Profile Magazine Q4/19

SOARING TO HIRE HEIGHTS

How American Airlines’ Rob Daugherty leaned into the post-merger chaos to build an award-winning talent acquisition team P8

Darryl Shelton uses his passion for education to guide the future leaders of America

CYBER RESILIENCE

PeopleFirst Technology

From drawing emotion through virtual reality storytelling to teaching IT teams to speak business to emphasizing culture, these eleven leaders put a personal touch on training their teams for success

Ash

Q4/19

Culture Grounded in Respect

Almira Torralba Baker is on a mission to build a better open and collaborative culture as Roadmaster Group expands 24

Harness the Impact of D&I

Ashley Everson actively steers HAVI’s diversity and inclusion initiative on a global scale 32

A Sense of Community

Tanya Saffadi builds on Kushner’s strong internal culture to help recruit top talent 66

More Than a Convenience Store

Charlton Bell fuels Tri Star Energy’s success through its expansion of its Twice Daily brand 70

Photo: House of Loralei (Baker), Larry Mohr (Everson), Crystal Freemon Photography (Bell)

An Eye on the Future

As FHLB Des Moines’ first chief strategy officer, Ardis Kelley guides strategy toward a strong bank and strong communities 102

Behind the Behaviors

Maryanne DiMarzo and Amy Acker discuss the principles that bring them success at Beacon People Solutions

168

When Possibility Becomes Reality

Vickie Brint helps Nutranext employees transition to a larger, national stage after Clorox’s recent acquisition 160

Biogen’s Marco DeThomasis bolsters the untapped potential and value of HR 184

Breaking Down Barriers

Ken Julian translates Thor Industries’ rebrand into its corporate culture 114

The Three H’s

Adam Coyne strengthens Mathematica’s core values using his head, heart, and hands

174

Regulatory Visionary

Kevin McDonald builds out VW Credit’s compliance program, strengthening the company’s customer service 200

CREATIVE

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KC Esper

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Jacob Winchester

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Billy Yost

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Senior Designer

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Photographers

Cass Davis

Gillian Fry

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Senior Director, Finance

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Senior Client Services

Managers

Rebekah Pappas

Katie Richards

Client Services Manager

Skylar Garfield

Director, Talent Acquisition

Elyse Schultz

Talent Acquisition Manager

Haylee Himel

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A Passion for Learning

The best way to learn is to seek out those who are passionate about what they do. Seeing their enthusiasm for their area of expertise is infectious and inspiring—even when their work is in an industry or field that you know little to nothing about. It’s why I download and listen to the Ologies podcast every week to learn about an entirely new (to me) scientific field despite not pursuing a career in science. It’s why I watched Beyoncé’s Homecoming concert documentary the day it dropped despite not being a performer. It’s why I’m an editor.

I get to work with our inspiring featured executives to showcase their passions and expertise on the pages of Profile magazine. I see how their enthusiasm informs their leadership and makes an impact on those they work with. And in our final issue of 2019, there is no shortage of passionate leaders.

One of those leaders is our cover star, American Airlines’ Rob Daugherty (p. 8). He was brought on board after American’s merger with US Airways to build up its talent acquisition department, and he and his team have helped the airline rank as one of the best hiring organizations at large.

We’ve shone a spotlight on leaders in tech who are investing in the people-side of technological innovations. Sony’s Jake Zim is enhancing storytelling through virtual reality to give customers “the opportunity to experience something new, exciting, and impactful” (p. 130). At Qorvo, Michael Baker knows that building a strong IP portfolio requires strong relationships among stakeholders (p. 134). And Berkadia’s Fernando Rodriguez and Kyle Hunt share how the company culture influences IT recruiting and retention (p. 148).

You’ll meet many more inspiring executives among these pages. Before you dive in to your favorite section, I’ll leave you with a quote from the University of Michigan’s Sonya Jacobs (p. 88) that stood out to me as I was editing: “We all need to be lifelong learners, and we have to provide the opportunities for those around us to grow and be developed.”

Happy learning,

Frannie Sprouls Senior Editor

TALENT

Taking Hiring Higher

Rob Daugherty details how he and his team led the transformation of American Airlines’ post-merger talent acquisition department from the ground up, up, and into the sky

By BILLY YOST

Photos by GILLIAN FRY

Rob Daugherty

Director of Global Talent Acquisition

American Airlines

TThe 2013 merger between American Airlines and US Airways formed the largest airline in the world, and it would ultimately fly the combined company to the first fifth of the Fortune 500. But, at the time of the merger, director of global talent acquisition Rob Daugherty says, “Not only was it taking too long to fill positions; we literally did not even know how many job openings we had.”

“We didn’t even have the most basic of metrics at the time, let alone any of the more strategic analytics,” Daugherty adds. “We didn’t have the basics. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy. We didn’t have food, water, or shelter.”

In his time since with American, Daugherty has helped rebuild the talent acquisition department from the ground up and go through a complete transformation, and he has seen his team move from addressing very tactical items to developing enduring initiatives that have helped the airline rank as one of the best hiring organizations at large.

Being brought aboard during a high-profile merger and amid a time when processes needed to be reworked doesn’t seem like it would be at the top of anyone’s list, but Daugherty says he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “I’ve always been attracted to roles where the organization needs to be built from scratch—or when things are broken and someone needs to come in and tear down and rebuild,” Daugherty says. “I think a lot of that just goes back to how I’m wired: For some odd reason, I enjoy the chaos.”

There was plenty of chaos to go around in his early days. Time-to-fill metrics were at sixty-nine days, and that was for positions the newly merged company could be sure it actually had. Other times, it was hard to tell. “We had two of everything: two different delivery models and two different applicant-tracking systems,” Daugherty says. “We had different processes, and none of them were built to scale for the type of hiring we had to do.”

Daugherty says the best his team could do in the meantime was go into triage mode and just address the most broken parts first. “In a perfect world, you could just stop and say, ‘We’re going to take the next eighteen months to fix this,’ but that was not the case here,” Daugherty says. “You basically have to change tires on your car while it’s going seventy down the highway.”

Daugherty flew to Chicago to pick a mentor’s brain regarding how to address the multitude of the issues his organization was facing. They began building a business case for what needed to be done to rebuild the organization. From there, they did a complete organizational redesign and started the transformation. They implemented a talent advisor model, redesigned all their processes, and implemented a new technology stack.

“One of the benefits of coming from the outside was I didn’t have ties to the American Airlines way or the US Airways way,” Daugherty says. “The guiding principle was to forget about how we’ve done things in the past and focus on making sure we build everything the right way.”

Professional hiring was addressed first, then American’s college programs, and then frontline and contingent labor processes. With the guidance from Deloitte, American Airlines’ people department implemented nearly the entire SAP SuccessFactors suite, the largest implementation the software company had ever done. Building the business case for such an extensive financial investment was integral to what Daugherty says has been a huge success for the talent acquisition team and for HR.

“Our people department did a great job of showing the value and need to invest in our HR technology,” he says. “It was a massive project and one of the most rewarding I’ve been a part of in my career. We saw people step up and take leadership roles; there was a lot of cross-functional collaboration, and it

“While a very small percentage will ever be hired, we need to make sure we are honest, prompt, and treating all candidates with dignity. ”

ROB DAUGHERTY

required us to think differently about all of our HR processes as we moved to the cloud.”

And, he adds, utilizing the right tech to support American’s processes wound up providing some key solutions for improving the candidate experience and making sure that talent advisors had the right tools. “My team didn’t have the resources we needed to be successful, and we needed to change that.”

Daugherty’s partners at Deloitte agree. “What American Airlines has accomplished is a first for the industry and HR community in scale and complexity,” says Deloitte Consulting principal Bob Park (p. 27). “The future of work is driven by enablers such as SAP SuccessFactors to provide new candidate experiences.

Improving candidate experience was an area of great focus for Daugherty and the American Airlines team. “Customer experience is something I’m very passionate about, and every one of our candidates is either a customer or potential customer,” Daugherty says. “While a very small percentage of our candidates will ever be hired, we need to make sure that we are honest, prompt, and treating all candidates with dignity.”

There were dire needs to be addressed for those already employed by American, too. “Being a statistics and finance major, coming to a talent acquisition organization that had no metrics was both stressful as well as promising from the perspective of getting to go build this the right way,” Daugherty says. Early baselines needed to be set in two basic categories: hiring manager satisfaction and new hire satisfaction.

“The survey numbers were absolutely the lowest satisfaction survey numbers I’ve ever seen in a company,” Daugherty says frankly. “But we hadn’t hired for years, and we didn’t have the structure, processes, or technology to support the business and the sudden hiring. We weren’t adding a whole lot of value and, in most cases, we were more of a roadblock.” Recruiters weren’t being utilized and were feeling stifled and frustrated. New hire satisfaction numbers—traditionally high, if only so as not to start rocking the boat with a new employer—were under 50 percent. Hiring manager satisfaction scores were worse than that. New processes soon followed.

As the talent acquisition transformation continued, Daugherty entered American in the Talent Board-sponsored Candidate Experience Awards. Surprising no one, the talent acquisition team didn’t bring home the award in 2015. It was a different experience in 2016, though. And 2017. And 2018. For all three years, American was recognized as having one of the most positive candidate experiences in business. And it intends to bring home the award again.

“Time-to-fill times are down almost thirty days, which helps ensure we have the right talent, at the right time, to run our operation

and take care of our customers,” Daugherty says. “New hire and hiring manager satisfaction scores have both shot through the roof. We have a lot of work to do still, but we’re on the right track and adding value now.”

Daugherty says that despite his propensity for loving the hot seat, he now has the chance to start addressing strategic initiatives that will leave a big mark on the future of American’s hiring. The company is also currently working on a large employer brand project to, in Daugherty’s words, “tell people what it’s really like to work at American Airlines and why they should choose us over other companies.” Internal engagement will be a large component of the project.

Diversity is an area in which American has always been well ahead of the curve, Daugherty adds. “We are recognized as one of the most diverse and inclusive companies across the spectrum—from veterans to gender to ethnicity to sexual orientation,” he says. “However, we know there are many more opportunities for us to really focus and leverage our incredible diversity from a recruiting perspective.” To this end, American has several diversity initiatives in the pipeline that Daugherty believes will help the company attract and retain the best talent.

While the chaos may have died down, Daugherty says, the satisfaction of leading American’s talent acquisition overhaul is what keeps him thriving in his role. “That ability to come in and make an impact on an organization with the size and history of American Airlines is truly an honor,” he says. “I’m so excited and looking forward to continuing to push us toward being a worldclass talent acquisition organization. Most importantly, I know we have the right team to get it all done.”

2018 PARTNERSHIP IN RECRUITING EXCELLENCE AWARD

As an innovative, compassionate HR leader, Allegis Global Solutions congratulates Rob Daugherty and American Airlines on the well-deserved recognition of their efforts. Sharing a vision of strategic partnership, we are proud to continue working with Rob and team to match top talent with an exceptional organization.

Tel + 61 2 9087 6512 Mob + 61 422 008 916

The Human Side of Financing

Junette West manages Grand Canyon University’s finances with the goal of allowing students to pursue their dreams through education

By KC ESPER

Junette West VP of Business & Finance Grand Canyon University

JJust outside of Phoenix, Arizona, lies the largest Christian university in the world: Grand Canyon University (GCU). With over 20,000 on-campus students and 75,000 online students, GCU has become a mecca for people of all cultures and belief systems to achieve a higher education.

Since its establishment in 1949, the university has undergone several contemporary changes to sustain such large numbers, including its transition from being a for-profit organization to a nonprofit organization and a move toward a more universal, nondenominational focus.

Despite these changes, however, GCU has never lost touch with its culture—a trait that has kept the university resplendent in the hearts of its current and past students. So, naturally, when GCU reached out to alumna Junette West to take charge of its new, nonprofit sector, she couldn’t say no.

Since graduating from GCU with an accounting degree in 1985, West has implemented strategies throughout her career learned from her old classrooms. She describes how small classroom sizes and an overall sense of togetherness allowed her to develop important problem-solving and communication skills that have translated into her work regardless of position or rank. Though GCU taught her the skills to be successful within various roles, it subsequently gave her the opportunity to flourish in a role that was essentially made for her.

Now, rather than sitting in the classrooms she once frequented as a student, she claims her chair as vice president of business and finance, overseeing all finance and accounting decisions at the university.

Despite working in a left-brained concentration, West approaches her work from the perspective of a financial analyst and a humanitarian. Her work centers on the philosophy that each decision should be made for the good of the students and faculty, not just the business. Luckily, the university’s

nonprofit status gives her the capability to practice this principle.

“As a nonprofit institution, our mission of education with a Christian worldview is the lens we look through as we make decisions,” West describes. “We pay careful attention to how we allocate our resources, but in the end, the decision is always centered on what is best for our students and the community in which we serve. It gives me a sense of personal satisfaction, and I really enjoy it.”

The drive behind her method? Her ongoing passion for higher education. Coming from several mathematically-driven positions, including a twenty-eight-year stint with Apollo Education, West has always celebrated the opportunity to positively change the lives of young people in her community. Inspired by her own kids and her personal opportunity to earn a degree,

West advocates for the importance of allowing young adults the chance to gain knowledge through experience.

“I feel very strongly that a college education helps mold a young person’s life,” West expresses. “Any student that’s worthy to go to college, or that works really hard, has the potential to succeed in school and should have the chance to go whether it’s at Grand Canyon or another school. It’s important to provide them with experiences and not just education.”

West’s emphasis on the importance of higher education resonates throughout the campus with a resounding accentuation on harvesting diverse, driven students. West says the University has taken strides to promote acceptance of all walks of life with a particular aim in attracting young adults within its neighborhood. Despite

Courtesy of Grand Canyon University

“In the end, the decision is always centered on what is best for our students and the community in which we serve. It gives me a sense of personal satisfaction.”

JUNETTE WEST

the large population of the school, West notes that the sense of community has not changed since her time as an undergrad, studying among a collection of a modest 2,500 students.

While the students at GCU operate with a sense of commitment and an urgency to learn, West holds her team to the same expectation. The open-ended nature of basing decisions off the good of the students allows her to implement a method called “What If Analysis,” which encourages the consideration of all possible approaches and outcomes before landing on a verdict. Because the goals of West’s department altered entirely due to the school’s transition from for-profit to nonprofit status, their approach to problem solving had to alter concurrently to meet the needs of the students and GCU’s mission.

“When we’re talking about whether to change processes, pricing, our tuition rates, we’re thinking through what will happen if we do it one way versus doing it another way. Because of the change, we have to be sure we’re being wise with our funds and ensuring that our decisions align with our mission. ‘What If Analysis’ is a helpful way to see the impact of various decisions, and it usually makes a path clearer.”

Using these comprehensive approaches, West’s current objective is to “give students opportunities to work on grant-funded projects that they may not have a chance to work on otherwise.” With the goal of enriching students through education, West has managed to integrate the warmth of a human touch into a profession saturated with numbers. In turn, her efforts bring the students of GCU one step closer to achieving their dreams.

BMO Harris congratulates Junette West and celebrates her notable accomplishments in the community. As one of the oldest and largest banks in the US, we are proud to be a financial partner to Grand Canyon University and support their efforts to empower and advance the growth of women.

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Good Things and Great Sacrifices

Arnold & Porter’s Michael Folkes discusses taking one step back and two steps forward on his journey to becoming CIO of a multinational law firm

By JOSEPH KAY

New York City was the only place for Michael Folkes.

In school, he dreamed of being an airline pilot, but the necessary education was prohibitively expensive. He considered air traffic control, but realized that he could spend years trying to work his way to a position in a major city. He began to seek out a career track that could meet all his conditions: urban opportunities, room for growth, and access.

“I went to the library and went through this huge book of careers. This was 1986-87, so PCs weren’t in homes yet,” Folkes remembers. “But the prediction was that every business would have to adopt computer technology, and eventually it would be in every home.”

He set upon the path to his current role as chief information officer of New York’s Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP in a retail store, packing peripherals for home computing. As he advanced he began to relish the business-side and managerial aspects of the field, proceeding to supervisory and directorial positions in television and then in law.

“I found I was really good with people,” Folkes says. “I had a real interest in the business aspect, not just the technology that kept things running but rather how what I do can be beneficial to the organization.”

Folkes was in his twelfth year as IT director at a New York law firm when leadership undertook a merger. At the outset, Folkes was told privately that he was one of two candidates for the single CIO position. The other

individual had an advanced degree in business administration, so despite his longevity and practical experience, Folkes was not offered the position. Nonetheless, he successfully coordinated and managed the IT integration between the two firms.

The rejection put his career trajectory into sharp focus. He focused on one specific, concrete goal: to earn a C-suite role at a major firm in New York City. To get there he would need CIO experience, so he took on the role at Stradley Ronon in Philadelphia, looking to learn what he needed to get himself back to New York.

Folkes commuted between Philadelphia and New York for eight-and-a-half years. “I have the most understanding wife ever,” he says. “She always knew this was just a phase, and she carried the weight of the family. I’d come home Friday night and we’d have a date; every Saturday, we did something with the kids. On Sunday, we would have dinner together before I left for Philadelphia.”

For the final two years splitting time between the two cities, he was also completing an executive MBA from Hofstra University on Long Island: leaving Philadelphia Friday night, going to school all Saturday, studying on Sunday, and returning to Philadelphia before work on Monday. Folkes had no personal life and no time to sleep, but stayed committed and refused to doubt himself.

He graduated in 2014. With C-suite experience and a fresh MBA, he felt ready to find his place back in New York City. Still, he was concerned whether his experience in a midsize firm in a midsize city would keep him competitive. “I always try to remain positive: whatever I believe in, I can achieve,” Folkes says. “It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t make it; my only concern was whether I’d make it to a large law firm, or if I’d have to move to another vertical.”

During his application process at Arnold & Porter, the hiring manager called and informed him that the firm was about to undergo a major merger. Folkes would enter the role close to a deadline, facing a steep workload and significant pressure. Nevertheless, he took the call as a favorable sign, and knew from experience that he could face any challenge with the right mind-set. He had spent more than eight years living away from his wife and children to earn

Michael Folkes CIO

Arnold & Porter

Kaye Scholer LLP

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“I consider myself very lucky to be with an organization that has such outstanding leadership. On a regular basis, I find myself asking how we got such great people.”

MICHAEL FOLKES

a job like the one on offer—any challenge on the other side would be conquerable.

He was right.

“It was a rough three months, but we made our deadline and the launch was flawless,” Folkes remembers. “I consider myself very lucky to be with an organization that has such outstanding leadership. On a regular basis, I find myself asking how we got such great people—we’re an organization where everyone is very smart, and things move very smoothly.”

Folkes and his team are now exploring applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the legal practice. For instance, an AI parsing contracts could do weeks’ worth of work in only a few days, reducing the number of total man-hours it takes to effectively practice law.

The deepest sacrifices are behind him; today the whole family lives in New York, and the victory is sweeter for the pain of the battle.

“You go through these pain points and it feels like it will take forever—but once it’s behind you it’s like it never happened,” he says. “Good things happen through great sacrifices.”

Alphaserve Technologies would like to congratulate Michael Folkes for this well-deserved recognition of his leadership and transformative work in the legal industry. It has been a pleasure to partner with Michael, and Arnold & Porter, to provide cutting edge technology solutions and become the catalyst for innovation.

How Does Karen Kramer Fight for Knowledge at Quora?

The general counsel shares how her early love of journalism led her to a rewarding career in media and technology

By BILLY YOST

Karen Kramer has consistently found a way to fight for knowledge over the course of her law career. The general counsel for Quora—a Q&A website where questions are asked, answered, and edited by its community of users—specialized in both media and technology law far ahead of the curve and has subsequently held roles that wed those two seamlessly, including in-house roles for the Washington Post, TiVo, and Zing Legal.

Along with providing some expert responses on a variety of issues on Quora, Kramer spoke with Profile about how an early love of journalism led her to a wide and rewarding career in media and technology.

Over your twenty-year career, what experiences have most highlighted your passion for working at the intersection of media and technology?

For my first legal job, I served as in-house counsel at the Washington Post. That was a time when newspapers were making the transition to online. My job involved working closely with the newsroom, including Bob Woodward’s investigative team, and reviewing stories as a legal editor, maximizing the protections afforded to journalists under the First Amendment. I also successfully sued and argued in court a precedent-setting case against the governor of Maryland for access to his appointment calendar and phone logs, defeating a claim of executive privilege. I loved helping journalists get the raw material needed to do in-depth, meaningful reporting.

After my early stint in-house, I moved to a national law firm that welcomed me as a member of two different practice groups: the First Amendment group as well as the intellectual property group, which I eventually cochaired. Back then, those were separate practices, unlike today, where most firms roll them up into one practice group called something like media and technology law. Lawyers have long been encouraged to specialize early in their careers, and I was a bit unusual for having planted a flag firmly in

Karen Kramer General Counsel Quora

each of those fields, determined to do both before they actually converged.

How has your early passion for journalism translated into your later career experiences?

From high school through college, I freelanced for local newspapers and wrote for

various school newspapers and magazine publications. While in college, at one point I debated between pursuing a career in journalism or law and managed, in the end, to blend the two with a career in media law.

Journalism and law to me are both a bit like being a detective: you are searching for answers and a new way of extracting

meaning out of known information. You want to gather information and distill it down to the patterns that matter and can provide important clues. This process is what helps you decide how best to navigate changing laws while making important business decisions.

How did you come to join Quora?

Before joining Quora, I practiced law at a firm I cofounded, providing advice to media and technology companies. Initially, I wanted Quora as a client because Quora was beginning to monetize and expand globally— activities well-suited to my core skill set and experience. Plus, I was addicted to the product! At the very same time, Quora was looking to hire a general counsel. I can’t imagine any other company that I would have given up my practice for. Quora was just very special to me, given its mission, stage of growth, and the amazing people.

In the evolving digital landscape, what are some of your primary focuses of concern for you at Quora?

In today’s climate, there exists a lot of pressure on platforms to meet the increasing expectations of regulators and consumers on many fronts, including data privacy and quality content. It used to be the case that US law and the expectations of US consumers were far more relaxed, compared with their international counterparts. However, changes like GDPR, the European data protection regulation that went into effect last year, and other laws that make platforms responsible for the content they carry have begun to reset expectations on a global level. There has been a real ripple effect.

Consequently, for Quora, one of my primary concerns is demonstrating an understanding and willingness to meet these higher expectations, while supporting product innovation. I do think that the winners and losers in the marketplace will be sorted out, in part, based on how companies genuinely understand and respond to meeting the increasing expectations of

consumers and regulators on these important issues.

You’ve applied your expertise from start-ups to companies with long and respected histories. What has allowed you this sort of flexibility in your career? What encourages you to take on new challenges?

The media industry has gone through three major phases as I see it: first print, then online, and then social. Each of those phases requires translating traditional principles, such as laws regarding liability for content, into new technology mediums. Advising companies how to navigate evolving content and privacy laws is like a puzzle, one that I love to solve.

Many of the media companies I have worked for have a truly noble mission of sharing and growing knowledge. In fact, the Washington Post and Quora are similarly inspired, mission-driven companies, both focused on increasing knowledge and making the world a better place through information sharing. I tend to be drawn to mission-driven companies or companies that are doing something really new with content and technology.

What challenges are you currently focusing on at Quora?

Since I joined Quora a few years ago, Quora was localized in just one language. Now it is localized in seventeen, with more to come. Localizing the product means understanding content regulations and data privacy regulations in other jurisdictions and finding a way to adapt the product to those legal and cultural norms.

Winston & Strawn LLP:

“Winston & Strawn is pleased to have a longstanding partnership with Karen Kramer on intellectual property counseling and litigation matters. Karen is a strategic leader who is perfectly positioned to lead Quora through this time of exciting international growth.”

—Jennifer A. Golinveaux, partner

winston.com

Winston & Strawn is proud to be a partner and friend of Karen Kramer and the entire Quora legal team.

People First, Profits Follow

At Roadmaster Group, Almira Torralba Baker is building a better culture grounded in respect, open dialogue, and safety

By STEPHANIE ZEILENGA

Growing up in the Philippines, Almira Torralba Baker heard her late father, a high-powered bank executive at the time, tell countless stories about the brilliant attorneys who helped him make key business decisions.

“I was a daddy’s girl,” Baker says. “His stories stuck with me.”

Now general counsel at Roadmaster Group, an affiliated group of specialized transportation companies serving the high-security market, Baker leads an initiative to improve the company’s culture. As much as her father’s admiration for attorneys inspired her career choice, she also says she found inspiration in the fifteen years she lived in the Philippines before her family moved to New Jersey.

“Even though we had a nice life, there just weren’t the same opportunities you have here,” she says. “It gave me an appreciation for our justice system, for example, that’s easy for people to take for granted.”

In her current role as general counsel, Baker handles risk management, human resources, and corporate governance for Roadmaster.

“Along with the executive team, Almira has led our company to phenomenal growth over the past eight years, increasing sales by over five times in that period,” notes Roadmaster CEO John C. Wilbur Jr. “She has been instrumental in ensuring that the appropriate structure was in place to facilitate growth and views every decision we make from the perspective of how it will impact our staff and our culture.”

As the company grows, Baker continually works to shift the culture, making it more open and collaborative. “An HR strategy that works for a small company doesn’t necessarily work for a large company,” she notes. “When you have an empowered workforce that feels valued, you have less turnover and you’re able to deal with issues before they become bigger problems.”

The shift began in 2011, when Roadmaster officially formed as a means of merging several large transportation firms. “Before,

people at the different companies didn’t necessarily feel they could raise their hand or ask questions,” Baker says. “When we combined the companies, we had to take into account the different culture that each company brought to the table. We spent a lot of time listening to people’s concerns and allowing them to buy into the decisions we were making for the company as a whole.”

Baker, a graduate of Wellesley College and Notre Dame Law School, believes even small shifts in culture can trickle down to every department within an organization. For instance, when the Roadmaster logo evolved to include “the right way,” she noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of complaints filed by former employees against the company.

Nevertheless, Roadmaster’s HR goals involve much grander plans than updating a logo. Just recently, the company instituted a bonus-incentive plan for all support-staff members that makes virtually all full-time employees eligible for a quarterly bonus, based on targets set by the company. This

General Counsel

Group

Almira Torralba Baker

Roadmaster

Kevin Cummings Partner and President

– AZ

602.735.8903 kevin.cummings@lockton.com

“When you have an empowered workforce that feels valued, you have less turnover and you’re able to deal with issues before they become bigger problems.”

ALMIRA TORRALBA BAKER

plan fosters an environment wherein all employees are moving in the same direction.

“We believe everyone is contributing to the company’s success, and this has been a huge boost for morale,” she says.

With Baker’s guidance, in 2012, Roadmaster also updated the payment model

for the company’s drivers to a guaranteed salary. “Most of the industry pays drivers by the mile, which we didn’t feel aligns with our culture of safety,” Baker explains, noting that Roadmaster’s drivers are 36 percent female, compared to recent reports that the industry average for female drivers is below 7 percent. “We want drivers to feel we value their work. Since we changed the payment structure, many drivers have been able to buy homes because they have a steady, reliable income.”

Baker and her HR team will unveil new compliance software in spring 2019 that includes classes for professional development. “Some managers feel they currently don’t get much support on how to communicate with employees or how to steer employees toward reaching their potential,” Baker says. “This software will hopefully allow us to provide additional support.”

One of her many goals is also to normalize discomfort in the workplace, for she believes this is necessary for growth. “As a manager, you need to understand that giving feedback is a vulnerable situation for both the person receiving the feedback and the person giving it,” Baker says. “As in-house counsel, I’ve entrenched myself in the business. I never want to be a barrier, so I always take time to understand what my colleagues are trying to accomplish and provide advice on how they can reach their goals within legal parameters.”

The Future of Work

Deloitte Consulting’s Bob Park has spent his entire career developing lofty, innovative HR solutions while keeping things down to earth

By BILLY YOST

Bob Park Principal

Deloitte Consulting

Harry Vitanis

Bob Park qualifies his answers with the same caveat: “I’m just a kid from Detroit.”

It’s as if highlighting his accomplishments over twenty years at Deloitte Consulting might come off as bragging or that enacting HR solutions at some of the world’s largest organizations may seem too involved. Maybe it’s the fact that the second-generation Korean American saw economic downturn after economic downturn in a city that had once reigned as the world’s automotive capital, which in turn, made him incredibly fortunate to be where he is.

Now a principal at Deloitte, Park has watched the HR function transform since the mid-1990s, along with his clients’ business needs and expectations. He is intent on helping his clients answer the question: What is the future of work?

Park went straight into consulting after he finished school, which provided him a widelensed view not only of the evolution of HR but also his own role in working with clients.

“I think one of my skills is just being able to break things down into simpler terms when we talk about something like the ‘employee experience,’” Park says. “I’m a brass tacks kind of guy, and that’s been the key to my success.”

From experience that includes success and failure, Park is able to define and articulate often hard-to-grasp concepts. In the late-1990s, Park helped a global technology client reinvent its HR practices in a way that may seem laughable in more modern times.

“Back then, a key HR activity was collecting paper forms and faxing them to be processed and filed,” Park says. “We moved those forms to email for employees and managers to submit themselves and evolve the mind-set and role of the HR function.”

Fast-forward a decade later and Park was helping an aerospace and defense client move its email-able HR forms directly online. “Organizations continue to

challenge the status quo and how the future of how work gets done—thinking about where their people shouldn’t be doing activities that aren’t value-added,” he says. “The days of HR folks completing and processing forms moved on to using mobile devices and to now using chat bots along with robotic process automation.”

One of Park’s most complex projects was helping unite HR and Payroll processes following the merger for a large transportation client.

“Our first challenge was determining a road map and delivery model for how HR and payroll services were to be integrated,” Park says. “The second part was launching a brand-new technology platform while also deploying a whole set of new HR and payroll processes.

“We discussed that instead of implementing changes and a technology that they would eventually have to later revisit, why not leapfrog, implement new technology and a support model that aligns with the future of work,” he continues. “Given their size and scale, the client has an influential position in the marketplace for others to follow.”

After the initial launch, additions have included a new recruiting site, new compensation, performance management, and succession planning capabilities, and all through cloud-based SAP SuccessFactors technology. But the business integration and technology implementation the transportation client was undertaking was not a small task.

Why was the client willing to take the risk? “The overarching goal was to achieve HR and payroll integration and employ leading-edge business processes that takes advantage of cloud technology,” Park says. “Deploying a single talent management, HR, and payroll solution, and fostering a sense of community across team members, was an important objective.”

Deloitte continued to aid the client with globally deploying a new core HR capability using SAP SuccessFactors along with a new SAP Payroll platform. “We wanted to take

“One of my skills is just being able to break things down into simpler terms when we talk about something like the ‘employee experience.’”

BOB PARK

the HR and Payroll transactional processing they do today and move all 130,000 employees over into the cloud,” Park says.

The move for Payroll is being done in phases to help minimize risk, but Park says the resulting move to the cloud will ultimately be invaluable for both the client’s HR and payroll functions. “The end goal is to streamline and enhance HR and payroll services with a single integrated solution.”

Park says that part of his success has come through not specializing on a particular industry—he’s worked for other transportation providers, technology and manufacturing organizations, aerospace and defense contractors, government entities, and banking corporations, as well as life sciences and consumer product companies.

“Everyone always says, ‘You’ve got to know my business’ and I don’t disagree with that,” Park says. “I also think there’s much to take advantage of and apply from other industries and change the lens on the possibilities.”

Harry Vitanis

American Builders Quarterly highlights leaders and projects on the cutting edge of today’s US building industry. For editorial consideration, contact info@americanbuildersquarterly.com

Found in Translation

HR VP Ashley Everson works to improve diversity and inclusion at HAVI on a global scale

By VALERIE MENARD

As a child growing up in a Chicago suburb, Ashley Everson knew she wanted to work in a profession that would allow her to help people. At first, she thought she’d pursue a medical profession, but after working in human resources at a local hospital during college, she embraced a new path. Luckily for her, dreams do come true.

“I’ve always been energized by the chance to positively impact people. It’s in my nature,” says Everson, vice president of HR at HAVI. “HR as a career seemed to find me. I feel fortunate to have a unique opportunity to touch lives while creating a path for the business to succeed.”

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in health planning and administration, as well as a master’s degree in HR and industrial relations from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she found work at The Hertz Corporation. There, she met women who would inspire her to think globally.

“I’m fortunate to have had great leaders supporting me even in the early days of my

career,” she says. “At Hertz, I met several female role models who challenged me to think beyond my traditional borders. One of those individuals was Vanessa Flynn, a global talent acquisition leader based in Dublin, Ireland, who was Mauritius-born and had grown up in South Africa. Appreciating her life experience and world views, I knew I wanted to work in a global setting.”

After five years at Hertz, she accepted a position at global supply-chain and analytics leader HAVI as a senior HR representative, and in April 2019, she marked the tenth anniversary of joining HAVI. Today, she’s actively steering the company’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiative and using her influence to impact change on a global scale.

“HAVI and the people I interact with have made the world a much smaller place for me,” she says. “We have more than ten thousand employees globally and customers in more than one hundred markets. Our business model requires that we appreciate the uniqueness of our customer base and that we reflect that global diversity. Whether in the US, Poland, Japan, or any of our other markets, our goal is to attract, retain, and unleash

“In HR, I have a unique opportunity to touch lives while creating a path for the business to succeed.”

ASHLEY EVERSON

Everson VP of HR

Ashley

HAVI

Larry Mohr

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the full potential of our people. Understanding the local nature of that challenge is what keeps me here.”

According to Everson, D&I is a core value at HAVI, but the opportunity to harness the impact of D&I became much more apparent after it conducted a large-scale survey of its employees in 2017. Everson says that she, with the help of Jill Ahern and Kirsten Love, members of their commercial advanced analytics team, chose to use the findings to encourage change at the company.

“In terms of data and numbers, we were struck by the glaring disparity in employee experience as cut by different demographics—most notably gender on a global scale and ethnicity within the US,” Everson says. “We have a global footprint and may be diverse in certain dimensions, but in order for diversity to thrive, we needed to double down on our focus on inclusion.”

such as designing for inclusion, executive education, and employee-led workshops and to partner with consultants to help frame D&I at HAVI for long-term impact.

While she doesn’t have all the answers yet, she has identified three objectives to ensure a return on the investment, starting with improving transparency and establishing clear direction from management, empowering local action by using local champions and advisors, and, finally, investing to build diversified career experiences for employees. “This is a key milestone,” Everson says. “Truthfully, we’re still novices at this.”

Throughout her career, Everson says, she has focused on listening more and leading with empathy. She credits this and the trust of her team for her success. “Walking a moment in someone else’s shoes can lead you much further than walking a mile in your own” she says. As a working mother of two young girls, seven and nine years old, she’s happy knowing the work she’s doing will not only impact her organization but also her daughters’ generation as well.

Her efforts led the CEO to issue a strategic imperative and commitment to action. With the C-suite fully engaged, Everson has secured funding to support D&I initiatives Larry

Mohr

From left: Evelyn Rocha, Total Rewards Analyst; Phyllis Billingslea, Communications Manager; Kelsie Garlic, Senior Recruiter; Ashley Everson, VP of HR

From the Bio Lab to the Boardroom

J. R. Simplot’s Vid Mohan-Ram leverages his scientific expertise to break down communication barriers

By JOSEPH KAY

Vid Mohan-Ram Chief IP Counsel

J. R. Simplot

Vid Mohan-Ram began his legal career in the genetics lab more than two decades ago. Even then, he often straddled legal and technical issues: in the UK, after the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Act, he studied the DNA and muscle tissue of dog breeds, foreshadowing future career synthesis between biology and law.

“I’ve found myself having to develop skills to bring people together, whether its internal cross-functional teams or opposing sides of a dispute or negotiation,” Mohan-Ram says. “I like the challenge of communicating ideas across a spectrum of listeners and audiences— for example, explaining the same legal and IP issue to C-suite executives, group presidents, and PhD scientists.”

As he took up science writing and placed in several contests, his research and articles were published in London’s Daily Telegraph and additional applications of DNA fingerprinting. He covered how UC Davis scientists used it to detect wine fraud: crooks were intentionally mislabeling vine stock and exporting it to command fraudulently high prices.

His gifts for writing led to a job at Science magazine, where he offered grant-writing and fund-raising advice to professionals in the field. Mohan-Ram was interviewing partners at Foley & Lardner about IP issues, and the conversation soon turned into a job offer. He became a patent agent and completed his JD during his time there.

One of Mohan-Ram's clients was the J. R. Simplot Company, which he pitched on an

in-house position, where he could oversee and manage the entire intellectual property framework. The pitch delivered. He now serves as the company’s chief IP counsel.

The J. R. Simplot Company, founded in 1929, grew from a one-man farming operation into a food and agribusiness empire. Being vertically integrated, it commands each aspect of developing, manufacturing, and distributing its products.

“I can have the detailed scientific discussions with a researcher about what they

want to do, and give specific feedback on the genetics,” he explains. “Then I can also go back to the group director or group president, and advise them on how to proceed, and I can bring the message to the corporate and insurance people on the overall risk profile for that project.”

Mohan-Ram says he enjoys doing all that work—though he notes he’s “much, much more busy than I was at the law firm.”

The journey to develop, produce, and protect new products catches all of Mohan-Ram’s

“We’re always looking for niche products and specialty products, and it’s very exciting to be able to sit down and be inquisitive.”

VID MOHAN-RAM

specialties in support of a promising, visionary endeavor. “We’re always looking for niche products and specialty products, and it’s very exciting to be able to sit down and be inquisitive: flesh out an idea, see what the brand and marketing materials look like, and how it supports the long-term vision,” he says. “In the technology and food spaces, it’s fulfilling for me to watch them design and create new types of food.”

If there's a downside to this breadth and depth of expertise, it’s that Mohan-Ram fields

a vast quantity of issues. Stress management becomes a crucial tenet of the position. He centers himself as a musician, a journey he started in primary school and continued at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music.

“I started by learning the bluegrass banjo,” he says. “However, trying to relax after work by finger-plucking the banjo isn’t the most convenient or melodious thing to do. So I self-taught myself the guitar instead. Luckily we have a whole room downstairs for all of my instruments.”

Mohan-Ram also finds the time to draw and paint—both watercolors and acrylics. His online gallery, Gloucester House Art, is named after his cat, who is also featured as the subject of several pieces.

“Creating artwork gives me an alternative means to express myself, which can lend itself to communicating ideas and direction visually,” he says. “I typically sketch out legal relationships and legal issues for clients and the staff I work with to break down otherwise difficult and complex issues.

“It’s one of the things we go through— turning things on their head to try and figure out how to work with other people," he adds. “Once you’ve got that down, you’re able to truly understand their points of view, and craft responses that create meaningful dialogue.”

Parsons Behle & Latimer congratulates Vid MohanRam on this well-deserved recognition. Vid is an accomplished scientist and a fine lawyer with remarkable leadership abilities. We are honored to work with Vid in support of the J.R. Simplot Company’s longstanding commitment to innovation. Thank you, Vid, for being a tremendous legal partner!

Parsons Behle & Latimer applauds Vid Mohan-Ram, Ph.D., J.D. Chief Intellectual Property Counsel from J.R. Simplot Company for his leadership and tremendous contribution to the legal profession.

Parsons Behle & Latimer specializes in handling intellectual property matters and complex litigation throughout the country. The firm’s IP team places a particular emphasis on patent and trademark prosecution, copyright, technology transactions and licensing, trade secrets and IP litigation.

Dana M. Herberholz Patent

Attorney 208.562.4906

DHerberholz@parsonsbehle.com

Work She Loves in the City She Loves

With more than forty years of HR experience, Karen Niparko brings considerable wisdom and engagement to the City of Denver’s workforce recruitment and retention initiatives

By CLINT WORTHINGTON

KKaren Niparko’s career as an HR practitioner began at the age of seventeen, when she took up a clerical job at the agricultural equipment manufacturer Massey Ferguson in Detroit. In the four decades since, she has climbed the ranks through a number of different industries and companies to arrive at her current opportunity: chief human resources officer for the City and County of Denver.

The diversity of her experience in industries as varied as manufacturing, financial services, technology, and broadcast, among others, and businesses from two hundred to thirty-two thousand employees has provided her with a wide-ranging perspective.

“After several years of human resource experience, you’ve pretty much lived through it all,” she says.

Her latest position pushes her to rely on these years of experience to oversee more than fourteen thousand diverse municipal employees for the Mile High City, spread across thirty-five different government agencies and elected official organizations. Her work and that of her team members ensures the city has the best talent to meet the needs of a growing economy and build a sustainable city. Denver enjoys a reputation for innovation, diversity, performance excellence, progressive hiring, and positive employee work experiences.

Niparko’s career has been one of continual learning, with each position strengthening her human resources leadership and expertise. She gained a strong foundation of HR experience in her ten years with Massey Ferguson. “I worked for good leaders in challenging business environments and was privileged to have a very encouraging mentor who remains a close friend today,” she says.

In her time there, she participated in negotiations with the United Auto Workers union, supported high business growth followed by the unfortunate downturn in the automotive industry. Throughout her career, she has transformed HR organizations, held business-line leadership positions, led strategic growth, downsizings, mergers and acquisitions, and more. “It was the experience early on in my career that helped shape my business philosophies and approach to human resources,” she says. “I knew HR was the career that I wanted to pursue.”

Karen Niparko Chief Human Resources Officer

City and County of Denver

While Massey Ferguson helped her get her feet wet, it was her time at StorageTek (now owned by Sun Microsystems) that allowed her to take her experience to the next level. As a chief administrative officer working with an employee base of eight thousand employees, Niparko had the chance to solve more complex, global issues and challenges in the technology sector, during the height of the high-tech bubble. “I was able to work more globally and more strategically during a highly competitive business period,” she says. That job armed her for the complex scale of government work and helped her see how to strategically introduce private-sector

innovations and practices to the government sector. “I have continued to learn something new from every position and every environment,” Niparko says. “Each challenge is more complex, providing the opportunity to innovatively solve new business problems successfully.” From her various roles, she has also cultivated a philosophy focused on her obligation to make a meaningful difference for her organization and in the professional lives and development of the talent her organization brings aboard.

Her latest work, managing HR for a public entity, has presented her with new challenges. The number of stakeholders is exponentially

higher, for one: “It’s the most complex organizational structure that I’ve ever worked in, and I’ve worked for several major multinational companies,” she says.

Instead of crafting a strategy with one CEO, Niparko now works with at least forty-five different agency heads—in addition to elected officials, all CEOs in their own right. And she must address the expectations of the public itself. “We’re here to serve the people of Denver, and that commitment comes with a great deal of responsibility and high expectations,” she says.

One particular ongoing area of focus for Niparko and her team is preparing for the workforce of the future and improving the candidate and employee experience. “Our goal,” Niparko says, “is to create the best positive experience for candidates who will become our employees. We hope these new team members will feel they’re joining a positive, productive environment where their individual career goals can be met. If their hiring process is smooth, customized, quick, and respectful, it prepares our managers to orient and develop their new team members successfully.”

Building a positive, productive environment for employees has included providing best-in-class health benefits. “Karen’s wealth of experience and knowledge in the area of human resources has allowed for dynamic coordination with UnitedHealthcare and the introduction of highly innovative and well-integrated programs to benefit the health and wellness of employees of the City and County of Denver,” says Jennifer Behm, key accounts vice president for UnitedHealth Group. “It’s a true honor and privilege to work with someone with Karen’s caliber of skill and commitment to excellence.”

Candidate employees’ experience starts with the City of Denver’s creative branding, website, outreach, and strong social media presence, which is more modern, hands-on, personal, and communicative. Additionally, the department has launched a user-friendly applicant-tracking system, bolstered its social media outreach, and established a strong branding message for recruitment: “Be a Part of the City That You Love.”

Because the City of Denver receives more than 145,000 applications per year and only

“HR has an opportunity—no, an obligation— to make a difference for the business every day, in every decision we make.”

places 4,000 or so, it’s doubly important to attract the best talent in a strong economy. “Denver is a competitive job market, with so many choices for job seekers,” Niparko says. “If prospective employees have a good feeling about our culture, our people, and their career opportunities, we hope they will want to work for our city—and share Denver’s story with their colleagues, friends, and families. They have the most sincere voice to tell our story.”

To better handle such a large employee base with so many moving parts, Niparko has also been implementing a leading-edge human resources information system. In January 2017, Denver launched the Workday enterprise resource-planning system, facilitating a stronger applicant tracking system and employee database, better performance management, and increased resources for on-demand learning.

“The implementation of Workday has made an enormous difference for us,” Niparko says, adding that it automates tedious manual and paper processes so that HR professionals can invest more time strategically consulting with leadership and employees.

Niparko speaks at various conferences, webcasts, and industry group meetings on topics such as preparing for the future of

work, marketing and branding, innovation, and HRIS systems implementations. She has mentored MBA students and judged MBA case competitions, and, recently, Denver’s HR organization received the Excellence in HR award from industry group IPMA-HR. Most recently, Niparko had the opportunity to learn and share Denver’s leading practices with government officials abroad. Through an organization called the American Council of Young Political Leaders, Niparko hosted a young Filipino professional for two months, sharing Denver’s leading practices and inviting her to shadow Niparko and her team. In exchange, Niparko visited Manila and Cebu in the Philippines, meeting with government officials and HR leaders to discuss Denver’s programs, challenges, and innovations.

Given her decades of experience, Niparko’s leadership for the City and County of Denver seems like the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of accumulated HR wisdom and innovation. “HR has an opportunity— no, an obligation—to make a difference for the business every day, in every decision we make,” she says. By leading Denver’s HR transformation, building the best employee experience, and attracting top talent, she’s doing just that.

KAREN NIPARKO

PERSEVERANCE

IS THE KEY TO GROWTH

Rich Tinnon built himself into a modern CFO who stresses the importance of employee empowerment

Hilltop Bank P48

Financial Skill Set

FLEXIBILITY ENSURES MORE SHARED EXPERTISE

Gary Hall shares how he integrated Logicalis’ finance team with the rest of the business

CULTURE DRIVES INNOVATION AND REINVENTION

Greg Skinner on how Landec’s missiondriven values drive transformation in the health and wellness sectors

Logicalis P62

Landec Corporation P44

At the Apex of Health and Wellness

By Jacob Winchester

Landec CFO Greg Skinner shares how the company’s mission-driven values help it spark recent innovation in the health, wellness, and natural foods sectors

You might be hard-pressed to find another company at the intersection of health and wellness like Landec. Specializing in natural, plant-based foods, like ready-to-eat kale salads and avocado spreads, as well as premium-grade, sodium hyaluronate–based biomaterials primarily for use in the medical and veterinary markets, this seemingly unconventional pairing is paying off for Landec.

“We’ve gone from around a $1 million company when I first joined to a $600 million company, and I think that’s mainly because of our culture. We have an entrepreneurial spirit, and we’ve been able to reinvent ourselves numerous times over the twenty-three years that I’ve been here,” says Greg Skinner, chief financial officer at Landec. “We’re not afraid to change our strategic direction when we see a consumer opportunity or gap in the industry that we can successfully innovate for.”

Originally founded as a material science company focused on polymer chemistry with one of its earlier pursuits in the area of medical devices, Landec, as it stands today, consists of two main operating businesses: Curation Foods and Lifecore Biomedical. Together, Skinner says, these two business are focused on innovation to further health and wellness solutions in the natural foods and biomaterial markets in which they operate.

“Our CEO, Molly Hemmeter, who has been in her role for the past three-and-a-half years, has certainly been a huge inspiration for our growth. She developed our original salad line, which five years ago had no revenue and this year will be around $190 million in revenue,” Skinner says. “And from there, Molly came into the CEO role with a vision that Curation Foods would be a mission-forward, plant-based natural foods company that not only creates and sells products that are 100 percent clean with no artificial flavors or preservatives but also champions sustainable growing, production and distribution practices in the natural foods category.

Greg Skinner CFO Landec Corporation

“We’ve always tried to look ahead and develop products that will meet

the ever-changing future needs of consumers.”

“Everything we do is about providing access to delicious, plant-based foods made from 100 percent clean ingredients to as many people as possible in a way that respects people and preserves our planet,” he continues. “Ninety percent of our packaging is curbside recyclable, and 80 percent of our packaging is made from renewable sources across all brands. In addition, Landec recently invested over $6 million in a water recycling facility that is designed to purify water to specifications exceeding those of drinking water. Landec has set a goal of recycling 50 percent of its water within the next few years.”

Over the past three years, Skinner and the Landec team have set about delivering on its mission of providing access to as many people as possible to life. This involved rebranding the company’s former fresh-cut vegetable and salad entity from Apio to Curation Foods—in order to fully reflect the new vision—and negotiating a few strategic acquisitions, including the award-winning O Olive & Vinegar products and two well-known guacamole brands: Yucatan and Cabo Fresh. Landec also internally developed the Now Planting platform, an elevated and design-savvy line of plant-based soups with plans for expansion into other food categories in the future.

Under the Curation Foods umbrella, the company continues to expand business for its BreatheWay technology, a patented permeable membrane originally unveiled in 1995 that significantly—and naturally—extends the shelf life of packaged vegetables.

“We’ve always tried to look ahead and develop products that will meet the ever-changing future needs and

desires of consumers,” Skinner says. “We acquired Apio, which originally was a cooperative of vegetable growers and, at the time, the only user of our BreatheWay technology, because we saw that consumers at the time were headed more toward value-added products like packaged, fresh-cut vegetables and vertically integrating our technology with a forward-looking vegetable processor would accelerate Landec’s growth.”

“Fast-forward, we developed our salad line and our chef-inspired sweet kale salad is still the number-one-selling packaged salad kit in North America today, five years after its original launch,” he continues. “With the acquisition of O Olive & Vinegar and Yucatan Foods and the internal development of Now Planting, we’ve transitioned our packaged fresh vegetable business into a natural foods company and renamed it Curation Foods.”

On the Lifecore side, Skinner and the Landec team sought to expand the company from a hyaluronic acid (HA) developer and provider into a contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO). “Through investments, we encouraged the Lifecore team to look outside of HA and use their expertise in fermentation and aseptic filling of very difficult to handle materials to expand into new market,” Skinner says.

Lifecore invented the fermentation of HA back in the mid-’80s, a relatively viscous sub-stance for use in ophthalmic and orthopedic applications administered using a syringe that considered to be a medical device by the FDA. The Lifecore team has more recently developed, with one of its partners, its first drug application

that is an antinausea treatment for chemotherapy patients.

“After this first drug application was approved, Lifecore became FDA approved for both medical devices and drugs. As a result, we were able to position ourselves as a fullblown CDMO,” Skinner says. “Of course, we quickly saw that 80 percent of drugs are filled in vials. So, a couple of years ago, we gave Lifecore the thumbs-up to construct a dual vial and syringe line, which is now fully operational and should start generating revenue next fiscal year. Lifecore has grown tremendously and still has huge growth potential.”

Now that the bulk of transformation has taken place, Skinner says the near term will see Landec focusing on execution by both growing recent acquisitions and strengthening the businesses they’ve worked hard to develop.

“The main focus of Curation Foods will now be to integrate and grow the recently acquired companies through optimizing operations and our supply chain and from utilizing our sales and marketing teams to sell the recently acquired product lines to existing Curation Foods customers,” he says. “With Lifecore, we’ll be working on advancing products currently in development to commercialization while expanding our product offerings with existing customers. Our goal is to try to have fifteen or so products in development at any given point in time so that we have a constant flow of products moving through the FDA approval process with the ultimate goal of getting every product approved.”

And, as a parent organization, Landec will continue to hone its goals of advancing health and wellness across the board. “We’re, after all, a mission-driven company. That’s the focus of the company. On the food side, we’re going to continue provide access to plantbased 100 percent clean ingredient foods promoting healthy eating and healthy ingredients,” Skinner says. “And on the Lifecore side, we’ll be working to improve the well-being and the quality of peoples’ lives through the treatments we help develop.” $

Celebrating more than 130 years of service, King & Spalding is an international law firm that represents a broad array of clients, including half of the Fortune Global 100, with over 1,000 lawyers in 20 offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

King & Spalding congratulates Greg Skinner on his welldeserved recognition from Profile for his innovative work as CFO of Landec.

Greg, you are a standout negotiator and CFO, and we’re certain that Landec will continue its success with you as a leader. It’s a privilege to work with you and your team.

Your friends at Orrick

Orrick is a global law firm focused on serving the Technology & Innovation, Energy & Infrastructure and Finance sectors.

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A Champion of His Hilltop

People

By Jeremy Borden

Bank’s

Rich Tinnon sees himself as a modern CFO who has learned that solid work culture and employee empowerment are a big part of what creates great companies

Rich Tinnon accepts his first CFO position at KeyBank

Early in his business career, Rich Tinnon knew he wanted to be a chief financial officer. His background was in public accounting, but he loved the idea of being part of the deal-making process, where he could play a role in evaluating high-level financial transactions that would impact a company long-term.

However, the first time he got his chance, he wasn’t sure he was cut out for it. After various positions—as an accountant, treasurer, and financial planner—he had the technical and financial acumen to join KeyBank as the CFO of their leasing business in 2005. Tinnon entered the company at a tumultuous time. There were a number of important decisions he was faced with right off the bat that tested his then little-used leadership muscles. As the company completed a merger, Tinnon had to figure out how to combine key financial units from other offices across the country into the Denver office—while also figuring out how to keep employees happy in the short term so that they wouldn’t immediately jump ship.

“There was a lot of organizational thinking and working to not have key people walk out the door,” Tinnon says. “As a CFO, you’re spending more of your time either on strategic things or the personnel side, and it was the personnel side that I didn't have a lot of experience with. That was all new to me. And frankly, it was like, ‘I just

want to focus on finance stuff, not all this organizational personnel stuff.’”

But he persevered, organizing divisions and learning what made the employees tick, how to motivate them, and how to get them to the right position—for themselves and the company, whether for the short term or the long term. Tinnon learned how to grapple with measuring and understanding something that couldn’t be defined in a ledger or decoded through financial analysis. In 2013, Tinnon found additional opportunities to focus on building a strong team. As CFO of First National Bank of Santa Fe, a bank holding company that had just acquired three banks in New Mexico and Colorado, Tinnon had to build an accounting and finance team using existing personnel and supplementing it with new hires.

He thinks about those lessons often as the new CFO at Hilltop Bank in Casper, Wyoming, a position he assumed in late 2017. The bank is now one of Wyoming’s biggest, having started in as a tiny operation in a strip mall before growing into a major family-owned bank with interests in energy and ranching.

Tinnon loves the bank’s family feel and dedication to customer experience. A certain Wyoming politeness permeates, too. But, just like during his time at Key, Tinnon finds himself learning new skills while leaning on his now

Rich Tinnon learns how to build strong teams as First National Bank of Santa Fe’s CFO

Rich Tinnon stresses the “softer side” of finance as Hilltop Bank’s CFO

always a pleasure to recognize the achievement of our clients.

RSM is pleased to congratulate Rich Tinnon of Hilltop National Bank for being recognized by Profile Magazine.

rsmus.com

strengthened leadership skills to help Hilltop plan for the future.

Tinnon came into the company with a different sort of challenge than in his previous positions: responsibility over things big and small had been handled by a tiny staff under the leadership of his predecessor. Because responsibility hadn’t been widely shared, other employees didn’t know enough about how the bank’s processes worked. Tinnon knew he wasn’t going to be the one handling both the bank’s finances and operations. “Personally, I knew I’d have challenges, and I said so right up front in the interview,” he says “I said, ‘You’re not going to find someone who has the finance and operational skills. We have to figure out how to make the operational work.’”

In some ways, that transition was the right way for Tinnon to find himself in a position to work closely with key employees, and he empowered them to learn the operational ropes and take on leadership roles. His continued push to identify and delegate to leaders who can take on new tasks fits with his vision for how the company can modernize its workforce, and it gives more employees a chance to learn and rise within the organization. “We have to give people access and let them screw up,” Tinnon says.

Tinnon is seeing a thaw in the bank’s traditional culture. It wasn’t long ago that the bank did away with mandatory ties for men and pantyhose for women in the office. (Ditching his tie was a delight, Tinnon adds.)

The bank’s family owners have indicated that they are in the business for the long haul, and they want to invest in it and grow and make acquisitions. To that end, the bank has executed newer, more modern branding.

Tinnon says all of this points to a prosperous future for the bank. But to begin executing on its new ambitions, he has found himself reassuming the role of coach and leader. He is the rare sort of CFO who is pushing for competitive raises to ensure key people grow with the company and are offered more responsibility and chances to excel.

“Sometimes the old-school managers think, ‘Well they’ve got to pay their dues,’ or ‘They don’t have this skill set,’ or ‘They’re not the perfect employee yet,’” Tinnon says. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not a high value.”

One of Tinnon’s peers at Hilltop recently remarked that they had never seen a CFO with so much financial experience stress the “softer side” of business development. As Tinnon has learned, that’s what builds great companies.“I know personally, if I’m feeling good, my productivity will be off the charts,” he says. “And if my productivity is higher when I feel good about where I work, then why wouldn’t it be the same for other people on my team?”

Tinnon jokes that he’s “supposed to be the finance guy,” and he is—with one key difference: while at one time in the past he dreaded and felt a bit overwhelmed as a CFO charged with employee development and mentorship, he now finds himself patient, relishing the role. $

For more than fifteen years, RSM has partnered with Hilltop National Bank. RSM delivers high-quality accounting and business advisory services to assist Hilltop in making confident business decisions that build their future. RSM has brought fresh insights and tailored expertise to clients like Hilltop National Bank for more than ninety years.

Change, and Change Again

years in the making to Veolia

By David Levine

Kim Smith has done a lot of growing in her career with Veolia North America as the evolving company has zigged and zagged over the past decade

With change comes new chances—to succeed, to learn, to grow. Kim Smith has learned this over and over again in her time with Veolia North America. Since joining the company, she has seized the many opportunities afforded by its structural changes, particularly over the past few years. Most recently, she has even restructured her own role in the company and created a new career path, at just the moment she was thinking of moving on to another job.

Smith’s journey to Veolia was a decade in the making, and she’s been continuously climbing since she got there. She earned a BS degree in accounting from Indiana State University in 1994, and over the next ten years, she worked in several locations (including Louisiana and Illinois) and in several industries (including banking and healthcare) before joining Veolia’s Indianapolis office in 2004. The global environmental company provides services in water, solid waste, chemical waste, hazardous waste, and energy management for municipal, commercial, and industrial clients. Smith, who had moved to Indianapolis to start a family, took a job with the company’s IT department as a business analyst supporting the ERP program.

“At that time, the company was evolving,” Smith says, adding that it was going through major divestitures and restructuring. “In my first two years with the company, I had six different managers.” The upheaval was stressful, she admits, but she found her way through, earning three promotions to go from business analyst to project manager to manager. In 2015, she transitioned from IT to finance, first as senior director of payroll shared services and then to vice president of finance shared services in 2016. As VP, she was responsible for payroll, human resources information systems, the payroll tax for staff in the US and Canada, and accounts payable for the US and part of Canada.

Smith’s expertise in her recent positions has been further shaped by the evolution Veolia North America has gone through since 2014. The year before, the company announced a major convergence effort. “We had been siloed by different lines of business, including waste, water, energy, and industrial services,” Smith says. “The main focus was combining back-office support

Kim Smith VP of Finance Shared Services

North America

functions. That’s when we created payroll shared services, which had been segregated within each line of business.”

At the same time, the company implemented a new payroll-management system. “It did not go as planned,” Smith says. “It was done quickly, while aligning business policies, staff, and changing leadership. As you can imagine, it was a very rocky implementation.” She spent most of 2014 supporting its stabilization.

In 2015, she also helped revamp the IT function itself. “My personal goal was to become more of a strategic partner in the business,” she adds. “And I was having a difficult time achieving that goal with the Veolia IT group.” She wanted to take her career in a new direction and considered looking for a new employer. Then Veolia approached her about the role in shared services. “I saw this as an opportunity to round out my skill set,” Smith says. “I hadn’t had a focus on leadership, and this was an opportunity to do that.”

Her first role in payroll shared services involved stabilizing the payroll function. At the same time, the parent company, in Paris, introduced a

Veolia

Scott Smith

“You

need to embrace change and create opportunities within that change.”

new human-capital management solution, and Smith was tasked with coordinating its rollout with the restructured payroll system. “Much of 2016 was spent getting all these systems to work as one solution for the US and Canada,” she says.

Then, in 2017, the company decided to close the Indianapolis office, where payroll shared services was located, and move it to Milwaukee. Smith had to both retain the Indiana staff—to complete the system rollout— and hire and train a new staff in Wisconsin to take it on. “I had to put my own situation to the side and focus on retaining and motivating staff through the go-live of a new system, knowing these people wouldn’t manage the system going forward,” she says.

She considered moving to Milwaukee, but this spring, she was offered another opportunity to move into corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, and onboarding new customers, working from a remote location: her home office. “It’s very challenging but a great opportunity for professional and

personal growth,” Smith says. “I am grateful for the experience and looking forward to the next opportunity.”

Her advice to others who are now facing upheaval in their workplace? “I believe, as professionals, we need an attitude of continued learning and humility to grow and remain relevant,” she says. “Change presents huge challenges, and admitting you don’t know everything and seeking guidance is key to success. Stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things is critical for professional and personal growth. You need to embrace change and create opportunities within that change.” $

Fourteen years ago, Kim Smith reached out to Oxford Global Resources to connect her with The Right Talent. Right Now. Since then, our partnership has encompassed such projects as SAP implementations, ERP support, and BI expertise. We’re proud to partner with Kim and support her vision for outstanding IT development and overall project objectives.

The HR Architect

By Chris Gigley

How a well-rounded career gave Deb Deters all she needed to rebuild the human resources function at Heartland Financial USA as the company continues to grow

Deb Deters has helped Heartland Financial USA bring its time to fill new positions down by an average of ten days

Deb Deters Chief Human Resources Officer Heartland

In 2017, Heartland Financial USA Inc., a multibillion-dollar bank holding company, needed a human resources executive who could handle the constant changes of its rapid growth. Deb Deters has thrived since joining the company as chief human resources officer—as she has in pretty much every position in her nearly thirty-year career.

In just the past year, Deters has created an HR infrastructure with greater stability while fostering an influx of new talent at Heartland, a Dubuque, Iowa–based company with independent community banks chartered in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, and California.

“We’re being more creative and allowing leaders and employees to be housed in markets other than Dubuque,” Deters says. “We have to think about how we support that from a technology standpoint and a management standpoint. I’ve had to change the way I manage. You have to be more cognizant of including people when you have a remote working situation. That said, managers and employees in other locations provide backup, coverage, and experiences that are not necessarily as comprehensive from only one geographical location.”

Her external partners have also been happy to work with her on this front. “Deb is committed to innovation and offering an attractive benefits package to recruit and retain employees,” says Ronda Meyer, VSP Market Director. “Whether they live in Dubuque or anywhere else, they get access to VSP innovations like Eyeconic.com.”

Additionally, Deters has helped Heartland bring its time to fill new positions down by an average of ten days. Each Heartland bank used to have an HR generalist who worked alone. Now, for every two generalists, the company has a recruiter who acquires critical talent and a coordinator who handles the more tactical elements of the HR function. The move has let Deters pool recruiters company-wide to focus on filling high-demand

“We want to create more opportunities for managers to talk to their employees, creating those routines and touch points so employees realize they do care.”

roles, such as portfolio managers, wherever there is a need.

These creative approaches were born out of Deters’s exposure to just about everything in HR. After spending the first four years of her career in employee-benefit consulting, she made her first big career jump in 1991, joining the HR team at Bally Total Fitness in Chicago.

“The Bally job was a chance to look at things from the employer side,” says Deters, who became an HR generalist there. “The most unique stories in my life are from that time. It was a great place to cut my teeth.”

Deters gradually took on more responsibility, ultimately taking over for her mentor as senior vice president of human resources. The company, however, was in turmoil without a CEO at the helm, and it eventually filed for bankruptcy and went through a period of significant layoffs. When the opportunity to build the human resources function from scratch at global insurance broker HUB International came up in 2009, Deters took it.

“HUB was also heavy on acquisitions, which was a bit of a twist for me,” she adds. “I had been going through downsizing before. Now I had to think, ‘How do I drive and align the HR function to support heavy acquisitions?’ That experience teed me up nicely for Heartland.”

Deters says Heartland makes anywhere from one to three acquisitions a year—a lot in the banking sector. “The upside is we do a better job of acquisition integration because we do a full system conversion,” she says. “We’re doing a lot more in succession planning and employee-engagement efforts.”

Deters’s experience has shown her how important it is to make employees feel that they not only have a future at their workplace but also that management is invested in their professional growth. That concept is a big part of her revamping of Heartland’s HR department. “We will be looking at each role, how their job changes, and how that feeds into their next role,” Deters says. “We want to

create more opportunities for managers to talk to their employees, creating those routines and touch points so that employees experience how much their manager cares about their career growth and advancement, along with balancing a life outside of the office.”

To this end, Deters is also pushing an evolution among Heartland’s managers. Among other initiatives, her team is piloting a “stay interview” program, in which managers let employees give the kind of feedback typical of an exit interview, but before it’s too late to do anything to keep them.

She’s also reevaluating how the company looks at its annual employee engagement survey. “Managers were focused on the lowest scores so that they could work on improving them,” Deters says. “That would often lead to a decrease in other scores. Now, we’re saying that you need to take a holistic view on engagement. We’ve done some significant management training around this and are giving them routine ways to engage their employees.”

It’s still early on in the process, but her work is already paying off as Heartland continues to add new talent through acquisitions. And as Deters has used her experience to help employees feel more fulfilled, she has felt the same. “The great thing about HR is you can change industries and still be highly effective, which isn’t true for every type of role,” she says. “I love what I do.” $

Inspiring

Boosting Innovation

By KC Esper

Chief financial officer Craig Storey pushes VARIDESK’s creative approach in his own department as the company modifies traditional workplace and classroom environments

years later at VARIDESK, Craig Storey ensures that innovation never stops

If the key to having a happy career lies in the ability to leap out of bed every morning, excited for the day ahead, then Craig Storey has it all figured out.

As chief financial officer for VARIDESK, a company known as a leader in standing desks for the office, Storey thrives in an environment centered on creativity, mobility, and fun. With a background in the toy and game industry, he transferred his passion for play to the enhancement of the company’s culture and financial vision. His secret to success? Knowing how and when to change.

Early in Storey’s professional career, he had the opportunity to work with several “fast-growing, early-stage companies.” These experiences taught him to never get too comfortable. More specifically, he learned how to scale business operations quickly and change direction at the pace of growth. His capacity for constant innovation motivated him to cofound Sprig Toys. The company, which created interactive toys for preschoolers out of recycled materials, was absorbed by Wham-O in 2010. His successes and hands-on operational experience brought opportunities and big-name companies his way. Storey has held leadership roles at Heelys, Arteriors Home, and, most recently, VARIDESK, where he has spent the past five years ensuring that innovation never stops.

Now, motivated by VARIDESK’s mission to create happier, healthier workspaces, Storey and his team constantly rethink standard office practices and processes. While, typically, left-brained fields such as finance do not lend themselves to working artistically, Storey

“I certainly have left-brained impulses, but I find the most value in using my knowledge to help create innovative solutions.”

Craig Storey CFO VARIDESK

Here’s to the unstoppables transforming our world.

Where do you get the strength to ignore a million no’s? ey.com/us/eoy

maintains his contentment in his job exists because of VARIDESK’s emphasis on thinking outside the box. “I don’t think I’m a left-brained person by nature,” he says. “I certainly have left-brained impulses, but I find the most value in using my knowledge to help create innovative solutions.”

Storey believes success does not lie in brainstorming ideas, applying them, and waiting for an outcome. Instead, he encourages his team to work backward—envisioning the outcome first, then mapping out the steps to achieve it. “We start with the finish line [and] ask, ‘If we succeeded, what would it look like?’” Storey says. “Then I work with my team to establish touch points along the path, to assess if we are moving toward our end goal. If the environment changes, the goal could change, too. We’ve learned to embrace change through this process.”

External partners who work with Storey appreciate his inventive approach. “VARIDESK is an innovative business, and the needs of the company are constantly evolving,” says Julia Harman, SunTrust Bank’s market president for the Dallas/Fort Worth region. “Craig is uniquely skilled at turning big ideas into an executable plan so that we are poised to support the growth.”

By looking forward and thinking in reverse, Storey and his finance team can bolster VARIDESK’s creation of products that enliven corporate and educational productivity and prosperity. And while Storey’s passion feeds into his team’s ambition to work creatively, he’s quick to commend its members for complementing his strengths and neutralizing his weaknesses. Together, they are able to go against the grain of finance and look beyond the budget to “find solutions to achieve goals while preserving the assets of the company.”

In particular, the team’s effort to eschew a “no” mentality resonates vibrantly with VARIDESK’s culture. As the pioneer of the original standing desk, the company strives to create solutions that simplify the traditionally painful process of furnishing an office.

Its latest goal, with the recent acquisition of Stand2Learn, is to carry the same principle into the classroom, integrating adjustable standing desks to tackle childhood obesity and help channel children’s reservoirs of energy into continued learning rather than restless behavior. With two daughters of his own, Storey’s excitement for the project is personal, and he has already been able to witness the impact the desks have made.

“We studied a lot of learning environments and discovered that many were not conducive to health nor learning,” Storey says. “The hardest time of the day for teachers is between lunch and recess, because kids are itching to move. If we can allow them to stand, rather than just stay put, then we can encourage them to stay involved in their lessons throughout the day. I’ve had teachers thank me for how much of an impact these desks have made in the classroom because they just make teaching and learning easier.”

To Storey, entering a space that incorporates VARIDESK’s products and seeing how they make an impact is his favorite part of the job. At the same time, though, he continues to enjoy working with other senior executives to anticipate and creatively circumvent any roadblocks the company might encounter. And, he says, the collaborative atmosphere of VARIDESK helps to keep roadblocks from cropping up in the first place, allowing “our founders to sleep better at night.”

Thankfully, the universal dream to work happy and healthy has provided VARIDESK with myriad opportunities to improve the lives of those who are willing to break from traditional cubicle walls. Storey looks forward to continuing to help the company enhance people’s livelihoods, one standing desk at a time. $

The most outstanding entrepreneurs cut through the noise of this transformative age by breaking away from the pack—and then end up leading it. EY is proud to honor unstoppable entrepreneurs, like the team behind VARIDESK, through the Entrepreneur Of The Year® program.

GROWTH ELEVATED

SUNTRUST’S ONETEAM APPROACH ® HELPED VARIDESK ® EXPAND THEIR BRAND

When furniture manufacturer and distributor VARIDESK® embarked on a business transformation, they turned to SunTrust for guidance and support. SunTrust executed with our OneTeam Approach®—delivering a comprehensive suite of solutions through local relationships and providing industry-specific guidance. Our team remains ready to support VARIDESK’s® additional growth initiatives, both now and in the future.

How prepared is your business to navigate the complexities of a future transition? Our team can help strengthen your business’s financial position and help determine the liquidity needed for whatever opportunities arise. Find out more about the advantages of the SunTrust OneTeam Approach® We welcome the opportunity to help you realize smart growth for your business.

Take the next step, contact Julia Harman julia.harman@suntrust.com , or visit suntrust.com/growyourbusiness .

Pictured top row, L to R: Randy Morrison, Julia Harman, Brian Losak, Kurt Steves, Nathan Chapman, Dan Cox Bottom row: Laura Ryan, Clint Bryant, Julie Woidneck

team members were added with Hall’s effort, whose job roles and descriptions had been completely rewritten to reflect a more flexible and dynamic working environment

Gary Hall VP of Finance and Controller

Logicalis

Eric Hoffman

A Comfortable Stretch

By Chris Gigley

Logicalis’

Gary Hall explains how he integrated the company’s finance team with the rest of the business while increasing its flexibility

Though a veteran of international IT solutions and managed-services provider Logicalis, Gary Hall’s upward trajectory in the company necessitated a literal lateral move across the Atlantic Ocean in 2017. The current vice president of finance and controller was eager to manage a larger group, and that meant relocating from the town of Slough, in England, to Detroit.

Fortunately, Hall already had experience as a globetrotter. His father had been a member of the British army, and Hall had lived in a number of foreign countries as a child. Additionally, “it was great that I already had a sound understanding of what the company did,” Hall says. “More importantly, I understood what the expectations were from the head office in terms of the reporting requirements and communication expectations.” Since coming to the States, Hall has labored extensively to cultivate similar flexibility and business savvy in a finance team that otherwise could have remained heavily siloed.

One of the ironic challenges that Hall quickly identified in Michigan was employee satisfaction. “We have a lot of employees that have been here for a long period of time,” Hall says. “That’s a great positive for the company, in that it means people want to be here, but that also provides some challenges, in that people become set in their ways and sometimes lose perspective of some of the new things that are developing in the business environment.”

Fortunately, Hall was able to add two team members whose job roles and descriptions had been completely rewritten to reflect a more flexible and dynamic working environment. “I wanted to give those new employees the expectations that they would be taking on more varied tasks,” Hall says. “That allowed me to begin that process of sharing tasks around and also made people who had been

SIGHTS SET ON A BRIGHT FUTURE.

Crestmark Equipment Finance has been providing innovative equipment financing for more than 22 years — and we value the relationships we have built with forward-thinking clients such as Gary Hall and the team at Logicalis. We look forward to a future full of innovation and growth.

Mark Jones

5480 Corporate Drive, Suite 350 Troy, MI 48098

Direct: 248.593.3921

Mobile: 248.835.6639

“Logicalis is significantly more flexible in terms of being able to manage workloads more efficiently.”

here longer more comfortable in joining that process.” It also helped initiate the sharing of processes because the new team members were prepared to help right away.

Hall sees training his team to be more flexible as imperative in the ever-evolving modern IT environment. Also, “from an individual’s perspective, it creates far more interesting roles,” he says. “Being part of a team creates more job satisfaction and increases the career development for them.” Hall also believes it helps create job security; the rise of automation and the potential of Logicalis to shift directions mean the more roles a team member can play, the more easily their role can be refocused.

Additionally, from Logicalis’ standpoint, flexible employees ensure more shared expertise. “Logicalis is significantly more flexible in terms of being able to manage workloads more efficiently and not necessarily needing to create more of these individual roles because they can be shared amongst the team,” Hall says. It also prevents huge knowledge gaps from occurring should a team member leave.

Flexibility has also come in handy as more customers have transitioned to the cloud. “Companies are becoming less willing to purchase large equipment, whether it’s servers or storage, up front,” Hall says. “They would prefer to pay for that over a period of time. Cloud environments have reduced the

need for companies to invest in their own IT infrastructure.”

Adopting alternative financing solutions for customers has become essential. Logicalis’ own service offerings—including IoT and analytics, disaster recovery, data backup, cybersecurity, and network monitoring— allow the company to develop closer and more positively entangled relationships with its customers. “There are a number of public cloud opportunities that we can help customers transition onto, but we also provide the ability to develop certain private cloud environments, or they can utilize Logicalis’ cloud environment as well,” Hall says.

Hall believes it’s his finance team’s role to continue to find ways to support the sales department by continually diversifying its options. “We don’t want to be seen as a hindrance to any of the sales processes,” Hall says. “We need to be able to support the developments in the market.”

That often means maintaining a difficult balance. “Sometimes it’s a fine line between creating enough flexibility to support everything the sales team needs to be able to do while still maintaining sufficient controls and complying with the regulatory frameworks,” Hall says.

Given how far he’s gotten his team to stretch so far, though, he’s optimistic he’ll be able to continue to carry it forward. $

STRATEGY

A Happy Family

Kushner’s Tanya Saffadi is cultivating a sense of community among the firm’s employees to match the sense of community it cultivates in its homebuilding projects

By JOSEPH KAY

Tanya Saffadi VP and Head of HR Kushner

TTanya Saffadi’s brief foray into professional counseling taught her an important lesson, one that has served her well in the human resources world: what you don’t like to do can matter as much as what you do like to do.

“In a counselor or therapist role, you need a lot of patience,” she says. “Often people will want to talk about situations for years, but I was execution-focused. Patience is still not one of my strong suits.”

Saffadi was interested in what motivates people—what makes them work and how she could make a difference in their lives. Her pursuit of answers led her to Columbia’s Organizational Psychology program, which empowered her to execute at a major scale and make a positive impact on people’s lives— and it eventually led her into the business world. After leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and financial industries, she entered the real estate sector, and today she serves as vice president and head of HR for Kushner, headquartered in New York City. There, she’s building on the company’s strong internal culture with a set of HR initiatives that will help it continue to recruit top talent while operating more efficiently.

She describes the atmosphere of the company and its subsidiaries, including Westminster Management and Westminster City Living, as fast-paced and entrepreneurial. Leaders often serve in multiple functions, and the company is changing and moving constantly. But, it’s also uniquely familial. Saffadi recalls that she was particularly heartened to learn that a number of Kushner leaders play in a band together. “That really says something to me, that they want to spend that much time together,” she says. “And you really do sense that we’re a family, we’re a team, we’re a band. That is a big part of what brought me to the company.”

Saffadi has also noticed a refreshing number of women in leadership positions.

Besides herself, the principal of the company, the general counsel, the chief financial officer, the executive vice president of development, the creative director, and the head of risk management are all women. After working in predominantly male-led settings in real estate and finance, Saffadi says, she truly believes this inclusive aspect helps Kushner connect with clients.

“The residents, the tenants, the people who live and work and shop in our buildings are just better served because we understand that population,” Saffadi says. “These communities have a lot of hard-working people. Having the perspective of what our diverse residents need, what our clients need—that gives us a better perspective on what services to offer.”

The fast pace of the work at Kushner can lend it a sink-or-swim atmosphere, but

Saffadi has found herself suited to the work. And, she has proven herself adept at building and maintaining the human capital infrastructure necessary to keep things running smoothly at the growing company. The work hasn’t been without challenges, though, given the ways the business has been growing. So, Saffadi has pursued measures to improve processes and streamline systems.

One of her major projects is to bring all of Kushner’s employees together on one enhanced benefit plan, sign on with a user-friendly 401K plan administrator, and consolidate all employees on one human capital management system; at press time, all employees in the company were expected to be on the same core benefits package by July 2019.

Saffadi also notes that partners such as McGriff Insurance Services are an integral

“I love the spirit of this company and the willingness to make changes. If our employees are happy, our residents are happy.”

TANYA SAFFADI

part of the full team that makes such large projects possible. Consolidating the benefits packages will streamline processes for both employees and HR leadership, and Kushner will be able to continue reducing its costs through not only economies of scale but also better managed health and wellness programs.

Saffadi is especially excited about the Predictive Index, an assessment intended to assess potential employees’ personality traits. Using the test and its ratings, management will be able to decide which candidates best suit the Kushner organization—and, further, where in the organization they’ll excel. Saffadi is looking at ways to employ it and other tools in a revamp of the company’s onboarding and training methods.

“It brings a bit of science to the art of recruiting,” she says. “We’re making sure

our managers are asking the right questions and know what they’re looking for. We’re not just finding the right talent but making sure they’re in the right roles.”

These projects support Saffadi’s primary thesis behind the transformation of Kushner’s human resources framework: what’s best for the workforce is also best for the business. The culture in Kushner’s offices extends through its homes and communities.

Investing in people, Saffadi adds, is a lot like investing in property. “The sense of community we provide when we build new homes is the same sense of community we instill in the culture for our employees when they come to work every day,” she says. “I love the spirit of this company and the willingness to make changes. If our employees are happy, our residents are happy.”

William Glass and the Employee Benefits team at McGriff Insurance Services congratulates Tanya Saffadi

Vice President Human Resources

Kushner

for her many achievements. We salute your success and the commitment to excellence it reflects. Your example is an inspiration to us all.

McGriff Insurance Services is honored to serve as Employee Benefits Broker and to collaborate as a business partner with Tanya and her incredible team at Kushner.

To learn more about McGriff Employee Benefit Solutions, visit McGriffInsurance.com or contact:

William Miller Glass

Senior Vice President (407) 691-9896 wglass@McGriffInsurance.com

“It’s more than a convenience store.”

How Charlton Bell is fueling Tri Star Energy’s continued success through the expansion of its Twice Daily brand of convenience stores, gas stations, and specialty coffee shops

By RHIANNON ROOT

Going to the average convenience store can sometimes feel, well, rather inconvenient. The area between the fuel pumps and the parking lot can be tight and difficult to navigate with a car, the snack selection is usually limited and the coffee less than stellar, and too often the employees aren’t able to answer questions.

Tri Star Energy saw an opportunity to upgrade the experience in the Mid-South, with a brand of convenience stores called Twice Daily. And senior vice president of facilities Charlton Bell has been instrumental in expanding the stores across the region.

At Twice Daily, more capital is invested, Bell explains. “It’s more than a convenience store,” he says. There’s more space between the fuel pumps and parking lots, which allows for more mobility, and LED lights in each store are more environmentally friendly. Additionally, instead of just carrying typical c-store food, Twice Daily locations offer fresh fruits, salads, and grab-n-go sandwiches. Guests can even customize their fountain drinks, and if they need a coffee fix, Twice Daily has added a new specialty coffee shop at nine locations. “We have White Bison Coffee,” Bell says. “We’re excited because that’s rare in our industry.”

Charlton Bell

SVP of Facilities

Tri Star Energy

In 2011, when Bell began working for Tri Star, there were three Twice Daily locations. Now, there are fifty-five, and the current goal is to expand to one hundred. Bell’s leadership has been instrumental to the expansion, though if you’d asked him about it during his initial job interview, he might not have imagined so. The meeting had to be delayed a week because Bell had torn his Achilles tendon playing rec league basketball. Days later, post-surgery, he came in on crutches.

“I thought I had blown it,” he says. Thankfully, for both Bell and Tri Star Energy, that wasn’t the case.

Part of Bell and Tri Star’s success with the Twice Daily brand has involved the smart choices they’ve made when picking locations.

Each new store is positioned so that it’s easy to pull in and out. At the same time, another big factor has been Tri Star’s hard work to hire the right people for each store and train them well. “Our goal is to serve the community,” Bell says, adding that he hears often about “the friendly faces at the stores” from both his friends and family.

One of the biggest challenges of getting the stores built is obtaining the permits. There are a lot of regulations that Tri Star Energy must follow, which can vary from city to city, Bell says, and it can sometimes take up to a year to finalize the permitting before construction can begin.

Handling all this can be can be difficult, which is why Bell surrounds himself with a

Crystal

Freemon Photography

great team at work and a supportive family at home. He begins his day with his family. He and his wife of fifteen years, Tonja, get up and get their four children ready for school. Bell says he’s been blessed to be married to her. “She’s the CEO of our home,” he says.

Then, Bell commutes to Nashville. While driving to the office, he’ll use his Bluetooth to catch up on calls and begin organizing for the day. After he arrives, he’ll have a few meetings and check in on various projects.

His favorite days involve visits to store sites and checking in with contractors. Then, he’ll leave for the day to go coach youth sports. He leads tackle football, basketball, and flag football teams, and the seasons are all back-to-back. His mother and late father were elementary school teachers; his father coached youth sports, too, and Bell has been involved in athletics since he was a young child. In fact, he wanted to be a professional athlete when he was a kid, but he ran into trouble, he says, because he’s only five-footten-inches tall.

He sees a significant amount of overlap, though, between his success in business and his coaching of youth sports. Both require the ability to have difficult conversations and explain things to others. “Take notes, be organized,” Bell advises, and he recommends using bullet points. “Stick to facts, and be ready to discuss it.”

Balancing work and a personal life can be tough, but Bell says he’s able to do it at Tri Star with CEO Steven Hostetter leading the company. “I wouldn’t have my job without him,” Bell says. And, as long as he’s there, the Twice Daily and White Bison Coffee brands are sure to continue growing.

“Our goal is to serve the community.”

CHARLTON BELL

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By PAUL SNYDER

Peter Cicala explains how Celgene thrives by having its legal department interface with every single other department at the company—and by relying on outside perspectives

Outside and

Managing an endless parade of legal work involving the creation and protection of intellectual property rights for a major pharmaceutical company might not sound like the dream job for a trained medicinal chemist, but Peter Cicala is happy to refute that assumption.

“I used to work in drug discovery,” says Cicala, corporate vice president and chief patent counsel for Celgene Corporation, a New Jersey-based biotechnology company that discovers, develops, and commercializes medicines for cancer and inflammatory disorders. “My favorite part of the job is my proximity to drug discovery and development and interacting with world-class scientists; I get to do that every day here.”

Cicala came to Celgene in 2014 after building his career in IP protection for a number of pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Shire, and Enzon. When he arrived at Celgene, the company was in a rapid-growth state, so in addition to taking on the mountain of legal work that is part and parcel of his job, he also had to assume leadership of a small department that had been experiencing unprecedented increases in workflow due to rapid success.

“I was the first chief patent counsel at Celgene, even though the company was more than twenty years old,” he says. “For me, it was about being proactive, strategic, and also convincing our internal clients that we could be great business partners. The first thing I did when I arrived at Celgene was draft an organizational plan for the department, and I plotted out how many attorneys and patent agents the IP department needed and how to effectively embed them into the business within Celgene.” He then obtained buy-in from the key

Peter Cicala Corporate VP and Chief Patent Counsel Celgene Corporation

functions within Celgene, including R&D and business development.

Cicala then developed and implemented an organizational strategy for his department, starting with assessing everyone in his team, determining their strengths, and assigning them roles that played to those strengths. He says personal and professional development is a key tenet of his management style. “It’s a different situation when everybody feels their job has meaning,” he says. “It intensifies their investment in their work. I reminded my team that we have technical skills and exposure to the inner workings of the company. The view of the company that we have uniquely positions us to provide advice and guidance that only we could give. In-house patent lawyers should not be thought of as just scribes; we can and should give strategic advice that goes way beyond the prosecution of patent applications.”

Cicala made several key additions to the IP team and “then the entire department crystallized,” he says. “I then challenged every team member to innovate. I made it clear that I didn’t just include improving office disciplines and practice efficiencies in the definition of innovation; those are very important and should always be worked on. More importantly, innovation must also include proactively applying each team member’s scientific expertise and knowledge of the pharma industry and using that expertise to actually participate in relentlessly driving toward the creation of new inventions and products.”

Coalescing with the scientific community can be a tricky proposition. According to Cicala, you don’t want to be so involved that you appear to be second-guessing your colleagues in the lab, but at the same time you need to build trust with your clients by engaging with them on their terms, in their language.

“In-house patent lawyers should not be thought of as just scribes; we can and should give strategic advice that goes way beyond the processing of patent applications.”

PETER CICALA

Throughout his career the one thing that has remained constant is that scientists really appreciate IP professionals who “speak their language,” he says. “They are like different people once they realize that you can competently speak to them in a meaningful way about their inventions. That’s the only way to leverage your skills as a patent professional to effectively communicate with scientists. And by the way, that goes for our business colleagues, too.”

When asked about the current state of patent law and its relevance to the pharma industry, Cicala says, “At the end of the day, it’s about quality. The public policy behind the patent system is to reward inventors for their investment by providing a government-granted limited monopoly called a patent. These days, courts and patent offices around the world are focused on enforcing good patents and weeding out patents that don’t meet the stated public-policy goals. For a company that expends huge amounts

of resources on its research, it is imperative for Celgene to file and prosecute the highest-quality patent applications in order to preserve the value created by the inventors and to ultimately protect products that may be essential to extending the life of patients.”

With hundreds of clinical trials and research programs at major medical centers and universities using compounds and other inventions from Celgene, the IP department has no shortage of moving targets to protect on any given day. It means that the legal department can’t be in its own silo in New Jersey as it watches its products fan out around the world. It has to be involved at every level.

Indeed, Celgene’s legal department finds itself embedded in regulatory, commercial, research, and manufacturing matters. Cicala says there isn’t one area in the company where the department does not engage in deep-seated interaction. This ensures that it produces high-quality patents and

remains a strong business partner to Celgene as a whole.

Assisting the department with its work and patents is a host of outside counsel, who Cicala says are critical to maintaining a fresh perspective on the pharmaceutical and biotech patent landscape at large. “They have a lot of clients, and we benefit not only from their line of thinking but their exposure to other circumstances,” he says. “They see trends that we might not and they bring fresh ideas in on a conveyor belt. It’s great to get a fresh perspective.”

Ed Haug, managing partner at Haug Partners LLP, has known and worked with Cicala for more than a decade on highly complex litigation and due diligence matters. “Peter brings a wealth of both technical and legal expertise to any project and lets his outside counsel bring their own ideas and knowledge to the case at hand,” he says.

Nick Cerrito, partner at Quinn Emanual Urquhart & Sullivan, agrees. “Peter’s depth of knowledge regarding both the legal issues and the science of patents we litigate makes him an ideal partner both for us as outside counsel and for the business of our mutual client.”

In addition, Cicala says, “we have a dedicated patent lawyer who focuses on government affairs and works with trade organizations around the world, which helps us stay on track with policy at a global level.”

In January 2019, the company announced its agreement to be acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb, bringing together two complementary companies that share a focus on discovering, developing, and delivering innovative medicines for patients who have life-theatening health conditions. Cicala says his view toward the future holds firm to that focus and continuing the dedicated work that has established Celgene’s success to date.

MORRISON & FOERSTER IS PLEASED TO

SUPPORT PETER CICALA OF CELGENE

Our

partnership with Peter is invaluable and we are proud of his accomplishments and recognition by Profile.

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Peter Cicala Chief Patent Counsel & Vice President of Intellectual Property Celgene

Improving People’s Lives, One Slice at a Time

Papa John’s Rich Butler supervises college degree and career-development programs to bring top talent to the independently minded pizza titan

By CLINT WORTHINGTON

With the gig economy increasing its hold on workers looking for flexibility and autonomy, the war on talent is waged everywhere—even the pizza industry. Rich Butler, vice president of talent management at delivery giant Papa John’s, says the days of doing battle, however, have passed.

“Talent won,” Butler says. So he’s hard at work crafting and leading new initiatives to bring new talent into the Papa John’s family.

“Working from the bottom served me well,” says Butler, who started his twenty-year career at Papa John’s as a delivery driver after moving from a management position at Domino’s. Within months, Butler worked his way up to management, and continued to progress through virtually every level of position to his current role at VP of talent management.

“It gave me a real appreciation for what each one of those positions did, and the value it provided,” Butler says, adding that it helps him understand the kind of talent needed for those roles.

Butler’s work to attract those targets to Papa John’s has never been harder, however. Talented drivers now have the option to work on their terms, with access to daily pay, instead of biweekly checks. What those contracting gigs lack, however, is the stability and infrastructure of a large company like Papa John’s, Butler says. These include benefits, the potential for career advancement, and more.

Butler’s talent management team created several initiatives and programs with their training partner Eagle’s Flight, to bring young, career-minded workers into the fold. Their college degree program, Doughs and Degrees, gives Butler and Papa John’s the ability to fully fund their workers’ college education.

“More people are going after college education these days, but the rising cost of student debt is astronomical,” Butler says, adding that by helping employees bring those costs down, Papa John’s can better demonstrate its commitment to developing its workers.

For those workers looking to secure a career path within Papa John’s, the company has you covered. Papa John’s promotes 89 percent of team members from within, offering numerous opportunities for internal advancement. The company’s career development program, called

Rich Butler VP of Talent Management

John’s

Papa

C. Jones Photography

“We put a significant investment into our team members; it’s what the ‘Papa’ in Papa John’s stands for.”

RICH BUTLER

“CSR to CEO” and developed in partnership with Eagle’s Flight, mirrors current Papa John’s CEO Steve Ritchie’s own career path from customer service rep to chief executive officer: entrants into the program on both corporate and franchise sides of the business can emulate that path. It’s a program Butler is particularly proud to see flourish.

“We put a significant investment into our team members,” he says. “It’s what the ‘Papa’ in Papa John’s stands for: people are priority always.”

What’s more, the company has been working to recover from the recent stepping down of Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter, necessitating a refocus of the company’s image without him. Their recent marketing campaign, Voices, emphasizes the 120,000 team members across the organization and the 1,000 franchise owners that make up Papa John’s. In addition to this marketing campaign, Papa John’s also developed an diversity, equity, and inclusion program to train their employees on this important issue.

“We’re taking advantage of this opportunity to show the franchise owners as the representatives of the brand,” Butler says.

In addition to bringing in talented employees and growing the business, Butler says these new initiatives also bolster Papa John’s sense of social responsibility, which is fundamental to the company’s corporate culture.

“We’ve always looked at Papa John’s as one store, repeated five thousand times,” he

explains. Franchises are given the opportunity to leverage mentorship programs and project-based learning and are highly encouraged to participate in local nonprofit organizations. From college-degree programs to improvements in the supply chain, Butler says management asks the same question of every initiative: “Is this the right thing for team members, for customers, and for the community?”

The goals for Papa John’s talent development programs include making smart investments in both team members and franchisees. Their operator-to-owner program provides opportunities for local entrepreneurs to join the brand, making for an easier transition from independent operation to membership in the company.

“Over the years, our partnership with Papa John’s has evolved to fit the changing needs of their business,” says John Wright, president of leadership development and learning events at Eagle’s Flight. “We’re proud that their investment in people development is making a real difference in their employee’s lives.”

Whether in the corporate or franchise end of the business, Papa John’s strives to cultivate the intimacy and camaraderie of a locally owned and operated store, regardless of the company’s size. That’s an important not only for the company, but also Butler himself.

“People rely on one another,” he says. “That’s what keeps me coming back.”

Constant Agility

Tech Mahindra’s global networks

took Manish

Vyas

across the world—and prepared him to be agile in an era of ever-changing tech innovations

By JOSEPH KAY

Manish Vyas grew up in a tiny town in central India and dreamed of playing cricket. It was what he had, and the country’s intense love for the sport tempted him to risk and glory.

But at the time, those careers were even more risky and meager, so his mentors at school guided him to focus on his studies. Vyas decided he wanted to be a lawyer, but his father, a lawyer himself, did his best to talk him out of it.

“It was the last thing he wanted me to do,” Vyas says with a laugh. “You hear this often from many middle-class Indian people: the only two career options presented to our parents, even today, were engineering or medicine. I opted for engineering, not knowing why, or what I would do.”

Vyas realized his social and leadership skills were a great career resource. He chose to develop those skills and invest in his career by earning an MBA in Bombay. Vyas worked in sales before a representative from Tech Mahindra contacted him.

Tech Mahindra is an information technology provider stretching across ninety countries, employing over 113,000 professionals. It’s part of the global Mahindra Group, a $21 billion empire operating in tractors, utility vehicles, information technology, and vacation ownership. From his office in Plano, Texas, Vyas oversees the

telecom and media verticals, about 45 percent of the Tech Mahindra organization.

Nineteen years ago, they asked him to build the business in India. With no IT experience, they relied on his partnerships and sales experience to develop the organization in the country’s smaller towns. Once he had established a record of success, Tech Mahindra sent him to Singapore to plant their flag and grow the business there.

Six years in, the company was set to relocate him again, this time to the United States. Vyas was reluctant; he had never heard of his destination (St. Louis, Missouri), and he had grown attached to the Singapore branch he’d helped establish.

“I had built that from scratch. I felt like it was my baby,” he says. “Initially, I was rather reluctant, but I felt the guidance I was getting was very genuine and very solid, and I would probably benefit both the company and myself if I do this. Eventually, we had a great time.”

Today, his primary project is to develop automation practices for service providers. While network institutions worldwide prepare for 5G, Tech Mahindra contributes by digitizing the entire workflow: customer experience, sales, billing, and beyond. Vyas brings platforms together to solve problems in that space.

In addition, he also develops strategy for media and content delivery networks. He refers to it as “Melco’s,” a portmanteau of

President of Communications & CEO for Network Services

Manish Vyas

Tech Mahindra

“Over the past ten years—more than the previous ten—the speed of change has been breakneck. That has made life difficult; you never know which are the winners and which will fizzle out when something new becomes available every day.”

MANISH VYAS

media and telecom that reflects the increasing integration between content and the networks that push it.

“I put together the strategy to address the needs of Melco’s companies from a content delivery, content processing, and video engineering standpoint,” he explains. “We service every major provider across the world in every major market, increasing their technical and engineering capabilities.”

Vyas acknowledges that the pace of change has become uniquely challenging in recent years. Technological innovations are more rapid and far-reaching than ever, and he has to keep abreast of the changes in order to responsibly invest for the company’s future.

“Over the past ten years—more than the previous ten—the speed of change has been breakneck,” he says. “That has made

life difficult; you never know which are the winners and which will fizzle out when something new becomes available every day.”

Still, this challenge is also what makes the industry so exciting. Tech Mahindra succeeds on this agility: the internal philosophy emphasizes next year’s potential over last year’s results. Vyas has seen how the company has protected its core values, no easy task when growing from 2,000 to 120,000 employees across two decades.

As he sees himself becoming more of a coach and mentor in the business, Vyas reminds himself that despite the technological transformations, the people and the community matter most to this business.

“We are busy building businesses and that is something to remember; but more importantly people will remember that we did it together,” he says. “That’s the most important part.”

Sonya Jacobs Chief Organizational Learning Officer Director of Faculty & Leadership Development for Michigan Medicine University of Michigan

Dustin Johnston Photography

An Educator of Leaders

Sonya Jacobs seeks to usher in an era of a unified leadership at the storied University of Michigan

By JEREMY BORDEN

If there’s any doubt that the University of Michigan has embraced a focus on its culture as it relates to leadership development, look no further than the work of Sonya Jacobs.

In any organization, retaining talent and developing the next generation of leaders is key to ensuring a prosperous future. But, consider Jacobs’s herculean task given the size of the University of Michigan and the stakes involved. Jacobs’ role as chief organizational learning officer consists of implementing processes that not only work across the board to develop leaders and retain talent but also serve an employee population with a massive healthcare presence, more than thirty

thousand who reflect the diverse goals of a state school and has served the Michigan community since the 1800s.

To manage this, Jacobs says the key is ensuring everything that the university does when it comes to developing its people is reflected in four key pillars: diversity & inclusion, professional and career development, organizational leadership, and organizational development.

“One of the things I like to think about with respect to leadership is it’s not a onetime thing, it’s an ongoing journey,” Jacobs says. “We all need to be lifelong learners, and we have to provide the opportunities for those around us to grow and be developed. I do what I do because I have a phenomenal team around me. And, I believe that their

development is so vital and their ability to work across an organization and grow only helps us grow.”

Jacobs first worked on developing the school’s leadership initiatives only for health system staff and faculty. Then, she began to work on them across the entire university. That led to a logistical challenge.

The two halves of the school used different software to track and deliver learning, among other major differences. But one recent initiative of Jacobs’s is to merge the two systems and unify the university’s learning management system for learning and development.

It’s not just about a unified set of tools. It’s about a university that is unified from the top down with a corporate culture that allows the entire organization to flourish.

That’s not easy with such vastly different goals among schools, colleges, departments, and units. “You do have competing priorities,” Jacobs said. “And, when you think about Michigan Medicine, we have a tripartite mission: research, patient care, education. My job is to help our leaders understand how we support those critical mission areas. That requires us to sometimes make some difficult decisions.”

Those include holding off on development projects or sunsetting a leadership program earlier than some would have liked.

That said, the core strategy remains the same for each member of their community, structured around Jacob’s 70-20-10 development strategy. Employees spend 70 percent of their leadership development time learning a new skill through experiential learning, 20 percent through mentoring and coaching, and 10 percent in a formal learning situation.

“We all need to be lifelong learners, and we have to provide the opportunities for those around us to grow and be developed. ... And, I believe that their development is so vital and their ability to work across an organization and grow only helps us grow.”

SONYA JACOBS

How does Jacobs track success? “I think about the metrics that are most important to our stakeholders—employee engagement, faculty satisfaction retention rates, and turnover rates—and helping people see how learning and development can impact those,” Jacobs said. “It’s really hard to measure our impact on patient outcomes. But what we can say is if were able to increase employee

and faculty engagement, that should impact patient satisfaction.”

Still, Jacobs also knows that she needs to keep a finger on all the different pulses throughout the university and not rely solely on metrics. That’s why she sits on many different committees. As a result, her broad understanding of the school’s leadership and issues facing them are almost unparalleled.

“How do we educate our leaders? It provides me the opportunity to learn and think about how we can support them from an organizational lens,” Jacobs says of the committees she sits on. “It increases my business acumen, and it allows me opportunities for alignment and synergy. Had I not had a place at the table, there could be duplication and missed opportunities. It allows me to advocate and focus on our greatest asset, which is our people, through development or change management.”

To that end, one of Jacobs’ greatest joys doesn’t always have the wide lens of organizational change. It’s an annual conference Jacobs started four years ago called the Leadership Summit for Women in Academic Medicine and Healthcare, which draws four hundred participants from all over the country.

“When you know you have an ability to impact the development of women to identify key competencies and skills that support their growth and development, provide a network for them to have really great relationships and be energized, it is inspiring,” Jacobs said.

She sees women grow and prosper, and that brings home what organizational change can mean. “It has a profound impact on me,” she said of the Summit. “You get a chance to help advance leaders in their careers.”

Blue Heron Talent (BHT) congratulates Sonya Jacobs, University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine. Sonya has responsibility for Executive/Leader Development, and she is a huge advocate for helping leaders become great leaders. We are pleased to partner with someone as committed as Sonya. BHT is a global Executive Coaching/Leadership Development firm.

Barbara Allushuski, President and CEO

Global Executive Coaching Firm

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A Culture of Purpose

Veronica Delgado and her team at Universal Weather and Aviation have deployed the Harrison Assessment and other measures to cultivate the company’s close-knit, can-do attitude in new employees

By KC ESPER

With more than twenty years of experience in human resources and an avid passion for empowering her employees, Veronica Delgado firmly believes anyone can do anything they set their minds to. Within her own career, she takes hold of every opportunity to do something that excites her passions.

From working with Women in Aviation to standing as a former abiding member on the board of directors for Dreams Soar, Delgado channels her passions both into her work and beyond to help women around the world make the most of life in ways they may have never thought possible.

As the senior vice president of HR and global workforce development for Universal Weather and Aviation (Universal), her core value to empower others has become integral to the organization’s success. Throughout her time at Universal, she has worked alongside the company’s CEO, Ralph Vasami, to promote a culture of purpose that allows

employees to feel more fulfilled in their jobs and teaches them how to make their work meaningful by connecting with their personal goals as well as the organization’s.

Universal’s culture centers on the importance of entrepreneurial spirit and shared family values. The company diligently encourages its employees to unite under common goals while also inspiring them to differentiate themselves within their positions. By restructuring the company’s onboarding process and strengthening its internal relationships, Delgado and her team—branded as the “people and places team” to enforce community—have demonstrated how orchestrating these behaviors helps the company succeed. At the same time, they have promoted creativity by recognizing the beauty of the differences found within individual uniqueness.

The team’s success on these fronts has benefited from the combination of Delgado’s business acumen and HR expertise. Coming from a business background, she considers herself a “businesswoman who happens to

do HR.” When Universal was seeking a way to combine its HR function with the mission of the CEO, Delgado crafted a powerful solution.

“There’s a nice gray way of looking at human resources to make sure that you have the right culture to bring the perfect people into the organization that you represent,” Delgado says. “A lot of my background is focused on being a leader who promotes diversity of thought, who challenges the norms, who tries to ensure people consistently appreciate the value they add.”

As she leads Universal’s HR function from an entrepreneurial perspective, she recognizes that creating a well-run business requires establishing the right team. Universal’s diverse and capable HR team utilizes Harrison Assessments’ talent-analytics system to match candidates not only with the right job but also with Universal’s culture.

As a job-specific behavioral assessment, Harrison enabled the HR team to benchmark a critical position in which it was experiencing high turnover during the intense six-month training; within the first year of implementing the new success template for selection, it had reduced turnover of new hires more than 30 percent, and through more effective implementation of Harrison’s candidate-specific behavioral interviewing guide, it expects to gain additional turnover reductions.

Harrison has been the preferred system to assess and validate Universal’s modified nine-box high-potential process; the comprehensive development reports not only provide predictive value for leadership roles, EQ, and other competencies, but also enable leaders to target specific traits for development to accelerate succession readiness. Delgado plans to further optimize the ROI in Universal’s cultural transformation by customizing a culture-success template within its Harrison system to facilitate selection and development of its cultural values.

Successful new hires are acclimated into their respective teams by being partnered with other employees, guaranteeing that each new employee receives the onboarding support they need specific to

Veronica Delgado SVP of HR & Global Workforce Development Universal Weather and Aviation

Predictive Analytics Solutions Align with Business Strategy

The Key to a Treasure Trove of Talent Solutions…

Job-specific Success Templates

Validates High Potentials & Succession Planning

Measures Competencies for Development

Polarity Management –Mastering Paradox

Detects Derailers & Stress Behaviors

Career Development with Manager Support

Cultural Transformation

Integrated Talent Management

Diversity Selection

Measures

their engagement expectations. For high potentials, Harrison Assessments’ employee-specific Engagement & Retention Analysis, with fulfillment and motivational gap recommendations, facilitates a culture of mutual responsibility between employee and manager to ensure engagement and retention.

“We recognize that every single person is different, and subsequently, everybody’s growth model and what they want to become is different,” Delgado says. “We’re trying our best to connect the aspirations of our employees with Universal’s mission to bolster its future success.”

Once employees settle into their positions, Delgado and the leadership team cultivate their sense of the company’s familial culture by encouraging them to become involved with every aspect of the organization. Universal has even partnered with Lone Star Flight Museum to allow employees with no previous aviation experience to develop a better understanding of how their work positively impacts the field. Delgado says that these initiatives “promote continuity and give employees purpose directly connected with Universal’s mission.”

Through Delgado and her team’s efforts, they have successfully built a culture that thrives on taking the initiative. As Universal navigates its way through management changes, Delgado confidently believes that the culture she and her team have worked hard to inspire will persist for years to come, empowering employees to leverage their passions, take risks, and enjoy everything life offers with no reservations.

EXPERTISE SPOTLIGHT

Partnering with Veronica Delgado’s team, Dawson Consulting facilitated leveraging Harrison Assessments’ best-in-class solutions to achieve cultural transformation, from hiring and onboarding to succession planning and leadership development. Delgado’s strategic approach to implementation, coupled with integrated HR processes, enabled Universal to build on each success across the talent cycle for organizational and employee success.

THAT MEANS YOU

Be Present, One Heart at a Time

Three decades in the private sector gave Teresa Roche the insight and innovative spirit needed to help bring the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, into a new era for talent

By BILLY YOST

Teresa Roche didn’t start out in the public sector, but she’s had no trouble transitioning into it. As the chief human resources officer for the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, she has plenty of insight on what makes it such a fascinating place to be, not least of all the fact that it recently won the Baldridge Award, “the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence through innovation, improvement and visionary leadership,” in 2017.

She’s helped cement that reputation for innovation and improvement through thirty years spent in the private sector. After serving critical roles at Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies (where she won an innovators award from the Annual Human Resources Symposium), Roche says she loves the inspiration the City of Fort Collins has to prove that local government can be great.

Roche speaks about the idea of “radical candor” and being able to speak truth with love. “I have a way of saying what needs to be said,” she notes, but she adds that she does

so in a way that brings compassion. Roche has done extensive leadership development, frequently given keynotes on the subject, and is a Fellow with Harvard University’s Learning and Innovations Laboratory. She and her husband went back to graduate school at the same time in the mid-1990s, her for a doctorate in educational technology.

“I can connect anything from quantum physics to the Enneagram to art to profit margin,” Roche says. “I just love learning.”

With each career experience Roche has, she reflects on the lessons learned. She has

Teresa Roche CHRO

City of Fort Collins, Colorado

John Robson, City of Fort Collins

Teresa Roche meets with the City’s Chief Sustainability Officer Jackie Kozak Thiel, and her baby Gus, to discuss the upcoming Baldrige Conference with Senior Assistant City Manager Kelly DiMartino and Senior Project Manager of Performance Excellence Terri Runyan.

Teresa speaks with the City’s LGBTQ+ committee cochairs Heather Cox and Tess Schmitz; Roche is the executive sponsor for this committee.

John Robson, City of Fort Collins

(Top Left) Teresa with Chief of Police Jeff Swoboda, Assistant Police Chief Kevin Cronin, and Director of Police Information Services Rena Martinez.

(Top Right) Teresa has a walk and talk meeting with City colleague and mentee Katie Ricketts.

(Bottom) Each week, Teresa (center) holds a “File Cabinet 15” meeting with several members of her team to discuss organizational updates.

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“If we all did what we could to provide an environmentally healthy, inclusive, and economically viable community at the local level, that would all add up to a pretty remarkable world.”

TERESA ROCHE

no problem relaying that she was not the first choice for the CHRO position at Fort Collins.

“I was just elated so many people had applied,” Roche says, adding that after the city widened its search to candidates who hadn’t previously had governmental experience, she found herself at an advantage.

Moving to public service, Roche says, was the result of a career largely spent trying to initiative cultural transformation and leadership from a global perspective.

“Communities formed locally are what is so necessary in today’s reality,” Roche says. “If we all did what we could to provide an environmentally healthy, inclusive, and economically viable community at the local level, that would all add up to a pretty remarkable world.”

The workload from Fort Collins has been substantial. Roche is focused on developing leadership ecosystems, and that starts with those at the top. “I look at it systemically that the quality of leadership in our top city leaders makes a huge difference for the conditions that are created for others to bring out their best selves,” she says.

Roche was asked to present her views on the “future of talent” at the city council’s Futures Committee and spoke about

how leadership matters at every level and explained the talent moves that will be required going forward. She’s also looking at total compensation in the city and how it compares to both the public and private markets. “We’re fortunate to have performance-based longevity along with new people entering the workforce,” Roche says.

“I want to make sure I am working with others to provide meaningful benefits and competitive compensation so that we can develop and maintain a highly competitive and diverse workforce.”

From a wider perspective, Roche says, her calling is to help others discover their DNA and purpose. “My leadership DNA, which I was able to articulate after a long journey, is ‘love and integrity in action: taking care of the in-between to deliver results,’” Roche says.

“Now I find myself able to state my purpose, which is: ‘Be present, one heart at a time.’”

On behalf HUB International and UnitedHealthcare, we congratulate Teresa on this well-deserved recognition. Teresa is inspirational and collaborative. She leads with vision, intelligence, kindness, and most of all gratitude. We are grateful to support her, and all of the employees at the City of Fort Collins.

Congratulations, Teresa!

Ardis Kelley

Colin Conces

Charting a New Path

Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines’ Ardis Kelley guides strategy geared toward making a strong bank and strong communities

By KATHRYN KRUSE

Ardis Kelley is clear about where the plan for the future of Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines (FHLB Des Moines) is headed: long-term sustainability and being a top-rated financial institution.

In 2018, Kelley became FHLB Des Moines’ chief strategy officer, a new role for her and for the institution. After six years as the chief accounting officer, preceded by years honing her accounting skills in other companies, she’s finding different ways to think about FHLB Des Moines in her new position. “Accounting tells a story about events and transactions from the past,” Kelley explains. “It is analytical and very factual. By design, we are not allowed to be creative or imaginative.”

Now, she sets FHLB Des Moines’ sights forward. One of eleven Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks), FHLB Des Moines is cooperatively owned by a member base of commercial banks, savings institutions, credit unions, insurance companies, and community development financial institutions. FHLB Des Moines merged with FHLB Seattle in 2015, and now they’re learning to operate together as one of the largest institutions in the FHLBank System.

Kelley is leveraging an ability to build teams and collaborate. “In my new role, I am learning so much about the bank, its business, mission, challenges, and growth opportunities,” she says.

In the past, she says, FHLB Des Moines took a near-term approach to strategic planning, with a planning horizon of one to three years. Kelley’s goals are to extend that consideration and ensure FHLB Des Moines is not only fixing existing issues

To provide excellent services for its nearly 1,400 members, Ardis Kelley works with internal communications team members to develop new strategies for FHLB Des Moines staff.

Colin Conces

and making near-term improvements but also digging deep into avoiding future road bumps and taking advantage of opportunities. She works with leadership to explore ideas ranging from questions about identity and perception to the future of banking to craft specific strategies for FHLB Des Moines’ success.

Although short-term problems need to be addressed, “we need to get up on the balcony and see a view that extends beyond the never-ending fires of our day-to-day,” she says. Through a specific process, she developed buy-in from both executive leadership and the board of directors. In April 2018, she began clarifying commitment to FHLB Des Moines mission statement: “To be a reliable provider of funding, liquidity, and services for FHLB Des Moines’ members so that they can meet the housing, business, and economic development needs of the communities they serve.”

After helping to ensure understanding of the mission, Kelley ran exercises with executives honing agreement around the meaning of FHLB Des Moines’ vision statement and the importance of a tangible, long-term strategy. She then brought the board into the conversation and facilitated conversations around assumptions, needs, and goals. With the vision of “Strong Bank, Strong Communities,” at the forefront, the outcome of these conversations was an aspirational statement, called the “North Star” that serves as a beacon for FHLB Des Moines’s five-year strategic business plan.

“I hear people actively talking about the strategy,” she says, noting that sustainability is at the center of the effort. “It is important to answer the question, ‘So what?’”

In other words, it is not enough to just have something that looks good on paper. With its five-year plan, FHLB Des Moines now has clarity on critical ideas in sustainability. In concert with maintaining fidelity to the core mission, FHLB Des Moines will drive a strong balance sheet that includes the appropriate level of its mission-related assets and a solid capital position. Another critical component of the plan is being a top-rated financial institution, which requires a laser focus on bank operations.

Her training as an accountant helps Kelley on all fronts of this effort. The North Star vision includes making sure that FHLB Des Moines operates in a safe and sound manner. Also, it relies on clear metrics and regular assessments to ensure it is headed in the right direction.

These key ideas for building and growing are the heart of FHLB Des Moines’ five-year plan, and they coincide with a desire to “be a bank that is easy to use.” At the same time, FHLB Des Moines is assessing its outreach efforts for diverse talent. Senior leadership understands that this is another aspect of building a stronger bank.

To provide excellent services for its nearly 1,400 members, Kelley works with internal communications to develop methods for communicating the new strategies to FHLB Des Moines’ staff. Looking to the larger community, she is participating in forming a system-wide strategy group with all of the FHLBanks to share best practices.

“We need to be aware of emerging external trends and evolving internal capabilities within our institution,” she says. With this in place, FHLB Des Moines can not only understand where its journey will take it but why the journey matters.

“We need to be aware of emerging external trends and evolving internal capabilities in our institution.”

ARDIS KELLEY

High Ratings for a Global Mind-Set

S&P Global Ratings’ Nancy Gardner talks about entering China and the case for keeping all stakeholders in mind

By BILLY YOST

Perfect timing is a luxury rarely afforded to those tackling new roles. Nancy Gardner knows this all too well. The chief legal officer for S&P Global Ratings, a division of S&P Global Inc., was exactly one month into her new position when the company committed to building a credit-rating agency in China—a previously unthinkable proposition. The application deadline: July 31, 2018. It was June.

“We had to move fast,” Gardner says. If the company could get the application approved, it would mark the first time in history that the notoriously closed-off Chinese market would allow a wholly owned foreign credit

rating agency to grade domestic bonds. It would be a prime position for S&P Global in the third-largest bond market in the world.

Through speed, efficiency, and pure effort, S&P Global Ratings became the first foreign entity approved for operations in China in January 2019. Neither of S&P’s chief competitors, Moody’s Investors Service or Fitch Ratings, had received approval at press time, and Gardner, a veteran of providing legal services on a global scale, has found her first big win at the world’s most recognizable name in ratings agencies.

Gardner was introduced to international capital market transactions relatively early in her law career, at New York firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. One of her first assignments was working on Reuters’ IPO, the first-ever simultaneous combined UK/US underwritten public

offering. While only a junior associate at the time, Gardner says the experience was impactful. “I really learned through osmosis how to harmonize inconsistent rules and regulations through negotiation with regulators and the various market participants,” Gardner says.

The early international education became Gardner’s calling card. “I wound up doing a number of deals bringing non-US companies into the US public market,” she says. She developed a reputation as a lawyer well versed in the complicated rules that such deals entailed.

The wide global palate provided Gardner a chance to learn a variety of complicated problem-solving skills, and it came in particularly handy when she went in-house for Reuters in the mid-1990s. The company’s UK headquarters made its New York branch, effectively, a satellite office. “Policies were designed and assumptions made on the basis of the UK experience,” Gardner says. “These did not necessarily apply to the US.”

When Reuters was acquired by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, New York suddenly became the headquarters, and Gardner had a firmer grip on the wheel. Her previous experience had provided an important lesson on consideration for all stakeholders in a scenario. “I saw some cultural insensitivity, and it wasn’t intentional; I was especially aware of it because I had been on the receiving end,” Gardner says.

Gardner’s next global experience, at London-based SLx Technology in a general counsel capacity, entailed developing frameworks for customer agreements and compliance support that, due to the startup’s lean staff, needed to work in all jurisdictions. “If that meant doing more than was necessary in one jurisdiction, that was fine, as long we only had to do it once,” Gardner says.

Coming to S&P Global has given Gardner the chance to help broaden the rating agency’s perspective. “S&P Global is a US-headquartered business with global operations that aspires to think and act globally,” Gardner says. “In some ways we do, and in some ways we don’t yet.”

Navigating the legal landscape of a global business presents many complexities. “Laws tend to be national or regional and are sometimes not globally consistent,” Gardner says. Even a single matter, such as rules for disclosure, can vary widely from country to country or region to region.

Add to the mix more than twenty separate regulators for S&P Global Ratings (with the number to increase with the impending Brexit separation), and it’s easy to see how quickly issues can arise. Now, there’s China to consider, too.

Transparency in China’s domestic market is a burgeoning concept. The singular Communist Party’s commitment to stability has made things murky when it comes to the authenticity of the country’s domestic rating agencies,

“It’s incumbent on me to move the needle and make things go faster. Right now, I’m looking at how we can better serve the organization.”

NANCY GARDNER

Nancy Gardner Chief Legal Officer S&P Global Ratings

Nancy Gardner of S&P Global Ratings on her recognition in Profile

where 40 percent of domestic corporate bonds get a top AAA rating versus just 2 percent in the United States, according to a Bloomberg report. Simon Jin, CEO of S&P’s China operation, says S&P plans “to provide Chinese market participants the same standards of transparency and independent analysis as we do anywhere else in the world.”

But the landmark effort to help better regulate the Chinese bond market wouldn’t have happened at all had S&P not been able to turn around its application in July 2018. Gardner didn’t even know the lawyer covering the Asia Pacific region at the time, as she had just entered her position. “I said, ‘We really need to light a fire here in order to meet this deadline,’ because I thought that legal could really help drive that process,” Gardner says.

A looming trade war between China and the United States wasn’t enough to stymie the deal, and Gardner says that bold action on S&P Global’s part will help open a new chapter for the rating agency. Her external partners agree. “S&P Global Ratings has a long tradition of being at the forefront as the rating industry has expanded into new markets, products and geographic areas,” says Tammy Roy, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP. “Under Nancy’s strong and forward-thinking leadership, that tradition continues.”

As Gardner settles into her new role, she says it’s a good time to start looking at how legal is structured. As an in-house person and the chief legal officer, “it’s incumbent on me to move the needle and make things go faster,” she says. “Right now, I’m looking at how we can better serve the organization.”

Clifford Chance is honored to partner with Nancy Gardner and S&P Global. We congratulate Nancy for this well-deserved recognition of her vision and global leadership.

A True Collaboration

The Minnesota Timberwolves’ Ryan Tanke details how the team worked with various partners to upgrade its venue, the Target Center, rather than move to a new home

By BILLY YOST

In 1990, Target Center became the home of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Its unique location, in the middle of downtown Minneapolis, is part of what makes the arena so special. So, after nearly thirty years, when the team began to discuss a venue upgrade, chief revenue officer Ryan Tanke says, the idea of finding a new home for the Timberwolves (and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx) didn’t sit right.

“When we first started this process, we spent very little time talking about a new building,” Tanke says. “We have what we believe is the best city block for sports in the state. Our location is the epicenter of downtown Minneapolis, where sports, entertainment, theater, and the commercial business district intersect.” Instead, an extensive $145 million renovation of the arena was initiated (and completed in 2017). This not only updated the aesthetics of the arena but also took advantage of new and existing partnerships to make what Tanke believes are immeasurable strides in fan

experience, food and beverage offerings, and collaborative and enduring sponsorship opportunities.

Tanke says the timing of the renovation couldn’t have been better. The team’s new training facility and Mayo Clinic Square, built in partnership with the Mayo Clinic, had just been completed directly across the street from Target Center. “To own a twoblock campus in the heart of downtown gives us a competitive advantage in recruiting staff and players,” Tanke says. “You do that with perhaps the most iconic healthcare provider in the world, and it becomes a really compelling story in downtown Minneapolis.” Traditionally, teams will head to the suburbs to build training facilities, but Tanke says the all-in-one location provides both players and staff a unique feeling of always being home.

That home has had Target’s name since it was first built, and Tanke says the renovation gave the team and the retail giant a chance to realign around what the future of their relationship would look like. “Target does such a great job with guest experience

in their stores,” Tanke says. “We wanted them to have a front-row seat in the renovation of Target Center that we imagined could be.” Target actually has the longest-running naming-rights partnership to date on an arena, and its streak will continue now that it has reached an agreement for a long-term extension with the Timberwolves.

After naming partners were solidified, Tanke says, there was a significant opportunity to use the renovation to create what the organization calls founding-level partnerships. “It’s a way for us to take a less-is-more exclusivity approach to partnerships,” Tanke says. Local insurance provider and longtime partner Federated Insurance, partner US Bank, casino partner Treasure Island Resort and Casino, and China-based TCL, the fastest-growing TV brand in the US, were secured early on. Jack Link’s also came on board and ultimately wound up moving 350 of their executives to Mayo Clinic Square office space. Life Time Fitness, headquartered in Minneapolis, maintains a flagship club underneath Target Center and also made significant investments in the team.

Ryan Tanke Chief Revenue Officer Minnesota Timberwolves

David A. Sherman

The NBA’s jersey-patch program, which allows advertisers to partner with teams via a 2.5 by 2.5-inch patch on team uniforms, has been a huge revenue success for the league, and it provided an additional brand-partnership avenue for the Timberwolves during the renovation. Tanke says partnering with Silicon Valley-based Fitbit has lead to incredible health and wellness engagement from all employees.

“It’s been a complete organizational integration with their company and something that’s obviously a significant partnership for us,” Tanke says. “It’s so much more than just a sponsorship; it’s deeply wound through the fabric of our company. And, Life Time memberships and Fitbit devices not only create high engagement among our employees but give our people the tools to lead healthy lives, which is paramount in a city such as Minneapolis, which continually ranks high among the most healthiest cities in the nation.”

When it came to the arena’s food and drink upgrades, Tanke says, the team chose to ignore a tried and true model. “There have been teams or venues that have put celebrity chef names on things, but it’s really just a name,” he explains. “We wanted to not only bring in a celebrity chef who could transform our menu to be better and more nutritious— but do the same for our players and their meal and nutrition plan. We saw an opportunity to do something that we don’t think any other team had done previously, which was go out and hire a well-known local chef to really lead that transformation for us.”

Minneapolis-based chef David Fhima was hired to work in conjunction with partner Levy Restaurants to redesign the arena’s menu from scratch. Fhima had previously helped

“We spent very little time talking about a new building. We have what we believe is the best city block for sports in the state.”

RYAN TANKE

develop Life Time Fitness’s Life Café concept, and Tanke says the additional work the chef has done for the team’s player nutritional program as well as for a nearby restaurant has made him a well-rounded partner.

Tanke, who got his start on the Timberwolves ticketing team in 1997, is especially proud that the Timberwolves and the Lynx became the first teams to move exclusively to digital ticketing. About 90 percent of fans now enter using just their smart devices, and the move to digital tickets has eliminated the need for will-call space entirely. It also makes purchasing fraudulent tickets, an increasingly prevalent problem in all ticketing environments, virtually impossible, and it creates a digital trail so that, regardless of who winds up with the ticket, the team knows the end user and everyone who touched that ticket along the way. “It’s really provided us with this incredible amount of safety and

security for our fans and the team,” Tanke says. “And the data allows us to better serve our customers.”

Tanke says the success of the renovation inside and out is due in great part to CEO Ethan Casson’s passion. “In many ways, we’re a thirty-year-old company that every day feels like a start-up,” Tanke says. “Casson has had an incredible impact on the culture and the belief that we can be the best sports and entertainment company.”

Like so many of the Target Center’s longtime partners, Tanke’s passion for Minnesota’s NBA team has endured decades, and though the Timberwolves may still be struggling to find an NBA championship, he says, fan loyalty remains strong. “We’ve had this incredibly loyal fan base that has supported us and really believed in our vision,” Tanke says. “That’s ultimately led us to such strong corporate support and partners across the board.”

Go

Everywhere,

To establish itself as an authority in the recreational vehicle space, Thor Industries is undergoing a major corporate rebrand— one that Ken Julian is translating into the corporate culture

By CLINT WORTHINGTON

Stay Anywhere

As a leader in the recreational vehicle space, Thor Industries wants to be as well known and well-regarded as the high-quality RV brands it oversees.

“We are exceptional at delivering products that meet customers’ needs in an affordable manner,” says Ken Julian, senior vice president of human resources and administration for Thor. “But then we looked at our position and realized there’s a bigger opportunity for growth.”

To that end, Thor has been hard at work refining and rebranding itself, expanding beyond the go-to resource for legacy RV users to reaching a more outdoorsy customer base who doesn’t necessarily commit to the RV lifestyle.

“Breaking down these barriers is a key component of this rebrand decision,” says Julian, whose work in HR involves changing the company’s internal culture to fit the attitude espoused by Thor’s new tagline, “Go Everywhere, Stay Anywhere.”

Having worked in the RV industry for thirty years—fifteen of those at Thor—Julian says he’s excited to see Thor’s internal and external branding take this new direction. The challenges of developing and building relationships between each of Thor’s many subsidiaries, all with their own human resources information system, makes running HR feel like putting together a jigsaw puzzle: specific pieces only work in their specific place.

Ken Julian SVP of HR & Administration Thor Industries

Although Thor’s rebrand will maintain that decentralized structure, the company’s focus is shifting dramatically to attract customers with an affinity for the outdoors who have yet to experience or commit to the RV lifestyle.

“There’s really nobody in our space that is positioning themselves as an authority for that group of customers,” Julian says.

Alongside these cultural changes, Thor has also revealed a new logo that features a mountain with a road running through it. It’s a design that took about one hundred different iterations and numerous changes to accomplish, but it’s one that Julian says creates emotion and engagement. One of his favorite features of the logo is the orb seen in the corner, which was designed to be interpreted as a sun or a moon, depending on the context.

“The logo fits the duality of the tagline, ‘Go anywhere, Stay everywhere.’” Julian says, adding that evokes a sense of freedom for Thor’s customers that the company wishes to embody in the recreational vehicle space.

Julian also applies these newfound principles to Thor’s corporate office, committing himself to creating an environment where people can feel like they are welcomed and engaged.

“Every day is different at Thor,” he remarks, which he says makes it doubly important to foster a warm, collaborative environment for his department and the company at large.

Central to that is disrupting Thor’s traditional hierarchies in favor of more

“We are exceptional at delivering products that meet customers’ needs in an affordable manner. But then we looked at our position and realized there’s a bigger opportunity for growth.”

KEN JULIAN

egalitarian communication structure, in which employees feel open to come to managers like himself with whatever they need.

“As a small office of approximately sixty, we often find ourselves multitasking and ‘wearing many hats,’” Julian says. “This can be interpreted by folks within the office that management is closed, not open to conversation.” As such, it’s his goal at Thor to break down these perceived walls and provide opportunities to share ideas, allowing Thor to invest further in its employees.

When asked in job interviews what applicants need to be successful, Julian’s answer is consistent: flexibility.

“If you have an agenda, a rigidity, you will find yourself frustrated in the Thor family,” Julian admits. “But if you have a spirit of collaboration and focus on doing

your job as best you can, you will be dynamically successful.”

In this way, life at Thor matches the unpredictability of the outdoor lifestyle sold by the company’s new message.

“If you’ve ever camped, there hasn’t been a camping adventure where something didn’t go wrong, and you had to respond to that,” Julian says. Likewise at the company, he stresses the need for workers to be able to roll with the punches and deal with unexpected complications.

As Thor continues with its ambitious rebranding, Julian hopes both customers and employees alike benefit from the company’s revitalized focus on customers and a flexible corporate culture. “Our jobs would be really boring if we didn’t have people to deal with,” he says.

The Arizona Iceman

From chief operating officer to chief legal officer to CEO, Arizona Coyotes’ Ahron Cohen takes on the challenge of building a hockey fandom in the Southwest

By BILLY YOST

Ahron Cohen President & CEO Arizona Coyotes

Janelle Etzel

Ahron Cohen became CEO of a major sports franchise at an age where many professional athletes are still playing the game. Taking the reins of the Arizona Coyotes in 2018 at the age of 34, Cohen moved from GC to the CEO seat in just three short years.

Cohen assumed the role during a period of significant rebuilding for the Coyotes, but after a year where the team would have certainly made the playoffs had they not incurred a successive and unrelenting string of injuries throughout the entire season that sat out key players, the Coyotes and Cohen have a lot to be proud of.

It’s baffling to consider that Cohen graduated law school in the same decade that he became CEO of an NHL hockey team, but that’s exactly the timing of Cohen’s rise. Having graduated Arizona State Law School in 2010, Cohen told the Phoenix Business Journal that finding a way to keep a career in sports was of the utmost importance. A Minnesota native, Cohen started an internship with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings while attending law school.

Following his graduation, Cohen started working as outside counsel for the Coyotes as well as for the Super Bowl Host Committee in 2015. He ultimately came onboard as chief operating officer for the Coyotes in 2015, progressing to chief legal officer, alternate governor, and eventually president and CEO.

“Ever since I got there, I’ve been dealing with a lot of complex and challenging situations—both from a legal standpoint and with some other initiatives—and every step of the way I’ve tried to give everything I could to the

company and help make this a better place,” Cohen told the Arizona Republic. “I’m certainly thrilled to be where I’m at now.”

While his quick rise made headlines, Cohen has had no shortage of challenges to take on since assuming the CEO role. “Really, the most important thing for us right now and what we’re focusing on is achieving our core goals,” Cohen told the Arizona Republic. “Those are building hockey fandom in Arizona, building a competitive team on the ice, and positively impacting our community.”

There’s also the challenge of figuring out just where the Coyotes are going to call home. It’s a long and complicated tale that precedes Cohen’s tenure, but regardless of what happens, the team has signed on to play another season in Glendale, Arizona, in its longtime home of Gila River Arena. “Ultimately, we have to figure out our long-term arena solution. But that problem is solved by achieving those three goals I laid out,” Cohen told the Arizona Republic. “Everything else will fall in place if we’re fulfilling those three goals.”

Cohen isn’t the only one confident in the Coyotes’ ability to continue their turnaround. “With John Chayka running our hockey operations and Ahron leading the business, the Coyotes continue to be in great hands,” Coyotes’ owner, chairman, and governor Andrew Barroway said in a statement. “I wouldn’t trade our future with any team in the NHL.”

OH Partners congratulates Ahron Cohen on this well-deserved recognition. It is a privilege to work alongside Ahron and his team as we develop and implement marketing strategies that showcase all that the Coyotes bring to Arizona both on and off the ice.

Finding a Mechanic in a Haystack

Belle Tire’s Jim Peterson on the challenge of finding skilled technicians for the company’s expanding footprint

By BILLY YOST

Since its founding at a single Detroit location in 1922 by Sam Waze, Belle Tire has grown to 133 locations and 20 mobile repair vans throughout Michigan, Ohio and, most recently, Indiana.

As the tire and glass repair and replacement company continues its expansion in the Midwest, finding top-tier talent for all of Belle Tire’s locations is proving a challenge, but vice president of human resources Jim Peterson is confident that by getting the message out about Belle’s strong company culture, the company will sell itself. The company offers extensive in-house training for employees, especially at the entry-level positions, and Peterson believes the open and honest culture at Belle Tire is what helps set it apart from its competition.

Finding skilled technicians, especially at the entry level, has provided challenges that Belle Tire has approached by incorporating education into their own employee development. “We’re doing a lot of training in-house,” Peterson told Tire Business. “At [company headquarters in] Allen Park, we have a full training center that basically looks like an auto shop. We run people through that training there on their own to get them up to speed, and we’re also looking at adding additional training centers in the new markets where we’re heading into so we can create some of this [momentum] ourselves.”

There are a number of reasons for the lack of available talent, Peterson said. “Whether that would be coming out of high school, because vo-tech programs have been cut back throughout the years, or the lack of good vo-tech schools out there teaching people automotive skills, I don't think it’s any secret out there that there’s a huge challenge with the decrease of students in skilled trades.”

As Belle Tire expands, Peterson said entering unchartered territory looking for new labor can be tough, but a “Getting to Know You” charity donation program has helped the company establish itself in new and developing markets. “One of our core values at Belle Tire is committing to and

investing in the communities we call home, focusing on customer service, job creation, and local organizations that make our communities a better place,” said Don Barnes III, Belle Tire president, in a press release. "We pride ourselves in becoming good neighbors in each and every community we serve.”

The Choose Your Charity program provides microgrants for store managers utilize at-will. Mangers, in turn, allow employees to vote on which local charities to donate to.

“Having been a member of Belle Tire’s team for many years, including training staff at multiple Indiana locations, I have been able to experience firsthand the company’s focus of giving back to the community,” Nicholas Parton, a store manager in Kokomo, Indiana, told Tire Business

Peterson says that a confidential employee survey also allows the company to continually improve its approach to its own people. “We can confidentially hear what they want to tell us and then we can react to that and help them help the company get better and help them be better,” Peterson told Tire Business. “It helps us to really connect with the team, understand what their questions or what their needs are, and then we make sure we go back out and do something with that information. It is important that we show them that when they speak, we listen.”

Most recently, responses to that survey will allow employees more flexibility in how and when vacation time is utilized. “We heard them, and we’re going to go out with something that I think will be very, very beneficial to the team,” Peterson said.

Peterson said that whether it’s recruiting new talent or retaining Belle Tire’s best, his approach remains largely the same. “We want all of our employees to want to come to work, not to have to come to work.”

Running a business is challenging. With the cost of risks involved, having a partner you can trust can make all the difference. That’s where we come in. And as Michigan’s largest, independent business insurance agency, we’re proud to partner with Belle Tire, providing innovative, high-performing solutions, so they can focus on what they do best: keeping cars in motion.

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Leaders the

There’s more to technology than mining data, company information. These leaders know that people play an important role in its culture and more. storytelling to teaching IT teams to speak business to emphasizing

ASH PATEL P. 124 JAKE ZIM P. 130

MICHAEL BAKER P. 134

ABBAS FAIQ

144 FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ AND KYLE HUNT P. 148

MIKE PHILLIPS P. 152

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PHILIP PETTI P.

148 MIKE PHILLIPS P. 152 KEVIN BETH P. 156

ASH PATEL P. 124

P. 137

PHILIP PETTI P. 140 ROGER

CASALENGO P. 144

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156 ASH PATEL P. 124 JAKE ZIM P. 130 MICHAEL BAKER P. 134 ASH

Behind Tech

implementing different solutions, and protecting success, from drawing emotion through virtual reality

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ASH PATEL

How to Drive Growth in the New CPG Landscape

Ash Patel, chief information officer at IRI, uses data and advanced technology to help CPG brands and major retailers find growth opportunities in an evolving marketplace

words

photos KC Esper

Cass Davis

Patel

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry and traditional grocery retail chains are often recognized as frontiers of data-driven innovation. Ash Patel, chief information officer for Information Resources Inc. (IRI), and his team aim to help those firms take their data-driven innovation to the next level. Over the past several years, IRI has invested nearly $1 billion in its technology, believing the CPG brand and retail landscape are rife with potential to leverage advanced data science—like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)—to reveal opportunities for growth in an industry that has undergone a swift evolution to adapt to the rise of e-commerce and changing consumer preferences.

IRI’s clients include some of the world’s most iconic and beloved CPG brands as well as the top retailers in North America. Patel knows those clients well; unlike a traditional CIO, Patel spends the majority of his time on the road, meeting with clients to understand the unique headwinds they face and building solutions to meet their needs. “I think part of our success rate in innovation at IRI comes from the fact that our solutions are not built in a laboratory. Our technology leadership team spends time with clients, learning from them and partnering with them to solve the specific business problems that they are experiencing,” Patel says.

The close partnerships Patel and the IRI team have built allow IRI’s data solutions to revolutionize the way CPG brands and retailers optimize their supply chains, instore execution, and marketing programs, ultimately helping them improve profitability in a challenging environment. The company layers its vast data assets into IRI’s unique Liquid Data platform, allowing analytics teams to access relevant data and glean insights. Its sizable assets include purchase and demographic data from more than five hundred million shopper loyalty cards at major retailers; supply chain data; and causal data, including attitudinal, econometric, and local event information.

When IRI’s Liquid Data platform was launched ten years ago, it coincided with the start of the big data boom, and big data has continued to explode in the years since. IRI’s technology helps clients manage a universe of data points and mine it for critical insights. In IRI’s system, clients develop hypotheses of actions they could take to improve their businesses. They then use IRI’s data and predictive analytics to prove or disprove those theories in an automated and scalable process.

“We’ve reached the limit of the traditional query-based approach,” Patel says. “A person simply cannot come up with enough hypotheses, with only twenty-four hours in a day, to be able to find what really matters among this tsunami of big data. It’s like fishing for one particular prize fish in the entire Pacific Ocean.”

So Patel and his team have ventured to turn that process around by “letting machines do the heavy lifting.” IRI’s newest solutions are powered by artificial intelligence technology, meaning algorithms sort through trillions of combinations of relevant data points and suggest dollar value–based actions for brands and retailers to take to optimize their profitability. The recommendations can be as broad as allocating a larger portion of a CPG brand’s marketing budget for digital advertising or as granular as nudging store associates to restock shelves of specific products at specific times throughout the day at a major grocery retailer.

“WE’RE DEVELOPING CUTTINGEDGE TECHNOLOGY TO DELIVER MEANINGFUL, MEASURABLE GROWTH.”

The machine learning kicks in as analytics teams at IRI’s clients consider the solution’s recommendations and tell the technology if it was right or wrong. The feedback from users helps the algorithms learn and get smarter over time. “It gets smarter and smarter by sprinkling human intuition, tribal knowledge, and the individual expert’s domain expertise into the software,” Patel says.

IRI’s new approach is already driving great outcomes. In one recent example, Patel’s team was engaged by a beer manufacturer looking to optimize the assortment of brands and pack sizes they stock across two hundred thousand US stores. IRI used more than twenty different data sets to capture the beer manufacturer’s sales and shipments, local preferences in consumer behavior, and substitution effects. This detailed data allowed the beer manufacturer to optimize profitability by minimizing unsold inventory in certain stores and out-of-stock items in other stores.

Patel and his team designed a solution that leveraged IRI’s data, algorithms, AI capabilities, and unique platform to deliver prescriptive actions to enhance profitability. The recommendations were so specific that

they included instructions for truck drivers on what to unload at each store. The hard work paid off. Although the beer manufacturing industry overall has experienced declines, IRI’s client was able to increase profitability by implementing IRI’s suggestions.

In many ways, IRI is pioneering new applications for data science, and Patel and his team are at the frontier. He has honed his technical and management skills over an impressive career that, while spanning industries, has always focused on unleashing the power of technology to improve outcomes for his clients.

“I’ve always been fascinated with and inspired by technology,” Patel says, “and I believe that its many known and yet-unknown applications will continue to increase business efficiency, improve information accessibility, and simply make everyday life better for people.”

He adds, “That’s what drives me at IRI—we’re developing and leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced data science to deliver meaningful, measurable

growth for our clients and, in turn, provide more value to everyday consumers.”

Early in his career, at the height of the dot-com era, Patel launched a start-up internet company called morebenefits.com, inspired by his family members in the healthcare sector. His company would today be characterized as a healthcare exchange, organizing the saturated healthcare market by allowing users to browse and buy insurance plans online. In 2001, Patel sold the company to Aon, one of the largest insurance brokers in the world. Patel then joined Aon himself, and, over time, rose to be the global chief information officer for Aon’s consulting business.

“As I rose up through the organization, I worked hard to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit of a start-up,” he says. When Patel’s manager and mentor, Andrew Appel, left Aon to lead IRI as CEO, Patel made the jump with him—and brought along his passion for continuous improvement.

“IRI is at the nexus of the rapidly shifting marketing, data, and technology industries. Providing solutions that are responsive to the market, meeting client needs, and expanding the technological frontier is my responsibility and mission,” Patel says. “The team at IRI shares that very personal drive to innovate and solve problems in new and exciting ways, and that part of our culture makes us successful in delivering growth for our clients.” </>

Facing (Virtual) Reality

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Jake Zim is determined to utilize VR to provoke emotion

words Billy Yost

Jake Zim believes that cutting-edge technology can be utilized to enhance mankind’s oldest entertainment: storytelling. The senior vice president for virtual reality at Sony Pictures Entertainment has consistently found his own professional career at the crossroads of entertainment, technology, and business. “I’m interested in creating new ways to tell stories with the basic understanding that to do that consistently, there has to be a balance of real value to the audience and an economic incentive for the creators,” Zim says.

Zim has been an early adopter, and in some cases originator, of successful digital marketing integration, especially regarding movie releases, and now has his sights set on VR. The son of a mother who stressed the importance of being able to look back proudly on the things he created and a father who espoused that the path to wealth was through writing , Zim has carved his own path

at Sony to usher in a new era of transporting its customers to the story.

Sony Pictures’ foray into VR, Sony Pictures Virtual Reality (SPVR), Zim says, is a natural progression. From a hardware standpoint via the PlayStation VR headset, its sister company is already light years ahead of most companies looking to enter the VR game. “At Sony Pictures, there’s a rich pedigree in storytelling,” he says. “And under the larger Sony umbrella, there’s such valuable institutional knowledge about gaming hardware, electronics, and game design. Our goal at SPVR is to build the business of immersive entertainment with a focus on VR, and we think we can do it because the convergence of technology and entertainment is in our company DNA.”

Over the past three years, SPVR has led the way in developing new channels for VR distribution with a wide

Zim SVP of

“THE GOAL FOR ME IS FOR PEOPLE TO TAKE OFF THEIR HEADSETS HAVING FELT GENUINE HUMAN EMOTIONS, BE THEY FEAR, ANGER, LOVE, OR JOY. WE WANT TO TRANSPORT THEM.”

Jake

array of projects. With projects tied to blockbuster brands like Jumanji and Men in Black, SPVR has enabled audiences to experience VR not just in their homes but in popular locations such as malls, movie theaters, and family entertainment centers.

One of the division’s latest releases, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son, highlights both technological innovation and Zim’s commitment to storytelling. The plot of the game, which is a sequel of sorts to the 1993 classic film, involves the same sort of time-looped, repeating-day plot device.

“We’re trying to solve the enigma of how you build an immersive narrative that audiences can participate in, that has an emotional heartbeat to it,” Zim says. “Groundhog Day is a relatable story. It’s the story of someone who evolves over time because he learns what it’s like to be at peace with himself and his family and friends and where he comes from. If VR does one thing very well, it’s to transport you into another person’s shoes. That’s what we’ve done in Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son. You get to live another person’s life, full of laughs, for a day. You just have to do it over and over again until you get it right.”

Zim admits that while the concept of a Groundhog Day VR game may initially seem like a headscratcher, SPVR is committed to bringing fans into the fold who are more than just hardcore gamers. “We love making action games and we’ll continue to do that, and I am excited to give fans a chance to put on the Spider-Man mask and swing from building to building,” he says. “But right now, it’s also important for us to find new ways to move the VR market forward and draw in different audiences through immersive storytelling from other well-known IP, like Groundhog Day.”

Finding the right team committed to that vision has been a thrilling process for Zim.

“VR and Immersive entertainment productions require a broad swath of skill sets to work together in a relatively undefined medium,” Zim says. “As is often the case, we’re charting new waters together, relying on each other’s individual expertise to navigate the overall project direction.” He says that in putting together the teams that work on SPVR projects, leadership focuses on bringing together individuals who demonstrate a level of experience in producing for the medium and a passion for new forms of storytelling.

Zim says SPVR has already learned lessons about its audience and says the company’s ability to tap into Sony market data research has been invaluable. “We started with the thinking that we would develop quick and short games almost at phone-app pricing,” Zim says. “What we learned is that people who are willing to invest in a headset, push back their chairs, and pick their kid’s Legos up off the floor are willing to spend more money for a fuller experience, but they needed to see that value.”

Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son, Zim believes, is a prime example of how the company has shifted its strategy from snackable content to full-on real VR games that aim to be transformational for the users.

“What we’ve tried to do in evolving this storytelling platform is to find ways to touch the human psyche and see if we can get our customers to actually feel something,” Zim says. “The goal for me is for people to take off their headsets having felt genuine human emotions, be they fear, anger, love, or joy. We want to transport them and in doing so, give them an opportunity to experience something new, exciting, and impactful.” </>

"Individual

commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work."

Vince Lombardi

The Most Slapstick Fun A Team Can Have with PSVR!

Great

friends make great teams, Great teams make great games!

Scenes from Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son: (top) Gobbler’s Knob and (bottom) Rita and Alice at the Tip Top Cafe.

Building Relationships Builds a Business

Qorvo’s chief IP counsel, Michael Baker, is putting together patent portfolios with a personal touch

words Jacob Winchester

Michael Baker Chief IP Counsel Qorvo

Years of hard work, dedication, and strategic risk-taking can set you on the path toward becoming a successful inventor, patent holder, and attorney for a multibillion-dollar company. If you ask Michael Baker, chief IP counsel for semiconductor and advanced wireless technology pioneer Qorvo, there’s one essential component of the equation that’s easy to overlook: building genuine relationships.

It’s something Baker learned early, growing up as one of eight siblings on a family tobacco farm in Florida. Due to the intensive harvesting requirements for tobacco, Baker’s father would hire seasonal workers to help with the labor. When lunchtime rolled around, Baker’s mother would prepare a feast, and Baker’s parents would invite the workers inside for a home-cooked meal.

“You could smell my mother’s cooking on the way back to the house,” he remembers. “We would have things like fried chicken, collard greens, and cornbread. It was more like what we in the South would think of as a Sunday meal, which is generally shared with family. My dad would have my siblings and me wait outside, while the workers would get to serve themselves first.”

As they ate together, Baker says his father would work his way around the table, asking each person about what was happening in their lives and how he could help them. “Often, at the end of the day, we’d have some vegetables—like okra, corn, and tomatoes we’d grown on the farm—and he’d give them away as well,” he says. “I realized that my father was taking that lunch period and inviting the workers into our home for the purpose of building relationships and getting to know them.”

“The added benefit of that, for him, was that those people would work harder for my father than probably anybody else, because he worked to build those relationships with them and do whatever he needed to do to help them be successful,” Baker adds. “I take that lesson I learned then into the work that I do here.”

Before becoming a lawyer, Baker completed his undergraduate work at Florida A&M University and earned a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, focused on semiconductor manufacturing. Baker held positions at Hewlett-Packard, Sharp Laboratories of America, and IPValue, a partner of Xerox. Now, he is helping Qorvo navigate IP litigation, protection, and patent procurement.

“One of the most effective things an inhouse IP counsel can do is build and cultivate strong relationships at all levels of an organization and outside firms,” Baker says. “These relationships can pay huge dividends in a multiplicity of ways—risk mitigation, litigation support, and early capture of inventions.”

“My philosophy is focused around the early procurement or capture of inventions,” he adds. “My team and I work pretty closely with the engineers and the business units to identify opportunities where we’re developing important technology for next-generation products.”

One specific strategy is the use of teamcentered IP capture sessions.

“The vast majority of our IP is generated in-house and a great deal of it comes from these IP capture activities,” Baker says. “Typically, I’ll take a team of ten or twelve people off-site, and we’ll focus on IP related to the technology that’s being developed. We create a forum where ideas can be shared and can maximally resonate. I think that’s critically important. It’s a key strategy we use here to align the IP we’re generating with our business interests.”

In building relationships between teams, Baker says he fosters engagement by participating in technology review meetings, talking with engineers about current projects, and being actively accessible to them. Legal team members often deal with risk assessment, and he says it’s common across industries for lawyers to be perceived as presenting obstacles instead of solutions.

“I really want to be seen as a resource and an asset to our teams—one who helps solve problems and follows through, rather than be seen as ‘that patent guy’ who sits up there with the executives,” he says. “I’m an electrical engineer myself, so I tend to wear my electrical engineering hat more so than

my legal hat when I’m working with the engineering teams.”

Baker also created successful patent portfolio development strategies, in which he focused on building synergy between patents.

“I’ve learned that the most effective way to build a portfolio of patents is not one by one over time,” he says. “If you can build a patent portfolio where you have clusters of patents having claims ranging in scope and directed at key technologies, it will more readily lend that portfolio to commercialization over time, if and when the company gets ready to sell or license that portfolio.”

It also has the added benefit of positioning or arming the company to make impactful, multipatent assertions, should legal proceedings arise. Although Baker says his team doesn’t drive innovation, it does complement Qorvo’s innovation through various legal means by which the company’s innovations are protected.

“If you’re in the IP space, part of your role is to work collaboratively with very creative people,” he says. “If you can build a relationship with these people . . . these innovators, they’ll be more willing to engage you. If you can build an honest, transparent, and trusting relationship where they feel comfortable sharing ideas with you, they will seek you out every time.” </>

“Building a powerful IP portfolio requires strong relationships between the engineers, counsel, and business stakeholders. Mike Baker is the gold standard in this regard. We have seen firsthand how Mike skillfully aligns Qorvo’s IP portfolio to its technology and business road maps. Mike’s efforts are a fundamental reason why Qorvo’s innovation continues to drive its success as a company.” —Alston & Bird

Keeping Up with the Company

words KC Esper

CIO Abbas Faiq and VP of IT Strategy and Planning Jacqui Boire work to unite PTC’s IT division with its business function

At PTC, Abbas Faiq and Jacqui Boire have worked to align the company’s IT division with the business function of the company. As chief information officer, Faiq’s work centers on this goal as he oversees project development within his department and the company as a whole. As vice president of IT strategy and planning, Boire’s role functions symbiotically with Faiq’s to ensure that every member of PTC knows what to expect from the IT function and understands its initiatives. As the business changes course, Faiq and Boire are working to remain nimble enough to adhere to the fluctuating demands of the market by employing appropriate assignment strategies designed to anticipate change and adjust accordingly.

A global technology company, PTC creates software for industrial businesses. As such, most of the business initiatives within the company include a technology component. Because of the ubiquitous role tech plays, coordinating IT with the rest of the business is imperative to achieve strategic goals. Of course, combining the two very different functions comes with challenges. As Faiq and Boire work toward their goals, they must keep in mind differing priorities and perspectives between each team.

“Personalities between the business and IT are oftentimes very different,” Boire says. “I’m continually making sure that our IT team is keeping the business in mind at all times and making sure that they rise above and see their role and how they impact the business as a whole—not just as someone that helps intermittently but as someone who contributes in a more meaningful way. One of the biggest challenges is achieving this harmony.”

Through their efforts, Faiq and Boire have channeled the supportive environment of the company to grow and overcome these challenges. They’ve tapped into the business resources available to understand the vision and goals of each business group, then adjusted their own strategies with these concepts in mind. Over time, the IT team has developed a more holistic view of PTC’s operations. As a result, IT has become

“WE ARE WALKING IN THE SHOES OF THE BUSINESS, EVEN IF IT’S NOT A TECHNOLOGY ISSUE.”

Ryuji Suzuki

a “trusted advisor” to each of the business’s groups, aligning with their priorities and uniting with them under common goals.

“There happens to be a little bit of push and pull between each function’s priorities,” Faiq explains. “Interestingly enough, IT is one of the few departments that has a global view of what’s happening across different functions, so in some cases we help align different business groups with each other’s strategies. We’ve almost become mediators in some cases to help align business priorities and show them the bigger picture.”

PTC continues to work toward building alignment, and Boire says the effort is never done. At the start of each year, members of the IT and business leadership teams meet to assess areas within the company that require technology investments and areas that are running well. In a larger sense, the team “gauges the maturity of the organization on a number of different facets,” Boire says, then works to improve the areas that call for attention. Each assessment provides the company with a new benchmark of excellence, allowing its leadership team to compare the company’s progress year by year.

Continually evaluating these aspects allows PTC to adopt and maintain best business practices while also advancing its competitive edge in the industry. Overall, this process “is an important part of making sure that things continue to move forward in a positive direction,” Faiq says. “We are walking in the shoes of the business, even if it’s not a technology issue. We must be in line with where their strategy is going so that we can get ahead of it and align it with where the business wants to eventually go.”

As PTC moves toward the future, Faiq and Boire are spearheading efforts to build a world-class organization. Over the past three years, Faiq has led this charge, which has resulted in significant improvements in the areas of architecture, risk management, strategic planning, and business engagement. In concert with these efforts, he and Boire will continue to enhance the connection between their function and the business side through open, consistent communication. </>

Fuze is a global communications and collaboration software company connecting the digital workforce. Through a consumer-inspired experience, Fuze enables seamless transitions between calling, meeting, chatting, and sharing. Fuze congratulates Abbas Faiq, CIO of PTC, on his achievements. This is a well-deserved honor, and we’re proud to partner with PTC.

Jacqui Boire VP of IT Strategy & Planning PTC

Intellectual Property Is a Product

Philip Petti protects IP for building materials leader USG Corporation. But its patents aren’t just to be defended; they’re also its ticket to global markets.

words Russ Klettke

For most of its 117-year history, USG Corporation was focused on North America. USG is a leading manufacturer of gypsum wallboard and several other types of building materials, with fifty-one manufacturing facilities throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico.

At the lowest point of the Great Recession, USG recognized that it would need to expand its business in those high-growth overseas markets through other means. USG turned to one of its most valuable assets—its industry-leading technology and the intellectual property protecting it. USG leveraged a combination of patents, closely held trade secrets, and strong brand identities for the company’s industry-changing products to open doors to business opportunities in Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

The company’s chief intellectual property counsel, Philip Petti, is an important part of the team that brought this about. Petti was a successful senior partner in one of Chicago’s leading IP law firms and was drawn to USG because of its strong emphasis on innovation and intellectual property. Petti also saw the potential for USG to do more with its IP than only protect its home markets.

“Intellectual property has always been at the core of what USG does,” says Petti, who joined the company in

2008. USG owned the first patent on gypsum wallboard in the early twentieth century, which revolutionized construction by reducing the time it took to build and finish safe, fire-resistant walls and ceilings on-site. “Things we take for granted in the buildings around us were made affordable and safer by the company,” Petti says. “In many respects, our products are why tall buildings can be built. In fact, all of the top ten tallest buildings in the world use USG’s products.” To support USG’s investment in innovation, the company is granted between thirty and forty patents in the US and about three hundred such protections globally every year.

Petti is quick to give credit to USG’s research and development team as well as to those in other areas of the company, but the ability to protect and make the most of USG’s innovations—particularly in markets where IP theft is commonplace—involves heavy legal lifting.

Petti played a key role in realizing the potential of USG’s IP portfolio when USG turned to extending its international reach through a joint venture called USG Boral Building Products. It was formed in 2014 as a fifty-fifty partnership between USG and Australia-based Boral Limited, a company that already had strong manufacturing and distribution capabilities in the Austral-Asian markets. What Boral lacked was USG’s industry-leading technology, which could help raise building standards in its markets. The joint venture brought together USG’s intellectual property and Boral’s manufacturing and distribution network to offer the most advanced gypsum-based wall and ceiling systems in the fastest-growing construction markets in the world. Petti led USG’s licensing and valuation teams that built the IP framework, allowing the flow of USG technology to the new joint venture.

Although USG’s technologies contributed to the joint venture’s success in many of its markets, they are used in what might be considered several hostile territories from an IP standpoint. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that $461 billion in counterfeit goods were made and sold in 2017—double what it was in 2008. The worst offenders were in Pakistan, India, Algeria, and Venezuela, with China a bit better in improving IP rights and patent reforms. Still, IP theft in several of USG Boral’s markets happens on a large scale.

Philip Petti Chief IP Counsel USG Corporation

Leydig is honored to work with Philip Petti and his colleagues in protecting and enforcing USG's valuable intellectual property

Leydig works alongside companies, universities, and institutions around the world to achieve their intellectual property goals.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW

Chicago Washington, DC Boulder, Colorado

San Francisco Bay Area Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Which means Petti and his team have their work cut out for them. Chief among their tools are patents. “Patents allow us to stop others from using USG’s inventions until the patents expire, and this is in return for teaching the public, including our competitors, about the inventions.” That, however, doesn’t cover everything. Some of USG’s important innovations are its “trade secrets,” such as product formulas, manufacturing improvements, and similar intellectual property that is valuable because it is proprietary and confidential to USG. “If another company uses stolen trade secrets, then it is considered theft of valuable property.” Petti points out that “balancing the benefits of patent protection against the benefits of trade secret protections is an important part of our work at USG, as is ensuring that our trade secrets are protected.”

USG responded with several products that carry lower embodied energy (less energy required in sourcing, production, and distribution). In some cases, those products are easier to install, resulting in lower onsite construction costs and greater speed in building delivery.

“INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT THE CORE OF WHAT WE DO.”

Transgressive ex-employees, spies, and hackers, in fact, are continual threats to USG and other companies with trade secrets and proprietary technological know-how, both overseas and in the US. Petti’s legal team uses nondisclosure agreements, employee training, plant security, digital tools, cybersecurity, and other measures to thwart them. These efforts are important. For example, when Petti joined USG, he took over responsibility for a lawsuit against a US competitor that had hired away key employees who left with USG’s trade secrets. The result was a $105 million settlement payment to USG by the competitor.

Petti points out how IP protection isn’t just a way to punish bad actors; it stimulates new products that serve emerging market needs. This matters in the postrecession building boom, which is characterized by two challenges: how to build with a shortage of construction labor, and how to make buildings and the construction process greener and more sustainable.

For example, the USG Sheetrock Brand EcoSmart Panels use the company’s patented and proprietary technology that reduces use of water and fuel for manufacturing and transport—saving 1.7 billion gallons of water, 2.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, and 5.5 million gallons of diesel transportation fuel each year. For construction crews, the lighter product is also easier and faster to install. Another product is the Securock ExoAir 430 System, which combines USG’s exterior panels with a factory-applied vapor and air barrier coating. This creates an energy-saving building envelope with substantially reduced on-site construction costs.

In April 2019, USG was acquired by Gebr. Knauf KG, a German-based building materials manufacturer with 220 factories worldwide. The merger creates the world’s largest gypsum company, combining USG’s great legacy and talented team with the reach and resources of Knauf.

Petti sees the opportunities ahead. “Knauf is a technology leader in our industry, and we look forward to the IP opportunities and challenges that will come from our new combined company,” he says. “Together, USG and Knauf’s innovation capabilities will have a global impact.” </>

Local Presence Global Impact

Pearne & Gordon LLP is pleased to honor Philip Petti for his creative leadership in establishing and protecting USG’s innovations in building materials, products, and processes and the brands under which they are brought to market.

Pearne & Gordon obtains, protects and leverages the patent and trademark rights for domestic and international clients in more than 150 countries. Our experience encompasses all areas of technology, including electronics, chemistry, mechanical systems, physics, materials science, ceramics, manufacturing, computers, software, biotechnology, nuclear science, machine design, pharmaceuticals and business methods.

Our diverse team is comprised of lawyers with experience and formal education in areas including electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, biochemistry, chemical engineering, biology, synthetic chemistry, industrial engineering, microelectronics, automation engineering, biomedical engineering, and bioelectricity – to handle all areas of IP law including complex IP litigation, licensing, e-commerce, and portfolio management.

We are also proud to serve the Greater Cleveland community through volunteerism—individually and together. Many of our lawyers serve on boards and/or volunteer for dozens of charity and assistance organizations. We are a member of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCAA) and sponsor several programs at local schools that nurture and develop STEM education among women, people of color, and first generation college students.

OH | www.pearne.com

Leadingthrough

Roger Casalengo’s HR strategy is helping build interdepartmental bridges to guide Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions’ employees toward a common goal

Roger Casalengo didn’t waste any time when he arrived at Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions (CAES) in 2017. Day one was spent knocking out preliminary tasks: introducing himself to his new team, setting up computer passwords, tacking his name on the door of his office, and more. By day two, though, he was on the road. His mission was to absorb the culture of every CAES site and detect both the thriving aspects of the company and the areas that needed improvement.

On his expedition, he discovered that not everyone was on the same page regarding the ways to successfully advance the company; the HR goals were misaligned with its strategy. It was the hole in the system, and Casalengo knew he’d found the first big task of his job.

As the senior vice president of human resources, Casalengo was hired to unite the distinct parts of CAES by instilling strong, cross-departmental HR strategies.

Following the model of any great team, Casalengo realized that working together was the best way to succeed.

words KC Esper

“Two years ago, we needed everybody in HR to pick up a shovel and start digging,” he recounts. “We needed to build something and build it fast. So I incorporated every player within the HR function, regardless of pedigree, to help us build our HR strategy.”

Linking

The strategy Casalengo and his team devised is taking place over the span of three years. During this time, the HR department will focus on three main organizational changes: sophisticated technology to drive business decisions, a strong alignment with the business, and a career-alignment plan focusing on career paths for employees at every level. The goal of these adjustments is to enable CAES to become a “more agile organization” while allowing employees to establish their own targets—and ultimately have something to strive toward in their work. With the foundation already in place, continued efforts in this direction will boost morale while streamlining operations.

External partners that Casalengo works with are seeing the value of this approach, too. “By modernizing their HR processes and technology, the CAES team has built a sustainable HR business practice and eliminated redundancies,” says Ann Blakely, human capital services principal at Baker Tilly.

“Roger takes an all-hands-on approach and shares the risk and reward across all of his HR partners, including his consulting partners,” adds Erin Hoefer, senior vice president of consulting services for Precept Group. “He recognizes the importance of a valuable benefits pro -

gram on overall business performance and has integrated that into his strategy to advance the company.”

“This career alignment initiative is going to advance our organization from a retention standpoint,” Casalengo says. “For the first time in our history, employees now have a career path that shows them how to get to the sector president role, if they want it. Attached to the career path is a learning and development path that will allow them to become the best they can be in their role or help them grow in the organization.”

Now, at press time, about twenty months into the threeyear strategy, CAES is starting to see change within the function and communication between each corporate department. But linking these departments has been an entirely different feat. Casalengo and his team created “micro teams,” made up of HR employees, within larger subtypes to “drive strategies in particular areas,” which helped “set the tone and direction for HR and linked the overall case strategy from a business perspective.”

Building a bridge between HR and the business function was crucial to ensure that all of CAES was on the same wavelength. Luckily, thanks to his extensive experience in multiple HR disciplines, including five years in opera-

tional positions, Casalengo was able to contribute universal language for all aspects of business to unify each part of CAES.

“Having a broad operational experience helps me translate my HR strategy to leaders,” he says. “When you build the relationship with human resources and the business, and the business understands the value of what HR is delivering, you’re going to have a much better chance at success.”

By mending interdepartmental gaps at CAES, Casalengo is ultimately working toward strengthening the relevancy of the business’s operations for each division. Ultimately, “I want to see everyone in HR come to the table with a level of business knowledge and understanding to do their jobs well,” he says. He enforces this by serving as a leader, a consultant, and a teacher. Casalengo says that while “most of his day is spent being a teacher, the key ingredient is knowing when to apply each platform.” Combining his assessment of each situation with a keen awareness of his audience, he recognizes that his leadership position requires many approaches to meet one common goal.

He’s also quick to credit both others in leadership and his external partners for their help in the effort. “The success our HR team has had in such a short time is due to the support of our sector president and the leaders at CAES,” he says. “In addition, our partners and vendors have been an integral part of our success as well.”

With the light now shining at the end of a three-year tunnel, Casalengo is continuing to look for new ways to improve as a leader. He’s exploring how exactly he can ade -

Roger Casalengo SVP of Human Resources

“I WANT TO SEE EVERYONE IN HR COME TO THE TABLE WITH A LEVEL OF BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING TO DO THEIR JOBS WELL.”

Cobham

quately model the behavior he expects from his team, and how he can channel innovation within his work every day.

“Anybody that steps into the role of leader is obligated to lead,” Casalengo says. “The more genuine and authentic I can be with my leaders, team, and employees, the better transparency we have as an organization— the better credibility and relationship building we create between departments. That’s what drives me: discovering how I can be better than l was the day before.” </>

Baker Tilly congratulates Roger Casalengo on his accomplishments, and we are proud to continue working with the CAES team to implement their HR strategy. We share CAES’ commitment to organizational change and partner with each of our clients to optimize and streamline processes to maximize their capabilities in the cloud.

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Scaling at the Speed of Culture

Berkadia’s Fernando Rodriguez and Kyle Hunt on how company culture influences IT, recruiting, and retention

words Billy Yost

To increase efficiency and provide actionable insights for customers through its programs, Berkadia needed the best minds in the industry. The challenge of building out the company’s Innovation Technology team quickly was up to Fernando Rodriguez and Kyle Hunt. And they had their doubters.

“In discussing with friends, colleagues, and industry professionals, I was repeatedly told that scaling at the speed and level we are targeting is simply not possible,” says Hunt, vice president of platform architecture at Berkadia. The three operating sites in Ambler, Pennsylvania; Midvale, Utah; and Hyderabad, India, couldn’t have had less in common—at least from the outside.

But, Hunt says, Berkadia has been able to not only scale people and talent concurrently but also prove that the organization can produce sustainable and desirable outcomes. Rodriguez and Hunt, who first met in 2009 while working at eBay, have helped shape Berkadia’s Innovation Technology team while underlining the positive working culture that Rodriguez says empowers and cultivates leaders across the organization.

Rodriguez, senior vice president of software and services, says the process of building the team had the potential to take a toll on the plan’s architects. “If spinning up nearly forty Scrum and Kanban teams across three sites in under three years without the help of external consultants isn’t crazy, then I don’t know what is,” he says.

“CULTURE FIT IS AS IMPORTANT AS TECHNICAL SKILLS.”

“The most challenging piece is learning to ‘scale’ yourself, a term Ferdie [Rodriguez] uses frequently,” Hunt adds.

Upon coming to Berkadia, Rodriguez says he spent the first three months just having one-on-one conversations and realizing that people are passionate about Berkadia and that they loved their jobs. This gave the SVP the go-ahead to work to expand that culture that he himself found so inviting. “I wanted to quickly recruit more of the best and the brightest professionals from

Fernando Rodriguez SVP of Software & Services Berkadia

the industry,” Rodriquez says. “We want them to be the next generation of leaders of the company.”

The process was not without its own challenges. “We did initially succumb to the obvious growing challenge of hiring due to delivery pressure,” Rodriguez admits. “We had customers and stakeholders eager to see outputs so, for certain initiatives, we hired people who did not play well with others or just could not handle the high expectations we had.” The resulting capacity setback was short-term, but a larger lesson took precedent: put team harmony above all else.

Hunt says that one concept leadership has perfected is the notion of building a team around the right individual. And, Rodriguez says, teammates are empowered to make the final hiring decision on every engineer brought into the company.

“Early on, we would have a senior team panel interview each candidate, regardless of role and position,” Rodriguez says. “It was light, and we always asked this final question: ‘What is the best use of Internet Explorer?’ The answer: ‘To download Chrome.’ Culture fit is as important as their technical skills.”

Once hired, Berkadia has an unwavering commitment to its people, Hunt says. Developing its engineers is of the utmost importance. In the short time that Berkadia formed more than twenty Scrum teams in India, they identified ten engineers who will form the future core of architects and managers running Berkadia India. These leaders have the responsibility to “pay it forward,” Rodriguez says, by offering mentorship opportunities to the junior developers in the ranks.

“WE TRY TO ENSURE PEOPLE ENJOY COMING INTO WORK EVERY DAY AND THAT THEY WILL WANT TO ENCOURAGE THEIR MOST TALENTED FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES TO WORK WITH US.”

The internal company culture, popularly referred to as the “Berkadia Way,” provokes an outward mind-set, encouraging each individual to remember that the main focus is people—not products. “People in our office often hear me say, ‘We’re an organization of people; therefore, we need to focus all our efforts on them,’” Rodriguez says. This in turn helps the team focus on the solution instead of the problem.

A key success factor for healthy culture, Hunt says, is that people have a passion and a drive to contribute to what they’re building. “This passion has been a beacon throughout my career,” Hunt says. “With a focus on culture as strong as the one Berkadia has, we try to ensure people enjoy coming into work every day and that they will want to encourage their most talented friends and colleagues to work with us and our vision for the future as well.”

Rodriguez details the way he sees positive culture prevailing via the three key Innovation sites. “Our biggest success is the ‘solitary uniqueness’ of our culture,”

Kyle Hunt VP of Platform Architecture

Courtesy of Berkadia

Rodriguez says, acknowledging the seeming oxymoron of his sentiment. “When you visit each of our three operating sites, you will feel a different vibe in the way people communicate and relate to each other, but when we come together, we’re one united team.”

Cultivating healthy culture, Hunt believes, can at least be observed in a few different ways: spirited and constructive debate, the alignment of goals, and a culture of trust. “It is because of these components, and many others, that we are hiring and developing talent that is eager to work with us on some of the industry’s most exciting challenges and opportunities,” Hunt says.

“At Berkadia, we give back to the Hyderabad community,” Rodriguez says. Over the past two years, Berkadia’s team of architects volunteers at top technology colleges teaching machine learning, Javascript, and cloud technologies. To date, thirty graduating students have found employment with the company. Rodriguez and Hunt both believe the future is bright at Berkadia, as culture continues to not only inform but also shape the vision of the company.

“Our goal is to have our people prepared and ready to take the helm at any moment,” Rodriguez says. “Leadership is about leaving the company better than when you found it. I truly believe in that.”</>

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TheBalanceTrickyof

Cheniere Energy’s Mike Phillips aims to keep data safe while not stifling the company’s adoption of new technology

words

Peter Fabris

Cybersecurity

As more equipment and systems generate data and rely on IT, data security becomes increasingly critical to operations. It’s worth noting that security leaders have become more entwined with business functions, something that’s certainly true of Mike Phillips, chief information security officer with Cheniere Energy Inc., the first company to export liquid natural gas (LNG) from the contiguous US.

Phillips not only spends his days safeguarding data and systems, but also helps

business people understand cyber risks and navigate regulations. The work of the data-security function has changed markedly since Phillips began his career in 1995 with utility Pacific Gas & Electric. In those pre-9/11 days, security was rather lax compared to today, he recalls, noting that cybersecurity is now a forefront consideration when assessing business risk.

Phillips is immersed in digital-rights management, risk assessment of new technologies, explaining risk mitigation to inves-

tors and insurance companies, and helping attorneys and operational leaders understand new regulations.

“The biggest change over the past ten years is that the security group no longer says ‘no’ to everything,” Phillips says, noting that his team seeks a healthy balance between risk and reward on new technologies and initiatives. “We’re like the brakes on a race car. Our objective isn’t to slow the business down but to stay on the track so that it can go as fast as possible.”

Cheniere began exporting LNG in February 2016—the first large-scale exporter of US LNG. Being first to the international market, the company enjoys an advantage over competitors. Part of Phillips’s mission is to maintain that lead by safeguarding data. The LNG industry also has unique points of risk—gas pipelines and liquefaction plants—carrying a flammable product. As such, this infrastructure could be targeted. By protecting the cyber systems that operate these assets, Phillips has a key role in securing them.

None of these systems are connected to the internet, so they can’t be hacked through the public-data highway. Nevertheless, hackers are relentless in seeking other ways to break in. Some are foreign actors supported by governments, including Russia and Iran, Phillips says. The energy sector, a multinational industry with government-owned entities, is a prized target. Intrusions have been detected within systems at the US Department of Energy as hackers acquired files pertaining to accident reports at power plants, Phillips points out.

Access to Cheniere’s sensitive systems is strictly controlled. Nonetheless, phishing schemes, in which hackers try to trick users to reveal their access permissions including passwords, are a constant source of concern. Hackers can be extraordinarily persistent when trying to break into networks, spending more than a year trying to crack through security on a given organization’s systems. Thus, an organization’s security efforts must be vigilant and relentless.

Phillips’s external partners agree. “Consequences of a breach can have long-lasting effects,” said Jim Guinn II, managing director at Accenture Security. “That’s why executives should be as committed to improving cybersecurity as they are to controlling other business risks.”

In addition to educating employees about how to avoid falling for phishing ploys, Phillips works to restrict data on a need-to-know basis. Digital-rights management protocols with encrypted files allow access to data only to those who need it. Working through who needs access to what is a time-consuming task that requires input from operational personnel and business leaders.

Drew Donovan

Mike Phillips Chief Information Security Officer Cheniere Energy Inc.

“CYBER IS ONE OF THE NEWEST RISKS TO BUSINESSES. THE RISK HAS TO BE MANAGED. IT CAN’T BE COMPLETELY PREVENTED.”

As new technology offers more efficient ways for business and operational teams to manage production and distribution, security measures have to allow users to take advantage of them.

“We try to lock down environments as much as possible,” Phillips says. Still, his team has to constantly consider exceptions for sound business reasons. That effort requires a balance of risks with the benefits of the latest software, mobile devices, and network options.

About a decade ago, after high-profile accounting scandals involving corporate heavyweights Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco, Congress cracked down on financial abuses. Since then, cybersecurity has become a standard part of business risk assessment, prompted by new regulations administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission. One sweeping legislative measure in particular, Sarbanes-Oxley, Phillips says, partially changed his career path. That law requires corporations to divulge risks in detail to investors.

Cybersecurity chiefs have subsequently been forced to develop regulatory expertise. “The CISO becomes the glue

between operations and legal when it comes to new regulations,” he says. Business leaders and attorneys look to Phillips to help make sense over how new rules will impact the business. He also provides input to the company’s insurance team so that they can explain cyber risks to policy underwriters.

In addition, Phillips is working to influence how the new energy industry niche will be regulated by Washington. Currently, there are not many regulations governing LNG exports, but Phillips says there is a big push coming from Congress to do so. Given his experience dealing with regulatory reform when electric power was deregulated during his eleven-year stint with CenterPoint Energy, he is wary of how the rules may impact Cheniere. Regulations governing the North American bulk power system become onerous, he says. Companies have to spend as much as $750,000 a year “just to prove that they are compliant,” he says. Because of the cost, many companies simply aim for minimum cybersecurity requirements.

“We want to make sure regulations that do come out provide good security, not just the minimum,” Phillips says. A more voluntary approach to security rules, in which companies have the incentive to do more than the basics in return for better insurance rates, would be ideal, he says.

Although it’s uncertain how regulators will act, all public corporations can expect data security to be carefully scrutinized. It’s a permanent part of the landscape now.

“Cyber is one of the newest risks to businesses,” Phillips says. “The risk has to be managed. It can’t be completely prevented.” </>

All Roads Go Through the Clouds

words KC Esper

Controller and assistant treasurer Kevin Beth explains how Hub Group is making Oracle Cloud a part of its acquisition strategy

The shipping industry, conceptually, might not seem all that different from when it started centuries ago—get goods from one place to another. Yet, it’s as dynamic and fast moving as any technical field, according to Kevin Beth, controller and assistant treasurer at Hub Group, who says his fifteen years in the company have been years of continuous change.

Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, Hub Group is a leading, world-class supply-chain management company that provides value-added multimodal transportation and logistics solutions by offering reliability, visibility, and value to its customers. Its service offerings include intermodal, truck brokerage, dedicated trucking, managed transportation, freight consolidation, warehousing, international transportation, and other logistics services. Hub operates more than twenty terminal locations from nine office centers. The company is publicly traded but family

led; CEO David Yeager is the founder’s son, and he has two sons and a daughter on the company’s leadership team.

Beth says one unique aspect of Hub Group’s culture is its emphasis on process ownership. Every employee, at any level, is responsible for a project. That ensures team members make consistent investments in the organization’s mission; meanwhile, managers also have to make hands-on contributions.

“No matter what level you are, it’s expected that you own your project and not just delegate,” Beth explains. “It’s really created great teamwork; top to bottom, we’re all in this together, and we’re all working toward a common goal.”

Since mid-2017, Beth’s major project has been Hub’s migration to a new ERP. It’s the first time he’s run a project that affects all the different teams at the company.

Kevin Beth Controller and Assistant Treasurer

Hub Group

“Not only will this interface with all our transportation systems, but also all of our employees,” he says. “That includes travel and entertainment modules, human capital management, and all of the core operating systems.”

This creates a platform through which Hub Group can continue to grow through acquisitions, a strategy the board chose to pursue in 2016. Prior to that, Hub had made acquisitions when they were conveniently available; subsequently, a full-time vice president of corporate development was hired to actively pursue the right acquisitions. In July 2017, Hub Group acquired a dedicated trucking service to diversify its product offering in response to customer feedback. In December 2018, Hub acquired Case-Stack, the leader in providing warehousing and consolidation services to customers selling into the North American retail market.

“WE STARTED ASKING, ‘HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT ALL OF THE ACQUIRED COMPANIES ARE OPERATING ON THE SAME SET OF RULES, THE SAME ACCOUNTING STRUCTURE, AND THE SAME GOVERNANCE?’”

The company soon realized it needed to unify and simplify as much as possible in order to effectively integrate acquired business units.

“We started asking, ‘How are we going to make sure that all of the acquired companies are operating on the same set of rules, the same accounting structure, and the same governance?’” Beth says. “In order to do that, we needed a platform that would allow for a sort of plug-andplay environment.”

With consultants from Deloitte, Beth and Hub leadership chose to migrate to Oracle ERP Cloud. This solution helps Hub Group unify procedures while also fulfilling the board’s and management’s goal to reduce hardware ownership and be more efficient.

The scale of Hub’s operations, which initially necessitated the power and flexibility of a cloud solution, also provided the first major challenge.

“It requires a lot of work between our test environment and accounting systems,” Beth notes. “We’re replicating full days into the ERP test environments to make sure that it cannot only handle the volume, but every transaction we see returns the results we were expecting.”

The other major challenge has been the change itself. Hub’s previous accounting solution had been in place since 2000, and many long-tenured employees were both comfortable and effective operating within it. To maintain consistency through the transition, Hub implemented an intentional long-term change management strategy.

“We’ve had an internal resource team sitting in on the demos and testing with us from day one,” Beth says. “We took people that had been in operations a very long time— they’re now responsible for documenting the different touch points.”

Now, the team can distribute the new procedures to associates across the country while keeping communications up-to-date for new hires or additional changes. Once the new ERP is in place, Beth and Hub leadership will be looking at additional technologies that can improve cash flow, such as artificial intelligence to analyze the client payments.

“This is really going to force the team to be current with the tools we have, understand what tools are available, and how to best use them to achieve business goals,” he says. “I tell my team that the business is our customer and we want to support them as well as we can. In order to do that, we have to be willing and able to change.” </>

CULTURE

Building Belief

When Vickie Brint came to Nutranext, she was allured by the possibilities, and with Clorox’s recent acquisition of the company, those possibilities are becoming realities

By PAUL SNYDER

For more than thirty years, Florida-based Nutranext (originally known as Nature’s Products Inc.) thrived on a company culture of healthy living—both for its employees and its customers. When Clorox announced its intent to acquire Nutranext on March 12, 2018, there might have been some thought as to whether that culture would change at the hands of such a large global name. Vickie Brint, Nutranext’s vice president of human resources, says any concerns related to such thoughts were quickly allayed.

“We share many of the same values around community, sustainability, and wellness,” she says. “Nutranext was a small, family-owned business with heart and great potential. The acquisition afforded us the opportunity to achieve our full growth potential. What’s really important is Clorox didn’t just buy us to build its bottom line. They bought us because they believed in the brands and want to continue expanding their presence in the health and wellness industry.”

For Nutranext, which produces a range of dietary supplements, the merger supercharged the company’s ability to increase the presence of its products throughout the country. The growth was something that Brint says was “thrilling” for what had traditionally been a small operation, and she serves as a key figure in helping transition the company’s employees to a larger national stage.

“We had to be very strategic about the pace of change as it relates to people integration,” she says. “From integrating talent from Clorox into Nutranext to merging benefits and payroll, everything has to be done in a thoughtful and inclusive manner. Although employees would like some things to happen

sooner rather than later, we must be mindful of the resources and time constraints inherent in many of the change-management initiatives to execute such a large-scale plan.”

Although the average Nutranext employee’s job functions may have changed a bit in the wake of the acquisition, Brint notes, the transition has been relatively free of turbulence thanks to a shared vision with Clorox and the collaborative nature of the integration team. “The humbleness of the leadership within Clorox surprised me,” she says. “We have the benefit of working with some of the industry’s best thought leaders, in their respective functional areas. They are eager to share best practices to help us move forward.”

Equally important, Brint noted, is the fact that the knowledge transfer is reciprocal and Clorox has embraced the learning from the Nutranext team in the vitamin mineral supplement business and natural channel.

The learning curve shouldn’t be too steep. Both Nutranext and Clorox take pride not only in the quality of their products but also in the quality of their employees. “With happy employees, we make happy customers,” Brint notes. In integrating employees from both organizations, Brint says, she’s focusing on people and culture to align the companies’ policies, procedures, benefits, and operations.

Core to that culture is an emphasis on wellness, inherent in the foundation of both companies. “Wellness is not simply what we do; it’s who we are,” Brint says. “We take pride in knowing what we do makes a difference in the lives of our families and the community.”

That core value won’t be going away anytime soon, and Brint says that, if anything, since the Clorox acquisition, the employees she works with have been instilled with a new sense of hope. “As a small, family-owned business, we didn’t often reinvest back into

Vickie Brint VP of HR Nutranext

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“Clorox didn’t just buy us to build its bottom line. They bought us because they believed in the brands and want to continue expanding their presence in the health and wellness industry.”

VICKIE BRINT

technology, systems, and facilities,” Brint adds. “Consequently, we were lacking in a lot of areas.”

What she saw when she first arrived were the possibilities. “It was a diamond in the rough,” she says. “Now, Clorox has provided the resources for those investments, and we can feel secure knowing they’re in this for the long haul.”

The company’s headquarters in Sunrise, Florida, has already undergone a complete renovation of its first floor, a new roof, and upgrades to various facility equipment and machinery—and, next year, a renovation of the second floor is scheduled. On the personnel side, in addition to revamping the healthcare benefits package, there are new career-development opportunities for employees to move up within the company, and more than eighty new positions have been added to the company since the acquisition. Growth is expected to continue over the ensuing year.

The external partners that Brint works with have come to expect such achievements from her and her team. “Vickie’s ability to comprehend operational details and understand and support the corporate goals of her employers makes her a significant asset to the organizations she supports,” says Mike Meredith, executive vice president and senior benefits consultant at Lockton

Companies. “It is no surprise that Vickie has been pivotal in the success of the Clorox–Nutranext partnership.”

Such progress and growth is also important to Brint herself, who notes that she spent most of her career in aviation, where she dealt with the cyclical nature in that industry of hiring and building people up, only to have contracts end, resulting in layoffs and plant closures. She says working for Nutranext fulfills her desire to build strong processes and people for the future.

“I derive satisfaction from building things—from helping companies achieve organizational excellence and helping employees be their personal best and achieve their career goals,” she says. “I’m a strong advocate of paying it forward. I’ve had the benefit of achieving success in my educational and professional endeavors and want to give back to the profession that has brought me much joy.”

For thirty years, SageView Advisory Group has been proud to partner with forward-thinking individuals such as Vickie Brint to drive success within an organization through collaboration and innovation in retirement plan design, investment consulting, and financial wellness. Vickie is a trailblazer in organizational development and has the unique ability to strategically integrate all stakeholders to work together for the common goal of enhancing employee benefits, resources, communication, and overall experience.

The Laws of Attraction (and Retention)

Fiesta Restaurant Group’s Anthony Dinkins details his company’s aggressive push to attract and cultivate the best talent in the business

By WILL GRANT

According to a 2016 US Bureau of Statistics report, the average restaurant-employee turnover rate surpassed 70 percent that year, and Anthony Dinkins, senior vice president of human resources at Fiesta Restaurant Group, says that in key markets for brands such as Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana, those numbers may be closer to between 130 and 160 percent.

Add to that consistently low unemployment numbers (the Austin, Texas, market is currently flirting with the possibility of 2 percent), and it’s enough to raise alarms in the restaurant world.

Dinkins wants to harness his HR experience, cultivated in a number of different industries such as communications and cruise lines, to enhance Fiesta Restaurant Group’s recruitment and retention efforts.

“There is no organizational challenge that Tony does not have the experience, the character, and the courage to face and resolve,” say Amy Acker and Maryanne DiMarzo, cofounders of Beacon People Solutions. “The field of HR is honored by his association.”

Here’s a look at how Dinkins reached the company and how he’s making a difference in the lives of all its employees, from restaurant managers to those on the front lines.

Anthony Dinkins SVP of Human Resources

Fiesta Restaurant Group

INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION

Employee hiring shortages across the restaurant sector require unique and novel approaches in both recruiting and retention. Dinkins fine-tuned his skill set at Carnival Cruise Lines, where he gained experience handling high-volume hiring for the more than six hundred employee call centers.

“Those call centers were your sales engine, so it was essential to keep those rolls staffed,” Dinkins says. It also gave him vital experience working with a large group of staff whose wages were at entry level (with high incentive compensation opportunity) and whose turnover was significant.

Dinkins developed his experience further at Cable & Wireless Communications, where customer engagement and experience were once again essential concerns. Dinkins says he also learned firsthand about how a company can make a positive impact by becoming an active presence within the communities in which it operates.

On the governance side, Dinkins spent time working on board-related matters at multinational software company Citrix, which he says was a useful addition to his toolbox.

A FULL-SCALE ASSAULT

Fiesta Restaurant Group has made a number of innovative and aggressive moves

to bolster and maintain its attraction and retention policies.

“We have a great executive leadership team and a very creative, high-energy leader of the recruiting team,” Dinkins says, adding that the company continues to look for outside partners through which to source and attract new talent. Fiesta’s partnerships with Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and Snagajob have helped drive talent in its direction. “We want to be visible where candidates are inclined to look,” Dinkins says. “My hat is off to the recruiting team in the work they’re doing to try and come up with new ideas and creative ways of doing that.”

Fiesta also recently boosted its employee referral bonus program in an effort to recruit further through the company’s best promoters: its workers. “The best retention tool is to be surrounded by people that you’re comfortable with,” Dinkins says, adding that anyone who brings in a new hire also enjoys a cash bonus.

The Training and Development team also recently launched a career-path program. “When you have roles where people are joining—some in their first job ever—it’s important, if you want to attract and retain talent, to show them how they can grow in as specific terms as possible,” Dinkins says. “The career pathing actually shows how you can grow, learn, and establish new skills from different positions within the restaurant so that a motivated entry-level team member can become a manager in two years.” Dinkins believes these milestone denotations will provide a clear message that Fiesta Group is serious about developing its talent into future leaders.

In addition, Fiesta’s Military Veterans Program is in its early developmental stages, and Dinkins says it will fast-track viable candidates through the careerpathing program. “We know the military

teaches very valuable life and leadership skills,” he says. “We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do, and we want to give people an opportunity to transition into civilian life in a meaningful way.”

RETENTION THROUGH REGARD

In a unique move within its industry, Fiesta is also providing its restaurant managers with equity in the company. “Our restaurant managers are the lifeline to our business and our customer ambassadors,” Dinkins says. “We want them to benefit as the company grows and succeeds.”

He adds that he’s proud that, at the teammember level, Fiesta is offering voluntary medical and short-term disability benefits in a partnership with Allstate. “A majority of our employees are part-time workers, and it’s important to be able to provide some type of affordable support for these members of our team,” Dinkins says.

The company’s crown jewel and defining program is the Fiesta Family Foundation. The internally funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit assists employees who have been hit with hardship or who have special financial needs. When Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma hit the South in 2017, for instance, “we were able to support our employees financially and get them back on their feet,” Dinkins says.

In 2018, Pollo Tropical celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, and Taco Cabana celebrated its fortieth. Dinkins says both brands have been able to thrive because of the familial and respectful atmosphere of Fiesta, and he pledges he’ll continue to do more by focusing on metrics such as promotion rates, succession planning, and restaurant staffing levels. Ultimately, he says, it’s about keeping the company’s best.

“You’re not going to be able to hire your way into success,” Dinkins says. “Retention is key.”

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Best Behaviors

Maryanne DiMarzo and Amy Acker discuss the leadership concepts highlighted in

their book,

Hidden

Talents, and the principles that

bring them success at Beacon People Solutions

By BILLY YOST

The founding partners of Beacon People Solutions have a combined sixty years of experience in human resources at literally every level of the function.

“We went from the ground floor to the penthouse in HR,” Maryanne DiMarzo, one of the company’s partners, notes. After successfully helping take their last company public, DiMarzo and Beacon cofounder Amy Acker figured they’d finally climbed their last mountain and opted for retirement, but it was short-lived.

“Former colleagues just kept calling asking for help on a number of different issues,” Acker says. “Eventually, I was able to talk Maryanne into coming to a couple of engagements, and we both caught the bug.”

The two leveraged their all-phases experience into Beacon People Solutions, which specializes in leadership development, HR solutions, and executive coaching. Their new book, Hidden Talents, identifies sixteen combinations of behaviors that DiMarzo says inhibit executive growth. By identifying those behaviors, the founders believe they can accomplish Beacon’s overarching mission of helping people realize that they were born whole with all the talents they need to succeed.

Hidden Talents, which is broken down into four sections, contains examples of the behaviors (or “tools,” as the book labels them) and

Maryanne DiMarzo Cofounder and Partner Beacon People Solutions

ways in which changing one’s perspective can be self-remedying. The book highlights stories of sixteen leaders who taught themselves to change their perspective and to access tools they had previously ignored.

“Due to behavioral preferences, we often ignore the whole other side of ourselves,” DiMarzo says. “There are stories of triumph here, but they’re triumphs because they had it in them all along.” Phil Reid

BUILDING FOLLOWERSHIP THROUGH EMPATHY

“When you say the word empathy, most people are thinking about sympathy,” DiMarzo says. “Empathy is the ability to project into another person’s viewpoint and see and understand what they need to hear and feel in order to follow you.”

DiMarzo says that she and Acker have seen too many leaders rely on hierarchy, and that differentiating between complying and committing is mandatory for effective leadership.

“When you comply with somebody, you’re giving them your behavior,” DiMarzo explains. “When you commit to somebody, you’re giving them your heart. When you’re leading somebody into the future which is ambiguous and scary, you have to capture that heart.”

LEVERAGING WHITE SPACE CONNECTIONS

“The fact is that when something breaks in an organization, it’s probably not in anybody’s responsibility box on the organization chart,” DiMarzo says. “It’s frequently something that exists in white space between the boxes.”

The challenge is cultivating leaders who can ride the difficult wave between choosing to do nothing and choosing to do everything. “Amy calls this the seagull approach,” DiMarzo says. “They see the issue, they swoop down and get the right people involved, then they fly back up to a position of oversight.”

Good leaders are willing to address problems that may not intrinsically fall within their responsibility on the organization chart, and they also know how to handle and manage these problems without taking over completely.

FORWARDING THE ACTION TO ADVANCE THE BUSINESS

“We had forty executives in a room, and I kept asking ‘What problem are you solving?’ and I’d get a different problem back every time,” DiMarzo says. “I kept saying, ‘No solutions until you align on the problem.’ They were ready to kill me.”

It took two hours for the executives to align on exactly what problem they were trying to solve, though it had been an issue for years. After properly identifying it, they solved it in seven minutes.

Amy Acker

Cofounder and Partner

Beacon People Solutions

“Alignment on the problem is the most critical part of the problem-solving process,” Acker says.

BUILDING AUTONOMY AND FUTURE READINESS

“Leaders are promoted early in their career for doing everything,” DiMarzo says. “They get to a certain level of the organization, and they’re told to stop doing and to start leading.”

This can be jarring for executives who have accomplished strictly by doing, and Beacon focuses on cultivating leaders who can create independent employees.

“You don’t just want to create little replicas of yourself, because the best you’re going to get is the second-greatest version of you that was ever created,” DiMarzo says. “The really good leaders are continually developing their teams for the future, making them more independent in the present, so they are ready for what comes their way.”

Acker says that although it may sound funny coming from a consultant, Beacon People Solutions’ ideal outcome is when they’re no longer necessary.

“Whether we’re helping build capability in an individual, a team, or an organization, we go into engagements hoping to eventually become secondary to the growth that is occurring,” she says, adding that she recalls a team that was having difficulty with problem solving. The team eventually became so amazed at their own findings, the planned agenda went completely out the window. “They learned a new language and a new way to identify their issues. They didn’t need us to help them work through it at that point.”

That autonomy, says DiMarzo, speaks back to the main goal of Beacon People Solutions.

“Our role is to lead out of people what is already there, because once it’s freed up, their leadership and effectives become much, much greater,” she says.

“Developing a culture that people want to be part of”

Dan

Keefe,

EVP of HR at Reynolds Consumer Products, recruits and retains employees by selling work-life balance

By DAVID LEVINE

In 2010, three of the most famous brands in America, Reynolds (think aluminum foil), Presto (think sandwich bags) and Hefty (think trash bags), joined together as one company: Reynolds Consumer Products. The match made sense commercially, but blending companies is never easy.

“Ownership put these together and said, ‘Now you’re a company,’” notes Dan Keefe, executive vice president of human resources for Reynolds Consumer Products. “But it’s like finding three guys who are strangers and saying, ‘You are now brothers.’ It was just about that hectic for the start-up. There was no common language, no common practices and, frankly, no common products.”

The challenge for the company’s executives, including Keefe, was to integrate those pieces of business to the point where, he says, “it’s on its way to becoming one of the most successful companies in America.”

Keefe, who works out of Reynolds Consumer Products’ home office in Lake Forest, Illinois, joined the company as VP of HR in 2011 with a long career in HR and manufacturing on his résumé. He assumed his current title in 2018, and his team includes HR, legal, EHS, and

communications. He says he finds value in structuring his department that way.

“It’s a little unique having these under one umbrella, but a real offshoot of that is getting to the right outcome in a variety of issues, both strategic and tactical,” Keefe notes. “Having high-quality expertise from multiple perspectives is invaluable. It makes us much more likely to get to the right outcome.”

The company’s biggest focus is on safety. The company has a world-class safety record for food contact manufacturing and continues to press for zero accidents. “We want people to go home from work in the same healthy condition they arrived,” Keefe says. “We work very hard to make it a part of the culture.”

The reason the company is thriving comes down to culture. “Developing a culture that people want to be part of has been the linchpin of making us successful,” he says. “We do all things you should do in terms of recruiting, talent acquisition, and retention, but our biggest sell is being part of the Reynolds culture.”

He stresses the unique opportunity of joining a $3 billion company that is relatively new and still developing and notes that the people who come in have a chance to

Dan Keefe EVP of HR

Reynolds Consumer Products

make a real impact, and in turn, the company seeks employees to make immediate contributions to creating the culture.

“We talk a lot about owning your own career,” he says. “If you were looking for a new job, you network and market yourself. We want people to think about that internally, owing their career inside Reynolds just as if they were looking for new opportunity outside.”

The company’s learning and development group has expanded opportunities, he says. One of the primary ways employees contribute to the culture is through an internal group called Strategy Integrators, who are a team of thirty-four cross-functional employees who discuss the coming year’s strategies with all salaried employees and seek out their insights.

“That has been an incredible investment of time, energy, and money, but it ensures our

whole group is aligned, and we get feedback about how to improve the company and what matters to people,” he notes, adding that for the past five years, the company’s action plans have been set by feedback from Strategy Integrators’ recommendations. “We don’t hire outside advisors. We prioritize the feedback we get from employees, and the results from that are just outstanding.”

One of the things that matters most to the company is work-life balance, and CEO Lance Mitchell tells employees he wants to make sure family life prospers and thrives as much as their careers. The entire executive team makes it a priority and leads by example with their own families.

“It’s a win-win, because that balance is essential,” Keefe says. “When employees are engaged with work and family, everything works better.”

Outsmarting Adversity

How Bill Fisher and the Crosby team strengthened the company’s industry position during hard economic times

By CHARLOTTE FOER

In 2014, the year Bill Fisher joined the Crosby Group (Crosby) as chief legal and compliance officer, the company saw its most profitable year in history. It had recently been acquired by the private-equity company, KKR, who saw that Crosby had tremendous growth potential. In addition to being a global leader in the lifting and rigging industry, its market was stable and fruitful. Then, the market changed. By the end of 2014 and into 2015, oil and gas suppliers had experienced a substantial drop in demand for their product. As prices in the industry continued to wane, companies throughout the world felt the impact and were forced to respond to the downturn in the market. Although Crosby serves a highly diverse industry base, the downturn in oil and gas presented unique challenges to the company that Fisher and his colleagues were prepared to address.

“We went from the highest of highs to having to assess and change our strategic direction,” he recalls. “We had to make some really tough decisions to make sure that we would thrive as a company once the markets recovered.”

During this time of market challenges, the company hired a new CEO, who promoted Fisher to chief human resources officer in addition to his legal and compliance responsibilities. Together, Fisher, the senior management team, and all team members changed the culture of the company from an “action-based” culture to a “results-based” one.

According to Fisher, changing the culture required team members to shift how they viewed success in their own personal positions. Instead of performing legacy tasks that may have been around for years, each employee was challenged to focus on what actually generated results to the bottom line of Crosby. “It was extremely rewarding

to see the transformation of how our team members viewed their positions and how they could directly effect change in the organization,” Fisher says.

The company began focusing more on data metrics to track successes and, more importantly, opportunities for improvement. “Taking a more strategic approach to how we made business decisions and how we collaborated with each other as a team got us through the economic downturn, and as a result, we are well positioned as a company going forward,” Fisher says. “This could not have been done without a highly skilled, dedicated, and motivated group of professionals. It was truly a team effort.”

When Fisher joined Crosby, he was the first in-house attorney in the company’s history. As such, it was important to him to learn about the business and the challenges it faced. “As Crosby’s first in-house attorney,” Fisher says, “I was concerned that I would be viewed as a barrier to the

“I am always receptive to anyone with questions and willing to guide them in the right direction.”

BILL FISHER

company’s long-standing success. I wanted our team members to see me as a trusted business partner who just happened to have a legal background. I do not generate revenue for our business; it is my responsibility to ensure that our commercial and operations teams are making the best decisions for the overall success of the company.

“Sometimes, my most important role is to act as a sounding board on how we go about executing on our strategy,” he continues. “I make sure that I have an open door, so I am always receptive to anyone with questions and willing to guide them in the right direction, even if their questions aren’t about legal matters.”

Having led a larger legal department at his previous company, Fisher says that this time of his career has been the most professionally challenging and personally rewarding. He is part of a talented team whose members showcase their commitment to Crosby’s cause on a daily basis. Today, the company’s

Bill Fisher Chief Human Resources, Legal, & Compliance Officer

The Crosby Group

sights are solely focused on the future and the opportunities it brings.

“It’s time to celebrate the hard work and perseverance that we’ve maintained throughout the years,” he says. “We’ve always been focused on providing quality products and doing what is best for our customers—this will always be how we guide our business decisions. Our talented team members will continue to make that their highest priority.”

As the dedicated team members of Crosby work together, they’re reminded that with the diligence and tenacity ingrained in all of them, anything is possible.

We congratulate our friend Bill Fisher at Crosby for his achievements and well-deserved recognition. As one of the largest US-based firms, Haynes and Boone LLP has achieved significant growth because of our ability to collaborate with clients to solve problems, and we thank Bill for giving us that opportunity with Crosby. haynesboone.com

Inciting the Flywheel of Change

Mathematica chief administrative officer Adam Coyne is strengthening the company’s core values using his head, heart, and hands

By KC ESPER

Adam Coyne stepped into the role of chief administrative officer at Mathematica Policy Research and immediately recognized a need to formalize its culture. He entered the company at a time when many longstanding executives in the business were retiring, and recognized that fresh insights were necessary to sustain the company’s lifeblood.

“Everyone liked the culture,” he recalls. “But we didn’t have a common language of what that culture was.”

This lack of understanding set Coyne on a quest, seeking creative ways to update, define, and reinforce Mathematica’s purpose in a holistic manner. His external partners have been impressed with the effort. “Where there is a healthy culture and a strong sense of purpose, success follows,” says Tony Soprano, a senior consultant for the Mid-Atlantic Region for Arthur J. Gallagher & Company. “Adam has always recognized that. He knows better than anyone how a meaningful message can engage and energize employees.”

A natural storyteller, Coyne treated this undertaking as though he were designing the outline of the company’s future. What is the message behind Mathematica’s work? Which values act overwhelmingly like protagonists to strengthen the company’s mission? Which values act more like supporting characters?

Once these questions were answered, details to support specific values would fill in naturally. To successfully develop the company’s new and improved culture, he used a leadership method that combined the “Three H’s”: head, heart, and hands.

Adam Coyne Chief Administrative Officer

Mathematica Policy Research

Rich Clement

HEAD

The first step in defining a culture relies on initially assessing a need, then mapping how to arrive at a final product. To Coyne, the “head” includes determining a strategy and vision to correct a problem.

“Every plan should start with a clear sense of where you want to take things,” he says. “It’s impossible to get people to follow if they don’t know what direction they are going.”

When he first started at Mathematica, Coyne had a strong idea of the changes he wanted to make. The most important ingredient to a problem-solving strategy, however, is consensus from his team. Gathering his team’s perspectives on a pinpointed issue allows him to not only “notice pieces to the puzzle he hadn’t considered,” but also allows his team “to help shape the solution.”

Through this process, he recognized strategic disconnects in processes in the realm of benefits, IT and data-analytics strategy, and training and development programs. Employees, for example, were interested in more transparent, versatile health benefits options. They were also interested in on-demand training courses and a formal mentoring program.

Staff inherently understood that technology was integral to the company’s future but didn’t know what that looked like. In terms of culture, Coyne noticed that values held in high esteem among some employees weren’t considered integral to others, causing a lack of harmony in determining the merit of

certain values. With these notes in mind, he was able to strategize how to appropriately define a culture that applied to everyone.

HEART

Once he’d assessed the need to specify values and address problem areas, Coyne started to conceptualize how to convey his purpose to the team. He says the “heart” portion of his strategy speaks to why his team should follow. “It’s empathy,” he notes.

It’s the area where Coyne shows his team why he is passionate about changing a specific practice or accentuating a certain value, and how their lives and culture will improve as a result. Coyne believes this part of the equation is crucial in proving his passion for a project.

“If you don’t genuinely believe in what you are doing and have the passion and commitment to get there, your people will know,” he says.

In other words, a team member should never wonder why they are following someone’s lead. Excitement to work on a project should trickle down the ladder from executive to associate, and never lose meaning or purpose.

HANDS

When the seeds of the project are planted, the next step is to begin. The “hands” portion of the plan, Coyne says, means rolling up your sleeves and getting the work done. Undoubtedly, this stage changes based on the project.

For a structural change, Coyne stresses the importance of collecting all essential players in the game, and emphasizing to team members along the way that they are not alone in finding a solution. Establishing values, on the other hand, meant that Coyne’s next step after creating a new language for Mathematica was to ensure that everyone knew how to speak it.

He distributed brochures that detailed the new values and expected behaviors, then walked through the information at an “allhands” meeting so that everyone understood it. The company also created a culture page on their intranet where staff could find the values and supporting behaviors.

In addition to intellectually driving the new principles in place, Coyne encouraged his staff to literally use their hands to learn the language using customized Rubik’s cubes that had the core values on them. The project was not only whimsical and fun, but also aligned closely with the company’s brand identity as intellectuals.

Throughout all aspects of business strategy, and even sometimes in his personal life, Coyne remembers to act with the “Three H’s” in mind. Using this method, Coyne says that he has built legions of new knowledge, gained empathy for the work each staff member does, and earned different levels of respect from his colleagues. His compassionate outlook for his team provided value to all levels of the operation and stimulated the flywheel of good change.

A better workplace attracts, engages and retains top talent at the right cost. It centers on strategic investments in your employees’ health, financial wellbeing and career growth. And it utilizes data, helping gather insights and apply best practices that promote productivity, growth and an exceptional culture.

With Gallagher Better WorksSM, you’ll optimize your annual talent investment and mitigate organizational risk to maximize profitability. Because while your best is finite, your better is never finished.

To learn more, contact Gallagher today. © 2019 Arthur

Growing Together at Coalfire

CHRO Leslie Jones uses the power of unity to build a culture of initiative that drives the company toward sustainable success

By CHARLOTTE FOER

Leslie Jones lives her life to the fullest. She enjoys tackling any challenge, pursuing any adventure, and leading any expedition. These passions shine through in her love for hiking, mountaineering, and ice climbing and, over time, these have illuminated throughout her career. Translating these passions into her job was not an obvious decision—at first. It was a challenging mountain climbing experience in Nepal nearly fifteen years ago that led Jones to realize how valuable her experiences could be in a business context.

Halfway through a climbing trip in the Everest region of Nepal, Jones and her group were abandoned by their guide because of a serious misstep in communication, in addition to several other factors. With no expert guiding them, Jones and her team had to join forces and work together to return to safety. This unforgettable experience taught Jones the importance of teamwork to successfully accomplish difficult tasks. She wanted to translate this same mentality into her work, inspiring her to adapt her career into one that

Leslie Jones CHRO Coalfire

Kate McKinley

centers on the power of unity and inspires others to lead.

“My experience in Nepal drove a number of big life decisions,” explains Jones, who had earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University prior to the climb. “I decided to get my executive coaching certification, pursue my master’s degree in leadership, and start a family. I knew I wanted to coach others to be leaders formally or informally. After seeing the best in individuals come out in a challenging situation, I wanted to find a way to help others be successful in everyday situations in the workplace.”

Human resources provided Jones a platform to impart her coaching expertise to impact employees’ lives and careers. As she moved through her own career, she discovered a particular fascination in the technology industry. Eventually her love for HR, technology, and cybersecurity led her to Coalfire, where she now stands as its chief human resources officer.

She enjoys the dynamic nature of cybersecurity and the excitement of moving with the future as it unfolds in front of her.

At Coalfire, Jones’s goal is to channel her Nepal experience to demonstrate that organizations run more effectively when every moving piece works together. “It’s important to bring together a team of people you can trust and depend on throughout the journey,” she says. “A true leader finds strengths in her or his team members and empowers them to grow into the best they can be to achieve personal and organizational goals—to contribute in a way that drives individual purpose and collective success.”

Within Coalfire’s community, she stresses the importance of bringing together a workforce that drives each other toward prosperity. On her own team, she emphasizes

honesty, connectivity, and progression. Together, Jones and her team have helped the company to embody a people-centric culture that guides employees through organizational and personal goals throughout their career paths.

During her time, Coalfire has provided opportunities for its people to receive technical certifications, participate in leadership development programs and soft skills trainings, and be given career development opportunities. Jones has also been active in helping Coalfire launch programs like Fusion, which helps increase interdepartmental collaboration, and Flight Club, which tracks flight mileage for business travel and rewards employees who have logged extensive hours. Both of these initiatives have built a sense of partnership and appreciation within Coalfire’s community that then translates holistically into the work it does for its customers.

“It’s critical to have a strong peoplefocused infrastructure in place so that we can be proactive in partnering and consulting with our people and leaders to deliver the best business results,” Jones offers. “We have created a collaborative environment that enables an innovative culture and allows us to support and grow together.”

As Coalfire moves toward its progressive future, Jones looks forward to continuing her strong working partnership with the CEO and her peers, and helping the organization continue to drive a constant evolution of the its culture because “remaining static is not an option.” Jones places trust in her colleagues, and offers them support and direction along the way. She hopes to channel the power found within each individual to build a meaningful, engaging, vibrant environment that allows Coalfire to propel toward continued success.

A “Shoe-in” for Talent Management

Designer Brands’ Karen Cho uses her knack for adapting to teach leaders how to attract and retain talent in retail’s progressive industry

By KC ESPER

There are few industries as evolutionary as retail. Every move must be calculated to satisfy the ever-changing need of the consumer, the logistics of the products, and the specific needs of the business itself.

Footwear retailer DSW itself has made major moves to adapt to the changing retail landscape. In 2018, its parent company DSW Inc. acquired two companies, Canadian footwear retailer The Shoe Company and footwear sourcing and design company Camuto Group. In March 2019, to reflect its new position as one of North America’s largest designers, producers, and retailers of footwear and accessories, DSW Inc. rebranded itself as Designer Brands.

While all this change may seem intimidating, Karen Cho is up for the challenge. With over twenty-five years of experience, Cho has witnessed the evolutions of retail from industry to industry, gathering insights on not only how the market thrives, but also how the consumer buys—a practice Cho likens to “running down the sidewalk while pouring the cement.”

Prior to moving into her current position as vice president of corporate human resources for Designer Brands, Cho worked at Apple for eleven years leading recruiting teams as Apple expanded their retail presence across North America and Asia Pacific. There, she learned how to attract and retain talent in the industry, while also showing the ways employees’ careers can develop once they are in a position. Her purpose was to guide her team to feel empowered to make decisions and adapt quickly to change—to grant them a sense of purpose and direction.

At Designer Brands, Cho has carried this mentality into her recruiting efforts by giving DSW’s store leaders the tools they need to encourage and support their team members. From both a corporate and store level, employees are given career maps that describe the competencies necessary to

Karen Cho VP of Corporate HR

Designer Brands

“Our talent is our greatest asset and our greatest competitive advantage. Continuing to develop our most important resource is critical not only for our associates’ personal development, but also for its impact on the company as a whole.”

KAREN CHO

explore different roles and expand their career portfolios, allowing them to grow. Cho and her team’s goal is to make talent management a specialized priority by moving its function beyond just HR and instead into the hands of every leader inside the business.

“Anyone managing one person or five hundred people is accountable for creating a goal around how they’re going to better manage the talent of their team,” Cho describes. “That goal can be personalized for individuals who are figuring out how to network externally to grow in a particular function, or it may be working with us to figure out how we can develop skill sets internally to prepare them for their futures. It helps people think proactively around their talent needs and take ownership for whatever happens moving forward.”

Cho believes attracting and retaining talent in the retail industry stands as one of the greatest challenges any brand faces.

In an industry where many employees use their jobs as stepping stones, Cho says it is imperative to cultivate a sense of purpose to show every hire that there is a career path in their retail positions.

“Our talent is our greatest asset and our greatest competitive advantage,” Cho says. “Continuing to develop our most important resource is critical not only for our associates’ personal development, but also for its impact on the company as a whole.”

Designer Brands’ unique emphasis on celebrating self-expression allows its employees to bring their whole selves to work and feel appreciated in their role. Since Cho started at Designer Brands, she has noticed how the company’s progressive attitude toward internal development has influenced her career, as well. In just five years, she has grown from managing solely the talent management portion of HR to overseeing all aspects of the department.

Her ability to grow and adapt in her position showcases the prosperity that comes when a company invests in its team. “I have the ability to show others that potential goes beyond work experience, which has helped shape the way we look at career development planning,” Cho says. “Now, we focus on helping people get the experience they need in order to do really great things.”

In the next few years, the HR crew at Designer Brands hopes to leverage the constant change of the retail industry to appeal to the new wave of tech-savvy customers. They plan to incorporate more employees with varied skill sets outside of retail to harness the unique value their perspectives bring to the table, which translates to customers.

With the resources available to them, we can expect Cho and her team to make running down retail’s evolving sidewalk seem effortless—each equipped with a stylish pair of shoes.

IMPACT

Bringing a Business Mind-Set to HR

Marco DeThomasis uses his business background to help HR bolster its untapped potential and value

By KC ESPER

AAlthough very passionate about people and leading teams, Marco DeThomasis never imagined a career in HR. As early as he can remember, he was always curious about two things: understanding how things work and how things could work better. One would think these interests would have led him to a career as an engineer, doctor, or politician, but instead they brought him into the business world, where it all began.

Before embarking on an HR career, as a business leader, he was responsible for linking and bringing to life the synergies of strategy, structure, culture, process, and people to achieve desired business outcomes. Early on, he realized that, while the numbers matter, a business cannot stay afloat without the right human capital to support it.

“It’s the most valuable asset to any business, and the way you leverage it today and tomorrow is extremely important to driving goals and objectives,” he says. “The power and magic are in bringing the different puzzle pieces together to achieve desired results.”

At an inflection point about a decade ago, DeThomasis decided to continue to do what he does best—but from a different seat. With his personal interest in leveraging HR differently, many encouraged him to join the field and bring his business mind-set and passion to a critical component of corporate operating infrastructure. After several years as a line leader, he maneuvered into the world of HR to explore how this vital piece of the puzzle could enable a business to flourish even more.

In his current position as vice president of global HR for the pharmaceutical operations and technical division at Biogen, DeThomasis relies on his line experience, passion for people and culture, and his curious nature to bolster the untapped potential and value of HR. He channels his business mentality in a few key ways.

THINKING REALISTICALLY

Having walked in the shoes of business leaders himself, DeThomasis values simple

Marco DeThomasis VP of Global HR Biogen

and practical solutions. He sees himself as a ‘business solution architect’ whose job is to deliver the right solution, at the right time, in the most impactful way. Before initiating any HR work, he usually asks the basic questions: “What are we trying to solve? What does success look like? Why are we doing this? How will this help or advance the business? And, is this the right time?”

“HR plays an important role in the business and its sustainability, but it’s important to make sure the solutions are practical, make sense, drive impact, and have meaning to them,” DeThomasis says. “We shouldn’t do things in HR for the sake of it; we are here to serve business.”

In pursuit of helping HR be a value creator, DeThomasis believes that, regardless of what role you play in HR, you need to understand and be knowledgeable about the

business you serve. “The best way is to get out there and experience it for yourself,” he says. “To develop meaningful and value-add solutions, you need to get to know your customer and understand their current and unanticipated needs.”

Paul McKenzie, Biogen’s executive vice president of pharmaceutical operations and technology, has witnessed DeThomasis’s approach firsthand. “Marco has his finger on the pulse of our business,” McKenzie says.

“He thinks of strategies that are atypical but always implements those that make the most sense for our operations and people, based on where we are today and where we want to be. He stresses end-to-end thinking and networks broader than our organization, which makes him a strong, functional leader. Because of his business background and experience, he truly understands our

everyday challenges. He is not your typical HR guy.”

BEING A PROVOCATEUR

“Sometimes the business needs to be pushed to look at things differently,” DeThomasis says. “HR’s role is to constructively hold up mirrors and ask provocative questions to help a business and its leaders advance by gaining new perspectives.” When hiring, he looks for candidates who are not afraid to ask questions, push boundaries, and move mountains that stand in front of them.

DeThomasis accentuates the importance of staying curious, especially when faced with big problems. “You must stay curious through the process to drive the change necessary to help grow the business,” he says. “My job as a provocateur is to help the business look at the mountain in front of it, understand what it is, why it exists, and be able to look around the mountain to see what’s on the other side while figuring out the best ways to deal with the challenge or opportunity ahead of us.”

DeThomasis pushes himself and those he engages with to think differently, to be positive ringleaders who tell the truth, and to incite change by approaching problems confidently and eccentrically. “The only way to genuinely bring diversity and inclusion to fruition is to be a role model by appreciating different perspectives, pushing current thinking, and creating space for unconventional thoughts and ideas,” he says. In doing so, he teaches his team to remain undaunted by adversity and instead view it as an opportunity to make a difference.

“Marco’s unique business background— complemented by his inquisitive nature—helps us prioritize as an HR function,” says Ginger Gregory, EVP and chief HR officer at Biogen. “This thinking enables us to really step back and think about the services we provide, the impact we have on the overall employee and manager experience, and even how we advance in our overall functional capabilities to create further value to the business while growing as HR professionals.”

ALWAYS STRETCH & GROW

“To keep pace with the business,” DeThomasis says, “you need to stay current and continuously learn and grow while stretching yourself as well. You don’t want to become obsolete if you believe in yourself as a value creator.” He spends time learning about different aspects of the business while welcoming new development assignments—big or small—to stretch and grow both professionally and personally. Via his own path of self-discovery, DeThomasis has valued the importance of gaining new experiences and trying new things to help improve his overall craft and impact.

Aside from constantly seeking to develop himself, DeThomasis makes time to give back and help build the next generation of leaders. He is passionate about helping employees, peers, and leaders alike to find their natural talents and discover their untapped potential. He serves as a mentor to many employees both inside and outside HR who are willing to learn and develop. He encourages them to embark on their own path of self-discovery, just as he did.

A former manager of DeThomasis says, “He understands the ‘human’ half of ‘human capital’ because he is genuinely and unconditionally willing to invest and mentor junior professionals to rise to their full potential in the company, too. This is what makes him both a great business and HR leader.”

Because of his background and path, DeThomasis considers himself an untraditional HR professional. Although he didn’t grow-up in HR, using his business lens, he plays the role of sociologist, psychologist, political scientist, architect, economist, and more, proving that a person with many hats is the person you want on your team.

EY Health Sciences & Wellness helps our clients deliver on their strategic goals; design optimized operating models; and form the right partnerships to thrive today and succeed in the health systems of tomorrow. We work across the ecosystem, to understand the implications of trends and proactively find solutions to business issues.

Changing with the Times

At tech company Cree, Michael Beland places an emphasis on making his workers feel like important pieces of the puzzle as the company adjusts its course in multiple ways

By CLINT WORTHINGTON

Although technology firm

Cree has been innovating in the semiconductor and LED space for decades, corporate controller Michael Beland recognized several cultural elements in need of updates.

Before their new chief financial officer came in, the company’s Glassdoor ratings were fairly low; changes needed to be made to their mission statement and core values to make the company “the best place to work” to which those statements and values aspired. With Beland’s help, and that of his team and fellow managers, Cree made tremendous strides in crafting a company in which everyone involved can be proud to take part.

Beland’s background in accounting and corporate control finds frequent use in his

current role at Cree. Having worked in both corporate America and private equity at firms such as Shaw Group, Beland experienced just about every accounting issue known to man, which serves him well at a firm with so many unique challenges.

By the time he came on board to Cree, though, change was in the air, which he found exciting. With the existing CEO at the time in the process of retiring, a new CEO came in with a strong semiconductor background, shaping a new strategy for Cree’s future.

“In the past, we focused on lighting and LED products,” Beland says, adding that as the industry became more commodity-based, these products became harder to differentiate. “We couldn’t be top dog in the LED industry anymore,” so that precipitated Cree’s pivot to other areas with stronger

“If you’re not having fun, you’re going to be miserable.”

MICHAEL BELAND

Corporate Controller

growth potential—semiconductors, silicon carbide, 5G networks, and more.

In addition to the company’s outward change in direction, Cree is also working to fulfill the promise made by the company’s motto—“Cree is We.” Talking to people who’d been there before he came along, some employees described to Beland a past “bullying mentality” with factory and hourly workers, as well some managers taking a “my way or the highway” approach to communication. Under Beland’s supervision, Cree is working to shake that preconception into a more equitable, collaborative environment marked by integrity and respect.

“Do the right thing, and say thank you to employees,” Beland says.

Given his prior experience, Beland feels extremely comfortable leading these changes.

“Public accounting gives you a lot of exposure to other companies and relationships with executive management,” he says. In his time working for big-four accounting environments and Fortune 500 companies, Beland saw the pressures faced by large companies with even larger infrastructures, and the importance of cultivating loyal, engaged workers who feel respected. In occasions where VPs of other departments ask for information from one of his staff, Beland encourages them to direct their attention to him instead.

“I’ve always told my team if someone’s asking you to do something that you’re not comfortable with, have them come see me directly,” he says.

When it comes to Cree’s change in direction, Beland is working to facilitate greater automation of robotic processes

in accounting. So far, he has allocated a team member to learning Excel macros and next-generation programming languages. They also began using Wdesk financial reporting software to file FCC documents, leveraging tools to automate and link info directly into Wdesk. “[We just want to] hit F9 on our keyboard, and 90 percent of our FCC work is done,” Beland hopes.

Processes aren’t the only things being automated at Cree, however. With the support of Cree’s new chief financial officer, Beland launched several initiatives to help workers become more autonomous and take more ownership of their labor. The company put delegation of authority matrix under review and is working to push for greater decision-making from lower level employees.

Michael Beland

Cree

“If I can challenge my team to take more ownership of their area, I believe they own the entire process,” Beland says. “I trust them to make those decisions.”

This egalitarian approach to Cree’s work fits with Beland’s management style; he describes himself as an “accounting cheerleader.” First and foremost, he wants his employees to enjoy working at Cree: “If you’re not having fun, you’re going to be miserable.”

Instead of maintaining distance, he manages by walking around the office, mingling and observing everybody in action, “just to make sure everyone sees I’m visible and available if needed,” he says.

These changes, both internal and external, have the potential to bolster Cree in the coming years. With robotic process automation, Beland’s team can streamline processes to the point where financial statements take days, not weeks, to process. Internally, he’s still working every day to make his department a place where workers feel free to work and grow without pressure from himself or other execs.

By improving the way Cree treats its processes and its people, Beland wants to see a return to Cree’s passion about being first. “If we step up, Cree’s going to get it done,” he says.

The Advantage of Failing

Shyam Reddy explains how he helped resurrect BlueLinx by taking risks and not fearing the leap

By KC ESPER

For Shyam Reddy, leadership starts with approaching each problem fearlessly, whether it’s as daunting as a lion or menial as a mouse.

His philosophy centers on the beauty of failure—specifically, trying a solution, witnessing the outcome, and learning from mistakes. In other words, “fail fast and fail forward,” he says.

He’s had ample opportunity to apply this philosophy at BlueLinx, where he’s had to take calculated risks to help the company’s leadership team execute on a turnaround strategy. When the fiscal future of the company started to look grim, the board hired Mitch Lewis, the CEO, to correct the company’s course. He put together a new leadership team that included Reddy, whose initial role in 2015 was senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary. He was later promoted to chief administrative officer, general counsel, and corporate secretary after assuming leadership of the human resources department.

Most recently, Reddy was asked to serve as chief transformation officer, to lead the integration of the $1.4 billion Cedar Creek business purchased by BlueLinx in the

spring of 2018 that he helped negotiate as general counsel.

The award-winning acquisition of Cedar Creek—a competitor in the industry— increased BlueLinx’s profitability immensely. BlueLinx told the market that the transaction would generate at least $50 million in synergies, and the market reacted favorably and drove the stock price up considerably. At one point, during the turnaround and prior to the acquisition, BlueLinx was trading at $3 on a post-split basis ($.30 on a presplit basis) and in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Soon after the merger was announced, the price surpassed $30.

With the details of the acquisition now settled, Reddy sat down recently to discuss the specifics of BlueLinx’s new and improved structure and environment.

What did BlueLinx do to put itself in a position to acquire Cedar Creek?

We engaged in some of the most intellectually stimulating, eye-popping negotiations to restructure our debt and deleverage the business. We did that by embarking on a journey to rationalize our stockkeeping units

to eliminate unprofitable product lines and monetize our real estate to pay down the CMBS debt. We also invested in sales excellence and pricing teams to enhance margin. Ultimately, we deleveraged the balance sheet considerably by increasing EBITDA and reducing debt, which accelerated the comeback of the company. Eventually, we did more than fifteen real estate transactions in eighteen months to pay off $160 million in commercial mortgage-backed securities debt. We also took a lot of working capital out of the business to reduce additional debt.

What was your thinking behind the acquisition itself?

While some saw the acquisition of another big-name company as a major roll of the dice, I thought it was a no-brainer from a strategic standpoint. It would strengthen BlueLinx’s customer-service proposition by expanding our product offering and geographic footprint—while increasing shareholder value. And, it’s not a total gamble because though I’m leading the integration, my choices are informed greatly by my team’s experience-based opinions and contributions. Through open communication, practical

delegation, and positive feedback, I and the rest of my team have been able to integrate the two companies much faster than other companies typically do.

What adjustments did BlueLinx make to ensure the acquisition of Cedar Creek was successful? We knew there was opportunity for a more financially stable, stronger company operating together, but combining a $1.4 billion business with a $1.8 billion business doesn’t come easy. In the beginning, you have two separate companies, with two separate IT systems, two different HR systems, two different payroll systems, two different cultures, two different brands. Just like you wouldn’t own two homes in one city, if you’re being intentional about it, you wouldn’t own two warehouses—two distribution facilities—in the same market, unless it was absolutely necessary from an operational standpoint. Basically, we had to rationalize these two, interconnected businesses to successfully consolidate them into one.

We stood up a dedicated integration management office composed of some of the best executives, associates, and analysts from across the business to ensure a successful integration. We aligned our talent with specific objectives and initiatives that would generate at least $50 million in synergies. We overcommunicated to the entire workforce on a regular basis, created a new organizational structure, and held ourselves accountable to results. Most importantly, we supported our associates and were disciplined about execution. All of this helped keep the organization intact during a disruptive post-merger period.

How has BlueLinx’s vision for itself changed?

The vision at the beginning of my tenure was “We have to save this company.” When we won the award for Transaction of the Year, it was a bookend to a long journey over the past few years. The award recognized the perseverance, dedication, and resilience of, basically, more than 1,600 associates who never lost faith in the fundamentals of the organization, the leadership team, the mission at hand, and the possibilities of the company. We have come a long way in the last four to five years. As a result of the turnaround and the acquisition, we’re now stronger, leaner, and better positioned for success. We’re able to focus on expansion, growth, more acquisitions, and a host of other activities that deepen our relationship with customers and allow us to play an even stronger role in helping folks live out the American Dream through homeownership.

How has your personal vision of good leadership changed since the beginning of your career?

SVP and Chief Transformation Officer

I want to empower people to take risks. Regardless of the extent to which they fail, just fail fast and fail forward. Don’t make the same mistake twice; learn from those mistakes, then improve.

Likewise, I think it’s important for leaders to own up to mistakes. I’m quick to say I made a mistake, apologize, and own it. When you do that, then others will do the same. It promotes a culture where people are open and transparent. At the same time, because it’s open, you’re encouraging people to take risks and be innovative. You’re creating a culture where everybody strives for excellence and doesn’t tolerate mediocrity. Ultimately, if you can embrace teamwork, integrity, continuous improvement, and innovation, you can lead a company in a way that’s meaningful and personally rewarding. It’s not just management, it’s not just leadership—it’s about the principles and values underlying both.

Shyam Reddy

BlueLinx

How has your approach to collaboration influenced the way you lead?

The more interactions you have with people, the more you realize that there are a lot of people out there who have better ideas than you do. They’re able to leverage their perspectives in ways you never would have considered because you haven’t had the same life experience they’ve had. If you have a diversity of thought in a room and a diversity of experiences in the room, then you and the team are more likely to come up with creative solutions to problems.

Typically, I’m very extroverted and generally uncomfortable with silence. But as a leader, I’ve learned over time to listen more, and it has been one of the best improvements I’ve made. I’ve learned so much more. In this job, collaboration has forced me to employ talent in new and exciting ways to see how amazingly capable and brilliant people are when you cultivate their strengths.

In order to fail fast and look toward the future, to what extent do you still have to reflect on the past?

You have to look to the past, but you cannot let it dictate the future. In this case, we reflected on each company’s past and took the best from both histories to create something new and special. Learn from mistakes and look at trends in history to avoid future mistakes. There are so many kernels of wisdom you can pull from how previous problems have been solved to solve the problem right in front of you. Continuous improvement entails looking behind you only so you can see what you can improve to move forward and succeed.

MAKING OUR CLIENTS’ BUSINESSES BETTER

Lockton helps companies protect their people, property and reputations. For over five decades, our clients have depended on our risk management, employee benefits and retirements services expertise, helping them take risks and grow.

We congratulate Shyam Reddy on this well-deserved honor. We have had the privilege of working with Shyam for many years, and appreciate the opportunity to support him and the Bluelinx team.

King & Spalding congratulates Shyam on this well-deserved honor. He is an inspirational leader who is respected at the highest levels for his intellect, judgment, vision, and empathy. We have had the privilege of working with Shyam for many years and appreciate the opportunity to support him and the BlueLinx team.

Translating Opportunity into Prosperity

COO Darryl Shelton uses his passion for education to guide the future leaders of America at Christian Schools International and beyond

By KC ESPER

Daily, Darryl Shelton integrates his passions for learning, teaching, and connecting to help carry forward the mission at Christian Schools International (CSI). The organization is devoted to providing programs and services to likeminded schools across the country, and through his work for it as chief operating officer, Shelton has also had the opportunity to empower others to become leaders and reach goals of their own. Recently, he sat down with Profile to discuss how he developed his leadership philosophies and how he’s passing

them along to others through CSI, Davenport University’s Institute for Professional Excellence (IPEx), and more.

PATH TO LEADERSHIP

Early in Shelton’s career, he stood as the executive director of both high school recruitment and alumni relations for Davenport University. As education always has been of great importance to him, he cherished opportunities to work directly with students to help point them toward their future successes.

Interestingly enough, he eventually realized he could transfer those skills to future leaders in education and business. He worked

to support “middle leaders”—people who were on their way to moving up the ranks but had not yet taken the next step—to provide them with his expertise. He channeled his proficiency in critical thinking and empathy to direct individuals to pursue their upward journeys.

Shelton’s mission today is to equip his mentees with the tools they need to properly guide their teams and themselves to success, while understanding how change affects the people they work with. He recognizes the value of individuality and encourages mentees to channel it to accomplish their foreseeable goals. “People must be smartgoal oriented,” he says. “In other words, they

Jennie King

Darryl Shelton COO

Christian Schools International

must create targeted, nonambiguous, reachable, timely goals. These are the things that motivate me and motivate others because they know what they are working toward and can see the end of the road.”

LEADERSHIP AT CSI

When Shelton transferred into his current position as COO for CSI, he took responsibility for three of the four main services at the company: accreditation, leadership development, and curriculum and instruction. As he oversees these operations, he tackles problems by using a keen sense of observation. He firmly believes that learning a definition for a problem is the most important step to finding an answer. He largely accredits his approach to Albert Einstein’s mantra: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I would spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”

Shelton keeps this strategy in mind when he calls on his team to solve problems, as well. “I want my team to observe and assess the components of a problem,” he says. “Then, from there, we can use best-practice decisions to move forward.” When presented with a new issue, Shelton emphasizes that everyone should be involved in the problem-solving process. He encourages his team to sit down together to brainstorm and make decisions. While maintaining a sense of independence among his team members, he continually supports their choices and remains a source of empowerment along the way.

LEADERSHIP AT IPEX

In addition to his professional career at CSI, Shelton devotes time to leadership and coaching at Davenport University’s IPEx. He calls IPEx a “game changer that helped him become a servant leader,” and through it, he has been able to help both inexperienced and experienced leaders in all walks of life. His mentorship efforts there have ignited his passion to guide future leaders to success.

At IPEx, Shelton channels his twenty-five years of professional experience to empathize with the experiences of each individual he works with, and he shows them how to become lucrative leaders. He uses his and their backgrounds to “paint a picture to help future

“I want to model behaviors that I expect from my mentees.”

DARRYL SHELTON

business leaders understand why they are who they are and why they do what they do,” he says. “By the end of the training, these amazing future leaders are able to realize the kinds of goals that will help them rise to the occasion and achieve prosperity.” Shelton adds that his mentorship work inspires him to continually flourish in his own career, as well.

“When I facilitate these sessions, I ask myself, ‘What can I apply to my job?’” he says. “I am passionate about constantly growing in my career, so I take advantage of any professional leadership development training, networking event, and educational reading I can. I want to model behaviors that I expect from my mentees.”

SHELTON’S LEADERSHIP FUTURE

he hopes to transfer the same mentality to his employees and students. “Thriving in life means putting yourself in an uncomfortable spot,” he says. “Be a little risky or take on something you’re not sure you can do.” He encourages his mentees to step outside their comfort zone, think outside the box, and challenge themselves to grow.

He plans to always transfer these passions into his work—and hopefully even extend them beyond the realm of each organization. In the future, Shelton hopes to expand IPEx nationally so that aspiring leaders all over the country can have access to it as a resource. He wants to take advantage of the opportunities he was given throughout his career and allow others to have similar experiences to leverage their passions. To Shelton, leading with integrity and passion is the ultimate form of success—and he has achieved it.

As Shelton continues to search for new ways to enrich his personal and work life, Jennie King

Preaching the Patent Gospel

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Henry Hadad believes protecting innovators now is the only way to ensure life-saving breakthroughs in the future

By JEREMY BORDEN

Henry Hadad had an audience and a chance, if he wanted it, to address the slipping state of patent protection in the US and around the world.

As president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, Hadad took the opportunity to rally those who seek to protect the work of innovators. “We as stewards of the system need to look beyond the interests of today for our clients and look to the longterm interests of our country,” he remembers telling the large crowd. “What should we be doing for this system?”

A member of the association told him afterward he sounded “like a patent evangelist.” And, there’s a bit of truth to that.

“I really believe in it, and I want to leave the industry in as strong a position as I can,” says Hadad, who is the senior vice president and deputy general counsel at pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb. “Without predictable and meaningful intellectual

property, new therapies will not exist, period.” This is especially true when it comes to biopharmaceuticals.

Companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb will spend billions over decades to develop new biopharmaceutical drugs and therapies. Ensuring a reasonable period of exclusivity is critical to fund research to discover and develop the next generation of life-saving innovation medicines, Hadad says, and it’s a cycle that must be protected. “The biopharmaceutical area is the most reliant on intellectual property to maintain its innovation cycle,” Hadad says.

As innovation in the biopharmaceutical space has become more advanced, patent protection has become, in some cases, more difficult, particularly in the United States. Two things have led to a weakened environment in which US patents are more likely to be overturned: a series of unfavorable Supreme Court decisions making it more difficult to obtain and enforce patents, and a new law permitting those who

Henry Hadad SVP and Deputy General Counsel Bristol-Myers Squibb

want to challenge a patent to avoid court and seek serial administrative reviews by the US Patent and Trademark Office, Hadad says.

Research and development investments are a “leap of faith” that require a system that prevents others from simply taking your innovations for their own reward.

“Just when US innovators should be investing in research into emerging technologies like precision medicine and artificial intelligence, we have undermined this system,” Hadad says. Beyond the threat to innovation, this encourages other countries to weaken their IP systems as well move investment and job creation overseas.

It creates an uncertain situation for many companies, both big and small, particularly those looking at significant research and development costs: should they go for ambitious but risky innovation or play it safe? Hadad says that more are playing it safe, and that threatens innovation itself.

Courtesy of Bristol-Myers Squibb

“I want to leave the industry in as strong a position as I can. Without predictable and meaningful intellectual property, new therapies will not exist, period.”

HENRY HADAD

His passion for patent and innovation protection began as an undergraduate biology major, but timing and fate steered him in a different direction. When Hadad entered law school in 1988, patent law was becoming more in vogue with the creation of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982. The Hatch-Waxman Act passed a couple years later, creating a pathway for generic drug approvals and a framework for challenging pharmaceutical patents.

Law firms were beginning to staff up, and that offered an opportunity for Hadad at a time when patent law was quickly becoming an important specialty. “I loved it. I thought it was really interesting, and it seemed like there was a greater purpose,” Hadad says.

He has had to learn his fair share of advanced science to keep up, and he’s the first to admit there are others who are more steeped in the science than he is. But his team is particularly adept at identifying advancements that can and should be protected—and they are passionate about doing so.

It’s about more than one drug or one invention. For Hadad, it comes down to a society that continues to dream big and invest in trying to find true innovations. This comes into focus when Hadad considers the sweep of his life.

Hadad is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants who made their way through Ellis Island and saw a world emerge from no running water or electricity to automobiles, radio, and television. He wonders what his grandparents would have thought of the Information Age and technologies available now. “My grandfather, also named Henry, was particularly appreciative of how this country rewarded creativity and innovation,” he says, “and how it drove the advancement of our society.

“Since the beginning of this country, we’ve had a patent system that has led to the greatest innovations in history,” Hadad said. “It is our responsibility to foster this system so that future generations can create the next great advancement.”

Mayer Brown joins Profile Magazine in recognizing our friend and client Henry Hadad for his accomplishments at Bristol-Myers Squibb and his leadership in the pharmaceutical industry.

Regulatory Visionary

VW Credit’s Kevin McDonald helmed the team that created the auto lender’s Dodd-Frank compliance policies, which bolstered the company’s customer service

By PETER FABRIS

When a US military service member receives orders to deploy overseas, it can cause financial stress for his or her family. VW Credit Inc. (VCI), which provides financing for US Volkswagen customers, is trying to ease that burden.

Individuals may call VCI to get an interest-rate reduction on their automobile lease or credit contract (“loan”) under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. On those occasions, VCI responds by following a set of procedures designed to ensure compliance with the law, making it possible for those who serve the country to do their duty with less worry about their finances.

Beginning in 2011, the automobile finance industry had a new cop on the beat, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), to scrutinize its activities and policies regarding this law and many others. In the wake of the mortgage meltdown and other financial scandals of the 2000s, the landmark DoddFrank law imposed tougher standards on the finance industry, including the creation of the

CFPB. It was the first time that the federal government regulated automobile financing.

“Previously, the oversight occurred only at the state level,” says Kevin McDonald, senior vice president, chief compliance officer, general counsel, and secretary, for VW Credit. He also serves as an adjunct law professor at the Washington University School of Law, in St. Louis, where he teaches consumer law. “After Dodd-Frank, we had to ensure our compliance program was built up and out to satisfy the myriad demands of a new federal regulator.”

McDonald had practiced law for Volkswagen—which includes the Audi and Ducati motorcycle brands—for most of his career, which included a stint in Germany. Shortly after being named general counsel to VCI, he was tapped to lead a new compliance department as a response to the Dodd-Frank legislation. He began with one employee in his department; today, he leads a team of twenty-four. Considering the breadth of DoddFrank—some 2,300 pages, not including the more than four hundred regulations coming afterwards—more help comes in handy.

Kevin McDonald SVP, Chief Compliance Officer, General Counsel, and Secretary at VW Credit

Adjunct

Law Professor

at the

Washington University School of Law

McDonald handled the construction of a compliance management system by first prioritizing the company’s procedures and policies. This included written guidelines, employee training modules, procedures for responding to consumer complaints, analysis of complaints, and resulting policy reviews and revisions. At first, staffing proved to be a challenge, as the compliance discipline in auto financing was new, and there weren’t any employees within the company or outside of it with experience in this specific field, in particular regarding the CFPB.

“And it wasn’t something you could go to school to learn,” McDonald says.

As he evaluated the qualifications of finance professionals, paralegals, and attorneys for his team, he weighed a choice between two types of people: those with backgrounds in compliance from banking, insurance, and other finance industries or those with an automobile industry background but no compliance experience. He found that the latter—particularly those who had worked for Volkswagen—were a better fit.

“We’ve found it to be more effective to hire people who know the company’s processes and then teach them compliance,” McDonald says. Excellent resources abound that help train compliance professionals, including the National Automotive Finance Association (NAF). McDonald, who holds law degrees from German and American universities, also obtained a certification from NAF for consumer credit compliance. “Compliance is an ongoing learning experience,” he says.

His external partners have been impressed with his knowledge of the field. “VW Credit is fortunate to have Kevin as their general counsel,” says Stuart M. Litwin, partner and cohead of the structured finance practice at Mayer Brown LLP. “He is one of the

“As you improve upon identifying trends and fixing systemic issues, you are going to have better customer experiences.”

KEVIN MCDONALD

Stewart Image, Courtesy of VW Credit, Inc.

Congratulations

Mayer Brown congratulates Kevin McDonald and all our friends at VW Credit for this well-deserved recognition. It has been our privilege to serve as your trusted advisers, and we look forward to helping you continue to accomplish your goals.

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most knowledgeable, dedicated, and proactive GCs I work with. His excellent judgment has served the company well.”

The CFPB gradually rolled out regulations and enforcement, giving the auto finance industry guidance on Dodd-Frank compliance. One key to developing VW Credit’s compliance program was “ensuring that the right stakeholders would receive the right information at the right time,” McDonald says, adding that it’s an ongoing process. It is counterproductive to overwhelm employees with too much information. Guidance documents and scripts must be succinct so employees handling calls from service members, for example, enable them to clearly explain the ramifications of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the rights and options to which these customers were entitled. This information also had to be easily and quickly accessible on customer service representatives’ workstations.

One of the first areas of emphasis for the CFPB was fair lending. The bureau zeroed in on ensuring that auto finance companies provided access to credit for all customers regardless of gender, race, and age. McDonald and his staff worked closely with outside counsel that had worked with banks on lending compliance to develop VW Credit’s program. Drawing from their experience dealing with regulations in other financial arenas, these compliance experts made some accurate deductions about what the CFPB would enact for auto financing.

Though the CFPB published a manual to aid with compliance, there were no offthe-shelf IT systems or training programs available. Software and training modules had to be built from scratch, and were coordinated and overseen by a compliance committee composed of executives from multiple departments.

When the CFPB began enforcing fair-lending rules, VW Credit was already in a good position to comply thanks to these early efforts.

“Our fair lending controls were well received by the CFPB,” McDonald says, adding that the company had an early indication it was on the right track.

CFPB periodically issues supervisory highlights drawn from consumer complaints. “We take the supervisory highlights and run them through our systems to identify compliance gaps,” McDonald says. Software helps identify from which department the gap originated and, with that information, the compliance team can devise ways to plug compliance gaps.

McDonald’s team also looks to improve compliance from internal customer complaints. Though complying with Dodd-Frank-originated regulations requires considerable work and expense, it does yield better customer service, McDonald says. “It takes a team to win,” he adds, “and no one person can ever handle compliance by him or herself. I am where I am because of my great team of compliance professionals. They are as devoted to compliance as they are to helping customers. As you improve upon identifying trends and fixing systemic issues, you are going to have better customer experiences.”

McGuireWoods congratulates Kevin McDonald for going the extra mile in providing effective and efficient legal and business solutions to Volkswagen Credit Inc. At McGuireWoods, we share Kevin’s commitment to excellence in everything we do, which gives our clients a competitive advantage. Our firm has earned the loyalty of its many longstanding clients through deep understanding of their businesses and broad capabilities in corporate transactions, high-stakes disputes, and complex regulatory and compliance matters. Along with our wholly-owned government affairs affiliate, McGuireWoods Consulting, our goal is to provide nothing less than world-class advice and service to our clients.

+ COMPANIES

A

Acker, Amy 168

American Airlines 8

Arizona Coyotes 118 Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 18 B

Baker, Almira Torralba 24

Baker, Michael 134

Beacon People Solutions 168 Bell, Charlton 70

Beland, Michael 188

Beth, Kevin 156

Belle Tire 120

Berkadia 148

Biogen 184

BlueLinx 191

Boire, Jacqui 137

Brint, Vickie 160

Bristol-Myers Squibb 197

Butler, Rich 80

C

Casalengo, Robert 144

Celgene Corporation 74 Cheniere Energy 152 Cho, Karen 180

Christian Schools International 194 Cicala, Peter 74 City of Denver 38 City of Fort Collins, Colorado 96

Coalfire 178

Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions 144 Cohen, Ahron 118

Coyne, Adam 174 Cree 188 D

Daugherty, Rob 8

Delgado, Veronica 92

Deloitte Consulting 27 Designer Brands 180 Deters, Deb 54

DeThomasis, Marco 184 Dinkins, Anthony 164

DiMarzo, Maryanne 168

Everson, Ashley 32

Faiq, Abbas 137 Fisher, Bill 172

Folkes, Michael 18 Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines 102 Fiesta Restaurant Group 164

Gardner, Nancy 106 Grand Canyon University 14

Hadad, Henry 197 Hall, Gary 62 HAVI 32

Heartland Financial USA 54 Hilltop Bank 48 Hub Group 156 Hunt, Kyle 148

IRI 124

J. R. Simplot 35

Kelley, Ardis 102 Keefe, Dan 170

Karen 21 Kushner 66

Tanya

Mathematica Policy Research 174 McDonald, Kevin 200 Minnesota Timberwolves 110 Mohan-Ram, Vid 35

Karen

Ash Patel, Chief Information Officer, IRI 124

Tanya Saffadi, VP and Head of HR, Kushner 66

American Airlines

For

our cover shoot, our staff photographer Gillian Fry lucked out with a nice, sunny day to meet with Rob Daugherty at one of American Airlines’ hangers in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

Congratulations

We are pleased to support the leading executives featured by Profile with whom we are honored to work.

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