www.corporateamerica-news.com
CORP
SEPTEMBER 2016
AMERICA ANA ARMSTRONG 14 Armstrong Investment
Managers:
Logic, Sustainability, Purpose – An Insight into the Financial Mind of Ana Armstrong
20 BridgeStreet
Global Hospitality:
Bringing Professional Global Management to Student Accommodation
Finest in Finance
60 Plan B Technologies: A Holistic Understanding of Systems Integration
64 JXJ Technologies: Modern Solutions for Electronic Medical Care
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EDITOR'S NOTE Welcome to the September 2016 issue of Corp America Magazine. Over the coming months, the eyes of the world will be increasingly, inevitably, drawn to the USA as the Presidential Election – perhaps the most contentious in living memory – enters its final, nail-biting months. Among those sets of eyes, eager to get a sense of the current clime and the direction that their fortunes are expected to turn, are those of financial institutions and corporations, both at home and abroad, all with tremendous stakes in the economic prosperity of America. Even at the time of writing this, the dust is still settling from the first of three explosive live meetings between the two party representatives, and the markets have shown an instant response. Not only did major US and Asian stock markets jump a few points, but the Mexican Peso also climbed by two per cent against the Dollar. Exciting times, indeed. It is unsurprising that America’s corporate tiers should react so expressively to the goings-on in American politics. Corp America is hardly timorous in its continued growth and expansion; the growth of new, vibrant middle markets, and the permeation of these industries into the lives of everyday Americans, has given the nation a reinvigorated sense of Exceptionalism. It seems only right, then, to reflect upon how American businesses are taking advantage of new trends in their industries. That underpins our task here at Corp America News. In particular, with all of this talk about who is best suited to leading the nation, we catch up with the most dominant figures in America whose lives and careers have revolved around creating the business leaders of tomorrow. Alongside Jayne Jenkins of the Churchill Leadership Group, Richard Tyler lays out his 16-point list of leadership traits; we examine how they have been making waves in changing the way we think about corporate leadership and management. In addition, we draw particular attention to the works of America’s finest, most up-standing legal firms. Unrefuted experts in litigation, key witness provision, and legal advocacy, such as Colucci & Gallaher, P.C. and IMS ExpertServices lend their voices to exploring the high stakes involved in representing entrepreneurs from across the US and beyond. More besides, the pivotal hospitality industry and the ever-evolving technology sector feature prominently in this month’s issue. We hope that you enjoy this month’s issue of Corp America, as much as we enjoy bringing it to you. Contact the Editor: George Millar 001 212 618 1855 george.millar@ai-globalmedia.com
CONTENTS COMPANY FORMATIONS 10
MARKETING & PR
MICROSOFT EXPANDS AI EFFORTS WITH CREATION OF NEW MICROSOFT AI AND RESEARCH GROUP
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RISK MANAGEMENT 52
INVESTMENT 14
HITTING ‘THE BIG THREE’
COMING TOGETHER
CONQUERING THE COMPETITION
SUPPORT SERVICES & TECH HOSPITALITY 20
LEADERSHIP THROUGH TRANSPARENCY: SEAN WORKER
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A PASSION FOR HELPING PEOPLE
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GROWING STRONG
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MEDSOURCE
LEADERSHIP 30
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
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A LEADER IN LEADERSHIP – RICHARD TYLER
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INTEGRATED AIRPORT TRANSPORTATION AT ITS BEST
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ITRADENETWORK EXPANDS FOCUS IN FRESH FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN ACROSS EMEA
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PLAN B TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
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ONES TO WATCH JXJ TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
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AVANGATE REPORTS NEW GLOBAL DIGITAL COMMERCE TRENDS: SUBSCRIPTIONBASED SERVICES DOMINATE; ALTERNATIVE PAYMENTS GAINING GROUND
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WHAT’S STOKING GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTEROPERABLE TECH IN US UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS?
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STREAMING TO ACCOUNT FOR 95% OF MOBILE MUSIC BY 2022
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WINNERS DIRECTORY
LEGAL 40
DOING BUSINESS THE RIGHT WAY
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PROGRESSIVE, DISTINGUISHED COUNSELING
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ESTABLISHING NEW PARAMETERS
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LEADING LITIGATORS - LAW OFFICES OF JAY COHEN
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CORP NEWS
LEUKOCARE GRANTS LICENSE TO US VACCINE COMPANY PAXVAX LEUKOCARE AG, Germany, and PaxVax, Inc., USA, today announced that both partners have entered into a licensing agreement granting PaxVax access to LEUKOCARE’s proprietary SPS formulation technology platform for the clinical development and subsequent commercialization of one of PaxVax’s live viral vaccine products. EUKOCARE provides a nextgeneration formulation platform for the protection of proteins like biopharmaceuticals to allow the development of better products. The proprietary SPS® technologies are provided to development projects of partners in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. LEUKOCARE’s SPS® technologies improve stability and quality of biologics like antibodies, vaccines etc. in dry and liquid formulation. SPS® also protect proteins in biologically functionalized combination devices.
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PaxVax, meanwhile, develops, manufactures and commercializes innovative specialty vaccines against infectious diseases for traditionally overlooked markets such as travel. PaxVax has licensed vaccines for typhoid fever (Vivotif) and cholera (Vaxchora), and vaccines at various stages of research and clinical development
including for adenovirus, anthrax, hepatitis A, HIV, and the zika virus. As part of its social mission, PaxVax is also working to make its vaccines available to broader populations most affected by these diseases. PaxVax is headquartered in Redwood City, California and maintains research and development and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facilities in San Diego, California and Bern, Switzerland and other operations in Bermuda and Europe. More information is available at www.PaxVax.com. The licensing agreement provides to PaxVax exclusive access to two product-specific pharmaceutical formulations based on LEUKOCARE’s Stabilizing and Protecting Solutions formulation platform. The undisclosed live adenovirus-based vaccine candidate will enter clinical trials by early 2017. Under the terms of the agreement, LEUKOCARE will receive milestone payments
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and annual license fees during development and undisclosed royalties on net sales during commercialization of the vaccine. “For the entire pre-clinical development phase of the product LEUKOCARE has been a reliable partner in supporting our efforts to develop stabilizing formulations for our adenovirus-based vaccine. We are very pleased that the product will soon enter clinical trials”, said Jonathan Smith, CSO of PaxVax. Michael Scholl, CEO with LEUKOCARE, said: “This license agreement with PaxVax demonstrates again our ability and strong expertise to back up our industry partners in pharmaceutical formulation development. We are proud to be involved in the successful product development of PaxVax and to support their efforts to bring the product into clinic and eventually to market.
CORP NEWS
STYLE OR SUBSTANCE? With the world focused on a Clinton-Trump opposition, fundamentals are likely to be overlooked, creating volatility and opportunities for investors, says Rowan Dartington Signature’s Guy Stephens.
stablished in 1990, Rowan Dartington is a wealth manager with a branch network across England and the Isle of Man and responsible for client assets in excess of £1.4bn. The Rowan Dartington private client business specialises in financial planning and discretionary investment management as well as providing a broad range of stockbroking services. Rowan Dartington Signature is a specialist, whole-of-market discretionary fund management business dedicated to supporting and servicing the needs of intermediaries and their clients. It has worked alongside professionals including independent financial advisers (IFAs), solicitors and accountants for over 20 years, and Guy Stephens have been at the forefront of that dynamic for years. As such, he is in an advantageous position to comment on the heating Presidential Race.
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In addition, Rowan Dartington owns Ardan International, a global wealth platform. Ardan International provides a full service platform for the adviser community globally that includes research tools, dealing, custody and client administration, and is authorised and regulated in the Isle of Man. Last week saw the last meaningful US Federal Open Market Committee this side of the US election. As widely expected, they didn’t raise interest rates but gave strong hints that they may do so in December. This was entirely consistent with previous public relations with the market – no surprises, everything choreographed and every word scripted. The setting of US interest rates should now be a sideshow until after the US election, which falls on Tuesday 8th November in case you hadn’t focused on it yet. This feels just like the warm up to the Brexit vote in the UK, with all the political
posturing, mud-slinging, analysis and commentary leading up to the big day. And afterwards, the world carries on much as it did before with different egos and personalities in the spotlight for us all to criticise and gradually get annoyed with over time. This week sees the first televised political debate between Trump and Clinton and it does present quite interesting viewing as the two candidates are so different. It is quite surprising that the latest polls only show Clinton with a four-point lead, given that Trump is such a ‘Marmite’ character. Then again, perhaps as with the Brexit vote, it was evident then that the political establishment was out of kilter with the mood of the electorate and what appeared to be unlikely, suddenly became the desire of the voter. All logic would say that Donald Trump is the most unlikely would-be President but given the questionable appeal of Hillary Clinton to some, it would be a fool that dismissed him. He will have an army of spin-doctors seeking to control everything from his appearance to every word he utters for the sake of attaining the White House and that should not be underestimated. It is highly likely there may be some more email server revelations waiting in the wings to be released at the opportune moment to damage Hillary. One thing you can say about Trump is there is no hiding the fact of what he is and what his views are, no matter how distasteful they may be. We have heard the offensive and ignorant views previously hence the widely reported view that ‘It is hers to lose’. I would say equally, ‘It is his to win’ if he can appear more moderate and mainstream rather than a barnstorming showman. Note how quiet and reserved Boris Johnson has become since he was appointed to
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Foreign Secretary – it is very easy to throw grenades from the outside until you are fully involved in the skirmish of international political negotiation and when power becomes reality. All this means a likely large dose of suspended animation for the markets as we traverse the next eight weeks until voting day. It is notable that the rhetoric against Russia is hardening following the breakdown of the Syrian ceasefire – the US citizen may be a supporter of this tougher line which can only help Trump. That is also a worry for markets if we foresee a ramping up of posturing from the US but with the caveat that the US has no appetite for continuing to get involved with the world’s problems, as quoted by Trump himself. It will be interesting to see how those two map out as the likes of Putin will have no respect for a Trump Presidency. Of course, he may not get in after all, which is probably the most market friendly outcome. But then again, we all said that about Brexit and look what happened. In addition, it could be argued that George W Bush should have been the most feared US President in terms of foreign military ambitions but this wasn’t perceived at the time. Whatever the outcome, we are assured of weeks of speculation and polls, trying to predict the future and what the eventual winner will do. As ever in US politics, it will be a battle of style and substance and how much of the electorate believe the views of the candidates. This will be very closely watched by the markets. And that presents more reasons for the fundamentals to be overlooked which means likely volatility and that provides investors with opportunities.
CORP NEWS
GLOBAL NEONATAL INFANT CARE EQUIPMENT MARKET IS EXPECTED TO REACH US$ 2,686.7 MILLION BY 2024 The neonatal infant care equipment market is expected to witness healthy growth in 2016, with global revenues reaching US$ 1.5 Bn, up from US$ 1.4 Bn in 2015. North America and Europe will continue to remain the two most lucrative markets for neonatal infant care equipment globally. In a new report titled “Neonatal Infant Care Equipment Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024”, Persistence Market Research analyzes the factors and trends impacting the market over an eight-year forecast period (2016-2024). ey companies are increasingly investing in integrated product development in order to meet evolving medical needs worldwide. Leading manufacturers in APAC are currently concentrating on creating an enhanced distribution network in China, India, and Australia”.
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Increasing premature birth incidences will continue to be a major factor propelling the demand for neonatal infant care equipment. Improved older equipment technology and advancing innovative techniques will also play a key role in fuelling market growth. In addition, launch of multi-specialty products by regional and international industry players will spur the demand for neonatal infant care equipment throughout 2016. Rising demand for advanced monitoring and diagnostics for infants is also expected to push the market further. Moreover, technological upgradation in monitoring and phototherapy devices is said to significantly contribute to market growth. Other drivers include growing awareness and availability of neonatal care equipment, especially in developing regions.
By product type, the market is projected to witness continued dominance of thermoregulation devices over monitoring systems, phototherapy equipment, hearing screening devices, and vision screening equipment. The thermoregulation segment will account for over 50% of the total market share, whereas the monitoring systems segment is estimated to thrive at the fastest pace in 2016. On the basis of end user, the neonatal care equipment market is expected to witness the highest consumption by pediatric and neonatal clinics. While hospitals will remain a major end user, nursing homes may record an uptick in the demand for neonatal infant care equipment.
However, high prices of ventilators and brain monitoring devices, and lack of product differentiation are identified to hamper market demand over the forecast period. Furthermore, an inadequate technical resource pool and availability of substitute technology comprise the longstanding challenges to mass penetration of neonatal care equipment. These factors are anticipated to limit widespread adoption of neonatal infant care equipment, especially in India, Africa, and Brazil.
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Based on region, North America is foreseen to retain a dominating position in the global market. North America’s revenue share is expected to exceed 35% in 2016, followed by Europe with over 29% of the total market revenue. Asia Pacific, with the highest birth rates across the globe, will represent a growing market for neonatal care equipment. Some of the major players in the global market for neonatal infant care equipment include GE Healthcare, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Medtronic, Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, Natus Medical Incorporated, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Limited, Pluss Advanced Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Weyer GmbH, BabyBloom Healthcare BV, Novos Medical Systems, Medical Technology Transfer and Services Asia (MTTS Asia), Inspiration Healthcare Group plc., and Fanem Ltda.
CORP NEWS
SAPIENS HOSTS GLOBAL CLIENT CONFERENCE IN NORTH ATLANTA Sapiens International Corporation, (NASDAQ and TASE: SPNS), a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry, with a growing presence in the financial services sector, hosted its annual Sapiens Client Conference at the Château Élan in North Atlanta, U.S., on September 14-15. The event attracted more than 150 participants from 13 countries, including insurance and financial services customers, prospects and analysts. apiens International Corporation is a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry, with a growing presence in the financial services sector. Sapiens offers core, end-to-end solutions to the global general insurance, property and casualty, life, pension and annuities, reinsurance and retirement markets, as well as business decision management software. The company has a track record of over 30 years in delivering superior software solutions to more than 200 financial services organizations. The Sapiens team of over 1,800 professionals operates through our fully-owned subsidiaries in North America, the United Kingdom, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
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global insurance industry executive, IBM; An “Analysts’ Corner” discussion featuring leading analysts from Novarica, Celent and Aite Group; Live demos of the L&A and P&C digital journey, which included business intelligence and analytics, portal, core products and partners; Multiple customer case studies with leading L&A, P&C and financial services organizations, including decision management; A keynote address on how to “innovate the way you innovate” and instill a culture of innovation, by Stephen Shapiro.
Reflecting Sapiens’ reputation as a global leader, the event in North Atlanta allowed its attendees to network, participate in engaging discussions and presentations, and learn about Sapiens’ strategy. Attendees were welcomed by Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah, CMO of Sapiens and head of corporate communications. Roni Al-Dor, President and CEO of Sapiens, provided an overview of Sapiens’ vision and software portfolio highlights. The agenda included a range of topics and speakers to provide the audience with a variety of perspectives and insights into Sapiens’ people and products, as well as industry hot topics. Agenda highlights included: • Presentations on artificial intelligence and machine learning in the life and annuity (L&A) and property and casualty (P&C) spaces by Craig Bedell,
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“I would like to thank all of the attendees who helped make the conference a success, as well as the Sapiens personnel who worked diligently to execute the best possible event for our industry friends,” said Roni Al-Dor, Sapiens president and CEO. “This was a great opportunity for all of us to share ideas, challenge common assumptions and plan for the future. I am thankful for the opportunity to receive customer feedback and input, so that Sapiens can continually improve and provide value to our clients.”
COMPANY FORMATIONS
Company Formations
MICROSOFT EXPANDS AI EFFORTS WITH CREATION OF NEW MICROSOFT AI AND RESEARCH GROUP
Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com
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Company Formations
Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday September 29th that it has formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group, bringing together Microsoft’s world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company’s AI product efforts. The new group will be led by computer vision luminary Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran whose career has spanned leadership roles across Microsoft Research and Bing engineering. icrosoft is dedicated to democratizing AI for every person and organization, making it more accessible and valuable to everyone and ultimately enabling new ways to solve some of society’s toughest challenges. Today’s announcement builds on the company’s deep focus on AI and will accelerate the delivery of new capabilities to customers across agents, apps, services and infrastructure.
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In addition to Shum’s existing leadership team, several of the company’s engineering leaders and teams will join the newly formed group including Information Platform, Cortana and Bing, and Ambient Computing and Robotics teams led by David Ku, Derrick Connell and Vijay Mital, respectively. All combined, the Microsoft AI and Research Group will encompass AI product engineering, basic and applied research labs, and New Experiences and Technologies (NExT).
• Agents. Harness AI to fundamentally change human and computer interaction through agents such as Microsoft’s digital personal assistant Cortana; • Applications. Infuse every application, from the photo app on people’s phones to Skype and Office 365, with intelligence; • Services. Make these same intelligent capabilities that are infused in Microsoft’s apps —cognitive capabilities such as vision and speech, and machine analytics — available to every application developer in the world; • Infrastructure. Build the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer with Azure and make it available to anyone, to enable people and organizations to harness its power.
“We live in a time when digital technology is transforming our lives, businesses and the world, but also generating an exponential growth in data and information,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering both people and organizations, by democratizing access to intelligence to help solve our most pressing challenges. To do this, we are infusing AI into everything we deliver across our computing platforms and experiences.” “Microsoft has been working in artificial intelligence since the beginning of Microsoft Research, and yet we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible,” said Shum, executive vice president of the Microsoft AI and Research Group. “Today’s move signifies Microsoft’s commitment to deploying intelligent technology and democratizing AI in a way that changes our lives and the world around us for the better. We will significantly expand our efforts to empower people and organizations to achieve more with our tools, our software and services, and our powerful, global-scale cloud computing capabilities.” Microsoft is taking a four-pronged approach to its initiative to democratize AI: Asif Islam / Shutterstock.com
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For 25 years, Microsoft Research has contributed to advancing the state-of-theart of computing through its ground-breaking basic and applied research that has been shared openly with the industry and academic communities, and with product groups within Microsoft. The organization has contributed innovative technologies to nearly every product and service Microsoft has produced in this timeframe, from Office and Xbox to HoloLens and Windows. More recently, Shum has expanded the organization’s mission to include the incubation of disruptive technologies and new businesses. “My job has been to take Microsoft Research, an amazing asset for the company, and make it even more of a value-creation engine for Microsoft and our industry,” Shum said. “Today’s move to bring research and engineering even closer will accelerate our ability to deliver more personal and intelligent computing experiences to people and organizations worldwide.”
INVESTMENT
investment ww
CONQUERING THE COMPETITION Armstrong Investment Managers (AIM) is an FCA regulated asset manager focused on providing structured financial solutions to a diverse international client base. AIM has an in-house team of award winning fund managers and analysts that create excellent results for its clients, and whose focus is to ensure that whatever solutions they provide to their clients, those solutions achieve a practical, successful and sustainable financial result for the future. Ana Armstrong is the CEO and CIO of the firm, with over 20 years of financial institutional experience. Under her leadership, the Armstrong team strives to combine the experience and reliability of an institution, with the clientfocus of a boutique firm.
Company: Armstrong Investment Managers Name: Ana Armstrong Email: aim.admin@armstrongim.com Web Address: www.armstrongim.com Address: 26 Dover St, London, W1S 4LY, UK Telephone: +44 20 3409 6468
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investment
usually wake up at 5am. I read the news and take my dogs for a run. I drive my boys to school and come to the office at 8am. We have a team meeting where we discuss market events and review portfolio positions. I often have client meetings and present at various academic and industry related conferences. We review the quantitative models and regularly evaluate whether our views backed by the quantitative models perform well in the current market environment. Further to the investment and risk management side of the agenda, I continue to seek out distribution channels and develop our sales strategy. Unless I need to collect my children from school, I typically leave the office by 6pm.
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While Ana’s daily ritual appears almost typical of business professionals within her industry, it is important to remember that the Devil lies in the detail. Ana’s past experience, and her prestigious academic background, reveal a level of knowledge pertaining to her industry that go a long way to explaining AIM’s ongoing strides as they continue to amass reputation and diversify their client base. “I spent six years as co-head of Insight Investment’s $2 Billion Multi-Asset Group. Prior to joining Insight, I worked at UBS Wealth Management as Director and Head of Portfolio Construction for the UBS Managed Accounts Program, managing $6 billion. I began her career at Coutts as an Investment Analyst. I have a PhD in Quantitative Economics and an MBA from Imperial College in London. Today, Ana is responsible for driving the direction of both the business, in terms of distribution and operations, and the investment management. “The continued success of our funds will derive from our investment in human capital. Whether that means recruiting and consulting experts in their respective fields, considering the latest peer-reviewed research to identify strategic opportunities, or passing the output of quantitative models under the lens of our discretionary views, no method, algorithm or machine can replace the broadness, adaptability and ingenuity of the human intellect that created them all in the first place. “As well as our flagship fund being up over 24 per cent YTD, we have been recognised with a large number of reputable awards throughout the year.” In particular, Ana and her team have been the proud recipients of ACQ Awards’ Game-Changer of the Year,
Macro Fund Manager of the Year, and Multi Asset Fund of the Year for two years running, as of 2016. Ana, commenting on the success of her firm, offers an insight into the investment process of AIM; in her words, company policy is built upon a set of key beliefs: • • • •
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“The pursuit of excellence requires significant investment in human capital; “The interaction of model driven trade and discretionary beliefs is the key to long run out-performance; “Peer reviewed research and development are required to identify strategic opportunities; “Our research mandate, which focuses on generating superior alpha by identifying asset pricing anomalies, as well as superior returns by harvesting risk premia within ex-ante volatility bounds; “Our investment mantra allocates between contrarian and trend following strategies, value/growth and carry investing, within and across asset classes; “Inflation is the ultimate destroyer of long run purchasing power. Real diversification is a key component of our investment beliefs;
With this mantra in place, Ana and her team are able to explore the markets for new opportunities to diversify and expand their investment portfolio. It goes without saying that so many companies within their industry, the nature of such work depends heavily upon the often unpredictable forces of the wider market. In Ana’s case, her robust professional qualifications allow her real power in determining the best way to assist clients with their fund performance and analysis. “Financial markets have become more sophisticated as the market data industry has been growing exponentially over the last two decades,” she comments. “Processing of information that relies on algorithmic trading has been growing in demand. Most quantitative analysts who are looking at comprehensive sets of data, identifying inefficiencies and strategies that can generate positive returns in the relevant market environment are highly educated PhDs. “The times of traders trading one particular instrument are gone. Traders are being replaced by skilled quantitative analysts who are better equipped to deal with the increasingly inter-correlated market environment.”
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Further to this, Ana recognises that the growth in the market data industry has been exponential, and that quantitative algorithms have therefore been similarly gaining in popularity over the last decade. To participate and compete in this arena requires a complex set of quantitative skills and understanding of different econometrics models, in order to efficiently analyse the wealth of information at hand; this is something that Ana has paid particular attention to in order for her company to benefit. “The interaction of quantitative systematic investment strategies with the common-sense approach of discretionary management is a defining characteristic of the way we manage money,” she says.
“While purely discretionary managers are struggling to find sources of return without a trend in markets, and model-driven trading that doesn’t make sense in the current environment has incurred sharp drawdowns, we have been able to bring both approaches to bear to provide solutions to existing problems. “Market data has become more available and quantitative algorithms have been developing over the last two decades. This requires a complex set of quantitative skills and understanding of different econometrics models to efficiently analyse the data. I have a PhD in Econometrics and over 20 years of institutional experience. I lead an award-winning team that strives to combine the experience and reliability of an institution, with the client-focus of a boutique firm and the team provides inflation-beating solutions to institutional, retail, and family office investors. “Whether in making correct calls on the pound around Brexit, benefitting from foreign currencies correlated with the oil price recovery, stopping our long-short momentum trading, or exploiting mean reversion on equity index spreads, this interplay has been essential to our success.” Ana’s sector is, of course, extremely competitive. It is challenging to identify strategies that will deliver positive risk adjusted returns. As such, AIM’s opportunity set is wide as Ana leads her team in running global macro strategies.
investment
“Investment across both traditional and alternative asset classes is an essential component of any diversified portfolio. Investment views are constantly being verified by the quantitative models. We start with analysis of the market environment and adjust our portfolio to produce largest return given specific level of risk. Interaction of quantitative and systematic investment strategies with the common sense approach of discretionary management is defining the way we manage money. Purely discretionary managers are struggling to find sources of return in a difficult market defined by the large swings in correlations between different asset classes. Also, model driven strategies that rely solely on trends have been suffering this year.” Casting an eye to the future, and observing the macroeconomic trends that might affect companies such as AIM, there will be much divergence in economic performance, due to policy choices in the context of influencing structural reforms, given the reduced fiscal stimulus to come. There will, as ever, be significant economic (e.g. the so called ‘hard landing’ in China) and geopolitical (Middle East, Russia, China/ Japan) risks that need to monitored closely, as Ana expands upon. “As ever, China will play a huge role in determining macroeconomic trends in the future, with a restructuring of their debt and overall economy on the cards. It’s likely that the Yuan will appreciate heavily over the next decade and create heavy inflationary pressures in the region. Globally, we should expect stable but mediocre growth, driven in large part by the more advanced and developed economies. “Emerging markets, however, will slow to far lower levels of growth than they have enjoyed over the last decade. Much of the growth around the world will primarily be supported by lower commodity prices. Both industry growth and household aggregate demand will benefit from lower input prices.”
Finest in Finance
It is, of course, impossible to know what the landscape will be in ten years, but to Ana, the key is to have the right logic and systems in place to cope with the challenges that are to come.
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HOSPITALITY
hospitality
LEADERSHIP THROUGH TRANSPARENCY: SEAN WORKER BridgeStreet is a global marketplace for alternative living spaces that are professionally managed by hospitality experts. The accommodation marketplace is for travellers and managers of travel to discover and book globally, and BridgeStreet maintains a dominant position in this area. The distribution platform is built for clients, guests and operators alike, seeking serviced apartments and home experiences anywhere. Accommodation programs are also managed directly on behalf of investors.
Company: BridgeStreet Global Hospitality Email: americas.gsc@bridgestreet.com Phone: 001-571-481-2751 Web Address: www.bridgestreet.com Address: 11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 400, Reston, Virginia 20191
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hospitality o date, BridgeStreet lays claim to over 60,000 Serviced Apartments & Homes in more than 60 countries, with 23 locations in the United States and Canada alone. Managed by 18 global offices, BridgeStreet maintains over 4000 beds for student accommodation under its management. BridgeStreet’s LINK Student Living platform offers professionally managed, off campus accommodations to their students along with seamless, expert roommate matching and real-time management information—offering peace of mind for all.
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Sean Worker has the pleasure of leading a passionate group of teammates across the globe, where his primary role is to build a sustainable, relevant and profitable business. “I advocate on behalf of my teammates and clients. Our expectation is for both our teammates and clients to rate us as a “10”, and both constituents must view our product experience (both customer experience and user experience) is meaningful and of value.” As a Jesuit-educated, Irish national with a business degree in hospitality, Sean believed that his path was destined to be circuitous. After a couple of stints in the United Kingdom and Germany, he was fortunate to join Marriott in Houston, TX in food & beverage management. This led to other growth roles that eventually transitioned into sales, development and an international leadership role with Wyndham. “The commonality in all these positions was the humbling evolution as a leader. It takes a great deal of effort to address my flaws, and I work diligently to shape them towards the positive. The key for me was to place the two most important constituents of any successful business first, which is team and client. I believe that everything revolves around the people, the emotion, the experience, and the delivery of the promises that we make them. I am still on this journey, as it simply continues to get faster.” Sean first joined BridgeStreet in 2009 after returning to the United States from London, where he led Wyndham Hotels internationally. “When joining BridgeStreet, my objective was to reposition the brand to appeal to a broader client base and place BridgeStreet as a key competitor in the hospitality space. It was and still is my aspiration to be part of an ascending brand with a need to reposition dramatically. BridgeStreet checks both these boxes.” Finding high appraisal and satisfaction in his work, Sean singles BridgeStreet out as a collaborative, transparent, metric-driven team that has built a dynamic culture. Heaping
CEO 100 –Virginia
praise upon his team, he explores the way in which the company strives for transparency. “We work to achieve goals and objectives that enable us to deliver our promises to teammates and clients. The principle that surrounds our commitment to our promise, or bargain, is everything. We know that with a culture of commitment we all thrive and grow. My teammates and our clients/guest deserve transparency, whether things are going well or not. In a loud world, truly authentic conversations mean everything. When I make mistakes, I share what I’ve learned. Embracing the lesson from failure has made our core much stronger. This is bravery, and my teammates are certainly nothing if not brave. “Additionally, the principles of our culture have been developed by us and for us. We are dynamic and organic. We are not a group who memorizes a vision and mission statement, we strive to live it, not just recite it.” Sean freely admits to having faced numerous challenges, both in his career accession and in his time with BridgeStreet. “I cannot speak for others,” he explains, “but career development is a series of unknowns and each micro step leads to another. I have had managers that became mentors, and sometimes became sponsors. They have helped me over the span of my career to learn to work hard, to understand, listen, learn, read, collaborate, make decisions, ask for more, truly earn
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respect, collaborate, take risk, minimize risk and not confuse ones’ title with you as a leader.
“I think of myself as a mayor, an elected leader. I have responsibility for those I serve whether they are teammates, clients, guests, or our valued expert partners who we refer to as FOBs (Friends of BridgeStreet) who are the people that unlock our present and future. We are charged with producing outsized returns for our investors, but it is rather difficult to satisfy all the stakeholders simultaneously. As a professional manager, I have learned to never forget to bring daily balance, and that at some point each day I may be failing someone’s expectation. This has taken a long time to learn, and I will have to hone and evolve these skills for the rest of my career. “My experience has also taught me that the gap between success and failure can
hospitality be narrow. I have opened businesses internationally, learned cultural variation, the complexity of governments, dealt with recessions, market collapses, market exuberance, and work life balance, just like everyone else. The difference in my takeaways is that my business life is not life threatening, therefore with solid strategy, putting the people first, taking risk management seriously, and aiming for products that consumers need, I also know that pretty much any problem can be solved. “I have a sense of awareness rather than attributes. I am constantly reminded through my “speed chats” with my teammates — 20 minute 1 on 1 discussions with every team mate individually, annually — that I have a personal responsibility to deliver. We are so dependent on each other to perform and create a company that is by us for us and everyone has input. “This is a complex approach in today’s business world, that being said, people drive culture and innovation, and change is a natural bi-product of the former. Second is pace. We move and achieve. I think of myself as the pace car setting the opening speed of a race, and then I get out of the way of the experts.
“A key lesson from all these experience is learning from many different people, by reading a variety of books, meeting and listening to other professionals, and participating in my broader professional and personal communities. Taking very long bike rides has helped along the way too.” Sean is also careful to take the time to think about how to ensure the business will be sustainable, and inevitably that raises the subject of how best to utilise technology for the benefit of the company. “I believe Jeff Bezos was quoted as saying that his goal was to ensure Amazon be built to outlast him, since he knew that most foundercreated businesses fail within their lifetime. This perspective may give comfort to my teammates, clients and shareholders that we have lots left in the tank as an agile and relevant business. By definition, enablers to creating a business that lasts has a goal that embraces the now future. “Today, technology is the now and has been a hub for how to drive commerce for decades. Technology allows BridgeStreet to be agile; it provides value to our constituents by informing them of our growth by speaking to them in an efficient and commercial way. We have shifted our business to a sharing
economy enabler for homes, serviced apartments, and student living experiences. Our strategy is to be perpetually relevant at all points in the future – analytics and process greases that future, but the people make it happen. “We all have days when one asks, ‘is this the right decision/strategy’? I think in a compare and contrast way. Where were we last year at this time versus this year, be it teammate satisfaction, guest satisfaction, strategy or financially? Are we tracking to our medium and long-term strategic plan? The advancement against these metrics is very motivational, but more so has been the teammate speed chats. The willingness to be open and share their views is helping me improve my skills as a manager and it is truly advancing our mission.” Sean’s dedication to hearing the voices of his team members translates into a customercentric approach to conducting business. Under his guidance, BridgeStreet listens hard to their guests and customers, hunting for trends and acting upon feedback.
“We are an analytically-oriented company and this affords us the ability to think quickly. It is also easy to be distracted. Our platform has developed quickly because our customers have provided us valuable feedback along the way. We take that data and we go to the next level by delivering Bluetooth when they asked for more cables. “We have developed technology to ensure that booking apartments, homes, or student living is easy. Our client also wants brand guarantees with people to deliver on the promise. We think of ourselves as thought leaders in the space, a right that we strive to earn daily. BridgeStreet has grown considerably in the last three years and we are very proud of that achievement. BridgeStreet is very much on track to become a leader in ease of attaining a positive experience in our sector of hospitality and student living. As Sean concludes, “we are bridging the divide between the sharing economy and the consistency that the new client wants from the sharing economy. We are a hospitality company with a technology backbone. We make it easy for predominant business travellers to stay mostly anywhere with peace of mind, and we believe that we are the new breed of agile branding globally. We see that as a driving force behind our mission for a number of years to come.”
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hospitality obility Medical provide a wide variety of provider of products, primarily focused on individuals in need of mobility assistance. Among their products include power wheelchairs, lift chairs, walking aids, manual wheelchairs and bath safety seats too.
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A PASSION FOR HELPING PEOPLE Based in Flowood, Mississippi, Mobility Medical are a highly renowned source for medical supplies, and are deeply dedicated to providing the utmost quality in products and customer service. We profiled them to find out more about their unique service, and how their business has empowered so many people.
At Mobility Medical, they strive to make their customers’ buying experience as pleasant and as efficient as possible. As a result of the nature of the business that they work in, delivering products such as wheelchairs can make a world of a difference when it is delivered on time and to the best possible standard. Working at the helm of this highly regarded company are Wayne and Danyelle Carroll, who have led the company to move from strength to strength since its inception. A testament to their success is that the company has grown from just two people to 20 – in addition, the company has expanded from their Flowood office to opening another in Tupelo, and from there to a facility in Mobile, Alabama. As a result of the high demand for their products, and with their concentrated stronghold in the ‘Deep South’ they deliver anywhere across the States of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Although the company may have had success financially, the benefits behind a company of this nature go so much further than merely its financial rewards. The company takes tremendous pride in the fact that they are empowering and quite literally mobilising people with their products. As well as their customers, the company values the hard work put in by each and every one of their employees. Mobility Medical consists of a tightly knit team of professionals, all dedicated to empowering people with their products and services. Ultimately, Mobility Medical is a company that is passionate about helping people, and they have a culture founded upon a strong set of values that have allowed them to continuously grow since day one. As such, their focus on the future is to continue to empower people and make a difference in so many people’s lives.
Company: Mobility Medical Web: www.mobilitymedicalinc.com Address: 554 Park Lane, Flowood, Mississippi 39232 Telephone: +1 888-901-1001
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CEO 100 Mississippi
hospitality
GROWING STRONG Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital is one of the fastest growing and most innovative hospitals in East Texas, and is working hard to change the face of healthcare for those that they serve. From simple beginnings as a 28-bed hospital in 1928 to the 231-bed progressive, forward-thinking health system of today, Nacogdoches Memorial Health has come a long way from those humble days when it was simply known as City Memorial.
CEO 100 - Texas
Company: Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital Email: info@nacmem.org Phone: +44 (936) 564-4611 Web Address: www.nacmem.org Address: 1204 N Mound St, Nacogdoches, TX 75961
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hospitality
s the CEO of Nacogdoches Memorial Health for the past two years, Scott Street has made an effort to reenergize not only the culture and financials of the organization, but also the aesthetics.
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Before arriving at Memorial, he completed his residency and spent ten years with the Baptist Health System in Little Rock, Arkansas. Beyond this, he spent eight years in Duncan, Oklahoma as CEO and was also President and Regional Strategy Officer of Mercy Hospital in Northwest Arkansas. The first thing that Scott did when he came to Memorial was to energize the organization and to focus on thriving, not just surviving. “I’m a firm believer in the premise that good performance is the enemy of great performance.” When explaining how he came by these beliefs, Scott cites Jim Collins’ celebrated book Good to Great as a major influence – so much so that he calls it his “instruction manual”. Its discussion on the underlying variables to enable an organization to thrive prompted Scott to reorganize his leadership team, directing them to adhere to certain covenant standards. Imbuing these doctrines, the facility under Scott now boasts an impressive number of new services, including a zero wait emergency room, senior behavioral health, sports medicine service, occupational wellness initiative, physician management group, hospitalist program, Level III NICU, electrophysiology program, concierge service, conference center, ten new operating rooms, 24 new labor and delivery rooms, 27 new ER rooms, the soonto-be joint replacement center of excellence, and plans to build a four story expansion connected to our main hospital.
“One industry trend that I’ve embraced is to cultivate partnerships in key services like environmental services, laundry and linens, occupational wellness, billing and collections, senior behavioral health, inpatient rehab, and emergency and hospitalist physician staffing.
the-art medical professional building, a mobile mammography coach or a mobile outreach wellness coach, rolling out our Population Health Strategy and perhaps a ‘Ronald McDonald’-type facility to make our long-term visitors more comfortable.
“Creative partnering with industry-leading organizations like Community Hospital Corporation, Trinity Mother Frances Louis and Cook Children’s Hospital will allow Memorial Health to enhance the quality of services available in Nacogdoches, while providing a much-needed resource in situations that demand a higher level of care than we can provide locally.”
“In the short term, we’ll move our women’s health clinic to a new location, because the demand for the service has already outstripped the available facility. We’ll open an outpatient senior behavioral health program across the street from the hospital, to complement our inpatient unit. We will continue to expand our physician practice management opportunities and our creative affiliation partnerships.
Collaborating with partner agencies, while maintaining its independence, means that Memorial Health can provide access to a broader range of services, lower costs for our patients, and keep abreast of current best practices, while maintaining its voice at the local level.
“We will also maintain an aggressive renovation and remodelling plan for the hospital campus.”
The five-year plan for Nacogdoches Memorial Health will feature even more forward motion, as Scott lays out. “We have good momentum behind us to carry us into the next phases of progress. On the horizon I see a state-of-
“We think that it is important to our community to maintain our independence,” Scott explains, “because all of our resources and energy are funnelled back into our facilities, technology and professional staff. With no stockholders and corporations to please, we can be nimble and adapt easily to the local needs of our community. We want our community to have a strong sense of ownership for Nacogdoches Memorial as the destination of choice for highquality healthcare.” Given the inherent challenges surrounding modern healthcare in the USA, Scott recognizes that new relationships with corporate partners are essential, if Nacogdoches Memorial is to continue supplying such a high level of intimate, professional care, while remaining the only independent health system in our region.
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As a Joint Commission Certified Stroke Center, certified Chest Pain Center and Level III Trauma Center, Memorial’s emergency department is the only facility in Deep East Texas with all three designations, placing the Nacogdoches Memorial Health system in a category all its own. Memorial Health is proud to be the only remaining independent health system in the region.
hospitality
MEDSOURCE MedSource is a full-service niche CRO specializing in oncology programs and other complex clinical trials. We profiled them to discover how they consistently remain at the forefront of their industry.
Company: MedSource Tel: (281) 286-2003 Web: www.medsource.com
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t MedSource, the company’s focus on the complexities of research has given them a rich level of experience in numerous therapeutic areas, as well as supportive care indications. In addition to oncology, other areas of therapeutic expertise include infectious diseases, neurology/CNS indications, transplant, complex respiratory disorders, pain management and many other challenging treatment indications. MedSource also has a strong portfolio in first in human studies and more than 300 Phase One programs.
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Incorporated in 1997 Houston, Texas, in close proximity to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, MedSource began as a specialized oncology clinical research monitoring group. Having a world-class cancer center nearby has provided them with a breadth of oncology research trial experience and has formed the foundation for the services and therapeutic focus they offer today. In total, MedSource have participated in more than 700 clinical trials globally; more than 200 of these have been in the area of oncology. Their efforts support biopharmaceutical clients who conduct complex trials in the most challenging disease states, and their wide experience encompasses a range of therapeutic areas, product types, clinical trial phases, and study designs. Throughout the years, their services have expanded to include clinical monitoring, clinical project management, regulatory affairs and submissions, QA auditing, study start-up services, feasibility and site selection, data management, biostatistics, safety reporting, and medical monitoring.
Ultimately, their goal is for their clients to return to MedSource when they need high-quality clinical trial support. It is their role to be a trusted advisor, making decisions and acting with our clients’ best interests in mind. It is their mission to provide the best service and highest quality in the industry with a commitment to maintaining their corporate culture and company values.
As such, MedSource is committed to serving their employees and their clients. They firmly believe these are not mutually exclusive goals, and understand that only by working together can a trial, and a company, be successful. Their motto, “Taking Relationships as Seriously as Science” is not an empty catchphrase, but a standard exemplified by all individuals within their organization. Moreover, their experienced staff is the reason behind their overall success. They operate individually, yet function as a cohesive team, working toward a common objective. They are focused, flexible, committed people who enjoy a work environment that’s fast-paced and highenergy. All in all, they succeed through hard work and innovative approaches. Across the board, they are actively involved in our projects from beginning to end, and have an understanding and appreciation for the development process as a whole.
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Only recently, MedSource improved their services even further by selecting Datatrial’s nowEDC™ platform as its e-clinical software solution of choice. This latest decision demonstrates MedSource’s commitment to provide the best possible value to their clients by offering a stateof-the-art electronic data capture (EDC) solution. Ultimately, their clients trust that they will get the job done with minimal management required. Their teams are passionate, genuine and critically focused on integrity and results. The team you meet at the start is the team that works on your project, and they are candid and transparent about all of their processes. Looking ahead, they will continue to focus on their core areas of research expertise and partner with vendors we consider best-in-class to deliver a consolidated service offering.
LEADERSHIP
leadership
LEADING BY EXAMPLE Churchill Leadership Group Inc., which has been in existence for five years, is an organization that caters to companies that are based in America but also have offices throughout the world. Jayne Jenkins, a veteran of the corporate world herself, heads up their efforts to serve clients on a global level, as both CEO and an Executive Coach. The Churchill Leadership Group has over 70 coaches, all who have extensive experience in corporate leadership and whose job it is to deliver three solutions to the corporate and government world: leadership development, team effectiveness, and employee engagement.
Company: Churchill Leadership Group Name: Jayne Jenkins Email: jayne.jenkins@churchillleadershipgroup.com Web Address: www.churchillleadershipgroup.com Address: 9817 Bay Island, Suite 100, Tampa, Florida 33615, USA Telephone: 001 813-956-3445
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ayne’s deeply-rooted passion has its origins long before the founding of Churchill. Her career spanned Europe and the USA in the area of pharmaceuticals, and she retells of how she had always wanted to use that tremendous diverse experience in an area with which she held a lot of passion, and which ultimately led her to establish Churchill as a vehicle to develop leaders within the corporate and government world.
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“I grew up in Stourbridge, just outside of Birmingham in the West Midlands of the UK,” she begins. “I went to the University of Aston to study chemistry, and whilst there, I did some work with Exxon Chemicals, and all that did was reinforce that life in a laboratory was not for me. My career straight out of university led me to work in sales for a pharmaceutical company, Sanofi-Aventis where I had great training and coaching and moved onto AstraZeneca, with whom I spent the next 20 years.” Jayne was able to achieve significant further milestones with AstraZeneca; after more valuable significant sales experience, she moved into people management. “During this time, I made the decision to move to the USA at the age of 28, and I transferred into a division that partnered with healthcare payers – what we call in the pharma world “Managed Care.” This gave me an accelerated understanding of how the US healthcare system works versus the UK.” After four more years in a people manager role in New Jersey the variety of experience helped Jayne move into a head office environment, where she spent several years involved in marketing, operations and analytics plus strategic planning for brands like Crestor. Climbing into more senior levels, Jayne then transferred to Florida for a sales director role with responsibility for seven states in the Southeast and a team of about 10 managers and over a hundred sales professionals. “During those last couple of years in pharma, I started getting “itchy” and wondering “is this what I want to do for the next twenty years?” With a lot of selfreflection and by using my “Futuristic” talent (Clifton StrengthsFinder®) I was able to more clearly define the future I wanted. With the pharma industry downsizing I had the opportunity to take a package and move onto find something brand new. During my time in Florida I had learnt a lot about how to discover and focus on the strengths in people using Clifton StrengthsFinder® and
that has helped me tremendously in terms of my self-awareness and growth, as well as coaching others to leverage the same. I was able to better recognise authentic talent in myself (my potential), and that helped me to found Churchill Leadership Group Inc., the teams that I now lead, and the strengths-accelerated solutions we deliver to our clients. Since then, it has been a great journey over the last (almost) five years. I have learned even more about leadership development, team effectiveness and employee engagement and can reflect back on my own corporate leadership journey to understand, empathize with and help clients. My mission is to enable talent to thrive! Only about 20% of us use our strengths every day at work and so that leaves a ton of opportunity on the table. That is why I do what I do with Churchill Leadership Group Inc.
As the CEO, Jayne runs the day-today operations, whilst presenting a public face for the Churchill’s clients. She oversees the matching of the client with the right coach according to their needs. The second part of her role is as one of Churchill’s Executive Coaches – “this means that I will always be personally involved in some of the deliverables. “Companies want their employees to be more engaged and their people leaders to be more effective, but most companies are not experts at that, their expertise lies in other areas” Jayne explains. “A company benefits in many ways from a more engaged staff and stronger people leaders – it directly affects their ability to attract, retain and grow talent. The Churchill Leadership Group work closely with their clients in achieving these goal, predominantly through coaching, consulting, workshops and assessments like Clifton StrengthsFinder®. “An engaged employee will want to go above and beyond for their company and leaders can have up to a 67% impact on engagement. But it is not about a survey! An engagement survey is a valuable measurement tool but nothing else. Leaders need to know how to engage their
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people and teams on a daily basis. We help them do that and build practical skills like how to coach, build and improve a team’s effectiveness and delegation, to name just a few.” “Our approach to development and engagement is very different, in addition to our corporate focus and global footprint, we focus on strengths – everything that we do is accelerated by discovering what is right about a person and team. We bring powerful awareness to this natural talent, give clients a valuable common language and teach them how to leverage it daily. We use the Clifton StrengthsFinder® as a tool to help us do this and we are certified by the Gallup organization who owns it. “Very often in the corporate world, it can feel like development is “flavour of the month” without much perceivable and sustainable progress. We are not merely looking to solve immediate problems for clients, but are actively looking to find long-term solutions that they can rely upon, and that changes outcomes such as productivity and engagement. We have been able to form long-term relationships with our clients, they keep coming back because they realize a strengths approach to development makes sense and works!”. Given her 20 years of experience in the corporate world, and her training as an executive coach, Jayne is in a truly advantageous position when it comes to observing “people development and engagement” trends across the wider industry. Commenting on the role of technology in her industry, Jayne further reinforces the changes that have enabled her to take a more dynamic and more client-friendly approach to her work, in a way that would not have been possible at the beginning of her career. “Within the coaching industry it is important that we truly connect with customers and built trust fast” she explores, “technology does have several important functions, including highly effective, interactive video coaching and our ability to scale back end processes for operational efficiencies. We are always looking for ways to scale our impact to make anything we offer clients, from proposals to scheduling to measuring success, more efficient and effective.” When asked about some of the trends based on client needs she has observed, Jayne said “How to deal with the generational
leadership
diversity in the workforce is a regular request. Communication is another – we are all overwhelmed with the amount of information we are exposed to everyday and many leaders and teams struggle to filter out what is most important. We help leaders communicate more effectively by being clear, concise as well as more compelling. A recent training I did as a coach is in Conversational Intelligence. It was fascinating, it reinforced that over 90% of our conversations fail to have the impact we won’t. We can now help leaders and teams go from less effective “Tell or Sell” conversations that often fail to a more co-creation approach that build trust and is more productive. It was taught to me by expert Judith Glaser and it really resonates with leaders and makes conversations easier and more enjoyable (versus generating conflict). Another area where we do a ton of work is helping organizations develop leaders that are great coaches. It drives both performance and development of talent and we have amazing teams that do that every day. When asked about overcoming business hurdles at Churchill, Jayne offers, “While, it almost feels as if everybody could be a client when you first start a company, over time you naturally become more and more focussed, and gain a clearer idea of your sweet spot, your focus, your brand. For someone with like me with Maximizer as my #1 strength on Clifton StrengthsFinder® and Arranger as #4, I always want to be improving, changing for the better and doing so with many things at once (I don’t stop) so sometimes, thankfully, my team have to call me out so I can focus and “give up good to get great.” When asked about innovation and “best sellers” in Churchill’s solution portfolio Jayne says, “Things are only innovative and bestsellers based upon what the buyer is looking for. What we try to do is to get into the conversations about what the future looks like for them, but this can sometimes be difficult when many leaders are much more concerned with what’s happening in the present. The reality is leaders need to be able to do both. One of my own particular Clifton StrengthsFinder® talents, Futuristic, helps me get a client into that future visioning space to help our clients
think about these things: what does the future look like? What’s the best possible scenario? What is it going to take for you to get to that stage? Often they don’t know at first but with support and coaching they nearly always get there and light bulbs start going off. In turn that helps them figure out what they need to focus on today!” Taking on this visionary role, in Jayne’s experience, has proven very effective in helping the client to really understand where they themselves are going, not just their organization. This helps them overcome current roadblocks, as well as getting very excited about what is possible for them to achieve. “On our end,” she continues, “we are learning about the innovation and positive change that they want, as well as how we can best help them deliver on it. Jayne’s strategic mind-set is in full flow when she is helping leaders to think about what is possible for them. As she explains, “this stretches leaders and their teams tremendously, helping them to get focussed and prioritise what needs to be done. Because I am a trained coach, a certain key attribute that I pride myself on is being able to ask really good questions that help others think more critically, and I also learn in the process – helping me be a better leader.” When asked about one of her most powerful life lessons Jayne shared “Back when I was in the corporate world, I learnt the skill set of how to be resilient and about the importance of having a “growth mindset”. I now believe everything is a learning opportunity, so I don’t very easily go into a ‘victim space’ when I make a mistake, which is inevitable in some form or another.” Reflecting on this further, Jayne recognises that in the last five years, since first founding the Churchill Leadership Group, she rarely had all the answers herself, but with a strong team and consistent collaboration and a belief in the “abundance” approach,
“I can stay motivated and positive and that helps our business and our clients continue to grow.” This is the mantra that underpins Jayne’s entire work ethic, and the strong, unwavering message at the heart of the Churchill Leadership Group.
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Executive Coach of the Year
leadership
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leadership
A LEADER IN LEADERSHIP – RICHARD TYLER Recognized across all corners of the globe, Richard Tyler has seen phenomenal success through his sales training and leadership programs. We got the chance to speak to Richard about these exciting programs, and how his philosophies have helped so many.
Company name: Richard Tyler International, Inc.® Address: 5773 Woodway Dr Suite 860, Houston, TX 77057, United States Telephone: +1 713-974-7214 Website: RichardTyler.com SalesImmersion.com ExcellenceEdge.com RichardTylerTechnologies.com
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leadership
lthough Richard Tyler provides a range of leadership programs, they are all based upon one of his two flagship programs. The Commitment To Excellence® Leadership Mastery™ Program, as the name suggests, is focused on developing leadership and management skills, and channeling them into substantial success. With so many training and coaching options available in this arena, what sets Richard Tyler’s organisation apart is the level of participation it demands from its students.
“These are the 16 characteristics that I have compiled, after having spent more than a quarter of a century going all over the world, meeting the world’s leading entrepreneurs and leaders, as a part of Richard Tyler International, Inc.®” says Tyler. “In every sector of business and of life, when I have looked at those individuals, whether they are public or private leaders, these characteristics are what I have found as universally present in all of the very best examples.
“It is a very unique leadership program, because what we do is teach leadership and management skills in a highly interactive environment,” says Tyler, “We incorporate situational case studies with role-play, with examples of what should be done in those instances with coaching throughout. We also bring in client-based situations to give a realistic understanding of what our program members will have to face in the real world they must perform in. We then pursue our overall goal of helping the participants work through situations toward the best possible outcome.
“Ultimately, all of “The Tyler 16™”leadership and management characteristics have to work together, rather than individually. They’re like interlocking gears in a clock: if there’s one missing, or if the gear is rusty, the gear doesn’t function smoothly. That’s why it is so important that all of the characteristics are known to whoever is intending to use them.”
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“We only do this, however, once we’ve established the foundational knowledge of what excellent leadership and management are. Over the course of the five-day program, we spend a significant amount of time fully exploring these key concepts.” When asked what makes a great leader, Tyler believes that the answer to this question does not boil down to simply one or two attributes, but sixteen. These are known as the ‘The Tyler 16™’, which he has found all great leaders and managers to possess to some degree. These are: • Plan • Organize • Command respect • Have empathy • Not play favorites • Practice business detachment with direct reports. • Are excellent communicators • Are activators on plans • Controllers of the direction of “The Plan” • Encouragement of innovation • Evaluators of past and present actions to justify time, cost and human effort for the ROI • Remaining in a state of constant education • Specialists at recruiting and retaining people • Want positive change • Know how to re-script individual behavior • Replace themselves
A central part of this training is making people aware of these characteristics, and making these seemingly immeasurable attributes measurable through evaluation and placing scores on their performance. “When people measure themselves without complete and thorough understanding of these qualities and attributes, they give themselves a higher score than is realistic,” says Tyler. “That is why we take the time to teach people about the meaning and the components of each attribute before getting them to assess themselves, so that they have something to measure themselves against. When this is done the individuals tend to rate themselves very accurately against their actual skill level and abilities. The result is an effective baseline evaluation.” Tyler points out. Once these wheels are set in motion, participants get the chance to work on these areas and identify them with their own employees. As Tyler explains: “For instance, in the case of someone that needs to work on their communication, we will sit down with them and discuss what excellent communication is – what are the components that you ought to be looking for, and what has to be there for communication to be effective. Including which words should be used, and which should be avoided.
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“As they develop these abilities, we will put the participants into case study situations where they will be tested in a scenario that examines those necessary components. In particular, we will identify management philosophy, and we will likewise identify where the participants stand on these ideas, before teaching them how to apply them. This all enhances the communicative process.” A major factor influencing almost all areas of business is the continuing development of technology, and business leadership is no exception. Tyler believes that this phenomenon can have both positive and negative effects on a business. “On the one hand, it can provide you with the means to reach out and connect with more people, more frequently, and disseminate information to them quicker than ever before. As an example, years ago, a company as large as Ford would have been a very difficult environment in which to reach thousands of employees, and probably would have required a massive logistical chain just to get information across all departments. Depending on the amount of information the process could have taken weeks or in some cases months to fully accomplish. “Today, you can deliver messages within companies via email, as well as other multimedia forms such as video, and that information can reach people on the other side of the world in virtually no time at all. This technology allows a person from any level of the company to connect with others, and communicate with them in a more direct manner than has ever been achieved before. In that sense, it is a very empowering tool. This is especially beneficial in terms of reaching speedy and sometimes critical decisions.” On the other side of the coin, Tyler believes that technology often results in leaders having less of a ‘hands on’ approach to the operation. Information can be sent out and distributed without ever having actually gotten out there and talking on a personal level with the people it directly impacts. “Technology can also cause delays as much as it can speed up the process of business. Some executives in certain companies would be better off spending their time making decisions and growing the business, but are left sending their own information off via email, and by due process essentially becoming wordprocessing people instead of the leadership figures that they need to be.
leadership
“Ultimately, it comes down to the decision of the leadership team to make sure that they are using technology effectively to create opportunities, to help their clients, and to grow the business. They, as leaders, have a certain obligation to help people in their employ to rise up and better themselves in new, challenging roles, but that contrasts starkly with the temptation to hide away and end up using technology in a way that deprives others in the company from doing the same.” When reflecting further upon his training, Tyler believes the results simply speak for themselves, and can literally list hundreds of success stories that come from their programs. In actual fact, they are not necessarily limited to success in business, but quite a number of them are personal success stories. “I can recall one individual from tech company, who possessed the necessary attributes and qualities, but was having trouble in adapting to his organization and wasn’t particularly well respected at the time, even though he was an extremely talented individual. He attended the Leadership Mastery™ Program, and through the process and the subsequent work that he was encouraged to do, he went on to not only become well respected in the company, but he also moved on to become the Vice President of Sales, and eventually moved into the CEO position. We continued to work with him, and he then
subsequently moved on to become CEO of an even larger company. Today, he is the CEO of a global organization. “Of course, that was a process that took place over a number of years, and he continued to work at it during that time. The skill sets that he originally had, though, were not such that he would have been able to accomplish all of this without the Leadership Mastery™ Program and our One-to-One Coaching™ program. He was smart enough to apply the principles to his work, and to continue applying them on a constant basis.” And of course, as a successful CEO Tyler doesn’t simply just ‘talk the talk’. His leadership skills are something he implements every day at his business and even outside of the workplace too. “These philosophies are not simply ones that I only enjoy teaching; I also love to live by them,” says Tyler. “They are not just business principles – they are life principles. I believe that they are critically important principles to growing a successful business, and in empowering individuals to be successful. Looking towards the closing end of year and beyond, Tyler is optimistic that his programs will continue to educate and inspire businesses and individuals across the globe. As his clients have become more and more diverse, so too has his services, which is why his leadership and training is being provided in more and more different formats.
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“As we look at the Leadership Mastery™ Program, we will continue to look at ways to get more people and more organizations involved. What we’re aspiring to is for our courses to develop a workplace learning and revenue generation performance culture within an organization. When this occurs companies look to their employees to help their businesses flourish and we are there to lend a hand to make that possible. “So many people today think of a company incorrectly. They believe the business is one thing, and the employees are a separate entity. In reality, a company is its people. For a company to succeed, it has to nurture successful people. It doesn’t happen often enough and this is why many organizations crumble over time – they do not have the right talent allocated in the right place with the right set of skills.
“Ultimately, the goal with our programs is to continue to provide the foundation for companies to grow and build upon the strength of their products and services, as well as the talent and skills of their people, and to allow individuals to grow, so that they can be as successful as possible.”
leadership
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LEGAL
legal
DOING BUSINESS THE RIGHT WAY Since 1992, this company has been in the business of delivering subject matter experts across every imaginable industry and discipline. IMS ExpertServices was born out of two successful executive and interim executive search firms. From that rich history, CEO Bill Wein and his team have developed a deep commitment to understanding the unique engagement expectations of their clients, taking the points of friction out of their journey, and delivering the experts they need when they need them. Today, IMS ExpertServices connects the world’s top experts with in-house and outside counsel clients in support of high-stakes litigation.
IMS ExpertServices contactus@ims-expertservices.com +1 877-838-8464 www.ims-expertservices.com 4400 Bayou Blvd., Suite 6, Pensacola, FL 32503, USA
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legal
rom the beginning, our vision has been to enhance the intersection of service and people through technology, placing people ahead of machines in a service first environment,” company CEO Bill Wein states. “We leverage secure and reliable technology to gain efficiencies, while remaining focused on stronger and deeper relationships.”
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As Bill acknowledges that no two clients, expert requirements, or cases are the same, he clarifies that his company’s culture of excellence requires the quick assembly of a team to gain industry perspective, identify elite thought leaders, and deliver the best available experts. “Our reputation for doing business ‘the right way’ ensures the elite experts are responsive to our outreach, allowing us to quickly deliver the right experts. “This approach to service is simple: meet your clients where they are and do what you say you’re going to do.”
Going into further detail about the nature of his firm’s client base, Bill explains how his team has achieved their holistic vision. “Our clients serve industries far and wide, such as accounting, biotechnology, insurance, high-tech, telecommunications, transportation, and many more. They have expert needs that run the gamut of complex commercial litigation, from antitrust to securities and from class action to intellectual property.” “There is never a dull moment; we delivered more than 3,000 experts for clients last year alone. On any given day, we may be presented with a client that requires experts in cyber security, DNA sequencing, offshore drilling, currency manipulation, 3-D printing, autonomous vehicles, or mortgage-backed securities, to name only a few.”
“Much of our success comes from engaging our expert and attorney advisors, acting as an extension of their organizations. We are committed to evolving by listening, keeping our eyes on the legal landscape, and innovating by adopting improvements and best practices from other service delivery models.” “With over 500 years of combined experience, our past meets our future daily. We’ve assembled a unique crew of professionals from numerous industry sectors, each with deep knowledge and standing within those sectors. This ensures our clients have access to the top academic and industry talent in the world.”
Expert Witness Search Firm of the Year - USA
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Legal
PROGRESSIVE, DISTINGUISHED COUNSELING Colucci & Gallaher, P.C., lawyers have distinguished themselves as effective advisors and advocates for privately owned and publicly traded businesses, as well as municipal entities, in the northeast United States, Upper Midwest and nationwide. The firm applies a single rule when pursuing any client interest: provide the highest-quality legal services on time and at a reasonable cost. Marybeth Priore Mantharam has been with C&G for 13 years, and for the last seven has also been an equity shareholder. Today, she shares her experiences and achievements.
Company: Colucci & Gallaher, P.C. Email: mpm@colucci-gallaher.com Phone: 716-853-4080 Web Address: www.colucci-gallaher.com Address: 2000 Liberty Building, 424 Main St., Buffalo NY 14202
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Legal
&G currently counsels some of the world’s largest — and upstate New York’s smallest — businesses. This diverse clientele includes the world’s largest manufacturer of aerial work platforms, the nation’s leader in designing specialty trucks, oil companies, one of upstate New York’s largest commercial real estate brokers, downtown Buffalo’s largest commercial landlord, and one of the area’s fastest growing development companies.
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The firm’s varied menu of skilled business legal services benefits clients locally, regionally and nationally in practice areas that include prosecution and defence of personal injury claims, business litigation and counseling, corporate law and contracts, insurance and self-insured defense, construction litigation, municipal liability, toxic torts and environmental issues, product liability claims, health care law, real estate transactions, personal legal services such as wills and estates, and business formation.
Best Product Liability Defense Lawyer - Upstate New York
The firm’s attorneys regularly practice in state and federal courts across the country, before private arbitration panels and in mediation proceedings. “The many accomplishments of C&G in these capacities,” Marybeth says, “are a matter of public record.” Marybeth Priore Mantharam focuses her time primarily on the defence of products liability actions. In particular, she defends the world’s largest aerial work platform manufacturer and the leading manufacturer of specialty trucks. Marybeth handles products liability cases in state and federal courts located throughout the United States, and represents other manufacturers, sellers and distributors locally in claims of defective products. In 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, Marybeth was named an Upstate New York Super Lawyer for Personal Injury Products Defense. Marybeth, and the product liability team at Colucci & Gallaher, generally begin their work when an accident or incident occurs, traveling to inspect the product and scene to gather information that others may not see as important until much later. Early, extensive and continuing contact with the client and a relentless pursuit of every helpful fact or legal principle mean the greatest potential for a favorable outcome.
In addition, Marybeth practices intellectual property law, with a focus on trademark protection. She counsels clients on securing, maintaining, and enforcing intellectual property rights and actively litigates infringement cases. Marybeth also represents clients in a variety of other civil litigation. She spends considerable time on complex commercial matters and contract disputes, and has successfully defended businesses and municipalities in personal injury and premises liability actions. Marybeth is a Past President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, Western New York Chapter and served six years on the organization’s board of directors. She also is a member of the Bar Association of Erie County and the New York State Bar Association. Marybeth is admitted to the bars of the states of New York and Illinois and is admitted to federal courts in
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New York, Illinois and Michigan. This diverse, massively impressive résumé documents Marybeth’s meteoric rise to the upper echelons of a challenging and ultimately rewarding profession, where she has established herself as a major player in products liability law, which has traditionally been a male-dominated area of the law. Coming into this practice area as a young female was a challenge for Marybeth. However, drawing experience and clout from her time with the Women’s Bar Association’ WNY Chapter, she made it a personal goal to advance the status of women in the legal profession, and working in such a maledominated area served that purpose. “I have worked to bring many female associates up behind me in this area,” she comments with rightful pride, “and have tried to mentor them to further break the glass ceiling.”
legal
ESTABLISHING NEW PARAMETERS Uniquely equipped to provide real-world legal solutions, and with a particular focus on empowering burgeoning companies, Brett Cenkus runs a solo lawyer business law firm in Austin, Texas. While a heavy concentration of his clientele is located in Texas – Austin and Houston – he has worked with clients from around the world.
hen describing his role within the company and his key responsibilities, Brett Cenkus states simply, “I am it.” While he is lucky to be supported by a number of contract attorneys and marketing people to help bolster his firm’s exposure, the day to day work, strategy and business development all fall to him.
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“I have been out of law school for 18 years,” Brett reflects, “and for approximately half that time, I have been in business and finance roles, not legal roles. I think that’s because I have never identified as being ‘just a lawyer.’ I did not expect to be running a legal practice where 100 per cent of my time is spent on legal work.” With such varied, prestigious experience, having founded five companies previously, as well as working as a General Counsel for a publicly-traded international oilfield services company, Brett hopes to attract a broader range of clients who recognize his pragmatic approach to the practice of law. “I manage approximately ten independent contractors, rather than employees,” he clarifies. “My key principle is very clear and direct communication; I call it ‘no mutual obfuscation’.” Brett currently lives in Texas, but he grew up in Connecticut. He explains, “New Englanders have a reputation for being very direct, although I have worked hard to soften that approach, so that I do not come across as abrasive in any way. Still, I prefer being very clear and direct over anything else.”
2016’s Leading Legal Professionals
Company: Cenkus Law Email: brett@cenkus.com Phone: +1 512.888.9860 Web Address: www.cenkuslaw.com Address: 7500 Rialto Boulevard; Building 1, Suite 250; Austin, TX 78735
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Brett spends a decent amount of time keeping with alternative billing approaches – ones other than hourly billing, which is what most lawyers use. He offers flat fee project billing as an option for clients whenever possible in order to eliminate the ‘meter-is-running’ style of legal fees and conform his work to the budgets of clients. Brett considers it of vital importance to keep up to date with the latest technology trends. “In an increasingly competitive world, with clients becoming more and more techsavvy, technology is critical to keep costs down by saving time, and to make the lives of clients easier.” To aid in this, Brett subscribes to relevant email newsletters and networks regularly with other attorneys, so as to keep ahead of the industry curve. He adds, “plus, I have a lot of start-up clients, who I am grateful to for keeping me on the cutting edge.”
legal
LEADING LITIGATORS - LAW OFFICES OF JAY COHEN
irst and foremost, Law Offices of Jay Cohen are a highly experienced team of trial attorneys, licensed to practice in all state and federal courts in Florida. The most unique aspect of their practice is that they have experience on both sides of litigation. In addition to their work on behalf of plaintiffs, they have also represented Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) for several years in all Florida cases involving their acute care hospitals and behavioral facilities, including Wellington Regional Medical Center, Manatee Memorial Hospital, Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, and Central Florida Behavioral Hospital.
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Based in Florida, Law Offices of Jay Cohen are a highly renowned law practice, representing individuals and families who suffer a significant loss due to the negligence of others. We profiled them to find out how they have received continued success for their clients.
As a result of their wealth of experience and expertise, the firm provides a highly diverse range of services for their clients. For plaintiff personal injury, they provide services right across the spectrum, including in medical negligence, motor vehicle accidents, boating accidents, wrongful death and many more. Alongside this expertise, they also represent large national companies in many different types of litigation involving their contracts and business relationships. Ultimately, their experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in various healthcare disputes and complex commercial litigation provides them with a deeper insight and expands their knowledge base to best serve their clients. A prime example of their high level experience and expertise is the firm’s founder: Jay Cohen. He represents individuals and families who suffer due to the negligence of others, and his experience has earned him membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates. Furthermore, he has also been recognized by his peers, having been named to Florida Super Lawyers (2007-2015), and The Best Lawyers in America. In terms of trial experience, Jay has won large jury verdicts in medical malpractice, other personal injury and complex commercial cases in Florida. He is involved in numerous bar association activities and was elected to serve as a member of The Florida Bar Board of Governors. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor of law at Nova Law School and current professor at St. Thomas University.
Best for Medical Malpractice & Negligence – Florida
Fundamental to their philosophy is to provide a personalized service for their clients. They believe that face to face is the best way to choose an attorney, and that clients want to find an advocate that they can feel comfortable with when they need to share personal aspects of your case. They are also a law firm that values every member of their community, which is why as a Florida-based law firm provide services to Spanish speakers too.
Company: Law Offices of Jay Cohen Email: jcohen@jaycohenlaw.com Web: jaycohenlaw.com Telephone: 954.449.8700 Address: One Financial Plaza, Suite 1100 100 Southeast Third Avenue Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33394
Looking towards the future, they are confident that they will continue to build upon their success, and are delighted to receive recognition for their work. However, at the same time they are keen to never rest on their laurels and are will continue to work hard for their clients.
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MARKETING & PR
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Marketing & PR
HITTING ‘THE BIG THREE’ Nett Solutions, Inc. is an online advertising agency, whose bespoke specialization lies in customized campaigns for small and medium-sized businesses. Honing in their main focus to service customer acquisition and branding campaigns, Nett Solutions’ efforts can be found across Google, Bing, Yahoo and Facebook. The scale of their enterprise truly belies the humble stature of their core business, which might explain their motto: ‘large agency expertise, small agency charm.’
Best Search Engine Marketing Agency & Recognized Leader in Search Engine Placement California
Company: Nett Solutions, Inc. Name: Carl Hagmier Email: info@nettsolutions.com Web Address: www.nettsolutions.com Address: Nett Solutions, Inc., 65 Enterprise Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 Telephone: +1 (949) 330.7060
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Marketing & PR
ur success is firmly rooted in our team,” explains CEO Carl Hagmier. “From the technical campaign wizards behind the scenes to the Account Executives on the front lines, we have a team of dedicated people that view each client campaign as their own personal mission. When you have a team spending a client’s money as if it were their own and taking the campaign results personally, you are going to establish a rare and mutually beneficial level of trust.”
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Based on his acumen as a business leader, Hagmier recognizes the need to put his team in a position where they can shine. “This starts with hiring the right fit,” he believes. “Skill and technical knowledge can easily be learned but character, personality and desire are difficult to change. Our Executive team’s most important role is to ensure we have the right people in the correct roles. Once the right people are in place and they know exactly where they need to go, it’s our job to get out of the way and let them shine. As strange as it sounds, at this point, our job is to sit in the background and provide any kind of support we can. This comes in the form of encouragement, providing the right tools and even correcting as needed.”
“Our mission, as our motto states, is to provide a large agency experience with the charm of a small agency.” To Hagmier, this means conducting business in a way that his clients will appreciate, and this boils down to three crucial factors: trust, respect and likability. “Trust must be the top priority,” he states definitely. “We place a higher value on trust and relationships than we do on revenues. This establishes an inherent level of relational transparency.” “Second of all, when establishing any client relationship, there has to be respect flowing both ways. Things move quickly in our space – clients are going to be leaning on us to be the experts, because they respect us for the technical knowledge that we possess. They pay us to be professionals, and we have to
earn their respect by staying educated on all the disruptive innovations and new features added every month. We need to stay nimble and be able to adopt any new changes that will benefit our clients.” “Finally, our brand, and our business strategy, have to be likeable. In the end, we’re all just people. And we conduct business in a manner that reflects this. Our clients know as much about our pets, families and corny jokes as they do our campaigns. When two entities trust, respect and like each other, the foundation for success is set.” A large part of achieving this element of trust rests in Hagmier’s attitude towards leadership, as a means of demonstrating the robust operative strength of his company. Describing his take in leadership qualities, he points out that, “as long as you have one or more people following you, you’re leading by definition.” “You’ll find all leaders at all levels are always ready and willing to roll up their sleeves and get down and dirty with campaigns – at Nett Solutions, we are no exception. That can mean jumping on a phone call with clients, making technical adjustments to campaigns or participating in on strategy sessions.” Hagmier further explains that he maintains an ‘all hands on deck’ environment so all of his leaders reflect the business philosophy and mission through their actions and deeds, rather than by trying to lead by words in meetings.” Nett Solutions is fortunate to be based in a region pinned between the so-called Silicon Beach to the north and the Biotech hub in San Diego to the South. Being surrounded by
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ten universities within a 50-mile radius of their office means there is a lot of small businesses and start-up opportunities with which to work. “On top of that, Orange County has an extremely high ratio of consumer spending per capita. With so many local people shopping and eating out, it creates a lot of opportunities for small businesses to thrive. That being said, we are not a ‘regional’ firm by any means, as we have clients throughout the rest of the US. In fact, we probably have at least as many clients in Chicago as we do Southern California.” “We’re proud to live and work in Orange County, and would love to give back by providing as much information and assistance as possible to the businesses around us.” Indeed, Hagmier and his team were recently selected to run a branding and acquisition campaign for a major University in the South, a challenging project that he couldn’t be more excited about taking on. “We’re also making a transition to becoming more of a thought leader in our local area. Instead of merely running campaigns, we’re building a platform on which to become a resource for everything related to marketing and business 101.” While the company’s unique position in the market might well be determined by this exposure to such rich start-up opportunities, Hagmier maintains his core business philosophy. “Again, it comes down to trust, respect and likability. Act with integrity and people will trust you. Know what you’re doing and they’ll respect you. Be yourself and they’ll like you. We’re as technically savvy as any agency out there but clients like working with us for those 3 characteristics above all.”
RISK MANAGEMENT
RISK MANAGEMENT n the current economic climate, many businesses are facing certain difficulties, and the region of the US in which Elkins Jones operates is no exception. “Since the global economy is fair at best,” Suzanne Matheson comments, “significant developments can be made in community strength through numbers in terms of reaching financial stability. This can be achieved by businesses of all sizes working together and off-setting their strengths and weaknesses.”
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COMING TOGETHER Elkins Jones Insurance Agency is a multi-line national and international insurance agency/brokerage specializing in business and management clients with portfolios of all sizes. At Elkins Jones Insurance Agency, expert consultation and risk management is provided on a number of different areas including personal, commercial, professional, life, health, medical, dental/vision, disability and long term care insurance for financial profiles.
Finest in Finance
As the landscape is constantly evolving, there needs to be a greater emphasis on supply and demand with a finger on the pulse of the needs of the people – whereby all businesses focus on combined successes. As a business community, remaining up to date whilst being able to see and feel these needs is paramount to lasting economical sustenance. In this context, Elkins Jones Insurance Agency as an insurance firm is providing insurance protection and risk management services for current issues and needs – with an eye on the future needs and exposures of a person’s whole life, business, or profession. “We offer all lines of insurance products and portfolios to fit the client need, and discard the notion that onesize-fits-all. It is specialized and honed to trim the fat but leave the protection.” “Ultimately,” Suzanne states, “Elkins Jones Insurance Agency believes in relationshipbuilding with each other and our communities, here and abroad. Building trust and balance will allow B2B to truly prosper and thrive. In this digital world where faceless communication and interaction is usual, we need to return to more social interaction with face-toface conversations – even if using digital conferencing through real time or face time.” Unsurprisingly, the economy continues to be on everyone’s mind, so value for the dollar remains important – if not more important than in recent past. It is Elkins Jones’ job as brokers to review, consult, examine and advise our clients with fresh eyes and tireless spirit to provide the best service and protection without the excesses. “Instead of being Gordon Gecko (‘Wall Street’), we should think more like George Bailey (‘It’s a Wonderful Life’).
Name: Suzanne A. Matheson, Vice President/Broker Company: Elkins Jones Insurance Agency Inc. Email: smatheson@elkinsjones.com Address: 12100 Wilshire Blvd., Ste 300, Los Angeles, CA 90025 Telephone: (310) 207-9796 x 125
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“As such, Elkins Jones Insurance Agency believes in treating clients with the same respect we would give our families and friends, with time and dedication to honest approach and with coverage that truly meets the client’s need. Basically, go above and beyond the expected response or product and be exemplary.”
RICHARDTYLER
®
I N T E R N A T I O N A L Richard Tyler - Best-Selling Author, Top Sales and Management Expert and Entrepreneur Richard Tyler International, Inc.® is one of the world’s top Sales Training and Management Consulting firms. Richard Tyler International, Inc.® has been profiled on national television, in articles, magazines and newspapers. Richard Tyler International, Inc.® has earned a worldwide reputation for delivering powerful sales education programs and management consulting services. Richard Tyler International, Inc.® teaches success philosophies and techniques in such areas as Sales, Leadership, Management, Customer Service and Quality Improvement. At the heart of Richard Tyler International, Inc.® is a group of proven professionals with extensive experience ranging from Fortune 100 companies to business start-ups. Our team can increase growth and sales for large corporations as well as , small to medium-sized businesses. We can help you to drive your business in a more profitable direction.
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Remember, your success tomorrow is in direct proportion to your ‘Commitment to Excellence®’ today.™
Richard Tyler International, Inc.® 5773 Woodway Dr., Suite 860, Houston, TX 77057-1501, USA Tel: (+1) 713.974.7214 | Web: www.RichardTyler.com
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SUPPORT SERVICES & TECH
Support services & tech
INTEGRATED AIRPORT TRANSPORTATION AT ITS BEST With locations situated across the US, Park ‘N Fly is the leader in affordable offsite airport parking. We profiled them to highlight their company and how they have grown to becoming leaders in their industry.
Company: Park ‘N Fly Name: Eric Lund Telephone: +1 281-590-5173 Web Address: www.pnf.com Address: 16902 El Camino Real, Suite 1A, Houston, Texas 77058
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Support services & tech
hen it comes to parking at the airport, proximity doesn’t necessarily equal convenience. Travelers often have to hunt for parking, haul their luggage for miles through a dark parking lot and pay high fees for the “convenience.” This is where Park ‘N Fly come in, as they offer so much more than just parking with their great service and convenience.
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Basically, when a customer has parked their car, they pick them up at their car in five minutes or less and drop them off right at their terminal. All in all, it’s a lot more for a lot less, with no walking and no hassle. In addition, many of their lots offer special services like car washes, oil changes, pet boarding and much more.
to the cashier at checkout or to give to a friend. Since their inception, a large percentage of their customers have been business travellers which is why they have a Corporate Advantage Program. Many of their services and amenities were created to meet their unique needs, which has helped Park ‘N Fly to better serve all travellers and become the world leader in off-airport parking. Their Corporate Advantage Program was developed to offer greater rewards to our most frequent and most loyal customers. It is their way of saying thank you for years of not only continued service, but helping us to perfect their business too.
As a Corporate Advantage Member, customers are eligible to earn one free award day of parking for every seven paid days and have the opportunity to earn additional benefits based on qualifying tier level. Additionally, they’ll have the ability to link their credit card to their Frequent Parker Program loyalty card for use as your personal gate key which allows quick and easy access in and out of the facility. Park ‘n Fly Inc’s aim is to remain at the forefront of offsite airport parking industry. Although this may not be an easy task, they firmly believe that the commitment and dedication to their customers will allow them to continue to succeed in the coming years and beyond.
Their aim is to make the traveling experience more enjoyable, as they believe that the travelling experience doesn’t begin at the airport, but rather starts at the minute that you leave your home. As such, the company believe that every part of your trip should be relaxing and rewarding. At Park ‘n Fly, they believe that although taking a taxi or rideshare to the airport might seem convenient, those services can’t compete with the control, ease and comfort of driving your own car. In your own vehicle you’re in control, eliminating wait time and offering a customized journey, from the climate to the music and beyond. Over the years, the demand for their services has grown more and more. A true testament to their success is that Park ‘N Fly have locations all across the US, and have experienced a period of steady growth across their company. Fundamental to this success has been the dedication they have shown to our customers throughout the years. One example of this is their Frequent Parker Program Member, where customers will be eligible to earn one free award day of parking for every seven paid days and have the opportunity to earn additional benefits based on qualifying tier level.
Best Online Airport Parking Solution USA
Additionally, they have the ability to link a customer’s credit card to your Frequent Parker Program loyalty card for use as their personal gate key which allows quick and easy access in and out of the lot. Once they have earned an award day it will be available immediately within their online account. Furthermore, they may redeem their award day online or print the award day to present
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Support services & tech
ITRADENETWORK EXPANDS FOCUS IN FRESH FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN ACROSS EMEA
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Support services & tech
iTradeNetwork, the leading global provider of on-demand supply chain management and intelligence solutions purpose built for the food industry, has expanded its offering for EMEA. Building on the company’s massive success in the United States, Bob Godfrey, VP for EMEA, will lead a new team focused on delivering iTradeNetwork solutions in key segments (retail, food services, distribution, manufacture) across the EMEA region. TradeNetwork, Inc. is the leading global provider of on-demand supply chain management and intelligence solutions purpose built for the food industry. iTradeNetwork’s collaborative solutions enable greater efficiency and reliability through food lifecycle management. Built upon deep industry expertise and a rich standards-based data foundation with over 10,000 trading partners on the network, iTradeNetwork’s solutions allow growers, shippers, distributors, manufacturers, operators, retailers, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers to sustainably source product, track quality, and increase food safety compliance. Their solutions strengthen trading partner relationships leading to lower costs, greater revenue, and an improved customer experience. iTradeNetwork is a unit of Roper Technologies, a Standard and Poor’s S&P 500 index company.
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iTradeNetwork’s solution is the only strategic offering that brings together visibility, control and insights to quickly get products to the shelves, while optimising costs and minimising waste across the entire food supply chain. Questions such as ‘What is the true shelf life of the product?’ and ‘How can I respond to unplanned changes in my supply?’ can be answered easily and quickly with the solution that has options for order fulfilment, product attributes, temperature monitoring, quality scores and food safety compliance. Marie-France Nelson, President at iTradeNetwork, also comments, “building on
With its 17-year pedigree, iTradeNetwork is the most widely used supply chain management solution for perishable food in North America and has a large network of suppliers, retailers, foodservice distributors and operators including 5 of the top 5 food service management companies, 9 of the top 10 food service distributors and 16 of the top 20 food retailers. With over $300 billion of spend managed, more than 10,000 trading partners and over 100,000 unique users in the food industry, iTradeNetwork is the leader in Food Lifecycle Management connecting all the participants in the food supply network. Bob Godfrey says, “highly functional fresh produce departments are key drivers for both customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability. But the fresh food supply chain, which is more demanding than staple goods, has a unique set of challenges, with high inventory turnaround and variables in both the quality and availability of stock. Supply chain directors know there is a need for much smarter logistics management and complete transparency to adhere to new food safety rules. iTradeNetwork’s product suite offers supply chain traceability, in addition to easing the day-to-day aspects of the commercial buy/sell transaction.”
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our U.S. success and with growth areas in the fresh sector; for example, ‘Food-to-Go’, which is predicted to rise by 6.8% per cent in 2016 to £16.1bn in the UK alone, this is the perfect time for us to drive our expansion plans in EMEA.” iTradeNetwork is sponsoring IGD’s Supply Chain Summit 2016 on the 8th and 9th November 2016, and will be holding ‘1-21’ briefing sessions. Those interested in registering for a meeting with one of the EMEA team members should email fresh@ itradenetwork.com or visit the event website.
Support services & tech
PLAN B TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Plan B Technologies, Inc. (PBT) is a boutique systems integration firm with a unique history. Since 2001, PBT has been successful servicing clients across the nation in three major service areas: virtualization, storage and backup, security and networking.
CEO 100 Maryland
Company: Plan B Technologies, Inc. Email: kpercy@planbtech.net Website: www.planbtech.net Phone: 301-860-1006 Address: 185 Admiral Cochrane Drive, Suite 150, Annapolis, Maryland 21401
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Support services & tech he technology market is changing. There are hundreds of players and that number is continuing to grow. So how do the small survive? Plan B Technologies, Inc. (PBT) is an IT solutions provider located in the Mid-Atlantic. Incorporated in 2001, this small business has survived, and thrived, despite economic downturns and changes in the market. “You have to be ready and flexible to alter your solutions focus in a moment’s notice,” said Donnie Downs, President & CEO at PBT “especially given what is happening in our market and in the macro economy as a whole.”
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Virtualization is the cornerstone of PBT. Many of the staff at PBT originally worked together at an organization called VSI back in 1989 that was focused on providing Microsoft and Citrix solutions. That organization was purchased in 1999 by the publicly-traded company, FutureLink. The Application Service Provider (ASP) FutureLink was providing solutions ahead of its time – it was the precursor to Cloud Computing. “We were just too early to the market,” said Donnie Downs, “The licensing models didn’t work, and neither our prospective partners nor the market were simply mature enough yet to really understand what we were offering.” Donnie Downs has been in his current role as CEO since day one. On any given day, his responsibilities change. Strategic vision, product development, and business development are all central aspects to being a CEO, but Downs also finds himself involved in marketing strategies, customer engagement, and quantitative analysis. Although his activities may vary, Donnie employs two key elements to his daily business mantra: lead by example, and make your team better. Each day at PBT brings its own set of unique opportunities, as well as challenges. What Donnie Downs tries to do is to push and motivate the team to reach their potential, and to maximize their performance given the limited time available. “The great equalizer for every person on this planet is the number of hours there are in a day,” said Downs, “so I ask myself and my team every day, ‘how can we make best use of the time that you have?’” One of the key differentiators that explains Plan B Technologies, Inc.’s longevity and success is their ability to build and maintain authentic relationships and partnerships with their clients. PBT takes advantage of
opportunities for face-to-face contact with clients and partners. Strategically located in Annapolis, Maryland, PBT engineers are able to travel and conduct business in prominent cities all along the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New York City and Boston. One of the biggest challenges that Plan B Technologies, Inc. faces is directly related to Moore’s Law of Computing: the commoditization of products and markets dictates that as performance and scalability goes up, price goes down – which makes it increasingly more difficult to run a profitable organization. “You have to make a real effort to understand market intelligence, and that is what we at Plan B Technologies have been doing for over 15 years,” said Donnie Downs. The way people are consuming IT has really changed in the last three or four years, and Plan B Technologies, Inc. has been able to adapt. “We have the skills to be able to assist any client in transitioning to a new, improved way of organizing their data,” said Donnie Downs. “We have morphed our skill sets and engineers to listen to the clients, understand their needs above all else, and build solutions around their actual needs, rather than simply sell them something unnecessary.” There are a lot of companies in the industry that will simply sell their product to clients rather than build a solution to address their real needs. “The companies that are not helping clients to achieve their business objectives are going to go out of business,” said Donnie Downs. Plan B Technologies, Inc. maintains a very healthy working relationship with their partners to help their clients. At its heart, PBT is an engineering focused organization. They invest a lot of capital every year on researching the market and bringing back new ideas and best practices. PBT signs non-disclosure agreements (NDA) with their manufacturers, and partners to facilitate this intellectual capital.
“It is truly amazing what information you can glean if you have a trusting, healthy relationship with your strategic partners in global markets,” said Downs. “In our case, we have been able to detect and adjust to fluctuations in the market
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by simply garnering useful street-level market intelligence. This can contrast with what we hear from Gartner and other opinionated experts, or sometimes even validates their research. Invariably, I tend to place a greater level of trust in the street intel than in the bigger analysts.” So how does Plan B Technologies, Inc. as a systems integrator show value? Their strong relationships with technology manufacturers and reselling products is certainly a large part of PBT’s business, but they add value because of their holistic understanding of the data center, knowledge of multiple technologies and over 15 years of experience and best practices. To fully understand the challenges and business goals of their customers, PBT focuses on building relationships to ensure their goals are achieved. The knowledge and experience of PBT’s employees is what really separates them from their competitors. PBT President and CEO, Donnie Downs, is a relationship-driven person. He truly cares about his employees and customers, alike. “It is important to be genuine,” he said “because a lot of people in our industry are solely motivated by profits. If you see profit first, then you are looking at your employees as business assets, and not people. My personal philosophy is that if you take care of your employees, they are going to take care of your customers. And if your customers are satisfied and taken care of, you tend to have a strong, well-disciplined, and profitable company. Profitability is a marathon – not a sprint.” PBT’s future aspirations are very simple: remain relevant to the customers. This can be a rather difficult task, with various components to consider: Are you considering all of the technologies available in the market? Are you putting solutions together that are meeting the demands of the customer? Are you actually helping them? Do they see value? A lot of people assume that PBT is a much bigger company, because of their marketing, talent, and the longevity of the business. In reality, the scale of PBT far exceeds people’s perceptions of 60
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employees in a single office in Annapolis, Maryland. The reason that PBT has been so successful is because they provide their customers with real solutions, they place an emphasis on strong company values and ethics, and they put employees first. Since PBT is well known in the industry, and they have a reputation for achieving long-term results, they are frequently approached with offers of acquisition. But the energy and dynamic that operate in those environments is simply not compatible with PBT. This would disrupt the intimacy that they have created. PBT has been very successful by being smaller, and they have benefited by remaining more agile than a large organization. Donnie Downs anticipates PBT will always have a small business culture with an emphasis on empowered employees, agility, and mobility. He has seen rapid employee growth cripple an organization. Prior to founding Plan B Technologies, Inc. in 2001, Downs was an executive at a company that didn’t have any real need to grow, and yet within 36 months of him joining the organization, they went from 17 employees to 250. “You have to be ready for the endgame once you reach those kinds of numbers,” said Downs. “The company culture inevitably changes at that level: your ability to expand and take on more capital, greater revenue streams - those are all positives. But nobody who goes through that kind of change can safely state that their company culture has stayed the same.” Culture in the workplace is important to Donnie Downs, to his management team, and to everybody at PBT. By truly caring about every employee, they have a fun family environment. The proof of that is found in their employees, who have an average tenure of 8+ years. It takes a certain kind of work environment, one in which employees feel trusted and knowing that what they do is making a real difference, to retain great employees. Donnie Downs has created a team at PBT, that’s second to none. “We are truly a family,” he said, “and I couldn’t be more proud to work with this exceptional group of individuals.”
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ONES TO WATCH JXJ TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION Located in Georgia USA, JXJ Technologies Corp. is a highly innovative company which researches and develops electronic medical care products for preventing cardiovascular diseases of the elderly. We profiled them to put the spotlight on their truly cutting-edge technology.
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ince its establishment, JXJ Technologies has been committed to the research and development of a health-oriented smart watch to help the elderly prevent cardiovascular diseases. The smart watch, called jWotch, is a kind of remote health monitoring and tracking device.
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jWotch can conduct real-time monitoring on users’ physiological parameters, and then data will be sent to database for storage and analysis through wireless communication. Compared with the current technologies, this utility model is easier to use, and can monitor and track the health conditions of users remotely. If any abnormal situation happens to the users, their families and emergency center will be noted. Additionally, it has GPSone function and the stored physiological data can be used as a reference for medical professionals. Alongside the jWotch, the company focuses on establishing a health service platform, which provides health information management and medical health consultation. It makes it possible for users to consult experts on cardiovascular diseases at any time or any place. And meanwhile, the cardiovascular
analysis software of the health management center will constantly analyze the history detected data of users. If there is any unusual data, the users will get timely warning information. The project jWotch is the achievement of Dr. Xiang, President and CEO of the company, and his team in the last five years. Dr Xiang’s background stems from both his experience in China and in the US. He graduated from Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a master’s degree in 1983; and then in 1991 he graduated from the Pennsylvania State University engineering department, with a doctor’s degree in engineering. In the year of 1992, Dr. Xiang began to teach in UT Austin. In his early job career, he played an important role in R&D of products in John Bean Company Alltel, Glenayre, and VoiceCom. His areas of specialization include electronic communication, optimal design, mathematics theory, computer stereotyped concept, stock trading system designing and management, to name just a few. He is the guest professor of several famous universities in China, including University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan University,
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Chongqing University, Chengdu University of Information Technology, etc. In terms of the company’s culture, they put the concepts of dedication and cooperation into practice, making concerted efforts to innovate and improve their services. Although the company deals with very high end technology, the company is very people orientated when it comes to their culture. They have built a working atmosphere of equality, freedom, harmony and cooperation among colleagues. Their slogan is “Work hard, and enjoy life!”. This means that they work very hard and are very results orientated, but at the same time they arrange and participate a lot of activities to relieve stress. Ultimately, their main goal is to let the life sensor technology to benefit people of all backgrounds and become part of Internet of Things phenomenon. In the short term, their goal is to develop the very best in watch-style remote health monitoring and tracking series products. They believe that this is a truly intelligent health and safety management service, whose efficiency can be of enormous value when it comes to the health and safety to their users.
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AVANGATE REPORTS NEW GLOBAL DIGITAL COMMERCE TRENDS
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Avangate, the global eCommerce and subscription billing platform that maximizes revenue for software, SaaS and digital solutions, today released its 2016 yearly benchmark report on Digital Commerce Trends in Software & Online Services Sales, showing that consumers of software, SaaS and online services are getting smarter by putting security and convenience first. vangate, a Francisco Partners portfolio company, is the digital commerce provider that helps Software, SaaS and digital goods companies to sell their products and services via multiple channels, to acquire customers across multiple touch points, to increase customer and revenue retention, to leverage smarter payment options, and to maximize sales conversion rates. Avangate’s clients include ABBYY, Absolute, Bitdefender, Brocade, FICO, HP Software, Kaspersky Lab, Telestream and many more companies across the globe.
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The ‘Digital Commerce Benchmark’ tracks the global consumption of software and digital/ online services to identify regions with the fastest growth or greatest contraction, most popular products, preferred payment methods and provides actionable insight for software companies and digital services providers to help direct their efforts towards faster revenue growth. Key trends revealed in the data include: • Safety First – Security and privacy concerns remain top of mind, reflected by the popularity of these purchases. Seven out of 10 of the leading countries, including the US, UK, Canada, France and Italy, show security and privacy technologies, such as classic endpoint security and identity protection, as most popular.
despite its timid growing economy, and Malaysia, which has experienced political and economic turmoil (-7%). • Subscribe Me Up – Worldwide, the average order value (AOV) is actually decreasing by six percent (6%) as consumers and businesses migrate to subscription-based models. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of sales volume in the period Aug 2015 to July 2016 are subscription-based compared to 63% in the previous 12 months, Aug 2014 to July 2015. “Digital products and services continue to grow to support the continuum of demand - as evidenced by our benchmark data. It is clear that businesses need to brace themselves for rapid shifts caused by economic factors or buying trends at a global, market or country level. These changes – such as the growth in subscription models and alternative payments - require the capability to be nimble,” said Erich Litch, Avangate’s Chief Revenue Officer. “The tools and insights we provide help our clients quickly streamline and optimize ecommerce processes and make it easy for their end-customers to avoid a disruption in service; all factors that play heavily into a brands’ success.”
• Rising Sales – Consumers and businesses continue to buy security & privacy and utilities/maintenance software. These categories are on an upward trend compared to the previous year, with a 10% and 16% increase in sales respectively. • Growers vs. Slowers – The U.S. remains the undisputed leader in software sales followed by the UK, but one of the largest market growth is reported in Argentina (+42%), followed by the Czech Republic (+37%) who are both experiencing economic upturns. The largest declines were reported in Columbia (-17%),
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According to the benchmark, it is not just what buyers are purchasing; it’s how. The data shows alternative payment methods are on the rise. Worldwide, PayPal has increased in popularity over the last 12 months, from 14.5% of all transaction volumes in 2015 to 15.7% in 2016[1]. PayPal continues to be ahead of American Express across the globe. Visa/MasterCard remain the top choice claiming more than 70% of all online sales, but specialized local payment methods, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands (+36%), or Alipay in China (+53%) are showing significant gains in their respective markets. “This data gives digital goods companies the opportunity to tweak their offerings based on local market trends,” continued Litch. “Consumption patterns evolve and businesses need to know when and where to shift resources so they can gain competitive advantage.” For more insight into Avangate’s Digital Commerce Benchmark, please visit the Avangate’s 2016 Yearly Digital Commerce Benchmark infographic. The Digital Commerce Benchmark is based on a sample of hundreds of thousands of worldwide transactions moving through the Avangate platform between Aug 2014 and July 2016.
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WHAT’S STOKING GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTEROPERABLE TECH IN US UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS?
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Providers of open architecture, standards-based, modular solutions will be best positioned, finds Frost & Sullivan’s Defense Team.
he budget-constrained US military is looking to minimize training requirements by channelling funds toward platform upgrades and autonomy. One of the biggest gainers of this change in spending trends will be the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) segment. The US Air Force (AF) is keen to upgrade its UAS programs by deploying an open architecture, ensuring standards-based modularity to enable plug and play sensors and implementing quick hardware and software upgrades. The AF has made a case for a new MQ-X to replace the MQ-1/9 fleet but the budget will not allow for a new-start MALE UAS program. Therefore, it is focusing on the less expensive sensors and platforms such as those in the MQ-9 extended range (ER) aircraft.
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Meanwhile, the AF’s RQ-4 Global Hawk program will increase its upgrade spending from $32.0 million in 2017 to $155.7 million in 2021. The spending will be aimed at integrating and testing the senior year electro-optical reconnaissance system (SYERS-2), which is the payload flown on U-2 reconnaissance planes. Significantly, military services are demanding smaller, more autonomous platforms with longer endurance and multi-mission sensor suites that will reduce the overall manpower costs. This is stoking opportunities in
US Military Unmanned Aircraft Market is an analysis from Frost & Sullivan that is part of the Defense Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes subjects such as security, training and simulation, missiles, C4ISR and defense contractors. Despite the unpredictable budget, UAS market revenues that stood at $4.18 billion in 2015 are expected to grow to $6.25 billion in 2021 at a CAGR of 6.9 percent. For more than 50 years, Frost & Sullivan have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies? “Both the Army and US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) are seeking more expeditionary UAS that do not require prepared surfaces for launch and recovery,” said Frost & Sullivan Aerospace & Defense Senior Industry Analyst Michael Blades. “This is likely to result in the acquisition of a vertical take-off and land (VTOL) platform and possibly, hybrid platforms that transition to flying like a fixed-wing aircraft.”
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technology areas such as automated processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of sensor data, platform endurance, battery energy densities and link security. “Defense companies need to sign strategic mergers and acquisitions with companies in overlapping markets to enhance their abilities to manufacture and upgrade platforms,” noted Blades. “They can also make the most of the market demand for technologically advanced UAS by developing subsystem hardware and software, automating flight operations and PED, and integrating modular sensors and sensor suites.”
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STREAMING TO ACCOUNT FOR 95% OF MOBILE MUSIC BY 2022
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The share of value from streaming will grow from 76 per cent in 2015 to 95 per cent in 2022 in the total mobile music market, while the number of users will more than double to reach 950 million, according to the latest forecast by Strategy Analytics.
trategy Analytics, Inc. provides the competitive edge with advisory services, consulting and actionable market intelligence for emerging technology, mobile and wireless, digital consumer and automotive electronics companies. With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, Strategy Analytics delivers insights for enterprise success.
it applied a more flexible pricing policy in selected markets to challenge incumbents like Spotify. For example, Apple Music’s individual subscription priced $0.20 lower than Spotify in Hong Kong, while its family package is more competitive than Spotify’s in all the markets served by both,” adds Wei Shi, a Wireless Media Strategies analyst and author of the forecast.
The new report from Strategy Analytics, named Global Mobile Music Forecast 20102022, finds that despite a decline in fulltrack downloading segment, overall growth in streaming music, both paid and ad-funded free services, are driving the market growth.
The report also notes that the majority of streamers use free, ad-funded offers, and will remain so until the end of the forecast
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The full report can be accessed by clients here: http://sa-link.cc/1gv “Streaming music services are proving a better fit for mobile music than music download stores,” says Nitesh Patel, Director, Wireless Media Strategies from Strategy Analysis. “On the demand-side the growth in mobile streaming is being driven by increasing consumer demand for anywhere and anytime access to tens of millions of tracks via streaming music services, like Apple Music, Google Play Music, Spotify, and YouTube, instead of downloading or sideloading. On the supply-side higher smartphone penetration, as well as competitive data plans offered by operators, including zerorated and unlimited data plans, are removing consumers’ concern for data overage when listening to music on the move. Furthermore, the ability to store tracks for listening in offline mode has become an option that appeals to consumers in markets where networks may be patchy, or data cost high, or data allowance low.” “Important markets like Japan, which transitioned late from consumption of physical music to digital music, have largely bypassed download and gone directly to streaming. We have seen competition between services driving prices downwards. For example, when Apple Music was launched, being a late comer to the market,
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period. In markets like Eastern Europe and Latin America, advertising income is already comparable to premium payment. However, much to the chagrin of the music industry, in most advanced markets, e.g. Western Europe, North America and advanced APAC, the advertising income is still very small. This discrepancy will continue to drive music labels and other right owners to go for higher licensing fees from OTT services. The battle between paid subscription and ad funded will keep everyone in the mobile music industry on the edge of his seat.
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WINNERS’ DIRECTORY
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Winners' Directory
Corporate Growth Awards & Investment Bank of the Year Company: Eisen Fox & Company Name: Victoria Fox Email: VFox@EisenFox.com Web Address: www.eisenfox.com Address: 735 N Water St, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202, USA
Finest in Finance
Rodric R. O’Connor Managing Partner Halcyon Financial Technology, L.P. info@halcyonft.com 415-683-0740 www.halcyonft.com
The Business Elite: CFO of the Year - Missouri
Company: United Country & United Real Estate Name: Jason Cole Email: jcole@unitedcountry.com Web Address: www.unitedcountry.com Address: 2820 NW Barry Rd, Kansas City, Missouri 64154, USA Telephone: 001 714 512 3830
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Winners' Directory
The Tax Elite 2016
Company: Thomas Howell Ferguson CPA Name: Winston Howell Email: becca@thf-cpa.com Web Address: www.thf-cpa.com Address: 2615 Centennial Boulevard, Tallahassee, Florida, 32308, USA Telephone: 001 850 668 8100 / 001 813 227 9100
The Tax Elite 2016
Company: Cajucom Accounting and Tax Services Name: Dante Cajucom Email: dan@CajucomAssociates.com Web Address: www.cajucomassociates.com Address: 401 N Brookhurst Street, Anaheim, California, 92801, USA Telephone: 001 714 512 3830
Regional Dispute Distinction Awards Company: Dominic Y. K. Lai & Co Name: Dominic Lai Email: dyklai@biznetvigator.com Address: Room 1808, 18th Floor, Dominion Centre, 43-59 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong Telephone: 001 714 512 3830
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RISK MANAGEMENT
BUILDING STRENGTH-BASED CULTURES FOR REMARKABLE RESULTS
BUILDING STRENGTH-BASED CULTURES FOR REMARKABLE RESULTS WHO WE ARE
CHURCHILL LEADERSHIP GROUP is a global provider of leadership development solutions to accelerate the performance and engagement of individuals and teams. CHURCHILL’s experts all have senior corporate leadership success and specialize in HURCHILL LEADERSHIP GROUP is aforglobal provider Strength-based leadership solutions sustainable results.of adership development solutions to accelerate the performance That means they understand your world, which translates into a nd engagement of individuals and teams. experts trusted partnership and faster resultsCHURCHILL’s for you.
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WHO WE ARE
l have senior corporate leadership success and specialize in rength-based leadership solutions for sustainable results. hat means they understand your world, which translates into a usted partnership and faster results for you.
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nce onlyaccelerate 17% of people use their Strengths each day at work, professional growth. When employees are using HURCHILL’s mission is to maximize this untapped talent to their Strengths every day, companies see better engagement. ccelerateBusiness professional growth. When employees are using units where employees strongly agree they have an eir Strengths every day, companies see better engagement. opportunity to do what they do best every day at work are: usiness • units where employees strongly agreeturnover* they have an 50% more likely to have low employee pportunity to do what they do best every day at work • 38% more likely to have higher productivity* are: •
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WHERE CHURCHILL HELPS WHERE CHURCHILL HELPS YOUYOU Our services help companies develop leaders and teams who will
ur services helpgreater companies develop leaders and teams who will at achieve results and increase employee engagement chieve greater results and increase engagement at your organization. When clients employee see inconsistent performance, our organization. Whenorclients low engagement simply see needinconsistent to grow their performance, leaders for w engagement or simply to grow their leaders greater results, they callneed on CHURCHILL. We help you to for eater results, they call on CHURCHILL. We help you to crease leadership effectiveness, team effectiveness and mployee engagement in many areas of your organization.
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n individuals. Jayne has a thorough knowledge of business and its processes as well as business leaders and their abilities. “Jayne [Founder and CEO of Churchill Leadership Group] shows uncommon insight and is gifted in seeing the Strengths in individuals.
he will facilitate individual’s a formidable presence.” Jayne has a the thorough knowledgematuration of business andinto its processes as well as business leaders and their abilities. She will facilitate the individual’s maturation into a formidable presence.” Fred Chamness, Quality Director, GTE (Engineering)
Fred Chamness, Quality Director, GTE (Engineering)