Cerius Business Today

Change isn’t always easy but sometimes necessary. We are seeing a trend of change among many clients we work with at Cerius. Most of that change involves diversification. This diversification is in a number of forms from client base to products and services. Leadership is looking to lower risk in the long term by taking some risks now.

With a business that is increasing its revenues year over year and has good cash flow, it can be difficult to look ahead and think your revenue sources may be very different three to five years from now. Just because that is how you have made money in the past doesn’t mean it is sustainable. We are seeing the drive for diversification in a variety of industries and types of companies. Here are some great examples of companies Cerius has worked with and what they are doing to ensure they are creating and leading the market rather than just surviving in it.

Healthcare Innovation

There is no question the healthcare industry is changing. One of the best applications we have seen that combines product management with innovation is a large healthcare services company that took on Innovation as an initiative and is turning it into a business practice and line of services. Rather than just adopting some of the innovative trends and technologies available, they are investing in the companies that are developing them and applying it to their industry and services. The company was able to stay focused on their normal business operations by bringing in an innovation executive with a variety of industry vertical experience that could be applied. With the focus being maintained by an external resource, the internal team was not distracted but rather energized with the exciting direction in which the company was going.

Non-Profit for the 21st Century

About the last place you would think of an organization taking initiative and expanding their services away from what has been done for the past few decades is a non-profit. It is easy to become myopic when you are operating a company on a day to day basis. With this in mind, a nationwide non-profit brought in an interim executive from outside the company and outside the industry. The executive was able to quickly see how to leverage the non-profit’s core competency of receiving and reselling their donated merchandise within a single category to other categories with relatable characteristics. Within two months, the expansion had already begun along with the organizations first app to make it quicker and easier for donations to be pledged and processed.

Family Owned Business

After 30+ years in business, a family owned business decided it wanted to be in business for another 30 years and in order to do so, it would need to change its service and product offering. Over the decades, the company had built strong relationships with their clients as well as throughout the industry both with competitors and complimentary providers. One of the biggest challenges their clients have is managing the range of providers for any given project. With a strong expertise in understanding the client’s end need, the company decided to expand beyond their single product and become the single point of contact for the client across all service and product offerings. This will solve the client’s problem of coordination issues and provide better coordination and clarity for the suppliers, not to mention an expanded revenue stream for the company.

The one thing all companies had in common is not relying solely on their internal team. To think outside of the box they went outside of their company and found expertise to minimize the risks they were taking. Here’s some insights from Cerius Experts who work with companies looking to leverage outside expertise and resource to diversify their revenue stream.

For situations that may not be consistent with the norm of your industry or business, an innovative interim executive can be instrumental in identifying the target, the path and

As the company grows, it becomes more important than ever to list the roles and responsibilities of each department, each manager, and each employee. A systematized list of job roles creates a culture of order and prevents work duplication of the same task by different people.

One of the most frustrating things for an employee is not knowing what everybody else around them does. Modern organizations are very complex and have a high level of inter-dependency between departments and team members. For a business to run smoothly, employees must be aware of who does what in the organization so that they know who to go to when they need to get something done.

As a manager, you have a pretty good idea of what each employee does. Whether you work in a small 6-man team or a large organization, you know who to go to for help with supplies, ordering, or even just where to find the documents that have the answers. But employees do not know what their colleagues do unless they ask or you tell them. It is an issue that the staff deeply cares about, yet many managers do not concern themselves with defining clear roles and responsibilities and sharing them.

Unclear roles and responsibilities

Every time I have ever helped a company do a recap on a big project, we list all the issues and find out what led to them. Ninety percent of the time it came down to unclear roles & responsibilities.

As the company grows, it becomes more important than ever to list the roles and responsibilitiesof each department, each manager, and each employee. A systematized list of job roles creates a culture of order and prevents work duplication of the same task by different people. There is less confusion about what is expected of each employee. Team members will know who to go to to coordinate tasks in the organization as a whole and work interdependently.

Talk to five of your employees. Ask them what their role in the company is and what they are responsible for. Do they start listing what they do on a daily basis or do they correlate it to the organization as a whole? And how do they contribute to it compared to their counterparts? Do your employees know where their work ends and another team member’s begins? If someone leaves, can you divide up their role and responsibilities in less than 5 minutes?

As daunting as it can be to tackle this age old task, start simple and it will snowball from there. The best place to start is just by making a list. Remember – when it comes to organizations, if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist.

Listing roles

It doesn’t matter what tool you use, just keep it simple and something that can easily be passed on, e.g. Word or Excel. I prefer Excel since it can easily be consolidated, sorted, altered and distributed. It is surprising how many times once consolidated I sort by “Person Responsible” and an overwhelming number of items have one person’s name next to it. It is one of the easiest ways to get a quick snapshot. There are also applications like the backbone model which come pre-populated with common sense roles. It is convenient, online and easy to understand and use. Managers can see each person’s roles and responsibilities, assign it somebody else, remove or add new ones. Computer programs like these allow you to search through the roles to find out who the individual responsible for a certain project or function is, if you need help with a certain project.

If the job responsibilities are listed, nobody has to wonder whose job it is to update the website, order supplies or monitor inventory levels. All the items will be listed, organized, systematized, and viewable to all.

Impact of clearly defined roles

You, as a leader, will know who is responsible for what and who to hold accountable for it. It also makes the transition for your successor or new recruits easier. Once employees know what their job is through an automated delegation model, you no longer have to manage and juggle tasks to keep on top of thing

Ideas for Board of Director’s Compensation

Every once in a while, a newspaper or a business magazine publishes an article exposing overinflated salaries of board members. While it may be true for some big corporations, the same cannot be said for the rest. Companies have different options on how to compensate their board members other than handing over a colossal sum of money or equity in the company.

There are two major ways companies compensate their board members; either through equity or cash compensation. It is important that a company compensate board members in a manner that promotes their long-term interests and goals. We had an in-depth discussion with some well-experienced board members, and examined the pros and cons of both ways of compensating advisory boards or board of directors compensation.

Compensating with Equity

While researching her book, Marissa Levin, an expert on boards, came across a long-standing attorney and compensation expert. There are four different ways to use equity as board member’s compensation and according to this compensation expert: “Never give more than one quarter to one half of one percent to each board member you have.”

A hazard of compensating with equity arises when board members leave the company. Marissa advises, “Put in a one year agreement with a restricted stock clause that allows you to buy back that stock, basically at a penny, in the event that you roll off that board.” Because the last thing a company wants is to give a large portion of equity to somebody who only works part-time for them. And if that board member doesn’t work out, then the company has someone walking around outside the company who owns a large portion of stock with no interest in the organization.

Another thing for companies to consider is that you should be very prudent with the stock. This is something start-ups should especially consider because they usually have very little revenues so they cannot pay the board member very much or at all and, as a result, allot 5- 6% equity as the board member’s compensation.

Although initially that might not seem to be a big amount, but as the company grows that small percentage can amount to a large sum. Like Marissa says, “If you build a company to $5, $10, $15, $20, $30, $50 million dollars, that’s a lot of money to be giving to somebody basically ‘cart blanche’.”

Monetary Compensation

Jeff Thompson has served in the board of directors for 10 years at Edelbrock Corporation. He was also a member of the executive, compensation and audit committees. Talking about compensating public board of directors, Jeff explained that they do things a bit differently.

“We paid every member a fee for the quarterly meeting. It wasn’t a large amount of money but we also covered all their expenses,” said Jeff. The expenses included travel expenses, as the company had people coming in from all over the country.

An additional perk that public boards had was a small pool of stock for the board members, which amounted to 1-2% of the company. The money was vested over a 5-7 year period to ensure long-term loyalty from its board members. Jeff said, “In order to earn the stock, you had to have long-term plans and goals with the company. So if you left early, you didn’t get much of anything.” In the event a board member rolled off the board due to term limits, since they had earned that investment, they would have the right to either to keep the stock or sell it back to the company.

It’s important that you let go of board members in a way that doesn’t leave hard feelings between either party. Marissa said, “The most important thing you can do is keep the doors open and never burn any bridges because you don’t know if you might want them back at some later date or they could refer you to another advisor.” In her company, she sets up an ‘exit interview’ to make sure that there is closure in a professional manner so that everybody feels good about the experience.

A business is essentially a system of operations. When there is no organization and structure in the management of its processes, the company struggles to focus on new projects and growth, and spends most of its time keeping up with its day-to-day activities.

Successful businesses are organized businesses. If your employees are not informed and there is no plan, then an air of confusion surrounding the workforce will lower productivity and hinder creativity.

It is not difficult to be an operations specialist, yet the impact is immense. There are some key fundamentals to building a strong operational foundation that can help make or break a company’s growth. There are a few operational issues that are the most common. Focusing is the top issue to focus on that can make a big difference to both your employees and your profitability.

Clear roles & responsibilities

Often in growing companies everyone wears many hats and jumps in to pick up the slack where needed. Too much is going on every day and they consider it too cumbersome to put something like this into writing. Unfortunately, this is one of the cases where if it’s not written down, it does not exist. Any time spent gathering and documenting this information will be quickly gained backed and then some. This can serve as the launching pad for a number of uses:

Employee Accountability – It is difficult to hold someone accountable when it is not crystal clear what they are accountable for.

Loss of an Employee – Pull out their list of responsibilities and quickly divide them up between the staff. This can be done in less than 10 minutes and everyone is now clear that they are responsible for those tasks.

Training – You now have a list to go through and discuss potential training gaps.

Succession Planning – You now have a list of responsibilities for the next role an employee wants to take on. Go through the list to discuss the skills needed and training gaps to be addressed before they can move into the role.

Processes and Procedures – Each person is responsible for creating their own process and procedures for the items on their responsibilities list. Provide a simple template to get them started. Start with one per month and move it up to one per week for those who catch on quickly.

Cross Training – Having a list to start from makes it much easier to identify opportunities for cross training. Also a great time to cross check the process the responsibility owner wrote. Use that document to cross train.

Getting The Right Employees in the Right Seats – Assess your employees (formally or informally) for what they do best, what they are good at and what they enjoy doing. What hidden talents are there that you never knew about. Compare list to the roles & responsibilities. Who in your organization is mismatched with skills to role? I have seen 180 degree turns in employees and the overall team effectiveness by making shifts as a result of this exercise.

The list goes on when it comes to the benefits this single operational focus can bring. Every post mortem I have ever been involved in was traced back to the project getting off track at the very beginning in one single area – there was no clarity on who was doing what and what was expected of them. As a result, the moment something didn’t go as planned, the employees were left playing hot potato and musical chairs.

A few more things to consider as you work on putting some operational fundamentals in place. Anything you do should be put to the test with the below:

5 Key Fundamentals of Operations

Be Clear – Can this be communicated on its own from the highest to the lowest level of your organization? Will it makes sense to everyone?

Communication – Remember the telephone game you played as a kid. Bring in a handful of your employees and put them around a table. Whisper to the first one “The brown cat bough a faucet, the black dog slipped on a tennis ball.” See what happens once it makes its way around the table. It can o

Companies are looking for executives who add value to the organization. Analyze the hiring company’s situation and find ways to achieve their objectives. Be creative with how you can help them during this executive contract.

Growing your independent executive business at any level is a complicated and difficult process. It’s not just applying for roles or projects you’re qualified for, but rather searching for places where your experience and values ‘fit’ with that of the organization.

At Cerius Executives, we have advised hundreds of executives through career, assignment and position transitions. A smooth transition between organizations requires extensive planning and consideration to detail.

We recommend 7 basic steps that can help you find your next executive contract.

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 1: Identify what you want

First, purposefully determine what you want to do next in your career. With time priorities change and your interest moves towards other things. So take some time to figure out what exactly do you want to do in the next phase of your work life.

You need to know what path best suits your interests and experiences, towards maintaining a successful career. Are you ready to start up another company, step into a CEO role, gain some work-life balance, become an interim executive or a management consultant, or quite possibly focus on board work?

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 2: Put everything down in writing

Start with your past. Get your entire history on paper so you can easily pull what you need as you need it. Jot down all of your work experiences, skills and achievements in a single document. You can then easily pull from that into your CV, resume and online profiles. Keeping your profiles up-to-date is crucial in any job search strategy and should be maintained on all platforms like LinkedIn and your professional website.

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 3: Determine what you can bring to the company

Reflect on your past work history and make a list of the results you have and can deliver to your future customers. By determining what value you can you bring to a company, you can better market and sell yourself. Having a record of working in certain kinds of situations helps you narrow down your specialty, and narrows down your search for positions which you are experienced in.

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 4: Broadcast yourself

Get it out there – everyone you speak to should be clear on what you do best and what opportunities you are looking for. With the current business and talent environment it is rare for anyone to not come across an open opportunity or position here and there. Companies and recruiters are looking for talent referrals more than ever. Make sure everyone you come across knows what you are looking for and when to keep you in mind. You are more likely to find your next opportunity through someone you know than through a posting.

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 5: Keep your information consistent

Don’t tell a networking group you are looking for your next CEO role, when the last 4 positions on your LinkedIn profile are all board roles. It’s understandable to want to look for roles in an entirely different direction, but hiring companies want executives bringing years of relevant experience to the table. So make your information consistent with your history and what you want. It is also confusing and frustration for someone you meet to have nothing from the dialogue you two had reflected on your LinkedIn profile. Keep it consistent across all channels.

Finding Your Next Executive Contract – Step 6: Get creative in creating solutions

Companies are looking for executives who add value to the organization. Analyze the hiring company’s situation and find ways to achieve their objectives. Be creative with how you can help them as an executive. Stay focused on where the company wants to arrive and how you can get them t

Transforming information technology from a cost center to a profit center to a competitive advantage should be a key imitative of any company with an IT spend. An accomplished CTO or CIO is the key to success.

There’s a number of reasons a company of any size would need a CIO or CTO for additional expertise. Whether you are looking to have your current IT structure assessed, needing a technology road map and plan, considering implementation of an ERP or needing to fill a vacant position, technology executives have a select expertise that often is not available or duplicated elsewhere within the organization. Bringing in an interim executive or management consultant can be a great way to quickly address the need and keep the focus on results without committing to long term overhead costs. At Cerius, we have seen the strategic use of an Interim Technology Executive include:

Enterprise Architecture

ERP selection, implementation, or fine-tuning

Business Process, Information, Technology and Planning

Information Technology Improvement

Data Centers, Cloud Computing, Technology and Help Desk

Program, Project and Portfolio Management

System Evaluation and Selection Process

IT / Technology and Business Alignment

Global Outsourcing

Interim technology executives have an in-depth understanding of business process improvement and technology along with the hands-on experience to drive your IT organization to become a strategic and competitive asset.

Interim CIO’s fill a gap between the departures of a senior IT executive and the start date of the new hire. Part-time CIOs work for a designated period of time to build and lead the IT organization in a SMB, or to lead a key IT initiative within larger organizations.

We are often asked the difference between a CIO and CTO. In its simplest form, a CIO is responsible for the technology the company depends on to operate and the CTO is responsible for the technology the company depends on for its revenues. The CIO focuses on the internal technologies the company needs to operate and deliver its services or products. This role can have an impact on bottom line profits through increased productivity, product delivery and company communications. The CTO is more of a customer facing role involved in product development and the end product the customer is using. The impact of the CTO role is more focused on revenues and delivery a top level product to the end customer. Whichever technology expertise you need, the benefits and results for bringing in outside expertise can be limitless. Here’s a few of the most common ones we see from clients at Cerius, how they were addressed and the types of results the client experienced:

Professional services and banking industry

Interim CIO: 5 days/week, 11 months

Situation

Independent review and assessment needed

Obsolete systems in place

Significant system outage occurred

Large project 6 months overdue

Technology and business unit not working together

Implementation

Restoration, recovery and remedial actions created and executed for system outage

Hired Director of IT Operations – department not functioning in part due to key role missing

Completed large project within one month of start

Established back-up systems

Hired Director of IT Operations – department not functioning in part due to key role missing

Created SOP, increased discipline and predictability of IT operations

Established annual budget

Set up performance testing program

Initiated change management program

Initiated business intelligence and reporting

Results

Brought strategic product to market within one month delivering 3% increase in revenue

Bridged cultural divide resulting in ability of business units to continue plan execution together

Full recovery within 6 months of system outage

Large Healthcare provider

CIO: 4-5 days/week, 6 months

Situation

Company lost prior CIO and needed immediate leadership

Broken relationship between business and IT existed

Need for strategy and standards

Dis

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. So let's meet the Cerius team. First we have Kristen McAlister, President of Cerius, next is Matt Saur, Chief People Officer, and then we have Maria Hillman and Kim Person, both Vice-Presidents of Client Solutions. Let's get right to the questions, shall we? Let’s do a rapid fire session here and each of you give me one answer to each of the next 3 questions. Things to avoid when hiring an executive. Maria, let’s start with you.

Maria:                   Anyone that uses the word “I” too much and not “we”, meaning they’re not a team player.

Pam:                      Excellent. Matt?

Matt:                     Don’t hire somebody in my image.

Pam:                      Ah yes. Kristen?

Kristen:                I would like to be careful from recycling within your industry. You may have an expert in your industry but they’re just going to recycle ideas and other concepts that are within it and not bring a great outside innovative perspective.

Pam:                      Great. Great answer. Kim?

Kim:                       Hiring an executive that cannot talk about his or her accomplishments.

Pam:                      Alright. Next one. Things to ask an executive that you want to hire? Maria?

Maria:                   I would ask them, what would you do in the first 30 days on your job.

Pam:                      Ok. Matt?

Matt:                     What were you brought in to do on your last assignment, and what did you accomplish?

Pam:                      Right. Thanks Matt. Kristen?

Kristen:                Ask them about the results from their last couple of assignments or positions. Some one can’t come up top of their head. What type of numbers, what type of impact that they’ve had? Especially using numbers other than, I just increased morale. They weren’t measuring it then, and they’re not going to measure it for you.

Pam:                      So you want specifics. Correct?

Kristen:                I want specifics. Better have it all on the top of your head because if you don’t have it from your past, how are you going to measure it and monitor it for me, and get me results.

Pam:                      Exactly. Kim?

Kim:                       I’m just going to reiterate. You’ve got to talk to executives what can you do for the company, not what you can do for the executive.

Pam:                      Oh perfect one. Thanks Kim. Alright next one. Company X needs to diversify its revenue stream. What type of an executive should they be looking for? Expertise, duration of contract, etc.

Maria:                   I would think expertise would be a marketing person or an innovation officer, and 3-6 months. And somebody from, that has some industry experience but that also has other verticals that you may be looking at.

Pam:                      Right. Thanks Maria. Matt?

Matt:                     I don’t know that I could add any more than what Maria said. I agree completely. To me it’s sales marketing, it’s experience. It’s having experience and multiple, looking at multiple organizations and being able to look at where they’ve been, where they need to go and how to get them from here to there. So still the marketing will be the obvious but I do think that there are other disciplines that could also get, make that happen.

Pam:                      Great, thanks Matt. Kristen?

Kristen:                Let’s start off with a very specific strategic product individual. Someone who

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. Let's get right to the questions shall we? Matt, why would a company hire a management consultant? And what is management consulting?

Mat:                      Well the reason that a company would hire a management consultant. One is that there may be difficult decisions that current management team doesn’t really want to make such as a downsizing situation or a situation where the company is in dire straits and they need to bring somebody in to help them make the most difficult decisions about how to streamline a company to make it profitable and there may very well be that the current owner is having difficulty making that decision on their own. Another one that I always like to use is, I’m the CEO of a company and my brother-in-law is in charge of sales. You know you realize that I’m never going to fire my brother-in-law but sales are stagnant. So I bring somebody in, I bring in a management consultant to head out my sales team and to teach my head of sales -my brother-in-law- how to do this job, how to go out and get new sales, grow organically and find new markets. And I get to keep my brother-in-law and the management person that we brought in at the end of the time when they’ve done their job they move on and they go do that for somebody else. As far as management consulting. Lots of different definitions, I think Kristen talked about it a few minutes ago, but management consulting is really that business where I have an expertise in a specific discipline and I no longer do it for a company, just one, but I provide that service to multiple companies. I go in, I look at what their needs are, I make an assessment, I help them put together a solution to that particular issue or problem and the difference I think between Cerius and most management consulting is that once I’ve made that proposal I move on and I go to another company and I do the same thing again. Cerius, we go in and we make a proposal on how to help them solve their problems and then we stay on and we become part of that management team long enough to actually execute a particular solution that we provided then.

Pam:                      So you don’t just advise, you also execute?

Matt:                     That’s correct, we do. Cerius, we do both of them.

Pam:                      Great. Thanks Matt.

Kristen:                 Pam, I would like to add on to that.

Pam:                      Sure.

Kristen:                One of the biggest challenges is that the company is hitting that plateau and it’s really hard to come up with the solutions and see your company from an objective standpoint when you’re inside of it. You need that outside perspective and as much as you can hire in individual to your company, those individuals come with needs and a handful of other company experiences because they’ve not always been there full-time. Management consultants may have experience that you get when you work with 10 companies within the given year. They can bring that perspective into your company and give a whole different view and take on things. You and I both know as business owners, sometimes it’s just too hard when you’re inside of it. You need someone from the outside.

Pam:                      Excellent. Yeah, I totally agree with that. CEO’s today do not get enough outside perspective. They get very myopic. I get myopic in my business and all CEO’s complain that the same thing and they just need s

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. Let's get right to the questions shall we? What last minute advice would you give business owners for thinking of hiring a temporary, part-time or contract executive? Kristen, why don’t we start with you?

Kristen:                Telling them what I needed done. I’d want to know that they’re done it at least 3-5 times in other companies. I talk to those companies, I talk to the co-workers because I know that they’ve had used that expertise in those situations.

Pam:                      You like the experience that they bring?

Kristen:                Yeah, I want to know that they’ve got the expertise that I need and they’ve got proven results on it. Not just they’re a great person to work with and they’ve accomplished so much. Have they accomplished what I need done?

Pam:                      So you don’t want somebody that just have an MBA and right out of college. Correct?

Kristen:                Not just right out of college. There’s some incredible executives out there that have accomplished a lot of things. They just haven’t actually done and they have light team for balance. They haven’t actually done and been involved in my types of situation. It needs to be specific.

Pam:                      Great. Anyone else have anything to add?

Matt:                     I would add it. Our interims have both depth and breadth of experience in their specific discipline. The other thing that they have is that they come with usually 20-plus years of experience in a larger organizations or in large consulting firms. So what they bring to a CEO is that they bring that expertise, that is far-reaching under than just what that CEO is looking for us to come in and help them with. They can come in and provide advice on their whole organization, not just on the specific discipline that that CEO is looking for.

Pam:  So thank you all for being here today sharing your expertise on some things CEOs need to know when hiring part-time, temporary and contract executives. Next month, tune in for our podcast on the advantages of boards and advisory boards, especially in companies today. Should be a great topic and one you won't want to miss. See you then!

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time.

BT:                  Welcome to Business Today brought to you by Cerius Executives, one of the largest interim executive and management consulting firms in North America. Today we are joined by Donald Nobel, a technology CFO who has spent a portion of his career as an interim executive. How are you doing today Donald?

Donald:            Oh terrific, terrific! Nice to meet you Raj.

BT:                  Nice to meet you too! So you actually have a pre-existing relationship with Cerius Executives. We’ve kind of tapped into you to be one of our interim executives and a CFO for some of our clients. That just leads me to wonder. When you work with companies, are there types of leaders or companies that you enjoy working with specifically? Do you like have a sweet spot with personalities or industries?

Donald:            Well let’s start with industries if you don’t mind, and in with regards to that even breaking it down further, I prefer the challenge of really high growth companies. Where you walk in the door and they are doing a 100, 200, 300 percent a year, and those are very exciting and challenging for me and I love them. I love being in the door and I’m already hit with 5000 questions. Those are amazing. When you expand that to the industry, one of the things I love most is technology companies and today that’s a very broad term. A technology company could be software, it could be medical devices, it could be professional services. There are so many types of companies lumped under technology but again, love it because they are very fast moving and they are usually challenged a lot. As regards to people, leaders and CEOs, I tend to work best with those that have an organization where they trust the people below them, they trust that a CFO coming in can be part of the team and not micromanage ever single detail. The worst thing in the world is for a CEO to micromanage his team. And I think its best if I and the CEO are on the same page. That there are functions for the CEO and there are functions for the CFO and that’s the best atmosphere to work in.

BT:                  And what do you do if you walk into a scenario where the CEO is micromanaging and doesn’t have a whole lot of trust with the people that work with him?

Donald:            I probably try to do the best I can, but then shortly I recommend somebody else coming in. Again my job is not the long-term type job situation. My job is to do best for the company and sometimes the best for the company is a change.

BT:                  When we look at the interim executive industry the consulting work that comes with it, it can be challenging, obviously, which seems to be a driving factor for a lot of executives who do this type of work. But at the same time it also, it could probably have its nuisances, constantly having to look for new clients or customers or contracts or... How do you do some of that, how do get yourself out there in the market place? So people know that you’re there and these are the services you have to offer and basically how does an interim executive in today’s day and age market themselves?

Donald:            A very good question. I chuckled a little bit because I remembered something that a colleague said to me once and he said, “You are either working or looking for work, you cannot do both.” And I find that to be true in the interim game where again I think a common theme of our conversation today Raj is that interims do tend to get put into situations where they have to work very hard and they have to get a lot of things accomplished in a v