a market that the United States had mostly ignored up until that point. A KFC was opened in Beijing that year, and a Pizza Hut soon followed in 1990. Despite the success of these locations (and the opening of several more), Pepsi eventually decided to zero in on its soft drink and snack business. As such, they spun off Yum! Brands (then called Tricon) in 1997, with Yum! taking over control of a rapidly growing number of restaurants. Yum! Brands, now its own entity, doubled down on expansion in China. As a result, business in China grew quickly— eventually building almost nine hundred restaurants in 2012 alone—but the business model in China began to diverge from Yum!’s business model in the rest of the world. In 2014, Yum!’s leadership saw an opportunity to better serve their shareholders by separating the China business. The financial benefits were clear, but first they needed to make sure the organization’s footing in China was solid.

“At that time, the business in China was soft,” Catlett says. “We said, ‘Look, let’s put this in our back pocket. We’re going to come back to it, but now is not the right time.’”

The right time came less than a year later, albeit in a surprising way. In the spring of 2015, an activist shareholder pitched the idea of a Chinese spin-off for Yum!. “It was interesting,” Catlett says. “Experiences with activist shareholders can be negative. In this instance, though, his idea was aligned nearly exactly with ours.”

That idea aimed to increase focus and shareholder returns for both companies. “Before the spin-off, Yum! owned over 90 percent of the restaurants in China. Outside of China, we owned less than 10 percent,” Catlett says. “There’s a big difference between franchising restaurants, which is what Yum! was primarily doing outside China, and owning and operating them, which is what we were doing inside of China.”

“I’d rather over-communicate than under-communicate. Under-communication is how things slip through the cracks and deadlines get missed.”

SCOTT CATLETT

With these diverging business models, Catlett and his associates realized that by separating the two businesses, they could create a significant amount of shareholder value and allow each business to focus on what they do best. By the end of 2018, Yum! Brands expects to be at least 98 percent franchised, owning less than one thousand of its nearly forty-four thousand restaurants. “What this means is that we have a much more consistent, stable, and reliable source of income through franchises and licenses,” Catlett explains. “We’re also able to take on a greater amount of debt because a franchised business model is less risky.”

In the fall of 2015, this shareholder was brought on the company’s board, and he

FAST FOOD, FAST GROWTH

“I think one thing that people don’t realize is just how massive Yum! China is,” says Scott Catlett, vice president and deputy general counsel of Yum! Brands. “That business is one of the largest employers in the entire country.” According to Catlett, the company’s 7,600 restaurants employ over four hundred thousand people and host more than two billion customer visits per year across more than 1,100 cities. All of that amounts to $8 billion dollars per year in system sales. That’s a lot of chicken and pizza.

and his team helped Yum! Brands refine their plans for the spin-off. In October, the spin-off was announced—and Catlett would take the lead of what was to be an absolutely massive endeavor.

“There were obviously a lot of different people from different parts of the world with a lot of different skill sets and backgrounds, and all of us needed to work together to get this done,” he says. And with over one hundred individuals involved in the overall effort, Catlett knew that transparency was key. “I told them I’d rather overcommunicate than under-communicate,” Catlett says. “Under-communication is how things slip through the cracks and deadlines get missed.”

He also made it clear to the entire team that they had to trust in positive intentions. There had been a lot of skepticism about which company would end up in the best position, Catlett recalls. “But up front, I was clear that we would ask two questions when it came to every decision: which outcome maximizes shareholder value, and which outcome sets up both companies for longterm success?” he says.

Right on schedule, the spin-off came to fruition at 11:59 pm on October 31, 2016. Catlett says the company’s combined stock clocked in at $86 per share that day, while today it’s over $110. The sixty-third edition of the Fortune 500 listed Yum! China at 399, and Yum! Brands at 422—the rare feat of a spin-off resulting in two companies on the list, further validating the move. It was a time for celebration, with the ringing of the NYSE bell as the centerpiece of that joyous period. “Our CEO said the spin-off is the largest strategic initiative undertaken by Yum! since we spun off in 1997,” Catlett recalls.

So what’s next? Catlett keeps it simple: “Focus—and build more restaurants.”

Proskauer works with Yum! Brands as a strategic partner to drive their business forward. With 725-plus lawyers active in virtually every major market worldwide, we are focused on creating value and recognized not only for our legal excellence, but also our dedication to client service. Learn more at www.proskauer.com.

We are 725+ lawyers serving clients from 13 offices located in the leading financial and business centers in North and South America, Europe and Asia. The world’s leading organizations, companies and corporations choose us to be their representatives in their most critical situations. But more, they consider Proskauer a strategic partner to drive their business forward. We work with Fortune 500 companies, asset managers, major sports leagues, entertainment industry legends and other industry-redefining companies which are changing how business is conducted today as well as tomorrow.

Meredith’s Digital Defender

Meredith Corporation’s one-time litigator, Michele Ramsey, keeps pace in the digital age of media law

By KELLI LAWRENCE

Just as Diana Prince functions as the mild-mannered alter ego to Wonder Woman, Des Moines, Iowa-based Meredith Corporation is the unassuming face of the thrilling publications under its banner.

Michele Ramsey, who serves as general counsel for Meredith’s national media and marketing groups, is reminded of this every time she attends an industry event. People see the name of the conglomerate she represents, and quizzical reactions abound until she shares the company’s two biggest brands—Better Homes & Gardens and Allrecipes.com. That’s all that’s needed for proper recognition. But were Ramsey to keep

sharing—Family Circle, Parents, Rachael Ray Every Day, Shape, EatingWell.com—the true identity of Meredith would be revealed. It’s a powerhouse on multiple fronts, thriving in an era when most publications of its generation have struggled to find their footing.

“Publishing is in New York, media is in New York, and we have offices in New York, of course,” Ramsey says. “But I think we’ve always been a company that innovates and that isn’t afraid of pushing forward to stay on the cutting edge.”

Michele Ramsey General Counsel, National Media & Marketing Groups

Meredith Corporation Des Moines, IA

Marty Baldwin

As an attorney who has been with Meredith since 2008, she is deeply familiar with the whirlwind of changes that come from pushing forward in the digital age. But before joining Meredith Corporation, Ramsey served as a private practice litigator. Then the opportunity arose to work as outside counsel for Meredith, and that eventually led to an offer to come in-house. As such, she is equally familiar with the need to be adaptable.

Early on, Ramsey occasionally felt her background was working against her. The attorney she initially reported to, for instance, had her doubts. “She was very skeptical; she’ll admit it now,” Ramsey says with a chuckle. “She had been a media lawyer all her life, and here I was, this trial lawyer who knew nothing about either media law or drafting a contract.”

Ramsey did, however, know a thing or two about dealing with contracts, which gave her a helpful vantage point. “To have red flags go up in drafting and negotiation, saying, ‘That’s too ambiguous,’ or ‘We need to better define this,’ it was extremely helpful to have that background,” she explains.

On the other hand, she was dealing with a different dynamic. Rather than be the one explaining why something can’t be done, Ramsey had to learn how to advise her internal clients to act in the most compliant way and with the least amount of risk. “That was one of the biggest learning curves for me,” she says.

But that was nothing compared to what awaited Ramsey in the form of technological advancement. As recently as a decade ago, the legal focus at businesses such as Meredith was on sweepstakes, rules, and marketing disclosures as they appeared on rudimentary web pages and print versions of magazines. Mobile content wasn’t prevalent yet, and online video was in its infancy.

By contrast, Ramsey sees her current day-to-day largely involved with app development, mobile marketing, and data in the cloud. “We’re dealing with all kinds of cookies, pixels, tags, behavioral advertising, tracking, and ad-blockers,” she says “None of that was even a thing in 2007.”

This seismic shift in publishing means Ramsey needs to be constantly learning. She starts by soaking in as much knowledge as she can from her business associates that live and breathe the digital world. On top of that, she attends as many meetings

and industry events as she can, asks plenty of questions, and pursues formal opportunities for continuing education. Above all else, Ramsey keeps in mind those elements of law that remain constant.

“With every step of the challenge, the biggest part is understanding the business,” she says. “It’s impossible to negotiate or draft a contract, advise internal clients on disclosures, or do anything in my job without having a basic understanding of what the deal is. In this digital world, though, it’s amazingly complicated.”

The deal at hand almost always involves data—using it, sharing it, transferring it— so plenty of questions crop up regarding its use, restrictions, data security requirements, audit rights, and other issues. Add into the mix digital marketing issues, behavioral marketing issues, social media concerns, and the two crucial matters of data privacy and data security, and it seems remarkable that the legal world can keep pace at all.

Ramsey gives the example of an advertising client for a large marketing program that sent Meredith Corporation its standard vendor agreement as the template for a contract. It quickly became evident to Ramsey that the contract was too generic, written for something tangible that could be shipped that the client would own outright once received. For this particular media deal, it wasn’t the right option.

“Some of the challenge is that we have to standardize things to some extent because we have a limited amount of time and resources,” she says. “We can’t start from scratch every time.”

Ramsey’s goal is to be a business partner, not a gatekeeper. One look at Meredith Corporation’s current stats makes clear why it’s a worthwhile effort: multiple distribution platforms, including broadcast TV, print, and mobile; a digital base that reaches 55 million people monthly; over 14.6 million Facebook fans; and a separate marketing arm (Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, or MXM) that brings yet another dimension to the conglomerate’s success.

The superpower that helps Ramsey and her team manage all this is the ability to take things in stride. “It’s challenging to not be an inhibitor of progress, but also to put the brakes on when necessary to take a hard look at what the deal is, who the vendor is, and whether or not we trust them,” Ramsey explains. “But you also don’t want to be the last to the party.”

The Cloud Evangelist

Paul Maher, a technology and leadership executive who has worked at companies of various sizes in the United Kingdom and United States, has been involved in building some of the largest cloud solutions in the market today

By DAVID LEVINE

Maher Technology and Leadership Executive

Paul

“I was born on the cloud, if you will,” Paul Maher says, with a laugh. “I grew up around the cloud.”

IHe’s not claiming to be an angel, though; Maher is talking about his role in developing cloud computing solutions. He’s been involved from the early days—when the cloud was very immature—to the ubiquitous cloud platforms that exist in today’s market.

At the time of writing, Maher is transitioning to a new role, yet to be confirmed. Most recently, Maher was a principal and chief technology officer of Milliman’s Life Technology Solutions practice. Milliman is one of the world’s largest independent actuarial and consulting firms, and Life Technology Solutions provides products and services related to financial modeling and risk management to life insurance companies worldwide. At the core of its business is Integrate, a state-of-the-art, cloud-based financial and risk management platform. Maher came to Milliman from Microsoft, where his life in the cloud started. “Not many people have had the opportunity to gain the depth and breadth of experience in cloud computing that I have,” he says. “I have been doing this a long time.”

In fact, Maher joined Microsoft UK in 2005, when the commercial cloud was still nebulous. Maher’s computing skills, however, were not. Before landing at Microsoft UK, the Liverpool native and university math and statistics student was already indulging a fascination with computers. “We had a personal computer at home, and when my opportunity came at university, I took some computer science classes, which I quite enjoyed,” he says. Looking to use his math degree but also wanting to move into the computer space, Maher found a job programming for an actuarial company in his hometown, which

was a natural fit, considering his background in statistics.

Maher then worked for several other companies, including KPMG and Thomas Cook, honing his software engineering skills and adding management and leadership roles to his resume. While at Torex Retail, Maher focused on research and development. “We were looking to push forward with nextgeneration products,” he says. In that position, Maher worked in partnership with Microsoft UK to develop innovative solutions for retail, using Microsoft’s next-generation technologies. One of those new emerging technology platforms was cloud computing.

“The cloud was happening quickly,” Maher says. “Starting around 2005, one of my first roles after joining Microsoft was talking to analysts, championing the vision of the cloud as the next big thing. I worked with the Microsoft product groups, understanding their cloud strategy and helping provide feedback on early pieces of the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform. We were painting the picture of ‘Why cloud?’ to the market. All the pieces weren’t built yet, and we were putting the engineering in place.”

Maher quickly became one of the cloud’s biggest believers. “I could see what the cloud could provide and how it could help solve common, yet complex, problems,” he says. “It enables computing at a scale never before possible and brings the cost of computing down. Cloud really helps bring CAPEX cost down, which was previously invested in infrastructure and hardware.”

In fact, Maher still describes himself as a cloud evangelist. “That comes from hearing the cloud vision early on,” he explains. “I have been fortunate enough to work with companies worldwide to build large-scale cloud solutions and seeing the value of those solutions—how they can make people’s lives easier.”

A FOOTBALLER AT HEART

Having been a soccer player in his youth, Paul Maher once had the goal to become a professional “footballer.” He gave up his dream of becoming a professional athlete, however, when he got the opportunity to go to university. “It was a reality check on whether I would make it,” he says. “I played at university for a while, but, in the end, I went with education.” And though he ended up working in the tech industry and not on the field, Maher still plays occasionally and even returns to England to play social games with his longtime friends.

In 2008, Maher moved from the United Kingdom to Microsoft’s US headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Milliman was one of the partners his team worked with to advocate early adoption of Microsoft’s next-generation technologies. At Microsoft, he worked closely with Milliman on its move to the cloud and got to know the team. In 2013, he thought the time was right for a new opportunity, and Milliman provided him with exactly the type of opportunity he was looking for.

“I felt like I had a mission: I wanted to build a large-scale cloud solution that would change an industry,” Maher says. The transition from Microsoft was so smooth, that he left on a Friday and was back in their offices the next week representing Milliman, which made everyone feel positive about the move.

In his role at Milliman as chief technology officer responsible for product development, Maher drove product strategy and execution through his immediate mixed-discipline team. His team included some of the top developers in the world. Building solutions in the cloud provides access to near-unlimited

“I wanted to build a large-scale cloud solution that would change an industry.”

PAUL MAHER

computing resources to perform computeand data-intensive, mission-critical work that was never before possible, all in a payas-you-go pricing model.

As someone who led a team that was changing Milliman’s business foundationally, Maher took a detail-centric approach, while remaining hands-off and trusting the internal leaders on his team. However, it’s easy for him to have that trust, because he strives to hire the right person for the right job. Maher sets his team members up for success by removing obstacles and providing everyone with the right tools. “It is all about empowering people,” he says. “With experience, you understand what is required based on the maturity of the team. To build an empowered team, I act as a coach and stay empathetic to what people need. For me to be successful, it’s about the team being successful.”

With his leadership and business acumen, Maher will continue to stay ahead of the curve and evangelize about the cutting edge of data.

“I’ve worked with Milliman for a long time, and when I first met Paul I knew he had the depth of knowledge, strategic outlook, and personality they were looking for in a CTO. They clearly felt the same. Congratulations on being recognized for your work, Paul—proud that we can work with you and Milliman as a strategic partner in talent acquisition.”

-Ben Weber Anchor Partner at Vaco Seattle (formerly Greythorn) formerly

TECHNOLOGY STAFFING SERVICES ON A CONTRACT, DIRECT HIRE AND CONTRACT TO HIRE BASIS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Located in Seattle, Prime Team Partners helps companies to hire hard-to-find tech talent and provides exciting career opportunities for skilled technology professionals.

We create value for clients through delivery of technology staffing services. We help build and supplement organizations by providing introductions to candidates for key positions.

We create value for job seekers by connecting them with our clients. Our connections with the top employers across a broad range of industries enable us to present candidates with a variety of employment opportunities. A complete list of these jobs can be found on the careers page of our website www.primeteampartners.com

The Diplomatic Side of Law

DURA Automotive’s general counsel and secretary,

Jonathan

Greenberg,

uses his people skills to foster better collaboration and drive results

By DAVID LEVINE

Jonathan Greenberg was born in Washington, DC, but as the son of a diplomat, he grew up living all across Europe.

As a child, Greenberg considered joining the State Department like his father, but while attending law school at the University of Virginia, he grew enamored with corporate and commercial law. Now, as general counsel and secretary for DURA

Automotive Systems, Greenberg combines his diplomatic skills with his legal expertise to manage the global legal, compliance, and IP functions at the leading automotive supplier, which employs more than twelve thousand individuals and has revenues of approximately $1.5 billion.

“A GC has to be a diplomat, trying to get everyone out of their stovepipes, mediating between departments and folks who may rarely engage with each other,” Greenberg says. Indeed, he joined DURA in 2016 as part of an almost entirely new management team charged with improving interaction within the organization. “In the last two years at DURA, we’ve experienced a nearly complete turn of the executive leadership team, and one of the mandates from our CEO, Lynn Tilton, has been for us to start collaborating more,” he says. “And we are—starting at the executive leadership level. We are in effect discovering each other and our respective organizations and working more transparently and collaboratively as a team.”

Beyond his diplomatic upbringing, Greenberg has more than twenty-four years of legal experience. He began his legal career at a major Wall Street law firm and practiced as an associate at the DC offices of Holland & Knight, a leading global law firm with more than 1,500 attorneys, before being elected partner in 2000. He was general counsel and senior corporate counsel at two technology companies

in the Washington, DC, metro area, and he previously served as general counsel at three publicly traded companies in the defense, aviation, and technology sectors.

At DURA, he is responsible for global legal and compliance functions, including negotiating contracts and other commercial relationships, managing litigation and other risks, ensuring adherence to corporate governance requirements, compliance with global legal and regulatory regimes, and patent and other IP filings, along with related enforcement. As an international supplier, DURA has many foreign subsidiaries, customers, suppliers, and technology partners, and Greenberg understands that a diplomatic touch is often required to sustain and improve these relationships. One of his first moves was to hire a general counsel for Europe, stationed on the continent, which led to improved results, especially in Germany.

“We have a factory in Germany that lost significant amounts of money for years,” Greenberg says. “Last year, the local unions threatened to shut the plant down, and they succeeded in slowing our production to a point that the backlog became alarming to customers. Our new European counsel stepped up and got involved on a daily basis.” The counsel knew the local laws

Jonathan Greenberg General Counsel,

Secretary

DURA Automotive Auburn Hills, MI

and customs and worked closely with a new DURA operations team in Germany, as well as local HR and finance. “He has fostered significantly improved dialogue and better working relationships over there,” Greenberg says.

That speaks to Greenberg’s overarching passion: bridging gaps and making a difference. He wants to position the legal function as a business partner, not a speed bump or barrier on the road to success. “The measure of success is when people come to you for help because then you know you’ve become a value-add,” he says. The legal function can often be wrongfully assumed to be “the office of no,” so he strives to position it in a more practical, businessoriented light. “There is a perception by some business folks that legal is slow and bureaucratic, which can be a fair criticism,” he says. “They think we are only there to fix the screw-ups and paint the traffic lanes on the highway, but otherwise we are viewed as slowing down the process.”

Greenberg tries to foster a businessfriendly approach. “When you run a global operation, you have to respond 24/7, and touching base quickly is key to developing internal support,” he says. “My team understands that. Our value-add is to ask questions and learn about the business

imperatives. If the goal is tax savings in Germany, let’s talk about that.” That’s not always the case, as Greenberg says that lawyers sometimes focus too much on the words on paper instead of the reasons behind them. “When someone comes running and says, ‘I need blank, and I need it yesterday,’ don’t just run around with your hair on fire,” he says. “Ask them why. Who is asking for this? What are they trying to do? Dig in. It turns out that many times the path we’re heading down is not optimal or one that hasn’t been coordinated with other departments or simply is not as timesensitive as initially presented. To get that business perspective, you have to lift your head up, stop staring at the words, and start talking to people about what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The job of the legal department, he says, is to understand and anticipate the concerns of its constituents. “What is exciting and fun, but also challenging, is that as a GC you are literally surrounded by your clients. Everyone at DURA, to one degree or another, is a customer of our law department,” he says. One of Greenberg’s key goals is to work cross-functionally to harmonize operations, finance, engineering, and supply chain: “To bring together all the different perspectives.” Spoken like a true diplomat.

Vivacqua Law is focused on protecting intellectual property worldwide. Located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where many well-established companies find talented professionals and new companies get their start. Vivacqua Law is comprised of attorneys who hold advanced degrees in engineering and science across many disciplines and technologies. Our clients appreciate the quality of our work, our attentive communication, and our timeliness in attending to their matters.

Supply Change

How Bob Kenney completely revamped the supply chain to set up Teradyne for growth in the global economy

By CHRIS GIGLEY

Bob Kenney is skilled at putting things together. More specifically, he has shown his skill at putting together a strong global supply chain for Teradyne, a Boston-based leader in automation equipment and industrial applications. It’s Kenney’s job to make sure that every link in the chain is strong—and it seems to be working. In 2016, the company earned $1.75 billion in revenue and employed about 4,300 people around the world.

Teradyne is poised to enjoy even more growth in the coming years, and this is largely thanks to Kenney’s ability to seamlessly incorporate three new acquisitions into the company’s global supply chain. In 2008, it added Eagle Test, which made equipment that inspects chips in digital cameras, digital music players, and cellphones. That same year, Teradyne acquired Nextest, a maker of automatic test equipment for flash memory and system-on-chip semiconductors.

There were changes to be made with these new acquisitions. Kenney shifted the production of these new product lines to Asia, choosing a Malaysian contract manufacturer who helps manage lead times and prices over time. Deals like these are possible thanks to Kenney’s work in the early 2000s to shift 90 percent of the company’s supply chain from the United States to Asia.

“The reason we did it is 80 percent of the end product we ship is consumed in Asia,” says Kenney, who joined Teradyne right out

Bob Kenney VP, Global Supply Chain, CPO

Teradyne

North Reading, MA

of college and has held every supply chain operations job at the company. “We wanted to get closer to our customers. When we did, it happened to save us millions of dollars and improve our responsiveness to them.”

It was no small feat. Kenney had to spend several years going to and from Asia to identify prospects, establish relationships, and open international procurement offices in China and Singapore. In the end, Kenney helped Teradyne consolidate its spending from 1,200 US-based suppliers to forty-five international suppliers. This has allowed the company to create the strategic relationships necessary to enable a responsive and efficient supply chain.

To streamline the process and ensure quality, the company partnered with a large contract manufacturer, Flextronics, using its global reach, size, and name to get Teradyne into China. “We set up a world-class manufacturing process that produces more products of higher quality than we were ever able to do here,” Kenney explains.

Maintaining that quality required a significant investment in processes, tools, and people in the local region to support the

local contract manufacturer. Now, virtually every new piece of Teradyne equipment is assembled in Asia, and Kenney says that the company also uses a contract manufacturer in Malaysia, in order to spread risk and create competition with its Chinese contract manufacturer.

As production in Asia ramped up, Kenney addressed Teradyne’s logistics management to maintain its new operations there and support further growth.

“Before Asia, we shipped everything off the back dock here in Massachusetts,” Kenney says. “That was the extent of our knowledge of global logistics. We didn’t know anything about it and didn’t have the systems in place to handle it.”

The knowledge he has gained about global logistics set Kenney up to manage Teradyne’s most recent acquisition: Denmark-based Universal Robots, which produces collaborative robots. These “cobots” are low-cost, easy-to-deploy robots that work side by side with production workers to increase quality and manufacturing efficiency.

Kenney sees a lot of potential in Universal Robots. In addition to the business continuity analysis that he has done for that acquisition, Kenney has also researched the forward-looking capacity and risk protection for the company because of its explosive growth potential.

Universal Robots will remain based in Denmark, Kenney says, but Teradyne’s continuing expansion is still under consideration. “Most likely, it will be somewhere in Asia, but there are lots of considerations in today’s world, from taxes and geopolitical risk to IP risk,” Kenney explains. “That decision will take place over the next year or two. Who knows in this political climate? We might expand in Europe or the United States. The future is dynamic.”

A crucial part of Kenney’s most recent work is the strong relationship that he has established with the engineering department at Teradyne. Although it’s not unusual for a supply chain executive to be involved with product design, the extent of Kenney’s influence is unique. Every time Teradyne develops new innovative equipment, Kenney has a hand in choosing suppliers for the project.

“If we can’t use an existing supplier, we will go with engineering to find a technical solution together so we’re picking someone of some scale,” Kenney explains. “Our business in general is pretty volatile. You need

“Eighty percent of the end product we ship is consumed in Asia. We wanted to get closer to our customers. When we did, it happened to save us millions of dollars and improve our responsiveness to them.”

BOB KENNEY

a supplier that has some financial muscle.”

There are a number of factors that Kenney weighs in supplier negotiations up front. Given that these relationships can last anywhere from ten to fifteen years or more, Kenney insists on provisions that ensure suppliers can’t terminate their contracts early for their own convenience. He also makes sure that communication terms are spelled out to minimize IP risk.

The results are supplier contracts that set the tone for or continue strong supplier relationships. That network continues to grow. Thanks to Kenney’s talent for relationship building and his eye for detail, every link in Teradyne’s new supply chain is as strong as ever.

Plexus Corp. is a proud partner of Teradyne as they continue to supply leading automation equipment for test and industrial applications. As their partner, Plexus delivers optimized solutions through a customerfocused service model that seamlessly integrates product conceptualization, design, commercialization, manufacturing, fulfillment, and sustaining services. For more information, visit www.plexus.com.

Engineered to Perform

W. L. Gore & Associates,

Like Father,

When founding patriarch Samuel Beznos entered the Detroit real estate business in the 1940s, he spawned an enterprise that would span three generations and inspire a national real estate endeavor under the supervision of his three sons, Norman, Harold, and Jerry

Like Son

By PORCSHE N. MORAN Illustration by ANNA BECK

SSamuel Beznos has been involved in real estate since his early teens; his family has co-owned and operated Beztak Properties—a real estate development, construction, investment, and third-party management company— for more than sixty years. Now, as the CEO of the Farmington Hills, Michigan-based company, Samuel says there wasn’t a specific moment when his uncles and father, Harold Beznos, handed him the reins of the family business, continuing the Beznos family’s legacy. It was far more fluid; the family has always worked together.

“The past fifteen years, I naturally started taking on more responsibility,” Samuel says. “It was an evolutionary, organic process. Over the past seven or eight years, I have begun to feel like I am truly in control of the operations; people come to me for guidance instead of going to my father or my uncles.”

Of course, he first had to gain the necessary credentials. In 2002, after earning a master’s degree in real estate finance from New York University, Samuel moved back to Michigan to work full-time for Beztak Properties.

“Taking over the developmental and managerial supervision was a huge opportunity for me,” he says. “I was fortunate to already have a great, loyal team, many of whom had been a part of the company for more than thirty years. We enjoy an outstanding reputation for quality of design, construction, and managerial services. In a sense, I could enter the race and just run with it. I take pride in perpetuating the Luptak and Beznos family legacies.”

After immigrating to the United States from Poland, founder Samuel Beznos started the company in the 1940s, calling

Harold Beznos Cofounder, Partner

Beztak Properties

Farmington Hills, MI

it Bird Realty. He purchased and managed apartment buildings in Detroit, as well as land in the nearby suburbs. He also created a brokerage business, buying and selling houses in the city. After his death in 1966, Samuel’s sons, Norman, Harold, and Jerry, took over the business. As it grew and became more well known, the brothers created a partnership with a family friend, attorney Jerry Luptak, to buy the entire Buhl Realty Company. They named the joint venture Beztak to represent both families. At that time, theirs was the highest-valued real estate transaction in Michigan’s history.

“I used to hang around with my father at his office when I was a kid,” Harold says. “I was in law school at Michigan State University the first time my father asked me to work on zoning for one of his properties. It was a success, and I found the process to be exciting.”

Today, Beztak’s portfolio includes commercial, office, retail, senior living, and single-family and multifamily residential properties across the Midwest, the East, the Southeast, and the Southwest United States. Over the years, the firm has developed more than fifteen thousand residences. Currently,

Maurice Jerry Beznos

BEZTAK OVER THE YEARS

1940s: Samuel Beznos establishes his real estate business in Detroit

1966: Norman, Harold, and Jerry Beznos inherit their father’s real estate business

1970: The Beznos brothers merge Beznos Realty into Beztak Properties

2002: Harold’s son Samuel joins Beztak Properties full-time

2007: Beztak opens All Seasons of Rochester Hills, the first in the company’s All Seasons brand of high-end senior living communities

2012: Beztak purchases 589 foreclosed apartment and condominium residences for $110 million in Miami, only to resell individual residences for double the initial investment

2017: Beztak announces plans to codevelop a six-story, mixed-use apartment building in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC; the project is slated to open in early 2018

REPUTATION COMES FROM THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Since the firm was established in 1978, Alexander V. Bogaerts + Associates Architects has strived for excellence in architecture and interior design. The firm seeks to be on the leading edge of design for all its projects. The team approach to design assures in-depth research into current codes, adherence to municipal requirements, and timely completion of final architectural documents. Alexander V. Bogaerts + Associates Architects has enjoyed providing design services for Beztak Companies for over 40 years.

Already recognized as true innovators and creative thinkers, you both inspire us.

AVB+A demonstrates expertise in the following building typologies:

• Custom Single-Family Residential

• Multi-Family Residential

• Multi-Family Senior Living Communities

• Commercial/O ce Buildings

• Industrial

• Institutional

• Religious Facilities

• Mixed-Use

• Banquet Facilities, Clubhouses

• Resort Properties

• Historic Renovation and Rehabilitation

lexander . Bogaerts + ssociates, P.C. rchitecture • Planning • Interior Design 2445 Franklin Road

Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302 248 • 334 • 5000

Whether transforming an existing property, or building from the ground up, we look forward to Beztak’s next industry leading project.

more than seventeen thousand residences are under property management, with more than seven hundred people employed across the country. Outside of its Michigan headquarters, Beztak has had a satellite office in Boca Raton, Florida, since the early 1980s, where the next generation of the Luptak family, Paola Luptak, lives and oversees operations. There’s an additional regional office in Tucson, Arizona.

“The foundation my father laid is what we have built upon. It is, I believe, the ongoing commitment to his vision and character that has secured our success,” Harold says. “He instilled in us the importance of following through on your commitments. I am especially gratified that we have been able to make and maintain strong relationships with both partners and associates, many of whom we have worked with for more than thirty-five years.”

Both Harold and Samuel attribute the company’s longevity to its reputation for developing forward-thinking, innovative properties.

“The real estate business is constantly changing,” Harold says. “You have to have a plan and a vision to prepare for what might come. Because we’ve always taken a more conservative approach, we haven’t had the liabilities that could have hurt us in times when the market has been down. We have properties that are nearly fifty years old that successfully compete with new properties and are worth more than when we first developed them.”

Samuel points to his 2012 purchase of a complex of midrise towers, comprising 589 foreclosed apartments and condominiums in Miami. He bought the portfolio for $110 million and was able to reposition and remarket the properties for double the cost.

“The most gratifying thing is the challenge of finding and securing land and then figuring out what to put on it,” Harold says. “Each development is unique. We are creative in building properties that are tailored to the specific market or neighborhood.”

Despite his achievements, Samuel is not resting on his laurels. He spends his work hours traveling around the country, visiting Beztak’s existing properties. He is also constantly looking for new business prospects. One of his

Samuel Beznos CEO, Partner Beztak Properties Farmington Hills, MI

priorities is to increase Beztak’s footprint in the senior living industry. Beztak currently has a roster of six luxury senior living communities, as well as two in development.

“We want to continue to advance into new markets and become more of a national player,” Samuel says. “But we are not a volume-based developer. We work on three to four projects at a time and focus on quality.”

In turn, Samuel is determined to enrich the customer experience by keeping Beztak current, investing in technology that improves business operations and reduces paper usage.

“The real estate industry has been consistently lagging behind other industries

when it comes to technology,” Samuel says. “We want to provide ease and convenience to all of our residents. We always try to be proactive in anticipating what people want, such as high-speed Wi-Fi, LED lights, and mobile apps.”

As Beztak Properties continues to evolve and expand, Samuel says the groundwork that his family and the Luptak family have laid serves as a foundation for mapping out the company’s future. “I might pursue or conceive new opportunities, but the core values that we started Beztak with will remain the same,” he explains. “We will never cut corners to be more profitable. We are always looking for ways to put out the best product possible.”

Social Impact Makes Cents

As a tax executive at one of largest independent broadcasting companies in the United States, Rebecca Riegelsberger knows that philanthropy can save both money and, more importantly, lives

By JENNY DRAPER

VP, Tax

Rebecca Riegelsberger

The E.W. Scripps Company Cincinnati, OH

AAt thirty-seven years old, Rebecca Riegelsberger has already earned a vice president role at a national media company, delivered twins, beaten cancer, and joined three boards of nonprofits in Cincinnati. The vice president of tax at The E.W. Scripps Company—known for its thirty-three television stations, thirty-four radio stations, and national digital brands—has homed in on the company’s philanthropic mission to expand the revenues and impact of charitable organizations close to her heart. In her nonprofit work, she embodies the company’s saying, “We do well by doing good.”

“There’s an expectation in the company that you are doing good for your community,” she says. “It helps to have the support of the company, and my family’s support is very important, too. You have to be proactive, and I think people would be surprised about how many opportunities or resources are available once you start looking for them.”

The company’s philanthropic arm, the Scripps Howard Foundation, empowers journalists who inform and shine a light on impactful stories and supports community programs that change lives for the better. The foundation gives to local literacy campaigns for families in need, food pantries, heroin addiction centers, and more. In addition to grants, the foundation matches individual donations up to a certain amount, and each employee can apply for up to $2,500 each year in volunteer gifts for organizations he or she supports. Employees at the home office can also take advantage of the volunteer day where the company will pay them their standard wages for a day spent working at a registered nonprofit.

That community-oriented culture was what attracted Riegelsberger to the company. When she arrived in April 2015, Scripps was going through a major transformative transaction, spinning off its newspapers and doubling the size of its broadcast markets. Her challenge was to create and develop a

tax department to manage all direct and indirect income tax compliance, accounting, planning, and reporting.

As someone who thrives in high-stress situations, it was a busy time that fueled her professional drive. However, her mind-set shifted in July 2015 when she found out she had cervical cancer. She took time away from work for the surgery and recovery from the noninvasive cancer. “The situation forced me to put things into perspective and not stress about the day to day,” she says.

Riegelsberger’s commitment to philanthropy, however, dates back to 2011. At the time, she felt secure in her career and started to think about how she could give back. She had earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration and an MBA in accounting at the University of Cincinnati before working in tax departments at Duke Energy Corporation, Senco Brands, and Scripps. She thought volunteer work was the right thing to do, but she didn’t know how to get involved. She searched VolunteerMatch online and decided to join a volunteer day at the American Diabetes Association. Riegelsberger enjoyed the event so much that it compelled her to do more.

In February 2012, she began to focus her passion for giving back on a primary cause after she gave birth to her twin daughters nearly eleven weeks early. Her daughters, Emmy and Claire, were small, weighing three pounds and two pounds, respectively. Both stayed in the hospital for more than six weeks before coming home. At eighteen months, Claire underwent heart surgery.

So when she spotted flyers for the March of Dimes, a nonprofit dedicated to ending preterm birth and other complications that threaten infants, she felt called to take action. The organization’s campaigns find genetic causes of preterm birth and support education for medical professionals and the public about best practices for expectant mothers to prevent infant fatalities.

“There’s an expectation in the company that you are doing good for your community.”

REBECCA RIEGELSBERGER

In the 1990s, through research funded by the March of Dimes, scientists specifically developed surfactant, also known as surface-active agent, which is a compound premature babies such as Riegelsberger’s daughters lack in their lungs. It increased her girls’ chances of survival by more than 50 percent, and widespread use of surfactant has diminished the death rate from respiratory distress syndrome thanks to the nonprofit’s research investment over the past decade.

“I’ve seen what the dollars can do, and it really is life changing,” she says. “If the girls had been born before the early 1990s, their chances of survival literally would have been less than half of what it was. And now, at five years old, they are healthy, funny, beautiful, and smart—all those great things that moms say about their children.”

She met with the March of Dimes executive director and had breakfast with the board chair to find out how to get involved in a leadership capacity. After sharing her story, the board voted her in as vice chair of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Market board in August 2014. This year, she will assume

the role of chair. She oversees the nominating committee, volunteer engagement, and strategic planning, which has resulted in successful events such as the annual Signature Chefs Auction.

Every fall, the auction features signature dishes created by culinary talent at local restaurants, in addition to corporate sponsorships. In her first year, Riegelsberger leveraged her story to expand support with family and friends, as well as her connections in the corporate world. As a result, the event has doubled in revenue and in size, growing from three hundred to six hundred attendees.

“Being in the corporate world, I quickly understood that prematurity impacts one out of ten babies in the United States, and it has an $11 billion impact on businesses through medical costs and lost productivity,” Riegelsberger says. “I have a personal connection to it, but everybody stands to benefit from ending prematurity. Both dollars and, more importantly, lives can be saved.”

In July 2014, she found another cause close to home, this time geographically, through a board agency. The nonprofit, UpSpring, provides education to children experiencing homelessness in Cincinnati, where half of the region’s children live in poverty. Riegelsberger, who was born and raised in Cincinnati, learned of the correlation between infant prematurity and socioeconomic status. Initially, she joined the organization as treasurer, but she is now on the internal committee, programs committee, and events committee as a board trustee.

As a part of UpSpring’s board, she participates in the committees that determine policies and manage personnel to help the nonprofit assist the more than 3,500 children it serves each year. One of UpSpring’s flagship programs is a free, seven-week summer day camp, UpSpring Summer 360. It provides literacy and math lessons as well as transportation and meals for at-risk students between the ages of five and twelve.

“I think all children should be starting out at the same level and not be behind,” Riegelsberger says. “UpSpring supports them and their parents with childcare at the summer camp so they can continue to work to provide for their family.” For the second year in a row, the Scripps Howard Foundation has also contributed a significant grant to the program as well as volunteers to serve a hot lunch to the UpSpring camp. The organization has grown significantly during Riegelsberger’s tenure, and it now serves the most children in its history.

Yet Scripps’s tax leader didn’t stop there. This past July, she joined the board of Flywheel, a social enterprise geared to match nonprofits with customers, talent, and capital. Its consulting services have connected more than fifty social entrepreneurs with resources—from legal to marketing to bookkeeping to technology services and more. Flywheel’s consultants and business mentors help turn nonprofits into profitable, autonomous businesses to accelerate their impact on the community, and Riegelsberger says she couldn’t be more excited about it.

“Cincinnati is a big technology hub; we have a lot of start-ups that come here,” she says. “And while it’s a philanthropic city, there is a finite amount of money to go around. Flywheel enables nonprofits to become self-sustaining so more good things can happen.”

Above all, Riegelsberger enjoys making connections and encouraging other executives to make a difference outside their departments, even if it starts with one hour or one day focused on giving back in the community. “At nonprofits, I work with people of all different backgrounds,” says Riegelsberger, who hopes to be a positive role model for her daughters. “It’s really given me an appreciation for different approaches, and it helps me to keep an open mind to empower everyone to accomplish so much more.”

Being a leader takes more than a drive to have a successful career. It takes dedication, courage and integrity. It takes an individual like Becky Riegelsberger. We congratulate Becky on her success. It has been our honor to work with her over the years and we wish her continued success in the future.

www.pwc.com

Build Group has prospered in the expanding northern California economy. In just ten years, Eric Horn and his partners have figured out how to build a company culture through hard work, character, and grit.

By RUSS KLETTKE

NNot everyone uses ocean waves as a metaphor for the construction process. But then again, not every construction executive has real ocean surfing experience.

Build Group Inc. is an atypical construction firm based in San Francisco—a place where many things are surprisingly possible. The company’s chairman and cofounder, Eric Horn, is taken aback by how, ten years after founding the company with four other partners and about $340,000 in business, the company’s earned revenues in 2017 are projected to be $725 million. Together, Horn and his cofounders are riding a construction wave in California that required a certain degree of mastery to catch.

Horn and his Build Group partners imposed humble beginnings on themselves in 2007. “We paid ourselves $18 an hour to get started,” he says of the original group of five. “We were making just enough to keep our families fed while staying afloat. We also wanted to bring value to our clients from beginning to end while creating a fresh culture for employee growth.”

That meant taking risks early on in a variety of market niches. One early venture was prefabricated bathrooms: whole-room pods that builders could plug into multiresidential projects. The bathroom pods might have been a good idea, but Build Group had the misfortune of entering the market as the Great Recession hit. Fortunately, they were able to switch quickly to other ideas.

“We were able to adapt the prefabricated concept into solar carports and, believe it or not, cable car kiosks,” Horn says. Build

Group ultimately created and installed solar arrays over more than twelve thousand parking stalls for public schools, military bases, and hospitals, and the company also installed a couple of cable car kiosks in San Francisco.

As the economy improved, the lending market loosened, and long-term clients started coming back to Build Group. The company has since amassed an impressive portfolio of projects that includes commercial office buildings, public works projects, historic renovations, seismic retrofits, data centers, healthcare facilities, educational buildings, residential/mixed use, demolitions, retail, parking garages, restaurants, hotels, and resorts. A large number of these buildings are LEED certified, including hyper-energy-efficient, net-zero commercial spaces.

Horn and his original partners remain intact, and they’ve added three more at the partner level. They also manage 260 salaried staff plus another 200–350 union workers who are actively engaged

Eric Horn Chairman Build Group San Francisco, CA

In July 2017, Build Group finished construction of The Argyle, an eighteen-story high-rise complex in Los Angeles, complete with thirteen floors of residential apartments and five levels of parking.

in projects. In 2015, the firm established operations in southern California, as well.

That kind of growth in a single decade may reflect a strong regional economy, but it wouldn’t last long if Build Group didn’t have smart employment policies. Build Group has extensively deployed the Myers-Briggs and Strength Deployment Inventory tools. “They help our teams be teams. Part of the challenge is that we work with a broad range of age demographics,” Horn says. “Our processes and team building help employees work cohesively through all the stages. We say it’s form, storm, norm, and perform.”

California is a challenging place for employers for a few reasons: a growing economy means more competition for skilled workers, and the San Francisco Bay area is the epicenter of higher wages and living expenses. Luring away workers with higher salaries is commonplace because noncompete clauses are disallowed by the state. Horn says this requires them to offer more than just good pay.

The extras that Build Group employees enjoy include a dogfriendly workspace, a fitness and wellness program that includes prizes (e.g., a trip to Hawaii to the person who works out the most), and a generous benefits package. Diversity is honored and respected. “We have many Spanish-speaking workers,” Horn says. “Our safety managers are all bilingual.”

Build Group also has what Horn calls a cool culture, where doors are open and employees are encouraged to walk into any office to ask questions and offer ideas. “We give our people a lot of freedom and the responsibility that goes along with it,” he says. “We hold them accountable.”

Recently, the company hosted a seminar involving twenty women studying construction engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. They met with female leaders at Build Group who provided them with real industry perspectives. “Whether it’s a site superintendent, an estimator, or something else, every individual has skills we need,” Horn says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female.”

The company has been cited by the San Francisco Business Times and the Silicon Valley Business Journal as one of California’s best places to work in 2015 and 2016. Build

“When you’re in the ocean and you see the wave coming, you have to position yourself well to ride it.”

ERIC HORN

Group has also received accolades for being among the healthiest employers, one of the fastest-growing companies, and in the top four hundred contractors listed by Engineering News-Record magazine. Build Group is extending that corporate culture to its acquisitions and growth, as well. The company has established two subcontracting firms: Pacific Structures, a structural concrete subsidiary, and Level 5, a metal stud/drywall subsidiary. In late 2016, Build Group purchased San Jose Construction to expand its presences in the South Bay Area.

“Our subcontracting businesses are out competing in the real market and are working for our competitors,” Horn says. “When working for Build Group, our subcontracting businesses can bring real competitive market pricing to our clients. To have the ability to control the project with our own employees, rather

At Gallagher Construction Services, it is no accident that construction is our middle name. Building insurance and surety programs for contractors is our specialty.

It has been our honor to have been on the ground floor representing Build Group since their inception. Congratulations to Eric Horn and the entire Build Group organization for enhancing the skyline of our west coast cities!

it!

Alamillo Rebar thanks the Build Group Team for entrusting their reinforcing steel, post-tension cable and stud rail needs to Alamillo Rebar Inc.

HANDS-ON TEAM LEADERS

Alamillo Rebar Inc. is an independently-owned and operated reinforcing steel, post-tension cable and stud rail subcontractor serving all of California. Our multiple fabrication facilities located throughout the state allow us to efficiently and effectively meet the needs of our customers such as Build Group and many others in California.

We congratulate Build Group on their accomplishments and look forward to Build Group’s continued success. alamillorebar.com

Eric Horn qualifies the success of Build Group is indeed that of a group. The original team of partners—Horn, Ross Edwards, Bob Hopper, Scott Brauninger, and David Williams—has grown to include three more: Ron Yen, Nathan Rundel, and Todd Pennington. The employee-owned company has a flat organizational structure that allows at least one principal to be involved in all projects.

than subcontractors, in an extremely tight labor market is a real tangible benefit to our clients.”

Pacific Structures, in particular, is paramount to Build Groups’ diversification plan. Major infrastructure projects in wastewater treatment, airports, tunnels, and highways will get federal funding in the near future, thereby supplying a consistent pipeline of work. The company can also create a joint venture with other firms to take advantage of the work emerging in this market sector. Horn says that proactive diversification has positioned the company to catch the next wave of success, too.

It’s a similar mentality to the basics of surfing. “When you’re in the ocean and you see the wave coming, you have to position yourself well to ride it,” says Horn. “You have to be in the right spot. The same thing holds true in business. You have the fundamentals, add your own style, ride the wave, and become a winner.”

“More importantly,” he adds, “prepare for the next one coming.”

Everyone is in One Boat at W. L. Gore & Associates

W.

L. Gore’s Mary Tilley discusses her approach to integrating business processes across a global brand while maintaining the company’s focus on empowering the individual

By GALEN BEEBE

In 1958, in the basement of a house in Delaware, Bill and Vieve Gore founded a company that manufactured wiring for the electronics industry. In 1960, the growing company built its first manufacturing plant, and by 1962, its cables were being used in the back panels of mainframe computers and orbiting Earth in the Telstar satellite. Sixty years later, W. L. Gore & Associates Inc. maintains the entrepreneurial philosophy it was built on. “We trust people, we respect them, and that means we’re going to empower them,” says Mary Tilley, enterprise services leader for the organization. No matter their role, it’s clear that everyone at Gore is on the same team.

Today, Gore is one of the two hundred largest privately held companies in the United States, manufacturing products for the medical, aerospace, automotive, and textile industries, among others. It now employs about ten thousand people— or associates, as they’re known at Gore—and operates in more than twenty-five countries.

Tilley is leading the organizational transformation to integrate processes across Gore’s businesses. As the company has grown, each business has developed its own approaches to infrastructure and support services. Within functions such as facilities or HR, these disparate approaches led to an inefficient use of resources. Historically, each business had its own design and maintenance plan for its facilities, and these plans were carried out within the business. Tilley worked with company leaders to create an integrated facilities plan that will

Mary Tilley Enterprise Services Leader

W. L. Gore & Associates

Newark, DE

Leaders take us places we’d never go alone

Throughout her career, this is what Mary Tilley has done. As a leader in engineering, operations, and human resources, Mary has applied her leadership skills to move W. L. Gore and Associates forward. To make W. L. Gore and Associates a leader in its field.

It has been our honor to work with Mary and we look forward to continuing to work with her and W. L. Gore and Associates in the future.

Mary, from your business colleagues at PwC, we wish you continued success in your career.

www.pwc.com

be managed by regional teams, allowing the company to share facilities and personnel among its sites. “We want the units to operate independently on their product and market side,” Tilley explains. “But we want them to be able to sit on a consistent platform of infrastructure that we can use more efficiently.”

Because of the organization’s focus on individuality, developing consistent processes can feel like a threat. For Tilley, who joined Gore as a process engineer in 1982, the company’s belief in the power of the individual is one of its strongest assets. She is harnessing this strength to engage associates in rethinking the company’s operations. “Throughout my career, I’ve always felt that I had a voice in the organization and I had an ability, no matter where I was, to help influence what was happening,” Tilley says. Throughout the transformation, company leaders have maintained an open dialogue with associates to discuss strategies for preserving individuality while integrating processes. “What we’re trying to do is include people in the design of that new work,” Tilley explains. “As soon as you do that, they feel empowered again.”

It’s not a simple task to create dialogue between nearly ten thousand associates. One method for gathering feedback is a yearly engagement survey. As senior leaders have increased cross-business cooperation, they have also adjusted the way they analyze survey results. Previously, business leaders analyzed results within their vertical and self-regulated based on their findings, while senior leaders focused on issues within leadership. Now, senior leaders look for opportunities to take action across the organization and use the results to guide the speed and scope of the company’s transformation.

Leaders and associates take survey feedback seriously. “Our associates are very vocal,” Tilley says. “When they’re not happy, it’s because they care a lot about the organization, and they want it to be different.” The 2017 data indicated that the company was changing too much, too fast. In response, the leadership team is clarifying its priorities

“We’re a large enterprise with nearly ten thousand people, but we are all in one boat. Any individual action that could put a hole in the boat below the water line is a concern.”

MARY TILLEY

and working to more clearly articulate these goals to the teams.

In the company’s early days, Wilbert Gore introduced the metaphor of a boat to illustrate the value of a unified organization. “We’re a large enterprise with nearly ten thousand people, but we are all in one boat,” Tilley says. “Any individual action that could put a hole in the boat below the water line is a concern.” While the company’s businesses have largely operated independently, this metaphor has prevailed through the years. The concept has two implications. First, Tilley says, it distinguishes small risks from big ones and encourages associates to take chances that won’t sink the boat. Second, it illustrates that everyone’s needs are connected and that when one business succeeds, they all succeed. “We want people to do what’s best for the whole,” Tilley says. Sometimes that means sacrificing what’s best for the individual.

Gore’s enduring cultural philosophies have been recognized beyond the company’s

walls. The organization has been featured on Fortune ’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for twenty years, making it one of only twelve companies to appear on the list every year since it was first published. In 2016, Gore achieved the number three spot on the “World’s Best Multinational Workplaces” list by the Great Place to Work Institute.

Another key value that drives Gore’s company culture is a focus on the long-term. As a privately owned company, Gore has the ability to invest in research, development, and transformations that have a long-term payoff without the pressure to uphold quarter-by-quarter results. For Tilley, this value underscores the importance of taking the time to have a dialogue and listen to associates’ concerns. “We want people to offer insights and move through this change with us,” she says. “It takes a little bit longer, but we believe that when we get there, people are with us and they’re engaged. They’re the ones who bring us forward.”

Inside Man

Faurecia’s Scott Cieslak nurtures future leaders from within the company

By BILLY YOST

Scott Cieslak CFO, Faurecia North America

Faurecia

Auburn Hills, MI

Aaron Mayberry

Early in his management career, Scott Cieslak was told that he needed to grow in his role as a team builder. It may now be his single most valuable asset. As the chief financial officer, Faurecia North America, Cieslak has devoted a substantial amount of time to developing new talent by implementing an award-winning college rotational development program and helping the company promote a culture shift toward autonomy through accountability.

Talent development, Cieslak admits, usually does not fall under the purview of the CFO, but he views himself as a business partner. “One of the key assets is our people,” Cieslak says. “If we’re going to grow as a company and set ourselves apart as an organization, we’ve got to grow and develop our assets.” Cieslak says it’s critical from a bottom-line perspective to make sure the company is as strong as its assets. If the team is strong, the numbers will reflect it. “I see myself as developing and grooming future business leaders,” he explains.

Cieslak says that his focus on talent development in finance stemmed from the automotive parts manufacturer having to focus too much on finding candidates outside of the company. “Every time someone left our organization at a plant

controller level, we were struggling to find that next generation of talent and couldn’t figure out what we were missing,” Cieslak says. “We needed to start developing and fostering that internally and not always having to reach outside.”

The answer to this problem had been in the back of Cieslak’s mind for quite some time. During his tenure at the Lear Corporation, he was made aware of that company’s prep program for college graduates. He thought Faurecia might be able to implement a similar program.

Faurecia’s Rotational Development Program (RDP) was the end result. Every six months, three candidates enter the program for four rotations in accounting and shared services, a divisional programcontrolling role, a plant-controlling role, and an international assignment. Each participant has an executive mentor who takes an active interest in their mentees because they will eventually be working in their division. It gives program participants multiple experiences in different parts of the company and builds relationships, which Cieslak says are imperative to retention. “Some of these programs struggle because you can get a handful of strong candidates, but if they don’t build a rapport or relationship with anybody, it’s hard at the end of the program for people

AN EYE ON EXPANSION

Faurecia is already a global company, with three hundred sites and thirty R&D centers in thirty-five countries, but they’ve undergone significant global expansion in recent years. The company has forged strategic alliances with automakers in China, South Korea, and Thailand, among others, and has expanded rapidly in North America since 2012.

Establishing a unified company culture was Faurecia’s key to success during the expansion, according to Cieslak. “The growth was very rapid and involved integrating people from various cultures and employment backgrounds,” he explains. “Establishing the ‘Being Faurecia’ culture allowed our company to define our core values and create a business environment that is driven by those values that works across cultures and backgrounds.”

to know who they are or where they fit,” he explains. One of the particular strengths of Faurecia’s program is that those mentormentee relationships are built early on in the experience.

The RDP for finance currently has ten participants in different stages of completion, but Cieslak says the benefits are already starting to show. The program initially had trouble finding candidates, and now it’s having to turn away applicants. Cieslak wants participants to be confident that a quality position will be waiting at the end of the program—one that will allow them to move up in the company. The program was recognized by Faurecia’s headquarters in Paris for its outstanding achievement in finance, and it has been regarded as a worldwide benchmark in talent development. The RDP in unison with a job-shadowing program and new informal mentoring gives both new hires and veterans a support system for personal evolution within Faurecia.

Although the RDP has ushered in the potential for new growth, Cieslak has also worked to reboot his team’s culture since he moved up from his position as vice president of finance for North America to his new role in 2015. Upon accepting his new title, Cieslak reviewed the assessment method for the team and worked to better define the expectations of the positions. This, in turn, would help make team members more accountable to their roles. “Once we did that, it was a bit of a step-change in mentality,” Cieslak says. “By defining what team members were supposed to do, we established the view that if you do these things, this is how you move up the career ladder.” He says that by strengthening the team’s

“There’s a bottomline responsibility but, more importantly, as a business partner, we want to be the automotive supplier to work for.”

SCOTT CIESLAK

foundation, it allows the people above them to take on those managerial and supervisory tasks that help create better leaders.

But acting as an agent of change can be tough, Cieslak admits. Trying to break old habits and encourage growth can be difficult, and Cieslak says that finding the proper balance and blend among team members who continue to look for career advancement and those who tend to value stability is a complex formula. “I think my job has been to help them expand their roles and expectations of what they can do, to show them that they can do more,” Cieslak says.

The summation of Cieslak’s leadership challenges and accomplishments can be best illustrated in recent turnover on Cieslak’s team. He successfully transitioned out five seasoned managers in the same month with no serious hiccups. “We had built a year’s worth of foundation,” Cieslak says. “The people who transitioned out were excited because now they’re advancing their career, and the team that back-filled them were now given new growth opportunities.” Cieslak has worked to establish the norm that there is opportunity to grow within Faurecia.

Cieslak’s own personal growth has been influenced by helping develop those around him. “It’s part of my role as a leader and should be the role of every leader,” Cieslak says. His motivation has moved from trying to achieve the best out of himself to trying to achieve the best with his team. “There’s a bottom-line responsibility but, more importantly, as a business partner, we want to be the automotive supplier to work for. And we want the best to work for us and stay with us.”

At Faurecia, we know that extraordinary things are possible when passionate people work together to reach a common goal. As one of the world’s largest automotive equipment suppliers with three key areas of expertise – seating, interiors and clean mobility – we are dedicated to helping our customers answer the questions about what will drive us in the future. Our solutions are inspired mobility. www.faurecia.com

Profile works with talented executives every day. In fact, it’s our mission to recognize, promote, and develop great executives across all industries. Similarly, these four companies work with executives across all industries to help their respective companies succeed, whether that’s through talent management, sales training, or a holistic approach to strategic planning. So, it’s only natural that we highlight these true business partners. After all, they are, perhaps, our kindred spirits: executives helping executives.

details how first-class sales education and training can change the future of sales—and why his organization can help others find success

By Adam Kivel

Victory Lap founder and CEO Brian Bar

Photo by Caleb Fox

Chicago, IL

Brian Bar Founder, CEO

Victory Lap

Frequently, sales is something that people simply “fall into.” Even among stories told by individuals with prominent positions in successful sales departments around the world, many salespeople started that path on a whim. It’s unfortunate, but sales is often considered just a job, not a career. Brian Bar and Victory Lap are hoping to change that.

Bar himself leveraged early roles in sales and business development toward a satisfying career. As head of sales onboarding at Groupon, Bar created a sales onboarding program for the Internet coupon organization. The project proved to be successful and was eventually scaled to train, develop, and strategically onboard more than four hundred sales reps and seven sales managers in his tenure, resulting in a major strategic and financial benefit to the organization.

That experience proved to Bar the impact that a properly trained and educated sales force could have on organizations—as well as the effect it could have on the individuals. “Sales, when viewed as a career, is a pathway to personal and professional success, enjoyment, and fulfillment,” he says. To instill potential salespeople with that belief, Bar founded Victory Lap, an organization that provides tuition-free education and training to prepare individuals for successful careers in sales.

Bar spoke with Profile about the mission that guides the organization, why each sales job is different, and the impact that Victory Lap-educated salespeople can make on an organization.

What kind of needs can Victory Lap fulfill for other companies?

Companies are able to tap into a significantly higher-quality talent pool, and candidates have the skills and confidence to succeed in their next role. So, when you put it together, Victory Lap is curating, training, developing, and connecting high-quality people with the right companies. It’s not difficult to hire a salesperson, but it’s really difficult to hire great ones, which is a problem that impacts a company’s success and sometimes survival. If you can’t sell and grow revenues, you don’t have a business.

I’ve personally lived that pain point: you make bad hires, or you work really hard to try and develop those who weren’t performing to a certain level. No matter how much time and effort you put in, it rarely works out. That’s not only painful, but it’s also extremely costly, both culturally and financially for organizations. The need we fill is access to a higher-quality sales talent pool. This pool is a constant streaming flow of candidates, so you’re able to hire better talent faster.

Was experiencing that pain point the genesis of the idea for the organization?

Yes. The epiphany was that a large part of the problem can be solved through high-quality education. When I was at Groupon, we were hiring hundreds of salespeople each year from across the country. Most of them were recent graduates and came into the role unqualified, unprepared, and uncertain. Shouldering that burden while taking the time to invest and get people up to speed was pretty difficult. It’s worse for the candidates, too. Imagine going into a job and never being taught, trained, or exposed to how this job was supposed to be done the right way.

That, to me, was the biggest concern I saw, so I wanted to build something that was able to educate people and make them more aware, confident, and skilled going into this role. The mission behind Victory Lap was to have more people achieve success sooner in their careers. If you’re struggling to find that right fit and you’re bouncing around from job to job, it often takes quite a while to find your footing—if you ever do. That exposure to hundreds of entry-level sales reps and thousands of training and coaching hours was the genesis: witnessing their struggles and wanting to help them be more prepared. It just so happens I can do that really well.

I find it really interesting how focused you are on the word career; a lot of people take on sales jobs as a stepping stone. Focusing immediately on sales as a potential career seems like a really key differentiator. You nailed it. Sales is a default career, and it’s been this way for a while. Due to the lack of exposure in academia, too many people go into sales only when they can’t get the job they want. You’re typically pushed into the role because someone says you could be good at it, like it’s in your blood or something. What people fail to realize is that sales is actually a phenomenal career and that it can be taught. I was a history major, and I got into sales because that was the only type of job I could get. There is a lot of consensus that sales is a human skill, and no matter what our career, we need to know how to do it. So, sales professionals come from all walks of life and majors. It doesn’t hurt that you’re making more money than your peers who go into other jobs.

When you speak to an employer about what a Victory Lap candidate can offer, is there a way that you define how that person will help the company?

Hiring salespeople is really difficult—not only because there are people who want to do it and don’t have the skills, but also because there are individuals who don’t have the skills to be successful in a specific organization. Someone could work for one company and be terrible and then go somewhere else and be extremely successful. There aren’t many career paths that are like that.

When someone comes into Victory Lap, they are not ideal sales candidates for everybody. However, they are candidates who have connected the dots that sales could be a meaningful career. That’s important because when they go through Victory Lap, they’re going to be even more excited to pursue this path. These are high-integrity folks, and they’ve demonstrated sacrifice, discipline, and success in their past, which are all things that we vet for. If these people have the right character, I can teach them sales.

What can having the right salespeople do for an organization?

Financial, cultural, and long-term growth: those are the big three. Beyond the crucial financial benefits, there are also huge cultural and recruitment costs around high turnover. Eventually, that’s going to catch up to you from a recruitment standpoint because you’re now going to be known as this place where people go and don’t plan on staying.

In addition to working to find the right candidates, how closely do you work with the companies at which you’re placing them?

We serve two customers: candidates and employers. So, we work closely with employers to ensure they are hiring the right person. There are things that are fundamental to companies making the right sales hire, and we do a good job of identifying those and serving up the proper talent. It’s been a very effective model; we’ve spent two weeks with these individuals, while a company might spend only a few hours with them in an interview. So, not only can we make really good recommendations, but every month our class is pumping out new individuals who are excited, skilled, and ready to go into a sales role across a variety of different industries. To have this talent served up on a platter for organizations is a huge value-add. We also consult with companies, helping them build these internal tools to scale their team-building efforts. Organizations will look to us on all things hiring, training, and onboarding for their sales teams. Also, sales management training has been an area where we’ve seen a lot of interest, so we will be helping companies in this area, as well.

The program is free for potential salespeople and generally seems driven by a powerful mission: the betterment of businesses and better careers for individuals. How important was it to you personally to have that mission driving the focus of the organization and how do you see that as a success factor?

Our goal is to create a platform where anyone who is willing to work at it will have an opportunity to get world-class development in the sales career path. Our curriculum is world-class, and I want this to be available for both individuals with an Ivy League degree and those without a degree. Since it’s not covered in K–12 or higher education, no matter your background, there’s somewhat of an even playing field to start on when pursuing sales. That’s powerful, and I think it’s a tremendous way to create one of the most inclusive professional communities in the world. I don’t know many careers in which that could be the case, and we think a lot of people could benefit from that. For us, it goes back to your integrity, character, and drive that will lead to your success, and we want to help those people achieve it faster. The Victory Lap alumni network is already very diverse and resembles this, and it’s something we’re really proud of.

“We are passionate about helping individuals and companies be successful, and we know that a diverse team is a successful team.”

Brian Bar

Having free education open to all must lead to a diverse group of candidates. Does diversity have an impact on sales? Having more unique viewpoints involved surely adds value.

Yes. That goes back to our mission making sure that we’re exposing people to a different candidate than they’re used to seeing. Of all of our cohorts to date, we’ve made it a mission to put diversity at the top of mind. Because of that, 51 percent of our alumni would be a diverse hire for companies. We are passionate about helping individuals and companies be successful, and we know that a diverse team is a successful team.

By Adam Kivel

CEO Rom LaPointe and Execution Maximizer’s expert team of Advisors explain how executives can reach unforeseen success

Photos by Chuk Nowak

Rom LaPointe CEO Execution Maximizer

No matter how successful, every organization has goals they’re trying to reach, processes that need some reworking, and issues to clear up; continuous improvement is the name of the game. But even the brightest minds can struggle to implement big ideas across an organization and achieve those goals. Luckily, that’s where Execution Maximizer (EM) enters, ready with an EM Roadmap to guide executives to success.

Jim Alampi founded EM in 2009 with the goal of helping CEOs realize their vision and produce results through a process that’s focused on execution. This led to the development of the Execution Roadmap, which focuses on developing a clear vision shared by the executive team and the entire company, including core values, purpose, mission, a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal,” and SWOT (or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). These are mapped out over three-year focus areas, one-year initiatives, and ninety-day tactical priorities. The key, Alampi explains, is that improvement is possible through clear, cohesive planning and organizational alignment. “The barriers to profitable growth are amazingly predictable and transcend industries and types,” he says. “The process is simple, though not easy to execute, and the CEO is the key.”

The Execution Roadmap aids CEOs in aligning their organizations and producing the needed improvements in execution. However, to ensure that EM can make that impact, the organization focuses just as much on their own EM Advisors as their clients. “To really work on the issues that will make our clients successful, we believe that they benefit from advisors who have the insights and tools required for success,” says Rom LaPointe, EM’s CEO. “EM Advisors offer the highest level of one-onone, focused, and company-relevant advice available.”

That advantage comes from the fact that EM Advisors have worked with a variety of leaders and can apply the valuable insights that they’ve gained throughout that time and in their own careers in business leadership. They also function as a community, sharing insight with each other to create the best possible pool of knowledge and receiving the highest-quality support, which provides even greater benefit for the organizations EM Advisors work with.

“I have the opportunity to help companies achieve what they want to achieve and, at the end of the day, become a better company,” says Jeffrey Kimball, one of the organization’s advisors. As a former CEO himself, Kimball was able to see firsthand the impact EM can make. After working to implement a Roadmap, the longterm commitment led to common tools, language, and goals across the company, as well as measurable results. The organization saw a three-times return due to EM’s ability to help them focus on excellent execution. Kimball was so impressed that he joined EM as an Advisor in 2012, deploying the process for sixteen of his own

clients. “I used the process in my company and got tremendous value out of it,” Kimball says. “So when I tell people that story, they want to try to bring that into their organization.”

Simply put, EM Advisors are driven by a passion for business and for ensuring that their clients can achieve their goals. “I love working with businesspeople,” says John Howman, an EM Advisor, entrepreneur, consultant, and former chairman and CEO of technology and science organizations. “When I was twelve, I got Lee Iacocca’s autograph, not Ernie Banks’s.” Candidates with C-suite experience are selected to become certified EM Advisors, a valuable signifier that showcases that they are more than facilitators or coaches. Instead, they are trusted advisors capable of working with C-suite clients because of shared experience. Once executives become EM Advisors, they gain access to insight sessions, conference calls, and an EM Advisor Success Portal, a web of support and tools that they can use to ensure they’re always delivering the best-quality guidance to clients.

EM Advisors are able to provide an outsider’s perspective paired with expert understanding, a muchneeded combination for companies that can be too locked into their own processes. “There’s real value to having an external facilitator or business advisor bring

“I have the opportunity to help companies achieve what they want to achieve and, at the end of the day, become a better company.”

Jeffrey Kimball

an outside perspective to the table and shine a light on the fact that they might have been too internally focused,” Howman says. EM can also provide the precise perspective needed for each unique organization as its team of advisors represents leadership experience and expertise in a wide variety of subjects. Howman also notes that when he begins working with clients, he starts off by engaging in 360-degree surveys to assess where the client’s organizational strategy stands. “I use the CEO’s answer as the baseline, and it would be amazing if more than 25 percent of the time I see significant alignment among the leadership team,” Howman says. By working with EM, organizations can work to bring the entire company together under a single vision.

Often, that vision comes from a financial focus. However, the desired outcome of working with EM isn’t always tied to a dollar amount; others rely on the EM Roadmap to clarify operations and processes and to unify culture. “Because we focus on execution, we know that there have to be ways of measuring the impact of our work with CEOs,” LaPointe says. “That impact will often be tied to a dollar figure but will always entail some measurable result.” Whatever unique challenges and goals an organization might have ahead of it, EM has the right Advisor to help guide the way—and a Roadmap to make it all possible.

By Joe Dixon

Marty Collins believes in giving business leaders the gift of time, and closing quickly enables that

Photo by Marc Olivier Le Blanc

Marty Collins SVP, Corporate Development, Legal, and Compliance

Foster City, IA

“Always be closing.” The play and subsequent hit movie Glengary Glen Ross made this advice legendary, but Marty Collins would add an addendum to it: “Give the other guy two choices, and try to close by version three.”

Collins—the senior vice president corporate development, legal, and compliance at QuinStreet—credits his mentors at law firm Mayer Brown for ingraining the mind-set that morphed into these principles over time.

That time began with a ten-year stint at Mayer Brown’s New York office followed by cofounding the firm’s Palo Alto, California, office. Collins then became vice president and associate general counsel at Oracle, general counsel at Novellus, and then vice president of corporate development for Bloom Energy.

“The biggest gift you can give someone is the gift of time,” Collins says. “That includes not wasting their time, which, in turn, means understanding what they want and need.”

Collins believes this is simple, though not always easy. A critical component to swift decision making is being able to boil down any issue to its essence and to present decision makers with two clear choices to pick from, Collins says.

What mistakes do you see leaders make in their decision-making processes?

As information is transmitted, some is inevitably lost. This is particularly true with assumptions; embedded assumptions can be all but invisible. So the keys include getting recommendations from those closest to the facts and minimizing information loss.

I am particularly keen to spot reasonable, but possibly invalid, assumptions. One way I try to surface those is by encouraging everyone in the decision-making process to provide two alternative recommendations with accompanying risks and mitigations for each.

How does this relate to “closing on version three?”

Suppose someone comes to you, perhaps brimming with excitement, about a new business opportunity. They have lots of preferences, but maybe they have not thought through all of the implications, whether for themselves or the counterparty.

One thing you could do is write up those preferences and throw them over the wall; let the counterparty be responsible for sorting out its preferences, as well as divining why you have yours.

But that’s actually pretty inconsiderate because you’re wasting everyone’s time. Instead, invest time in being clear about your preferences and the underlying assumptions, and also make clear, identifiable assumptions about what you think the counterparty wants and needs. You might be incorrect, but at least it will appear you care—and you should. Send that, and call it version one.

With a little luck or karma, they’ll counter in kind; call that version two. Then, get on the phone (three emails means it’s time for a call anyway) and negotiate the differences. Flip a coin to see who writes up the result, and call that version three. Then, everyone agrees to this version and goes on to the next matter (or home to their families or hobbies, as they wish).

You also say, “Never solve a problem you can avoid.” How does that relate to decision making?

A couple of years ago, a federal agency appeared interested in learning more about QuinStreet’s performance marketing industry. Many industry participants believed that the government was not there to help. Instead, education would be the first step toward investigation and potential liability. I went to our CEO and said, “Look, here are the risks and mitigations of engaging or not. And by engaging we’ll be an outlier.” We discussed it, including with our board members, and ultimately decided to take the government’s inquiries at face value and to use our experience and expertise to explain a complex series of technical, commercial, and sociological issues. We ended up spending more than eighteen months doing that—while still doing our day jobs. The education process became mutual, and as a result, we’ve developed industry standards. We could have taken a pass and hoped nothing came of it, but neither hope nor luck are strategies. In my view, once you detect an issue, you may as well start working on it. With a little empathy and candor, you can frequently resolve it sooner using fewer calories.

How can you be sure you’re making the right decision?

When you work with engineers, you quickly learn to stop saying you’re sure about anything. You might be 75 percent confident on a good day or 95 percent confident on a great one. But all good decisions start with the facts. John Adams once observed, “Facts are stubborn things.” By getting the folks closest to the facts to make those clear, with alternative recommendations and by outlining risks and mitigations, you’re on the road to optimal decision making—a road where the assumptions and obstacles are clear or at least detectable. And if, while on that road, the facts make you start to change your mind, that’s fine; changing course is a hallmark of leadership.

Why is it important to offer two alternatives?

Most people don’t like to be told exactly what to do. “Eat your peas” just feels worse than “Please eat either the peas or carrots.”

Two alternatives also force a comparison. And when a comparison is accompanied by risks and mitigations, you can usually recognize where ego, assumptions, or other nonfactual components might have informed the analysis.

Although more than two alternatives are sometimes warranted, two alternatives will suffice in most cases. Multiple alternatives can not only paralyze the decider, but they can also let the recommender—the person closest to the facts—off the hook. If you can’t narrow it down to Plan A versus Plan B, you probably don’t understand the problem you’re trying to solve. And if you really want to help save time, especially for busy C-level executives, it’d be great if you could get those alternative plans down to one page, slide, or graphic.

“If you can’t narrow it down to Plan A versus Plan B, you probably don’t understand the problem you’re trying to solve.”

Marty Collins

How does all this apply to QuinStreet’s performance marketing business?

Performance marketing is all about turning data into information. We’ve been A/B testing campaigns and analyzing the results for almost two decades. So we’ve developed some very powerful insights across multiple client verticals; numbers rarely lie. We tend to work well with industry participants who believe in math.

How do you engage with someone who isn’t used to this type of decision making?

Someone not used to fact-based decision-making? To paraphrase Charles Darwin, I think it would be unlikely that such people would be commercially or otherwise important, let alone happy.

More seriously, anyone, at any level, can help their colleagues, clients, and managers by distilling their knowledge into two alternative recommendations and being clear about the risks and mitigations of each. And it’s OK to highlight which one you’d pick if it were up to you. Do that often enough, and you’ll probably get to decide bigger things.

If not, it’s OK to move on. Life is short enough as it is.

As Anthony Perrone’s career grew from construction management to talent management, the only constant was change

By Galen Beebe

Construction management and talent management might not seem to have much overlap. They serve different functions, address different needs, and interact with different parts of an organization.

But for Anthony Perrone—head of global talent management, executive/leadership development, and diversity at process transformation company Sutherland Global—they originate from the same drive: the passion to transform. “I might not be constructing a building, but I am developing organizational processes and capabilities from the ground up,” Perrone says. “I’m transforming the talent landscape for organizations so that business strategies become a reality.”

Perrone began his career as a buildings systems representative with Simplex Time Recorder after earning a bachelor’s degree in construction management from Utica College at Syracuse University. Although he wasn’t in a human resources role, he was always drawn to the human side of the business. “The construction management industry provided me the technical or mechanical side of change,” he says. “But I still had this unfulfilled need for the people side of change.”

While at Simplex, Perrone earned a master’s degree in organization management. He applied his academic knowledge to his work by creating a centralized customer service provider group that served New York State. “A lot of that was born out of listening to customers and the problems that they were having with Simplex at the time with regard to customer service,” Perrone says. By revamping the organizational design, Perrone created a more cost-efficient process, reorganizing the human components to solve a business challenge.

After completing his master’s degree, Perrone joined Forbes Magazine as its human resources business manager. Because Forbes had a small HR function, Perrone was able to operate in both business management and HR management for the advertising department. Over time, he began to specialize in learning and talent management, applying the approach he used at Simplex to redesign human workflow and organization to address a company’s strategic vision.

At Sutherland, Perrone had the opportunity to transform a talent management function on a global scale. Sutherland was founded in 1986 as a business process consulting firm, at a time when many US-based companies were first transferring customer service work offshore. Over time, the company began operating internal support functions for its clients, expanding from a business-to-consumer company to encompassing business-to-business functions as well. It continued to experience rapid growth and now assists clients in transformational process and product design at its labs in San Francisco and London.

To achieve this mission, Sutherland’s talent management strategy will utilize the company’s strength in business process management to improve on its business

Anthony Perrone Head Of Global Talent Management, Executive/ Leadership Development, and Diversity

Sutherland Global Rochester, NY

innovation capability. Perrone, in turn, works closely with Sutherland’s senior executive team to determine the capabilities needed to execute the company’s strategy and where those capabilities can be found or developed. In this digital marketplace, Perrone’s view is that talent management is a strategic positioner for the company— future-proofing the business by focusing on releasing the power of its existing talent and optimizing how it is best deployed, nurtured, and encouraged to perform.

Providing innovative solutions requires not only a different approach to talent but different skills as well. As artificial intelligence replaces humans in transacting and monitoring processes, employees have to determine what skills they need to fit into the new landscape, and organizations have to determine a pathway to building or buying those skills. “It’s about understanding what the future context could be and then reshaping people’s capabilities and experiences around that new world,” Perrone says. “We have an obligation to help our employees see where the organization is going, understand the kind of capabilities that we’re going to need, and give them the opportunities to be able to reach

DEVELOP MASTERFUL LEADERS

BUILD HIGH IMPACT TEAMS

Centauric salutes Tony Perrone –A professional with intellect and heart who brings out the best in others and gets things done. centauric.com SO DO WE

“We have an obligation to help our employees see where

the

organization is going, understand the kind of capabilities that we’re going to need, and give them the opportunities to be able to reach that potential.”

Anthony Perrone

that potential.” At the same time, the organization needs to be attractive to emerging talent. “This is our path to developing a tech-savvy, globally dispersed organization that aligns with its employees’ life interests,” he explains. Changing technologies impact the way people develop skills in addition to changing the skills they need to be successful on the job. The traditional view of learning and development centers on an individual providing training to another individual, whether that’s in a classroom setting or through remote technology. But this approach doesn’t match how individuals learn outside of the office, where learning is delivered based on an individual’s question in that given moment. In a corporate structure, that might manifest in on-demand lectures or injecting information into an organization’s social network and allowing subject matter experts to provide information to their peers. This changes the role of talent managers. “We’re now the curators of content as opposed to being the disseminators of content,” Perrone says. “You should be able to provide a lot of different ways for people to gain access to knowledge and information and participate in the learning process.”

While some might fear that machines will entirely replace humans, Perrone’s fear is that businesses and employees will not adapt quickly enough to the changing reality. As always, he looks forward to the next transformation. “Participate, and be the change,” he says. “Otherwise, you’re going to be left behind.”

Centauric: A powerful team of leading-edge behavioral scientists and business people with senior advisory experience. We bring exceptional expertise and an extensive toolkit to bear on leadership challenges requiring carefully tailored solutions and a resolute focus on outcomes. Executive assessment / Leader development / Team alignment / Organization refinement (centauric.com)

CULTURE

Empathy is Appreciated, but Altruism is Crucial

Mia Mulrennan uses her background in psychology to infuse new life into company cultures

By JOSEPH KAY

As a human resources executive, speaker, author, consultant, and award-winning Georgetown instructor, Mia Mulrennan reminds corporate leaders that a brand experience isn’t just for clients and retail; it speaks to employees and job-seekers, too. This means companies need to value and develop that intersection between brand and culture if they are going to be successful. But many companies don’t know where to begin when revamping their office environments. “Your culture already exists, whether you decide to build it or not,” she says.

As Mulrennan transforms workplace cultures and crafts brand experiences, she often hears from executives who worry about how social media platforms such as Glassdoor can broadcast indictments and critiques of their workplaces. She counters that that reaction is already an indication that the culture is operating from a place of fear and insecurity when it ought to rest on three critical principles: intelligence, intention, and integrity. Wherever she has worked, Mulrennan thrives at assessing a company’s current state, setting goals, and implementing solutions—all guided by these principles and her training in clinical psychology. Mulrennan holds a doctor of psychology degree from the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology. “I was really drawn to the question, ‘What makes somebody really effective?’” Mulrennan says. “Later on, it led to my asking, ‘What makes some people great with customers and others not great at all?’”

She has seen many examples of this disparity throughout her career. While working at the Whitney Hotel in Minneapolis, Mulrennan watched two of her front-desk colleagues field a guest’s complaint. She remembers that one of them was a gifted, reliably excellent customer service professional, while the other often blundered. As they struggled to reach a solution, Mulrennan wondered what factors made one so effective and the other employee rather hapless. From there, she asked herself how those factors might be measured, and then she asked how she might screen for them, train for them, and ultimately guide the way that organizations think about the customer service process. Her academic training helped lead her to one key insight: empathy is appreciated, but altruism is crucial.

Conventional wisdom held that an individual’s empathy was the major factor of their effectiveness in a customer-facing role. “My research has shown that many people—in fact, most people—are capable of experiencing empathy,” Mulrennan says. So this formulation had to be incomplete: most people are capable of empathy, but a much smaller percentage of those people are excellent customer service candidates. The difference was altruism, the psychological dimension governing selfless action. That’s the difference between feeling sad at a blackand-white ASPCA television spot featuring abused animals and picking up the phone to donate, she says.

“If you are an altruistic person, you define your job as meaningful because you get to help people, and you define yourself as a great employee because you do help

“You might have an organization that wants to focus on diversity and inclusion strategic initiatives, but in the meantime, the company is treating women differently.”

MIA MULRENNAN

people. That’s a factor that will make you fabulous with customers,” Mulrennan says. One of the eventual products of this research was the Rave-Worthy Five-Factor Survey, a twenty-five question battery for customer service professionals and applicants that she developed in collaboration with more than two hundred customer-oriented organizations.

Now, she defines her approach around a balance between the scientific and artful dimensions of human resources and brand transformation.

“Whenever you’re working with people, it’s complex, unpredictable, and individualistic. The art component of that happens naturally: it’s an art to be able to make sure an individual is engaged, motivated, and has a sense of belonging,” she explains. “The science is making sure you have a foundation of research, understanding what you’re selecting for and that you have valid and repeatable processes at every level.”

Mulrennan gives credit to many of her teachers for encouraging her to invest in her education, which paved the way for her accomplished career. As an only child of a single mother in Queens, New York, she looked to her educators for stability, example, and the affirmation of her own potential. Eventually, Mulrennan worked all through her undergraduate and master’s programs, taking classes at night over nine years, never attending college full-time until her doctoral program.

“My proudest accomplishment is to have gone through and succeeded in my educational goals,” Mulrennan says. “Doing that was my biggest accomplishment, regardless of all my career achievements. I’ve worked hard and had a job from fourteen years old, and it wasn’t always easy.”

She also considers her background a great asset in weighing issues of diversity and inclusion.

Just like she intuited the distinction between empathy and altruism in the Whitney Hotel lobby, Mulrennan detects subtle distinctions in approaches to organizational diversity and inclusion. Because these are hot topics, she often finds herself counseling leaders who are excited to get out on the cutting edge of a trend, but they haven’t invested in the relevant fundamentals. Mulrennan also encounters executives who are enthusiastic about trendy HR initiatives but fail to survey the relevant blind spots of their company culture.

“You might have an organization that wants to focus on diversity and inclusion

“Diversity and inclusion are two different things . . . In order to have diversity in your organization, you need to be someone who is inclusive.”

MIA MULRENNAN

strategic initiatives, but in the meantime, the company is treating women differently. They’re not starting with that basic component,” she says. Mulrennan says that when working with an organization, it’s important to assess it on a case-by-case basis and tailor solutions to fit specific needs.

Mulrennan emphasizes the difference between diversity and inclusion, a nuance many companies don’t fully grasp, she says. “Diversity and inclusion are two different things,” she says. “Diversity is a noun. Do you have diversity in your organization? But include is a verb. In order to have diversity in your organization, you need to be someone who is inclusive.”

When it comes to defining her own brand experience, Mulrennan returns to those three I-words: intelligence, integrity, and intention, and it affirms her own dedication to a sense of harmony. The leader she wants to be is focused and efficient, yet warm and gracious, always intentional, and measurably effective. Throughout her career, Mulrennan has heard herself described as all of the above. Developing herself as an educator, author, researcher, speaker, and thought leader, always weighing the art as much as the science—that takes balance.

Driving Growth through Accountability

With the help of Partners in Leadership, Redstone Federal Credit Union has rolled out an ambitious new process to transform company culture

By LORI FREDRICKSON

In 2011, Redstone Federal Credit Union (RFCU) was a well-recognized, highly successful financial institution.

The credit union had met results in every metric it had measured, and had also been consistently growing in membership, with an average of one thousand new members each month. But when some of its surveys began to identify issues with departments operating in silos rather than collaborating, RFCU decided to tackle that cultural problem head-on.

RFCU president and CEO Joe Newberry and senior assistant vice president of culture and leadership development Kathy Neyman chose the Partners in Leadership model in part because it aligned with the existing culture program RFCU used, Strength Philosophy, which focused on identifying employee talents and behavior. Realizing that the Partners in Leadership process offered multiple programs that focused on accountability as well as engagement, they decided that this would be a perfect fit with their core values.

The result was an ambitious, immersive five-year training process created in collaboration with Partners in Leadership. The training tackles culture from every level through hundreds of workshops across a multitier process, and it has since propelled the company to new heights. “Over the past three years, not only are we hitting every goal, but we’re also hitting them at triple the rate, and we’re hitting them early,” Neyman says.

The RFCU team knew that they wanted to go all-in with the process, so they structured a five-year plan across three programs: Accountability Builder (taking personal accountability), Leadership Builder (holding others accountable), and Lead Culture (culture transformation). The programs would be rolled out in cascading phases, starting with management, followed by supervisors, and then all staff employees.

Because the team felt strongly that it was important for employees to see that their senior management was equally focused on building a more cohesive team, they decided to kick off the project with a symbolic gesture. They came up with an idea for a ceremony titled Bury the Hatchet, in which senior management members all wrote down any negative experiences they’d had in the past on hatchet-shaped cards of paper and then came together to bury them in a hole on the company’s grounds. “This was symbolic in a

CONGRATULATIONS!

Ruby Award Winner

way that clearly communicates to others that we are serious about living the belief of building bridges,” Neyman explains.

The first Partners in Leadership process was implemented for management and supervisors in 2011, with all staff members included by the end of 2013. During each of those phases, Neyman conducted about seventy eight-hour workshops with members of the executive team, incorporating feedback as they received it. In total, accountability and culture training was rolled out to 850 employees across twenty-four branches.

As the workshops took hold, there were immediate results. Within six months, an improvement assessment through Partners in Leadership’s scoring metric was conducted. Growth was reaching some of RCFU’s top levels, many related to crossfunctionality. One key aspect involved communications between direct retail staff and support staff who, as they were working with

back-office functions, often weren’t aware of how they impacted the member experience. Employees from both staffs now make a point of regularly collaborating and sharing info to clarify the roles they each play in supporting a common goal. “We have come light-years from where we were two years ago,” Neyman says.

RFCU has also received a larger amount of feedback on processes needing improvement from members of the company, as well as more proactive engagement from the bottom up. From management, there has been improvement in team building, with leaders looking not only to others who share similar workplace processes, but also to those who might add different opinions and feedback. And where members at various levels of

Congratulations to Redstone Federal Credit Union on winning the Ruby Award at the 2017 Ozzies! Ruby is the highest award bestowed at the annual Accountability+ Plus event, which recognizes Excellence in Accountability, Leadership, and Culture.

Joe Newberry President,CEO

Redstone Federal Credit Union Huntsville, AL

Jeff White

Kathy Neyman Senior Assistant VP, Culture and Leadership Development

Federal Credit Union

management used to tackle projects within their own departments, they now look to other areas of leadership to see where that project might impact other areas of the company. “This has helped us to alleviate issues before they come up,” Newberry says.

Of the workshops they’ve held, one that they found to be most powerful is called Focused Storytelling, in which employees share their experiences with other members and also post them to the company’s website. Neyman recalls one story that touched her most, from a teller at one of RFCU’s smaller branches. When that teller overheard a conversation between one of the bank members and her young daughter and learned that the mother hadn’t been able to give her child lunch money that day because she had run short on cash, the teller asked fellow employees

for donations and then gave that money to that child’s school to cover her lunches for the rest of the year.

“These are the stories that we hear every day from the staff of the credit union: what we do for each other, what we do for our community, and what we do for others,” Neyman says. “That is one of the things that I think has real quality and has taken us to the next level.”

And sharing those stories, Newberry says, allows synergy to take place throughout the company. “Storytelling is one of the most powerful things that someone can do to describe their experiences,” he says. “That reinforces the culture that you’re trying to build.”

Another benefit RFCU has seen is that its reputation has grown as an employer of choice, further proving how well its focus

on culture has worked. Plans are being considered for rolling out a new five-year phase of the process to be completed in 2022, and work is being done to engage employees in community programs and local education partnerships throughout areas of service in Alabama. The tremendous success and ongoing commitment to culture hasn’t only been recognized internally; RFCU recently received the Partners In Leadership prestigious 2017 Ozzie Overall Ruby Award for excellence in accountability, leadership, and culture.

“If the world would use the models and concepts of Partners In Leadership, I truly believe the world would be a better place,” Neyman says. “If you work with your people and they know that you care about them, they’re going to do whatever they need to do to achieve results.”

Redstone

Huntsville, AL

Jeff White

The New Face of Chain Dining

Scratch food, craft cocktails, and plenty of arcade games: Punch Bowl Social’s Robert LeBoeuf outlines the company’s thoughtful, millennial-friendly design

By RANDALL COLBURN

For Robert LeBoeuf, the story of Punch Bowl Social is the story of its founder and CEO, Robert Thompson. When LeBoeuf first encountered Thompson and Punch Bowl Social—an “eater-tainment” concept that pairs a scratch kitchen and craft beverages with games and social activities such as bowling, vintage video games, and more—it was just an introductory meeting.

“It was supposed to be a two-hour meeting on a Friday afternoon, and before we knew it, it was evening,” he remembers. “A second meeting led me to seriously consider joining the Punch Bowl Social team. After spending time with Robert, it was clear to me that this would be a significant and career-changing opportunity.”

Before that meeting, LeBoeuf had logged twenty-seven years with Ruby Tuesday. His long tenure with the restaurant chain ended when a change in leadership led to sizable turnover in management, which included founder and long-time CEO Sandy Beall stepping down in 2012. LeBoeuf is inspired by entrepreneurs like Beall—leaders with vision who operate with integrity and high standards. That’s why he spent a few years working directly with CEOs as a consultant. It was Robert Thompson, however, who brought LeBoeuf back into the restaurant game in November 2015. At Punch Bowl Social, he now serves as the chief people and operations strategy officer.

LeBoeuf emphasizes how special it is to be part of an organization that’s led and driven by its founder. “The DNA of this concept comes from the heart and the head and the experiences of its founder,” he says. “Robert Thompson did the research, put in the time. He tried numerous other business models before finally landing on what is now Punch Bowl Social.”

Punch Bowl Social is certainly an extraordinary entity. Sure, there’s an abundance of “barcades” out there, and there’s most certainly a deluge of establishments that pair dining options with

Robert LeBoeuf Chief People & Operations Strategy Officer

Punch Bowl Social Denver, CO

activities such as bowling, shuffleboard, and video games. But LeBoeuf says that Punch Bowl Social’s remarkably balanced execution of the eat, drink, play concept is what makes it stand out.

The food, for example, is a cut above other establishments of its kind. Celebrity chef Hugh Acheson—a James Beard award winner and Top Chef judge— leads the culinary direction of the rapidly expanding brand by developing the menu and lending a soulful, Southern interpretation to its dishes. Acheson’s expertise and careful attention to detail is evident throughout the dining experience. Similarly, the bar serves the kind of craft cocktails, milkshakes, and craft beer you’d find in a big city hot spot. You can order all of it in the dining room or while you’re bowling, playing pinball, or dominating on a foosball table. All of it is set against a backdrop that derives its style from industrial, Victorian, and midcentury modern motifs, which Thompson dubs “dirty modern.”

Other attributes that appealed to LeBoeuf include the restaurant’s use of postconsumer, recycled goods, 100 percent biodegradable takeout supplies, and local sourcing.

According to LeBoeuf, all these factors combine to attract Punch Bowl Social’s target demographic: the millennial. This doesn’t just mean customers; it also means attracting the best staff. LeBoeuf says Punch Bowl is planning to grow by five

EXPANSION PLAN

There are currently nine Punch Bowl Social restaurants open across the country, and the company is primed for expansion. LeBoeuf says there will be twelve Punch Bowl Social locations by the end of 2017 and a total of eighteen by the end of 2018. Despite the fact that it’s a chain establishment, each Punch Bowl Social will carry local products, from locally brewed beers to locally made hot sauces. The company even plans to sell goods from neighborhood bakers and confectionaries in its dining rooms.

to six restaurants a year, and with the company expanding, it is currently looking to grow its team. When looking for potential team members, LeBoeuf says it all comes down to values.

“Robert has been called the millennial whisperer—and for good reason,” he says. “He really understands what this demographic is looking for and how best to execute a plan to meet those needs. That same level of understanding drives how and who we hire, allowing us to pull together a team that truly believes in the brand and is excited to grow alongside Punch Bowl Social. Obviously, it’s very exciting for me to be involved in this remarkable opportunity and to work with a strategic visionary such as Robert.”

It was Robert Thompson, after all, that brought LeBoeuf to the company. And now, after more than year and a half there, he finds himself continually impressed with the founder’s steadfast leadership. “He will not compromise his standards or lower his expectations,” he says. “He’s set a high bar, and I have no doubt that this is what is driving much of the brand’s success. It really is a modern success story.”

Moreover, he thinks Punch Bowl Social is just plain cool. “I have seven kids, and they think Punch Bowl is the coolest thing they’ve ever seen,” he says. “So not only do I get to work in a position that offers tremendous opportunity and career growth, but, for what may be the first and only time in my career, it’s left my kids completely awestruck.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Aramark Uniform Services helps Punch Bowl Social create an “eatertainment” atmosphere for its patrons to enjoy. We deliver freshly laundered towels, aprons, floor mats, and table linens so Punch Bowl can look its best and serve up an exceptional customer experience. With more locations on the way, we congratulate Punch Bowl Social on its continued success and share in its excitement for the future. Our dedication to serving our clients with quality products and services is another way we help enrich and nourish lives every day.

Empowered to Evolve

How Rexnord Corporation’s Rexnord Business System lets the 125-year-old company continuously improve

By BILLY YOST

James Schnepf

George Powers CHRO

Rexnord

Milwaukee, WI

OOne hundred twenty-five years is far beyond the average lifespan of a company. So how has an industrial supply company that made its public debut the same year as the Pledge of Allegiance managed to remain vital, boasting a global presence with eight thousand employees worldwide?

According to chief human resources officer George Powers, Rexnord Corporation’s relentless commitment to continuous growth and an engaged workforce has enabled the company to outlast its competitors and venture into new markets. Grounded in the “spirit of continuous improvement,” the company’s own Rexnord Business System (RBS) provides a framework and growth model that not only lends itself to scalability and continuous growth across the company, but, Powers says, is also ultimately driven by and involves employees.

“RBS is based on the idea that if you have great people, a winning plan, and repeatable processes, you can perform a little bit better for our customers each day,” Powers says. He has witnessed firsthand RBS’s ability to enable speed, scalability, and consistency. RBS promotes a common approach that is sustainable and provides a competitive advantage.

RBS looks at business practice benefits the same way one might manage a portfolio or savings account. The hope is for consistent positive behaviors and practices to produce exponentially compounded results. “We look at the secret to RBS as understanding that continuous improvement compounds every day,” Powers says.

“RBS is based on the idea that if you have great people, a winning plan, and repeatable processes, you can perform a little bit better for our customers each day.”

GEORGE POWERS

That belief is applied company-wide. Every leader at Rexnord attends a three-day RBS boot camp where they are certified in a number of processes that help comprise RBS. Powers says that the boot camp made a strong impression immediately. “The first thing it did was really help me understand that I had to position HR in a much more outcomes- and results-oriented manner,” Powers says. “I had to be much more disciplined about what we’re doing and how it’s driving outcomes.”

It’s exactly that willingness to reframe and adapt that has helped Powers accrue such success with his HR team in a relatively short time span. Powers says that HR’s identity has evolved drastically from essentially a support function established to respond and react—a far cry from the industry goal for HR and a far cry from where HR is at Rexnord today. “Being proactive is really where the value of HR comes in in the strategic sense,” she says. Being proactive also ties back into the goals of continuous growth at the

foundations of RBS. “I’m asked every day—like all of our leaders—to find ways to continuously improve,” Powers says. “It’s the culture here from an RBS perspective to be proactive.”

Powers says that transparency and communication are essential for continuous improvement not just in his role, but for all the leaders at Rexnord. “Go see,” a common company expression, encourages leaders to go out into the field to get a better understanding of operations facilities, associates, and partners and to get an unfiltered perspective from bottom to top. “We just spent the last two months going and seeing our sites around the world, conducting town hall meetings, sharing things we’re driving from a strategic perspective, and listening to our associates on what matters to them,” Powers says. This prevents leaders from becoming disconnected from the overall business that makes Rexnord what it is, and it reminds Rexnord’s employees that there’s real value in having a current and active pulse on the business.

“During those town hall meetings, we had the opportunity to talk about how RBS supports our core values, encourages employee contributions, and empowers everyone at all times to solve smarter,” Powers explains. “Our ethical standards are non-negotiable, our community involvement is powerful, and we treat people with dignity and respect. Ultimately, we know the best ideas come from unique perspectives, and our talent management process is designed to help employees every step of the way—from acquiring talent

to continued growth and development.”

Employees also have access to a company intranet site where they can further discuss key ideas and continuous improvements that are important to their corner of Rexnord. The dashboard is part of a larger intercompany knowledge management system that was developed to help facilitate the flow of good ideas across the company. Powers says it has been a valuable asset in helping reinforce RBS principles and encourage discussion among Rexnord associates. It’s an accomplishment that Powers is proud of because he can see RBS success stories posted every day.

Looking ahead, Powers says that HR has a tremendous opportunity to step up and be part of Rexnord’s continuing digital revolution in the marketplace. “By leveraging RBS, HR can step in and help the organization by anticipating what it is going to take from our people to be successful with an agenda that hasn’t been the traditional agenda of the past,” Powers says. There are a number of opportunities that his team has identified and is already putting into action. Those great growth opportunities, he says, are strengthened as RBS behaviors continue to be embedded into company culture and leadership.

While Rexnord combines a proven legacy of quality and growth with the newest thinking about technology, digital solutions, and smart products in the industry, Powers remains confident that the company’s 125year history of reinvention will continue to serve it well: “You don’t last 125 years in business if you’re not continuing to evolve.”

At Rexnord, we recognize the value every employee brings, and we help our associates make a real, enduring impact. We combine a proven legacy of quality and growth with the newest thinking about technology, digital solutions and smart products in our industry.

We’re looking for innovative, energetic people who want to help solve tomorrow’s challenges

today.

Be Well and Excel

On the road and in the workplace, Meg Newman drives healthful choices

By JOSEPH KAY

MMeg Newman wants you to have as much time on Earth as possible: time for loved ones, meaningful work, and donuts—in moderation.

Driven by a desire to make meaningful contributions, Newman explored social work and psychology before arriving in the human resources world. Her work in employee health and wellness—driving engagement, lowering costs, and applying data analytics—has rewarded that impulse, and she looks forward to making an impact as chief human resources officer at Keurig Green Mountain, which she joined in 2017.

In 2007, Newman joined HD Supply, an industrial distributor headquartered in Atlanta. After reviewing employee benefits, costs to the organization, and comparisons to national averages, she recognized areas in which she could improve employee wellness and reduce claims costs to the organization. To encourage engagement and generate momentum, she created a “Wellness Roadshow” to tour to HD workplaces across the country. The third session, held in Dallas, revealed the power of the personal element and the project’s potential to create lasting changes across the organization.

“We were in front of about one hundred people, going through our overview,” Newman recalls. “I’d just had a personal loss in my family, somebody who maybe didn’t take care of himself as well as he could have. It was very fresh. I shared this story with the team and said, ‘Look: all this matters. There are costs and benefits, but what’s really important to me is that you’re here as long as you can be, in the best shape possible, to spend time with the people who matter most to you.’”

As she finished her story, hands shot up around the room, and those associates related similar stories of their own. After the meeting, Newman turned to a colleague and said, “We never have to send out another stock photo in our benefits brochures. It’ll always be an associate’s face.”

Gathering the associates’ voices and stories became a crucial component of the Wellness Roadshow, and by using storytelling and data to support each other, Newman and her team guided the organization to substantial progress on a number of wellness metrics. While their initial survey revealed that 30 percent of the workforce were regularly using tobacco products, Newman’s efforts over five years

“There are costs and benefits, but what’s really important to me is that you’re here as long as you can be, in the best shape possible, to spend time with the people that matter most to you.’”

MEG NEWMAN

Meg Newman CHRO

Keurig Green Mountain Waterbury, VT

CONGRATULATIONS

MEG NEWMAN!

We are proud to support Meg Newman as she continues to be an industry leading CHRO. We look forward to many more years of working together transforming the healthcare experience.

DRIVEN BY A PASSION FOR CARING. GROUNDED IN SCIENCE. ENABLED BY TECHNOLOGY.

“You have to have a good tool. You need systems that feed into each other and a good HR technology road map.”

MEG NEWMAN

reduced that rate to 7 percent. In addition, the rate at which employees got their annual physicals rose from 13 to 87 percent.

Physicals had been a particularly challenging issue. Early efforts to increase engagement gained some traction, but Newman recalls the moment that someone finally said that HR would just have to make the appointments mandatory. They did, and that rate quickly leapt close to their target number. Plus, she notes, there was no adverse effect on the employment relationship.

“Employers have a responsibility to provide good programs and tools. Associates then have to do what they have to do to utilize those tools and stay healthy,” she says.

After ten years at HD Supply, Newman had the opportunity to implement that principle at Keurig. When she joined the organization in March of 2017, she noticed that data analytics were not yet a strong element of that HR institution. So, she set about implementing such a program to guide their work going forward. Over time, she’ll be using data to develop and influence Keurig’s company culture and affirm the organization’s commitment to employee wellness.

Claims costs, productivity, turnover rates, and other useful information may be buried across a number of databases and files, but they reveal important trends most clearly in synthesis. For Newman, the foundation of an effective data analytics approach is a system that can gather disparate data into a central interface for user query. “You have to have a good tool,” she explains. “You need systems that feed into each other and a good HR technology road map. We have good systems. We need to add a couple, and then it’ll be easy for our people to work with. Part of it is pulling the data, and the other part of it is telling the story, so those are the areas that we focus on.”

The HR and technology teams are crafting an approach that uses data and technology to track trends and answer an array of questions about the state of Keurig. Leaders

throughout the organization are looking forward to the moment that some answers come to fruition, at which point they can conduct a substantive conversation about what’s going on in each sector.

Newman takes care to emphasize that data analytics is not a discrete project. Instead, it’s a holistic evolution of perspective and process, leading to a healthier, more rational organization. Just as a gym membership doesn’t itself constitute a lifestyle change, a data analytics infrastructure isn’t an enterprise utility until HR can successfully call upon it to develop and influence company culture. “I consider it a way of life,” Newman explains. “Having a talent analytics crew is as critical as having a recruitment or staffing organization. To me, there’s no beginning and no end; it will continue to go on.”

The journey of wellness and analytics has been transformative not only for her organizations, but for Newman herself. Once the person who would buy the office pizza on Fridays, she says she’s now more thoughtful and intentional with her choices—as a leader, a colleague, and an individual.

“At HD they used to call me the donut police,” she says. “I don’t care if you have a donut—everything in moderation—but we should think about what we introduce into our environments.”

Although she didn’t have a specific interest in wellness and well-being at the beginning of her career, Newman is grateful to have had the opportunity. Her career path has allowed her to empower her associates and grow as a professional. That growth has resonated in Newman’s personal choices, leadership, and understanding of the importance of storytelling, and she’s excited at this unique opportunity to do more good at Keurig.

“I’ve always considered myself a good listener, but my work has really amplified taking the time to understand what’s going on with people, sharing stories, and listening,” Newman says. “I’m thinking about the effects of everything that we do on a daily basis.”

A Life of Service

Mary Dale makes sure she never loses sight of the human element

of human resources at Metron Integrated Health Systems

By KASEY CHEYDLEUR

Mary Dale is boundlessly energetic and relentlessly positive, even when faced with a challenge. And when the challenge is finding the right person for a specific position, she uses that boundless energy to find exactly the right person for the job. Her early experiences in an all-girls Catholic school—which included students from different socioeconomic, religious, and ethnic backgrounds—taught her open-mindedness and instilled a deep sense of fairness that she uses as the backbone of her leadership strategy. No stranger to struggles herself, Dale ensures that she never loses sight of the human element of human resources.

As the youngest of five, Dale knew that paying for college was going to be tough, so she entered the workforce at the young age of twelve. By the time she was sixteen, in addition to school and field hockey, Dale was balancing three jobs—including a role in corporate marketing for a cell phone company that was entirely commission-based. She says that particular job hammered it home early: if you want to be successful, you have to work hard and put in the time and effort.

Dale’s relentless work ethic served her well at Ferris State University, where she majored in communications. She sought to maximize every moment of her education and even created her own class, where she revamped the student job fair and helped plan the “Flex for Success” conference. Using her infectious enthusiasm and sales experience, Dale recruited

Grand Rapids, MI

more than seventy-five student volunteers, organized the marketing, and brought in employers from across the country. The fair received the best feedback it had ever received in overall planning and execution due to Dale’s efforts, and the manual of procedures she created is still in use today.

After college, Dale brought her knowledge of sales and management to K-Force Professional Staffing. Her insight into what people need and where they fit best served her well in this role, and she was recognized as one of the top 10 percent of recruiters nationwide at an event in Monte Carlo, Monaco. However, the trajectory of her career changed when she found herself being recruited by one of her clients, Orthopaedic Associates of Michigan (OAM).

Created from the merger of four companies, OAM desperately needed a strategic leader in human resources, and Dale stepped up to the plate. She says that the most important lesson from her time at OAM was getting into the weeds and truly understanding the needs of each position she was working with.

“Rather than just filling all of the open positions based on a job description, I instead was very strategic with my recruitment strategy. I shadowed each of the clinical staff members, including the physician owners, to really understand

Mary Dale CHRO

Metron Integrated Health Systems

what it was they were doing and what a successful match would be,” Dale explains. “What I found was that every doctor—even those in the same specialty—had very different bedside manners and needs.”

Dale started recruiting strategically to fit each doctor’s style, pace, and needs. If they were chatty, she found a medical assistant who could keep them on time; if they were stern, she would find someone who was warm and would spend the necessary time with patients to ensure their overall experience was a positive one. In addition to helping physicians succeed, this practice helped the company save $428,000 within the first year simply by eliminating the use of outside staffing firms. Dale also notes that her on-theground experience was crucial to her success. “Getting in the weeds helped me be a strategic leader and later a successful chief operating officer for the organization,” she says. “By the time I left, I had walked a mile in almost every person’s shoes who worked there and truly understood the positions inside and out.”

Dale’s approach had clear results. OAM went from a company not scoring well on employee satisfaction surveys when Dale arrived to being recognized as one of the 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in West Michigan every year from 2010 to 2016. The wellness program Dale created

“Rather than just filling all of the open positions based on a job description, I instead was very strategic with my recruitment strategy. I shadowed each of the clinical staff members, including the physician owners, to really understand what it was they were doing and what a successful match would be.”

MARY DALE

Down to Earth, Down to Business

Miller Johnson is proud to be a core partner of and we congratulate Mary Dale on her outstanding achievements in the legal profession.

in-house was also recognized in 2015 and 2016 as one of the top wellness programs in the state of Michigan.

Although she loved the people and the company, Dale eventually left OAM because she needed a better work/life balance. Her most demanding weeks sometimes entailed more than a hundred hours of work, and with two young children at home, the pace was not sustainable. After Dale took some time off due to family health emergencies, Metron Integrated Health Systems approached her about becoming its chief human resources officer. She accepted, and now she couldn’t be happier. She says the long-term care and rehabilitation organization’s values, focus on service, and respect for human dignity truly set the organization apart. “This is one of the first places I have worked where the mission isn’t just something posted on the wall,” Dale says.

In her typical fashion, Dale hit the ground running the moment she arrived at Metron. First, she worked to centralize the payroll process and implemented a talent acquisition system; this allowed staff in the field to focus on being strategic and ensured that all eight locations were working from the same information. Next, she implemented a new compensation philosophy and structure to increase employee satisfaction and retention and to ensure that the HR department could provide services that fueled growth and development for the organization.

“I created a system with a whole new compensation philosophy, structure, and pay-for-performance model to ensure that our staff didn’t feel the need to leave the organization if they wanted to grow and didn’t necessarily want to go back to get a new degree,” she says.

Traditionally in long-term care, she explains, compensation would be determined by calling the competition to compare pay rates and benefits. When she arrived, Metron had one pay rate for those with up to one year of experience and another for those with more than three years, but then it stopped. Dale made sure one of her first orders of business was to create growth opportunities and career laddering for almost every role. In her new plan, there are different pay rates based on experience level and new career laddering options to ensure everyone has a path to be working at the top of their certification.

“This is one of the first places I have worked where the mission isn’t just something posted on the wall.”

MARY DALE

Part of that process is making sure her own team is working at the top of their game. Accordingly, she takes her role as a mentor very seriously. And while she is up front about her high standards, Dale never asks someone to do something she isn’t willing to do, whether that means assembling packets, filing paperwork, or calling every employee to make sure they don’t miss open enrollment. “I think my team would say I am very fair, believe in them, and want them to grow and be successful,” Dale says. “I push them to their limits sometimes, but I walk a mile in their shoes. If they need help, I am sitting right there beside them.”

In fact, she credits her servant leadership style and empathy as key reasons behind her success. “Being a human resources person that has had my own health struggles and kids who have had health struggles, I really have a heart. I try to do my best to support employees during their own hard times,” Dale says. “What I have found in the past is that when you support and care about an employee as a person, they work ten times harder for you as an employee.”

EFFECT

The Immersion Model

Swope Health Services CIO Brian Thomas plunged into healthcare technology and became a thought leader

By DAVID BAEZ

WWhen you get thousands of hits on your blog, as Swope Health Services’ chief information officer and vice president of support services Brian Thomas regularly does, it’s safe to say that you’re seen as an authority on the subject matter. Thomas’s blog, which synthesizes everything that he has learned about the intersection of technology and healthcare over a twenty-year career, is a product of complete immersion in the industry.

That Thomas even has time to blog is remarkable, considering all the duties he has at Swope, which provides primary healthcare and behavioral health services to patients in the greater Kansas City area. Not only is he CIO, he also leads a support team that covers an enterprise project management office, facilities, purchasing, security, environmental services, and a call center as well. But the endeavors are symbiotic, and he finds them to be mutually enriching.

“It’s one thing to be an expert at what you do, but I found that to really take this to the next level, I had to constantly immerse myself in current trends in the technology space,” he says. “Although this takes some time, it’s definitely worth it.”

In addition to the blog, Thomas is a contributing writer for other professional organizations and websites. He sits on a number of boards and technology committees. He attends an array of events, and he speaks at many of them. Thomas says that the activity has allowed him to give back to young technology professionals, while branding himself at the same time.

At Swope, Thomas helms countless technology initiatives. The service desk is in a constant state of improvement, targeted as key to the customer experience. Customers can now request help via the company’s web portal, through e-mail or text message, or the time-tested method of a phone call. The company is always looking for ways to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to handle simple tasks so employees can maximize their time at work.

Brian Thomas VP of Support Services, CIO

Swope Health Services

Kansas City, MO

What are gaps in your IT network really costing you?

Gaps in your network connectivity reach far wider than speed and reliability. Windstream’s integrated data, voice, network and cloud solutions lay the foundation for the future growth and success of your business.

“We want computers to be able to talk back to our customers for easy requests because then we can keep the tech staff involved in higher-thinking and critical, rather than mundane, tasks,” he explains.

Data mining has come to the fore as well. In 2016, the company decided to consolidate all of its data sources so it could glean the information in more meaningful ways. After shopping around for the right software, it settled on a visualization program called Tableau. What used to be a bottleneck for Swope’s report writer has loosened, freeing him up to focus on more technical and strategic projects. Not only did that improve report turnaround by 150 percent, it also ended up enhancing the customer experience, as all that data became accessible to them. Company leaders benefited as well.

“Providing real-time information to our leaders at all levels of the organization, we’re able to make more accurate short-term tactical and long-term strategic decisions,” Thomas says.

The most exciting initiative over the past couple of years, Thomas adds, has been establishing interoperability and data sharing among three health information centers. Kansas City sits on the Kansas-Missouri state line, each with its own Health Information Exchange (HIE). Previously, Swope was only able to get patients and share with healthcare organizations in Kansas, but connecting the HIEs will make for more efficient patient care, as they will be able to pull records from dozens of different hospitals and healthcare systems across state lines.

“There is still a lot of work to be done from a technology standpoint to make this more efficient and accurate,” Thomas says. “However, everybody in the healthcare community has recognized this and we are

making concerted efforts to help improve the platform and the process.”

Looking toward the future of the industry, Thomas says that AI is going to continue to enhance the customer experience as it develops and business leaders gain insight into its possibilities.

“We’re really starting to tap into it for cognitive computing and machine learning for the data we have to pull,” he says. “An electronic medical record has thousands of tables housed inside that database, so within that database structure, there are tens of thousands of fields, all with a relationship in the process. It gets tough for a human to go through and build reports for terabytes worth of data. And there’s a lot of movement in healthcare toward using AI for data mining and predictive analytics.”

Thomas says that he doesn’t see himself slowing down on the blogging or his involvement on committees and tech organizations. It keeps him alert and engaged and continues to improve his ability to contribute to everything going on at Swope, he says.

“I started my blog because I wanted to add more content to my professional website,” he says. “But as time went on, I recognized the importance of content, marketing, and being an expert in my field. I enjoy the blogging aspect, as it has been very fulfilling for me, but more importantly, it has gained attention and recognition from many sources and other professionals. I plan on continuing to blog and speak about leadership and technology for the foreseeable future.”

Editor’s note: At the time of publication, Brian Thomas was no longer with Swope Health Services.

A Sense of Pride and Purpose

American Medical Response teams build strong bonds with each other and the communities they serve

By JEFF SILVER

When he was in college, Randy Strozyk studied microbiology and spent summers working as a paramedic. After graduation, the only jobs for microbiologists were in hospital labs, and Strozyk decided to spend one more summer within the EMS world.

That was more than thirty years ago. After spending thirteen years as a paramedic, Strozyk is now executive vice president of operations for American Medical Response (AMR), the nation’s leading medical transportation company, which serves more than 2,100 communities in forty states and the District of Columbia. He also oversees the company’s fire services division, which serves communities in three states and multiple industrial fire departments across the country.

During Strozyk’s seventeen years with the company, there have been many changes. The most recent is how AMR is leveraging its extensive data archives to support the most effective treatments and positive patient outcomes.

“We’ve always prioritized healthcare and medicine, but now we’re using analytics to define and identify clinical efficacies,” Strozyk says. “We’ve gone from the days of all red lights, sirens, and driving as fast as you can to using statistical evidence to make sure

we send the right resources and treatments at the right time. Customizing the response to a situation is safer because we can sometimes go at a slower rate of speed, and it makes better use of available resources.”

In practical terms, this mean fewer individuals could be sent to respond to a child with a minor playground injury, for example, than to the scene of a car accident.

Clinical changes have also been made based on analyzing AMR’s data. The standard practice of deploying military anti-shock trousers for all trauma patients with low blood pressure has been discontinued after statistics revealed the lack of any true therapeutic value.

AMR’s treasure trove of data also enables it to customize services for the communities it serves. In rural areas, crews and routes are optimized to accommodate the longer distances and stabilization times required when local tertiary care may not be available. In the District of Columbia, AMR worked

Randy Strozyk EVP of Operations

American Medical Response

Greenwood Village, CO

OUR VEHICLES CONNECT AND PROTECT

PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD EVERYDAY

“Everyone here takes great pride in what we do and in being totally dedicated to our communities and the people we serve.”

RANDY STROZYK

BE PREPARED

American Medical Response (AMR) has long-standing relationships with NFL teams, other college and professional sports leagues, concert promoters, and, more recently, NASCAR. As a result, its special events team is continually evolving to match clients’ priorities, concerns, and expectations.

For football games, ambulance teams have greatly increased their skills and expertise at recognizing and treating concussions. At NASCAR events, AMR’s teams extensively practice making driver extractions from cars as quickly and as safely as possible. They have also trained, along with other first responders, to manage mass casualties from acts of terror or extreme weather events.

“The days of just having an ambulance standing by on the sidelines are long gone,” says Randy Strozyk, executive vice president of operations. “There’s tremendous preplanning and processes that are developed with other first responders and law enforcement agencies months ahead of any event.”

with the fire department, which had been challenged by call volume for basic life support (BLS) services, to develop new protocols and procedures. The organization’s BLS units can now respond to a portion of those calls while still allowing the District to bill for service and generate local revenue.

This kind of customization is supported not only by AMR’s analytics capabilities, but also by a culture that prioritizes its people, the diversity of its communities, and transparency. During the company’s recent acquisition of Rural Metro, which Strozyk led, he made sure to maintain all of these priorities so that the integration of seven thousand former Rural Metro employees was as supportive as possible.

“Transitions are always stressful, but we went out of our way to assure newly acquired employees that they could still count on job security, benefits, and their existing pay scales,” Strozyk says.

It was crucial to Strozyk that everyone have a voice at the table when making decisions for the newly combined operations. To make sure this happened, he brought information up from the local and regional levels about everything from selecting uniforms to choosing the most appropriate sites in communities where Rural Metro and AMR had duplicate locations.

The organization worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers, which helped develop comprehensive transition plans for integrating payroll and HR systems and rebranding thousands of ambulances. As a result, the integration was completed under budget and nearly six months ahead of schedule.

Strozyk is quick to point out that the pride he feels in AMR is a unifying factor among the company’s twenty-six thousand employees. “Everyone takes great pride in what we do and in being totally dedicated to our communities and the people we serve,” Strozyk says.

This spirit is acknowledged and returned by those communities. When AMR responded to Hurricane Katrina as part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Federal Disaster Response Team, crews helped residents in damaged areas clean up and rebuild after working twelve-hour shifts. In response, residents brought teams into their homes, fed them, and helped clean their clothes.

“We’re a huge extended family,” Strozyk says. “It’s those close connections that really do make us the nation’s largest small town ambulance service.”

Earning Their Halo

At Sprouts Farmers Market, Carlos Rojas and the rest of the leadership team promote a culture of sustainability

By MICHAEL HERNANDEZ

It's no secret that the United States has a major food waste problem. According to The Guardian , 50 percent of produce in America was thrown away in 2016. That’s sixty million tons of food, valued at about $160 billion a year, the majority of which goes to landfills. Meanwhile, Feeding America estimated that as of 2015, more than forty-two million Americans lived in food-insecure households, with over twenty-nine million of them being children younger than eighteen years old.

People steer away from buying imperfect-looking produce, even though it’s perfectly edible. Some might call that the cost of doing business; however, for deputy general counsel and head of sustainability Carlos Rojas and the more than twenty-seven thousand employees at Sprouts Farmers Market, preventing food waste is central to their business model.

“This isn't just me,” Rojas says. “It’s a team effort. It’s the store team members making a positive difference every day. I’m just a passionate spokesperson for sustainability.”

Rojas arrived at Sprouts in 2012 after building a career as a corporate lawyer, but in another life, he could have been a scientist. The son of an engineer and a professor of biochemistry, Rojas is a voracious reader of everything from physics to astrobiology. You can hear the excitement of a scientist when he calculates the company’s impact.

“Across fifteen states last year, we donated about twenty million pounds of food, which comes up to just about seventeen million meals,” he says.

That massive impact began in 2013 with a pilot program at the organization’s Arizona stores that resulted in about six million pounds of food being donated. What was initially an exploratory project became part of the culture for Sprouts as a whole, encompassing waste prevention, recycling, composting, renewable energy, and much more.

It might seem unusual that a company’s head lawyer is spearheading its sustainability efforts, but in actuality, Rojas explains that being a good steward for people and the planet is good business. He refers to this as “earning your halo,” a concept that comes with running a business that promotes a healthy lifestyle.

“There was a big opportunity to expand our sustainability efforts. We were already doing a great job in promoting healthy lifestyles for our customers; next, we needed to show our commitment to being a responsible retailer,” Rojas says. “Our Food Rescue Program was the first obvious opportunity. Instead of throwing food away because it was no longer in retail condition, we should donate it to those in need in our communities, plain and simple.”

Social responsibility is part of the organization’s DNA and has always been a part of Rojas’s background. His father was not only an engineer and entrepreneur, but also a philanthropist in their home of Monterrey in northeast Mexico. Rojas learned from both parents that a strong community leads to a strong society. When he was younger, Rojas collected clothing and food, painted houses, and even provided childcare for working families in rural and less fortunate areas of Mexico. As a law student, he offered free legal advice to those who couldn’t afford it.

As he did then, Rojas now operates in the space where

Carlos Rojas Deputy General Counsel, Head of Sustainability

Sprouts Farmers Market Phoenix, AZ

expertise meets empathy. It’s where his background in law, passion for science, and care for his community meet. It’s how he continues to encourage a culture of sustainability and social responsibility.

“There is a strong business case for it,” Rojas says. The Food Rescue Program is the right thing to do not just in terms of corporate responsibility, but because it makes business sense. “Every ton of trash we divert from the landfill, we save on haul and tonnage fees, benefit from tax incentives, and reduce our carbon footprint,” he explains. “It’s a win-win-win.”

At first, one of the major hurdles to overcome with food donations was the apprehension about safety for recipients of the donated food. The perceived liability risk keeps some food retailers from implementing similar projects, but Rojas explains that depending on the product, many food items can remain edible for months after they are removed from retail shelves.

“That’s where my lawyer half comes in,” Rojas says. “I not only make the moral case, but the legal and business case as well.” The main law that mitigates this risk, appropriately enough, is the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. Although the company follows

strict guidelines and procedures to ensure only food that is safe is being donated, the Good Samaritan Act provides an added level of protection from liability for such donations.

With the legal, business, and moral case made, Sprouts began a pilot project in 2013. It started by volunteering at a local food bank to get insight on how food donation worked. Sprouts employees interacted with food bank staff, put together meal packages, and met the recipients to understand the journey and impact of their donations.

Using that insight and other research on food safety, Rojas’s team rolled out donation guidelines and training materials, provided training to thousands of team members on proper donation procedures, and toured stores to ensure that the proper process was being followed. Today, Sprouts partners with more than 125 local food banks across fifteen states, donating food daily to their partners. They also compost, provide feed for livestock to local farms, and recycle plastics, glass, aluminum, and cardboard. Sprouts is piloting aerobic digester machines for nondonatable produce that would manage and reduce waste even further. As the efforts have grown, the infrastructure has expanded,

Carlos Rojas helped implement a Food Rescue Program at Sprouts Farmers Market as part of a culture of sustainability and social responsibility.

“Across fifteen states last year, we donated about twenty million pounds of food, which comes up to just about seventeen million meals.”

CARLOS ROJAS

as have exacting safety guidelines and organization-wide training—and, perhaps most vitally, a cultural shift across the entire company.

“It all started with the food rescue program, which is dear to my heart,” Rojas says. However, he is even more excited for the future. “Now, we’re talking about waste to energy programs, solar and battery storage, greenhouse gas emission reduction, energy and water conservation initiatives, and carbon output audits. Just last year, we recycled more than seventy million pounds of cardboard, which saved about six hundred thousand trees from being cut down.” Rojas finds that Sprouts’ approach to waste is no great mystery. It’s good for business, good for the community, and good for the environment.

“Why isn’t everybody doing this?” Rojas asks. “It makes all the sense in the world. It’s the low-hanging fruit, the easiest thing we can do with the most impact. We are the healthy company we say we are.”

Driven to Diligence

Elizabeth Ganiere’s unusual path to Gulf Stream Coach’s legal team equipped her to fine-tune the RV manufacturer for growth

By JENNY DRAPER

WWhen Elizabeth Ganiere arrived in Nappanee, Indiana, a tornado had recently hit the campus of the Gulf Stream Coach headquarters. “It took out several buildings,” she recalls. “The place was obliterated.” When the recreational vehicle manufacturer filed a $20 million claim but the insurance company only offered $12,000, Gulf Stream Coach’s CEO turned to Ganiere—who had recently joined the company as assistant general counsel in January 2008—to resolve the lingering dispute.

Ganiere found several documents of lost assets sent to the adjuster worth thousands of dollars. She reanalyzed the communication process to discover invoices had been misread. “I literally became an interpreter. This was not legal work, but nevertheless it was legal negotiation,” she says. “I didn’t note on my résumé that I used to be an insurance agent, but it has become a valuable asset that I use time and time again.”

The five-foot-two legal leader who says she smiles a lot admits that her appearance in the male-dominated manufacturing world often causes misconceptions. “People automatically misjudge me. Women tend to be classified as not math or mechanical people,” she says. “But that’s entirely not true. We’re all consumers.” She describes being overlooked as a secret weapon, presenting intelligent information to override the misperception.

Diversity is important to give a rounded view of who the customer is and what is being produced, according to Ganiere. She advises professional women across industries to step up and ask for everything. “Men are just given things,

but unfortunately women have to ask for what they want,” she says. “We have to almost be in your face about asking.”

At the start of her own career, the southern California native worked her way up from bookkeeper to assistant treasurer in an accounting department for an insurance company. Then she joined a global boutique agency focused on marine and yacht insurance in Newport Beach, California, as an insurance agent. A sailor herself, she describes it as a natural fit to insure marinas and private yachts navigating all over the world. “It was great fun, a lot of who’s who,” Ganiere says. Actor Christopher Reeve, an avid sailor at the time, became one of her celebrity clients, as did actress Florence Henderson.

Part of Ganiere’s role included reading policies to figure out whether clients’ claims were included or excluded, depending on whether they ventured outside their navigable waters. “I found myself reading these long policies and trying to figure out whether they had a viable claim or not,” Ganiere says. She felt she could write the contracts herself, so she decided to go back to school.

Paul Campbell

Ganiere earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Southern California. She then worked as a case manager for Champion Home Builders during its acquisition of Redman Industries, while earning her juris doctor at Western Michigan University on nights and weekends. After graduating in two and a half years, she joined its leadership team as corporate counsel.

In 2008, Ganiere joined Gulf Stream as assistant general counsel and then found herself testifying before the US Congress. Gulf Stream Coach had manufactured tens of thousands of FEMA trailers for the government to help with temporary emergency housing during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Several years later, the government had a hearing concerning the trailers that Gulf Stream Coach manufactured. Ganiere helped prepare testimony and live-coached the CEO through the intense C-SPAN-broadcasted congressional hearing—resulting in a positive outcome for the company.

Four years later, she was promoted to general counsel and corporate secretary of the conglomerate enterprise. Initially comprising several companies founded by Jim Shea Sr. in 1971, the resulting Gulf Stream Coach is now led by two of his sons. The day-to-day operations span twenty-two brands and more than 140 different models of motor homes, travel trailers, and fifth wheel trailers. That legacy is why Ganiere describes her arrival as a shake-up. The family-based management hadn’t changed in decades, and she saw opportunities for positive growth. “I asked a lot of why, why, why,” she says. “I infused ideas that I’d learned from other management styles and corporations.”

In her second month on the job, Ganiere was shown a room with boxes stacked floor to ceiling and tasked with organizing the paperwork for an

“People automatically misjudge me. Women tend to be classified as not math or mechanical people. But that’s entirely not true. We’re all consumers.”

ELIZABETH GANIERE

Elizabeth Ganiere General Counsel, Secretary

Gulf Stream Coach Nappanee, IN

Judy Johnson

SPEAKING UP

Elizabeth Ganiere—who says that people call her Lucky Liz because she has won trips, cars, and concert tickets—explains the key to a successful speech goes beyond luck. “I have this mantra that luck favors the prepared,” she says.

Preparedness is key to creating opportunities for professional development, Ganiere says, which has led her to a string of guest speaking roles at annual, regional, and legal specialty conferences and webinars. Recently, Gulf Stream Coach’s general counsel spoke at Eagle International in Chicago and the Claims and Litigation Management (CLM) Alliance’s annual national conference in Nashville. She’s also involved with the American Bar Association, USLAW, SuperConference, and more.

Ganiere recommends that other lawyers engage and speak at conferences more often because it’s an opportunity to learn.

“You do so much research and you overprepare because you don’t know what questions are going to be asked by the audience,” she says. “You have to be prepared not only with information, but also with your own war story of how to apply the information.”

impending class-action lawsuit. She spent three weekends establishing a reference code. The previous record retention policy was to keep everything forever, she says, so the paperwork that had accumulated over the company’s forty years required an extensive policy reboot. She took baby steps to implement a seven-year revised records strategy. “Sometimes it’s best to take little bites of the apple versus putting it all in your mouth at once,” she says.

Currently, most of her time is spent ensuring compliance with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for recalls, code updates, and ever-changing individual state licensing mandates. When she’s not working on several big real estate projects in Indiana, Florida, and Illinois, she’s also reviewing and negotiating contracts and maintaining compliance for a new line of business. Gulf Stream Coach recently returned to the motorized RV business after a six-year hiatus. Now, through partnerships Ganiere negotiates with GM and Ford, Gulf Stream Coach is manufacturing Class C models that feature a camper in the back and a chassis (engine and wheels) in the front.

“All our RVs are moving houses,” she says. “RVs are all handmade from the beginning to end—the doors, the cabinets, the outside, everything.” Skilled workers have produced almost three hundred thousand RVs in the company’s history.

Ganiere’s own form of workmanship has crafted the legal team into an essential business partner at Gulf Stream Coach. She cites her leadership skills as passion, positivity, and a strong affinity for learning— proven by her ascension through the worlds of accounting, insurance, and the law, or what she calls a “collective ability.” Her eclectic background has only strengthened her legal acumen. “In business strategy, you always have to know where the money goes,” Ganiere explains. “That’s where my accounting background is a huge strength.”

Yet above all, Ganiere adds, leadership has to be grateful for the work and the team, and she aims to provide that same growth at Gulf Stream Coach.

Hunt Suedho , LLP was founded in 1950 by the late Leigh L. Hunt, a noted trial lawyer. Kalamaros and Associates was founded in 1960 by the late Edward N. Kalamaros, a noted worker's compensation lawyer. ese two rms with so much in common joined forces in 2000. is solidi ed Hunt Suedho Kalamaros LLP as a premier law rm with one of the largest litigation practice in Northern Indiana. e rm presently serves the casualty insurance industry, as well as many regional and national corporations.

e lawyers of HSK are recognized by their peers as some of the most experienced in their elds, and frequently are called upon to participate in the training of other lawyers in various workshops and seminars sponsored by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, the National Business Institute and the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum.

Covering the Spread

Peter Cassat, Cox Automotive vice president and general counsel, guides his team through global expansion

By JOSEPH KAY

General Counsel

Atlanta, GA

Peter Cassat Cox Automotive VP,

NNow that he’s general counsel, Peter Cassat sometimes finds himself less like a lawyer and more like a traffic cop. With seven direct reports in as many cities, he coordinates Cox Automotive’s legal strategy across a challenging and promising time.

Cox Automotive continues to grow year-over-year, driven by acquisitions and international expansion. In 2014, it acquired Manheim, the world’s largest auto auction trader. The following year they acquired DealerTrack and Incadea, software providers fostering connections between dealers, lenders, and buyers. The latter company operates in eighty-two countries. Given that kind of growth, the challenges for Cox and Cassat are to mitigate risks and develop cohesive, trust-based relationships across business interests and countries.

“What it means for me is bringing the different businesses together from legal perspectives,” Cassat explains. “It’s a matter of building collaboration by building influence and convincing those businesses that we can add value.” United under the Cox banner, business elements can benefit from each other’s relationships, especially internationally. That’s one key component of his appeal; another is to remind acquired departments that they’re collaborating with the entire Cox organization, not solely serving the business interest they came from.

But as the company grows and acquires, leadership is also endeavoring to control expenses. That can mean voluntary early retirements and workforce reductions, and Cassat notes that legal departments are not immune. “We’re going to be like other departments from the corporate home office, subject to that same desire to control expenses,” he says.

With that in mind, the priority for Cassat’s legal operation is to continue to work flexibly, adapt quickly, and be prepared for change. He describes his leadership style as relatively informal; he’s not strict about the distinction between dotted and direct lines of communication, and he doesn’t expect the team to maintain perfect role clarity.

Cassat points out that the legal territories themselves tend to overlap: M&A issues have intellectual property components, compliance issues have labor implications, and so on. As a result, roles are malleable and overlapping; the team’s workflow is necessarily more loose and collaborative.

Although this fosters chemistry, creativity, and a high degree of collaboration, it can occasionally lead to people stepping on one another’s toes. Cassat has seen it happen and knows when and how to ask his team to scale back and stay out of each other’s ways.

When necessary, he’ll conduct tough conversations on what went wrong and how to correct the team’s approach. “There are times when it would be much easier not to have a conversation about something that went wrong, but it’s really important,” he says. Cassat tries to live at the organization through the mantra of Cox Automotive president Sandy Schwartz: “Open, honest, and direct starts at the top.”

Propagating that approach, Cassat can be blunt when necessary. He has no tolerance for divisive and territorial behavior, and promotes his team’s successes as often as possible. There is self-interest to it because their triumphs always reflect positively on him, but Cassat says that their openness has been a great asset.

That openness also means that the team is especially flexible when personal needs emerge. That’s one of the team’s greatest strengths, Cassat says: they cover effectively when colleagues need to prioritize their families. His knowledge of his lineup and his honest assessment of his own expertise enables the team to adapt quickly.

Cassat was a good deal less experienced when he started at Cox Auto in 2011. “I truly felt like someone was testing me every day, throwing me questions and seeing how I would respond,” he says. But over the years, that feeling of being tested has passed; he’s grown to appreciate the real depth and breadth of the questions he faces and to trust his judgment—including knowing when he doesn’t know.

This mind-set is helpful because every day he encounters something that law school didn’t quite cover. In this physical, expansive business, there are unlimited opportunities for conflicts, accidents, and surprises of all kinds. “There’s just a certain amount of time spent reacting to issues that arise,” Cassat says, even when the priority is developing long-term enterprise strategy. But the variety is as much the appeal as the challenge, and he’s happy to handle the role.

“I love the job,” Cassat says. “To be the general counsel of an $8 billion company, to have the diversity of businesses and diversity of issues that we see— that’s where you want to be.” With Cox continuing to grow—especially in China, where Cassat says an expanding business needs guidance on the ground—he can safely assume he’ll continue confronting issues he never expected.

Kilpatrick Townsend congratulates Peter Cassat for being recognized for his outstanding accomplishments as vice president and general counsel. We applaud him for his outstanding service to Cox Automotive. It is our privilege to work with Peter and his outstanding team.

Seeing the Difference

While spending the day with Profile cover feature Fady Qaddoura, photo editor Kristin Deitrich got a first-hand look at the impact that the controller and chief financial officer makes on the safety and lives of the people of Indianapolis.

Kristin Deitrich