Chidi Achara forever changed the perception of the mall, to a tech-centric, retail-boosting, luxury experience p.46
from an archaic destination
Understanding the intricate details of tax reform, laws, and policies can be a headache for any business. Discover how these four executives not only navigate the complexities of taxes and tax reform, but also share that understanding to help companies succeed. P126
Never-ending Drive
Why Margaret Baumgartner’s persistence was key in overcoming every hurdle on her path to Genesys 40
Marko Vujicic is presenting evidence that improved dental health is directly linked to lower overall healthcare costs, and it improves employability 82
At the acclaimed toy company JAKKS Pacific, Michael Dwyer is educating employees about all things legal to help protect the business 76
Sidney Johnson and the Aptiv team are creating a connected mobility ecosystem that is set to revolutionize transportation as we know it 118
Over the course of Tara Mackey’s career, she has developed seven areas of guaranteed value. Now, she’s using them to help influence AZZ.
160
As autonomous vehicles become more common, Wayne Powell and his team at Toyota are developing the latest innovations in preventing injuries 110
As Nutrisystem continues to experience exponential growth, Nancy Adams shares how a unique strategy for culture is keeping pace 164
Seun Salami shares how he has redefined the role of controller to help further strengthen JLL’s portfolio 172
Hawaiian Airlines’ Aaron Alter shares how a joint venture with Japan Airlines will make travel between the archipelagoes that much easier
Streaming music has created compensation hurdles for songwriters. Clara Kim and ASCAP are on a mission to change that.
189
VP of Creative
Sean Conner
Editorial Director
Megan Bungeroth
Senior Editor
Danny Ciamprone
Freelance Editor
Sam Edsill
Design + Photo Director
Caleb Fox
Senior Designer
Jany Zhang
Designers
Juliet Desnoyer
Greer Mosher
Photo Editors/Staff
Photographers
Cass Davis
Gillian Fry
SALES & ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
VP of Sales
Kyle Evangelista
Sales Director
Kim Harrington
Director of Executive Success
Anna Jensen
Business Development
Director
Jenny Vetokhin
Business Development
Manager
Erin Malone
Content Advertising Managers
Christina Brown
Charlie Connelly
Evan Handler
Brandon Havrilka
Ben Keller
MG Morgese
Tracy Padar
Angela Reeves
Nikki Thayyil
Katye Todd
Ashley Watkins
Sarah White
Guerrero, LLC
CEO Pedro Guerrero
Managing VP Marc Jerbi
Executive Assistant Jaclyn Tumberger
Client Services Director
Cheyenne Eiswald
Senior Client Services Managers
Rebekah Pappas
Katie Richards
Client Services Manager
Skylar Garfield
Director of People
Kathy Kantorski
Recruitment Director
Elyse Schultz
Office Manager
Megan Thorp
Director of Network
Engagement
Vianni Busquets
Event Manager
Mary Kellogg
Director of Finance
Nichole Roiland
Reprints & Circulation Director
Stacy Kraft stacy@guerreromedia.com
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called a rebrand.
While it’s a familiar subject, it can also carry certain negative connotations.
Change brings fear and an array of questions. But the world has changed immensely in the past decade. Now, social media, e-commerce, and constantly changing consumer trends are forcing companies to keep pace. There are plenty of brands to look to for rebrand guidance, but I believe Prince may be the greatest teacher of how to launch a successful rebrand.
Prince was an artist ahead of his time in the music business. He rebranded himself in the 1990s as the “Love Symbol” following a dispute with a record label. Following in Prince’s path, artists today are even trademarking phrases. So what did Prince have in common with companies that successfully rebranded, like Apple (from Apple Computers to Apple Inc.) and Google (now sometimes represented by the simple “G” logo)? Their rebranding was practical. For Prince, his popularity was soaring, and he saw a shift in the music business that made him recognize the importance of protecting his trademark. Apple removed “Computers” from its name because its products incorporate far more technology. And Google is so widely used that the capital G is now recognizable around the world.
These rebrands may seem simple, but they’re never easy. As the chief creative officer of Simon Property Group, Chidi Achara (P. 46) has laid out the blueprint for how to launch a successful rebranding. Simon not only changed its logo, but also the perception of how retailers viewed the property owner and how consumers viewed shopping malls. It was a topic we took to heart at Profile, as right around the time we spoke with Achara, our team was embarking on a rebranding of our own. The name will remain, but we’ve recognized that our products encompass more than print.
Subscriptions + Reprints
For a free subscription, please visit profilemagazine.com /subscribe. Printed in China. Reprinting of articles is prohibited without permission of Guerrero, LLC. For reprint information, contact Stacy Kraft at 312.256.8460 or stacy@guerreromedia.com.
Profile® is a registered trademark of Guerrero, LLC.
We’re expanding our social media efforts, and we have relaunched our newsletter, Insight, with a clear value proposition to deliver expertise from top leaders straight to inboxes. Soon, we will be making updates to our website, enhancing our ability to highlight executives who are directly impacting the market. This is an evolving project. Brands don’t change overnight, and as you’ll read about in Achara’s feature, it takes a commitment from all levels of leadership to make a rebrand successful. At Profile, we are embracing the same user-centric approach to become the go-to source for leadership insights from executives. And like Prince, we’ll be ready to pivot when the market tells us it’s time to change.
Danny Ciamprone Senior Editor
Associa’s Chelle O’Keefe explains how a combination of empathy, authenticity, and sound initiatives can go the distance for a company’s achievements
By LEO HERRERA
“I“I just love to figure people out. I like to better understand why people do what they do,” says Chelle O’Keefe.
It’s an understandable notion, seeing as O’Keefe originally pursued a career in psychology. Today, she may be the executive vice president and CHRO at Associa—a company that offers association management, accounting, developer consulting, information technology, and maintenance services—but it’s also her background in psychology and interest in human behavior that help to build motivated teams able to thrive in any change or environment.
Behind the operations at Associa, O’Keefe is responsible for ensuring that the company’s employees are trained and motivated to do their best work so that they can better assist their clients. Since joining Associa in 2014, O’Keefe has combined her education in psychology with her experience in HR, where she has applied them to the fastpaced corporate environment.
“In the business world, I may not be able to help the same number of people at the same depth as a psychologist might, but by putting programs in place, or doing training and development in corporations, I can impact a larger number of people overall,” she says.
One aspect of psychology that O’Keefe focuses on is the concept of motivation and change. Her work centralizes on changing organizations for the better and improving the employee experience. Throughout her career, O’Keefe also had the opportunity to sharpen not only what she refers to as her personal skills in leadership development and time management, but also in change management, which includes helping individuals or whole companies thrive in change.
In her research, O’Keefe highlights Mindset, a book by Carol Dweck, which discusses two fundamental types of mind-sets that most people have: a fixed mind-set and a growth mind-set. With a growth mindset, people tend to be more opportunistic and more willing to try new experiences. In a fixed mind-set, people believe their basic qualities cannot change. People with a growth mind-set are statistically shown to be more successful than those with a fixed mind-set because they are not pigeonholed and are open to exploration. O’Keefe implements the same learnings at Associa.
“To a large extent, we all have a choice,” she says. “We have a choice of our outlook and our attitude. There’s this opportunity for each of
us to think about our current mind-set and make sure we’re open to new opportunities and open to growth.”
O’Keefe says that while the audiences and preferences change depending on the company and industry, human behavior is the common thread. In fact, in all of her previous tenures, O’Keefe has carried three fundamental beliefs that helped her motivate and manage others.
1. PEOPLE ARE INTERNALLY MOTIVATED
While pay and recognition are typically sought, O’Keefe believes that those factors only last a short period of time. To motivate long-term, one has to discover what’s meaningful to each individual.
“People are only ready to commit to change when they are in a place of comfort, when they are adequately trained, and when they connect to something that matters to them,” O’Keefe says. “The work environment can be really busy, but if you don’t take time to determine what motivates people, then you’ll fail.”
At Associa, O’Keefe frequently asks questions to discover what motivates her team. The company also conducts employee pulse surveys, where O’Keefe and her team check-in with their workforce at least three times a year.
2. BE HONEST AND AUTHENTIC
“You can’t always come out with a positive message,” O’Keefe says. “Sometimes in change, you have to help people let go of things that they liked.”
O’Keefe says it’s a leader’s responsibility to discover what aspects people may be
ADP congratulates Chelle O’Keefe, Chief Human Resource Officer at Associa, for her leadership and focus on talent development and promoting a more personal level of connection to drive success within her company. We value our relationship with Chelle and Associa and are honored to be able to partner with them to achieve their HCM vision.
To learn more about ADP and see what our clients are saying about us, visit adp.com
ADP, the ADP logo and ADP A More Human Resource are registered trademarks of ADP, LLC. Copyright © 2018 ADP, LLC.
afraid to let go of. Then, it’s having the courage to move forward with change instead of spinning a message to a point where you’re not being authentic.
Finally, there’s what O’Keefe refers to as Option C. Typically in a conversation or a dilemma, people tend to default to two options, so O’Keefe is sure to ask, “What’s the third option?”
“Option C typically allows us to get the best of both options,” she explains.
For example, O’Keefe has used Option C to help employees from being laid off and instead relocating them to a department that better suits their goals and talents in order to help them thrive.
Now, using these fundamental beliefs for guidance, O’Keefe is spearheading three core initiatives at Associa, all of which revolve around the employee experience.
The first area of focus is the benefits program. Over the past few years, Associa has been working to implement a more robust benefits program while also keeping medical premiums flat—a major accomplishment in the current healthcare environment. Associa has also implemented Aetna’s Teladoc, which allows employees to connect with a physician over the phone or via videoconferencing for questions instead of needing to schedule an in-person appointment.
Recognizing that an employee’s experience is most influenced by their direct leader, Associa has also been improving leadership development. That includes identifying high-potential leaders, and creating group programs and individual development plans. Associa also holds annual leadership summits in the spring and a monthly leadership series through online training.
Finally, O’Keefe continues to refine the integration strategy. Because Associa is a mosaic made up of other companies, her constant challenge is to ensure a consistent Associa experience across the board. She says that’s where the company’s mission, vision, and values come in, as O’Keefe and her team relay this through a pocket-sized handbook and in all of their communications across the board.
But of all the values, family spirit is one of the main sources of pride not only because the company is family-owned, but also because of the belief that Associa operates best when everyone in the company feels a part of the team and loves coming to work every day. It’s also why even though HR has
“Each employee matters and is unique, and we have to meet each person where they are.”
CHELLE O’KEEFE
become more data driven in the past few years, O’Keefe always recalls the behavioral and psychological components that can go a long way in motivating and helping team members thrive.
“We have to speak the language of business and data, the science of HR, but balance it with the art of people and human behavior,” she says. “Each employee matters and is unique, and we have to meet each person where they are.”
ADP congratulates Associa, a global leader in association management, on being featured in Profile magazine. We value our partnership with Associa, and we are honored to work with one of the leading community management firms.
ADP. Powerful technology plus a human touch. http://www.adp.com/business
By LIOR PHILLIPS
A lot of people say they love change until they’re asked to change themselves. But Mary Holler, vice president and CIO of Integer Holdings Corporation, loves change. In the five years that Holler has been with the organization, she’s led two major transformations and driven countless important changes. Whether looking to improve the gender gap in corporate boards or install a new data center, Holler considers herself a tried-and-true change agent.
The word change can make some businesspeople uneasy—and for good reason. Change for change’s sake frequently causes chaos and shows a lack of vision. Holler takes care to reframe her work as “continuous improvement and optimization,” a strategic process that she can explain clearly and demonstrate the intended goals. That’s where establishing a change management plan comes in. “It’s very easy to get people excited about achieving improvement when you can communicate that vision clearly,” she says.
Holler’s leadership style focuses on empowering others and collaborating to attain the benefits of the organization’s investment in IT. A large portion of that comes from developing new processes and programs, but ensuring buy-in and proper
use is perhaps even more important. “There needs to be clear roles and responsibilities, as well as a comprehensive plan addressing any potential concerns,” Holler says. “My role is to establish that and then ensure that all of those pieces are coming together in the adoption phase.”
To do so, the leadership team executing the plan needs expertise that Holler herself may not have in her expansive tool kit. With a diverse team in place, Holler deploys one of her most important skills: ensuring that the empowered team members are making the required progress. “I need to make sure they really are informed and making good decisions. I ask a lot of questions, and apply a principle where I trust but verify their ability,” Holler says.
Holler has worked on that model throughout her career, starting with her first experiences in software development project management and implementing a help desk. Next, she spent a number of years building B2B systems and rolling out an e-commerce program across Europe. International data center operations provided her next challenge, a field for which she didn’t have
Mary Holler VP, CIO Integer Holdings Corporation
“I know how to manage transformational change, manage growth, and ensure processes can scale.”
MARY HOLLER
in-depth technical experience, but in which Holler quickly found that her change management process could make an impact. “I’ve worked on both the operations and the applications side, and that helps me be objective and find the opportunities and challenges,” she says.
In a sense, all of those experiences combined to prepare her properly for her first CIO role with Greatbatch Limited. “As CIO, I can affect change in all those different areas, which is really exciting,” Holler explains. That assessment was strengthened when she moved into her position at Integer and was given the directive to transform the organization into an enterprise organization. “I was able to assess the technology, the processes and the people, and then establish the plan of what needed to happen,” she says. “We brought in a lot of new processes, such as project management, change management, and incident management. The key to those was not just standardizing the processes, but also putting in the governance to hold people accountable.”
A major part of the enterprise move involved gaining buy-in on automation, which many workers fear will put them out of work. But through business engagement, Holler has taken every opportunity to learn from the people working in manufacturing teams, helping to standardize work across the thirty facilities, and identifying places where automation could alleviate some of that work to help take on other challenges.
The process helps Holler combine her two biggest passions in the office. “I love working with people and helping them build new skills, but I’m also a process person who loves designing, building, and
implementing new processes,” she explains. Holler views her role as working on business projects with potential technology solutions, and sometimes—as in the case with a new business process excellence program she’s co-leading—they may not relate to technology at all.
That perspective has prepared her for a major challenge in the business world: making a step into the boardroom. Less than 18 percent of board seats are held by women, according to the 2020 Women On Boards Gender Diversity Index, released in 2016. Additionally, the technology office is often unfairly seen as a support structure, rather than an essential partner. However, Holler is striving to beat those odds and further showcase the diversity of experience and strong leadership perspective she can provide to organizations in need of change agents.
“CIOs like myself can offer a lot of knowledge and experience even beyond the IT function that could benefit companies,” she says. “I know how to manage transformational change, manage growth, and ensure processes can scale. I’ve done acquisitions and brought an organization together. I’m incredibly proud of all of that, humbled to have been successful, and now I want to share that knowledge. Any business in any industry could benefit from that.”
NTT DATA Services partners with clients to navigate and simplify the modern complexities of business and technology, delivering the insights, solutions, and outcomes that matter most. As a division of NTT DATA Corporation, a top 10 global IT services and consulting provider, we wrap deep industry expertise around a comprehensive portfolio of infrastructure, applications, and business process services. Visit nttdataservices.com
Patrick DiDomenico reveals how he brings better, stronger, faster solutions to his global law firm via knowledge management
By JENNY DRAPER
PPatrick DiDomenico is ushering in a new era of efficiency and innovation at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. While the renowned labor and employment law firm has grown to nearly nine hundred attorneys throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Mexico, the chief knowledge officer is ensuring the firm’s innovative resources are accessible to all. In doing so, DiDomenico is exposing the crucial function of a role often missing from leadership circles.
“Clients don’t hire large law firms like ours because of one person,” says DiDomenico, whose firm represents diverse clientele, from small businesses to Fortune 50 companies. “Our clients want the collective knowledge and broad experience of many lawyers. A knowledge sharing mind-set and true collaboration are key differentiators for Ogletree.”
Knowledge management is still a relatively young discipline, says DiDomenico, who adds that having a dedicated knowledge management leader at any organization, law firms or otherwise, is rare—but on the rise. Last year, in fact, he co-hosted Ark Group’s 13th Annual Knowledge Management in the Legal Profession conference, which has experienced a surge in attendees from about thirty people originally to now more than 170.
Many organizations today tend to tack knowledge management tasks onto someone else’s full-time job, DiDomenico says, but that is a mistake. “Knowledge management is about being pragmatic,” he says. “It improves both the business and practice of law, and an organization matures exponentially when it focuses on knowledge management and gives a chief knowledge officer a seat at the table.”
DiDomenico, who is the recipient of the International Legal Technology Association’s 2013 Knowledge Management
“I’m always thinking about how to improve what we do and how we do it to ensure that we’re providing the best value for our clients and lawyers.”
PATRICK DIDOMENICO
Professional of the Year Award, has documented his thirteen-year evolution in his blog, LawyerKM.com. He is also the author of Knowledge Management for Lawyers, a book published by the American Bar Association in 2015 that outlines successful approaches to implementing law firm knowledge management programs.
DiDomenico earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Le Moyne College and a juris doctor from the Syracuse University College of Law. After practicing as a litigation attorney for about eight years at Gibbons, P.C., in New York City, he began to feel unfulfilled and frustrated by the inefficiency and lack of innovation in the legal profession. Determined to make a difference, he drew up a job description and
approached the firm’s managing partner with an idea to help other lawyers at his firm.
“I knew our work could be performed more efficiently—or better, stronger, faster, as I like to say—and ultimately, provide more value to our clients,” he says. Unbeknownst to DiDomenico at the time, the firm happened to be looking for someone to lead a new department called knowledge management. “It was a great coincidence. I wasn’t even familiar with term knowledge management, but about 85 percent of the job description I created was the same as what they were looking for in the new role,” DiDomenico continues. “It really was fortuitous.”
The role of chief knowledge officer transformed his knack for creating and organizing digital files, case management, legal
technology, and online research into the first full-time knowledge management function at the firm. Later, he held a knowledge management managerial position at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP before joining Ogletree Deakins in 2011, where he also created the firm’s first department.
Almost seven years later, the knowledge management department at Ogletree Deakins has grown to thirty members. “My knowledge management team at Ogletree is fantastic,” DiDomenico says. That department consists of four main groups: research and knowledge management counsel; the internally focused knowledge management firm solutions; the externally focused knowledge management client solutions; and the process-focused group known as legal project management, which helps lawyers plan, scope, budget, and efficiently execute matters.
But knowledge management is not just the responsibility of the members of the department. “We want to make knowledge management second nature to everyone in the firm, and we can’t do it alone,” DiDomenico says. To that end, DiDomenico created the Ogletree Knowledge Management Network, which comprises at least one lawyer in each of the firm’s fifty-two offices who serves as the local knowledge management representative. “The Knowledge Management Network is like an auxiliary police force,” he explains. “Members help us ensure our lawyers are collaborating and using the great knowledge management tools we built to access our collective knowledge.” The deputized helpers also meet regularly and receive extra training, he adds.
DiDomenico is also a member of the firm’s Technology Strategy Committee and R&D Council, which keep him abreast of
innovation and technology trends, from the latest legal business service delivery models to artificial intelligence.
“We’re not going after the latest shiny object because it makes buzz-worthy headlines in the legal press. We seek out the best, most appropriate technology for our lawyers and clients,” says DiDomenico, who also helps coordinate Ogletree’s annual client Innovation Summit, a round table meeting that addresses evolving client needs. “We’re constantly testing various technology tools, and the demos and pilots involving our lawyers help determine if it’s the right fit.”
While a chief knowledge officer is not a substitute for a chief technology officer, DiDomenico says, the savvy C-suite role brings value when evaluating technology tools. The lawyer perspective and laser focus on efficiency and value inherent in the chief knowledge officer function is more holistic and strategically focused than its IT counterpart.
Currently, DiDomenico is focusing on the revitalization of his early initiatives at Ogletree Deakins. He had spent his first year replacing the firm’s intranet with a robust, one-stop-shop portal platform for the firm’s resources and developing an enterprise search system. Now, he is updating the enterprise search system once again, which allows users to search for experts by experience and subject matter. He’s also revamping the firm’s intranet to improve the portal’s function.
“I’m always thinking about how to improve what we do and how we do it to ensure that we’re providing the best value for our clients and lawyers,” DiDomenico says. “Supporting the strategic direction of the firm is a fundamental principle of knowledge management.”
Nichelle Maynard-Elliott’s lifetime of taking risks, both personally and professionally, has brought her to places where she can truly make a difference
By JACOB WINCHESTER
Anyone who has ever accomplished a goal knows that few things go exactly as planned. The road to achievement is often paved with risk and the potential for unexpected delays or detours. While many may shy away, Nichelle Maynard-Elliott embraces those risks and detours, finding that they can unveil unforeseen opportunities and groundbreaking partnerships.
“You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone in order to experience growth,” says Maynard-Elliott, executive director of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for Praxair, a leading industrial gas company in North and South America and one of the largest worldwide. “I wouldn’t be where I am now if I had not taken risks.”
Risk is a fairly common concept in the world of M&A, where Maynard-Elliott has led strategic roll up initiatives in industrial gases and healthcare, overseen divestitures of noncore assets, negotiated high-stakes joint ventures with key strategic partners, and analyzed consolidation opportunities in order to take the business to the next level. However, she also stresses that embracing risk outside of the office—and throughout life in general—is crucial in steering yourself toward where you want to be and where you can truly make a difference. It’s a lesson she learned early in life.
During her senior year at Brown University, Maynard-Elliott received an envelope that she hoped would confirm her dream of attending Columbia University Law School. Instead, it contained the dreaded wait-list notification. Heeding a friend’s advice, MaynardElliott steeled her resolve and scheduled a meeting with Columbia’s dean of admissions. “I told the dean that Columbia was the only law school where I wanted to study, and I couldn’t see myself anywhere else,” Maynard-Elliott recalls.
She kept in touch with the law school dean for several months, and it was a risk that paid off. “In late August, with my second-choice school pressing for my decision,
Nichelle Maynard-Elliott
Executive Director, M&A
“Without some risks, you might never get to the point where you love what you’re doing and are being challenged every day.”
NICHELLE MAYNARD-ELLIOTT
Columbia’s dean told me that although there weren’t any open seats for that year, he would make me the first admittee for the class of 1994.”
Maynard-Elliott quickly worked to fill the nebulous void of her new gap year by taking a sales position at Neiman Marcus for the holiday season while searching for paralegal jobs in Manhattan to gain corporate law experience. One day, she struck up a conversation with a customer whom she was helping to select a scarf as a present for his wife. As they chatted, she told him that she had graduated from Brown and was looking to gain corporate law experience before starting law school the next year at Columbia.
That customer was Nathan Gantcher, then-president of Oppenheimer & Company, who attended Columbia’s business school. Gantcher shared his business card and suggested she send over her résumé. By the next day, he had sent her résumé to several law firms. By the end of the week, Maynard-Elliott had interviews lined up for paralegal positions in Manhattan and started work shortly thereafter.
“I could have done the safe thing and just attended my second-choice school,” Maynard-Elliott says. “Had I not taken the risk and gap year, I would have missed one of the greatest opportunities of my life.”
That calculated risk also yielded other benefits. During her time as a paralegal, Maynard-Elliott confirmed her affinity for transactional work over litigation. The experience was invaluable and informed her transition to Columbia. “The essence of transactional work is bringing different sides together,” she says. “You come to an agreement, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Litigation by nature is more adversarial. I am more of an advocate than adversary. I derive satisfaction every time parties achieve a meeting of the minds, resulting in wins for all.”
That realization also led Maynard-Elliott to take another major risk—the transition from the legal field into M&A—where she continued to develop a reputation as one who excels at generating growth and opportunity through collaboration.
“The move from law to business, for me, was the evolution from tolerating a job to owning my career,” she says. “When I entered law school, I wouldn’t have guessed that I would end up here, but with a little self-realization and a lot of encouragement from supporters and mentors, my career has evolved into something I enjoy immensely. Without some risks, you might never get to the point where you love what you’re doing and are being challenged every day.”
She also stresses the importance of seizing opportunities outside of your career as means to develop leadership skills. That includes at her church, where she serves on the board. She also founded a pioneering gospel choir, and they have toured internationally.
“My legal and business skills are valuable to the boards and church committees on which I serve,” Maynard-Elliott says. “It’s important to always be open to any place where you can develop leadership skills and expertise. These stretch leadership experiences have informed and enhanced my professional skills.”
Such meaningful opportunities are proven to be the win-win Maynard-Elliott always seeks: allowing her to support her community and, ultimately, make a difference. “I think life, for me, is about stepping out on faith, fulfilling purpose, reaching potential, and being the best person you can be—whether that’s the best executive, the best wife and mother, or the best choir director,” she says. “It’s about expanding and increasing your capacity. You just have to embrace the risk and find your voice. Then, you can truly sing.”
As a former mayor in Connecticut, R. Scott Slifka learned the importance of protecting the public trust. Now at LEGO Systems Inc., he’s putting the lessons he learned in office to work for one of the most recognized brands in the world.
By PAUL SNYDER
Before he joined LEGO Systems Inc., R. Scott Slifka worked for an insurance company, and he remembers the looks he received when he answered the question, “What do you do?”
“Their eyes glazed over, and they would go find other people to talk to,” Slifka recalls with a laugh.
Since joining LEGO in 2009, however, those glazed eyes now go wide with wonder when he answers the same question. “They smile or say, ‘That’s so cool,’” Slifka says. “Especially with kids—I’m like a rock star wherever I go. There really is something about working at a place that elicits that response. It’s very inspiring and affects your day-to-day work.”
As senior director and general counsel to the Americas—a territory that includes Canada, the United States, Mexico, and all countries in Latin America—Slifka’s dayto-day workload is almost always a full plate. In addition to protecting intellectual property (IP) for one of the most recognized toy brands in the world, he’s also charged with protecting the more than eightyfive-year-old company that was named by Brand Finance in 2015 as “the world’s most powerful brand.”
LEGO bricks have spawned countless imitators, but when you consider that the franchise has blossomed to include movies, TV shows, online games and programming, as well as other merchandise, protecting IP and the name itself is a nonstop task. As Slifka explains, the bigger the company becomes, the bigger of a target it becomes for competitors and copycats.
“To me, LEGO is like a public trust,” Slifka says. “When you’re dealing with something that so many people around the world identify with and believe in as a force of good, it puts you at a higher level of responsibility in protecting the brand—particularly in a children’s
R. Scott Slifka
Senior Director, General Counsel, Americas
Systems, Inc.
“When you’re dealing with something that so many people around the world identify with and believe in as a force of good, it puts you at a higher level of responsibility in protecting the brand—particularly in a children’s world.”
R. SCOTT SLIFKA
world. Our job is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. That carries with it all sorts of regulatory and other social responsibilities.”
In terms of social responsibility, Slifka points out that the Christiansen family, who founded the company in 1932, still play a major role in the company’s efforts. That includes investing in wind power to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and working to develop new, sustainable materials for its plastic bricks and packaging materials.
In terms of continuing to spread the brand throughout the world, Slifka says LEGO works tirelessly to ensure that it finds partners that not only share the company’s values of brand protection and childhood enrichment, but can also reinforce LEGO’s longstanding commitment to product and business integrity. Slifka was part of a team that helped set up operations for the company in Brazil. He refers to it as one of the most rewarding experiences he’s had as part of the LEGO family.
“With every country you go to, you have to work very hard to ensure you get the right people and put the right processes in place to make sure LEGO’s values are adhered to,” he says. “The further you get away from your home base, the bigger the challenge it is. Brazil did business in a very different way. I never worked in a start-up, but that experience had that vibe and to see the excitement of people having LEGO in Brazil was something I’ll never forget.”
Whether crossing international or political lines to achieve goals, Slifka is well-versed in being someone that can bring people together. He served as mayor for the town of West Hartford, Connecticut, for twelve years—some of which overlapped with his time at LEGO.
“On one hand, you think the two roles have nothing in common. But as mayor, I was protecting the public trust of my city,” Slifka says. “That’s a lens through which I viewed every decision. I come to LEGO—a toy company and not a government entity—but having
protection of public trust as your number one goal is something they do have in common.”
Besides that goal, Slifka says his twelve years being in West Hartford and having to carryout tough decisions makes him particularly sympathetic to the demands on his bosses at LEGO.
“You have to be someone who deals with public policy and is subject to public scrutiny every day as mayor,” Slifka explains. “Most lawyers don’t get that experience. I understand that perspective. It’s empowering to know that you can provide advice, but also sit on the other end and take the heat once a decision is made. It’s helped make my judgment better.”
Nevertheless, Slifka notes that tough judgment calls aren’t particularly commonplace at LEGO. He says where most other companies might seek shortcuts to protect or bolster their bottom-line, that isn’t the culture at LEGO. If a solution means spending more but protecting the safety of children and the worldwide brand’s reputation, then that is always the direction the company takes.
“You’re not just protecting a corporation. You’re protecting a movement and a way of life,” Slifka explains. “I feel an extra level of responsibility in this role, and it’s comforting to know that your management and the family ownership backs up that ethos.”
It’s also why LEGO places a premium on the personality of the people it hires. Slifka says his interview process was one of the most thorough processes he’s ever experienced, and the phrase “LEGO over ego” is never far from mind.
“By and large you will truly like the people you work with,” he says. “They’re good people who believe in the brand and are not just looking out for themselves. These are people who have passion for the brand and the mission of the company beyond what you find at other places. Some of us are big fans of LEGO products, but I would say that most of us weren’t super-fans coming into the job. You certainly develop that fandom through working here.”
ON Semiconductor’s Sonny Cave compares the high-tech industry to a high-stakes game of chess. His role as a leader of risk, compliance, and ethics ensures that the company wins that game in the most ethical manner possible.
By LIOR PHILLIPS
“Our work is in the context of a global chess game for technological leadership of the future,” says Sonny Cave of ON Semiconductor. Governmental and industrial superpowers have made the semiconductor industry a nexus of international power struggle. While American companies have traditionally led the pack, over the years Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Europe, and, more recently, China, have sought to challenge that leadership. “Semiconductors are the brains of technology, an essential element of everything electronic,” Cave explains. That all makes for an incredibly high-stakes chess match. And while ON Semiconductor continues to grow and become a bigger driving force in that game, Cave and his team ensure that they do so while following the rules and taking all the right risks.
Cave took an executive role with the Phoenix-based organization when it spun off from Motorola in 1999, and he has since amassed a lengthy title and list of responsibilities as executive vice president, general counsel, chief compliance and ethics officer, chief risk officer and corporate secretary, legal department. A lot has changed in the time since he joined the industry, but Cave has led his team with a constant eye to improvement and keeping the company ahead of any potential issue. “Some risks are fundamentally different to those I faced initially, and others have new twists and turns. Whoever stays the furthest ahead on identifying current risks and those coming around the corner will be the leaders,” Cave says.
That focus has been embraced throughout the organization, leading not only to massive growth and success, but also to ethical business practices and a powerful connection throughout the organization. In fact, Ethisphere named ON Semiconductor one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for the third year in a row in 2018—making it one of only three US semiconductor companies to join the list. That resonates with customers and suppliers, who can further trust the relationships that ON Semiconductor has established. “There’s going to be a higher level of comfort that they're not going to get any surprises down the road,” Cave says. To that end, many customers have named ON Semiconductor their “Supplier of the Year.” Additionally, that ethical nature has resonated with millennials, a growing factor in the talent marketplace. The company was honored by Forbes as one of America's best large employers, and the positive environment and culture is palpable. “People come up to me in the hallways and tell me how proud they are of working for one of the world's most ethical companies,” Cave says.
Cave’s focus on ethics doesn’t go unnoticed by his colleagues. “I’ve worked with Sonny for nearly a decade on a variety of matters, but have always been impressed by his integrity and thoughtfulness,” says Eric McCrath, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s M&A practice. “His commitment to ethics is always paramount in each of his decisions.”
That ethical nature is vital to the confidential, competitive nature of the high-tech organizations with which ON Semiconductor works. Cybersecurity becomes increasingly important as a risk management topic as well.
“We have to worry about keeping our employees’ personal information safe, but we also have to protect
Sonny Cave EVP, General Counsel, Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Corporate Secretary, Law Department ON Semiconductor
our strategic road maps, which we need in order to make products for them and develop products in the future,” Cave says. So, rather than have that concern siloed in one office, he stresses the need to cross-collaborate throughout the company. Once everyone understands the risks, they can create the optimal plan and then operationalize.
Though he transitioned to the organization from firm work in environmental health and safety, Cave approached the semiconductor industry with a zeal for knowledge and a drive for success. Upon first meeting the then-general counsel of Motorola seven years prior to the spin-off, Cave asked what it would take to eventually become general counsel himself. The opportunity came with the establishment of ON Semiconductor, and Cave needed to quickly get up to speed in several functional areas. “My intention was to make this place into something special,” Cave says. “Over the years, we have grown from $1.6 billion in revenue and a ranking of the forty-eighth largest semiconductor company on a global basis to now over $5 billion in revenue and a spot as a top-twenty global semiconductor supplier.”
As the US faced recession in the late 2000s, ON Semiconductor needed to reconsider how it approached risk. The struggles that companies such as Lehman Brothers faced acted as a wake-up call and a reminder that the boardroom didn’t always know how each individual management team assessed and set their risk appetite. Enterprise risk
Though he may spend his days in the bustling offices of ON Semiconductor, Sonny Cave’s background relates more to the great outdoors. Even before he focused in environmental health and safety in law school, Cave earned two degrees in botany and plant ecology. Now, he and his wife hike and stand-up paddleboard, just to get out into nature whenever possible.
“The real balance for me is getting out in Mother Nature and putting this whole hightech world on the shelf for a while,” he says.
He finds his new focus on ethics naturally ties to his past as an environmentalist. “My past focused on planetary ethics, and now I’ve moved to business ethics,” he says. “But today, businesses are actually in a better position to influence planetary ethics than governments. Corporations are the ones that need to take the lead.”
“We have to worry about keeping our employees’ personal information safe, but we also have to protect our strategic road maps, which we need in order to make products for them and develop products in the future.”
SONNY CAVE
management had been a factor in the business world for decades, but it was at this point that Cave saw it as a major need for ON Semiconductor. Having been with the organization since its inception and working closely with many departments, Cave was the right person to take on enterprise risk management. “The general counsel will generally have a database of organizational information in their head because every aspect of the company has a legal issue,” he explains.
In addition to his in-depth understanding of the organization, Cave researched the state of enterprise risk management across the industry in order to set up an initial plan for the program. He also developed a robust team to execute all of the various concerns that fall under his equally robust title. That included promoting from within, bringing in top talent, and encouraging self-development.
It also includes a focus on diversity and inclusion, a topic for which Cave has been a champion since the organization’s foundation. “As a company, we believe that improving diversity enhances your capabilities, and in the high-tech industry, that means improving gender diversity,” Cave says. “Today, I would put this law department pound for pound up against anybody.” In fact,
the department was named the best law department in Arizona by the Arizona Corporate Counsel in 2012, one of many awards and accolades the organization has won.
Because of his wide range of responsibilities, Cave’s day could be spent discussing topics ranging from proxy statements for a stockholder meeting to cybersecurity. His impact reaches far further, though, a fact that fills Cave with pride. His work can make a difference for employees and the company, for partners and vendors, and for customers, as well as for the world at large.
“We have a responsibility to our communities, to the governments, to humanity,” Cave says. “Foreign governments are spending billions of dollars trying to overtake American companies’ lead in the industry. Our focus on compliance and leading ethically is a very important part of our response to remain a leader in this highly competitive and ubiquitous field.”
Morrison & Foerster is proud to salute our friend Sonny Cave, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at ON Semiconductor, for his dedication, hard work, and committed leadership.
We are Morrison & Foerster — a global law firm of exceptional credentials. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, investment banks, and Fortune 100, technology, and life sciences companies. Our lawyers are committed to achieving innovative and business-mind ed results for our clients, while preserving the differences that make us stronger. mofo.com
After developing his career in both healthcare administration and law, Sam Germana built an integrated legal department as Trinitas Regional Medical Center’s first general counsel
By GALEN BEEBE
When Sam Germana learned that Trinitas Regional Medical Center was searching for a general counsel, he knew it was the opportunity he was waiting for. As general counsel, he would have the opportunity to bring together the legal function and the management function of healthcare.
“As a lawyer in-house, you can’t be in a silo,” Germana says. “You bridge the gap between administration and law by having one foot in both areas.”
Germana had experience in both legal and administrative functions when he joined Trinitas—a 554-bed Catholic teaching hospital—in 2002. He began his career in healthcare while still in college, when he took a position as a therapy aid. At the time, he was studying to become a psychologist, but he found himself drawn to the administrative side of the house. He worked his way up the administrative ladder, earning a degree in health services administration before attending law school.
Eventually, Germana became Trinitas’ first general counsel, and he approached his new role with a manager’s eye, seeing his task less as that of creating a legal department and more so as that of managing a function. “I had to figure out how the legal department could be seen as approachable, helpful, and a service,” he explains. “I don't treat patients. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. I’m here solely as a service to assist those who are doing the main operational work that this hospital does—treat patients.”
His mission was to integrate the legal function into the business, and he accomplished that through a personalized approach. Like a physician, he made rounds, asking his colleagues what tools and support they needed to make their work easier. “That’s the way you become approachable—by approaching,” Germana says.
Every two weeks, Germana attends the new employee orientation, where he introduces himself and the legal function to new staff members. He encourages employees to call him with any questions or concerns. “Once a couple of people check in and ask
Sam Germana VP, General Counsel
Trinitas Regional Medical Center
questions and find that you want to help, that spreads very quickly,” Germana says. Through these orientations, Germana has been able to meet almost every employee.
He also uses these orientations to create a culture of compliance at Trinitas. Healthcare is a highly regulated industry, and Germana’s goal is to make the business’ goals work within the framework of those regulations. “Compliance is like doing your taxes. You want to get every penny you’re entitled to, and you don’t want to be a cheat,” he explains. “It’s not just looking out to make sure you don't get in trouble. It’s a proactive way to get the maximum return that you’re legally entitled to. When you put it that way, it sounds like a positive thing.”
Germana has brought much of the legal department’s work in-house, but part of his approach is to acknowledge what he doesn’t know and to seek outside help when needed. This is especially important in such a lean legal department, which is made up of three people—himself, an assistant, and a risk management director. Previously, the insurance function was housed in the finance department, but during one of the company’s reorganizations, Germana and his colleagues determined that the function would work more efficiently if it were housed in the legal department. Although Germana understood the basics of the insurance function, he knew that he would need outside help to maximize Trinitas’ return on investment.
He decided to work with an outside firm that, while more expensive, would ultimately save Trinitas money. “We worked out a fee negotiation scale, and due to their ability to look at our risk
“I had to figure out how the legal department could be seen as approachable, helpful, and a service.”
SAM GERMANA
management program, we were able to save in the first couple of years over $1 million in premiums,” he says.
Over time, Germana’s assistant gained experience in the insurance program, and Germana was able to bring the role in-house. He promoted his assistant to take on the insurance responsibilities and streamlined the function into a department that already handled compliance and risk management.
After practicing law for more than two decades, Germana knows what to expect when it comes to the legal function. But integrating with the business is an ongoing process. Once a week, Trinitas’ president and management team meet to discuss the health center’s future strategy and current issues. Vice presidents from across the organization weigh in with their input on how the organization can maintain, improve, or correct its course if needed.
These meetings offer a prime opportunity for cross-functional collaboration. Instead of limiting his suggestions to legal issues, Germana offers input on issues outside of his department. “If even 20 percent of my suggestions are helpful, then it’s worth the time just to tell people what’s on my mind,” he says.
His legal training and hospital administration experience give him the foundation to succeed in his role, but it’s the little things, Germana says, that ensure he effectively integrates into the hospital’s operations. “You’re not the busy lawyer with the briefcase running around from place to place with your head down,” Germana says. “You make eye contact. You smile. You see a gum wrapper, and you pick it up. If someone’s lost, then you ask them where they’re going.”
Whirlpool Corporation’s worldwide tax and treasury team share the keys to their success, and how a focus on collaboration and a desire to never settle for the status quo have placed them at the right hand of company leadership
By PAUL SNYDER
BBeing a complex organization, Whirlpool Corporation is known for its multitude of home appliances around the world.
But as the Whirlpool team shares, the success of the international manufacturer comes with a universal trait that remains clear: there is no “I” in team, and all successes should be shared. Here, several members of the Whirlpool team share with Profile why collaboration has been paramount in overcoming any challenge, as well as why taxes, treasury, real estate, and enterprise risk management are never kept in the background.
Can you first give me a sense of how the team collaborates at Whirlpool and how it has evolved over the years to bring a better sense of cohesion and sophistication to the company?
Matt Nochowitz: We’re a cohesive and sophisticated group. Whenever we do a project, we have to ensure all stakeholders are aligned on the projects we’re performing. That process crosses all borders and technical disciplines. We have formal controls to make that happen, but it’s really the informal processes that make our jobs easier. Everyone on this team talks on a very regular basis, and there’s not a lot of ego. We’re all focused on creating the best results for the company, and we have the benefit of trusting each other and the fact that we like working together.
Carlos Carvalho : There’s an agility that we observe across the entire group. It’s very pronounced in everything we do. People in all parts of the
Matt Nochowitz VP of Global Tax, Corporate Treasurer Whirlpool Corporation
organization—functionally or geographically—understand how important that is. We were issuing a bond last year, for example, and we bumped into a tax issue in Brazil. This came up during a holiday, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t help us. Very quickly, the team brought out the information we needed to resolve the issue. It’s very pronounced in everything we do.
Camila Fraccaro: We have a shared desire to win and to work together.
Lucianna Raffaini Costa: We don’t work as individuals. We work as a group. Sometimes it’s because something that is going to be better for the company or team focuses on a particular region, but we’re all working toward the same goal.
What aspects of Whirlpool’s culture are embodied by the work you do as a team?
Costa: I would say the Whirlpool values are performed every day globally. We do respect each other, and we do listen to each other. We’re all in the spirit of winning. It’s a big part of our day-to-day lives.
Matt Nochowitz
VP of Global Tax, Corporate Treasurer
Camila Fraccaro
Treasury Director—Latin America
Tom Fischer
Senior Director, Global Real Estate
Brenda Engen Domestic Tax Director
Lucianna Raffaini Costa Treasurer
Tim Hopke
Senior Manager, Tax Accounting
Carlos Carvalho
Senior Director, Treasury
Pam DenHaan
Senior Manager, International Tax
Yang Xu
Senior Director, Treasury
“There’s a seamless level of communication and trust between everyone in the group regardless of where they sit.”
MATT NOCHOWITZ
Yang Xu: There is a great deal of respect. Matt engages everyone in brainstorming sessions and looks to everyone—no matter their ranking to participate. He once looked at a very junior team member, who was about to say something. We were all excited to talk about our own things and contribute. Matt picked this one person out and said, “You were about to say something. Please share it with your team.” That in itself shows a lot of respect and genuine interest in taking people’s input seriously, no matter what career stage they are. It applies to everyone. The company is very bottom-line driven, but what was once a highly technical, operational function, has become a place where you can provide ideas and generate value for this company. Matt enables us to do that.
Tom Fischer: When we talk about inclusion or use terms like “play to win,” these aren’t just words that sound nice. We are results driven and demand collaboration. There’s a whole reason and foundation behind our leadership model.
Speaking more in terms of detail with tax and treasury, how have processes changed since you’ve begun working together?
Nochowitz: We talk to each other all the time. There’s a seamless level of communication and trust between everyone in the group regardless of where they sit. It doesn’t matter if someone needs something—any time of day, any time of year—we’ll all jump in to help.
Tim Hopke : Over time, the world has become a lot smaller. The communication brings us really close together, and through
that there’s increased collaboration. We’re aligned on issues, the volume of transactions increases, and we move at greater speed. That’s really been an evolution.
Fraccaro : Under Matt’s leadership, there’s been a different mind-set and more of a push to think as a group. Everyone has the same objective. There’s no difference between corporate matters and regional matters. We see a shared result. There are no surprises.
Costa : There can be a situation when someone who is leading a project isn’t available. You can always reach someone else who can help out with questions or doubts. The second thing I want to highlight is the sense of urgency and the speed with which we work. I work in Europe, and even with the time zone difference receiving information is unbelievable. I can get answers from anyone on the team in less than an hour.
Fraccaro: I remember several years ago talking about where we wanted this department to go. I saw the evolution, the team structure, putting the talent where it makes sense to create a meaningful career path for everyone in our department. It’s impressive.
What would you say your proudest accomplishments have been in terms of moving Whirlpool forward with the work you do?
Nochowitz : I’m proudest of the team in that I get to work with this group on a daily basis. The other notable point would be the relationship this group has with senior leadership. This group really has the trust of Whirlpool’s leadership. It’s humbling.
Pam DenHaan: We’re really a trusted advisor. They try to talk to us about being one finance not only at a US or corporate level, but also with the whole group.
Carvalho: If you go back several years in the treasury group, we were mostly perceived as an excellent operational shop. You look at it now, and we’ve had the opportunity to be involved in hundreds of millions of dollars of bottom-line results.
Brenda Engen: I’m proud of the processes we’ve put in place around tax provisions and tax compliance, as well as the controls we put in to make sure we meet quarterly and yearly marks. We have a lot of technical projects in our department. Everything has to be documented and reported correctly. We’ve been told by our auditors that we’re best in class, and I really take a lot of pride in that.
Nochowitz: This group brings a tremendous technical discipline to the table, but most importantly is an open-minded approach to solving problems. Being technical is the price of admission.
What’s one surprising thing that people wouldn’t assume would be part of your role at Whirlpool?
Nochowitz : In most companies, taxes, treasury, real estate, and enterprise risk management are kept in the background. For whatever reason, that’s not true here at all. We are an important part in the strategic decision-making process.
Carvalho: Someone from another area or company would be surprised to know how much we have to know about each other’s functions to do our job well. You have to know more than what an average person would know to do well.
Fraccaro: The autonomy we have here to decide major things. I don’t think this is a normal side of work, but we have really big autonomy to decide things.
Engen: I think the reason tax, treasury, and everything that rolls up under that umbrella is as successful as it is because of what Matt built since he’s been here. It’s down to the way he’s taken on his role and taken this to the company. We’re all respected because of what he’s done since he arrived. It’s a credit to him that we get to do all the cool things that we do today.
Matt is an insightful leader with great business sense and unwavering focus. His ability to quickly recognize emerging trends and execute transformative deals is at the core of a highly productive partnership between Whirlpool and Mizuho. It is a great pleasure to work with someone of his caliber and character.
The Mizuho group is a global financial services leader with offices in nearly 40 countries and expertise in retail banking, corporate finance, investment banking, asset management, capital markets, and sales and trading.
To learn more: mizuhoamericas.com
Citi is fortunate to work with Matt Nochowitz and Whirlpool. Matt and his team generate inspired ideas that make a measurable difference for the company. Matt, we applaud you for sharing opportunities, sharing the floor to discuss ideas and sharing recognition with your team for a job well done.
By GALEN BEEBE
Margaret Baumgartner had no intention of becoming chief patent and intellectual property (IP) counsel at a software company.
In fact, she hadn’t considered being an attorney at all. But over the course of her career, Baumgartner has learned to embrace going with the flow, and she’s thrived in uncertainty along the way.
Perhaps that tenacity came from growing up in a working-class family in a small Indiana town. Her parents, who had not attended college, emphasized the importance of education. So much so, that by the time Baumgartner entered high school, she decided to become a surgeon.
Her passion for medicine continued into college, and she entered Indiana University as a biology major on a premed track. But in her junior year, everything changed. While volunteering in the emergency room at the local hospital, she observed a patient with a serious head wound. As she watched the doctor apply stitches to the wound, Baumgartner started to feel ill. “I fell over in a dead faint, and I learned that I cannot handle stitches,” she says. “Clearly, that is something very important toward being a surgeon, or even a general practitioner for that matter. Overnight, my entire world was completely shattered.”
With surgery no longer an option, she changed her major to biochemistry, and after graduating, she took a position in R&D at the biotech company Roche Diagnostics. The role was interesting, but she wanted to pursue more opportunities for advancement. So, when her supervisor suggested she meet the patent attorneys, she took him up on the offer.
Inspired by the patent attorneys at Roche, Baumgartner decided to go to law school at night while continuing to work at Roche full-time. That was no easy task, and she finished her first semester near the bottom of her class. “I realized that I needed to make a choice. Either I devoted my life to my job, or I devoted it toward becoming a lawyer,” Baumgartner recalls.
She left Roche Diagnostics and took a legal clerking position at Wilson Kehoe Winingham, a boutique personal injury firm in Indianapolis. The firm laid the foundation for her career by exposing her to the basics of legal practice. Eager to gain IP experience, she soon took an IP internship at the software start-up ChaCha Search. After she passed the patent and state bar exams, she was brought on as a full-time employee.
ChaCha’s small team and tight budget gave Baumgartner a wealth of opportunity. “At a start-up, you have limited funds. You cannot afford to send as much work to external counsel, so you really have to dig in and be resourceful,” she explains. “I learned how to find information beyond what law school taught me and picked up skills that a typical lawyer may rely on others for. I was my own
Baumgartner Chief Patent, IP Counsel
Genesys
legal team—tracking my docket, filling out and filing paperwork, running to the post office, you name it. I have a lot of respect for support staff and the assistance they provide.”
Those skills proved essential when, a year later, she was laid off. Once again, she found herself without a path. After several weeks of job searching, a former colleague told Baumgartner about a position at Interactive Intelligence, a telecommunications software company. At the time, the company had a single corporate attorney, and he was impressed by the diverse experience Baumgartner brought to the table. What impressed the hiring committee most, though, was the quality that had carried her throughout her career. “I think above all, the one thing that they noticed was that I was a really hard worker, and I had a drive,” Baumgartner says.
She joined Interactive Intelligence as the sole patent attorney in 2012. Over the next five years, she built up the IP department from a handful of patents to nearly two hundred pending applications and more than thirty issued patents. During that time, she also got married, relocated to the East Coast, and after four and a half years at Interactive Intelligence, she and her husband decided to start a family.
Baumgartner later learned she was pregnant on a Friday in 2016, and the following Wednesday, Interactive Intelligence’s leadership team announced that the company was being acquired by its main competitor, Genesys, a customer engagement solutions provider. For Baumgartner, the timing was precarious. “With a large integration like that there are redundancies, and I was very worried that I was going to be let go,” she says. “I knew that Genesys already had a chief patent and IP counsel, and I didn’t know if they’d have the need for me.”
The changes didn’t stop there. At her eight-week check-up, Baumgartner learned that she was pregnant with twins. Then in November, her boss informed her that she would be continuing with Genesys in a new role. The chief patent and IP counsel at Genesys had accepted a job elsewhere, and Baumgartner had been recommended for the position. Six years out of law school, she was now being put in charge of the entire IP legal aspect of a company.
“I said ‘yes’ without even thinking about it, because it was my dream job,” Baumgartner recalls. “My next question was, ‘Do they know I’m going to be going on maternity leave soon?’”
“I’ve had to learn to be adaptable and go with the flow.”
MARGARET BAUMGARTNER
It turned out the company didn’t know, but, fortunately, Genesys values a work/life balance. “The last trimester of my pregnancy, I had check-ups 3–4 times a week,” Baumgartner says. “Having twins automatically puts you in a higher risk category for complications. I spent a lot of time in the doctors’ offices. It was never an issue, though. Any time I talked to my boss, he was always telling me to just focus on my family. Work will be here.”
Five months after taking the position, Baumgartner left for maternity leave. Since coming back, she has juggled raising twins, running a household, and managing a complex IP department. Genesys is twice the size of Interactive Intelligence, and her expanded position requires a different approach. What may have worked before isn’t necessarily scalable to handle the new demands. New approaches have to be explored.
“I’ve had to learn to relax my style of management over IP and be more flexible,” Baumgartner says. “I’m taking the lessons learned at smaller companies and integrating my approaches to a much larger setting. Sometimes a strategy works, and sometimes I have to change it. As having twins taught me, you can plan all that you want, but nature is something else. To me, failure is never an option. I’ve had to learn to be adaptable and go with the flow. It’s something that has served me very well throughout my life and my career.”
If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.
- Maya Angelou
We are honored to work with such amazing clients, like Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories and are truly inspired by Chief Patent & Intellectual Property Counsel, Margaret Baumgartner.
Re-brand Re-shape Re-think Re-build
Re-position Re-build Re-create
Re-arrange Re-position Re-shape
Re-brand Re-shape Re-think Re-arrange
Re-shape Re-build Re-position fine Re-think Re-brand Re-shape
Re-create Re-shape Re-build
Re-shape
Re-position Re-shape Re-create
Re-shape Re-make Re-brand Re-build
Re-shape Re-build Re-invent ine Re-born Re-make Re-shape Rediscover
Re-build Re-imagine Re-birth
Re-create Re-shape Re-think Re-invent
Re-shape Re-define Re-imagine
Re-arrange Re-imagine Re-birth
Re-position Re-arrange Re-create Re-deRe-shape Re-position Re-imagine
Re-shape Re-brand Re-shape
Re-create Re-create Re-brand
In a digital-first age, what was new today may be gone tomorrow. Most of the time, in fact, consumers don’t know what they’re looking for, making it that much more challenging for businesses. These three executives share how strategic pivots can define a new path of undiscovered intrigue for consumers.
Re-build Re-position Re-create
Re-make Re-brand Re-imagRe-shape Re-create Re-position
Chidi Achara SVP, Chief Creative Officer Simon Property Group
rom the pages of a glossy magazine to front window displays on Fifth Avenue, few industries evoke more feeling and wonder than fashion. There’s a reason why every year thousands flock to New York City’s Fashion Week. Take last year, for instance, when Coach’s whimsical dresses, designer hats, and of course the iconic chic handbags were on display for the company’s fall collection, Coach 1941. With models on the catwalk and celebrities in the front row, the new styles showcased a brand that has been at the forefront of fashion for decades.
Not far from the runway, Chidi Achara was in his New York office at Simon Property Group, the world’s largest operator of luxury and fashion shopping centers. The mild-mannered and amiable executive is no stranger to the world of fashion, having elevated such brands as Levi’s, Cole Haan, and Hugo Boss. Now, he was working on a new venture between Simon, Coach, Facebook, and IMG that would turn just as many heads as those at Fashion Week.
As Achara explains, the four companies teamed up to produce a 360-degree virtual reality film of the Coach New York Fashion Week runway show featuring fall’s newest trends. Facebook then broadcast the film, and viewers were able to download a promotional code for participating Coach stores to receive a gift with purchase. Select Coach stores at Simon locations also featured ocular headsets so that shoppers could watch a virtual reality film of the show.
“We were using cutting-edge technology to create content around New York Fashion Week that could then be amplified digitally and socially across Facebook, our channels, Coach’s channels, and also certain influencers’ channels, while actually broadcasting that content in-store with a specific drive to retail with a promotional angle added to it,” says Achara, senior vice president and chief creative officer of Simon, which owns premier shopping, dining, entertainment, and mixeduse destinations.
As a result, Coach saw a double-digit increase in sales and traffic at participating Coach stores in Simon’s malls versus stores that didn’t participate in the promotion. But just five years ago, this willingness to collaborate on marketing and brand initiatives wasn’t a high priority for Simon’s retailers. For luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co., or mass market operators such as Gap or Nike, success and strong branding go hand in hand. At the time, Simon made less headway marketing itself as a potential partner to the stores that leased space within its properties.
“In essence, we now market ourselves not just as landlords or a real estate entity, but as an aspirational lifestyle brand in our own right.”
So, instead of viewing Simon as an entity that could help elevate the stores’ brands, these brands viewed Simon mostly as a landlord. That was before Simon’s rebranding. Now, the story of Coach is just one example of the impact that a partnership with Simon can have on retail brands.
“We’ve found that retailers have been much more open to partnering with Simon on activations that drive traffic to their stores within our centers in ways that are mutually beneficial,” Achara says. “As a result, we’ve worked very closely with leading brands such as Coach, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany, Apple, and many others on developing content, social, and digital support, in order to enhance our collective marketing efforts and consumer engagement strategies.”
Achara was well-positioned to tackle the rebranding that led to this success. He always knew he wanted to be in the creative industry, and he would eventually work in an advertising agency in London. His first take at a rebranding effort would come when he was with Cole Haan in 2012. He worked there as part of a team that Nike, which owned Cole Haan at the time, brought in to rejuvenate the brand for the millennial shopper. It was the foreground that prepared Achara well when he came in to help launch Simon’s rebranding efforts.
“What we’ve done is built an internal, creative marketing agency that services the needs of various internal clients within Simon,
“We had to rethink the way that we were branding ourselves and the way that we were engaging with shoppers as Simon alongside the engagement and marketing efforts of our retailers. We had to work in synergy so that two plus two could hopefully equal five in terms of traffic and engagement of sales.”
Chidi Achara has developed an unmatched reputation in the creative industry, and his efforts are turning heads not only in the boardroom, but also across the nation.
In 2017, he was named among the top executives in the country by Black Enterprise and was honored as one of Ebony’s Power 100 along with Serena Williams, Chance the Rapper, and the Obamas. While Achara takes pride in these awards and his accomplishments, he’s also using them to help inspire others.
“These awards really mean a lot to me, partly because there are so few men and women of color in positions of leadership and business and other areas of society,” Achara says.
Simon’s rebranding took roughly nine months to complete, a period in which Chidi Achara and his team used a variety of materials and input to create a holistic change for both retailers and customers when it came to the shopping experience.
“These awards are a great platform
to recognize those who are making a positive impact and hopefully can help pave the way for the next generation of diverse leadership and leaders. I’m still shocked and surprised at the number of times I sit in meetings, and I’m the only person of color at a senior level. And, for me, this is an area that really needs to be addressed not only corporately, but also in society as a whole. I believe diversity is not only a moral imperative, but it’s also commercially the right thing to do to cultivate diverse, inclusive, and supportive working environments. It’s good business, especially in retail where we are increasingly catering to very diverse audiences of shoppers.”
whether it’s an individual mall, something broader for the malls, the premium outlets as a whole, or whether it’s the Simon master brand,” he says. “We also collaborate with our retail partners in order to develop activations, content, and programs that drive traffic to their stores in our centers. So increasingly, we are both promoting Simon and our business.”
Simon is a multibillion-dollar enterprise with more than two hundred centers around the US and many around the world. So when Achara and his team sat down for the rebranding, they immediately wanted it to be holistic and entirely comprehensive. “Every aspect of how we present ourselves to the wider world, we want it to be encompassed by this rebranding,” says Achara, adding that it was also essential to develop consensus throughout the company, from division heads to leadership to the board of directors.
After bringing in several talented individuals from around the US, they developed a strategy around their mission from CEO David Simon, which completely redefined perception about shopping at malls. For decades, brand identity and recognition were the strongest factors in driving foot traffic to stores. But with continuing advancements in technology and e-commerce influencing retailers to focus on their websites, Simon needed to build its own identity to drive engagement and excitement from both current and future shoppers.
“We had to rethink the way that we were branding ourselves and the way that we were engaging with shoppers as Simon alongside the engagement and marketing efforts of our retailers,” he says. “We had to work in synergy so that two plus two could hopefully equal five in terms of traffic and engagement of sales.”
In the past four years, shoppers have taken notice both when visiting one of Simon’s physical locations and its website. Before the rebranding, Achara says the company spent about 10 percent of its budget on digital, but today about 50 percent of the forecast is on digital and social media. Physical locations now include modern and healthy dining options that are replacing traditional food courts. Digital screens in many centers feature continuous news, sports, weather, and entertainment updates. New brands and merchandise are appearing, such as Bonobos, Tesla, and Apple stores.
Simon has also launched apps to help customers navigate the centers easily. At about a quarter of Simon’s centers, Achara says the locations feature digitally interactive directories and maps that allow point-to-point navigation that customers can follow on their
phones. “You could be at the Sephora store and you want to know how to get to the Gap, and it will then give you point-to-point navigation with directions that you can follow on your phone,” he says.
Social media has also been introduced strategically at Simon locations. The company partnered with Snapchat to introduce geofilters into many centers, and Simon launched an industry-first Facebook messenger bot, which is a 24/7 self-service digital concierge. Achara says customers can use this to access information about the center at any time for store hours, dining information, or listings. Even the parking lots have not been overlooked. Achara says the company launched an option for customers to reserve a parking space at select malls, which has become a major convenience for customers during busy holiday seasons.
The entire rebranding process took about nine months to complete. For other companies and executives looking to take on such a major
effort, Achara says the first step is having the right leadership in place.
“I think that an organization needs a clear, coherent, and compelling vision for a new brand and focused strategy to execute that vision, the appropriate level of resources—whether they are financial or otherwise—and an innovative approach and openness to a degree of calculated risk-taking,” he says. “Once the team, the vision, the strategy, and the resources are in place, then that leader and that team will need to build alignment and consensus wherever possible internally.”
Fashion, just like retail, will always evolve. This year’s New York Fashion Week will have new trends on display. But as fashion, retail, and even technology evolve, so too will Simon.
“Our aim is to reinforce our position as a preeminent shopping center destination for a multitude of different constituents,” Achara says. “In essence, we now market ourselves not just as landlords or a real estate entity, but as an aspirational lifestyle brand in our own right.”
eff Girard is a catalyst for efficiency at Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW), where he has spent twenty-one years ushering in each new evolution of the billion-dollar company. “I grew as the company grew,” Girard says. “When I started, we had about thirty stores. Today, we have hundreds of stores.” Now, as senior vice president of distribution and logistics, he leads a team of vice presidents and directors spanning vendor relations, fulfillment centers, retail distribution, and engineering for the retailer of designer shoes and fashion accessories—and his innovative approach to productivity is continuing to create savvy business solutions.
Girard earned a bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing from Franklin University, but he trained as an industrial engineer at UPS. He worked his way up from unloading trucks to managing supervisors and union associates. A decade later, he was ready to embrace a new challenge and sought to build his position. He found the ideal opportunity at DSW.
Founded in Columbus, Ohio, DSW went public in 2005. It now operates more than five hundred stores across the United States and Puerto Rico, in addition to 289 affiliates. Girard joined the retailer in 1997 as an industrial engineer and immediately got to work consolidating five underutilized warehouses. His team converted an old aircraft manufacturing plant into the single distribution center, and Girard designed and implemented the warehouse management system, materials,
Jeff Girard SVP, Distribution & Logistics DSW
and equipment into the new location conveniently located by an airport. Soon after, he was promoted to director and then vice president of distribution and transportation before he entered his current role as senior vice president in 2014.
It was around 2003 when Girard began supporting the company’s transition from a close-out retailer in selling overstock to an in-line retailer that began selling in-season products. “In the very beginning, our first stores were only open a few days a week so that we could restock with merchandise bought from vendors,” he says. “At that time, almost all of the merchandise came from closeout buys. We opened more stores and changed the model to be open every day of the week. We went from 90 percent close-out and 10 percent in-season to flipping that ratio over the course of six years. One of the strategic benefits of moving towards a more in-line presence is that it enabled us to replenish units at the size level.”
Formerly, DSW would restock stores by the case of a predetermined mix of colors and sizes, which would often double the inventory of sizes that didn’t sell. This resulted in wasted space and more markdowns. Under the new business model, though, individual sizes are restocked accordingly.
Now that DSW has reached a new level of maturity, Girard challenges his logistics team to be on the forefront of innovation to make smarter investments in efficient processes. For instance, roughly half of DSW’s online orders get fulfilled out of stores today, according to Girard, so his team helped to revamp the brick-and-mortar locations as micro-fulfillment centers rather than spending capital on the construction of a massive new distribution center.
“We evaluated our network and realized that our stores are within twenty minutes of 70 percent of the US population,” Girard says. “It made sense to fulfill customer orders directly from them.”
The main distribution center in Ohio has also undergone a metamorphosis as Girard incorporates new technologies on-site. The upgrades have automated all of the receiving, sorting, packaging, and shipping processes, enabling the center to handle millions of units. “All of those departments have to work in concert to make that facility operate efficiently,” Girard explains. “We’ve replaced just about everything over the last five years.”
He also credits his team, whose strong operations experience and engineering knowledge have created solutions that are unique
to DSW’s distribution facilities. For example, Girard’s team created specialty pallets to move products around internally. The pallets are larger than standard issue, but they are not heavier. That results in increased capacity and reduces the number of moves overall. The team has also designed carts that expand capacity to perform optimal functions.
Another pivot occurred in 2007, when DSW decided to capitalize on a new trend surrounding online retail. “At the time, we were wondering if selling shoes online would even work,” Girard recalls. “We launched the e-commerce website in 2008, and obviously it was a good decision.”
To this day, DSW continues to invest in increasing the online demand, and while brick-and-mortar retailers have struggled as foot traffic declines, DSW’s new in-store strategy supports the change. DSW’s stores also help with customer returns. “The majority of the returns that we get for online purchases actually get returned to our stores,” he says.
Yet Girard knows that his role is more about the people than system configurations. As a self-described introvert, the logistics leader admitted that it was a challenge at first, but now it has become second nature as he integrates the company’s core values—passion, accountability, collaboration, and humility—in all aspects of his role.
“No matter how complex of a system you put in or how much automation you do in a facility, at the end of the day, it is really about people running the operation every day to do the job,” he says. “It takes everyone in the organization to make it successful, regardless of title.”
Looking ahead, Girard envisions even more progress at DSW. The company recently expanded into Canada and the Middle East, and Girard is making the international logistics as seamless as possible. “What excites me about DSW, and the main reason I’ve stayed so long, is that we continue to grow and change,” Girard says. “There’s always the next big challenge to take on.”
Since 1958, Sedlak has provided independent, innovative, and actionable distribution and logistics solutions to companies across the retail, wholesale, 3PL, and healthcare spectrum. Our focus on precision analytics, process improvement, and intelligent use of technology enables operational efficiencies, improved service levels, and cost reductions to accelerate our clients’ business objectives.
“We were wondering if selling shoes online would even work. We launched the e-commerce website in 2008, and obviously it was a good decision.”
SEDLAK congratulates Je Girard, Senior Vice President Distribution & Logistics at DSW, on his remarkable career.
We are honored to have the opportunity to work with professionals like Je , who share our focus on supply chain optimization and operational excellence to hit business targets and drive competitive advantage.
The core values that Jeff Girard has helped implement at DSW are not limited to the major retailer. They also reach the community, including DSW’s partnership with Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD), in which Girard initiated Project SEARCH—a workforce training program.
Celebrating 60 Years of Delivering Remarkable Experience Put Your Best Foot Forward
“I am very passionate about transforming the lives of people who have developmental disabilities,” Girard says.
The DSW program invites adults with disabilities to train for six months in all areas of distribution, and it has employed thirty-eight people at twenty employers since 2014. “It’s about doing the job, but it’s also about them overcoming what they may have thought they couldn’t do and teaching the social skills to be successful,” Girard says. “Most of the participants didn’t work before, and they’re now making much higher pay than minimum wage. It’s also filling a void because there is a huge shortage of workforce in distribution.”
Joel Layton VP, Marketing Technology & E-Commerce
The Children’s Place
he world of retail is not only rapidly evolving, but incorporating innovative digital strategies is nearly a requirement for survival. That’s where Joel Layton comes in.
The vice president of marketing technology and e-commerce at The Children’s Place—a specialty retailer of children’s apparel and accessories—is a seasoned e-commerce professional with extensive marketing, user experience, and software development experience from fields that range from retail and electronics to finance. But it’s the vice president’s inherent curiosity that has kept him on the cutting edge of technology for the past twenty-five years, as well as his willingness to “go for it” that keeps he and his teams driving digital expansion.
Layton, who joined The Children’s Place team in late 2017, says that most of what he loves about his role can be traced back to an invention that predates WWll. “I am wildly fascinated and passionate about understanding how a dot on a radar does what it does,” Layton says. “I absolutely love trying to solve the problem of getting that dot on the radar to do what I need it to do.”
In his current position, that means a number of objectives for Layton and the digital team. From content management and user experience to merchandising and front-end development, Layton says that keeping the customer journey in mind is essential every step of the way. “People with a tech slant have to be cautious of over-engineering a problem a lot of the time,” Layton explains. “Sometimes, making something simple is really a difficult task to undertake. You have to try finding that elegance and just help them not overthink it.”
The continued transition to the digital realm means challenges for Layton’s designers, who are often tasked with creating content for detailed mobile screens. “Now that you have 70 percent of your visits coming from mobile, you have to figure out how to design on the small screen,” Layton says.
It can often be a struggle when elaborate and interactive sites have to be simplified for mobile use, so Layton encourages his designers to start from the mobile perspective and expand outward. It can be a difficult mind-set to adopt. “If someone asks you tomorrow to start walking backwards, then you would be a
“It’s your responsibility to understand your customer’s journey, so even though they’re opening up multiple tabs, you’ve created something so engaging and so simple and so easy for them to use that they stick with you and become loyal.”
Every day, Joel Layton drives his tech teams to continue to look ahead to find ways to expand their capabilities. In fact, after seeing his young twin daughters experiment with Amazon’s Alexa, he sees major potential for voice search capabilities.
“Typing in a site search is going to be a mundane move,” Layton says of the future of e-commerce. “They’re going to want to talk it in: ‘Siri: get me graphic T-shirts.’”
Rather than rue the everchanging plane of e-commerce, Layton simply loves learning. He returns to the dot on the radar concept and his continued fascination with making the dot go his way.
“Tech is changing at such a fast clip that there’s things to learn constantly. To me, there’s nothing better,” he says.
little confused, even though the actual steps to do it aren’t that difficult,” Layton says with a laugh. “Changing that mind-set can be tough.”
When it comes to user experience, Layton says that simplicity also remains key. With ballooning traffic, Layton says remaining pragmatic about online shoppers’ intentions means looking for ways to make easy seem easy. “When you look at heat mapping and think that you’ve put all this cool, creative content on the website, and then you see most people are clicking on the login because they want to get to My Account, it can initially be deflating,” Layton says. “But we make that seeming mundaneness as slick and as easy as it can be so that the customer can get exactly what they want.” The permutations of a user journey are virtually endless, but Layton says mapping those flows help ensure a user experience that will build repeat business.
Layton frames his approach around what he calls the absolute best and worst parts of the internet. On the plus side, real-time analytics and feedback allow for testing in a way that has never been seen before. Changes can be made on a dime and in clear distinction to the capabilities of a brick-and-mortar operation. But the double-edge to that sword is that customers are basing their buying decisions on split-second website functionality. If the website isn’t operating in the most optimal way possible, then they’ll move somewhere else—and fast.
“It’s your responsibility to understand your customer’s journey, so even though they’re opening up multiple tabs, you’ve created something so engaging and so simple and so easy for them to use that they stick with you and become loyal,” Layton says.
Congratulations, Joel Layton, on your well-deserved recognition! Epsilon and The Children’s Place share a commitment to making shopping easier, more rewarding, and personalized for each customer. Every time. One partner—all your solutions. Visit epsilon.com.
We’re proud to partner with you to find the perfect fit for The Children’s Place customers’ digital experiences.
How Jeffrey Holland’s focus on teamwork helps keep Discovery Land Company running strong
By JACOB WINCHESTER
GGrowing up in Napa, California, Jeffrey Holland always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. But when he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, he wasn’t certain that he had the endurance to undertake another three years of law school. So, turning to another lifelong dream for guidance, he traveled to Pamplona, Spain, to run with the bulls.
“It was a rebirth moment for me. I was a little hesitant about going to law school, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do the impossible if I set my mind to it,” recalls Holland, who as a high school junior was at one time ranked second in the state of California in the eight hundred meters category. “As I ran, the bulls passed me, and I dodged my way unscathed through the crowded streets all the way to the bull ring. I guess my track-and-field days helped keep me upright, but finishing was the goal, and I accomplished it. After that, I knew I could survive law school and pursue my dream.”
Following law school, Holland cut his teeth on the West Coast working in litigation during a nationwide wave of construction defect lawsuits in the early 2000s, before going in-house as vice president and general counsel for a Canadian-based builder and developer of apartments, condominiums, senior housing communities, and hotels. Eventually, Holland gathered up his extensive experience and transitioned into his current role as general counsel for Discovery Land Company. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company is a full-service developer and operator of more than twenty private luxury communities and resorts across North America and the Caribbean.
As the company’s one-man, in-house legal function, Holland says he finds himself still drawing heavily from his early experiences in track-and-field, which taught him the invaluable fundamentals of teamwork and leadership. “My experience as an intercollegiate athlete has taught me life lessons that cannot be taught in the classroom, including hard work, dedication, teamwork, and how to handle setbacks and defeat,” he says. “In fact, understanding that the team is always bigger than the individual is the single most important leadership skill I have learned from track-and-field, and it’s the skill I carry with me today.”
Because the complex process of realizing pristine resort communities involves many different divisions and several different expertise coming together in order to translate a design concept into reality, Holland says Discovery Land Company’s formula for success is all about teamwork.
“Growth and expanding our unique development brand into new markets are key goals for Discovery Land Company,” Holland says. “In order to accomplish these goals, we have specialized teams of professionals— both inside and outside of
Jeffrey Holland General Counsel Discovery Land Company
the company—who help us advance our business plan.”
This team-centric formula allows the company to quickly and efficiently evaluate opportunities and cohere business plans and management structures. Ultimately, that leads to Discovery Land Company’s sanctuary-like resort communities. “It’s a delicate corporate interchange that we do, like passing a baton in a relay race,” Holland says.
When that baton is passed to him, his leg of the race involves coordinating and directing the legal affairs of domestic and international projects, as well as drafting contracts, managing litigation, handling negotiations, and generally providing any necessary guidance to other divisions of the company.
“I make certain that we have the correct legal teams in play to assist with the specific or unique jurisdictional requirements in the location of the planned resort, as well as overseeing and assisting with the project documentation,” he says.
That team mind-set is not only appreciated internally at Discovery Land Company, but also with the company’s outside counsel, who are instrumental in developments and projects. “Working with Jeff and Discovery Land Company as outside counsel truly gives you a sense of being on the team,” says Robert Adams, senior partner at Graham Thompson. “His personal and pragmatic approach to problem-solving is refreshing and makes working with him a pleasure.”
Since joining the team at Discovery Land Company, Holland has also sought to centralize the company’s litigation management. He also takes an active role in managing the company’s interaction with outside counsel. That’s an area that Holland says is vital, given the company’s international, multijurisdictional business model.
“We rely heavily on outside experts, and we need to,” Holland explains. “When we’re in the Bahamas or Mexico—or any foreign jurisdiction—we also rely on local and national counsel to guide us. Of course, during our internal due diligence aspect of acquisition or development, we determine what the land is zoned for or whether we need special use permits or need to hire land use attorneys to have our plans approved.”
The company is often successful in getting those plans approved, says Holland. But, just as in track-and-field, sometimes Holland and his team run into hurdles. “Most of those hurdles are environmental
“Without a team effort, we wouldn’t have the twentyplus properties we operate around the world today, and we certainly wouldn’t have the membership or success that we have seen.”
JEFFREY HOLLAND
in nature,” he says. “That’s because, a lot of times, we seek out opportunities in the best and most prestigious locations in the world, which often involve developing near oceans, lakes, mountains, deserts, and historic areas.”
To navigate these choppy waters, Holland says the teams at Discovery Land Company work to establish relationships with the local community, as well as with the best acquisition professionals, engineers, and land development lawyers. “Development is riddled with challenges in terms of regulation, land use restrictions, zoning, or other encumbrances and/or impediments,” Holland says.
Holland adds that the company takes every precaution necessary not to harm the
real challenges. real answers.SM Polsinelli salutes our client, Je rey Holland, General Counsel at Discovery Land. His leadership and strategic focus help guide the company toward its objectives. Polsinelli is honored to provide business-driven legal guidance to Je rey and Discovery Land’s team.
polsinelli.com
Wilson Elser salutes our valued client Jeffrey Holland, General Counsel of Discovery Land Company. Those who have had the privilege of working with Jeff well know and appreciate his high professional standards and enlightened leadership. His prowess − and the efforts of his team − are evident in the company’s enviable stature as one of the premiere players in the high-end resort residential market.
We look forward to Jeff’s continued contributions to Discovery Land Company and the broader legal community.
environment when developing properties.
“It all comes down to science,” he says. “We go out and do the necessary noise studies, traffic studies, environmental studies, and water quality tests. We do everything we can, and then if for some reason we have to make a change, then we modify our business plans accordingly.”
Today, Discovery Land Company is one of the most recognizable private luxury brands in the world, and that, Holland says, is largely due to the company’s savvy teamwork, talented ownership, and
developing a high-quality product that brings people together.
“The key ingredients in all of our developments are world-class amenities and our private clubs. These amenities, of course, enhance our development, but also bring owners together which, in turn, creates a strong and thriving membership community,” he says. “Without a team effort, we wouldn’t have the twenty-plus properties we operate around the world today, and we certainly wouldn’t have the membership or success that we have seen.”
Jeffrey Holland
General Counsel at Discovery Land Company
for his outstanding contributions to development and construction in The Abaco Islands of The Bahamas.
P. O. Box N 272
Nassau, N P
The Bahamas
T: 242.322.4130
F: 242.328.1069
P. O. Box N 272
Nassau, N P
The Bahamas
T: 242.362.4020
F: 242.362.4810
P. O. Box F 42451
Freeport, G B
The Bahamas
T: 242.351.7474
F: 242.351.7752
info@gtclaw.com www.grahamthompson.com
P. O. Box 965
Providenciales
Turks & Caicos Islands
T: 649.339.4130
F: 649.339.1069
Social media and consumer empowerment have forever changed how Kevin Goldberg and Gerber’s legal department work with the business
By JEFF SILVER
Even for an iconic brand such as Gerber, a division of Nestlé, social media and evolving generations of con sumers have dramatically changed how business is done. This is just as true for the company’s legal team as it is for every business function throughout the enterprise.
According to Kevin Goldberg, vice presi dent and general counsel of Nestlé Nutrition, the factors driving those changes have also pushed corporate legal teams to redefine the relationships they have with the clients they serve. They no longer act—or are seen— simply as advisors who operate separately from daily operations. They must be embed ded business partners capable of providing real-time direction and insights that guide both compliance and business priorities.
“The days are gone when lawyers quote the law, issue edicts about what can and can’t be done, and try to avoid risk at all costs,” Goldberg explains. “We have to understand the business and the value of the activities we’re involved in well enough to develop
different scripts for different circumstances and are able and willing to challenge sacred cows.”
Gerber’s first foray into Facebook is one such example. Ten years ago, Goldberg wouldn’t have considered social media because, among other issues, it means constant exposure to risk and “losing control of the conversation”—both traditional cornerstones of legal and brand management best practices. However, being open to new strategies and values led to quite a different assessment.
“We learned that we couldn’t unilaterally determine every priority anymore, but we could respond quickly and effectively to consumers’ priorities,” Goldberg says. “We had to be open to accepting and addressing the challenges that accompanied new opportunities in a new environment.”
Kevin Goldberg VP, General Counsel Nestlé Nutrition Corporation
Flexibility and adaptability also led Goldberg to introduce new practices
“Even if a particular business decision will almost certainly result in a lawsuit, we have to stay true to our mission—‘Anything for Baby.’”
KEVIN GOLDBERG
within his department. His team is responsible for reviewing thousands of contracts covering vendors and deals from around the world. To make the best use of available resources to manage that volume, he decided to change the threshold that determines which agreements are more highly scrutinized.
The practice is based on comparing current value to anticipated value, and is guided, in part, by the monetary or marketing value of a contract. The larger the value to the business, the more valuable the time and effort required to review it.
A smaller contract may have the same level of risk, but the potential consequences—if they occur—can be effectively dealt with both economically and legally at a later time to produce a desirable outcome.
“By changing the threshold that determines which items are reviewed, we’ve become more efficient, more timely, and more agile around priorities,” Goldberg says. “We’ve seen no changes in compliance levels or incremental risk, so we wouldn’t have been achieving any additional value if we’d continued reviewing contracts that are now below the threshold.”
Gerber’s legal department has also been positioned as a profit center for the company. When the leadership team reviews financial targets, Goldberg finds ways for the legal team to contribute to those goals by identifying opportunities to bring financial value to its operations. This can occur by proactively monitoring legal events that may not be directly related to the company,
Kevin Goldberg, General Counsel of Nestlé Nutrition, on his feature in Profile. White & Case is committed to working with Kevin and Nestlé Nutrition in preserving Gerber’s reputation of reliability, integrity and trust.
“There’s risk in absolutely everything, so if our philosophy is strictly avoidance at all costs, then we’re doing something wrong.”
KEVIN GOLDBERG
such as state-based rebate programs or claims against a supplier for defective ingredients. In such cases, he and his team are able to leverage those external developments, which can result in recouping millions of dollars for the company.
An important philosophical approach for Goldberg is to optimize risk by gaining a better understanding of its consequences. For example, even though a particular marketing message may be subject to a high degree of scrutiny by a specific regulatory framework, the content may be so essential to communicate to consumers that it outweighs the risk of drawing regulators’ attention.
That was the case when Gerber made claims about its infant formula helping to reduce colic. The claim was challenged by five different attorneys general, but after presenting the science behind the conclusion, the company was actually praised for support and the proven benefit the product provides.
“Even if a particular business decision will almost certainly result in a lawsuit, we have to stay true to our mission—‘Anything for Baby’—and at least temporarily assume the role of marketers to develop innovative ideas that go beyond saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to
clients,” Goldberg says. “There’s risk in absolutely everything, so if our philosophy is strictly avoidance at all costs, then we’re doing something wrong.”
For Goldberg and his team, this creative mind-set has developed in tandem with the evolving expectations of today’s consumers, which brings the discussion back to the immediacy of social media and the concept of “consumer compliance.” That is a standard that differs significantly from state and federal requirements. Even if the company fully complies with all statutory guidelines, it still has to answer to the mother of a newborn who wants to know exactly where her baby’s food came from.
“A new mom doesn’t care that we’re an industry leader, about how complex our compliance processes are, or how meticulously we review claims,” Goldberg says. “But she does want to know about our tracking capabilities to make sure her baby’s getting the best nutrition. That’s why we have to be more agile, more creative, and involved in every conversation about the brand.”
It’s that insight and understanding that enables Goldberg’s legal department to take such an important role in preserving Gerber’s reputation of reliability, integrity, and trust.
At the third-largest premium spirits company in the world, protecting data, providing thorough risk analysis, and ensuring millions of transactions take place each day without flaw is all in a day’s work for Justin Metallo
By DANNY CIAMPRONE
JJustin Metallo made his way toward the double door entrance, right across from a near wall-to-wall bar adorned with iconic brands such as Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Courvoisier, and Suntory Whisky Toki. Affectionately called Fred’s Rackhouse after Jim Beam master distiller Fred Noe, the bar is a signature display on the 16th floor of the Merchandise Mart building in Chicago, which has been home to Beam Suntory since 2017.
The move may have been recent, but as the third-largest premium spirits company in the world, the craftsmanship of some of these brands ranging from bourbon and tequila to gin and whiskey spans centuries. While new flavors are introduced every year, the recipe for bourbon, for example, is timeless. What has changed, though, is the innovation behind marketing, evolution in retail, and all the risks and rewards that come from monitoring digital security in today’s constantly connected world.
“We’re growing very fast because we have an entrepreneurial mind-set, and we embrace true innovation through all channels,” says Justin Metallo, senior manager, information security and compliance for Beam Suntory. “It’s not just, let’s make a new flavor. It’s how can we sell to new markets? I thought we just made bourbon, but we haven’t done that in twenty years. The bourbon is made. It’s aging. Now, it’s time to sell it.”
Spirits have been around since before Prohibition in the United States, so in order to help gain an advantage in today’s competitive landscape, Metallo and the Beam Suntory team are delving deeper into data and analytics. Today, companies such as Nielsen can provide data regarding demographics of shoppers in stores that sell various spirits. But now, this data and insight can be used on a much more granular level. Rather than data depicting such statistics as time of purchase, a person’s age, and gender, these insights can tell companies what customers were doing before even entering the store to make a purchase and discern a consistent factor that encouraged them to purchase a product.
“I thought we just made bourbon, but we haven’t done that in twenty years. The bourbon is made. It’s aging. Now, it’s time to sell it.”
JUSTIN METALLO
For example, these insights may say that across the demographic of customers who were thirty years old, 20 percent of them went into the store at 8:00 p.m. after leaving a specific movie. Then, it comes down to analyzing the movie to see if a brand was featured and determining if that could have been an influence on the customer’s purchase.
“From a cyber perspective, it’s figuring out how I secure all this tremendous data,” says Metallo, emphasizing that the data is not sensitive because consumers agree to the terms when downloading applications, such as a free weather app, to their smartphones. Users who provide the data have opted in to sharing it, and no names are attached to the behavioral data. As a result, Metallo’s major security concern is keeping this data from Beam Suntory’s competitors.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has also changed marketing and retail, as well as
cybersecurity. Recently, Beam Suntory invested in Bartesian, a company that produces innovative at-home cocktail technology. Essentially a smart cocktail maker for one’s home, Metallo says the technology is connected to a cloud-based system that can make cocktails based on one’s preferences. Linked with devices such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, the technology can learn your preferences and make a custom cocktail. For example, reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby could prompt it to suggest a martini using Sipsmith gin, or watching television’s Mad Men could inspire the suggestion for an old fashioned cocktail using Knob Creek bourbon.
IoT is also becoming popular around the globe, particularly when it comes to vending machines that dispense alcohol. While prohibited in the United States, it has become a booming industry in countries such as Japan.
It’s here where data and mining have merged with the traditional vending machine. Now, instead of the machine sending a notification to the back-end supply chain system that inventory is empty, these machines can inform the supplier how much is being sold and when.
For example, data may show that when an ad was displayed on the vending machine featuring Suntory’s The Premium Malt’s at a certain time of day, sales increased by roughly 30 percent. “Then on the fly, and without human intervention, the rest of the machines in the network will talk, reflect that change, and display that ad,” Metallo says, adding it’s another factor in today’s technological advancements that he needs to be sure to secure from a cyber perspective. “If anyone hacks into our system, then they can damage our brands, and they can not only get free liquor, but it’s also damage to the supply chain itself because it’s now connected to some of our back-end systems.”
IoT and increasing capabilities are only making cybersecurity more complicated. As Metallo explains, IT and most technology is moving to the cloud—mainly to cloud applications. Now, companies such as Beam Suntory are looking beyond that in terms of cybersecurity by moving beyond cloud strategy to a platform-centric strategy, where anything can be hosted within a platform on a virtual server. As a result, traditional networking security is quickly becoming nonexistent because of the shift to a digital platform. Moving toward that provider platform is a shift Metallo envisions for all businesses, mainly because of how much it saves on expenses. Companies that maintain physical servers must license these from major corporations, such as Microsoft, which includes cost to install, operate, and maintain the servers. All of that becomes quite expensive on the security side because now IT departments need antivirus scanners on the servers, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems. Moving to a cloud provider is not cheap upfront, Metallo says, but the cost in the long run is substantial even when
considering that the system requires fewer hands on deck to monitor security.
“You don’t have to do that care and maintenance,” he says. “There are now going to be less people to run the network and less people to run the data center. At the very least, you’re going to reduce your people count to run the same stuff you’re running.”
Changing this mind-set around platform-based security is now one of Metallo’s core responsibilities. Metallo regularly has conversations with Beam Suntory’s leadership team, in which he educates them in risk management when it comes to internet security.
“It’s not just fighting cyber warriors and doing all the cyber controls,” he says. “I have to make sure that I’ll do the threat modeling based on our business and then take that risk to the business and say, ‘Hey, this is what I think the risk is if we do X/Y/Z. What do you think about that?’ We’ll have the conversation, and then we’ll implement the control.”
And as retail and technology continue to evolve nearly side-by-side, it’s that risk-based approach that Metallo has to educate the company on when it comes to any cyber decision. As technology becomes more advanced, so too will hackers and assorted threats. But that doesn’t mean Metallo ignores cost in favor of protecting against the unknown if the threat doesn’t suffice. “A big component of risk-based approach is price and cost. That’s a dollar you’re not spending on innovation,” he says. “That’s one less vending machine we could put out in Tokyo. I’m very cognizant that the security budget cannot just grow and grow and grow because it’s scary out there.”
You will experience a cyberattack that seeks to exploit your weakest link. That’s why smart organisations partner with ALLENDEVAUX & COMPANY for realtime, actionable threat intelligence. When combined with security frameworks like ISO27001, ISO27017 and ISO27018, the professionals at ALLENDEVAUX bring a holistic, certifiable strategy to security assurance and regulatory compliance, satisfying the requirement s of GDPR, HIPAA, GLBA, PIPEDA and more.
Write info@allendevaux.com for more information.
At Allendevaux & Company, it’s a privilege to work with Justin Metallo and his security and compliance team at Beam Suntory, auditing and stress testing the defensive posture of the global enterprise, promoting continuous lifecycle improvements to protect from external and internal threats. Congratulations Justin Metallo on this well-deserved honor.
To
By DAVID BAEZ
In a patently litigious business environment, companies often spend a great deal of time and money prosecuting or defending themselves against lawsuits—frivolous or otherwise. But imagine for a moment how much of that litigation could be prevented in the first place if only the company’s businesspeople had a greater awareness of risks confronting them. Additionally, what if those same employees understood some of the ins and outs of intellectual property (IP) rights to such a degree that infringement could be prevented nearly altogether?
These are the topics that Michael Dwyer, senior vice president of legal at the toy company JAKKS Pacific, has made it his mission to address. Thanks to Dwyer and his team, employees in every department and at every level at JAKKS—from vice presidents to mail room clerks—bring an awareness of legal risk and IP protection to the work they do. Dwyer says that awareness helps eliminate
mistakes that an uneducated workforce might not be aware of.
“As in-house counsel, we’re charged with understanding the nature of the legal risks applicable to our business,” Dwyer says. “How could we expect our businesspeople to minimize legal risk if they don’t know what those risks are? That’s one of our most vital jobs as in-house counsel—education.”
Part of Dwyer’s decision to leave law firm life and go in-house for his career sprang from his frustration with the hourly billing model at firms, which he came to believe often created a disincentive for preventing problems. “Prevention doesn’t pay with the hourly billing model because if you prevent a problem, then your work disappears,” Dwyer says. “Being in-house for nearly thirty years, it better fits both my personality and my paradigm of striving to anticipate and prevent problems.”
Dwyer says that in-house legal teams don’t have any incentive to prolong work, but the way some may go about trying to minimize risk and protect IP can be
ineffective. Some may give employees a list of rules and rigid processes to follow, which employees may not understand or may seek to circumvent because they are viewed as unnecessarily inhibiting. Dwyer believes it’s far more fruitful to give employees a real understanding of why these rules and processes are in place.
“By giving businesspeople more knowledge, they are able to better operate creatively within parameters that minimize legal risk while maximizing IP protections,” he says. “We try to get our people to understand not just the what, but also the why.”
And at JAKKS, it’s not about simply placing an educational manual on people’s desks and asking them to study it. Dwyer says that every meeting, every conversation, and every call is a potential teaching moment. Additionally, legal holds formal, hour-long training sessions.
Sessions have taken place on topics such as A Lawyer’s 10 Tips on How to Make a Good Sale; IP Fundamentals; Packaging Guidelines; and—probably the most
Dwyer SVP, Legal
“By giving businesspeople more knowledge, they are able to better operate creatively within parameters that minimize legal risk while maximizing IP protections. We try to get our people to understand not just the what, but also the why.”
MICHAEL DWYER
attention-calling—How to Kill Your Career with a Mouse Click, which was filled with garish examples of what can happen when someone doesn’t keep in mind that any email sent can be subject to discovery in a trial. Everyone in the company is invited to the sessions. Attendance is voluntary, but there are few empty seats, Dwyer says, as businesspeople have come to understand how vital this education is to the bottom-line.
“The business folk absolutely love it,” Dwyer says. “To the extent that we give the information that helps them do their job better, makes them look better, and helps them make or save money, they are thrilled.”
The results of the focus on education have been tangible, Dwyer says. The entire workforce has come to serve as the eyes and ears of the legal team. Employees have alerted legal to trademark infringements on numerous occasions. With their newfound legal consciousness, employees have also let legal know about risks that legal might not
have otherwise known. That all amounts to what Dwyer says has been a significant reduction in the time the $700 million company’s lawyers spend in court.
“Currently, we only have three pending lawsuits,” Dwyer says. “Considering that we make millions of consumer products that involve children, I think that’s impressive. It’s a testament to our quality standards, as well as our trained employees who emphasize prevention of problems at every step of the process.”
Dwyer hopes that what he’s seen work at JAKKS in shifting effort toward prevention can take hold across industries, leading to a reduction in costly litigation that he finds, ultimately, unnecessary.
“Litigation is a tool. It shouldn’t be an end to itself,” Dwyer explains. “If we all approached it that way, then we would be eminently better off. My dream is that one day crisis prevention will eclipse crisis response.”
Jason Eastman began his career literally at street level—stocking shelves and building displays with Coca-Cola products at pointof-purchase locations across multiple channels in the metropolitan Atlanta area. It gave him the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of how the most effective sales and marketing strategies are executed, as well as the downstream implications when those fundamentals aren’t in place.
Today as vice president, e-commerce at Crayola, Eastman has been tasked with adapting a legacy company to the “digital-first shopping journey,” through which consumers prioritize searching online to find the products they want. Through extensive research and analysis, Eastman has identified specific capabilities that have to be standardized so that, as he describes it, he is able to put his house in order.
By developing and implementing comprehensive strategic plans, he has scored successes with Crayola’s largest e-commerce account, and he learned much along the way. Here, Eastman tells Profile how he tackled that strategic plan.
What were the biggest challenges in developing a successful e-commerce strategy? E-commerce may be more dependent on cross-functional capabilities between departments than any other retail business unit. Just to make one item successful on Amazon, all the business units involved have to collaborate and cooperate flawlessly. We had to identify exactly what we needed to accomplish, where the friction points were across the organization, and anticipate as many problems as we could. Once we had the right people, tools, and processes in place, we didn’t have to focus as much on how to do what needed to be done as we did on what to do. We put a high premium on developing predictable workflows so that issues that do come up are easier to manage because everything else is routine.
What was one of the first signs you were on the right track?
When we turned around negative growth and associated performance issues with Amazon. By building an organizational structure around their business requirements, we went from a very reactive relationship to one where doubling their business in less than eighteen months is achievable.
VP, E-commerce Crayola
What basic operational components have been key to adapting to the digital world? Like many legacy companies, Crayola had previously bolted new structures onto traditional operations, which left us, for example, with three different areas that were responsible for business within the e-commerce channel. But they weren’t coordinating with each other. That made us vulnerable to duplicating efforts and competing with each other in some cases, which increases the cost of doing business overall. By creating an enterprise-wide strategy, we’ve eliminated those types of vulnerabilities.
How are you helping the company adapt to the digital-first shopping journey?
We’re clarifying exactly how customers experience that journey and then determining what we need to do to respond appropriately. It’s helping us answer questions about how we need to commercialize our products: Should we focus on how they look on the shelf or how they appear on a screen? How does that impact design and development in terms of fonts for labels and product names?
We think about internal behavioral changes that are cultural, that evaluate our capabilities and, ultimately, how we compete in the marketplace. However, it’s a gradual process to shift all of those priorities.
What advice would you offer to other e-commerce executives?
First, make sure you have executive sponsorship and organizational commitment from the top down when you start. Second, recognize that there is no one “right way” to do e-commerce. Every company is structured differently with different priorities, so find the approach that’s the right fit for your organization. And third, define your focus and decide exactly what you want to be good at. At first, I tried to do too much too fast because I felt I had to tackle everything that I knew was possible. But if you try to boil the ocean, your team ends up working on one hundred different things when they can only handle fifty—and they won’t be able to do any of them well.
You have to constantly self-assess to keep yourself on the right path. In our case, that led to leveraging my customer management background to create executable domestic product and digital marketing strategies, rather than developing a global strategy for business in every conceivable market. We focused on the basics that we needed to get our house in order, and they’ve been huge components of our early growth and success.
Was there one particular lesson you learned from your experience at CocaCola that directly influences how you approach your job now?
You always get better results when your objectives are clear and the strategies are actionable and realistic. Also, you get out what you put in. You can’t develop plans for a Volkswagen and expect to end up driving a Porsche.
Content Analytics is thrilled to recognize the achievements of Crayola’s VP of e-commerce, Jason Eastman. We are a proud partner of Crayola, providing technology and services that support Mr. Eastman’s digital-first strategy.
Content Analytics is the only end-to-end e-commerce solution that provides integrated content management, syndication, analytics, and reporting functionality from one platform.
Today, e-commerce managers face the challenge of cutting through the clutter of dozens of single-point solutions. We change that. Our platform empowers brands to manage an increasingly complex channel through a single platform.
For a complimentary content health audit and demo: visit contentanalyticsinc.com
Today, eCommerce managers face the challenge of cutting through the clutter of dozens of single-point solutions. We change that. Our platform empowers brands to manage an increasingly complex channel through a single platform. We’ve built the only end-to-end platform that does it all.
Content Management | Syndication | Content Health | Price Monitoring | Ratings & Reviews Monitoring | Analytics | Reporting
We are honored to work with Jason Eastman, VP of eCommerce, Crayola. We salute his leadership, innovation, and impact in eCommerce at Crayola. Congratulations on your feature in Profile Magazine. CUT THROUGH THE CLUTTER. Learn more at contentanalyticsinc.com
Economist Marko Vujicic is generating data and research to shape up healthcare policy
By JENNY DRAPER
TThe United States has a long history of isolating the finance and delivery of dental care in the healthcare sector, but Marko Vujicic is bridging the gap. As chief economist and vice president of the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute (HPI), Vujicic conducts large-scale multidisciplinary research initiatives and presents crucial findings to policymakers.
“The research linking oral health with broader health outcomes was pretty slim a decade ago,” Vujicic recalls. “Now, we have evidence that strongly suggests improved dental health lowers overall healthcare costs and increases people’s employability. We are filling the data void.”
When Vujicic joined HPI in 2011, he initiated a shift from retroactive to proactive data and research. That change in focus evolved the organization beyond describing historical data to anticipating trends in key areas of dental care reform: access, utilization, education, and the workforce.
“We really are a future-focused think tank for dental care policy,” Vujicic says. “My role distills complicated, nuanced research into important messages for policymakers, and my team has put a lot of effort into making our research accessible and actionable.”
The HPI team recently produced one-page summaries of each state’s level of dental care access, the result of two years spent combing through new data sources and developing innovative analytics. Vujicic is sharing the results in the field with state legislatures, which highlights how he’s generating valuable evidence for health policy. He’s been working with Medicaid agencies and the US Department of Health in two states—Virginia and Missouri—on much more in-depth analysis.
“It’s important to invest in data analysis, because there often isn’t a universal solution to health policy challenges,” he says. “Cost is the big issue adults face in accessing dental care for a vast majority of states nationwide, but there’s a lot of variation in the barriers to dental care. Oftentimes, conventional wisdom is wrong when you start looking at the actual state-by-state data.”
His data strategy identifies the important questions first before choosing datasets to pursue for answers. That methodology avoids the common economist trap of increasingly novel analysis of less interesting questions, says Vujicic, who earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from McGill University and a doctorate degree in health economics from the University of British Columbia.
Efficiency is key to Vujicic’s data philosophy, which he has finetuned over the course of his career. He began at the World Health
Organization in Switzerland and then joined the World Bank in Washington, DC, as a senior economist. He helped the Ministry of Health recruit nurses in rural Liberia and led research to design policies that improve access to health services.
“It was humbling to see the level of poverty,” Vujicic says. “And it was tremendously rewarding to be able to contribute to rebuilding a postwar country.” Case studies of how fiscal policy in developing countries impacts the health workforce in the public sector appear in a book he co-authored, Working in Health. Now, he’s building the most comprehensive data on the dental care system in the United States, and his team is tracking three major changes. The first trend is the shift from volume to value in the healthcare sector, which Vujicic describes as “a slow and steady train starting to come to dentistry.” The second trend is the shift toward interprofessional education and practice among healthcare providers.
“There’s an exciting opportunity for dentists to rethink how they interact with other healthcare professionals,” Vujicic says.
The third major trend, Vujicic says, is shifting dental care use patterns. “We’ve uncovered important changes that are going to have big implications,” he says. “We’re seeing the declining trend of young adults likely to visit a dentist. We’re seeing the baby boomer population aging into retirement, but Medicare currently does not cover dental care services.”
Yet Vujicic considers the development of his team as his most notable accomplishment. In addition to streamlining the primary data collection and investing in secondary data sources, which are key to his efficiency philosophy, Vujicic spent time finding the
Chief Economist & VP, Health Policy Institute
When Marko Vujicic isn’t presenting new research about dental care to federal or state policy makers, you can often find him on campus. He holds several university affiliate appointments, including at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago.
He also teaches a course each summer on health workforce policy at Harvard University. “Going way back to my days as a ski instructor, I realized that I love teaching,” Vujicic says. “Through my connections to the academic community, HPI has been able to build some very strong research partnerships.”
“We have evidence that strongly suggests improved dental health lowers overall healthcare costs and increases people’s employability. We are filling the data void.”
MARKO VUJICIC
Every other Wednesday, Profile delivers exclusive insights from business leaders straight to your inbox.
Hear from people like: Jennifer Hyman, the CEO of Rent the Runway, about how to disrupt an industry without making enemies. Or Patty McCord, who spent almost fifteen years at Netflix forming an industry-benchmark culture. We distill their stories into actionable insights that will drive your organization and career forward.
To sign up: scan this QR code on your phone to receive the bi-weekly newsletter in your inbox
right talent and creating an environment where they could thrive.
“We’re in the knowledge business. I recruited people who are not only disciplined analysts, but also have a high level of intrinsic curiosity,” Vujicic says. “We do a lot of unstructured playing around with the data, and that’s where the magic happens.”
As a result, Vujicic is in high demand as a speaker. He regularly presents his team’s analysis and his strategic insights to dental care industry executive leadership teams, as well as at leading health policy conferences.
“There is going to continue to be a lot of innovation because the current model is frankly failing too many Americans,” he says. “We’re creating opportunities to rethink how we pay for and deliver healthcare, especially dental care. I’m excited that we are helping lead the way.”
As a veteran of Major League Baseball, Bo Porter knows what it’s like to steer young talent in a positive direction. He keeps that mission at heart, on and off the field, leading The Stacey and Bo Porter SELF Foundation.
By PAUL SNYDER Photos by GILLIAN FRY
IIt can be difficult sometimes to pinpoint where your life—or even your career—journey began. For Bo Porter, it started with the smash of broken glass in a window. Then another smash. And another.
At age nine, Porter played baseball in a church parking lot in Newark, New Jersey. Gifted with power at a young age, Porter found himself consistently driving the ball over the parking lot fence and through the window of an adjacent house.
“The man who owned the house was named Mr. Taylor,” Porter recalls. “He would come over to my house and say to my mom, ‘Ms. Porter, Bo broke my window again.’ My mom would explain that there was no park where the kids could play nor a league for me to play in.”
Taylor, who worked as a security officer in a bank on the other side of town, knew of a Little League close to his job and returned to the Porter home with a sign-up sheet. Porter’s mother explained to him that she didn’t have money for Little League, nor a car to get her son across town to participate.
“He said, ‘Little League might cost a little less if Bo doesn’t keep breaking my window,’” Porter recalls with a laugh. “Out of the kindness of his heart, Mr. Taylor offered to pay the fee and take me twice a week to Little League. I tried out and got selected right away.”
Porter’s first Little League coach was an avid New York Yankees fan who took his team of twelve kids to Yankee Stadium one summer afternoon. Arriving early, Porter and his teammates went down to field-side seats and got autographs from Dave Winfield, Willie Randolph, and Don Mattingly. “I knew that day that I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player,” Porter says.
A few years later, Porter found that he had gone from hitting long balls out of church parking lots to being selected by the Chicago Cubs in the 1993 MLB draft. He also spent time with the Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, and Colorado Rockies.
With his playing days behind him, he’s gone on to work on the coaching staffs for the Florida Marlins, Arizona Diamondbacks, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves.
In addition to his work with Major League Baseball, Porter spends his time off the field as the chairman of The Stacey and Bo Porter SELF Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 2012 with his wife to provide and support programs dedicated to improving and impacting the lives of others. SELF is an acronym for sports, education, life skills, and faith.
“It’s really Stacey who did an outstanding job building the day-to-day infrastructure of the foundation,” Porter says. “She’s a product of the Houston Independent School District and shares my passion to provide a brighter future for our children.”
Through an array of programs, including a initiative that focuses on academic achievement and enhanced potential, after school tutorial assistance and academic enrichment, flag football, club baseball, a day at the ballpark, and financial literacy, the SELF Foundation works in various schools and communities across the country to
Since founding the SELF Foundation, former MLB player and coach Bo Porter has visited several schools around the country, including Paul Revere Middle School in Houston, to share inspiring opportunities with students and encourage them in all aspects of life.
Bo and Stacey Porter founded the nonprofit in 2012 as a way to have a positive impact on others through sports, education, life skills, and faith.
Having benefited from several positive role models growing up, Bo Porter is now paying it forward with his nonprofit, The Stacey and Bo Porter SELF Foundation, by inspiring students of all ages.
The Stacey and Bo Porter SELF Foundation supports a number of initiatives, including club baseball, flag football, after school tutorial assistance, and academic enrichment programs.
“A lot of kids are coming from troubled homes and backgrounds. It’s a joy when you hear a child come up and say, ‘Mr. Porter, I want to thank you for caring.’ It sends chills down your spine.”
BO PORTER
provide the assistance and opportunities that Porter experienced when he was younger.
“A lot of kids are coming from troubled homes and backgrounds,” Porter explains. “It’s a joy when you hear a child come up and say, ‘Mr. Porter, I want to thank you for caring.’ It sends chills down your spine.”
In addition to the programs, there are also events where kids who have taken part in these programs are recognized for their growth and achievement, such as at the foundation’s annual gala. The annual gala also recognizes some of Porter’s professional colleagues for the work they’ve done. For example, the Torch Award was bestowed to the likes of Frank Robinson, Chipper Jones, Hayden Fry, and Dave Winfield.
Porter also hosts the EMPOWERED Summit, which is based on his first book, REal Life EMPOWERED . The title, similar to SELF, is an acronym that provides the guidance to a well-rounded life: education, manners, physical activity, open-mindedness, well-balanced nutrition, expression of positive attitude, relationships, enrichment of spirit, and dedication.
Each year at the summit, the foundation invites nine different speakers to share about one of the EMPOWERED values at the meeting. The theme of the summit had its genesis in motivational texts and messages that Porter would give to his players during his time as a coach, which quickly evolved into a book and then a summit.
The ideas don’t stop, either. In late 2017, Porter launched the Championship Dad’s Club, another group that is focused on helping people and providing fathers with the tools they need to be the best they can be to their children. Porter says he was inspired by his son’s homework, which asked him about his father.
“My son said, ‘I love my dad because he takes great care of me and my family, but I respect my dad because he’s teaching me to be a man.’ Talk about bringing you to your knees,” Porter says. “We all set out to do a great job with our kids, but to hear my son say that was amazing. I literally grabbed my pen and pad and said, ‘I want to do something with this feeling.’”
The ability to capitalize on those feelings and reinsert positivity and goodwill into the community isn’t simply done by Porter and Stacey. He notes that the foundation’s staff, its board of directors, advisory council, sponsors, donors, and volunteers all play a vital role in helping bring SELF’s mission and vision to light.
He also says the Houston Independent School District’s principals, teachers, and coaches who run the foundation’s program have taken the mission on as their own.
Beyond providing opportunities, Porter notes that the value of the SELF Foundation is not only about fun programs and community improvements, but it’s also about providing faith and becoming “champions of Christ.” The rewards he finds in that faith are found every day, and he says that sometimes the reminder of how much gratitude you owe can be found with a simple reflection about considering all those who’ve helped you on your journey.
“Where would I be if Mr. Taylor had not paid the $25 and drove me across town twice a week? We all can do something. It doesn’t matter how big or small your platform is,” Porter says. “We should all look for opportunities to do something for someone else.”
Although Bo Porter was always motivated to improve the lives of those who had little to start with, he found himself stuck when trying to launch the SELF Foundation.
That’s when a player that Porter coached was preparing to play college baseball, and professional scouts had been showing up to his games and asking questions that he and his family weren’t prepared to answer. As a former Major League Baseball player, Porter made himself available for guidance.
“I was getting ready to go to spring training, and this player’s mother asked me to stop by the house so I might be able to give them some insight,” Porter recalls.
“We spoke, and at one point, she says, ‘Tell me what’s going on with you guys?’
We were in the process of getting our articles done to launch the foundation.
We’d come up with the name, we knew the sector of kids we wanted to help, but we didn’t know how to get the articles done or the 501(c)(3) paperwork done. So, I tell this woman and she goes, ‘You know, that’s what I do for a living.’ I had the paperwork in my car, and she asked for the whole folder. Two or three months later, the paperwork was done and the foundation was up and running.”
Tom Havens creates innovative solutions for Ryder System’s customers as regulations in the transportation industry continue
By JEFF SILVER
Even though Ryder System sold its consumer rental division nearly twenty years ago, many people still have a tendency to picture it as the company with the yellow trucks they can rent for the weekend. In fact, Ryder is one of the largest third-party transportation and logistics businesses in the US. Roughly 40 percent of the company’s growth has come from new outsourcing customers that have chosen to leverage Ryder’s experience and expertise, along with its more than fifty million square feet of warehouse space, eight thousand dedicated drivers, more than 240,000 vehicles, and more than eight hundred locations.
Tom Havens, senior vice president and global chief of operations, explains that there are several factors driving many companies to outsource their transportation and logistics needs. EPA emissions standards and advanced truck technology have made vehicle maintenance and repair more complex and expensive. That translates into additional training of existing staff and substantial investments in retooling and new diagnostics equipment. Other recent regulations also limit driver hours of service and demand that electronic logging devices replace manual paper logs. Additionally, the industry is facing an ongoing technician shortage.
“Ryder’s specialty is maintaining commercial vehicle equipment and managing dedicated logistics,” Havens says. “New regulations, new technologies, and manpower shortages are all pushing customers to look for outsourced solutions, which is exactly what we offer.”
But similar to other companies in the industry, Ryder isn’t immune to the same challenges that are spurring its growth. When the first changes to emission standards went into effect in 2007, Ryder developed a comprehensive retraining and retooling program, which included updated technology, protocols, and regulations change. “Prior to the 2007 emissions standards, the industry had gone many years without significant changes to diesel engine technology,” Havens says. “When manufacturers were forced to re-engineer their products, it changed everything when it comes to maintenance, diagnosis, and service.”
Because several of Ryder’s customer contracts are multiyear agreements, the company was able to phase in the new processes and practices. As older vehicles reached the end of their life spans, they were replaced by the newer technologies, which created blended fleets that gradually shifted toward newer vehicles and technologies.
Ryder is addressing the industry’s technician shortage through several different innovative programs. First is its technician trainee program. Students who may
Ryder System provides fleet management, transportation, and supply chain solutions to companies of all sizes using the latest technologies to make them safer, more efficient, and environmentally responsible.
otherwise enroll in private training schools are identified and offered jobs so that they can be paid while they receive training from the company. Ryder also has award-winning programs targeted at transitioning active duty military personnel to the private sector.
Since 2011, the company has hired more than 5,800 veterans as both technicians and positions in a variety of other fields through the Hiring Our Heroes program. The Ryder Pathway Home program was created with the US Army for active duty soldiers who want to continue in technician jobs that they had already been pursuing while enlisted. The company sponsors twelve weeks of training prior to their discharge, and the government then relocates them to any city where they would like to begin working for Ryder.
“Our military programs have accounted for about a quarter of our new technicians—a figure I expect to continue to grow,” Havens says. “It feels great to be involved in something that addresses a strategic issue for our business and that supports our veterans at the same time.”
Ryder Pathway Home contracts with individual army bases. The company expects to expand from its current three contracts to six by the end of 2018. The combined training and recruitment efforts have added about nine hundred technicians over the past five years, bringing the company total to nearly six thousand.
Four years ago, to help address management staffing and succession issues, Ryder developed two key internal programs: the eighteen-month long Future Leaders program for existing employees, and operations manager training for new hires going into frontline positions.
Tom Havens SVP, Global Chief of Operations
Ryder System, Inc.
Both have enabled the company to keep up with its ongoing expansion while promoting and staffing open positions from within.
As the business has changed, so too have customers’ expectations. This prompted Ryder to unbundle the traditional full-service lease offerings that had been a mainstay of its business for eighty years. For example, instead of a single comprehensive package for leases that includes vehicle purchases, financing, and complete maintenance, a variety of more flexible alternatives are now available through the company’s Ryder ChoiceLease products.
Additionally, Ryder SelectCare offers options that split maintenance responsibilities between the company and its customers so that it has more flexibility to align services with objectives and business needs.
Adding to its standard multicustomer maintenance facility, Ryder can deliver maintenance in two distinct ways: the on-site product line staffs customers’ maintenance shops with Ryder managers and technicians, and mobile maintenance provides fully outfitted trucks that travel to customers to perform on-site and comprehensive service.
“Unbundling our offerings enables us to cater to customer preference with more choices that make it easier to do business with us,” Havens explains.
As successful as Ryder’s efforts have been at transitioning along with the industry’s evolution, Havens points out that the journey is never-ending.
“Even some customers with full-service leases still don’t know the breadth and depth of products and services that we offer,” he says. “It’s something our sales and marketing teams are always addressing. We like to look at it as a pool of potential new business from people who just aren’t yet aware of the full scope of what we can do for them.”
“Prior to the 2007 emissions standards, the industry had gone many years without significant changes to diesel engine technology. When manufacturers were forced to re-engineer their products, it changed everything when it comes to maintenance, diagnosis, and service.”
TOM HAVENS
• Truck, trailer and rail refrigeration solutions to meet all your needs
• Expert sales, service and support through the Carrier Transicold Dealer Network
• High-quality parts and accessories, to keep your equipment running at peak performance
Why a playbook based on authenticity is essential for Jeff Kearney and his team
By DANNY CIAMPRONE
MMichael Jordan missed the game-winning shot twenty-six times. J.J. Watt was once a walk-on at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Serena Williams was on the wrong side of the biggest upset in the history of women’s tennis after losing to number forty-three-ranked Roberta Vinci in the 2015 US Open semifinals. And Matt Ryan walked out of NRG Stadium in defeat after walking on that same field at the end of half-time with a twenty-five-point lead in Super Bowl LI. These are just a few of the times when the most renowned athletes in the world are at their most vulnerable. Nothing makes an athlete more humble than defeat, which makes victory itself all the more rewarding and authentic to their adoring fans. It’s this same determination, authenticity, and mind-set of an athlete that Jeff Kearney and his team at Gatorade bring to help fuel competitors through victory and defeat, on and off the field of play.
“Whether you’re a tennis player like Serena, a football player like J.J., or a basketball player like Michael, you’ve probably had a moment where you had something happen that drove you to succeed and pushed you to never let that happen again,” says Kearney, global head of sports marketing for Gatorade. “We take a lot of pride in identifying those stories that can speak to all athletes.”
Kearney is a self-described gym rat and someone who loves the athletic experience. After enjoying tenures at the Big Ten Conference and Conference USA, Kearney joined Gatorade in 2004. Now managing Gatorade’s global roster of sports partnerships, as well as overseeing partner services and inclusive educational platforms,
Kearney relates his role to the same mentality of those in professional sports.
He works with his team the same way a coach would. In fact, the roster at Gatorade is as impressive as a championshipcaliber squad. There are credentialed sports medicine professionals, certified athletic trainers, dietitians, a master strength and conditioning coach, scientists, sports medicine professionals, and some of the best-in-class marketers.
“I make sure that we’re setting ourselves up for success, we’re drawing up the right game plans, and if we need to call a timeout, both myself and that individual have the ability to do it,” Kearney says.
Gatorade has an unrivaled recognition in the world of sports fuel and athletic equipment. For that reason, having such a strong team contributes to one of the company’s greatest assets: authenticity. Gatorade was developed in the mid-1960s by several researchers at the University of Florida in response to football players being affected by heat and heat-related illnesses as a result of fluids and electrolytes lost through sweat. The drink was developed to replenish those key components.
By the end of the 1980s, Gatorade became the sports drink of choice on NFL sidelines. And in 1991, Michael Jordan introduced Gatorade to a new generation of athletes with his iconic “Be Like Mike” commercial.
“My team is part of the fabric of sports and sports marketing. We’re the visible cordwood between the world of sports and our brand,” Kearney says. “When you turn on the TV to watch a sporting event— whether it’s a college football game, a college volleyball game, or a major professional
Jeff Kearney Global Head of Sports Marketing
sporting event—you’ll hopefully see us there fueling the best athletes in the world.”
Kearney explains that authenticity comes from developing and maintaining close relationships with athletes and teams with which the company partners. In order to develop those relationships, Kearney says it’s about listening on and off the field of play, as well as keeping in touch with them about their athletic goals in individual and in team capacities to create an authentic marketing strategy.
“We have a phenomenal consumer engagement team,” Kearney explains. “We can sit down with them and talk about things that we have learned in the locker room about an athlete that they can then translate into great storytelling. That comes across not only as authentic for our brand, but also authentic for that athlete as
well because it’s something true to them, something that they live by.”
Gatorade’s organizational culture also fuels that branding and authenticity. At the company’s headquarters in Chicago, Kearney says the team immerses itself into sports, training, and in-season and off-season planning for some of the world’s most well-known teams, players, and competitions. “Everybody does their part. They know that the team works harder than the individual, and we have a lot of success with that,” he says. “We pride ourselves on living the brand.”
Just as athletes display that authenticity through wins and defeat in competition, so too does Gatorade, and Kearney expresses the importance of learning from both wins and losses just as the company’s athletes do.
In the summer of 1965, the assistant coach of the University of Florida’s football team, the Florida Gators, inquired with team physicians about why so many players were being affected with heatrelated illness.
Dr. Robert Cade, Dr. Dana Shires, Dr. H. James Free, and Dr. Alejandro de Quesada soon discovered that the athletes were losing fluids and electrolytes through sweat and not getting those essential components replenished. The large amounts of carbohydrates that a player’s body used for energy were also not being replaced.
With this information, researchers took their findings to the lab and formulated a new beverage with carbohydrates and electrolytes to replace those key ingredients lost. They affectionately named it Gatorade, and in the decades to follow, athletes have been using the sports drink to fuel their victories.
Michael Jordan went on to win six NBA championships and was named MVP in the finals each of those years. J.J. Watt earned NFL defensive player of the year three times. Serena Williams bounced back to win the Australian Open in 2017, and Matt Ryan finished the 2017 season with one of the highest quarterback ratings in the league. But whether it’s a loss or a win, the passion remains the same, and it’s that same passion Kearney lives by at Gatorade.
“If you get an opportunity to work in an industry that you love, then take it,” Kearney says. “It’s incredibly rewarding and incredibly challenging both personally and professionally. I think Gatorade provides that impact for a lot of people. I’m certainly enjoying the experience. It’s just an honor and privilege to work on this brand.”
Anna Marie Miller
A major acquisition tripled the work within Jeff Miller’s legal department. Discover how he led a small but mighty team through the process, and how the legal team helped set the tone for the bigger and better Haskell.
By ZACH BALIVA
When Jeff Miller left work on March 15, 2016, his department supported about 425 employees. The next day, they were responsible for roughly 1,300. Miller was senior counsel at Leidos. But when Haskell, a global leader in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry acquired Leidos Engineering’s Benham operations, Miller’s litigation and contract duties tripled overnight.
The move from Benham to Haskell could have overwhelmed many lawyers, but Miller has been practicing law for twenty-five years. The Oklahoma native earned a law degree from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor of science in manufacturing engineering technology from Oklahoma State University. He’s represented insurers, manufacturers, business owners, and general contractors of all types and sizes. He even owned his own small construction company for a few years. The extensive experience and deep understanding of the industry gives Miller inside knowledge that he leverages to weather the most challenging of situations.
Miller brought his existing legal team to Haskell after the acquisition. However, Haskell never had an in-house legal team. Leaders and project managers previously worked with autonomy and turned to outside firms whenever projects became difficult. Thus, Miller worked to inform and educate the company about his team’s capabilities. “I had to gain the trust of business group leaders and those in the C-suite,” he explains. “I needed to prove that we could reduce reliance on outside counsel, support specific growth and strategic objectives, and add value to Haskell clients through more efficient transactions.”
Jeff Miller VP, Chief Counsel
The Haskell Company
Leaders first came to his department with simple contracts and negotiations. But after several meetings, some in-house training, and about eight months of tireless work, Miller became Haskell’s chief counsel, and the company officially formed the Haskell legal department. Still, Miller had to explain the value of in-house legal and contracts services. To do so, he focused on how a speedy response from legal would help retain customers, complete projects, and drive business. “An in-house team is a true business partner. We’re not simply managing risk. We’re looking for solutions,” Miller says.
While Haskell still relies on outside firms for litigation and uniquely complex matters, Miller has won the confidence of his business counterparts. Integrating the largest acquisition in Haskell’s history, though, was a challenge. To find success, Miller and other leaders knew they would have to learn and appreciate the cultures from both companies while uncovering policies and procedures that would work best for the new and bigger company. To start, Miller began by auditing existing policies and producers of both Haskell and Benham, and in doing so, he discovered some areas of overlap.
The companies had grown in similar ways and had similar markets and projects. Miller acted as a bridge between both sides, facilitating conversations about challenges and risks that each company had experienced. He worked to help Haskell understand how it could leverage Benham assets, and he worked to help the legacy Benham employees understand the benefits of life as a larger organization.
Legal led training efforts and created new, standardized contracts. For several months, Miller worked with one other attorney and a contract specialist. In February 2017, he added
“I needed to prove that we could reduce reliance on outside counsel, support specific growth and strategic objectives, and add value to Haskell clients through more efficient transactions.”
JEFF MILLER
a second specialist. At the same time, he convinced leaders to give his second-in-command the title of senior counsel. The move allowed Miller to off-load the day-to-day management of contracts so that he could focus more on litigation. Today, Haskell is a fully integrated, single source design-build and engineering procurement construction firm with roughly $1 billion in annual revenue and high-stakes projects around the globe. As head of the internal legal team, Miller leads a small but mighty group of dedicated professionals who negotiate all contracts,
advise management, and handle claims and litigation. Two years in, the department has earned credibility and decreased outside legal spend dramatically.
Miller says that, while rewarding, it hasn’t been an easy road. “We’re confident in our abilities, but the volume of work is huge, and there’s no trick to managing it,” he says. “The keys are talent, time, and efficiency. We can’t let up because there is always work to be done, and we have to do it well.”
As a leader at a major organization, Miller strives to strike a balance between personal
and professional responsibilities. That’s not always easy with four children between the ages of fourteen and twenty-three. “I encourage people on my team to make work/life balance a priority,” he says. “For me, it’s helpful that I have an amazing and supportive wife. I enjoy this work, but time away from home is a concern that many of us deal with.” Miller recognizes that many of his peers in the industry face this same struggle. He says one tool that’s helped him navigate with success is frequent and clear communication.
Internalizing Haskell’s legal department was a natural step in the company’s growth to a bigger and more complex enterprise. The legal team responds quickly, decreasing delivery time for critical documents such as project agreements and contracts. That means Haskell project managers see faster project delivery, and Haskell clients realize more value.
In fact, 2017 brought Haskell’s largest annual revenue in company history. And Miller says the organization is on track for another “very good” year in 2018.
Next, Miller hopes to grow his team and take a comprehensive look at risk management and compliance. Together, they’ll build a complete contracts database and roll out standard documents to bring more uniformity while introducing other best practices to reinforce the continued growth of Haskell’s enterprise.
Part of Haskell’s continued success, as again recognized by Engineering News-Record, is its ability to recognize and enable talented people. Jeff Miller is a great example. Jeff quickly established himself as a trusted advisor across Haskell’s organization, while building its first legal department. We at Gunster are honored to be a part of Jeff’s team.
Hawaiian Airlines’ Aaron Alter shares how an in-the-works joint venture with Japan Airlines will benefit both companies—and their passengers
By RANDALL COLBURN
KAUA’I
NI’IHAU
O’AHU
BBefore the prospect of becoming a US state was even a twinkle in Hawaii’s ocean blue eye, the archipelago was already intimately familiar with another nation: Japan.
Governor David Ige, for example, was born in the Aloha State to a family of Okinawan descent. And to this day, Hawaii remains one of the most popular tourist destinations for Japanese travelers.
“Japanese tourists have no shortage of places to go when they want to go to the beach,” says Aaron Alter, executive vice president and chief legal officer of Hawaiian Airlines. “They can go to Indonesia, Malaysia, or Singapore, but Hawaii is so cosmopolitan and has a culture rich in Asian influences. Japanese tourists just feel comfortable here.”
It only makes sense, then, that Hawaiian Airlines, the state’s de facto flag carrier, would make travel between the destinations that much easier. For years, that partnership manifested as a codeshare with All Nippon Airways. But Hawaiian is currently embarking on a more fruitful arrangement with Japan Airlines (JAL), a joint venture that aims to make booking, flying, and inter-island travel smoother and more flexible.
Alter and his team have been involved at every step of the process. “Many joint ventures are much broader and cover multiple routes, but this one is just Hawaii to Japan,” Alter says. “It focuses on our primary international market, but also on an important part of JAL’s business.”
It’s rare for an airline to have such a strong geographical identity. United, Delta, Southwest, and the rest of the major airlines are significant because they can take passengers anywhere. But what makes Hawaiian Airlines special is its mission.
“We’re very focused on being the premiere destination carrier to and from Hawaii,” Alter explains. “Many airlines fly to Hawaii, but it’s usually just a very small part of their business, whereas this is our
entire business. All of our flights either emanate from or return to Hawaii every single day.”
Of the 200–250 flights a day that Hawaiian’s sixty airplanes host, roughly 170 of them shuttle locals and visitors between the state’s six major islands, including Maui, O’ahu, Kaua’i, and Moloka’i, among others. While Alter notes that Hawaiian’s focus is on the leisure traveler, he also says that the archipelago’s lack of a functioning passenger ferry system—a consequence of the rough waters dividing the islands—has also allowed the airline to serve local businesspeople.
“We have people who commute on us,” Alter says. “It’s so easy to get on one of our planes and fly to and from the neighbor islands every single day. That’s how some of our guests go to work.”
Once the JAL joint venture is in place, travelers will enjoy a greater choice of flights between Hawaii and Japan, as well as more seamless routes in between the myriad islands that make up both Hawaii and Japan. Alter also notes that those vacationing to Japan will be able to enjoy the comfortable design of Hawaiian’s aircraft, which was crafted with the leisure traveler in mind as opposed to the more business-oriented design of JAL’s planes.
“Many joint ventures are much broader and fly off of multiple routes, but this one is just Hawaii to Japan. It focuses on our primary international market, but also on an important part of JAL’s business.”
AARON ALTER
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
The premier provider of legal services to technology, life sciences, and growth enterprises worldwide
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati proudly joins Profile in recognizing our dear colleague and friend, Aaron Alter, for his many accomplishments with WSGR and as Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of our client Hawaiian Airlines.
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is the premier legal advisor to technology, life sciences, and other growth enterprises worldwide. We represent companies at every stage of development, from entrepreneurial start-ups to multibillion-dollar global corporations, as well as the venture firms, private equity firms, and investment banks that finance and advise them. The firm's broad range of services and practice areas are focused on addressing the principal challenges faced by the management, boards of directors, shareholders, and in-house counsel of our clients.
www.wsgr.com
The planes will be functioning interchangeably on the trunk route due to the “metal neutral” nature of the venture, which means that the two airlines will be sharing revenue on the trunk route. “We’ll be selling all of JAL’s flights like they were ours, and they will be selling our flights as if they were theirs,” Alter says. “It’s airplane agnostic.”
As of now, the joint venture agreement has been signed, and codesharing between the airlines has begun. Hawaiian will be applying for regulatory approval in the realm of antitrust immunity in both the United States and Japan. In the meantime, Hawaiian is slowly easing into the growth it has been enjoying over the past several years, with the airline having just announced that it will be procuring a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners. It is also in the midst of inducting a new fleet of Airbus A321neos. These planes accompany what Alter describes as “one of the newest fleets in the industry” in terms of the average age of planes.
Hawaiian isn’t rushing into new ventures, however. He notes that the Dreamliner won’t be flying for the airline until 2021. “We’re a tiny carrier in the general scheme of things— just 2 percent of the industry,” he says. “But with the new planes we’ve been getting we could theoretically fly from here to almost any place in Europe, Australia, and certainly into China.”
However, Alter also notes that the management team have to assess what the demand is as well for tourists from China coming to Hawaii. Right now, that demand isn’t high enough to pursue beyond a single flight to Beijing, but the option is on the table if that changes. “These planes will give us that capability to tap into whatever the growing tourist market will be for Hawaii,” he continues.
One fact, though, remains: Hawaii, with its idyllic, oceanfront vistas and verdant wildlife, will always be a tourist destination. Alter, who spent his youth there and couldn’t be happier continuing his career on the island, isn’t shy when he says the state “sells itself in terms of its natural beauty and the great warmth and aloha spirit of its people.”
“As Transfer Agent for Hawaiian Holdings, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Aaron when he was at Wilson Sonsini and more recently on transformational changes at Hawaiian Holdings, such as initiating cash dividends and DRP. Aaron’s balanced business and legal perspectives complement his pleasant demeanor—a joy to work with!”
JOSHUA
P. McGINN, Senior Vice President, Western Region Relationship Management, AST
Safety is Toyota’s number-one priority. Wayne Powell explains how he and his team at the auto manufacturer are drawing upon the latest advances in AI and machine learning to help reduce possible injuries.
Words
RANDALL
FFor many people, the prospect of driverless cars is not only the next step in automotive technology, it’s also the future of transportation. For Toyota’s Wayne Powell, however, it carries a bit more weight.
“I had a daughter learning to drive several years ago, and I also had a father who was fiercely independent and didn’t want to stop driving,” Powell says. “The idea of developing cars that give people the mobility that they once had, or that they will soon have, is a powerful driver for me to do the work I’m doing.”
For Powell, the vice president of electronic systems at Toyota Motor Co., the potential of autonomous vehicles is vast and deeply intertwined with one of the car manufacturer’s chief concerns: safety. “It's not tech for tech's sake,” Powell says of the company’s work in this realm of technology. “Toyota's very clear that we have a singular focus, and that’s to eliminate traffic deaths—period. All of this technology is a tool to get us there.”
Toyota has made tremendous strides in the field of vehicular safety in recent years. Virtually all of its current vehicles come integrated with the Toyota Safety System (TSS), a five-point system that works to prevent collisions and engage distracted drivers. Among its features is a pre-collision system that automatically applies the brakes when its sensor detects a possible crash, as well as lane departure warnings and an automatic cruise control feature that ensures drivers maintain a safe distance between other vehicles on the road.
“We’ve had people tell us the features make them a better driver,” Powell says. “They’re trying so hard to avoid warnings that their driving habits are changing.”
Powell also asserts that the key to preventing collisions isn’t eliminating the driver entirely. Instead, it’s about designing systems to augment the driver to make them better. That’s where Toyota’s current work with AI and machine learning comes in, and it’s in these features that Powell finds himself most excited, particularly when it comes to the Guardian system.
Still in development, this feature incorporates AI and machine learning to give drivers what Toyota describes as “a safety net.” Powell describes the system as being an “active partner” for the driver, one that acts
Wayne Powell VP—Electronic Systems
Motor Co.
“The idea of developing cars that give people the mobility that they once had, or that they will soon have, is a powerful driver for me to do the work I’m doing.”
WAYNE POWELL
Along with several members of his team, Wayne Powell is an active volunteer with the Ann Arbor chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a charity organization committed to providing and building affordable housing for the community.
Every summer, he and his team, along with other R&D members, spend about fourteen Saturdays building houses. While there’s no set method for how volunteers approach these projects, Powell says the Toyota team adopted the collaborative methods they learned at Toyota to divvy up teams, assign leaders, and assign tasks to the most qualified volunteers. As such, they streamlined operations so much so that Habitat for Humanity discovered it would need only eleven Saturdays rather than fourteen to complete the work.
“It wasn’t what we set out intending to do,” Powell says. “We were just applying what we know how to do as Toyota people, and it really paid off. But now it's a challenge. We have to get it down to ten days.”
only in the event of a potential collision or mishap. “The driver has good judgment and capabilities that automatic systems don’t have yet,” Powell says. “However, there are scenarios where the car can do better than the driver.” Machines don’t get tired, for example, nor are they deterred from poor weather conditions. “It’s about getting the driver out of trouble. That’s what Guardian is all about,” he adds.
That program, along with several others, is being fine-tuned by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), a predevelopment team with whom Powell and his staff work with closely.
Powell is now in the process of taking these technologies and incorporating them into vehicles that customers can purchase and operate.
“How do you develop a car to sell? We know that. So, we're helping TRI with making their concepts more complete,” Powell explains. “We're responsible for getting cars on the road.”
Close collaboration is also key, he notes, as one of Toyota’s TRI locations is located just down the street from Powell’s office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the past, the majority of
Toyota’s research and development took place in Japan, but Powell says that the company is moving some of that core development to North America. That includes the creation of new Toyota subsets such as Connected Technologies, a Texas-based organization that Powell says has taken over multimedia telematics development from the company’s headquarters in Japan. There, Toyota has a team that manages not only the vehicle side, but also the cloud side, to improve the overall customer experience.
And in the end, that’s because the customer matters more than the technology. “It was scary for me and my sister to think of my father out on the road,” Powell says. “So, the concept of a car that could protect him and protect those around him—and also give him the independence to go where he wants, when he wants, and still be safe—appeals to me.”
Powell also says that younger drivers who “don’t yet have the skills to control cars in complex environments” will benefit from the “good habits” a system such as the Guardian can impart. “That’s a powerful tool that can make the world a better place,” he says.
By JACOB WINCHESTER
David Callen learned the value of going beyond his limits early in life. As a young man in Israel, after months of intensive basic training for the Israel Defense Forces, he strapped on a pack and set off on a compulsory, ninety-kilometer run along with the other trainees—mostly uphill. “That’s almost sixty miles, and of course I was carrying a forty-pound radio on my back and all of my ammunition, gear, and everything else,” says Callen, who was born in Toronto and grew up in Israel.
“The point is, when you’re pushed to your absolute limit, you learn you can do so much more than you ever believed you could, and that particular experience is where I truly learned that there’s no such thing as ‘you can’t.’ There’s only, ‘you don’t want to,’” Callen continues.
Now as the chief accounting officer for American energy powerhouse NRG Energy,
Callen still draws on that lesson today, as he expands his expertise and pushes beyond the conventional boundaries of his title.
Though his mother and father are both doctors of accounting, that’s not why he initially pursued the profession. But it did add a general sense of comfort, Callen says. “Accounting is the language of business. The real reason I chose accounting was because I saw that people were getting jobs after graduation, and it offered the opportunity to transition easily into other business-related positions. It’s funny, now the one thing I miss most is Excel spreadsheets,” he says of transitioning to a management role.
“Of course the numbers still roll through me, and I’m always there to advise the executive team on them. But this role is more about managing people, making bigger decisions, and helping people think through problems so that NRG and its employees can be the best they can be,” he continues.
David Callen Chief Accounting Officer NRG Energy
To get to where he is today, Callen says he harnessed two indispensable traits: the integrity he developed through his faith, Orthodox Judaism, and the determination ingrained in him by his military training. He also honed in on broadening his skill set, took advantage of opportunities, and kept his big-picture goals in mind. “There’s always a need for somebody to fill holes, and that’s what I kept doing. If something needed to be done I’d say, ‘I’ll do it.’ As I kept doing that, I found myself with more responsibility,” Callen says. “My guiding light—my long-term goal—has always been to become CFO of a large company like NRG. If that’s where I wanted to be, then I knew that, from there, I had to define what I needed to develop in my career.”
After coming to NRG and working as a manager of accounting research, which involves painstakingly deciphering the various revenue streams of the business, Callen grew into process managing the 10-Q and 10-K SEC forms. “Within a year, NRG had
made its first acquisition, which almost doubled the size of the company. I played a pivotal role in that process and the SEC filings that came with it. Ultimately, we raised over $10 billion in financings. Immediately afterward, I was made the director of financial reporting in charge of 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and accounting research,” Callen recalls.
A few years in that role made Callen realize he had gleaned a significant amount of experience and was ready for new challenges. “I went to the CFO at the time, and he asked me the same question I ask my employees today: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I told him I wanted to be a CFO of a company like NRG, and that I had the accounting background, but I needed experience with capital markets, budgeting, forecasting, and investor relations,” Callen says. The CFO then offered Callen a position in the treasury department, allowing him to keep his title and salary while expanding beyond the borders of his experience.
“The point is, when you’re pushed to your absolute limit, you learn you can do so much more than you ever believed you could.”
DAVID CALLEN
“That was an absolute game changer for me, and it gave me the great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone,” Callen says. “I learned to deal with banks and investors and to negotiate corporate debt facilities; manage project financings and valuations; and analyze ‘repowering’ opportunities— investments in multiple energy projects such as nuclear, coal, gas, wind, and solar. So, I became very specialized in the energy industry and how to think about investments in the energy industry.”
Today, NRG is undertaking a sweeping divestiture and centering its focus on the merchant generation and retail businesses, spurred on by activist investors seeking to ramp up the company’s profitability. Callen is putting his specialized knowledge into practice and playing an integral role on the steering committee, which will implement the board of directors’ overall transformation strategy moving forward. As a part of this committee, Callen is reaching out beyond the accounting functions and partnering with the IT department to spearhead an initiative that will revamp the company’s accounting and business software systems. He sees the legacy systems as one of the company’s greatest obstacles to efficiency.
“This SAP upgrade is going to help make my team dramatically more efficient than it is today, because we still have a lot of accounting processes that are very manual. The more we automate, the more efficient we can become. The more efficient we can become, the more money we save. The end goal is to cut back $640 million of expenditures as per the transformation strategy,” Callen says. “We’re still in the phases of building the business case for the upgrade, but I feel very confident that we’re going to do it.”
When going through a transformation plan of this magnitude, it’s all about thinking outside of the box and adapting the boundaries of the existing culture to what best serves the business, Callen says.
“It isn’t going to be a bed of roses, but at the end of the day, implementing these changes will allow us to provide better services for the customers, and that means more profit for the company and better returns to our shareholders.”
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company.
We help business leaders across all major functions in every industry and enterprise size with the objective insights they need to make the right decisions.
Our comprehensive suite of services delivers strategic advice and proven best practices to help clients succeed in their mission-critical priorities. Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, and has more than 15,000 associates serving clients in 11,000 enterprises in 100 countries. Gartner.com
Duff & Phelps congratulates David Callen and wishes him continued success
Sidney Johnson explains how a company transformation and changes in the traditional supply chain are putting Aptiv at the forefront of technological advancements
By DANNY CIAMPRONE
PPicture for a moment a crowded, urban city. The flickering street lights illuminate the winding roads of congestion, traffic, and unexpected construction that only add to the complexity of going from point A to point B. But this is a city where mobility and environment work hand in hand. Sensors communicate with vehicles, and cars communicate with one another as vast amounts of data are being processed in seconds so that they can smoothly navigate the journey.
This is a smart city, or a connected mobility ecosystem. It’s not science fiction. It’s the next frontier beyond autonomous vehicles.
To make that world a reality, the traditional supply chain must be reconfigured. Enter Sidney Johnson, senior vice president of supply chain management for Aptiv, an international technology company that is at the forefront of the future of mobility.
But to understand how this future of smart cities could look, one needs to go back to 2017, when automotive supplier Delphi Automotive announced a spin-off of its Powertrain Systems segment. That company would be named Delphi Technologies, and Delphi Automotive would be rebranded into Aptiv. “As Aptiv, we determined that our future would be focused on safe, green, and connected technologies. That’s what our transformation was about,” Johnson says.
The spin-off was finalized in 2017, but reshaping the company’s identity as a technology company focused on mobility solutions had been in the works years before. “We’re not walking away from automotive. Instead, we’re expanding automotive more into a discussion around mobility,” Johnson
explains. “It’s not just the vehicle itself. It is the ecosystem around a vehicle that is characterized as mobility. Our focus is on the technology that enables that ecosystem to thrive.”
In the example of smart cities, the traditional vertical supply chain would call for the shipment of software from a technology company, then supplies from an automotive company, and then equipment from a cellular company to combine all the elements for this new urban scenario. However, Johnson says that in the mobility world, the supply chain functions more as a partnership. Instead of supplies going in a chronological order from company A to company B, etc., the businesses are able to supply materials as one collective unit to benefit the consumer.
“It is a collection of companies building an ecosystem that allows for a city to put in mobility on demand,” Johnson explains. “Imagine a city that has autonomous transportation, where people are jumping on, jumping off wherever they want, within a square mile within an urban center. That’s mobility on demand.” That technology also creates improvements in safety and is better for the environment, because more mobility cuts down on traffic, which reduces carbon emissions, Johnson adds.
That type of supply chain efficiency isn’t easy, though. Shipments have to be spot on, especially for a multibillion-dollar company such as Aptiv, which delivers software capabilities and computing platforms to make mobility easier for consumers. It’s a highly complex operation that includes shipping nearly ninety million assemblies and about
Aptiv, formerly known as Delphi, has been recognized since 2010 both for its technological advancements and its focus on the environment and community by earning nearly twenty-five prestigious awards. Some of its most recent awards include:
• 2011: Aptiv was recognized by the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council for leadership and commitment to the growth and development of the minority supplier community
• 2015: Aptiv was recognized by Gartner, Inc., as third on its list of top twenty-five automotive supply chain organizations in the world
• 2015: Delphi China was honored with the Green Supply Chain Award by Asia’s leading professional supply chain organization, the Global Supply Chain Council
Johnson SVP of Supply Chain Managment
» 50,000 members across the globe
» US$1 trillion spend represented
» 100 years of experience
» 1 path to success
www.instituteforsupplymanagement.org
“It’s not just the vehicle itself. It is the ecosystem around a vehicle that is characterized as mobility. Our focus is on the technology that enables that ecosystem to thrive.”
SIDNEY JOHNSON
three hundred million pieces of material every day around the world.
“When there are actual trouble spots in the supply chain, particularly in an operations perspective, I understand better than others what the challenges are to get back on track,” Johnson says. “The movement of product around the globe is probably one of the most complex areas of any business. It is a very data-driven operation. It is one of those areas that differentiates the best of the best from just the good.”
And it’s that type of dedication that his peers are taking notice of. “Bartech has been very fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with a true innovator in supply chain in Sidney Johnson. His dedication to process excellence and his progressive approach to supplier relationship management have delivered truly phenomenal outcomes for Aptiv and their supplier ecosystem,” says Brian Salkowski, president of Bartech Managed Services. “Through our partnership, Aptiv has become a standard bearer for what is possible in global, contingent workforce management.”
It’s also because of this that Johnson leads with an adage to keep it simple and not overcomplicate tasks. He’s a firm believer that people work for people, and without hesitation he praises his team for their tireless work ethic. Part of ensuring that the company transformation was successful and that operations went uninterrupted was the result of the Lean methodology, which Johnson and Aptiv lead by from an operations perspective. Part of that methodology, which consists of five principles, is the ability to have the right parts in the right place at the right time with built-in quality and short lead times. It is a major competitive advantage, Johnson says.
“The transformation within my area was focused around simplifying and aligning my organization around the new business realities,” Johnson says. “It was around continuing the implementation of our Lean principles. It involved putting in processes that enabled greater supplier involvement in our new product development. It was optimizing our supply base—so making sure that we had the right size supply base in the right locations to align with the new business. And at the same time, I was integrating the logistics organization into the procured organization.”
And in that time, Coficab CEO Hichem Elloumi says partnering with Johnson has been a tremendous source of inspiration. “His vision led the transformation of the supply chain world into a smart ecosystem powered by passion and driven by technology and innovation,” Elloumi says.
The change in focus from automotive to technology will still include some of the basic foundations that Aptiv is accustomed to. But what will change is the portfolio. Instead of mechanics, the supply will shift to electronics and silicon. Personnel and the supply base will continue to evolve, and the relationship management of the supply base will change because, in the tech industry, the traditional customer-supplier relationship is more of a partnership, Johnson explains. “You typically have a very vertical supply chain within the automotive space from OEM to tier one to tier two companies, etc.,” Johnson says. “Whereas in the tech/mobility solution space, it’s really more of an ecosystem.”
That transformation plan is never finished; it just evolves. From 2005 to 2009, when the transformation plan was being put into effect, Johnson says it was a time used to transform the organization to better align
During his thirty-year career at Aptiv focusing on one of the most complex areas of supply chain management, Sidney Johnson has always found time to give back to and mentor others.
In fact, Johnson admits his main passion outside of work is giving back, particularly to underserved communities.
For several years, Johnson has been involved with the National Minority Supplier Development Council. Currently serving as the vice chair for the board of directors, Johnson has been focused on the organization’s mission of certifying, developing, connecting, and advocating for diversity, women, and veteran-owned businesses.
He also serves in an advisory role with the International Trade Center (ITC), which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. As a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, the ITC fosters inclusive and sustainable economic developments to support small and medium-sized enterprises.
Since being established in 1964, the organization has helped those in underserved economies by raising incomes and creating job opportunities.
“I’ve been very fortunate in my life and in my career to have attained the level of success I have, personally and professionally,” Johnson says. “I grew up in an environment where giving has always been a part of our household. It was believed that you certainly should give more than you take.”
with business realities. That has allowed Aptiv to deliver directly to the consumer, whether it’s providing connected technology, innovating new mobility solutions with computing platforms and AI, or partnering with other top companies to spearhead the next frontier in smart cities.
Threats never sleep, and neither do we. As one of the world’s largest global corporate risk management solution providers, Pinkerton simplifies and manages the most complex risk management and security situations, anywhere in the world. From risk management consulting and corporate investigations to protective security and threat response, Pinkerton’s team of agents possess an unparalleled level of expertise and are known for prioritizing the safety and security of our clients and their interests above all else.
FIND OUT WHERE YOUR BUSINESS IS AT RISK.
As the global risk landscape continues to change on a daily basis, companies need to be fully prepared for an even wider range of threats.
Using a holistic approach, Pinkerton specializes in recognizing non-insurable risks, accurately assessing vulnerabilities, and prioritizing the end-toend delivery of solutions almost anywhere in the world.
To learn more about risks that could affect your business, contact us today by going to Pinkerton.com or calling us at +1 800-724-1616.
We never sleep.
Tax reform is here, and its impact is far-reaching. More than ever, tax departments are becoming integral contributors to the success of business. These four executives share why understanding key provisions and tax implications is a necessity for any organization.
As VP of tax and accounting for Uber, Francois Chadwick is not only charged with keeping an eye on the world at all times, he’s also at the helm of redefining the way the international ridesharing giant manages its finances
BY PAUL SNYDER
Understanding the constant influx of tax policy changes or proposals in one country can create a healthy amount of stress and more than enough work for many financial officers. But now take into account that Francois Chadwick, vice president of tax and accounting for Uber, has to keep his finger on the pulse of such changes and proposals in nearly eighty different countries.
“Every day—and this goes without exception—brings new rules, new challenges, and new opportunities,” Francois explains, before adding a matter-of-fact summation of his responsibilities with the international ridesharing giant. “My role is to make sure I have at least the knowledge of everything that’s changing around the world.”
It’s a tall order, but fortunately not one that Chadwick has to handle alone. With a team of more than one hundred employees around the globe, he says the key to keeping an eye on all corners of the world is having an engaged team with open lines of communication.
“We push really hard to share knowledge globally,” Chadwick explains. “We’re constantly challenging the paradigm of the team to make sure they consider each others’ thoughts and tax knowledge from all around
the world to not only question information from elsewhere, but also to use it to improve what we do in our various regions.”
When patterns emerge in different countries around the globe, Chadwick explains, the team is poised to not only improve Uber’s offerings and the way the company does business, but also have discussions with different international taxing authorities that can be more productive, transparent, and open than ever before.
That connectivity doesn’t only apply to Chadwick’s team, either. He says one of the driving factors in Uber’s rapid growth throughout the world is its reliance on sharing information across all departments. The tax team works with the government relations team, the legal team, the policy team, so on and so forth until each department has its respective bridge to every other department. That ensures that everyone is on the same page, and information gets to the right people—no matter who receives it.
“No matter how long you’ve been at Uber, what role you’re in, or what country you’re in, we always like the idea of sharing,” he says. “Everybody has a platform from which to talk and from which to be heard.”
CHADWICK VP, Tax and Accounting Uber
“As a company, we are shaping the future of many different things. With that comes the responsibility of shaping tax policy and tax legislation.”
Francois Chadwick
An important aspect of establishing that platform is to ensure that no employee— whether located in Uber’s San Francisco headquarters or working alone in an international satellite office—feels as though they are isolated from the rest of the team. Chadwick makes time to have face-to-face interaction with everyone in his global team, often traveling and making a point to spend time in Uber’s various international offices. In those travels, he works with the team to build out global goals for Uber, identify key performance indicators for the year, and discern fifteen different strategic projects specifically for the tax team to help define its true initiatives for the year. He says it helps them manage the workload much more efficiently, and if any member of the team is working on a task that doesn’t deliver value to the organization, then they have an easy answer as to why they should get back to the tasks at hand. It also engenders engagement and a level of personal investment and commitment to working for the good of Uber.
Chadwick doesn’t have to travel far, though, to get support right at home from BDO, a premier accounting, tax, financial advisory, and consulting organization. “BDO is proud to support Uber in its efforts to better connect people and improve transportation globally,” says Doug Hart,
assurance office managing partner for the BDO San Francisco office.
Prior to joining Uber, Chadwick was the national tax leader of the emerging growth practice at KPMG, a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax, and advisory services to companies all over the world. He worked with Uber in that role, so he says he figured he’d step into his new role at the company with ease.
“I thought I knew everything,” Chadwick recalls with a laugh. “It took only a week for me to realize I was wrong. There’s an understanding that you have to have here at Uber that you can always go back and revisit things if you need to, but you cannot linger and hold on to everything you’ve had to deal with because there’s always more coming down the pike that you have to jump on.”
When you work for a company that’s evolving as quickly as it’s growing, that means a nonstop barrage of challenges. But it also means a nonstop barrage of opportunities.
“I have a personality that gets bored quickly—I never get bored here,” he says. “As a company, we are shaping the future of many different things. With that comes the responsibility of shaping tax policy and tax legislation. Having a seat at that table is amazing. What we do today didn’t exist yesterday, and what we’ll do tomorrow doesn’t exist today.”
Accounting team inputs entries to ERP system
Step 2
Income tax provision is created
Step 3
These numbers flow to Uber’s income tax returns
Step 4
This information flows through Uber’s payment vouchers and back to the ERP system
In his spare time, Francois Chadwick of Uber says he enjoys going to his workshop to “tinker.” He likes to pull things apart and put them back together again.
It’s not much different from the work he does on the clock with Uber, and in one of the more impressive displays of tinkering, Chadwick and his team are helping redefine the way Uber does taxes and handles its finances.
Much like its drivers and riders have all the information they need on their ride at their fingertips, so too does the tax team and Uber executives.
“I’ve brought together a team within the department to create and build an end-to-end solution for all of tax,” Chadwick says.
“Once the accounting team have booked their entries and we have those in our ERP system, we’re building bots to take those numbers to create the income tax provision. That then flows to our income
tax returns, which flows through to our payment vouchers and then back to the ERP system.”
In other words, it’s an app for calculating and processing all of the company’s key tax information. Uber will be automating all of its tax reconciliations, building out tax rate forecasts, using information from strategic financing to model and forecast future budgets, and more. The app will loop in the legal and policy departments to ensure everyone is aware of when accounts are filed, provide trackers for notices and returns, and automating transfer pricing and intercompany adjustments to provide all the information an executive could need at the touch of a button.
“We can quickly show upper management our global tax position. It’s all of the things that CEOs, CFOs, and others would want to be able to see,” Chadwick says.
Certain aspects of the solution are already functional, but Chadwick says he expects the entire system to be online for the company in 2019.
“This is a major shift. How will it affect us?”
People who know Tax Reform, know BDO.
The recent tax reform will have broad implications – both on businesses and the people who lead them. From lowering corporate and individual income tax rates and eliminating deductions, to new passthrough rules and the shift to a territorial tax system, the sweeping legislation represents the biggest change to the tax code in a generation.
At BDO, we’re using our deep technical experience and industry-specific knowledge to help clients identify the potential impact of the new regulation – and plan for the changes. Contact us to learn what you should be doing immediately to prepare for the new tax reform.
Francois Hechinger, Tax Partner, 415 490-3219 / fhechinger@bdo.com BDO USA, LLP
One Bush Street, Suite 1800, San Francisco, CA 94104
At KPMG, we never underestimate the power of passionate people with a future vision. That’s why we appreciate the contributions Francois Chadwick made at KPMG and we wish him much success in his role as Vice President Tax and Accounting of Uber.
kpmg.com
New tax laws in the United States took two months to construct. Francois Hechinger of BDO USA says it will take a lot longer to figure out the impact that these new laws will have on the tech industry.
BY PAUL SNYDER
Roughly 93 percent of technology CFOs say that the national tax reform that was signed into law in December 2017 will have a significant effect on their business. But whether it’s positive or negative remains to be seen.
“This law was something that was done in two months, and there are a lot of moving parts that not everybody understands,” explains Francois Hechinger, a tax partner for BDO USA, which provides tax, accounting, and advisory services to clients throughout the country. “We’re getting some answers now, but it’s going to take some time to have all the issues addressed. Companies are going to have to be patient to see how this plays out.”
The new law represents one of the biggest changes to tax policy in decades, and Hechinger says there are a number of important revisions, particularly for tech companies. Perhaps the most notable is the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Although the tech industry’s average effective corporate tax rate was already less than 35 percent—mainly as a result of lower foreign tax rates applicable to activity of overseas subsidiaries and the indefinite reinvestment of those earnings
abroad—many companies still stand to benefit from the reduction.
Other positives for tech companies include the creation of a quasi-territorial tax system, an “exemption tax system,” which features exemptions for dividends received by domestic C-corporations from foreign subsidiaries. This could prompt some companies to bring back earnings from foreign subsidiaries.
Nevertheless, there are some provisions that could pose challenges—particularly for emerging or start-up tech companies. For example, the new tax law eliminates the ability to carryback net operating losses. Hechinger notes that tech company earnings are often volatile, and restrictions on the carryback and use of net operating losses could present a cash flow challenge and hamstring emerging companies. The law’s change to the research and experimentation tax deduction—which requires companies to write-off research expenses over a longer period of time—could also have consequences on tech companies that are heavily invested in research work.
It’s plenty to digest, and Hechinger says companies—not to mention the IRS and the US Department of Treasury—need time to
TAX REFORM’S KEY IMPACTS ON THE TECH INDUSTRY
REDUCE THE CORPORATE TAX RATE (35% 21%)
A reduction in the corporate tax rate is beneficial to tech companies overall. For many companies, the benefits of this reduction outweigh the concerns expressed with other parts of the new tax law.
REPEAL THE CORPORATE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX (AMT)
By keeping the corporate AMT without a corresponding reduction in the AMT rate, it would have made it difficult for businesses to reduce their effective corporate tax rate to lower than 21 percent.
ELIMINATE ABILITY TO CARRYBACK NET OPERATING LOSSES (NOL)
For situations where tech company earnings are volatile, restrictions on the carryback and use of NOLs could present a cash flow obstacles and hamstring emerging companies.
REPEAL THE DOMESTIC ACTIVITIES DEDUCTION (DPAD)
The DPAD was originally enacted as a World Trade Organization (WTO)—compliant alternative to export incentives such as the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) and extraterritorial income (ETI) exclusion. The elimination of the DPAD corresponds with the advent of a favorable rate for foreign-derived intangible income.
INFOGRAPHIC TKTK.
A QUASI-TERRITORIAL
The participation exemption removes the main obstacle behind repatriation of cash from foreign subsidiaries. However, because this does not create a pure territorial tax system, international tax planning will remain as challenging as ever. The new system established by the new tax law may encourage certain companies to bring back earnings from their foreign subsidiaries.
This measure is designed to raise tax revenue from income that has not previously been subject to US tax. While tech companies are widely viewed as key beneficiaries of the shift to the territorial tax system because of the large amount of earnings maintained overseas by some of the more prominent members, the toll charge may also disproportionately impact them.
The FDII has been compared to the patent and intellectual property (IP) boxes deployed elsewhere in the world. Foreign-derived deduction eligible income, which generally consists of sales (including license and royalty income) and services provided to foreign customers (subject to certain exceptions), is available as an offset against GILTI and as a deduction effectively reducing the income tax rate on this type of income.
SOURCE: BDO
“There are a lot of questions that need to be resolved, but we’re being proactive with our clients to address their needs and opportunities.”
Francois Hechinger
FRANCOIS HECHINGER Tax Partner BDO USA
understand what the new law means. In spite of those questions, however, Hechinger says companies should start planning.
“Learn as much as you can,” he says. “There were a lot of changes that occurred in the time it was put together, and clarifications are in development. There are a lot of questions that need to be resolved, but we’re being proactive with our clients to address their needs and opportunities.”
In its preliminary assessment, BDO notes that there is general optimism around tax reform’s impact on the industry—particularly around the corporate rate reduction. The company also expects that the reduction will help fuel a positive deal flow environment this year. However, not all tech companies will come out as clear winners. The total effect of domestic and international changes remains to be seen, and at press time, BDO was still awaiting spring earnings reports to be some of the first indicators of overall impact.
What is more certain, Hechinger says, is that the tech industry has a lot working in its favor, including a robust economy, ample funding, and a great deal of innovation. With that in mind, it’s important that companies don’t forget about all the people and processes who are fueling that innovation.
“One thing we see time and again is a rush to shore up critical internal and operational functions before a big milestone,” Hechinger says. “As companies are scaling up, it’s easy to just focus on the product or service, but it’s critical not to forget about the people and functions behind the scenes that will power you for successful growth and help avoid hiccups.”
Tech CFOs have told BDO that understanding the overall impact of reform on their business would be their biggest tax-related challenge in 2018, and Hechinger points out it could take several years to fully assess the impacts of the new law as revisions continue to be made to the legislation. With that in mind, Hechinger says it’s important not to make hasty decisions to take advantage of new benefits or avoid losing money to some of the new restrictions. “Don’t make decisions on a whim,” he says. “You have to spend the time looking at this. We had clients that wanted to switch from a C-corp to a partnership as of January 1. We have to tell them we have to understand what’s going on with the new format, and there are still a lot of moving parts. A switch to a corporation from a partnership is easier to do from a tax cost perspective, but going back to a corporation can be expensive.”
FIVE STEPS TO PREPARE YOUR TECH COMPANY FOR TAX REFORM
Francois Hechinger and the team at BDO have outlined five steps to help your company adjust in the wake of tax reform:
1. ASSESS THE IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS
Talk with your tax advisors to consider each change and the holistic effect on your bottom line.
2. GATHER YOUR TAX REFORM TEAM
It’s not only your accountants that will be dealing with the next steps, but your entire finance department will also have an important role to play.
3. DIG INTO THE DATA
Data collection and analysis is critical, and companies should get started immediately if they haven’t already. If your tech company has an international presence, then information going back to 1987 could be needed.
4. DETERMINE PRIORITIES
Focus first on the areas that could have the most impact on your business.
5. START PLANNING WITH YOUR TAX ADVISOR
This is the biggest tax change in a generation and will have an impact for years to come as edits to the law take shape, and it begins rippling out to state taxation.
From training as a professional chef to becoming a corporate tax professional, John Lee shares why the two seemingly unrelated careers have a lot in common
BY JEFF SILVER
He may be one of the only corporate tax professionals in the United States to hold a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. If not, John Lee most certainly is the only one at Servco Pacific, where he serves as the company’s vice president and corporate tax director. As Hawaii’s largest privately held company, Servco is a global business with activities in automotive, consumer products, and investments.
Lee studied in Paris after earning his undergraduate degree from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He returned there for his master’s in business taxation after he recognized the immense odds of launching a successful restaurant. However, he believes that much of what he learned in his culinary training directly applies to managing taxes for Servco’s global lines of business.
“Most people don’t realize how much organization and teamwork are required in a kitchen, where the demands change from moment to moment,” Lee explains. “The same is true in taxation, where these behaviors are essential in order to stay on top of constantly evolving laws and compliance requirements. It takes a lot of coordinated teamwork to manage all the necessary responsibilities of a corporate tax function.”
As a self-described perfectionist, he admits that learning how to delegate
responsibility was one of the more difficult lessons he had to learn in his professional life. But mentors at his previous position at PwC helped him realize that no one has the time and deep skill set for every role. “It’s impossible for the executive chef to expedite and be at the sauté station at the same time,” he says.
Now, one of his major challenges in overseeing taxes for a global business is that considerations can vary considerably in different jurisdictions. Additionally, the activities of a local office can trigger significant tax implications for the entire parent company. To mitigate such risks, Lee prioritizes developing close working relationships with the company’s function leads. That has enabled him not only to fully understand the company’s business priorities, but also to provide opportunities to show how the tax department can deliver commercial benefits that further company objectives.
To illustrate that, Lee points to technology initiatives in several different Servco departments that qualify for research credits that can defray costs. “Taxes can seem so esoteric that some people simply don’t understand what our department does,” Lee explains. “If we know what’s important to them and explain how certain information we need supports their objectives, then they
JOHN LEE VP, Corporate Tax Director Servco Pacific
“Most people don’t realize how much organization and teamwork are required in a kitchen, where the demands change from moment to moment. The same is true in taxation, where these behaviors are essential in order to stay on top of constantly evolving laws and compliance requirements.”
John Lee
get a sense of why what we do is important for them.”
And that effort produces advantages for the tax department, as well. A deeper understanding of the business enables the tax team to reduce risks and align its activities with company priorities. For example, based on Servco’s lines of business and global footprint, Lee needed to apprise executives on the implications of provisions under the recent US tax reform legislation.
“Being able to explain what a particular law says is one thing, but you have to be able to explain what it means in the context of day-to-day operations,” Lee says. “That’s how you earn your credibility as a tax department.”
Lee and his team communicate regularly with operations and various company functions to stay abreast of current activities and future plans. That helps the tax department to proactively assess and mitigate potential risks, as well as advise on decisions that address both operational and tax concerns.
To further help address tax requirements that are constantly evolving around the globe, Lee focuses on implementing technology and best practice tools, including the recent implementation of tax provision
Servco Pacific was founded in 1919 as a two-car repair garage. It has now grown into the Toyota, Lexus, and Subaru distributor for Hawaii, with Toyota, Lexus, Subaru, Chevrolet, and Chrysler/JEEP/Dodge automotive dealerships in Hawaii and Australia.
It also has a home appliance operation that represents General Electric throughout Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. It is Hawaii’s largest privately-owned company by revenues, and one of the top twenty largest automotive dealer groups based in the US. It has been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in Hawaii” for fourteen consecutive years.
There were several proposals leading up to the tax law, explains John Lee. For instance, there was a proposal to impose a “border adjustment tax” that in general would have made imports costlier for automotive and several other industries.
Before border adjustment was excluded from the final legislation, the tax function engaged in numerous discussions with operations to trigger internal thinking about business responses such as product lineup, pricing, and more. The tax law that was enacted included a new international tax regime that generally eliminates US federal income taxes on dividends from foreign subsidiaries, says John Lee.
“It also imposed additional limitations on the amount of interest expense that a US business can deduct,” Lee says. “These provisions have significant implications for the treasury function, and we in tax are more critical than ever to making decisions about whether and how to deploy foreign earnings, funding and borrowing, and more.”
reporting and fixed assets tools. He will also roll out a workstream management solution in the near future to help administer critical processes and clearly delineate his team’s roles and responsibilities.
For example, the year-end tax provision process is a time-intensive activity with strict deadlines undertaken with fixed resources. The tax provision and workstream management solutions help define and assess the process and then allocate resources more efficiently and effectively. “In addition to streamlining the completion of tax deliverables, technology helps keep everyone motivated by improving transparency,” Lee says. “Having their responsibilities and contributions brought into sharper focus is a huge benefit.”
The tax department now has a suite of technology solutions in place. Lee expects that the automation they provide will reduce weeks off of several different tax processes. To date, the time saved has been applied to in-depth analysis of the various outputs. The applications will also increase overall accuracy by eliminating manual processing that was previously required for the same tasks.
Looking toward the future, Lee is keeping a close watch on the development of
more stringent global compliance requirements. He points to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s recent efforts to increase transparency and address perceived shortcomings in the international tax system. As a result, he says that there are already demands for greater transparency, even from private companies such as Servco.
In addition to leveraging technology and best practice tools, Lee believes that actively putting Servco’s core values of respect, service, teamwork, and continuous innovation into practice will serve the tax department and the company well. “The tax function has its own external and internal customers whom we want to serve at the highest levels possible,” Lee says. “To do that, we seek a full understanding of their priorities so we can innovate to meet their evolving demands.”
At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 158 countries with more than 236,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory, and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com.
These attributes describe Jonathan Lee. Attributes Jonathan has demonstrated throughout his career at the Hawaii State House Finance Committee, PwC, and currently at Servco Pacific. Jonathan, your PwC colleagues extend congratulations on receiving this recognition from Profile Magazine for your accomplishments.
We wish you continued success. www.pwc.com
John Caviness explains that as tax laws become more complicated, the tax departments must play a vital role in business strategy
JOHN CAVINESS VP, Corporate Tax
Eastman Chemical Company
BY PETER FABRIS
Eastman Chemical Company has played a major role in many areas of United States history, which can be traced back to World War I. The war caused a scarcity in raw materials such as photographic paper, optical glass, gelatin, and many chemicals— including methanol, acetic acid, and acetone. By the end of the war, Eastman Kodak founder, George Eastman, was determined to have an independent supply of chemicals for his photographic processes. In his search for suitable quantities of methanol and acetone, Eastman turned his attention to the Southern United States and its forests, and to Kingsport, Tennessee.
In 1920, Tennessee Eastman was founded with two major platforms—organic chemicals and acetyls. From the primary feedstock of pyroligneous acid, many of Eastman’s basic chemical building blocks were manufactured. Products such as calcium acetate, sodium acetate, acetic acid, and acetic anhydride became the basis for other major company platforms.
The 2018 restructuring of the US corporate tax code illustrates a long-standing principle in tax policy: The more things change, the more complex they become. In the end—despite discussions of tax simplification during the tax reform debate—Capitol Hill turned out legislation that accomplished the opposite. “The rules already were complex,” explains John Caviness, vice president, corporate tax, at Eastman Chemical Company. “Congress kept those rules and layered more on top.”
Caviness and his team are well prepared for the new tax environment, though, aided by the fact that Caviness served on an advisory committee to the Business Roundtable that gave input to legislators. While he didn’t participate in drafting any portions of the legislation, he did glean at least some insight about what was to come.
As recommended by participants on the advisory panel, the tax reform measure eliminated a major disincentive for multinational companies to repatriate earnings by reducing the tax rate. “It’s a path other major economies have taken,” Caviness says. “I think you are going to see more investment in the US as a result.”
As a lawyer with considerable experience in M&A, joint ventures and partnerships, and other complex corporate transactions, Caviness developed a fascination with how taxes impact business performance and gravitated
to the field. He will be the first to admit that it’s an unusual passion. “Taxes are mysterious to most people, and they would just as soon keep it that way,” Caviness says.
Taxes, though, affect an abundance of key aspects for a business—profitability, international strategy, acquisitions, IP licensing, and product pricing, to name a few. “Taxes are some of the largest expenses borne by businesses,” Caviness says. But the high stakes are part of the fascination. So too is embracing the challenge of complying with complex regulations and analyzing their ramifications on the business. “To be a good attorney and a good tax person, you need to have a good deal of curiosity and a drive to understand how things work and why,” Caviness continues, adding that the field also demands strong intellect. “I get to work with some of the brightest people I’ve ever met.”
Today, tax specialists are not simply confined to a back-office role. Instead, they are vital contributors to strategic initiatives, Caviness says. For example, an initiative to exploit a new patent could be aided by tax incentives. Some countries, states, and cities offer tax credits for employers to expand in their jurisdictions. A company might reap considerable benefits by opening a new factory in certain locations, and tax experts can help select a site with those advantages. In such a case, the location’s overall tax structure would have to
KPMG LLP congratulates John Caviness on his distinguished career.
We are proud to work with him and the Eastman Chemical team.
kpmg.com
“To be a good attorney and a good tax person, you need to have a good deal of curiosity and a drive to understand how things work and why.”
Caviness
be examined. If the location is overseas, for instance, tax analysts will factor in how local taxes—corporate income and value-added taxes—impact profits, along with US tax rules governing how foreign earnings are taxed.
Tax policies in multiple jurisdictions—local, state, federal, and international—intertwine and impact one another. “It can be like three-dimensional chess,” Caviness says. For example, a corporation operating in Europe, where many countries impose corporate income taxes and value-added taxes, has to account for proper transfer pricing. That occurs when making intracompany transactions, such as when one subsidiary provides materials and supplies for another. For accounting and tax compliance purposes, these transactions must replicate what a third party would pay for the items. That’s just one component, however, of the tax structure that also includes corporate taxes on earnings and taxes on sales of finished products, plus the fact that countries may tax similar transactions differently.
To perform well, tax specialists need to have confidence, as well as competence,
Caviness explains. “Because of the complexity, you have to ask a lot of questions and not be concerned about giving the appearance of not knowing something,” he says. The subject matter is far too complex for anyone to have all the answers, anyway.
Another critical component of the role is to be able to make clear the impacts of tax issues to executives in other departments. “You have to be able to explain what the value drivers are and prioritize what matters most,” he says.
Caviness’s experience as an attorney immersed in many types of corporate transactions in Silicon Valley, as well as a return to school for an advanced degree in taxation, prepared him well for a tax specialty career path. He was exposed to many areas of business strategy, and he supplemented that experience with online and live courses, including “mini-MBA” programs.
When the technology sector suffered in the early 2000s, a former employer reached out to Caviness with an offer to lead its legal tax practice. As lead internal legal adviser on all tax matters, Caviness bolstered his expertise
by participating in strategic international tax planning and transactions, M&As/divestitures, FIN 48 and tax provision, tax controversies and audits, and legislative/regulatory activities. While most executives in similar roles come from a financial setting, Caviness’s legal expertise provides some advantages.
“Law is a good background for identifying and analyzing risk and setting policy,” he says. His perspective is conducive to planning and looking for creative solutions, sometimes more so than a traditional compliance background focused on reporting, he adds.
Caviness has translated this point of view to how he manages his thirty-person team. He’s breaking down barriers between work groups and using technology to automate basic reporting functions. “We’re getting away from manual work, using automation more to free people up for higher level work,” he says. Previously, much of the reporting was performed manually on spreadsheets, Caviness explains. Now, most of this work is handled by a global instance of SAP with linked provision and reporting systems using more direct data feeds.
By removing distinctions between work groups, he’s been able to diversify roles. For instance, rather than having some people dedicated to federal taxes and others to state tax reporting, he’s melded those roles. This is a better allocation of resources, he says, as there are different deadlines for federal and state reporting. It’s now easier for workers to share the workload more evenly during the various tax reporting crunch times.
“We’ve also been changing the focus from local countries or regions to a global view and role for all our tax practitioners,” he says. The vision is to embrace globalization of the tax services function as much as Eastman has done in its strategic approach.
When combining that with Caviness’s initiatives to make his department a more proactive participant in business strategy, one obtains a view of a unit that is much different than a tax group grounded in traditions. The contributions go far beyond accounting and ensuring compliance with tax laws, to include methods and analysis that have a significant impact on business performance.
“As Eastman Chemical’s tax advisor for the last four years, I have witnessed John’s leadership, teaming and proven results. EY is looking forward to continuing to collaborate with John.”
-Sean Thompson, Partner
Gerald A. Dupre explains how building a diverse team helps Hallmark Financial Services achieve the perfect mix of art and science that is crucial for innovative insurance underwriting
By CHARLENE OLDHAM
FRY
MMany people view insurance policies as a necessary hedge against accidents or catastrophes that they hope will never happen. As a result, the industry hasn’t evolved as much as others to attract and retain customers who would more than likely prefer never to put its products to use.
“The insurance industry itself has been entrenched in tradition,” explains Gerald A. Dupre, president of Hallmark Specialty Property, an excess and surplus commercial property insurance business unit of Hallmark Financial Services, Inc. “I tell people we work in a field where folks would rather write a check to the IRS than a check for an insurance premium.”
Dupre and his team are working to change that, though, through several initiatives tailored to cater to a client’s unique needs for primary, excess, and shared layered property risks for the wholesale market.
Hallmark is working to equip its insurance underwriters with a platform that uses technology such as artificial intelligence to more accurately assess risks and find the best balance between cost and coverage for clients. Specifically, these tools enable Hallmark’s underwriters to quickly access a set of complex analytics to help craft an individual customer’s policy for the wholesale broker. Such changes have helped position Hallmark at the forefront of incorporating a wide range of tools and platforms that are helping improve the customer experience and streamline policy management.
But that doesn’t mean Hallmark is eschewing tradition for technology. Dupre recognizes there is an art to insurance
underwriting, and he often builds teams that seek to balance experience with innovation.
“I work off of the idea that, in putting a team together, I need to have as much diversity in that team as possible—diversity in background, diversity in experience, and diversity in skill sets,” Dupre says. “My goal is not to have a monochromatic view of what we are trying to achieve, which results in a better product.”
Hallmark’s culture emphasizes collaboration. Dupre has proven to be adept at building teams whose members are willing to both listen and learn. One key is enabling more seasoned team members to know that their experience is one of the most valuable assets the company has, while also allowing newer employees to know their input is equally important to a project’s success. Given that, Dupre sees himself as more of a referee who helps keep people on the right course than a dictator who decides the direction a team will take.
“I believe that once you empower individuals and let them know their voices will be heard, it takes down the barriers and facilitates the team’s creativity and focus on solutions,” he says.
Dupre’s dedication to diverse teams also encourages mentorship, which has been instrumental in his own corporate climb. Although he found himself leading teams of people who were senior to him in both age and experience less than a decade into his career, he was still willing to heed noteworthy advice from others who were eager to help him excel. That, combined with his parents’ early message that he has a social
“The insurance industry itself has been entrenched in tradition. I tell people we work in a field where folks would rather write a check to the IRS than a check for an insurance premium.”
GERALD A. DUPRE
responsibility to shepherd others to success when he can, has been a cornerstone of Dupre’s corporate journey.
“In my office, I have a sign that says, ‘Be who you needed when you were younger.’
That reminds me on a daily basis of one of my key purposes,” Dupre says. “I think some of the proudest moments are when you can sit back and see how you’ve been able to provide that point of reference or assistance to someone in achieving their goals.”
Dupre also strives to extend that mentorship mind-set instilled by his upbringing and early career to his community commitments, as well as everyday interactions. “When you go to the office, you say ‘good morning’ to everyone—the security guard, the receptionist, the CEO—everyone gets the same ‘good morning,’” Dupre says.
That same appreciation is also felt with teams Dupre works with outside of the company. “Gerald Dupre has been a key partner for me throughout my entire career,” says Brenda (Ballard) Austenfeld, president— national property practice, at RT Specialty. “He has always shown a great deal of innovation through his leadership, talent recruitment, and execution. RT Specialty is proud of all of the accomplishments Gerald continues to bring to our great industry.”
That inclusive approach serves as another subtle reinforcement that everyone’s contributions are valued—regardless of their age, experience level, job title, or tenure. And Dupre says Hallmark’s CEO Naveen Anand encourages a similar approach. Anand is a visible CEO who knows everyone by name and often asks about specific members of Dupre’s staff. At the same time, he’s not a micromanager. Instead, Anand places a high-level of trust in his executive leadership team.
“That level of support is empowering, and it puts you in a position that makes you want to be a good steward of the company,” Dupre says.
But just like the insurance industry, that doesn’t mean Dupre and other executives will remain idle. Hallmark is honing its new underwriting platform, aiming to expand its specialty property unit, and increasing its exploration of technology, among other initiatives. Beyond that, Dupre says the oncestaid insurance industry and the technology driving it is now changing so rapidly that it’s difficult to say specifically what might come next. No matter what that may entail, though, one thing is for sure: Dupre and his team will be ready with open arms.
At P.F. Chang’s, Lisa Gressel strives to ensure that every employee works at their best to deliver the dream experience to customers
By LIOR PHILLIPS
Lisa Gressel has needed to learn the ins and outs of many different industries in her career. Over the course of more than thirty years, she has held leadership roles in legal offices in the telecomm, pharmacy, and retail industries, among others, each with its own unique array of challenges and necessary knowledge. While some may be intimidated by the tireless work ethic required to achieve success while going through such massive change, Gressel lives by a simple mantra: “Don’t underestimate yourself.” Today, she uses that mantra to inspire others, both in her current role as general counsel of the international restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s, as well as for aspiring women leaders across the legal landscape.
“Early on in my career, I was full of self-doubt. I still have doubt. Everybody has doubt every now and then,” Gressel says. “But somewhere along the line, I decided I could learn a new industry, and I could learn new regulations.”
Gressel started her career in GE’s aircraft engines group, surrounded by retired military veterans, primarily older men. She found herself one of few women in the office, while also in need of a mentor. Though she would have liked to have found a woman in leadership to learn from, Gressel instead learned from anyone that she felt could teach her. “I’m very inquisitive, I’m always learning, and I’m not afraid to talk to people,” she says.
From there, Gressel continued to take every opportunity she could to learn new tasks and take on new challenges. Early on, she focused on process improvement, compliance, and efficiency using her Six Sigma background as inspiration. After compliance officer and general counsel stops at organizations such as Nortel Networks, Avella Specialty Pharmacy, and PetSmart, Gressel learned of an opening at P.F. Chang’s. The organization had a renowned reputation in the Scottsdale, Arizona area, where Gressel was based, and she was already a customer of the chain.
Lisa Gressel General Counsel
P.F. Chang’s
Ogletree Deakins is proud to partner with Lisa Gressel and P.F. Chang’s.
Ogletree Deakins is one of the largest labor and employment law firms representing management in all types of employmentrelated legal matters.
The firm has more than 850 lawyers located in 52 offices across the United States and in Europe, Canada, and Mexico.
“I’ve really focused the department on finding the real value of their work and how it serves the restaurant.”
LISA GRESSEL
While she hadn’t added the restaurant and hospitality industry to her extensive list of experiences, Gressel knew that she could handle the challenge. In fact, she found that there was significant overlap in the role with her previous experience. “For example, pharmacies and pharmacists have to be licensed by the board of pharmacy. In the restaurant industry, you have to have liquor licenses to sell alcohol,” says Gressel, now general counsel of P.F. Chang’s. “Getting a liquor license is very similar to getting a pharmacy license. They’re different regulating boards and agencies, but the processes are very similar.”
In addition to licensing, Gressel quickly identified the most important issues that the P.F. Chang’s legal office would need to face. Similar to her stint in retail, the team would need to handle leases, employee safety issues, and customer safety. Perhaps the most important concern is food safety, but that merely offers Gressel further opportunity to learn. “I’ve learned over the years that from a legal perspective, even though
the industry may be different and there may be unique regulations that apply to that particular industry, that a lot of the work is very similar and translates very easily,” she explains.
And now that she has reached a leadership stage in her profession, Gressel has taken on the mentor role she had lacked early in her career. By working with the mentorship organization Ladder Down, Gressel has had the ability to offer a helping hand to women in the legal field who are seeking a way to their own leadership role. Ladder Down is a twelve-month program that brings in a variety of legal executives each month to discuss topics such as personality testing, career path auditing, and even closed-door conversations with male partners to discuss the reality of how male partners view younger women associates.
Gressel participates in a session in which women general counsel share what they look for when hiring women and law firms. “We discuss why we would pick a client and what has made us successful in our career,” she explains. “It’s something I’m incredibly passionate about, and I hope that these women do the same in twenty years. We need more women who support other women.”
That same mantra and approach is essential in the office as well. Gressel surrounds herself with the smartest, most qualified people possible, and leads them to constantly strive to improve. Clear goals and guidelines, she stresses, are essential— as is holding people accountable and having tough conversations when those aren’t met.
But as much as her own personal mantra powers everything that Gressel does, she also lives by P.F. Chang’s corporate mission: “Celebrate Life. Family. Food.” And while that mission might not connect with the traditional understanding of the legal office’s function, Gressel has found that all of her work ties to supporting the individual restaurants’ and employees’ ability to help P.F. Chang’s customers celebrate.
“When I first joined the organization, I sat down with each member of the legal team to understand their workload and see how it was helping our servers celebrate life, family, and food,” Gressel says. “Sometimes that means making major changes, but my whole approach focuses on efficiency and embracing that mission. I’ve really focused the department on finding the real value of their work and how it serves the restaurant.”
Michael Hollerich sits at the top of a revitalized compliance culture at Ocwen Financial Corporation. But policy is executed by a dedicated team of professionals who do the right thing every day.
By RUSS KLETTKE
It’s understood that financial institutions and mortgage companies will always have to walk a difficult tightrope of regulations.
On one hand, they have customers to respect, protect, and serve. But mortgage servicers also have investors, government-sponsored entities (GSEs), regulators, and shareholders who demand performance excellence across all aspects of a company. On both sides of this equation, laws define the parameters.
Michael Hollerich, chief compliance officer for Ocwen Financial Corporation, knows these parameters well. As a seasoned financial services executive with stops at PwC, ABN AMRO, and HSBC over a twentyplus-year career, there is little that Hollerich hasn’t encountered. Now, the breadth of his experience coalesces well with how he helps Ocwen, which has thousands of employees around the world, work in compliance with the multitude of rules and guidelines of various regulatory agencies while servicing the needs of more than one million homeowners.
Following the lead of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was created by Congress and the Obama administration in 2010, many state-level regulators
are becoming more focused on the mortgage loan industry and consumer protection.
Ocwen grew in response to the national financial crisis, acquiring underperforming mortgage portfolios that required an experienced specialty servicer. Because Ocwen is one of the largest nonbank mortgage servicers, and given that a large portion of its servicing portfolio is made up of nonconforming mortgages, the company inherently is subject to close scrutiny by regulators.
So, the question professionals such as Hollerich must constantly ask is how a myriad of new regulations at both the state and federal level—and new interpretations of existing regulations—impact the company’s ability to meet the needs of both its customers and investors alike.
“The regulatory landscape is challenging for sure, but we embrace it and understand that compliance is not optional,” Hollerich says. “It is our job to implement the regulations in a way that creates the most transparency for the consumer, and if we can do that successfully, then everyone is better off.”
Michael Hollerich Chief Compliance Officer
Hollerich emphasizes that any regulation that drives positive outcomes for consumers is good for Ocwen because it ends up keeping people in their homes, which retains them as customers. “The reality is that we need to provide sound financial solutions that work for the consumer,” he says.
Since 2008, Ocwen has completed roughly 765,000 loan modifications and has provided billions of dollars in debt forgiveness. “Our company has changed people’s lives and stabilized communities by helping hundreds of thousands of homeowners avoid foreclosure,” Hollerich says.
Similar to almost every major financial institution, Ocwen has faced new regulatory challenges in the aftermath of the financial crisis. That’s where Hollerich plays perhaps his most important role: ensuring that compliance resources are deployed in a manner that ensures every customer is treated fairly and the company remains compliant.
Since he joined Ocwen in 2015, the company undertook a major overhaul of its risk and compliance management infrastructure to transform the company and ensure compliance with all regulatory requirements.
“Today, Ocwen is a better and more mature company,” Hollerich says. “We are able to respond to an increasingly complex mortgage servicing environment and are positioned for growth. To continue to succeed, Ocwen must focus on continuous improvements against a back-drop of requirements that allow little room, if any, for error.”
That task falls into the realm of workplace culture, where Hollerich can leverage his past experiences leading much larger organizations through operational and cultural transformations. Working out of Ocwen’s Addison, Texas, operations center, he has implemented a “see something, say something” mentality that empowers and requires all employees, regardless of their position in the company, to identify and raise issues that may impact the company’s level of compliance.
“It’s important that every employee understands what is expected of them from a compliance standpoint,” he says. “Everyone is responsible to look out for what might be a mistake and to raise issues. And no matter
“It’s important that every employee understands what is expected of them from a compliance standpoint. Everyone is responsible to look out for what might be a mistake and to raise issues.”
MICHAEL HOLLERICH
who you are, you should not feel subject to retaliation.”
The initiatives he’s implemented are what Hollerich calls Compliance 101, where everyone must be mindful of what the regulations call for, and each business function must have the infrastructure that ensures adherence in everything that’s being done, he says.
“Every person working here should know what their compliance responsibilities are,” he says, adding how, in the mortgage industry, the greatest number of mistakes generally happen at that point of borrower contact.
Building employee awareness of compliance expectations was one of Hollerich’s first initiatives at Ocwen. He hired an experienced compliance communications team to orchestrate such initiatives as requisite online training modules and monthly compliance themes that create top-of-mind awareness and education.
Lest anyone think that’s an overemphasis on one area—keeping in mind the tasks and responsibilities of most of Ocwen’s employees are to service the mortgage loans of more than one million homeowners—it’s important to note it’s not just a single federal regulator that oversees the company’s business.
“As a nonbank licensed in every state we do business, we must build solid relationships and demonstrate compliance with our state regulators as well,” Hollerich says.
That means having an infrastructure to educate employees and build controls that consider multiple sets of regulations, in addition to the guidelines established by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
“What most impresses me about working with Michael is his ability to proactively get ahead of legacy issues with upwards of fifty different regulators,” says Paul Noring, managing director of Navigant. “Most clients are reactive, whereas Michael drives engagement and ultimate resolution.”
Despite regulatory complexity, the culture at Ocwen is focused first and foremost on what’s best for the homeowner. “Our motto is to delight the customer,” Hollerich says. “We believe that anyone experiencing a financial hardship is more likely to remain in their home if Ocwen is their loan servicer.”
Navigant proudly supports Michael Hollerich as Chief Compliance Officer and for his extraordinary contribution to Ocwen Financial Corporation and the mortgage industry.
AZZ’s Tara Mackey considers herself a strategic partner first and a legal liaison second. Here, she backs that up by sharing her seven areas of guaranteed value.
By RANDALL COLBURN
Tara Mackey may be AZZ’s chief legal officer and corporate secretary, but her influence stretches far beyond the purview of her title. She considers herself a strategic business partner first and a legal liaison second. Her track record since joining the company in 2014 more than backs up that assertion.
Under Mackey’s guidance, she’s brought several changes to AZZ, a global provider of metal coating services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment, and highly engineered services. That includes expanding AZZ’s corporate governance best practices, embarking upon new risk mitigation initiatives, instituting a new corporate culture, multiple training programs, and dramatically reducing legal department costs.
Much of the credit can be attributed to Mackey’s impact and scope with the breadth of her experience. After beginning her career as a banker, she went to law school and subsequently worked to reshape a number of companies, whether that was by building a legal department from the ground up, listing companies on national stock exchanges, implementing national ad campaigns, or by ushering organizations through financial restatements and bankruptcy.
After years in the industry, Mackey is now able to articulate the seven areas of guaranteed value she brings to the table.
“Nearly everywhere I’ve worked there was only one or two people in the legal department, and the legal bills were just paid without question,” Mackey says.
Mackey, on the other hand, asks several questions. She begins any new role by politely inquiring to each firm what value they brought to the organization in the past and what new value they will offer in the future.
“I’d say 80 percent of the time those vendors were on autopilot and just charging a monthly rate for services rendered,” she explains. “I make sure that every external attorney I hire is already a subject matter expert, and junior attorneys are not learning on the company’s nickel. If your firms know you’re cost conscious and you are not afraid to hold them accountable, then they will go out of their way to minimize billable hours.”
“We definitely do not lack for training,” Mackey says. In fact, most of her training is done in-house, and it encompasses not only attorneys, but also paralegals and assistants.
Training takes the form of live presentations, online programs, and monthly webinars. Mackey adds that when a team member attends an external training session, that person provides their own presentation to the team outlining what they have learned.
“Our biggest challenge is getting away from work to attend training,” Mackey says. In these instances, she and her team will step up to cover for that employee.
On any given day, Mackey is handling multiple M&A transactions and negotiating a number of strategic business partnerships at AZZ. When venturing into either, she and her team undergo a rigorous due diligence process that involves on-site meetings with the target companies and regular cross functional team meetings.
She also creates distinct work streams by having one attorney and one paralegal assigned to each individual acquisition.
Tara Mackey Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Secretary AZZ, Inc.
Austin. Fort Worth. Midland Baton Rouge. New Orleans kellyhart.com
“We’re always buying and expanding our markets, and that’s a good place to be in,” Mackey says about M&A at AZZ.
There’s a variety of risks particular to AZZ’s industry, among them the decline in the nuclear power industry, potential tariff increases, and the rising cost of zinc—an integral part of AZZ’s metal coating process.
One area where Mackey has been able to make notable progress in risk mitigation is by enhancing AZZ’s overall trade compliance, which includes changes to AZZ’s third-party screening processes for sales representatives, an expanded code of conduct, and ongoing training and monitoring.
Mackey counts her work in corporate governance at AZZ among her most notable successes. Previously, she says, only a few individuals at the company were subject to stock ownership guidelines and the insider trading policy. She has expanded these policies to now encompass the entire leadership and management team.
She has also made advances in refreshing more than half of AZZ’s board of directors, as well as adding diversity to the board and other key management roles. As a result, AZZ’s corporate governance risk score has gone from a seven to a one, with one being the best score obtainable on the tenpoint scale.
“I’m very appreciative to AZZ’s board of directors, whom have graciously agreed to adopt all of the corporate best practices I’ve proposed over the past four years,” she says.
Mackey believes that faith, in any manifestation, directly correlates with engagement. As such, she’s sought to create an environment that welcomes displays of faith in a higher power.
This includes weekly visits by workplace chaplains who provide guidance and positive support for AZZ’s employees. She notes that the CEO also has a voluntary weekly Bible study that Mackey says serves to bring together different corporate functions and titles that normally wouldn’t interact on a day-to-day basis. “It’s just a wonderful
“One of my selling points is that once we’re finished working together, your résumé is going to be incredible.”
TARA MACKEY
extension of the corporate culture that we’re trying to build here at AZZ,” Mackey says. “Our employees put in a lot of hours and energy at AZZ, and we care about celebrating their victories and also supporting them during their personal trials and tribulations.”
Mackey’s inclusive management style and thoughtful approach to assembling a creative, multitasking legal team has also been key in her ability to juggle numerous projects.
“Every single person I’ve hired has one or two skill sets in a specialization area,” she says, adding that, while this is helpful in tackling a diverse workflow, this doesn’t mean these employees are siloed off by those specializations. Everyone learns from each other.
“One of my selling points is that once we’re finished working together, your résumé is going to be incredible,” she says. “The level and the depth of the work will make you an exponentially better legal professional. That has truly happened at every place I’ve been, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to invest in other careers.”
Baker McKenzie helps clients overcome the challenges of competing in the global economy. We solve complex legal problems across borders and practice areas. Our unique culture, developed over 65 years, enables our 13,000 people to understand local markets and navigate multiple jurisdictions, working together as trusted colleagues and friends to instill confidence in our clients. www.bakermckenzie.com
Baker McKenzie congratulates Tara Mackey Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at AZZ, Inc. for her many distinguished career achievements. We are proud to serve as an advisor to AZZ, Inc. and honored to work with Tara.
Nutrisystem’s vice president of human resources reveals how a new culture strategy impacts the bottom line
By JENNY DRAPER
Before launching her career in human resources, Nancy Adams was something of a trailblazer in her own right. She and a high school friend built a $30 million online retail company for natural supplements in less than three years. Their company, MotherNature.com, thrived during the Amazon boom, which led to a venture capital firm buying the company in 1998.
At the same time, Nutrisystem, a commercial provider of weight loss products, pivoted from brick-and-mortar centers to direct-to-consumer sales—a reinvention that not only mirrored Adams’s own career transformation, but would also lead the company to being named number one on Fortune’s list of fastest-growing companies.
“Nutrisystem approached me and said, ‘We’re going to explode. Are you up to the task?’” Adams recalls. “And I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
Nutrisystem had heavily invested in advertising to jump-start exponential growth as an internet distributor. Adams joined the team as a tactical HR generalist in 2005, after several roles in the recruiting world. During
that year, she hired four hundred exempt and nonexempt employees—a more than 600 percent increase in the workforce. The high demand for talent led to creative and innovative strategies, forming creative alliances, tapping into the current workforce, and partnering with community career centers, among other initiatives.
During Adams’s tenure, Nutrisystem experienced phenomenal growth. Revenues, which were less than $40 million in 2004, nearly reached $700 million last year. Now, Adams is the vice president of human resources, and the company that has helped millions of people get healthy is stronger than ever. With CEO Dawn Zier, who joined the company in late 2012, Adams has helped to reset the culture to accelerate the next stage in Nutrisystem’s evolution.
As a former business owner and entrepreneur, Adams knows firsthand what it takes to run all facets of a business, and human resources offers the ideal platform to merge her business experience with her passion to develop talent. “My role today is to be a strategic driver of operations and revenue, by partnering with my business leaders to overcome obstacles that stand in their way of driving the business forward,” she says.
Zier’s arrival in 2012 led to an internal reorganization— the building of a new culture and a drive to attract and
Profile!
Successful brand and consumer insights professionals rely on O’Connell Group to build their teams, their companies and their careers.
As your expert CPG connection, we are the go-to recruitment partner for consumer-facing companies.
Request a consultation at: search@oconnellgroup.com
www.oconnellgroup.com
“We dig deep to understand why employees succeed or struggle within our organization. Hiring mistakes can cost thousands of dollars, and it’s not a good experience for the candidate or the company.”
NANCY ADAMS
retain top talent to the organization. “Dawn and I have shared values as it relates to talent and our belief that it is talent that makes a business succeed or fail,” Adams says. “We both knew that it would be our collective focus going forward.” First, they established a cultural statement for the business to align and rally the team. The result is Nutrisystem’s new cultural statement, FACTS, which stands for focused, accountable, customer-centric, team-oriented, and solution-driven.
The FACTS-based culture led to more clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and deliverables, which then led to another cultural reset around rewarding employees based on performance. Previously, Nutrisystem provided a flat bonus to everyone based on the percentage of company goals collectively achieved, which Adams says hindered employee motivation. That model was replaced with a pay-for-performance culture, which ensured the company awarded high performers for exceeding their goals. Nutrisystem’s leadership meets multiple times a year to assess the performance and potential of every individual in the organization. Adams, who earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from King’s College and a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix, facilitates these conversations.
Another strategy she uses to ensure new people brought into the organization are successful is to conduct an annual review of successful hires and regrettable losses. “We try to diagnose and understand what’s going on with each individual,” Adams says. “If they are struggling, is it the relationship
with their manager? Are there gaps in their skill set? Do they need a mentor? If they were recently promoted, do they have enough support in their new role? We dig deep to understand why employees succeed or struggle within our organization. Hiring mistakes can cost thousands of dollars, and it’s not a good experience for the candidate or the company.”
Nutrisystem also connects the bottom-line to employee engagement. The CEO regularly meets with small groups of employees across the company to get their feedback firsthand. Leadership provides frequent touch points with new hires to establish positive relationships. The result is clear: a recent employee survey revealed that engagement has increased 40 percent since 2012—even as the workforce expanded from roughly 400 to 600 employees.
Adams, a certified professional coach, cites the cross-functional opportunities and the autonomy Nutrisystem employees have to innovate outside of their titles as key factors for employee happiness and success. “Dawn expects her team to be two steps ahead of her. As a result, my goal is just that,” Adams says. “I carve a portion of my time each day to think about and anticipate the future needs of our organization.”
O’Connell Group executive search recruits marketing and market research professionals trained at consumer packaged goods companies. We leverage 25 years of industry knowledge and relationships to recruit candidates with the highest potential for long-term success—the right skills to excel in the job, the right fit to thrive in your culture, and the talent to drive your top and bottom line.
With a combination of sound strategies, innovative technology, and analytics, Dr. Sebastian Hubert is bringing the best talent to Siemens from all around the world
By DANNY CIAMPRONE Photos by LAURYN ISHAK
SSome would say that Dr. Sebastian Hubert is a born traveler. Raised in Munich, Germany, international work and understanding different cultures and relevant local perspectives are a cornerstone of his personal and professional life. He’s lived in Barcelona, Spain, and worked across the globe, including in the US, India, Russia, the Middle East, and China. It’s one of the reasons why Hubert has so much in common with his current company, Siemens, a global powerhouse in electrical engineering and electronics working to develop and manufacture products, design and install complex systems and projects, and tailor a wide range of services for individual requirements.
Siemens may be headquartered in Germany, but its offices span the globe. Today, in fact, Hubert can be found in Singapore, known for its booming economy and for being a digitalization hub. This is where he’s lived and worked for the past three and a half years as the global head of strategy and technology and as a member of the executive leadership team of talent acquisition.
As Hubert explains, Siemens has a renowned international presence, especially when it comes to talent acquisition. Every year, the global talent acquisition team recruits more than 35,000 hires from more than one hundred countries, ensuring that Siemens has the right talent to make a positive impact in society and propel digitalization.
“Thinking globally but being relevant locally is key to success when creating impact and transforming a global function like talent acquisition,” Hubert says.
But Hubert isn’t alone in this endeavor. Just like Hubert, his team is rich with international awareness and exposure to a variety of cultures and competencies.
“I am fortunate to work with a truly great and international team based out of the US, UK, the Middle East, India, Singapore, China, and Australia,” Hubert says.
And, as Hubert shares, bringing strategy, technology, and analytics together is the real differentiator in their approach to the transformation of talent acquisition. “I am proud that my team is not only conceptualizing, but
also delivering on our major transformation and technology projects,” Hubert says.
STRATEGY: “BE CLEAR WHERE YOU ARE HEADED”
As Hubert explains, Siemens’ talent acquisition strategy centers around scouting the workforce of the future, which is enabled by technology and focused on user experience. One major aspect of this is to target candidates through proactive recruiting. That means nurturing relationships and being able to build on them when the need arises.
“Paying attention to changing demographics and the ways of working is another major driver for our strategy,” Hubert says. “Full-time employment is no longer the only area that we have to address in order to work with the best talent on the market and master the challenges our business faces. Work via platforms, projects, gigs, freelancing, contests, contracts, and tours of duties—enabled by cloud, on demand AI, extreme personalization, and personal devices—are our new reality. This especially holds true for highly specialized experts, or people at different life stages, that may require more flexibility—like younger people or even our older generation that still want to continue contributing. Getting this right will be pivotal.”
Targeting highly trained experts with application-by-invitation will become crucial, he adds. “We can no longer just rely on talent applying to Siemens. We need to reach out to the experts our business needs in a personalized way,” Hubert says.
Understanding that reality comes from empathy and addressing a potential employee’s needs. But in today’s workforce, it also comes down to technology.
“It’s the expert curation of our technology stack that is emerging as a competitive advantage for our recruiting teams,” Hubert says.
It is in this context that Hubert and a cross-functional team are in the midst of implementing their new cloud-based applicant tracking system as a major asset to their technology stack. It supports their complete revamp of how Siemens recruits and combines it with the company’s candidate relationship management tools that are already in place. It’s here where Hubert says technology and strategy merge in terms of innovation, as Siemens is pushing to integrate technology that enhances recruiters’ efficiency and supports candidate assessment through artificial intelligence and machine learning.
This helps recruiters free up their time to do what they’re best at—interacting with and advising candidates and hiring managers. “Being a digital company, we also need to live up to this expectation. This means creating a user-centric intuitive experience for candidates, hiring managers, and our recruiters,” Hubert says.
It’s here where Siemens has chosen technology from Avature, which is supporting this journey as a highly flexible and user-centric tool that puts candidate relationship management and wider talent management at the core of its strategy.
“As you implement any new technology, the challenge is to keep it simple and retain a global focus,” Hubert says. “At the same time, staying relevant locally is key considering the adoption of a new technology. You can get lost in configuring solutions that are so bespoke that you miss out on technology innovation. And that’s the reason why it’s not only about the technology, but equally about the partnership with the technology vendor. Having Avature as a true partner that challenges and consults you as you develop and apply technology is a crucial success factor.”
That became apparent last year, when Hubert recalls attending an advisory board meeting in San Francisco. Hubert was discussing with the Siemens team and Avature
“Thinking globally but being relevant locally is key to success when creating impact and transforming a global function like talent acquisition.”
DR. SEBASTIAN HUBERT
the changing trends of the workforce and the impact on recruiting.
As as a result of those conversations, Hubert says, “today, we are looking at the first HR-centric technology that addresses the topics of a liquid workforce.”
ANALYZE: “EXPERIENCE MATTERS”
To support and fuel that transformation in workplace trends, it comes down to analytics and understanding the quality of the hired talent, as well as how effective the Siemens team is at recruiting top talent.
“Talent acquisition is a people business. And that’s the reason why we are focusing increasingly on customer experience and what we call our talent acquisition experience measurement,” Hubert says. “We not only have to understand how successful candidates and our hiring managers feel about their experience, but we also have the same responsibility toward candidates who didn’t become new colleagues.”
Hubert explains that it is similar to other industries that ask customers about how satisfied they were with certain products or their experience.
“If you have a negative experience, then your recruiter needs to pick up the phone, understand, listen, and work on a solution of how it could be better,” Hubert says. “That’s how we’re changing. It’s measuring experience the moment it happens and then following up proactively. It’s creating the feeling of being valued and taken care of. That’s really what we need to do, because that’s how you win and retain people.”
As Hubert reflects on the continued transformation journey of talent acquisition and the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, he is certain that adaptability is what matters. “We will never be done transforming. This holds true for our organizational structure, as well as our technologies,” he says. “The constant factor that will remain is the human interaction when acquiring talent.”
Seun Salami shares how he is driving change not only at Jones Lang LaSalle, but in the accounting profession at large
By PETER FABRIS
There was a time when the corporate controller was almost solely focused on recording, processing, and reporting financial information. For example, when a company considered making an acquisition, the controller played a number-crunching supporting role, but gave little strategic input. That’s not the case today, however. In fact, a controller should offer much more to help make crucial business decisions, explains Seun Salami, executive vice president and global controller—corporate solutions with Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc. (JLL).
That’s been more than evident since Salami joined JLL in November 2015, as the global real estate investment and services firm has acquired about fifty companies. “A lot of the acquisitions have been strategic,” Salami says. Many were made to expand and enhance JLL’s breadth of services and capabilities. So, it was critical to understand the intricacies of the acquired firms’ business models, risks, and potentials. That meant not only tracking factors such as current cash flow and debt, but also gaining insight into other aspects of the business, such as how much investment was required to scale up services.
“You cannot be onedimensional as an accountant and controller.”
SEUN SALAMI
A controller is perfectly positioned to bring that level of information to the fore. Intimately involved in monitoring financial performance in near real time, controllers are well positioned to make informed strategic analysis and advise leadership, Salami says. So, a controller should be involved in every stage of a transaction, from the investigatory preacquisition phase to a review of the deal within the business case pro forma after it is closed, Salami says.
To be full contributors, today’s controllers should have a broader skill set than they had in the past. “You cannot be one-dimensional as an accountant and controller,” Salami says. To be true strategic partners, and remain relevant in an era when more powerful tools are automating financial recording and reporting functions, controllers must expand their knowledge and skills.
Salami, who bolstered his accounting training with a masters in finance and economics, has been able to bring strategic insight to proposed key business deals by studying the numbers that reflect what would create a major impact on the company. For example, he recalls a UK acquisition that would expand JLL’s European footprint in the engineering services space.
While income, profit, and loss told part of the narrative, these indicators didn’t provide the complete story.
“We might have to buy or lease equipment and vehicles or install an ERP system to fully realize our goals,” Salami explains. “How would these investments impact profits? We felt that this was a good opportunity, but we didn’t want to overpay for it.” When making financial projections, a controller is better suited than most to consider financial permutations. Costs, cash flow—including forex—and debt service, for instance, could impact the long-term value of an acquisition.
Salami’s responsibilities after an acquisition include traditional activities, such as reporting profit and loss, and preparing the books for audits. But that’s not where his role ends. After a few years, it’s important for executives to evaluate the acquisition.
“That’s one thing that most companies don’t get right,” he says, adding that leaders should revisit the business case. “What was the reason for buying the company? How is the plan working? Were any lessons learned?”
This requires a historical review of financial results before the acquisition and a year-byyear analysis after the transaction. Ideally, a controller should provide context behind these numbers.
To some degree, this exercise requires a controller to act as a detective, ferreting out the most relevant financial data to produce a sound evaluation of the transaction’s progress. For example, Salami must ask such questions as: Was there some event or trend occurring during a period that had an outsized impact on results? If so, what does that mean regarding financial projections over the next few years? A strong accounting background is essential, but to be most effective, controllers need a deep knowledge of the business.
With advancements in data analytics and artificial intelligence, controllers are well advised to have some ease with IT, Salami says. More aspects of recording and reporting results will be automated in the future and understanding the capabilities and limitations of these tools is going to be vital.
The promise of blockchain technology to change the way transactions are processed, supported, and validated will likely free up accounting staff from some mundane tasks to focus on higher-level decision support, he says. Today, a global enterprise of JLL’s size can spend as much as forty thousand employee hours on intercompany transaction reporting. Automation will greatly reduce that burden, and that means the accounting role will transform into more of an oversight of transactions recording and reporting in a better controlled environment, coupled with interpretation of financial results for timely decision-making.
In JLL’s case, that may also mean some accountants could transition from an internal corporate services to external client services focus. The company is increasing its outsourcing services arm to offer complete property management services for clients. That includes, for example, managing client’s real estate accounting function, analyzing the client’s cost of real estate ownership and leased properties in a certain region, and how the client might be able to reduce those expenses.
Salami is enthused about how the accounting profession is changing, and he is playing a part in influencing its evolution as a member of the board of the Illinois CPA Society. “On the State Society Board, I am happy to provide corporate perspective as one of the few board members not working for an accounting firm,” Salami says.
Salami’s approach, informed by how he can impact strategic decision at JLL, makes him bullish on the profession. “The controller’s role will be super relevant for many years to come,” he says.
IFG Project Resourcing provides mid to senior level Finance and Accounting professionals to companies in need of resources on a contract or consulting basis. Engagements focus on:
• Technical Accounting (ASC606, ASC842)
• Financial & Management Reporting
• Budgeting & Forecasting
• Tax Compliance & Planning
• Internal Audit & Sarbanes Oxley
• Process Improvement & Process Automation
• Supply Chain Finance
• System Implementation & Optimization
International Financial Group
125 South Wacker Drive, Suite 300 Chicago, IL 60601
800-749-9459
Kaizar Lehri shares how wielding decades of supply chain experience enhances systems and processes at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals that help save lives
By CLINT WORTHINGTON
In the pharmaceutical industry, managing supply and inventory can mean the difference between life and death. If someone has hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, or epilepsy, not having the proper medication is not an option. “It has a profound effect on people’s quality of life,” says Kaizar Lehri, director of supply chain systems at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a leading science and technology company that develops life-changing medicines for serious diseases.
Beginning his career as a consultant for IBM Global Services, Lehri transitioned into the pharmaceutical industry with a move to upstate New York and a role at Medeva Pharmaceuticals. In 2004, Lehri moved to UCB, where he began more detailed work in supply chain management. He credits his history in information technology for understanding that “business processes drive systems, and not the other way around.”
In his two years to date at Regeneron, Lehri has used his twenty-four years of experience in process improvement to achieve tremendous strides in increasing the efficiency of the company’s supply chain. Lehri spoke with Profile about his passion for improving supply chain processes, the challenges he is overcoming with new serialization regulations in order to help reduce counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry, and why collaboration has been key at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.
When speaking about process improvement throughout your career, you’ve described it as vital to your work. Why has that been crucial thus far at Regeneron?
As a company, Regeneron is experiencing a period of extraordinary growth. Usually, a small company is very nimble, with a small, tight-knit group of people who wear many hats, get involved in multiple processes and decisions, and in case of an emergency, it is: “all hands on deck.”
As we make the transition to a mid-size company there are more people involved, there needs to be more specialization, and processes become more formal and well-defined to reinforce the informal—and inadequate—communication channels.
There’s a fine line between well-defined processes and bureaucracy. If you take it too far, then it can become a burden. As a good friend and mentor used to say: “simplify and standardize.”
In relation to process improvement then, why is demand planning essential?
One of my roles at UCB was demand planning—taking commercial forecasts for all brands and building a demand plan to drive the supply chain. The medicine we developed and manufactured made a significant difference in the patient’s quality of life and cannot be easily replaced. A drug shortage—when there are no equivalent replacements—is not an option. This makes risk optimization extremely important to protect against unforeseen hitches in the supply chain, or a larger than expected demand due to market factors.
One of the levers to manage risk is the demand planning process. It is important to segment product demand based on the volume and inherent variability, understand where a statistical forecasting system can deliver much better performance than a person, provide a forecast range so that safety stock can be held at the correct stage in the supply chain to maximize flexibility, and minimize response time. And most important of all is continuous communication with the commercial organizations to make sure that we are aware of all probable scenarios.
Can you describe your approach to process improvement considering Regeneron’s size and specialization requirements?
Before joining Regeneron, I used to rely on tools like PowerPoint and process mapping software like Visio to understand and document processes. However, these tools can make a process look deceptively simple. It is much more effective to physically draw out a current state process on a whiteboard or a whitewall, attach copies of physical forms and documents where called for, and attach photographs and diagrams where appropriate. The intricacies and inefficiencies of the process come to life, and we can have a high-quality discussion on reasons for complexity and opportunities for improvement.
With a detailed current state process, opportunities for improvement and automation are easier to identify. People may be doing the same tasks in slightly different ways. Each spreadsheet may have
the same purpose, but a slightly different flavor and data may be hidden across the organization in spreadsheets, paper documents, and tribal knowledge.
At Regeneron, we mapped a similarly laid out future state process with prototypes of improved and simplified screens, reports, and analyses. From there, it was easy to transition to a requirement gathering process, whether for improving the process or implementing a technology solution.
What strategies have you implemented at Regeneron to improve supply chain management and procurement?
Two of our biggest achievements were putting together a general process improvement and implementation methodology, and the product launch process.
One of my first tasks when I came to Regeneron was to put together a product launch playbook, which was utilized for the successful launch of two products in the US last year. The goal of the playbook is to deliver these products to market within forty-eight hours after approval. It consists of a detailed checklist of activities that should be completed in sequence, decisions that should be taken, information that should be ready-at-hand, and qualifications and communication plans with external manufacturing, logistics providers, and strategic partners that should be in place. The playbook spans activities that should be initiated 1–2 months prior to filing for approval and up until 2–3 months postcommercial launch.
How are you implementing serialization at Regeneron, and what challenges are you working to overcome?
Serialization at a high level requires all pharmaceutical manufacturers to incorporate unique product identification on each salable carton. This unique identification information can be passed downstream to wholesalers, distributors, retail/hospital pharmacies, and clinics. The manufacturers are the origin of the information, which is then to be accurately passed downstream until the medicine reaches the patient. This is an industry-wide challenge that all US pharma and biotech manufacturers are working toward.
As an industry, we did not previously track products at the individual unit level. Implementing serialization involves a supply chain component in managing the labeling and packaging of serialized product
“There’s a fine line between well-defined processes and bureaucracy. If you take it too far, then it can become a burden.”
KAIZAR LEHRI
with the added complexity of generating online printing and verifying, and finally aggregating the information. It also involves a product distribution component in sharing this information between manufacturers and wholesalers upon sale.
Within a year, my team implemented a validated serialization solution and serialized all commercial US products. A standard roll-out methodology is now in place for new product launches, or introduction of new contract packaging operations in the supply network. We are now working toward serialization of products launched for EU and implementing the next step of the serialization journey, which is to transfer information from manufacturer to logistics service providers and wholesalers.
How do you see your work bringing businesses and systems together?
I have deep demand and supply planning experience, and I have managed a variety of projects in manufacturing operations, planning, and distribution—including ERP implementations. The experience has given me a strong, cross-functional understanding of most business processes and a healthy skepticism of quick fixes.
It is important to understand the true problem that needs to be fixed and ensure that all the stakeholders understand the root cause. Sometimes, the answer is not complex and does not need to involve new technology. As long as the solution serves the immediate purpose and fits the longterm strategy, nothing fancier is required. People get caught up in building flashy tools and dashboards. Don’t short-change the process and lead with a predetermined solution. Sell the solution. Knowing what the problem is and how to fix it is half the job. The other half is to sell the solution. To effectively convince or sell, it is vital to know your audience’s perspective.
How does collaboration within Regeneron factor in to process improvement?
Major process improvements or changes require collaboration. And, collaboration requires building a cross-department network. At Regeneron, we built a strong network gradually and over time, as my team successfully navigated challenges and established a strong track record.
In any project, it is necessary to understand who are the impacted stakeholders and ensure that all of them, across departments and sites, are involved. Even with decades of supply chain experience, I still, occasionally, will miss a key player, only to be caught short later. As a next step for major projects, the stakeholders should be understood in terms of pull versus stance. In other words, how much influence they have and how much they support or oppose the change. This determines the effort the team needs to expend to sell and convince. Some organizations—like quality, information technology, and system validation—are usually involved in most projects. It makes sense, in such departments, to identify strong players who become allies and go-to people.
Appropriate communication is vital. Governance structures and cadence of project meetings should be established in advance to ensure that stakeholders at all levels are kept informed and can provide assistance as required. Andpeople have their preferred medium of regular and urgent communications— phone calls, instant messages, emails, or short meetings.
As a team gains better experience and understanding, they can share their learnings, standardize their approach, and build solid relationships and trust based on past successes to create a virtuous cycle of high performance, as we have at Regeneron.
RLJ Lodging Trust recently completed a multibilliondollar merger to become the third-largest hospitality REIT in the United States. Now, Tom Bardenett and his team are focusing on the integration process by emphasizing people, process, and product.
By PAUL SNYDER
Tom Bardenett joined RLJ Lodging Trust a month after the company completed one of the most defining mergers to ever occur in the hospitality industry—the acquisition of FelCor Lodging Trust, which wrapped in August 2017.
The $2.7 billion all-stock transaction was named Merger & Acquisition of the Year in the Americas Lodging Investment summer awards for 2017. It was the first time two publicly traded hospitality real estate investment trusts (REITs) merged, and it immediately positioned RLJ to become the third-largest hospitality REIT in the United States.
Although his arrival at RLJ was a little behind the timing of the historic merger, Bardenett, the company’s chief operating officer, says that he’s quite familiar with hotel management and the parties involved. “My history was in third-party management,” says Bardenett, who was with Interstate Hotels & Resorts for twenty-seven years. “I had previously worked on a joint venture with FelCor in the early 2000s, and I also had managed hotels for RLJ right out of the gate before they became public in 2011. I had familiarity with both companies, their people, and the DNA of both organizations, so it was a natural fit for me to come in and join forces with RLJ.”
In addition to his extensive expertise in operations,
strategic investments, and asset management, Bardenett brought another element to RLJ when it came to the integration process: a proven method that focuses on the three P’s—people, process, and product.
As Bardenett explains, when it comes to the people side of integration, it’s crucial to get to know individuals, understand how they work, and properly align their strengths within the company. When it came to assessing processes post-acquisition, Bardenett needed to analyze operations both from RLJ’s and FelCor Lodging Trust’s standpoints. By doing so, this enabled Bardenett to outline what the best processes would be in regard to managing profit and reducing expenses postmerger.
“Determining those processes and taking the best practices from each company is part of the integration,” Bardenett explains. “That’s where RLJ Lodging Trust is able to be better as one versus two separate companies.”
On the product side, Bardenett says from
a company standpoint, it’s about determining where to allocate resources in order to not only ensure the company is getting a return on investment for years to come, but also providing renovations and amenities in order to deliver outstanding enhancements for guests.
“It clarifies things,” says Bardenett about the three P’s methodology. “You can run fast and get nothing done, but when you pay attention to structure and you really define where your focus should be, then it allows you to achieve superior results.”
The wheels for the merger kicked into gear in 2016, when FelCor began researching strategic alternatives, and the company’s board agreed to a stock-for-stock deal with RLJ, Bardenett says. FelCor determined that RLJ would be the best company to pair with when considering the balance sheet, team, and skill set. Although some FelCor properties weren’t compliant with RLJ’s investment strategy, the company is focused on bringing these assets into alignment.
“The management team is planning to sell some nonstrategic assets and pay down debt,” Bardenett explains, adding that the company plans to shed some of the larger resort-styled and lower margin hotels, as it did in December 2017, with the estimated $170 million sale of the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston.
The merger also brought in an abundance of value worth holding onto. “When you look at the rest of the assets and think of what RLJ acquired, there are a collection of high-margin, room-focused hotels, major brand families—Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott—and in urban and dense
commercial submarkets,” he says. “Those are the hotels RLJ has always been willing to pursue.”
It all goes back as well to Bardenett’s methodology concerning the product side of integration. Bardenett and his team are more than excited about the opportunity around these properties in regard to not only driving revenue and minimizing expenses, but also delivering the highest quality for guests.
“We are enhancing that value for guests and providing the tools and resources to people in the field with our management companies to perform at their very best,” Bardenett says.
With his extensive experience and proven methodology, Bardenett’s peers are also taking notice of his leadership.
“I had the pleasure of working with Tom for many years, and I’m excited about working with him in his new capacity, bringing a true alignment to the ownership and management teams,” says John Rubino, executive vice president of Interstate Hotels & Resorts. “He’s an inspired leader with a drive for excellence in everything he does.”
RLJ Lodging Trust now has a portfolio of 157 properties, with about 30,800 rooms, located throughout twenty-six states and Washington, DC. The company’s hotels are geographically diverse and concentrated in major urban areas that Bardenett cited,
In the aftermath of one of the most successful and historic mergers to occur in the hospitality industry, Tom Bardenett stresses that while process and product may have changed, the values ingrained from both legacy companies will remain as strong as ever.
“We’re incredibly focused on setting priorities and goals,” Bardenett says. “One of the things that you’ll find in a lean organization is it’s the disciplined, deliberate setting of processes that allow you to achieve results. Externally, we’re great brand stewards. We’ve won circle of excellence awards with Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt in regard to focus on guests. We know that’s because of renovations we’ve done, time and energy we put into guest surveys, because it impacts capital allocation and allows us to create a better guest experience. We know the future of the guest experience is changing, and we’re tailoring our allocations to those expectations.”
“We’re going to spend the next couple of years executing and seeing the fruits of our labor pay off. We’re excited about delivering on our promises.”
TOM BARDENETT
providing the company with markets that provide multiple demand generators from business, leisure, and assorted travelers.
But beyond expanding the property portfolio, Bardenett says he’s particularly excited to be at the center of two formidable hospitality companies pooling their teams and best practices.
“We’re focused on coming up with the best way of handling procurement on energy, IT, and innovation in terms of how the guest experience can be enhanced,” Bardenett says. “Now that we have this scale, we believe it can produce better overall savings and opportunities to reduce expenses.”
There are also more ideas on the table in terms of how to sustain growth and longterm success. Although an initial injection of new properties is exciting, Bardenett says it’s important that RLJ focuses on sustainability in the long run. Value creation in its existing properties has to remain on the table, and one of the factors that RLJ found particularly appealing about FelCor’s portfolio was the opportunity to perform conversions on some of the properties.
“We’re not looking for something to make a quick hit,” he explains. “You look at an asset that’s running good numbers, but if you convert it to another brand or within the family of brands, then we think that will enhance the value. We’re always looking for something that has improvement opportunity and the capability to grow.”
In his twenty-seven-year history as a third-party manager, Bardenett says he has managed a variety of ownership groups that included public REITs, high networth individuals, private equity groups, and a variety of different owners. His most recent experience prior to joining RLJ was working as chief operating officer for Extended Stay America. While he says moving from third-party operator to running a brand is a move to be savored, his previous experience
is paying off in spades.
“I understand all the sides of the triangle when it comes to who’s communicating with who,” he says. “When you understand that, it’s effective at producing results with the brand and the operator as the owner.”
In fact, Bardenett says, communication and human interaction are some of the keys to his long-term success in the hospitality industry and something he’s already bringing to the table at RLJ.
He says he always goes to properties and interacts with people—focusing on the talent and who various managers are surrounding themselves with in order to ensure sustained success. “I think about my early days when people took time with me,” Bardenett recalls. “I was asking questions. It doesn’t take much to share some knowledge and be a mentor—that’s my role today. I take that seriously, because I know what it did for me, and I need to give back. Every day, I’m learning what’s out there and where opportunities exist as the industry continues to evolve.”
As that evolution continues, Bardenett says he’s thrilled to find himself at the heart of it in one of the most recognized REITs in the market.
“You can hear the excitement in my voice,” Bardenett says. “People are going to look back at this particular merger and ask, ‘Did they produce? Were they able to execute?’ We’re going to spend the next couple of years executing and seeing the fruits of our labor pay off. We’re excited about delivering on our promises.”
Interstate Hotels & Resorts is honored to have a long-standing relationship with Tom Bardenett and RLJ Lodging Trust. We are delighted to offer our congratulations to Tom on being recognized for his industry leadership, extensive experience, and contributions to the industry. RLJ Lodging Trust is a leader in hotel real estate investment, and we’re privileged to be chosen as an operator of their top quality hotels.
Interstate Hotels & Resorts congratulates our friend and client Tom Bardenett for his exceptional leadership with RLJ Lodging Trust and at the forefront of the hospitality industry. Our Experience. Your Success.®
Jeff Levinson and his team are ensuring that the newly complex organization continues to thrive through any challenge
By LIOR PHILLIPS
There’s a reason why most romantic comedies end just after the couple finally gets together, against all odds: That’s when the real work starts. The happy moment shines, but then the two sides have to determine all of the details that come with their new union. Whose apartment do they move into? Who does the dishes? How will they sustain the newfound relationship, day in and day out? Similar questions arise with business unions, as Jeff Levinson can attest.
It was three years ago that NetScout completed an acquisition of a collection of assets that more than doubled the organization’s revenue. To this day, Levinson continues to help the company find the best way forward, integrate its new assets and people, and excel in a complex industry.
Fortunately, the relationship was already on the right path. “The secret to the acquisition, the integration, and the dayto-day job is preparation and hard work,” says Levinson, vice president and general counsel of NetScout. “You have to treat others respectfully, act with integrity, and put in the time and effort.”
The acquisition not only changed NetScout’s total value, it also drastically changed the company’s size, scope, and operations. After all the buildup, NetScout—a leading provider of application and network performance management and cybersecurity products—suddenly had moved from less than one thousand to more than three thousand employees, and with that growth naturally came other issues of scale
and complexity. The organization had to learn to, in a sense, change the engine while keeping the car racing.
No matter how well prepared the transition team may have felt, Levinson says, they couldn’t have prepared for how much work would be required to undertake that challenge. “You try and create guardrails and plans, but each change has effects that you may not be able to foresee,” he says. “Most of the time, you have to just buckle down and get the work done.”
Even though much had changed, the organization found its stride thanks to some strong traditions: longtime NetScout CEO Anil Singhal laid out an organizational vision, executed by Levinson and the rest of the appointed transaction team. “Our core culture stayed the same, our chief operating officer’s approach to execution stayed the same, and as in-house counsel, our hallmarks of integrity, excellence, and fortitude stayed the same,” Levinson says.
Both because they needed to get to know all of their new coworkers and because it would streamline processes, the new legal team needed to get out into the business and learn as much as they could. “The best
At Morgan Lewis,
we see our clients as partners. We are proud to collaborate with our esteemed client NetScout and its General Counsel, Jeff Levinson.
preparation we have is our open lines of communication and understanding what people are trying to do,” Levinson says. “If you’re supporting sales with revenue contracts, for example, then you should be talking to the regional directors every week to understand what’s coming up. The fun part is being able to get close to the business and understand what we’re doing in the market.” From there, they also make sure to sit in on forecast calls, attend engineering and executive meetings, participate in operations planning, and discuss everything from marketing to manufacturing with team leaders.
Once those issues of scale and communication were beginning to clear, deeper questions and concerns needed to be answered. Everything from product integration to differing methods of going to market needed to be altered, but so too did innovating a new culture that would fit the newly integrated business. “We have always had to deal with volatility, uncertainty, and complexity, but now there’s just more of it,” Levinson says. “That’s where we get paid—to make judgment calls that propel and protect the business. We really are business lawyers.”
Only once that foundation was in place could projects and processes begin moving at full speed. Early in the transition, a member of the NetScout marketing team posed a riddle: “Why do high performance vehicles have large brakes? So they can go fast.” The leadership team—Levinson and the legal office included—realized they would have to be there to keep initiatives focused and under control because the organization knew they could move at hyperspeed. “Velocity has increased, and our role as the legal department is to support that,” Levinson says.
In order to do so, he had to first consider how the newly, much larger department would operate. In adding talented legal minds, Levinson was able to have each individual operate in a more specialized manner, and he has been able to delegate projects more appropriately. “We have such smart people on the team, and I want to empower them,” he says. “ I want all of the high-performing people on the team to consider themselves the general counsel of their domain. I still have to be there with my hand on the steering wheel to set the direction and course-correct when needed, but the goal is to allow them to run their shop.”
At the same time, each individual in the legal team also had to be ready to take on any number of challenges, often without a map or playbook. As such, Levinson stresses the need
for his team to contribute as business leaders just as much as the voice of legal expertise. “We have to advise on everything from global compliance programs to negotiating contracts for customers who had previously had separate contracts for different businesses,” Levinson says. “But we have to go beyond just offering a legal answer and instead make it work for the employees, customers, shareholders, and even our community.”
Making it work for the employees often means keeping them safe from trouble—legal and otherwise. So while NetScout coined the term “Guardians of the Connected World,” Levinson and the legal office have been the guardians of NetScout as it expanded into a further connected reality. “As guardians in this evolving business, we help them get to where they need to go,” he explains. By communicating and dedicating their efforts to the business, Levinson and the legal team have helped the newly complex organization sustain its growth and thrive.
Sustaining growth and keeping an organization successful after a massive organizational change is taxing, but NetScout’s Jeff Levinson found that his time outside the office made nearly as big of an impact as that in his office.
First and foremost, he says—only a bit tongue in cheek—that executives going through a transformative acquisition or merger need to remember to get enough sleep. “It’s a long haul, and you don’t want to fall behind,” he says.
He also urges the need to keep the body as exercised as the mind. A CrossFit enthusiast himself, Levinson knows that it may be tempting to take a break, but he found that keeping the body moving invigorated his work hours and gave him an escape from stress.
“You walk in the CrossFit box and know the barbell isn’t just going to lift itself,” he says. “You tune out the distractions and pressures and just go at it.”
Finally, he balances those concerns of the body with feelings of the heart. “My wife and family support me through all this,” Levinson says.
Vesy shares how DDR grew stronger as an organization after the Great Recession, and how improving internally strengthened not only the company, but also the Cleveland-area community
By DANNY CIAMPRONE
Ten years ago, the Great Recession forever changed the real estate market in the United States—it also left a lasting impression on the nation’s cultural and political climate. Periods of economic decline often have the strongest impact from a geographic standpoint. For example, the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s impacted tech hubs such as San Francisco and Denver.
But in 2008, the Great Recession was most notably attributed to a decline in the housing market and its impact on the financial markets. The aftermath hit cities across the nation, particularly along the Rust Belt, including Detroit and Cleveland. It was a tumultuous time for everyone, including major companies such as DDR Corp., a real estate investment trust headquartered just outside of Cleveland that owns and manages shopping centers across the United States. But as Christa Vesy explains, a combination of a talented team, strong leadership, and sound fundamentals made the difference between DDR’s success and failure in that challenging time.
“The recession played a real role in creating the accounting organization that my team runs today, because with every crisis there’s an opportunity,” explains
Vesy, executive vice president and chief accounting officer at DDR. “The recession was actually an opportunity for my team in particular to strengthen our operation. Due to the decrease in deal flow, my team was able to focus our resources on developing best in class systems and business processes. When we emerged from the recession, and everybody was doing business again, we were able to emerge with one of the strongest operating platforms in our industry.”
Vesy and her team were confident DDR would emerge from the recession, so the question turned to how it could help the organization grow when the economy turned around.
To start, Vesy ensured the accounting team was viewed as a valued business partner. She encouraged her team to further cultivate internal relationships across the organization and break down silos.
“The fact that we were facing these challenges together provided us that terrific opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from every department and let them know what we were going to bring to
Christa Vesy EVP, Chief Accounting Officer DDR Corp.
the table,” Vesy says. “In a very short period of time the tangible benefits of that collaboration were obvious, and they had grown to where they are today.”
With a seat at the table, Vesy and her accounting team focused on implementing sound strategies that would help ensure DDR’s sustained success. Included in the team’s value proposition was changing processes to produce accurate and more detailed financial information in accelerated time frames to better support business needs. It also included incorporating innovative technology across the entire platform related to the automation of processing tenant leases, disbursements, tenant receipts, as well as electronic content management to provide the entire organization with easy access to information in a timely manner. The company also announced plans to spin-off a portfolio of fifty assets into a separate publicly traded REIT known as Retail Value Inc. (RVI). The transformation will simplify DDR, improve focus, and maintain scale and balance sheet strength.
“We all believe we have made enormous strides to date improving DDR’s portfolio quality. Looking forward, we have some genuinely exciting opportunities embedded in our post spin-off asset portfolio,” Vesy says.
Like every company, DDR’s strategies and portfolio have evolved over the years. But what hasn’t changed is the company’s values, which include developing and building talent internally. One of the ways to accomplish that is through DDR’s women’s mentorship program, which pairs women mentors and mentees together resulting in stronger camaraderie throughout the organization, Vesy says.
“You’re never too tenured in your career to learn,” Vesy says. “People at all levels bring different ideas and thoughts to the table, and I believe to really stay relevant you have to make sure you’re in touch with that.”
DDR also offers a Women of Influence Program, which promotes an inclusive culture, Vesy says. DDR strives to a be a destination place for top-talented women, so the program encourages networking opportunities, educational opportunities, and giving back to the community. Top women in the industry have also come to DDR to speak about opportunities and career development.
These programs directly correlate as well with giving back to the community, a
passion that is shared by Vesy and the entire DDR team. Together with the Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland, Vesy and members of DDR have created positive influences and connections through various outings. Vesy has personally been involved with the club for more than ten years, having served on the executive committee as treasurer and has assisted with event planning.
“One of the things I’ve learned the most is how important it is for everyone in a community to play a role in giving back,” she says. “For me personally, the greatest fulfillment from my volunteer work is knowing you’ve influenced someone in a personal way, that you’ve made an impact on their life, and created a positive change for them.”
Giving back is not only important to Vesy, but also to everyone at the company as they work to create fulfillment and strengthen the community, particularly in Cleveland.
“I absolutely believe, particularly when you’re a public company, that you have a responsibility to the city that you’re in,” Vesy says. “As a large employer, we definitely feel like it is important to have our executives and employees involved in our community.
For years, the DDR team has taken pride in giving back to the Cleveland-area community, but in September 2017 when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the DDR team ventured outside its borders.
DDR owns twelve shopping centers in Puerto Rico, so when the hurricane hit, the DDR team immediately took action to aid in relief efforts.
“I have never been so proud of working at a company as I was at DDR during that time,” says Christa Vesy. “Our management team and all our employees from all over the US banded together and provided much needed support and supplies for our staff on the island, which included shipping generators, propane stoves, and water. It was amazing to see how our organization pulled together. This was a situation where out of devastation you really saw the impact that a cohesive team could make. Within a relatively short period of time after the storm, nearly all of our shopping centers were open, our employees were safe, and the economy has been bouncing back. We’re really proud of that.”
The Music Modernization Act is a monumental piece of legislation with backing from both Congress and the music industry. And ASCAP’s general counsel Clara Kim is helping to lead that charge.
By RANDALL COLBURN
OOnce upon a time, we spun the same vinyl records night after night. Then, we spent our allowance on as many cassettes and CDs as we could afford. Now, all that stands between us and thousands of hours of streaming music is an internet connection. One could assume that this innovation, which has wildly changed the ways in which we consume music, would have spurred some seismic shifts in licensing and copyright laws. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Considering there hasn’t been a change to music’s copyright laws since 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s not hyperbole to call it woefully outdated. Compact disc sales fell to less than one hundred million units sold in 2016, while digital streaming services—such as Spotify and Apple Music— saw its subscribers stream more than 252 billion songs, according to Standard & Poor’s. While that makes for much more listening enjoyment, songwriters’ digital royalties have not kept the same pace.
Enter the Music Modernization Act, a substantial piece of legislation introduced in December of last year by Congressmen Doug Collins and Hakeem Jeffries. Since then, it has been embraced by a bipartisan group of US Representatives and Senators, as well as a number of industry luminaries. The bill modernizes outdated royalty standards so that songwriters receive a fair market value for their music when it is streamed or downloaded online, as well as creates a new, simplified mechanical licensing entity that makes it easier for digital music companies to obtain a license and play songs.
“It’s exciting that in our historically deadlocked Congress we seem to have some momentum,” says Clara Kim, executive vice president and general counsel of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). “What’s amazing is that we have the performing rights organizations, the publishers, record labels,
and the Digital Media Association—which represents the digital audio services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora. It’s a historic consensus that has been built here, and that’s very promising for everybody involved.”
As a membership society, ASCAP is governed by its members and is the world’s foremost performing rights organization, having done its part over the past century to license copyrighted works for public performances and distribute royalties to its roughly 650,000 members. As such, the organization has long advocated on Capitol Hill for updates to licensing and copyright laws. But according to Kim, although ASCAP has long had policymakers from both sides of the aisle willing to stand by the organization, the political will and climate needed to pass legislation hasn’t existed until recently.
That’s changed now, though, as a multitude of senators, including Republicans such as Orrin Hatch, Bob Corker, and Lamar Alexander, as well as Democrats such as Doug Jones, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Dick Durbin, have introduced the bill to the Senate. Kim is hopeful that the bill could make it onto President Donald Trump’s desk before the end of the year.
ASCAP has been pushing for two main provisions in particular to the bill, both of which surround consent decree rules that have rarely been updated in their nearly eighty years of existence. The first, Kim explains, is rate court reform, which centers on rate setting disputes. Currently, ASCAP reports to one designated rate court judge for all disputes, but the new provision would ensure a “wheel” approach that folds in a rotating cast of judges, as is the case with regular claims in federal court. In the digital age, when new industries are
Clara Kim EVP, General Counsel ASCAP
emerging and using music in new ways, the “wheel” system should be more responsive to changing market conditions as they arise.
The second provision changes Section 114(i) of the copyright law, which bars the federal rate courts overseeing the consent decrees of ASCAP and competing performing rights organization BMI to consider supplementary evidence—such as sound recording royalty rates—when setting performance royalty rates for songwriters and composers. By amending this provision, judges would be free to consider the impact and intricacies of the modern music landscape, as well as ASCAP’s proposed rates, when making their decision.
“The hard part is agreeing on the appropriate rate,” Kim explains. “There’s a big disparity between what the recording artist makes and what the songwriter, composer, or publisher makes for the same digital streams. A song can be played on Spotify, and the recording artist will get paid as much as fourteen times more than the songwriter. Our change to Section 114(i) of the Copyright Act would simply allow us to introduce the rates charged for sound recordings so the rate court has all relevant evidence when making a decision about songwriter compensation for digital streaming.”
These potential advancements align with another landmark—a multiyear agreement between ASCAP and YouTube, which will find the two entities sharing data as a means of better identifying and paying royalties on ASCAP members’ works performed on the platform.
“We entered into a licensing deal and strategic alliance with them, whereby we are leveraging our vast database of musical works through their rights claiming system to ensure that more money goes to our songwriters, composers, and publishers,” Kim says. “We’ve put forth an enormous amount of technology resources to make sure that
“We’ve put forth an enormous amount of technology resources to make sure that the music creators who fuel the digital economy benefit from it through higher levels of monetization and transparency.”
CLARA KIM
the music creators who fuel the digital economy benefit from it through higher levels of monetization and transparency.”
Considering ASCAP is responsible for hundreds of thousands of licensing arrangements, technology has been an ongoing focus of the organization. Kim notes that having a functional, easily navigable website is a major priority. When you have more than ten million registered works, she says, ensuring that the organization’s repertory is searchable via computer or mobile device is key for continued success.
“ASCAP is highly focused on innovation to create more transparency and to best serve our members and licensees,” she says of ASCAP’s approach to technology. “We want to help people enjoy music.”
But, more than anything, Kim and her team want to drive money into pockets of ASCAP’s members whose works are the foundation of the entire music industry. And while legislation and technology are a key part of that, so too is the leadership team, which underwent a transformation
in 2015 with the appointment of CEO Elizabeth Matthews. The organization now has a leadership team that is more diverse than ever before, with women and men now equally represented.
“That’s unique in the music industry, which is traditionally very male-dominated,” Kim says. It’s about time. As the Music Modernization Act proves, the industry’s due for some change.
Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney and Randi May congratulate Clara Kim on her career achievements and her successful leadership at ASCAP. For more than 15 years, we have been a proud strategic partner to ASCAP, providing labor and employment counsel, particularly as technology continues to impact ASCAP’s dynamic culture.
Patterson Belknap is proud to represent The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, an organization of over 650,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers. We admire the organization for its mission to uphold the value of its members’ music. We congratulate Clara Kim and her team on this well-deserved recognition. To learn more about Patterson Belknap, visit www.pbwt.com.
Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney, LLP is a proven boutique.
We are thrilled to congratulate Clara Kim, Executive
and
of The
For more than 20 years, HNRK has provided sophisticated counsel to clients in a wide range of matters. With a specialty in labor & employment counseling, litigation, insurance recovery, and white collar, we remain small by design, preserving a model that demands the highest standards, personal attention, and the State of New York as a Women-Owned Business Enterprise.
212.689.8808 | www.hnrklaw.com We salute Clara
Society of
Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and we celebrate the accomplishments of the entire ASCAP in-house legal team.
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP is a New York City based law firm with more than 200 lawyers. Patterson Belknap delivers a full range of services across approximately 20 practice groups in both litigation and commercial law. For more information, please visit www.pbwt.com
Associa’s Chelle O’Keefe shares the
Chidi
Hechinger, Francois 134 Holland, Jeffrey 64 Holler, Mary 13
Hollerich, Michael 157 Hopke, Tim 34
Hubert, Sebastian 168
Integer Holdings Corporation 13
Tom
Suntory
Callen, David 115 Carvalho, Carlos 34 Cave, Sonny 26 Caviness, John 142
Francois
R. Scott 23
Nestlé Nutrition Corporation 70 NetScout Systems 184
Nochowitz, Matt 34 NRG Energy 115 Nutrisystem 164
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. 76 Johnson, Sidney 118 Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc. 172
Kearney, Jeff 98 Kim, Clara 189
Layton, Joel 58 Lee, John 138 LEGO Systems, Inc. 23 Lehri, Kaizar 176 Levinson, Jeff 184
Mackey, Tara 160 Maynard-Elliott, Nichelle 20 Metallo, Justin 73 Miller, Jeff 101
Ocwen Financial Corporation 157 Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. 16 O’Keefe, Chelle 8 ON Semiconductor 26
P.F. Chang’s 154 Porter, Bo 88 Powell, Wayne 110 Praxair, Inc. 20
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals 176 RLJ Lodging Trust 180 Ryder System, Inc. 94
Salami, Seun 172 Servco Pacific 138 Siemens 168 Simon Property Group 46
Hallmark
So, this is where our applicants go?
Is your recruiting technology losing top applicants to the black hole?
Strategic HR demands an ATS that keeps candidates, recruiters and hiring managers engaged throughout the entire recruiting journey.
