The Most Promising CEOs of 2019

Vol. 06 Issue. 06 June 2019

The Most Promising

CEO’s of 2019 DR. ANDY KHAWAJA A PIONEER IN THE DIGITAL PAYMENTS SECTOR

+ Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Sustaining Entrepreneurial Sprit in the Modern Era

Bio Tech Graphene: A Material Marvel of the Century

E Towards Promising Future

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or any individual at a coveted position like that of CEO of any organization, running a business is not a cake walk; it is full of responsibilities, challenges, and complexities. It takes a deep perseverance, ingenuity, and a strong business acumen, accompanied with a compelling vision to fill the space of the role of a CEO. Implementing these traits, the person who climbs the corporate ladder is the one who earns such respected positions.

To quote a famous author, Stephen Covey, “Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.” This statement better defines the true essence of being a CEO. In reflecting upon what a team can do, and harnessing that potential in the time of need, dwells the proficiency of a CEO. A CEO is known for his or her ability to see beyond the challenges of today and sculpt a picture of tomorrow. John C. Maxwell has exquisitely stated “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” The journey of a CEO sums up well through these lines.

Be it countering an issue, identifying a new opportunity or handling a high-risk situation, how one reacts to these situations is very significant in business today. And an efficient reaction to these complicated situations is what comprehends the role of a modern CEO making them stand out from the rest.

With an intent to honor the contributions and inspiring journey of some influential CEOs, Insights Success has curated a list of “The Most Promising CEOs of 2019”. These CEOs have set exemplary instances by shaping the future of their businesses.

More than a designation, being CEO is a moral responsibility that makes things happen.

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Ishan Mittal

These leaders have acquired all the necessary skills, such as vision, perseverance, dedication, and the ability to inspire and nurture, that are important to thrive in businesses. They also bring the expertise, confidence, and a deep business acumen that they have accumulated through their journey.

A pioneer in the digital payments sector, Dr. Andy Khawaja, the CEO and Founder of Allied Wallet, features as the cover story of this edition. One of the world’s leading online payment-processing service providers, Allied Wallet offers digital wallets, merchant payment solutions, and prepaid card programs. Under the direction of Dr. Andy Khawaja, Allied Wallet has expanded from its initial West Hollywood, California, location to include offices in global hubs such as Macau, Hong Kong, and London while serving more than 150 million customers around the world.

Delve into some inspiring stories and lessons from many such significant CEOs in this issue and reap the fruits of motivation. Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.

Happy reading!

Articles

COVER STORY 24 Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

34 Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Sustaining Entrepreneurial Sprit in the Modern Era

08

Dr. Andy Khawaja

46 Bio Tech Graphene: A Material Marvel of the Century

A Pioneer in the Digital Payments Sector 16

28

40

Pitching Excellence

Leader’s Talk

Expert’s Outlook

Edwin Tay: Strong Entrepreneurial Professional and Mentor

Gregg Rotenberg: Leading from the front

by Stephanie Cooper

Rob Leslie: Leading by Example

18 Anton Baranchuk: Transforming Data into Insightful and Actionable Information Through Smart Visualization

22

26

Gary Olson:

Austin Rosenfeld: Turning a Vision into Reality

A Trailblazer Bringing Vision to Reality

32

38

Ingo Ernst:

Nicole Martin:

Exemplifying Steadiness, Stability, and the Ability to Motivate Innovation

A Leader to Rely for Human Resource Management

44

TODD DAVIS: An Expert in Logistics Management

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Executive Editor Hitesh Dhamani

Managing Editor Anish Miller

Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes Kaustav Roy

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Iresh Mathapati

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Rahul Kavanekar

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Vishal

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Calvin Jones

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com June, 2019 Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Cover Story

Dr. Andy Khawaja Founder & CEO

Dr. Andy Khawaja A Pioneer in the Digital Payments Sector

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Allied Wallet always stays ve steps ahead of the game.

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uccessful organiza ons are built by the exemplary leadership of the CEOs of the companies. Great leaders of the organiza on lead by se ng the example worthy of emula on. Leadership is essen al ingredient to the success of any organiza on. Generally leadership is about being passionate for the right purposes and being focused. CEOs of the great organiza ons are resilient, hardworking, dedicated, and courageous. Great CEOs help their organiza on move ahead even if there are doubts from others around them. They are ready to go beyond the comfort zone of safety. Great leaders don’t get trapped by the seduc on of safety. Exemplary CEOs consider that seduc on of safety is more dangerous than the percep on of the risk. Great leaders take calculated risks and they make best of the available opportuni es.

Courage, competence, and energy is contagious and it gets imprinted on the other people in the organiza on.

Therefore it is essen al for the CEOs of the organiza on to have these quali es to lead the organiza on effec vely.

The organiza ons are always in need to have a genuinely exemplary leader to lead from the front and create a profitable organiza on.

A pioneer in the digital payments sector, Dr. Andy Khawaja has led as CEO and Founder of Allied Wallet since he founded the company in 2005. One of the world’s leading online payment-processing service providers, Allied Wallet offers digital wallets, merchant payment solu ons, and prepaid card programs. Under the direc on of Dr. Andy Khawaja, Allied Wallet has expanded from its ini al West Hollywood, California, loca on to include offices in global hubs such as Macau, Hong Kong, and London while serving more than 150 million customers around the world.

In addi on to his work in the digital payments sector, Dr. Andy Khawaja stands out as a mo va onal speaker who has given talks and seminars at such interna onal universi es as Zayed University, Abu Dhabi University, and Lebanese American University, as well as conferences including the World Lithuanian Youth Summit. His experience in the Middle East has also made him a soughta er consultant on topics related to global banking.

A commi ed member of the community, Dr. Andy Khawaja supports nonprofit groups such as the United Service Organiza ons, Wounded Warrior Project, and the Brent

Shapiro Founda on. Through his leadership posi on at Allied Wallet, he also organizes a range of corporate philanthropic and fundraising ini a ves.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Dr. Andy Khawaja and Insights Success.

Give a brief overview of your background and evolu on into a CEO. From a very young age, I had an entrepreneurial spirit in my bones. I’ve always been a leader and I’ve always had the passion to work hard and reach my goals. But my first ambi on to become a CEO came from my thirst for improvement in the way people do business. I wanted to create and innovate new methods for people to safely, securely, and simply accept payments. I had a vision, and I worked very hard to make that vision a reality.

How do you diversify your organiza on’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

Allied Wallet is a globally recognized payment services company, and we enable businesses in 196 countries to succeed by simplifying their payment acceptance solu ons and enabling them to accept nearly any payment method.

We specialize in mul -currency solu ons, state-of-the-art fraud protec on, and we lead the industry in innova on because we’ve created a payment services company that connects so many different payment methods. Whether you need online credit card processing, mobile point of sale, a digital wallet solu on, prepaid cards, or even ACH – we can do it and you’ll have it all in one easy to manage system. We make it simple to make money in an industry that can be very complicated and confusing. That’s the beauty in Allied Wallet.

Describe some of the vital a ributes that every CEO should possess.

A CEO’s journey is never easy and running a global business requires a lot of dedica on and hard work even in the face of doubt from others around you. But it has been a beau ful journey. I’ve been able to see businesses improve and succeed and increase their profit beyond their dreams and this is sa sfying for me. Making a difference and

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We’re positioned very well in the market and no one can offer all that we offer all in one great solution.

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crea ng a solu on that truly helps entrepreneurs like me is very fulďŹ lling.

Every CEO should be resilient.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

The story at Allied Wallet has been a story of success. I call it success because there were deďŹ nitely obstacles in my way as I started the

company. Many ďŹ nancial ins tu ons and older industry execu ves doubted me. But we proved what we could do and we innovated the industry for people all over the world. That is something that will never stop with Allied Wallet. We always innovate for the curve; and some mes, we make the curve and innovate the industry as leaders. But with payments becoming more and more digital and augmented and virtual reality experiences right

around the corner, we are innova ng how the payment space will support that.

In terms of market competency, how do you strive for your organiza on to be in a leading posi on?

The digital payments industry is only going to get bigger. You see more people paying with cards or with apps, not cash, and that means more people

everything our merchants do is safe, fast, and scalable. We’re posi oned very well in the market and no one can offer all that we offer all in one great solu on.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the ini al phase of your career as a CEO? Unlike the other processing companies, we didn’t start with

“ Follow your dreams and work from the heart.

transac ons. This is one of our biggest strengths. We are the e-commerce experts. We know how to prevent fraud, and we have a proprietary scrub system that protects merchants and customers alike.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

Our short-term plans are to increase the amount of payment methods we support and con nue leading the industry in global connec vity. We also have many new features and func onali es that we plan to release.

It’s important for us to simultaneously innovate and protect users globally.

In five years, Allied Wallet will have at least doubled its current size. Our growth rate is amazing and we will con nue to grow. I see Allied Wallet con nuing its path to global leadership in payments and industry innova on. I also see Allied Wallet and myself pursuing more charitable, philanthropic efforts to make the world a be er place.

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What is your advice for budding and emerging CEOs? will need a way to send payments electronically. Allied Wallet is constantly improving and crea ng new products so that we can stay at the top of the game as one of the world’s most reliable processors.

Allied Wallet always stays five steps ahead of the game. Our technology lets business owners reach their dreams without limi ng them, and our state of the art security features keep out the fraud transac ons so that

investor funding. Allied Wallet was built using my own funds because I believe in this company, and with hard work and dedica on from our team, we created one of the most successful processing companies in the world today.

One of the biggest issues with ecommerce is the lack of knowledge and understanding with the industry.

Many banks don’t know how to handle merchants and e-commerce

I would like to say to all of the entrepreneurs out there that a vision and hard work is the key to success. If you work hard, and put in the effort and the me, nothing can stop you from reaching your goals. Every day you don’t use to work towards your goal day is a day wasted, work for your future every day.

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Edwin Tay Strong Entrepreneurial Professional and Mentor

Edwin Tay CEO & Co-founder

16 |June 2019

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Take good care of your clients and they will help grow your business. A growing business will in turn enable better support for your employees; who will in-turn provide better service to your clients.

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Pitching Excellence

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n an Interview with Insights Success, Edwin Tay, CEO and Co-founder of EasyUni Sdn Bhd, shares contribution of him through EasyUni which is Asia’s leading education site. Edwin along with his team helps students and parents search, compare, shortlist, prioritize, and apply to universities or colleges of their choice. He started EasyUni with the aim of making the process of choosing a university easier for potential students. He is experienced Start-up founder with a demonstrated history of working in the digital marketing, internet and education industry. He is Skilled in Marketing Management, Digital Strategy, Start-ups, and Advertising.

He provides mentorship and advice to other young startups.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Edwin Tay and Insights Success.

Give a brief overview of your background as a CEO. I’m 45 this year. Graduated as a Materials Engineer and was working as an R&D Engineer before I left and started my first company called Netinfinium. This was back in 2000.

Netinfinium is a digital agency and email technology company. Led and grew the company for 10 years before finally exiting via trade sale, after which I started EasyUni, my 2nd startup. On the side, I also mentor other startup founders that came my way, sharing my experience and knowledge of the market, funding and operational strategies. I am also an Endeavor Entrepreneur (www.endeavor.org), working to give back to the community, as I have benefited tremendously from many hours of help rendered to me by many mentors through the years.

www.insightssuccess.com

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

For us, it’s not just the quantity of information (institution database) but also localization of content – is key to providing good user experience. Hence for those non-Anglophone countries, we localize our content and information – not only by translating the content into local language but by having a local indigenous content writer to write original contents to suit the local psyche and style of writing.

We find that this not only helps our user experience but also helps improve our ranking on search engines.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every CEO should possess.

Ability to see the bigger picture and communicate ideas/strategies to rally followers to be aligned with the overall objective. Able to see intrinsic strengths in your people and utilizing it. Work smart and inspire your team and organization to constantly be better tomorrow. Work harder than yesterday if you want a better tomorrow.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

Our niche and strength is our location.

We are in a hurry to entrench ourselves deeper into the region and win the market, by having on-ground local presence with local staffs. We have done so in Malaysia and Middle East and are now replicating our success in Vietnam and Indonesia. In addition, we tend to look forward and chart our path for the future; more than looking over our shoulders at our competitors. Our biggest competitor is ourselves. How do we ensure we constantly improve ourselves and provide better value/service to our clients the students? If we get that right, we are confident things will sort out by itself and EasyUni will grow.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a CEO? There was a lot of trial and error initially. I started my 1st company when I was 26 years old. Being young, I did not have extensive network to rely on.

In addition, there wasn’t any structure in place to help young entrepreneurs.

Not many investors are ready to invest in un-proven startups. You would have to quickly be profitable or you would have to close down. The co-founders and I had to hustle and grow the company in any way we could. As our business grew, so does our network and experience Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

EasyUni is growing well but there is still so much more to be done. I am currently busy growing our managers and identifying future leaders to help propel EasyUni to the next level.

Ultimately our goal is to be the No.1 platform that students in South East Asia and Middle East goes to, when searching for tertiary institutions.

What is your advice for budding and emerging CEO’s?

Truly understand why you want to start your own company. It can be any reason and it can even change as time pass by. Just remember to constantly remind yourself of this reason and persist in chasing it. Be humble always and don’t be shy to ask for help and to give help. Treat your staffs as your business partners that should profit from the growth and not as steppingstones to your goals. Take good care of them, and they will in turn take good care of you and your company.

June 2019| 17

Anton Baranchuk Transforming Data into Insightful and Actionable Information Through Smart Visualization

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usiness acumen when accompanied with technical knowledge makes an ultimate combination that can take IT companies to the new heights. Anton Baranchuk, CEO at AnyChart America, is one such blend of business and technical expertise, who has been transforming the industry with his novel approaches.

Inception Tale AnyChart was started in 2003, at the times of Adobe Flash and the early age of the Extensible Markup Language (or simply XML), when future AnyChart teammates realized that literally any data from literally any source can be extracted in the XML format and then be interactively visualized using the Adobe Flash technology.

Implementation of this approach laid the foundation of the AnyChart business. Flash was everywhere, so indeed AnyChart succeeded as a one-fits-all data visualization tool.

Back in the 2000s, both Flash and XML were on the rise while still quite young, meaning the company had to deal with a number of inherent bugs, security shortcomings, and other issues. That is where the first big clients appeared to be of great help.

“When Oracle introduced our data visualization component in APEX, we started getting a whole lot of feedback from users, which greatly helped us in quickly shaping our product development, technical support, and business tactics to the best possible extent. So I can say it was essentially important for us as a tech business to quickly roll out a product and earn our first big clients,” Anton recalls.

Sharp Curve to New Success AnyChart managed to take lead in interactive data visualization. But after the fall of Flash as a universally 18 |June 2019

used environment, the company had to switch to HTML5, which was a huge challenge. Finally, AnyChart added support of SVG and released the first version of its JavaScript charting library.

Nowadays, the company continues to support its Flashbased charting components. However, the vast majority of AnyChart’s customers already adhere to HTML5, the backbone technology of the contemporary web.

Acknowledging what their entire team already did to get where it is currently positioned, Anton proudly asserts: “I am happy we’ve done it with such a success and are currently among the few absolute leaders in the global interactive data visualization software market.”

He adds: “It is crucial for a technology company to stay in the know of what’s going on out there, predict any possible changes that can affect it, follow the trends, and of course, always do your best to fully satisfy the needs of your clients at all times. That’s the way we have been and will keep doing our best to follow.”

Flexible Data Visualization Solutions Now, AnyChart is a flexible JavaScript (HTML5) solution that allows businesses to create interactive and great looking charts of any kind out of any data — in full accordance with what the name “AnyChart” implicits. It is fully cross-browser and cross-platform, intended for everybody who deals with the creation of dashboards, reporting, analytics, statistical, financial or any other visualizations for the purpose of smart, data-driven decision making. Graphics rendering in AnyChart is powered by GraphicsJS, AnyChart’s own open-source JS library for SVG/VML-based graphics and animation.

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AnyChart JS charts work everywhere including PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, enabling businesses to transform operational data into insightful, actionable information.

Prominently delivering a powerful JavaScript charting engine, the company markets it as a product family comprising four JS visualization libraries, each inherently optimized to serve a specific data viz purpose: AnyChart — for basic charts (over 70 chart types are available out-ofthe-box), AnyMap — for maps and seat charts, AnyStock — for stock and financial charts, or basically any date/time charts, AnyGantt — for project and resource charts (Gantt, PERT, etc.). But essentially it is one versatile data visualization tool.

Leading Data Visualization Globally Anton’s constant efforts as the CEO at AnyChart America, the company’s forefront, resulted in framing AnyChart among the global leaders of data visualization tools.

AnyChart has earned more than 75% of the Fortune 500 members and over half of the top 1,000 software vendors worldwide. Overall, thousands of companies and organizations use AnyChart, including enterprise giants like Oracle, Microsoft, Samsung, Volkswagen, Bosch, McDonald’s, Reuters, Rolex, Lockheed Martin, and many others. Also, it has been widely recognized by technology experts worldwide and received multiple awards for the best and most promising in JavaScript and data visualization.

going to work best in each particular case.”

Invaluable Advice Considering the essential attributes of leadership, Anton asserts: “I believe maybe the most important thing is openness, in the widest sense. To your teammates. To your customers. To new ideas, experiences, and information in general. Then, analyze what you’ve learned or thought about and think how it can actually be applied in what you are doing, and not only for now but also for later stages.”

Anton advises aspiring entrepreneurs to analyze the overall market and think several steps ahead to withstand the complexities. He believes that in order to experience a principle work-ethical environment, a professional and enthusiastic team really matters. Addressing a proverb saying “Fall seven times and stand up eight,” Anton asserts: “Don’t give up if something goes worse than expected and in case of any failures.”

Bright Future for AnyChart With many thousands of happy clients, from startups to corporate giants, AnyChart’s future plans are about working more and more to make the company’s data visualization solutions even better and further justify the trust of the customers.

This year has been particularly exciting for the company.

AnyChart has recently announced their new technology alliance partnership with Qlik, adding three new product extensions for Qlik Sense. The partnership enables Qlik's community of data analysts to be provided with more than 30 new chart types and features such as tooltips natively in the Qlik environment, with no coding required.

Keeping Up with Trends is Essential Anton believes that in this fast-paced industry it has always been essential for the technologists to keep up with the tech-enabled trends.

Emphasizing upon AnyChart’s distinctiveness in the market, he asserts: “Due to a big number of ideas and solutions out there in almost every single field, it is important to properly analyze everything and see what’s

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AnyChart empowers people and companies worldwide to let their data speak

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www.insightssuccess.com

Anton Baranchuk CEO at AnyChart America

June 2019| 19

Austin Rosenfeld Turning a Vision into Reality

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compelling vision, accompanied by the ability to see beyond the challenges of today and sculpt a picture of tomorrow, is what fuels success.

Carrying such qualities, Austin Rosenfeld, the Founder and CEO of Macedon Technologies, has set his company on a mission to transform businesses digitally.

Austin started his career as a software developer. He was one of the first team members working on a new software platform at Appian—who provides a low-code development platform that accelerates the creation of high-impact business applications—and realized that very few people understood how to use it. A natural born leader, Austin started Macedon and set out to hire the most suitable and capable staff. He built a consulting company with in-depth knowledge in the Appian platform, solving real-world business problems. This approach paid off quickly. Macedon Technologies has grown considerably over the past decade and has offices in both Reston, VA, and in Austin, TX. Austin, together with his team has established a flourishing business with significant footprints in the financial services, manufacturing, education, energy, and pharmaceutical industries.

Accelerating Digital Transformation Austin notes that the organization has honed a lot of expertise in the Appian platform and has applied that skillset across a diverse clientele. “We compete in several markets, we can show large enterprises we understand their IT processes,” Austin says. “Using our analytical skills, we can quickly build a demo application, showing the power of the software.” For 22 |June 2019

large, complex applications with multiple complicated integrations—or processes across several divisions—Macedon provides specialized services that focus on resolving these challenges, scaling operations collectively with the client.

For government clients, Macedon has amassed an impressive number of certifications and credentials in the Appian space and has teamed up with organizations that have significant government project experience. For smaller commercial firms, Macedon starts as a consultant, first analyzing their IT landscape finding the best fit for Appian. Small businesses find Macedon’s hybrid roles incredibly valuable.

Keeping an Ample Bench to Support Growth Balancing the twin pipelines of recruiting and sales is a considerable challenge, particularly for start-ups. Since its inception, Macedon has tried to keep an adequate bench to support its growth and invests a lot in training resources and retaining a healthy and agile bench. Now that the company has turbocharged its recruiting machine, it can hire dozens of people a year and support all of its priorities more efficiently. Macedon currently has over 100 employees and is set to reach 150 by the end of this year.

Striving to Reach New Milestones "The Appian platform continues to grow in scope and popularity, and it is moving into adjacent areas including Robotic Process Automation and DevOps,” Austin says.

“We see clients take on more ambitious digital www.insightssuccess.com

‘‘

Focus on execution, and everything else will fall into place.

transformation initiatives allowing us to serve as holistic consultants, contrary to the past when enterprise applications were often built in silos.” As an authorized Appian Reseller, Macedon provides the full platform capabilities to small- and medium-sized businesses as well, equipping them with the same power to advance their technology and harness efficiencies as they grow.

Austin’s focus is on building Macedon’s expertise, rather than getting distracted by competitors. Austin says, “We want to generate great ideas that add value for our customers, not worry about the competition.”

Enlightening Aspiring Entrepreneurs Austin believes that vision and leadership are vital attributes a CEO must possess. “Leaders should have the ability to tell people ‘here is how we are going to climb that next hill’ and get everyone to come along enthusiastically,” he reflects. “A leader has to energize the team. The reason why I am so actively involved in every hiring decision is my dedication to building the right team to execute the vision.” Austin firmly believes that the CEO has to set the tone for the culture. “At Macedon, I’d like to think we are all nerds. Most of us have computer science degrees, and we tend to have a lot of traits that go with that,” he adds. We have a Harry Potter theme around the office, play pranks on each other, and try to have fun as much as we can!”

www.insightssuccess.com

Austin Rosenfeld Founder & CEO Macedon Technologies

Austin’s advice for emerging entrepreneurs: “Try to see your business from all angles at once. A spreadsheet that adds up is great, but you need to see how and when the team needs to grow, what customers expect, and where to find them. Ask yourself which processes need to scale beyond what you can handle in a spreadsheet, so when you are in over your head, you can rely on a good CPA, lawyer, or other specialists.”

June 2019| 23

Successful Personality Traits to Learn

from

Elon Musk L

egends never need an introduction. They tend to be victorious despite of their uneventful histories. They stick to captivating traits such as Discipline, determination and self-belief which help them accomplish wonders in the long run. One such example of an extraordinary person is Elon Musk, a South African Business Magnate, Investor and an engineer.

Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief architect of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product designer of Tesla Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink. As of February 2018, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world and has a net worth of $20.8 billion, which is far more than the net GDP of Greece taken into consideration.

While each entrepreneur possesses a unique set of traits that makes him/her successful, this Tech founder has a few traits much different from any other ordinary CEO, which has allowed him to build some of the world’s most respected and innovative organizations. Musk once quoted, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

Let’s have a look on these personality attributes and characteristics that make him a contender for the most innovative intellectual entrepreneur of the century alive.

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working

24 |June 2019

employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the field of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

Strong Risk Tolerance Founding a start-up involves a great deal of uncertainty and risk. A study found that after 10 years of being in business, 96 percent of the start-ups fail. Going by the statistics, Musk must have faced the same odds against him, when he had decided to leave an otherwise comfortable life to start a risky and uncertain business venture.

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million.

Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world’s first online banks.

‘Always Be Learning’ Attitude An astounding and less-known fact about Elon Musk is that he is self-taught in programming and in many advanced level subjects. He read and understood a variety of books, which helped him gain endless and persistent knowledge and understand diverse concepts.

The best piece of advice on learning and implementation is to constantly think about how things could be done in a better manner and question self to seek the answers.

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Imparting Wisdom

Feedback Loop It is of prime importance to recognize the present symbol or otherwise ‘status quo’ in the market as an organization and re-position accordingly. Musk solicits constant feedback of the companies and executes ‘self-analysis.’ He induces efforts and divergent strategies to improve customer feedbacks and strives towards perfectionism.

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reflection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run.

Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a firm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well.

Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected endresults.

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It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his firms.

Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry.

There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

June 2019| 25

Gary Olson A Trailblazer Bringing Vision to Reality

Gary Olson CEO

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n an interview with Insights Success, Gary Olson, CEO of GHO Group LLC shares his valuable insights from the experiences he gained in his entrepreneurial journey. Moreover, he broadly discusses the services offered by the company.

Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between Gary and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as a CEO. While I was engaged launching a satellite transmission facility and part of the team launching the first video fiber network, I was asked to design a new shopping network. I used this opportunity to start my first company. We began designing and launching new satellite and television cable networks. In the early days of Internet, we designed the first live cable news network with a person doing real time on air research.

As my company continued to grow and we received requests from visionaries starting television networks in countries that did not have commercial television, only state TV. We designed and launched the first commercial television in Trindad and sucessfully designed, built and launched new national television 26 |June 2019

“When asked if it can be done Always answer Yes and always get it done (don’t get caught)!”

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networks in Czech, Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

Building on that success, I built GHO Group a boutique consulting company that provides strategic guidance, technology design and project management in media and broadcast technology. Helping companies implement and adopt to computer based media from proprietary technology.

How do you diversify your organization's offerings to appeal to the target audience?

GHO has a broad spectrum of knowledge and skills. This enables GHO to offer a large variety of services. These include but are not limited to designing new systems, project management, strategic guidance in technology decision making, budgeting, RFP development and technology adoption.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every CEO should possess.

Building a company is the same as building a team. As the CEO, you are leader, visionary, coach and deal maker. A good CEO understands their own strengths and surrounds themselves with strong competent people who can collaborate and work together. One of my favorite expressions is “I don't need to know everything, I just need to know who to call!”

The term CEO or definition of a Chief Executive Officer has changed with start-ups and small businesses. My father was a business owner and had partners – no titles. Small and mid-size companies had presidents and vice presidents.

Public corporations had CEO's. Now every size business entity has a CEO. How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

By continuing to learn and explore new technologies and the application of new technologies. One example is the need to have cyber security in the media ecosystem. I am part of a security task force in the live sports technology industry. As machine learning deep learning and artificial

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intelligence are becoming familiar terms, it's important to fully understand the technology and where it is applicable.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a CEO? It is always challenging finding the right talent that can collaborate and support each other. Being the CEO is a combination of knowing when to do and when to delegate.

As the company grows, it is critical to allow people to do their jobs and support them. A good manager takes a step back, not micro manages, letting others learn and grow.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I have been accused of re-inventing GHO and myself every few years. We are going thru a change phase now, moving into artificial intelligence and into a new industry sector of Public Safety and Security. I am in the process of building my next business as we are applying our extensive media knowledge to an industry overwhelmed by video and struggling to analyze it for useable information in the prevention of incidents and attacks.

What is your advice for budding and emerging CEO’s?

Recognizing strengths in people and encouraging and empowering their development creates a team to solve problems. A large organization is like a pyramid, if you are at the top you can see what’s happening across the organizations and manage. If the pyramid is upside down because the CEO is also doing everything, they are crushed by the weight of the organization.

I have an eclectic background and am one of the few people who always worked for myself building my own businesses in my professional career. My career has been spent solving interesting challenges that typically look outside of the box for innovative solutions. I am both a visionary and help visionaries realize their ideas.

June 2019| 27

Gregg Rotenberg Leading from the front —by Stephanie Cooper & Shari Sanders “

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o lead from the front – you have to trust your team.” Gregg Rotenberg, President and CEO of Smart Wires, believes that a strong team thrives on a combination of freedom and responsibility: “It’s a bit of a risk, but the rewards pay off.” For Rotenberg, a leader is visibly engaged at the front lines; that is right where he needs to be, in order to generate the momentum he needs to focus on the big picture which is a mission to save the planet. Smart Wires has developed an innovative technology that meaningfully improves the efficiency of today’s power grids around the globe. We deploy our revolutionary technologies to “re-route power” around overloaded lines and address the most serious problems challenging our transmission system.

Rotenberg finds that a culture based in freedom and responsibility guarantees rapid innovation combined with systematic execution. Smart Wires doesn’t track hours worked per day or per week. Following Rotenberg’s lead, the focus is on what you can get done for the people who are counting on you to succeed. Smart Wires’ highest performers thrive on the freedom to do their jobs without tight supervision.

Designated superstars, these contributors grow their roles to fit their passions, while always balancing the

28 |June 2019

needs of the organization and their teammates.

Consequently, Smart Wires spares no effort to identify superstars during the application and interview process. The unique application process tests an applicant’s ability to have a keen sense of detail, be forward with their accomplishments but also express an ego-less attitude. Every candidate is offered the same experience when applying for any position at Smart Wires because the bar is set extremely high and only the true Superstars who are willing to go the extra mile truly shine. Part of the application process requires the candidate to create a deck presentation answering five questions.

There are no rules other than to answer the questions, but we encourage everyone who make it to this step to be as creative and analytical as they want.

This assignment not only challenges them to think outside the box but also introduces them to Smart Wires very special culture and gives them another way to engage with several members of the leadership team.

Headquartered at the Jim Davis Global Research Center in Silicon Valley, Smart Wires actively cultivates the kind of mentorship Rotenberg most values. It all starts with the Guiding Principles that make up the basis of

Smart Wires culture. Rotenberg encourages his team to actively include Smart Wires’s Guiding Principles in everyday conversation. “If you ever want to discuss our GPs with me, send me an email with the subject line GPs, and I promise you I will engage.”

Rotenberg not only lives by these Guiding Principles, he ensures that all candidates looking to join the team read and understand them, before continuing conversations in the hiring process. The 11 Guiding Principles are: Safety, Judgment, Communication, Impact, Curiosity, Innovation, Selflessness, Passion, Integrity, Courage and Do No Harm to the Grid.

Rotenberg and the entire team believes these practices give Smart Wires the best chance at changing the world.

Rotenberg’s mission-oriented focus, backed by a culture that gives a high level of responsibility coupled with trust, empowers Smart Wires’ contributors to act like true owners. It gives the person owning the task or project the responsibility to take it across the finish line but also strive for the good of the organization and mission as a whole. “By hiring Superstars we are consistently securing incredible additions to our team who bring new ideas and help drive our mission forward.”

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Leader’s Talk

About the Leader Gregg Rotenberg is the President and CEO at Smart Wires Inc. a Silicon Valley company dedicated to providing grid optimization solutions for electric utilities worldwide. This unique product essentially acts as a “valve” on the transmission line, allowing the manager of the grid to route power to where it is needed most.

Prior to joining Smart Wires, Gregg led the Strategic Alliances Group at Chevron Energy Solutions (and Chevron’s Renewable Power Group). His Strategic Alliances team carefully reviewed over 1000 companies in clean-tech over that time period and they identified only three companies that they believed were truly "game changing" to the clean technology industry. One of those three “game changing” companies was Smart Wires.

“We believe that Smart Wires will ultimately change how power grids are managed at nearly every utility in the world. Smart Wires solutions allow utilities to “route” power to where it is needed, ending the days where electricity just flows to the path of least resistance inherent in the grid.

The result will be higher reliability in our power grids, with considerably lower cost of power and significantly expanded use of renewable energy,” said Rotenberg.

He is passionate about developing strategy and building a remarkable team committed to making the world a better place. www.insightssuccess.com

Gregg Rotenberg CEO

at Smart Wires Inc.

June 2019| 29

Ingo Ernst Exemplifying Steadiness, Stability, and the Ability to Motivate Innovation

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EO’s that emerge and manage businesses that engage in our ever-changing, fast-paced global online ecosystem require significant virtues composed of steadiness, stability, and the ability to motivate innovation. They are constantly managing outside forces from savvy competitors, technology demands, investor relations, regulatory evolution, and economic changes.

Nonetheless, they are empowered to keep driving change in a continuous and steadfast manner. Ingo Ernst, the CEO of 4Stop, and a committed Fintech entrepreneur has proven these significant virtues alongside his unwavering, modest leadership style.

From the conception of 4Stop back in 2016, he has been a driving force to 4Stop’s success. Leveraging his excellent technical knowledge, operations management and supervisory skills gained over 15+ years and unrelenting focus, he ensures business objectives and results are being met, while always bringing keen insight for his team and stakeholders. His charismatic self inspires, instills confidence, and motivates his team for optimal innovation and performance. Aligning everyone around the value goal; producing product solutions that truly solve industry risk management pain points and will better serve B2B / B2C online engagement.

Ability to Adapt a Shifting Environment One of the biggest tests of any leader is their ability to adapt to a shifting environment.

Through the ambiguous online payment ecosystem and regulatory changes, 4Stop being a world leader in global data-driven KYB, KYC, compliance and anti-fraud technology requires to be the most adaptable to change.

Ingo Ernst is a high-performing and highly adaptable CEO who consistently makes decisions earlier, faster and with greater conviction and passion to support 4Stop’s developments.

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Ingo Ernst

CEO

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Charismatic Nature As all the founders of the company have collectively over 60 years of experience within the risk management realm, they understand the need for a simple, fail-safe, future-proof solution that businesses can effortlessly manage risk requirements with efficiency and confidence.

However, as with most startups, ensuring the right team with a common drive and passion is vital to bolster the technology and service the online risk management industry in a world-class manner.

Secondly, ensuring that all departments of the business are aligned with the business objectives and have instilled the accurate process in place for optimal operations, development and to support accelerated growth.

4Stop has been in a fortunate position where the basic challenges of a start-up where not greatly present. The entire team is well versed in the industries need for a true all-in-one global KYB, KYC, compliance and fraud prevention provider and are passionate in driving the solution offering. Ingo’s charismatic nature has always been able to easily align, motivate and encourage his team to perform at their greatest potential, while ensuring that every innovative www.insightssuccess.com

idea is heard and equal collaboration is met.

Future-Proofing Solutions 4Stop continues to monitor, discuss and stay abreast of industry innovations and regulatory demands.

The company ensures that its product remains at the forefront of premium global risk management solutions to support the on-going explosive eCommerce growth. It continually expands its technology and understand which key features, data sources, data aggregation or product solution is required for expansion and is all

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Our global KYC and risk management platform brings together global premium data sources in a single integration.

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Furthermore, Ingo has proven paramount reliability. He is always clear and concise with expectations and works closely with each business department ensuring development, focus, budgets, and strategies are clearly defined and targets are met in a realistic manner. He is always ready to roll up his sleeves and solve a business performance dilemma or an industry pain point through collaborative innovative discussions to bolster the 4Stop technology solutions. He is a true leader with the success of his team and the business at the very heart of everything he does.

backed behind articulated industry pain points and feedback provided. 4Stop strives to have a leading global risk management solution that genuinely enhances businesses risk-based controls in a true automated and futureproofed manner, regardless of where it transacts across the globe.

Enhancing Businesses’ Risk Management Processes The industry’s pain-point of managing required KYC for fraud defense and compliance has been an on-going hurdle. It is becoming more and more

difficult for businesses to stay abreast and integrate the required KYC and data points required for compliance.

Managing multiple 3rd party integrations to obtain required data points puts a strain on businesses internal development resources, brings additional costs to the business and impacts the time and ability to enter a market. Furthermore, the merchant underwriting processes are much more complex, and currently, companies are managing KYB through a great deal of human intervention and review.

4Stop changes all that. They specialize in providing leading KYB, hundreds of KYC, compliance, data science and their proprietary anti-fraud technology, all available from a single API integration. Whether businesses want to cut the costs on underwriting businesses, expand their global data points and KYC coverage, monitor transactions or a complete packaged solution, 4Stop is designed to integrate in a frictionless manner.

Enhancing businesses’ risk management processes with leading fraud prevention tools and automated risk controls they can activate on-demand.

Valuable Insights In his advise to emerging leaders, he says. “As CEO’s we all know what our objectives are, but we may or may not know what our finish line illustrates and getting there will always come with difficult times. However, doing something you are passionate about will automatically instill the drive and perseverance you require to succeed.

We are leaders for our business, our people, our industry. We cannot shy away from failure as it is within failure that innovation is drafted. We are there to guide, to teach, to empower and motivate through clear communication and reasonable performance expectations. When you’re leading a business you have deeply invested in, these responsibilities become second nature and when done thoroughly it will be the anchor to your success.”

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Sustaining Entrepreneurial Spirit in the

Modern Era

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usinesses operate, survive and progress in a highly dynamic economy, where change is the rule, not the exception. The change may be slow, sudden or almost extensive. One of the important forces of change is the change in technology. Most of these changes are used to enhance human capabilities to accomplish meaningful work. These changes are sometimes thriving on the entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur works to visualize these future changes rather than waiting for it and create a more desirable environment in the organization.

Technological breakthroughs do occur and it takes courage for an entrepreneur to accept the change and its implication. Technology breakthroughs like computers, color television sets, electronic sets, fuel-efficient vehicles, etc. have encouraged entrepreneurs to manufacture these products. Thus changes in technology from time to time pose several alternatives before the entrepreneur. This is an ongoing process in which the entrepreneur sets goals and strategies to meet changes in technology. But for strategies like marketing, human resource, supply chain, financial and legal strategies, etc. connection with people is important. Entrepreneurs define the formal relationships among people and specify both their roles and responsibilities. Because the end product is an integrated system of people & technology and to administer these systems, entrepreneur is required.

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Technology is helping us solve problems where human power alone is not enough. Different types of businesses require different technologies, but again, it is impossible to solve all integration needs with a single technology. This article will help you understand, that technology is only the part of the original solution and how in different sectors the entrepreneur's surrounding really matters.

Accounting Technology allows us to complete tasks faster. It replaces the tiresome tasks of manually storing, compiling, sorting, etc. and the ability to use data with a simple digital solution. For example, Sales ledger in the early days was time-consuming, expensive and all paper-based process.

Technology helped increase productivity with the development of spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. Employees today are far better at finding what they need when they need it. Though only this will not achieve the outcome. Here, let's take a clear look at how the entrepreneur's spirit is really helping to achieve the desired goal. Ÿ

Technology is good for bringing the change not forcing it.

It cannot make employees more efficient. Yes, the right technology can help to make the work easier, but if an employee is truly falling behind or is just inefficient, all the technology in the world will not solve this situation. The

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Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

truth is such employees can be sometimes inefficient due to either inexperience or laziness. An entrepreneur can identify this problem by improving communication in such departments. This explains why human interference is important to address this situation, where technology is just a bandage, fix the problem for a short time. Adding new and faster technology will not fix the problem. While a better solution is sitting the departments down together and talking about the problem with the entrepreneur will be a real solution.

Retail Technology allows retailers to be available day and night interacting with customers how, when and where they are ready to shop. Retailers depend on technology to manage inventory, track customer-purchasing habits, predict trends and deliver goods and services. Wireless communication, QR codes and Augmented Reality are some of the changes in technology to the retail industry.

Ultimately, the entrepreneurship element remains central even if it is embedded within AI, advanced analytics, etc. Ÿ

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Because a customer's shopping experience is more important than price and product quality. Entrepreneur encourages employees to use their creativity to ensure every customer experience is memorable. Entrepreneur's human interaction adds the value to the company and maintains loyal customers.

Communication In virtual workplaces, employees can interact and develop ideas by connecting through the use of video conferencing.

This may include training and important meetings from far places to the employees. Technology can also be used as real-time feedback from the employees which allows the entrepreneur to improve the needs of the employees.

Entrepreneur's good communication is necessary to allow efficient flow both internally (among employees) and externally (using technology). Ÿ

Automation The robots are coming and can actually help us, to be more productive, freeing us from most of the time-consuming Ÿ

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and repetitive tasks. One of the most important areas of a p p l i c a t i o n o f a u t o m a t i o n i s c o m p u t e r- a i d e d manufacturing. Today CAD/CAM technology has been applied in many industries including machine components, electronics products, and equipment design.

Even banking and financial institutions have embraced automation technology in financial transactions. But just because technology is advancing it does not mean it will replace human. Technology can do an adequate job, but we still need humans. It is certain that people to people communication remains fundamental where the entrepreneur's contact in the various stages is required.

Security Technology becomes even more critical when operating the business online. It is important to protect the businesses from cybercriminals who could steal data or lead to website downtime. Encryption and decryption protect information from being accessed by a third party or cybercriminals. It takes only about a minute without slowing down any file or document. Ÿ

Storage Technology has led to the development of cloud computing to store business information and has been accepted by many in the world of business. Cloud Computing is cost Ÿ

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effective and convenient to the company management and employees can access data from anywhere by just using a device that can access the internet. It helps entrepreneurs to trust these technologies and build a strong trust among internal management of the company.

Overall Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain technology, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, 3D printing, etc. today are helping entrepreneurs to use this technology in every field to grow their businesses. But technology alone cannot create a company culture, where human interactions are valued. Because it is people who are assigned to work on this technology and to encourage them the entrepreneurs keeps their spirit alive. By creating an interested working environment, interactive dialogues among employees, support and motivation to the employees, reward system, etc. reflects the culture of the company. It is an entrepreneur who understands what the needs of the company are, by creating a connection with all the stages of management that brings the desired output.

Hence, entrepreneurial spirit and technology should go hand in hand. Therefore we need evolving technology as well as intelligent humans. We need guided missiles as well as guided men to create the better world.

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Nicole Martin

A Leader to Rely for Human Resource Management

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Presence is more than just being Present.

Nicole Martin Founder & CEO

TM

H RBOOST Analyze, Optimize, Emphasize

TM

TM

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www.insightssuccess.com

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hrough valuable experiences, a leader can learn and implement new innovations for enriching the organization. Such experience is very well absorbed by the Founder and CEO of HRBoost, Nicole Martin. With over 20 years of experience in the arena of human resource from small start-ups to bigleague organizations, she stepped in to initiate her own company envisioning to offer a dedicated resource and best advisements that many internal HR departments lack.

She inherently comprehends the necessity of offering systematic human resource management to deliver skillequipped workforce to her clients. Her deep knowledge on HR services and enthusiasm to disrupt the customary practices helped to tackle the cuttingedge competition in markets.

Currently, her venture, HRBoost offers over 170-line item services, which highlight how small mistakes in HR can devastate the bottom line when overlooked. Her team of professionals provide clients with proven, measurable outcomes.

It was in 2010 when Nicole realized that she wanted to end her corporate career thus established HRBoost, LLC. Her initial desires were to find leaders who want to be the next Best & Brightest® employer whilst supporting on-growing businesses facing a myriad of workforce challenges. By 2012, she expanded her team while 50% of yearly growth outcome made her clear that HR outsourcing was not HR as she knew it and that HRBoost had found a niche.

Enticing the Targeted Audiences The company tends to diversify its offerings by allowing its clients to engage on an ala carte, project or retainer basis. Nicole’s and her team’s mission is to meet clients wherever

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they are on their journey to become a best place to work. They prefer not to make their clients adjust to the services, but rather, they work to meet client’s expectations helping them to create an attractive work environment and retain top talent to thrive in future.

What requires being a CEO! Nicole says, “As I look back, I recall I didn’t even call myself a CEO until 2014.

Titles are cheap.” Through this statement she wants to exemplify that the real attributes of an individual at the helm of their business is the curiosity.

She states that she never intended to build a business rather sought work that fueled her passion and in turn created a perfect intellectual playground full of challenges. Nicole believes and advises that one must love his/her work, as the business becomes an extension of oneself it truly can be all-encompassing.

Whether it may be processing out the work or providing the services, one must commit him/herself with grit.

Emphasizing on risks, she expressed that risks are taken but more important than the risks are the willingness to fail.

Often it is the leap of faith grounded in belief that one is doing something greater than itself and something good, so that one day, a leader might see his/her team follow the same ideologies and work with the same passion. She says, “Then, and only then, did I feel comfortable calling myself a Chief Empowerment Officer.”

Cutting the Slack of Competition She is attentive towards her clients and always prefers to stay abreast of what is happening in her industry surrounding. She states that her experience of rapid growth made her realize the potential and enjoyed the pace of word of mouth. She takes pride to put forth that her company has a proven track record and she is ready to reveal its capability through her client’s results.

Through explaining her initial challenges of being CEO, she states that human capital and financial capital is one of basic need as well as challenge to face. She makes a statement that many will not grow because they are not investing in talent and often it is the CEO’s job to bear debt. Moreover, she made a calculated risk to invest in her talent and invest in her bench strength. She shares through her experience that it can be a challenge to orchestrate work life integration if one reacts to a business as a mother or wife. She now realizes that earlier when she put down the process, hired capable talent, and disappeared to let them work, the process proved through: and now, she can repeat it. She also advises to readers, one must trust the people one hires, and one must trust the process too. As when it is time to take a calculated risk, one invests and does everything to increase the odds.

Embracing the Future Nicole states that currently she would be focusing on expanding the company’s retainer services and offer Small Business Bundles for clients that typically do not have access to strategic HR day one, employee one.

For the large clients, she feels excited to watch them grow and reach their Best & Brightest recognition. It brings great joy to her knowing the company facilitates joy and purpose through its work for clients and for the people who choose to work for them.

Conclusion Nicole put forward a question for the leaders, in her own words, “There is an acronym I learned in my Vistage circles in recent years that sums it for me. It is GAS. You must have it to be a CEO. If you figure out what it stands for, message me!”

June 2019| 39

Leading by Example E

verything starts and stops with you, the founder or CEO of the business, the person who everyone looks to when it comes to setting an example. As the leader of your company, your job is to inspire the people around you to push themselves and, in turn the company, to excel in everything they do. To do this, the leader must show the way by doing it themselves, by walking the walk and talking the talk.

Warren Bennis was an American scholar and organizational consultant. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of leadership studies and is known to have created the famous quote “Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing.”

As the leader, you know that keeping your team together, working towards a common goal, getting them to support and help each other is your job. If you succeed, they will succeed; morale will rise and more success will follow.

There’s almost nothing worse for company morale than leaders who follow the “Do as I say, not as I do” philosophy. When this happens, the loss of enthusiasm, energy and goodwill among staff is like watching a tyre deflate with frustration, cynicism and mistrust replacing any positivity that previously existed.

No matter what the situation, double standards, where people do one thing, and then say another is always a recipe for a disaster. It can be very destructive. If this has ever happened to you, I am certain the feelings that you remember are of deep frustration, a sense of disappointment and total let-down. It can be energy sapping and very hard to break out of once it has happened.

As a leader you know that you have a responsibility to your team. They look to you for guidance and strength; it is the essence of what being a leader is. And a big part of your responsibility is to lead them with and by your own actions.

So, why is it so important and what happens when you fail to do this?When you lead by example, it is the creation of the art of the possible. People can look at you and say, 40 |June 2019

“Well, if he is willing to do it, then so can I.” When you set the tone of any activity, you become a source of inspiration and you make it easy for others to follow you.

This brings me on to Trust. It is the inevitable by-product of having done your job as a leader well. Trust takes time to nurture and build. But, when you stay true to your beliefs, to your core principles and when you keep your word your staff will know. Consequently, your team will follow your lead. They will put their trust in you, even when things are tough in a business. By opening yourself up to your team and showing them the way, the odds are that they will follow you anywhere.

Good leaders drive their people forward with energy, excitement, vision, inspiration and trust. A team without trust in their leader will see poor productivity, higher absenteeism and greater staff turnover. Enthusiasm may disappear and the team may fall apart. The vision you’re trying so hard to make happen will lose its appeal, all because your team doesn’t trust you anymore.

Good leadership takes real strength of character and a firm commitment to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason …..even if it is hard. This means doing what you say, when you say it. If your team can’t trust you, you’ll never be great and you wont succeed. It’s like running a race with your shoelaces tied together. If your team knows that you’ll also do whatever you expect from them, they’ll likely work hard to help you achieve your collective goal.

Great leaders have changed the world because they lived by their own example. They made accomplishing great things the norm and not the exception. So, if you ask a colleague to do something, make sure you are willing to do it yourself. Make sure you set the example. Look closely at your own behaviour. Show respect to others and that respect will be returned. If you want people to listen to all opinions and points of view, make sure you listen yourself. We were given two ears and just one mouth for a reason!

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Expert’s Outlook

About the Leader Rob Leslie is the Founder and CEO of Sedicii. Rob is a serial entrepreneur has a successful track record of establishing and growing businesses to considerable scale.

Sedicii was founded in 2013 and has won over 15 technology and innovations awards to date including, most recently, the BBVA Open Innovation “Fintech for Future” Award. BBVA is the oldest and largest Fintech Innovation Program in the world and has highlighted Sedicii as “the start-up with the greatest potential to transform the financial sector in the next 10 years!” Sedicii has developed a patented zero knowledge proof protocol to help people and businesses prove their identities in real-time without compromising their right to privacy.

Rob is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer for his work on the zero-knowledge proof protocol and has spoken at Davos on cybersecurity, digital identity and other technology issues affecting the world’s economies.

Prior to Sedicii he co-founded Kyckr (ASX:KYK) which is now listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and provides organisational identity services for KYC & AML services to banks and other regulated financial institutions across the globe. Rob was also part of the original management team in Dell Japan that established and grew the business to almost 300 employees and $300M turnover in its first 4 years.

Rob Leslie Founder & CEO

Sedicii

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June 2019| 41

TODD DAVIS An Expert in Logistics Management

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n an interview with insights success, Todd Davis, President and CEO of FARO Logistics Solutions, Inc and FARO Cargo Handling, LLC shares his vital knowledge on logistics and making it efficient, fast and affordable.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Todd Davis and Insights Success: How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

We’ve created an organization that has generated appeal to a diverse group of clients within the logistics and fulfillment industry. Business is always in constant motion. To not only survive but excel, we have to be agile enough to meet these ever-changing needs. We have the unique ability to tailor solutions to our customers that stay within the framework of our business philosophy and financial goals. While all customers have the same basic needs, we understand that each customer is unique and may put an emphasis on different facets of the business. Our management team researches, listens and constructs a plan that is built around the customer’s wants and needs. This includes everything from automated IT transactions, reporting to billing. We thrive in tackling our customer’s complex problems with innovation and strategic partnering.

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Describe some of the vital attributes that every CEO should possess.

I believe it is imperative that the CEO knows all aspects of the company including Operations, Sales, Finance, Real Estate, HR, IT and Legal. No one person can singlehandedly manage a company of this size and diversity. It takes a team of highly committed and professional individuals to deliver positive results. Being a CEO requires the ability to assemble such a team as well as the ability to listen first and react second. I believe that finding passionate, driven team members is the key to building a successful team.

Knowledge and experience are nice traits, but if someone is not driven and doesn’t truly care about their job and the company’s success then they will eventually let you down. A successful CEO surrounds themselves with smart, innovative and passionate people.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

We look at each new venture as an opportunity to build relationships, build trust and eventually a partnership.

We deal in a high volume, low margin industry. A lot of our competitors take on customers for market share with little or no regard to the “hidden costs” associated with the industry. Our experience in the market allows us to expose these costs early on in the customer engagement process. We feel

this open dialogue from the beginning is key to establishing the trust needed to succeed in the market and in business. And as I stated earlier, we believe in partnering with the customer to ensure from the beginning they know we are vested with them and will tailor what they need to them specifically and not make them fit into a cookie-cutter type program.

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the initial phase of your career as a CEO? Good question, I feel that changing the legacy culture that existed at the time I became CEO was of great challenge.

Human nature has instilled in us that change is bad, but I tend to think of change as an opportunity. Change takes time, is never easy and it starts from the top down. Assembling the right team to embrace a new culture and direction was challenging. It still is, complacency will drive a company into the red quicker than getting fired by a customer. I wanted to make sure that our team felt part of the company and were not just spinning their wheels to get a paycheck. It takes time for people to see and buy in to a new culture, but when they do it changes everything.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

My future is here with FARO. I, along with the other shareholders have been www.insightssuccess.com

committed to this company for a long time and will continue to be for a long time to come. We have a great group of people working for us and with us. The logistics business changes constantly, that’s part of the passion and excitement around it. Our future goals will be targeted expansion as we continue to work with current and potential customers on their logistics and fulfillment needs.

We are in an industry which is in constant flux. If you don’t change, grow and adapt, you will not survive.

What is Todd Davis’s advice for budding and emerging CEO’s?

Patience and Trust. Both are extremely difficult traits in this fast-paced business environment. Successful CEO’s have a clear vision on goals they’d like to accomplish and how to lead a company to the next level of success and beyond.

They also realize that they can’t do it alone. Hiring and retaining quality people will continue to be one the CEO’s biggest challenges. Hiring people takes trust and commitment. A CEO can never be content, they must always be looking years down the road and try to see the future coming and plan for it. A CEO that is just reactive and not proactive and visionary will not prevail in business.

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Care about what you do and how you do it, treat the business like a family and make sure you lead with vision and integrity.

About the Leader Todd Davis, President, and CEO of FARO Logistics Solutions, Inc., After graduating from Penn State with a degree in Logistics and Marketing, Todd joined FARO in 1991 as a warehouse supervisor. He has held many positions within the organization and became CEO in 2012 after serving as the company’s CFO for a number of years. He has been an active board member since 2004 serving as Secretary, Treasurer and now President.

Todd Davis President & CEO

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A Material Marvel of the Century

T

he simplest observations are sometimes the greatest discoveries. Watching an apple falling from its branch, Isaac Newton discovered the famous law of universal gravitation. Almost three centuries later, science could take another leap forward with... a roll of tape.

There is a new wonder material in town that might change our future.

Imagine a coffee cup that streams the day’s headlines in real time. Or a cooking pot that can detect the presence of E. coli bacteria that could make you sick. Or a television screen that is as flexible and thin as a piece of paper. All of these applications could be a reality if the wonder material, named Graphene, lives up to its hype.

A Complicated Narrative The story begins in 2004 in the laboratories of the University of Manchester. Fascination with this material stems from its remarkable physical properties and the potential applications they offer. Although scientists knew one atom thick, twodimensional crystal graphene existed, no-one had worked out how to extract it from graphite.

That was until it was isolated in 2004 by two researchers at The University of Manchester: Prof. Andre Geim and Prof. Kostya Novoselov. This is the story of how that stunning scientific

46 |June 2019

feat achieved while peeling layers of graphite using adhesive tapes, and why Andre-Kostya duo won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work. This is the beginning of a scientific and engineering renaissance.

Unboxing Graphene Graphene is a material that can be perceived as a form of graphite, and therefore a carbon allotrope that is distinguished by its crystalline organization. In simple terms graphene is a sheet of a single layer (monolayer) of carbon atoms, tightly bound in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. It is the building-block of Graphite but graphene is a remarkable substance on its own - with a multitude of astonishing properties proving the title of ‘wonder material’.

Graphene is the thinnest compound known to man having size equal to one atom thick, the lightest material known, the strongest compound discovered surpassing diamond, the best conductor of heat at room temperature and also the best conductor of electricity known to exist.

The Material of the Future Graphene is a disruptive phenomenon; one which could open up new markets and even replace existing technologies or materials. It is when graphene is

used both to improve an existing material and in a transformational capacity its true potential can be realised. The vast number of products, processes and industries for which graphene could create a significant impact, all stems from its amazing properties. Ÿ Biomedical Graphene’s unique properties allow for ground-breaking biomedical applications; Targeted drug delivery, improved brain penetration, DIY health-testing kits and ‘smart’ implants can be mentioned out of many possibilities. Ÿ Composite Materials One of the simplest and most effective ways of harnessing the potential of graphene is to combine it with existing products - so called composite materials. By combining with paints, a unique graphene coating can be formed which could signal the end of the deterioration of ships and cars through rust. Additionally, it can do wonders in the field of weather-proofing, packaging, sports equipment and creating lightest, strongest, safest structures. Ÿ Electronics Graphene has the potential to create the next-generation of electronics exploring spheres of Sci-Fi technology, faster transistors, semiconductors, bendable phones, wearable gadgets and other electronics.

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Bio Tech Energy With its influential properties and capabilities, graphene is surely an innovation with distinct future prospects. Bearing this in mind, one might be surprised to know that carbon is the second most abundant mass within the human body and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass, after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. This makes carbon the chemical basis for all known life on earth, so therefore graphene could well be an ecologically friendly, sustainable solution for astronomical energy demands. Imagine fully charging a smartphone in seconds or an electric car in minutes. That’s the power of graphene batteries and supercapacitors. Ÿ Filtration Membranes Imagine clean drinking water for millions in developing countries. A global toll of 3.4 million deaths each year is a serious concern which underlines the gravity of clean water requirement. The development of graphene-based membranes has brought that possibility closer like never before. Ÿ Sensors Ultra-sensitive sensors made from graphene could detect minute dangerous particles helping to protect potentially dangerous environments. Its inherently micro-sized structure allows for the creation of hair thin like sensors which can be incorporated to detect biological agents like drugs in our body, stresses and strain levels, atmospheric changes caused by decaying food, and many more. Ÿ

However, studies in 2012 found that by analysing its interfacial adhesive energy, it is possible to effectually separate graphene from the metallic board on which it is grown. As the techniques continue to evolve in nearby future, on the account of its high productivity, a sharp decline in price is expected to be achieved.

The range of industries where graphene research is making an impact is substantial. And this is only the beginning.

These are only the baby steps. Although, it’s important to consider the span within which it is likely to exist in customary life, one simply cannot overlook the inconceivable and endless potential of this supernatural material. With continuously growing necessities and depleting resources of the contemporary world, graphene will certainly turn out to be a panacea of all remedies.

Future It must be a wondering question that despite of graphene’s prodigious abilities why it has not hit the ground reality.

The problem that prevented it from initially being unavailable for commercial uses was that the creation of high quality graphene was a very expensive and complex process. “Its industrial production is not yet based on reliable methods to obtain large quantities,” claims Alberto Bianco, a researcher at the CNRS and the University of Strasbourg. It was estimated in 2008 that the production of a square meter of this miracle material cost a whopping amount of 600 billion euros.

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