Business Thought Leaders Series
As announced here in my December 31st, 2009 post “Exciting New Vistas Await the PI Window on Business Show in 2010,” we have launched the new Business Thought Leaders Series in which we will be joined by industry experts to share their perspectives on the key areas of everyday business including Venture Capital investment, logistics and supply chain practice as well as personal & corporate branding, sales & marketing and workforce motivation.
Contact jwhansen@sympatico.ca to learn more about how your organization can sponsor a Business Thought Leaders Series.
Our Business Thought Leaders:
Public Sector Procurement: A North American Perspective (Judy Bradt)
Judy Bradt
Link to Judy
Judy Bradt is an expert author, speaker and consultant who provides insights on how companies can capitalize on the emerging opportunities in the US public sector.
As the Principal of Summit Insight in Washington DC, Judy’s been covered by national media including SBTV, ABC Radio, the Financial Post, Fortune Small Business, and Entrepreneur Magazine. From 1988 to 2003, Judy was the top specialist in US government contracting at the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC.
Leveraging her more than 20 years of experience advising more than 6000 clients on success in government contracts that collectively have accounted for revenues in excess of $300 million US, Judy will take us through her critically acclaimed “Seven Steps to Success” presentation. As a supplier you will gain the necessary insights to shorten the time-line between the response to government tenders, and the realization of tangible revenue. As a government procurement professional, you will find the answers to why bid responses have been declining and with it the value in both pricing and quality of service.
Starting on Monday, January 18th between 3:00 and 4:30 PM EST, the first of seven parts will be a special 90 minute segment in which we will provide a 30 minute general overview of the current state of Government Contracting. In the remaining 60 minutes of this initial broadcast we will then delve into the specifics of each of the seven steps starting with Strategy.
On every second Monday from that point on we will review the remaining steps which include; Focus, Process, Competition, Teaming, Relationships and Marketing.
Program Note:
First Episode: Monday, January 18th, 2010 – 3:00 to 4:30 PM EST
Broadcast Frequency: Bi-Weekly/Monthly, 60-Minutes
Format: Conversational Lecture, Q&A
Logistics and Supply Chain Practice (Bill Michels)
Bill Michels, CEO ADR North America LLC
Link to Bill
Joining me today to discuss the GM situation as well as its broader implications in terms of emerging supply chain practices is Bill Michels. Michels, a three time honoree as a Supply and Demand Chain Executive’s “Pros To Know,” is also co-author of the book “Transform Your Supply Chain.”
Bill Michels is Chief Executive Officer of ADR North America LLC, a specialty consulting firm that focuses on purchasing. Bill is also a partner of ADR International Purchasing Consultants, Ltd.
Well known in the purchasing and operations management community and the food and pharmaceutical industries, Bill is a sought-after speaker and writer with many publications, including co-authorship of the book Transform Your Supply Chain. He was recently honored for the third time in the Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s group of “Pros to Know.”
Bill earned a BS in Business Administration with honors from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from Baldwin Wallace College. He holds a lifetime C.P.M. from the Institute for Supply Management.
First Episode: Wednesday, February 24th at 12:30 PM EST.
Broadcast Frequency: Quarterly, 30-Minutes
Format: Interview, Q&A
High Tech & Venture Capital Investment (Brad Feld)
Brad Feld
Link to Brad
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Venues, a company that helped launch and operate software companies and later became a venture affiliate of the predecessor to Mobius Venture Capital.
Brad currently serves on the board of directors of Gist, Gnip, Oblong, Standing Cloud, and Zynga for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston’s leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995.
In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and co-chairman of the Colorado Governor’s Innovation Council. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes widely read and well respected blogs at www.feld.com and www.askthevc.com.
Notable companies that Brad has invested in and/or sat on the boards of include Abuzz (acq. NYT), Anyday.com (acq. PALM), Critical Path (CPTH), Cyanea (acq. IBM), Dante Group (acq. WEBM), DataPower (acq. IBM), FeedBurner (acq. by GOOG), Feld Group (acq. by EDS), Harmonix (acq. VIA), NetGenesis (IPO), ServiceMagic (acq. IACI), and ServiceMetrics (acq. EXDS).
Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed fourteen marathons as part of his mission to run a marathon in each of the fifty states.
First Episode: Tuesday, February 23rd at 4:00 PM EST.
Broadcast Frequency: Quarterly, 30-Minutes
Format: Interview, Q&A
Sales & Marketing (Jennifer Allan)
Jennifer Allan
Link to Jennifer
Jennifer Allan is a top producing real estate broker, a published author, a speaker and a trainer.
She has written five books about the business of selling real estate, including her flagship book: Sell with Soul: Creating an Extraordinary Career in Real Estate without Losing Your Friends, Your Principles or Your Self-Respect. Her book shows new agents how to jumpstart their career so that they can experience success before they become discouraged and risk being just another real estate statistic.
Jennifer began her writing career after ten years of selling real estate successfully in Denver, Colorado. She was dismayed at the low level of professionalism she frequently encountered in the real estate industry and, with her “soulful” message, hopes to encourage the real estate community to self-correct the negative stereotypes of the profession.
Jennifer’s message to agents is that they should strive to be competent real estate advisors, rather than competent real estate prospectors. Her books are written with this philosophy in mind. The title – Sell with Soul – is really just a catchy phrase for following the Golden Rule in the day-to-day practice of real estate. Treating clients and prospects respectfully, as the salesperson him or herself would like to be treated. Being competent, reliable and fair, and motivated by a true desire to earn a commission, not just show up at closing with hand outstretched.
During her real estate career, Jennifer worked at several brokerage firms and eventually opened her own company, New Precedent Real Estate, in 2004. From 1999 through 2002, she was the top producer in her office, and a member of the RE/MAX Platinum Club, which is awarded to the company’s highest producers. In her first year of selling real estate, she was the second highest producing rookie agent out of approximately 75 other new licensees.
She is a regular columnist at Realty Times and RIS Media, and one of the industry’s most popular bloggers.
First Episode: Thursday, February 18th at 12:30 PM EST
Broadcast Frequency: Monthly, 45-Minutes
Format: Conversational Lecture, Q&A
The Republican View (Matt Jacobson)
Matt Jacobson
Link to Matt
Matt Jacobson is President and Chief Executive Officer of Maine & Company. Maine & Company is the only organization dedicated exclusively to business attraction and job creation in Maine. As its chief executive, Matt develops and executes business attraction and expansion strategies with businesses, state and local authorities and other stakeholders.
Prior to returning to Maine and joining Maine & Company, Matt was most recently Assistant Vice President, Sales and Marketing, at Canadian National Railways, based in Chicago, Ill. In his various roles at CN from 2000 – 2005, Matt was responsible for International and North America Intermodal sales and marketing, and a revenue budget of $1.1 billion
From 1996 -2000, Matt lived in Maine when he was President and Chief Operating Officer of the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, headquartered in Auburn, Maine. During his four-year tenure, the railroad tripled its revenue, increasing corporate earnings by 65%. The railroad also attracted 23 new businesses to its line. Additionally, Matt and the Railroad made these accomplishments under the regulatory regimes of two Federal Governments, a Provincial government, three different state governments, and a workforce represented by 5 US-based unions and 5 Canadian-based unions.
From 1991 to 1996, Matt worked for the CSX railroad company in various executive capacities. During that time, he was stationed in Jacksonville, FL, Pittsburgh, PA, and in Boston, MA (with CSX subsidiary SeaLand Service).
Matt is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy (1984) and holds an MBA from Chapman University (1992). He was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In addition to being an aircraft commander, he was an instructor and evaluator pilot. Matt served in the Air Force on active duty until 1991 and in the reserves until his honorable discharge in 2000.
When it came time to choose a permanent home with his family, Matt returned to Maine. Matt is married to Dr. Kemedy Kathryn McQuillen. Matt and Kate were married in Boothbay Harbor. A graduate of Bowdoin College and the University of Vermont Medical School, Dr. McQuillen is an emergency room physician at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Matt and Kate reside in Cumberland and have two children, Hank and Maggie.
Matt serves on the Board of Trustees of The Park Danforth, the Board of Directors of the Portland Community Chamber and the Maine Biotech Association, and the Board of Advisors of Catch a Piece of Maine and The Maine Heritage Policy Center.
Matt is a Republican candidate seeking to be elected as Maine’s next Governor in 2010.
Program Note:
First Episode: Thursday, March 18th at 12:30 PM EST
Broadcast Frequency: Monthly, 45-Minutes
Format: Conversational Lecture, Q&A
The Hidden Game (John Berling Hardy)
John Berling Hardy
Link to John
Upon graduating from university, John Berling Hardy apprenticed for his chartered accountancy designation with an international audit firm. Performing audits on Fortune 500 companies afforded John Berling Hardy the opportunity to observe a wide range of corporate environments. Also, it provided him with valuable insight into the internal dynamics of a large professional firm.
Specifically, it offered him a view into the stratified organizational structure typical of the Game. The partners, the principles of the firm, occupied the higher strata, with all the remaining levels of professional, from auditor through to the managers, were clustered together in the next rung. Finally, the support staff occupied the lowest strata. This caste system had a profound impact on the corporate culture of the firm creating an environment which was highly political and aggressively competitive.
After leaving the international firm John Hardy worked with the government of Ontario in the office of the Auditor General as a senior value for money auditor. While at the government he specialized in designing audits for individual organizational units within larger ministries. During that time John Hardy gained valuable insight into common misconceptions about the nature of efficiency. Our linear mindset promotes and rigid work hard, rather than flexible work smart attitude tends to produce suboptimal results. By narrowly defining an organization’s mandate and compartmentalizing it into small, controllable subroutines which are easy to replicate, we are squandering the potential of the employees’ ingenuity and creativity. Also, it does little to promote a warm congenial environment in the workplace. This then leads to absenteeism, poor performance and high turnover.
His experiences there led him to develop an alternative approach to value for money auditing, Bottoms Up! Auditing. Stressing flow over compliance, it was remarkably successful in eliciting the insights from the front line stuff who are directly involved in the delivery of the service. This ‘going into the trenches approach’ broke down the usual resistance encountered by the auditor, encouraging a more collegial, horizontal relationship between auditors and the client staff.
John Berling Hardy’s time at the Szeged Paprika and Meat Processing Plant in southern Hungary, as crisis manager, was a life defining experience. The company, one of the largest in the local region, was experiencing difficulty and John Hardy was sent in by the lead secured creditor, one of Hungary’s major banks, to do a work out. Ostensibly, this was because of problems related to the liberalization of the economy as it moved from a centrally controlled to a market based economy in the early nineteen nineties.
Even though these challenges were real enough, they concealed another, much darker, reality. This was that a fraud which enlisted the participation of the senior management of the plant, as well as the local bank’s management (John Berling Hardy’s employer), was the real driver of events behind the scenes.
John Berling Hardy’s experiences at the Szeged plant was the inspiration for this book and provide the underlying case study interlaced into the book. The happenings at the plant are a microcosm which serves to illustrate the essential elements of the Game.
Upon returning from Hungary, John Hardy returned to the family business, the construction and development of luxury homes in Toronto. Even though in a city the size of Toronto there are thousands of builders, architects, and real estate agents plying their trade; at the upper end of the market there is an extremely small selection from each of those categories who monopolize the market. This creates a kind of oligopoly, or club. Small enough for all the Players know one another. Completely self contained, almost hermetically sealed, it creates a kind of ecosystem. This is an extension of the Game from the scale of an individual company to a niche within a larger market.
Program Note:
First Episode: Friday, March 19th, 2010 – 3:00 to 4:30 PM EST
Broadcast Frequency: Monthly, 30-Minutes
Format: Interview, Q&A
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