Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
Angie Leinert credits her career trajectory over what can be described as a “chili dog epiphany.” At age 19, Leinert realized that the best part of her job as a gas station attendant was eating a chili dog while on break. She knew that she wasn’t living up to her potential, and set about to find a better path. She started by serving six years as a linguist for the U.S. Air Force, earning an MBA, then joining BAE Systems as a project manager for technology systems for the U.S. intelligence service. In 2007, she set out with nine colleagues to start IntelliGenesis, a data analytics and cybersecurity firm with a head for business and a heart for people.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
By the age of 10, Tracy Lawrence had been bullied so much in school that she regularly ate lunch alone in the bathroom. She was naturally drawn to the new students, especially ones from other countries and different backgrounds. The ‘in’ girls were merciless in their torment. For years, Tracy tried to bury the pain of bullying and isolation. In a recent article in Forbes, she recalled, “As I grew older, I told myself that I had to move on. That remembering it wasn’t helpful. But the opposite of ‘remembering’ isn’t ‘forgetting’–it’s ‘dismembering.’ I took an important part of me, my past, and I tried to throw it out of my identity. As if I could actually do that.”
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
Before the 2008 financial crisis hit, Steve Hall was riding high on $70 million in annual revenues from the Dallas-based used car dealership he’d built in just 3 ½ years. His bank account was full, but his life was empty. It took the financial crisis to shake him out of his maniacal focus on profit maximization, and shift to a model of purpose maximation. That’s when Hall found the Conscious Capitalism community.
In 2010, Hall re-ignited his company, driversselect, with a new purpose – to infect the world with highly contagious CARE (Caring Acts Randomly Expressed). The focus on purpose, culture and values sent revenues soaring and attracted the attention of Fortune 300 company Sonic Automotive, which acquired driversselect in September 2017.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
“The recipe for success is good work. Do good work and you will get work. There is no other way.” – William Barclay Peat
This advice, delivered by one of KPMG’s founders William Barclay Peat, remains as relevant for the firm today as it was a century ago. You might think that getting hired at an accounting giant of over 30,000 global employees requires attention to detail and a knack for numbers. At KPMG, it also requires heart.
In 2014, the company launched an initiative aimed at inspiring its workforce to reframe and elevate the meaning and purpose of their work. It started with a simple question, “What do you do at KPMG?” and a video that answered: “We Shape History!” The video was shared with employees along with an app that enabled all team members to create and share digital posters for a 10,000 Stories Challenge.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
“Would you like a career with a stable and steady income? Then being a real estate agent is NOT the job for you.” That’s a description of what it’s like to work in the real estate industry according to a recent article posted in Redfin. It’s also a model that Philadelphia-based Houwzer founder, Mike Maher set out to break. A 2018 Gallup survey found that Americans perceive real estate agents as having very low standards of honesty and ethics. Part of that distrust is due to the fact that the very people who advise you through the largest purchase of your life base 100% of their income on whether or not you sign on the dotted line. That’s a model that Houwzer is disrupting.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
The city of Seattle, Washington, is home to the world famous Pike Place Fish Market where fresh fish have been hawked for nearly a century. The open air market is known for its team of fun loving fishmongers who hurl customers’ selections from the ice packed displays at the front to the scales in the back. The story of the market’s success is rooted in the story of its former owner, John Yokoyama. Its future lies in the sure hands of four former employees to whom Yokoyama sold the market to in July of 2018. The fish market was not always a place that drew crowds. In fact, 21 years after Yokoyama bought the market in 1965, the business was facing bankruptcy.
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