The 20 Most Inspiring CEOs to Watch 2018 by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.com June 2018

The

Most

INSPIRING

Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

The Art of Leading

To Watch 2018

Attributes of a Good Leader

Matthew Telesca Founder & CEO MGN Logistics

Matthew Telesca:

An Industry Pioneer Driven by Determination

Leadership: The Unison of Guidance and Compassion

eadership in its pure form is the act of leading a set of followers for a collective purpose. Instances of leadership can be observed in the ways how Alexander, Napoleon, George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and many others, led their followers. Initially, a leader was perceived of an authoritative image. However, through the course of time, the term leadership has been branched into different styles but pertains to the pure form of the processes and outcomes involved within it. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th United States President says, “The supreme quality of leadership is unquestionable integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.” The verity of these lines is evident in the contemporary era of ingenious technologies and business models across the globe. Be it, an authoritarian or free-reigning style of leadership, one can safely assert that without leadership, an organization would be directionless, the workforce would be powerless, and goals and ambitions would be pointless. The nature of a leader is a subtle blend of ethics, integrity, ambition, determination and persistence. These traits build up a leader’s influence and reputation within the organization as well as the watching world. Funneling down the vitality of leadership into an organization, the role of a leader is played by a CEO. Right from the lifting of curtains to the climax of the play, a CEO avidly performs the parts of a protagonist, leading the organization to glorious heights. Initiating ventures, delegating tasks and their

appropriate execution, interactive participation, delivering quality outcomes, relentlessly recognizing and appreciating collective and/or individual efforts, are some of the prime duties of a CEO. Hence, herein, Insights Success has curated a list of “The 20 Most Inspiring CEOs to Watch, 2018,” who are excelling their roles and responsibilities of leading organizations that have ceaselessly advocated the ingenuity in technological innovation and in providing best-in-class services globally. Our Cover Story features Matthew Telesca, who has spearheaded MGN Logistics, Inc. to be one of the USA’s fastest-growing logistics and transportation companies. The company has ventured several prolific and novel transportation modules which include, predictive pricing, extensive KPI charting, and intelligent transportation routing, all under Matthew’s transformational leadership. Matthew comprehends that the path wherein one is metamorphosed from a follower into a leader is largely aided by grit, discipline and the ability to continually grind through good and bad times to succeed. He elaborates, “You need to be the first one in the office, the last one to leave, and you need to be willing to do what everyone else only talks about doing. If you are willing to do this, then and only then, you will have one of the necessary building blocks to creating a successful business.” Asserting upon his role as a CEO and the essence of any organization’s success, Matthew states, “The ability to delegate is one the biggest challenge for any Founder and CEO. The business is like your baby, you’ve committed absolutely everything to it, and once it starts to grow, if you’re not able to let go and delegate, you will end up with stifling growth.” Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector. Let’s start reading!

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Matthew Telesca Founder & CEO MGN Logistics

Cover Story

Matthew Telesca:

An Industry Pioneer Driven by Determination

It was curiosity that always pushed me beyond what most other kids my age were interested in.

uccess stories are always inspiring. Why? Because everyone wants to live a similar story; everyone wants to succeed. But when an individual achieves success starting from the bottom, that is when an inspiring story, becomes an awe-inspiring story. Those who build their own success out of nothing, are those that successfully navigate their way around life’s challenges, without stopping. They fall, sometimes or may be often, very hard, but they get up to stubbornly move on. It’s that self-belief, passion and determination that keeps the ball rolling. A perfect example of an individual starting from little and creating their own success is Matthew Telesca, Founder and CEO of one of the country’s fastest-growing logistics and transportation companies in the United States, MGN Logistics, Inc. Matthew, the youngest of ﬁve children, was born to a very modest low-income family, in a small farming community in Pennsylvania. His parents were ﬁrst generation immigrants from Europe. Matthew’s mother was a home maker and his father owned a small upholstery business. As a child growing up, he was often given his older brother’s

hand-me-down clothes for the new school year. And while the family never struggled to eat, small conveniences or luxuries were few and far in-between, and never taken for granted. All his siblings, including himself, would work in his father’s small family run shop, taking turns to assist their father. He recalls, “In middle school, my class had around 800 students and the vast majority were pretty well-off financially. In fact, out of the entire class only a handful of us received free lunches because our families couldn’t afford to pay for them. I remember being so embarrassed and self-conscience about it. I was always attempting to hide my free lunch card,” Telesca chuckles. “It was something that impacted me very early on and created an incredible desire and unstoppable determination to find a way to succeed. I ended up being the kid with a lemonade stand, the kid who sold trading cards, the kid who was always looking to make a few dollars, whenever and wherever I could. I would come up with the craziest ideas, but nothing would stop me from trying.”

A Determined Kid and Avid Reader According to Telesca, it was his unending determination and self-belief, along with curiosity that always kept him ahead of the curve. One incident that perfectly illustrates this as a child is his experience of investing in stocks. At just 12 years of age, and having saved $500 from working with his father, Matthew convinced his father to open a brokerage account in his name, so he could trade stocks and commodities. Imagine a 12-year-old making real investments in the stock market. Using the school’s pay phone, he would call his stockbroker to check on his investments and get live market updates between classes. He reflects, “I was always curious and always interested in learning new things; how something worked, how it was made. I loved the idea of using my intelligence to create opportunity.” Telesca remembers being an avid reader. “Even today, I am constantly reading industry related articles and magazines and always attempting to keep my creative juices flowing.” He would enjoy reading books with topics like business, investing or computers. The ‘Aha’ Moment After finishing high school, to pay for his continuing academic studies and assist with family bills, Matthew took a job at a local door manufacturer loading and unloading trucks. The company’s management team immediately noticed his work ethic and responsible attitude; and decided to train him directly under the warehouse manager. With this training, he learned the basics of inventory control and supply chain management. Intrigued by what he was learning on the job, and recognizing numerous inefficiencies in the shipping process, he switched his academic focus to concentrate on logistics. Matthew started taking courses, reading and studying at night, while working at the warehouse during the day. Telesca would frequently fill in for the warehouse manager while out on vacation. During one of these routine times, he was asked to arrange and dispatch the company’s daily shipments. The company’s shipping process entailed contacting one of three carriers. The first, was a preferred carrier and the least expensive, the second and third were progressively costlier and only used when necessary. On the very first day of his new responsibility, Telesca found himself in a situation for which he wasn’t prepared - none of the three carriers were available. “The year was 1998, Google didn’t exist, and in fact the whole idea of online search at that time was, not just extremely novice, but exceptionally limited. The entire internet was relatively new and very few companies had meaningful websites. So, I did

One of the things I learned very early on was that if I wanted to make any money, I would need to work for it.

I believe one of the most important characteristics of a successful CEO is to be an effective communicator.

what everyone did back then, I started looking through the yellow pages or the phonebook for trucking companies.”, recalls Telesca. After several hours of “smiling and dialing” phone numbers, he ultimately found a local carrier that would perform the deliveries and, actually, ended up being substantially cheaper. That was Telesca’s ‘Aha’ moment. Having firsthand experience with the inefficiency of not only finding trucks, but then also getting price quotes, he envisioned a way to improve this process and decided to jump in both feet first. Armed with a little knowledge of programming and an intriguing idea, Telesca contacted a friend from college who was working at America Online (AOL) as a programmer. Ten months, countless sleepless nights, and two hundred and fifty thousand lines of code later, Telesca’s newly formed company, MGN Logistics, Inc., launched a revolutionary new website called logisticsquote.com in the spring of 2000. It was one of the first online transportation brokerage websites, and allowed customers to easily set up accounts, search carriers, rate shipments, create shipping documents and track their freight online. After extremely

rapid growth and success, the site was sold to a private equity group in 2004. Three years later, after his noncompete clause had expired, Telesca started, what would end up being numerous acquisitions of brick-and-mortar freight brokerages he could efficiently modernize and integrate on-line with his newly developed Freight Transportation Management System (TMS). The first of these acquisitions occurred in 2007 and was a freight management company based outside of Boston, Massachusetts. This would be the start of a never-ending quest for excellence and the constant pursuit of newly reimagined technology that would again end up disrupting the transportation space. MGN Logistics: A Technology-Driven Logistics Solutions Provider As an early adopter of web-based technology, MGN continued to focus on cutting edge technology and developed several industry-first creative transportation modules which include projects like predictive pricing, extensive KPI charting and intelligent transportation routing that has outpaced all major players in the space.

By 2013, the company had opened an oﬃce in Orlando and another in the Dominican Republic to handle it’s growing international business. In 2014, having been heavily concentrated on freight management and LTL, the company expanded its expertise and acquired a truckload brokerage in New Jersey. The following year, it made another strategic acquisition of a tech-savvy Midwest-based brokerage with a unique proprietary truckload pricing app. Today, the company has 6 locations spanning Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan and the Dominican Republic. While the company provides services as a traditional freight broker, its focus and specialization is as a full-service freight management partner. It’s cloudbased proprietary TMS can eﬃciently integrate an entire supply chain ranging from that of a large multi-national corporation to small home-run business. The software can be utilized as a fully independent stand-alone program or a well-integrated bolt-on apparatus.

At MGN, we have created a corporate environment where employees are empowered to think about innovation and make suggestions.

MGN’s suite of services include price and service optimization, contract negotiation, carrier routing and edispatching, along with fully automated documentation creation, pre- and post-audit, freight payment, and an extensive suite of interactive business intelligence reports, just to mention a few highlights. The platform not only provides sophisticated transportation technology but also connects each customer to a dedicated group of seasoned logistics managers who assist in coordinating, executing and tracking all shipments. The process is enhanced with integrated eGPS monitoring of truckload shipments, in addition to live LTL, rail, ocean, air and parcel updates. For those companies looking for a standalone or fully integrated solution to either replace or support their existing logistics department, MGN’s proprietary TMS is hard to beat. Their dedicated technology staﬀ makes integration simple and incredibly aﬀordable.

Innovation and Implementation Telesca notes that the transportation space, like so many other industries, continues to be disrupted by new and compelling technologies, something he is intimately familiar with. In addition, new entrants to the industry such as Uber Freight and Amazon push the envelope of an already crowded space. Telesca is convinced the race to the top will be won by smaller, more adaptive and specialized companies rather than industry giants that he believes are too bloated to implement genuine disruptive change. “At times, it’s a little funny reading or listening to folks outside my space talk about the new entrants like Uber Freight or Amazon, as if they are introducing something genuinely disruptive or new. I guess for those not intimately familiar with logistics and the technology in the space already, those ideas seem innovative, but rest assured, there are dozens of companies that have been doing the same thing or similar for quite some time. Sure, just for their sheer size, ﬁnancial fortitude and name-sake they will gain market share, but I often chuckle at all the hype.

As the CEO and visionary of the company, I am excited to see not only the changes in the transportation space, but even more excited to be an integral part of those changes.

Trust me, I’m one of the first to be excited when I see or hear something truly innovative. It’s been a life’s passion to try to be one of those industry innovators, so I applaud when I see something worthwhile.” “My belief is that the market players who are able to efficiently deploy continuous technological improvements, while at the same time effectively execute their strategy, will have the best chances of real success,” Telesca exclaims. MGN Logistics has a focused, crafted strategy designed to look ahead and be innovative. It doesn’t rely solely on its CEO to lead innovation, but rather empowers each and every employee to participate and revel in creativity and innovative thinking. It is for these reasons that Telesca feels that the company has a

greater chance to continue dominating its niche market. Ability to Delegate When asked, “The ability to delegate is one the biggest challenge for any Founder and CEO,” says Telesca. “The business is like your baby, you’ve committed absolutely everything to it, and once it starts to grow, if you’re not able to let go and delegate, you will end up stifling growth.” Telesca started his company in the bedroom of his parent’s home and single-handedly wrangled every role from idea, to development to programming and vendor relationships, to sales and invoicing and billing, tracking and tracing; literally everything! So, when the business started to grow, it was very difficult to let go and delegate responsibilities. It required, not only trust, but even more importantly, acceptance of the idea that a task could be accomplished effectively in more than just one way. “My way” was not the only way, Telesca recalls. As he learned this lesson, he focused more on managing

I was always curious and always interested in learning new things; how something worked, how it was made. I loved the idea of using my intelligence to create the desired results and less on micromanaging his people. This allowed his employees to take ownership and spark a never-ending process of improvement. The Mantra of Success Everyone wants to be successful and yet, for the majority, success is very elusive. Telesca feels an entrepreneur needs grit, discipline and the ability to keep grinding through good and bad times to succeed. He advises budding entrepreneurs to be prepared to work above and beyond everyone else. He elaborates, “You need to be the ﬁrst one in the oﬃce, the last one to leave, and you need to be willing to do what everyone else only talks about doing. If you are willing to do this, then and only then, you will have one of the necessary building blocks to creating a successful business.” Catalyzing the Trust Factor, MGN’s Future A major challenge facing the transportation industry is the need for trust in so many supply chain transactions. Brokers must trust that a

opportunity.

carrier is who they say they are, carriers must trust they will get paid, shippers must trust that a carrier will not double-broker a load, and the list goes on. Telesca, once again, is pushing his innovative vision for the future of logistics. He believes the application of block-chain technology in the logistics space could prove to be transformational. From its inception as an early internet solution, to its realtime truckload pricing app, to the sector’s ﬁrst block-chain enhanced TMS, MGN Logistics has always been on the cutting edge of these types of transformational changes. As the visionary and primary advocate of the platform, Matthew Telesca envisions himself helping to catalyze these changes. He successfully built and sold his ﬁrst logistics company by the age of 32. He now leads the growth of his

current company, MGN Logistics, which has been named one of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies by INC Magazine, four years in row, most recently in 2017. Telesca believes MGN will reach $100 million in annual revenue within a few years, and all without any outside investors. “At this point, I feel we are really just hitting our prime. I’m past the point of foolish startup mistakes as a CEO, I’ve learned hard lessons from the past and I’ve surrounded myself with a knowledgeable and experienced executive team that has my complete and full confidence. I believe we are ready to see growth accelerate even faster. The ultimate demonstration of this belief is the fact I’ve turned down numerous offers from outside investors and companies to acquire MGN. Some of those offers were quite tempting to be honest, but I think it’s just a little too early. I still want to see this growth thru.”

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THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Company Name

Management

Brief

Cetrom Information Technology Inc. cetrom.net

Christopher Stark Founder & CEO

Cetrom Information Technology, Inc. provides cloud computing solutions and information technology (IT) services for managing networks and IT resources.

Ciena ciena.com

Gary B. Smith CEO

Ciena a network strategy and technology company Network Solutions for Optical Transport and Switching, Carrier Ethernet, Data and Broadband Networks.

eMDs e-mds.com

Derek A. Pickell CEO

eMDs is a leading provider of healthy solutions for healthy patients and healthy providers.

EngiLifeSciences engilifesciences.com

Gregory W. Pierce CEO

EngiLifeSciences is a consulting ﬁrm and provides services across the healthcare value chain.

Exusia exusia.com

Trevor Silver CEO

Exusia is a global technology consulting company that empowers its clients to gain a competitive edge by accelerating business objectives and providing solutions in data management and analytics.

inet-logistics inet-logistics.com

Oswald Werle CEO

inet-logistics develops cloud-based Transportation Management Systems for managing, controlling, and optimizing transportation processes in real-time for customers worldwide.

Kavi Global kaviglobal.com

Vijitha Kaduwela CEO & Founder

Kavi Global is a pure-play data analytics company oﬀering consulting, software and solutions. It partners with clients to accelerate and scale analytics.

KlickEx klickex.co

Robert bell CEO & Founder

KlickEx is a payments infrastructure platform focused on reducing settlement risks for Central Banks and providing cross-border transfer services dedicated to ﬁnancial inclusion.

Media 33 media33.com.au

Michael Lambert Managing Director

Media 33 is a full service, innovative media communications ﬁrm.

MGN Logistics mgnlogistics.com

Matthew Telesca President & CEO

MGN Logistics is one of the ﬁrst companies in the transportation space to provide IT solutions for the freight management and transportation industry.

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Company Name

Management

Brief

Nectar Services Corp nectarcorp.com

David Giangano CEO

Nectar is a software company specializing in monitoring and diagnostic software solutions for the Uniﬁed Communications market.

PlanPlus Online (Complete XRM) planplusonline.com

Keith Norris CEO

Complete XRM, Inc. provides a myriad of productivity software for individuals and for businesses.

simpleshow mysimpleshow.com

Karsten Boehrs CEO & Co-inventor

simpleshow is the leading professional explainer video production creating good eﬀective explanations perfectly tailored to the target audience.

Switchﬂy switchﬂy.com

Daniel Farrar CEO

Switchﬂy, Inc. develops and provides a Software-as-aService platform for travel e-commerce, loyalty, and ancillary experiences for airlines, hotels, online travel agencies, and ﬁnancial service companies.

Techsol Corporation techsolcorp.com

Satya S S Sagi CEO & Founder

Techsol Corporation is a niche Information Technology solutions and services provider for global pharmaceutical and life sciences companies.

TeligentIP teligentip.com

Greg Nielsen CEO & Founder

TeligentIP is leading communication service provider. It oﬀers wide range of communication services spanning from enhanced Call Centers, hosted IP PBX, IP Trunking, to Skype for business.

The Rinaldi Group rinaldinyc.com

Anthony Rinaldi President & CEO

Rinaldi Group licensed general contractor is a is a fullservice construction management ﬁrm.

Urban Crop Solutions urbancropsolutions.com

Maarten Vandecruys CEO & Co-founder

Urban Crop Solutions designs, builds and engineers turnkey solutions to allow its customers to grow their crops indoors, independent of the outdoor climate and seasons.

VerseOne Group verseone.com

Alan Neilson Founder & CEO

VerseOne oﬀers web technology platforms, digital, and creative services to the social housing, healthcare, local government, and broader commercial sectors.

VILIKE vilike.ﬁ

Kirsi Ekberg Founder & CEO

VILIKE is Finland based Startup Company. It develops digital tools for physical exercise (PE) education, gamiﬁcation, scientiﬁc research, and solutions to activate preschool children’s growth.

The Importance of an Undying Passion in Budding Entrepreneurs

was at an event in San Francisco in 2014, when I heard a piece of advice that stuck in my mind ever since. At the time, when I considered the advice, I really wasn’t sure whether I was actually following it. However, since then, I have come to understand the significance of it. The speaker said, in relation to choosing what you work on: “If you’re going to climb a mountain, make sure it’s the right one” You spend much of the best part of your early life trying to understand yourself well enough to find the right mountain for you. You look for indicators; subjects you like at school, mentors whose advice particularly resonates, which exams you do well in, the clubs you join at university, the career paths of those more senior than you in our first job. But it’s hard – I rarely come across people who really have the conviction to absolutely know their mountain to climb through forward looking indicators alone. I started my career as an engineer. I joined a world leading Engineering and Project Management company which took me to projects in London, the US and the Middle East. I worked on some of the largest and most cutting edge mega-projects in the world. I quickly became a chartered civil engineer and project manager and it seemed like I was destined for a long and successful career in the industry. However, I wasn’t happy. Despite all the indicators pointing in a positive direction, I knew something wasn’t right. It was then that I got a call from my brother, to ask for help on a little project he was working on with some

teacher friends of his. Fast forward a couple of years and I had left the Middle East, left my career, and founded a company called Pobble that would go on to change the lives of thousands of children all over the world. Now, every indicator would have told me that this was a risky, even crazy thing to do! In fact, the next 6 years that bought me to now, have been the most wonderful, painful, challenging, and rewarding years of my life. Entrepreneurship is truly a rollercoaster ride! When I reﬂect on that decision point 6 years ago though, it would have been impossible to have rationally decided to leave everything and start on a new path – I just knew in my gut that I had to do it! 4 years on I look back on that piece of advice and realise that I did pick the right mountain to climb. And there’s one indicator that I see above all else that convinces me that this is the case. The fact that I didn’t give up. When you are working on something that truly aligns with your passion, every challenge is just the next one to overcome as you progress along your journey to achieving your mission, giving up just isn’t an option! I’m often asked about the secret to successful entrepreneurship and I say two things; focus and resilience. When you are doing something that you love and that you believe in, no matter what the challenge, you keep going and make it happen. You keep going, when others would just give up. Also, despite all the chaos and challenge, you ﬁnd the way to focus on taking the next best step forward in a sea of uncertainty. When you have the clarity of knowing where you are going on your journey you are able to focus on the right things. When I meet with new ideas and startups, it’s relatively June 2018

Leader’s Insight

Jon Smith Founder & CEO

About Jon Smith easy to verify the market, the need and the solution – but much more important in my opinion is the reason for the founding team to be doing what they are doing. If this project aligns with their life’s mission, their “mountain”, then no matter how hard the challenge is, they will ﬁnd a way to create the best path forward. Maybe they’ll fail for the many other reasons that startups fail, but they have the best chance if they have that personal commitment and passion to achieve success. Pobble has won many awards, gained signiﬁcant investment, and continues to attract fantastic partners. However, at the end of the day all these things are byproducts of one thing; every member of our amazing team has an incredibly strong belief in our mission and is passionate about giving teachers tools that will make their life easier and inspire and engage their children to make writing ridiculously exciting for them in school! Without this passion and our commitment to climb our mountain, none of this impact or achievement would be possible.

June 2018

Jon Smith is Founder and CEO of award winning edtech venture Pobble. Pobble is used by tens of thousands of teachers each day to nd the best teaching resources, give pupils a global audience for their work, and to assess writing. Pobble has global acclaim, gaining endorsements from famous authors such as Michael Morpurgo, partnerships with organisations like the BBC, OUP and Microsoft, and investment from some the world’s most prolic education focussed angel investors. After graduating with a Masters in Engineering Science from Trinity College, Oxford, Jon because a chartered Civil Engineer and Project Manager. Jon started Pobble with his brother and two other teachers in their spare time. They then went on to incubate Pobble whilst Jon studied for his MBA at London Business School. The fth co-founder (technical) joined Pobble from Jon’s stream at London Business School.

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Alan Neilson: Bridging the Gap between Vision and Execution

VerseOne is a leading company that oﬀers web technology platforms, digital, and creative services to the social housing, healthcare, local government, and broader commercial sectors. VerseOne believes that eﬀective and intelligent managing and sharing of business content creates unique competitive advantages and real return on investment. Thus, it emphasizes providing highlypersonalized, functional, and beautifully-crafted digital transformation solutions. VerseOne’s digital portfolio of services and technology platforms power more than 200 websites, intranets, secure portals, and stakeholder management solutions. The prime reason behind its admirable success is the customer centric strategy and visionary approach of its CEO, Alan Neilson. As the Executive Chairman of VerseOne, Alan formulates and executes a wide range of innovative strategies. Alan’s leadership has allowed VerseOne to deliver customercentric and value for money solutions since its inception in 2004.

computer, including Fortune 500 company employees. Due to the lack of access, Alan had to timeshare a large IBM mainframe computer during his studies. He also read an article at the time about Bill Gates’s Microsoft and its endeavors to bring computing power to the mass market. These two things enticed Alan to read more about computer power and explore its capabilities. With a BSc in Computer Studies, Alan has broad experience in the IT industry spanning a 30-year career. During this time Alan has held technical, support, sales, marketing, and general management roles. Today, Alan is the founder of VerseOne Group. In addition to his involvement with VerseOne, Alan acts a director, adviser and investor for a number of other early-stage IT and technology companies. Prior to that Alan was the CEO and one of the founding directors of royalblue technologies plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of royalblue group plc. He grew the company

“Vision without effective execution is merely hallucination.

“

CEO is someone who is considered the motor behind the success of a company. The pioneering individual also shoulders responsibilities during unexpected downturns. Hence the role of a CEO in any organization is much more complicated than anyone might imagine. He or she must have an unwavering belief in their vision, an ability to hire the right talent, and bring-forward a positive and inspiring approach that enables an admirable environment in the organization. Gaining these qualities and creating a team that shares the same vision is not a cake walk. Very few individuals have been able to rightfully claim these qualities. Their astonishing leadership has allowed organizations to taste success at a global level. One prime example of such leadership is Founder and CEO of VerseOne Group, Alan Neilson.

Inspiring, Aspiring, and Achieving Alan originally aspired to become a medic, but he was fascinated by the inﬂuence of computing. He recalls that, during his college years, very few people had an access to

June 2018

Alan Neilson Founder & CEO VerseOne Group Ltd

from a small start-up to a globally recognized successful software service provider. During his 15 years at royalblue he gained experience of corporate finance, due diligence, and acquisitions as part of the company’s growth. Notable Challenging Tasks Executed with Excellence Almost every start-up faces some challenges in generating revenue and creating a brand name, and VerseOne and royalblue are no different. Although royalblue and its embryonic business providing software were relatively new in the market, Alan managed to bid alongside the much more established players of the largest blue chip organizations in the sector. It was tough for collaborators to trust solutions provided by a newly established small start-up. This prompted the company to make a minimum twelve month binding agreement with a key collaborating organization, offering them a share of the IP and the dedicated services of key developers. This approach to implementation enabled royalblue to provide extremely reliable software solutions that revolutionized the in-house systems of its customers. Alan mentions, “We did a great job of convincing them that we had the talent, the knowledge, and the desire to deliver the solution they were looking for and at a more commercially attractive rate than our larger competitors.” Key Entrepreneurial Traits Alan also advises budding entrepreneurs to develop key entrepreneurial traits like a vision to understand their product and its future capabilities, good listening and communication skills, and a charismatic character. These characteristics helped Alan to thrive within the competitive IT sector. He asserts, “If you really believe in your vision and feel it would make a significant difference to the market sector you have in mind, don’t give up and keep searching and pushing forward.” In addition to this, Alan also emphasizes employing the right processes and talent in June 2018

order to quickly adapt to customer needs and execute strategic plans. Committed to the Customer Experience VerseOne provides one of the best digital transformation solutions across the UK. The empowering aspect behind this commendable success is VerseOne’s commitment to the customer experience. Explaining his disruptive approach, Alan says, “a business idea looking for a solution is much less likely to succeed than a business idea that is either addressing an existing need or improving on how it’s being addressed.” Since its inception, VerseOne has focused on providing easily adaptable and completely reliable web solutions. The company evaluates latest products, best practice methods, and design trends to ensure its oﬀerings remain cutting-edge. VerseOne understands the importance of organizational content and invests heavily to provide secure software solutions to its clients. Its abilities to transform business content have been acknowledged by various global leaders, and the prime catalyst, Alan Neilson, envisions more extensible and future-proofed product and service oﬀerings.

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Daniel Farrar: Transforming the World of Travel

ravel is an experience that etches new chapters in our lives. Studies reveal that in 2017, global air traffic passenger numbers increased by 7.5 percent over the preceding year. In 2018, it is projected to grow by another 6 percent. The jeopardy is that only seasoned investors can understand and explore the true market potential. That’s one of the reasons the travel tech Switchfly is so impressive and why Switchfly’s CEO, Daniel Farrar is excited to be at the helm of a company addressing a market segment estimated to be valued at $1.5 trillion and growing between 5 and 6 percent every year. Daniel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and a Master’s in Business Administration. Over the last 20-odd years, his career has been focused on manufacturing, technology, financial services, and high-tech start-ups. “My primary goals have evolved over time, developing building blocks that marry the connection between business technologies and finance. This has allowed me the privilege of leading various businesses throughout my career,” reveals Daniel.

Daniel Farrar CEO

Switchﬂy

“

About Switchfly Switchfly is a B2B enterprise software company that is redefining the search and booking segment in air travel, hotels, ground, packages, loyalty programs and other travel-related areas. With more than 350,000 connections in 120 countries and content in every language and every currency, Switchfly is driving results for customers ranging from American Airlines to American Express to Groupon and is redefining the entire travel tech stack along the way. The company is on the podium as one of the most successful and valuable private travel technology companies on the planet. More than that, with 2 of the 3 world hotel groups, 5 of the 10 world airlines and 3 of the

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on ﬁre!

June 2018

3 global credit card payment networks, Switchﬂy is leading the next great advance in travel tech that promises to leapfrog today’s global travel search and booking infrastructure.

the status quo. To him, leadership is not always about successes; it is about failures and what one learns from them. He believes that understanding the lesson in the failure will allow one to succeed more times than fail.

A Turning Point

He adds, “There are many stories I can tell about my failures, including one that is relatively recent. After raising substantial funds for a very specific product, we determined through further analysis that the product would not fit the market requirements. This was not only disappointing to investors but also required a recalibration of the product line’s business trajectory. That setback allowed me to refocus our product efforts to a new and larger market, which drove significantly more business growth for the company in a new sector.”

In Daniel’s opinion, careers are managed and developed with a longer-term plan in mind. Throughout his own career, he has closely considered every next step and role with respect to the challenges, the potential to learn new things, and personal or professional opportunities available to him. All of that against a backdrop of everchanging technologies emerging in business. He says, “The pivotal moment in my career was my first large-scale global P&L with General Electric. It was my first P&L, it was a turnaround situation, and we had a very successful outcome.” A True Leader When asked what qualities a good CEO must possess, Daniel reveals that he doesn’t believe that there is one most important characteristic. He believes that every CEO must have many arrows in his or her quiver to address the various aspects of business, organizational challenges, marketplace dynamics, and overall professional development for themselves and their employees. Some of those characteristics, in no particular order, should include excellent communication skills, integrity, analytical and structuring abilities, metrics orientation, thoughtful coaching, and mentoring at all levels of the company. “CEOs and business leaders must have a firm grasp not only on their own business but also on emerging technologies, and strike a fine balance of the application of resources, organizational agility, and serving the everchanging demands of customers,” explains Daniel. Learn from Failures Daniel Farrar is a result-oriented, courageous trailblazer who acts with speed for impact and is always challenging June 2018

A Piece of Advice Through his life and business experiences, Daniel has learned to make the best moves to win the game. He suggests that budding entrepreneurs “sit down, write out all the things that you love to do and want to do and want to be involved in.” Daniel encourages them to ﬁrst determine what their ideal business looks like and chase that dream relentlessly and rebelliously. “As a budding entrepreneur, you don’t have far to fall; there are no big, padded IRAs and stock options that must be preserved, no house, no car payments, the list goes on… Chase your dream, do what you love and it’s no longer “work”, it’s fun,” he adds. Future Outlook The vertical industries are becoming enabled by technology and new economic models such as the sharing economy, cloud-based information, and crypto blockchain. People are becoming less materialistic, more focused on experiences, and the desire to share, connect, and participate in communities. “My job as a CEO providing technology is to foresee how it can enable the changing requirements of our society and the consumers who are using that technology to enrich their lives,” Daniel says.

The Importance of

Purpose I

n addition to running Kenja as CEO, I have the fortune of teaching MBA students part time on Leadership, Marketing, and Strategy. For my classes and as a CEO, I think the most important place to start is with the “Why” - what is your Purpose as an Leader and as a Company.

and daily to-dos determine their activities. I do not think that Purpose is something that can be discovered in a day - often it will take time to think about this and reflect on it. The point of the exercise is simply to begin the very important self-dialogue to get to your Life Purpose. It does not matter how fast you go if you have not figured out what direction you want to run first.

Purpose as a Leader As a leader, the first place to start is with yourself. If you cannot lead yourself then how can you lead others? The first thing to know about a leader is their Passion and the Values that led them to put importance on those passions. With an understanding of Passion, people can develop their Life’s Purpose. Purpose is your North Star, it is your unwavering unchanging goal which your daily actions will lead you to. Upon setting your own Purpose, you will need a Plan to take concrete steps towards the Purpose, Partners to benefit and to help you achieve your Purpose, and finally Persistence to help you with the very difficult task of staying focused on your Purpose. Passion, Purpose, Plan, Partners, and Persistence are the “5Ps of Life” - a workshop that I do with students to help them figure out their Life’s Purpose. 95% of people do not have a concrete Purpose in life - they let events

In Kenja, every person in our company knows that although I had C level experience in companies like Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, and Fidelity Investments, I have always had a dream to found a different kind of company - one that valued Innovation and Ideas over Politics and the primary focus on Quarterly Profits. My passion is for solving problems in innovative ways and for implementing very difficult projects. I was fortunate that I started with good co-founders, people that shared my vision and could contribute complementary skills. The plan is usually a natural outcome of a strong purpose and Persistence is usually achieved by knowing what works for you on a daily basis. For me Persistence is reinforced by refusing to consider a return to large company executive jobs and by daily use of the “Pomodoro” technique. (using 30 minutes interval of focused effort followed by a short break)

June 2018

Purpose Driven

Ted Katagi CEO Kenja

Purpose as a Company Just as with Individual Leaders, a company will need to develop its own clear Purpose. A Clear Purpose gives motivation to people, clarity to strategy, and a clear branding for Marketing. If we are honest with most companies, the Purpose easily devolves into meeting the Monthly or Yearly Targets. The Purpose is not merely the result of your actions - the Purpose describes WHY you are pursuing your goals. The Clear Purpose is lived by company members so it becomes a reflection of why people join and stay with your company. Company Strategy is strongly guided by Purpose. Things that lead you off the Strategic Path are rejected and you can find further value and differentiation in the area of your chosen competition. Small changes in your Purpose drives big results in the marketplace. Although Facebook and MySpace are both Social Networks, Facebook’s focus on connecting your friends resulted in many small innovations that MySpace with their focus on creating cool personal spaces did not.

employees, reflected in your products and services, and felt by your customers. It is far more enduring than any single campaign message or even a business plan for a year. Kenja’s purpose is to Revolutionize the way that mid to large companies collaborate to get work done through software. In the beginning it was difficult since larger companies tend to buy from other larger companies but we have now achieved something not easily copied. After 7 years in Business, we now have larger organizations like Mitsui and Company, Randstad, and JICA (the Japanese Peace Corp) and many mid sized companies using us. If we had started with consumers and small companies only, then the functionality, security, and ease to use (for older employees as well) would be far different. Starting with Purpose is not always the easy or obvious choice. There are many obstacles in the way and it is too easy just to focus on Profit or KPIs of the company. However, a focus on Purpose will automatically keep Employee Engagement, Strategy, and your Branding on track.

If you are clear on your Purpose, then the Brand is not a just a slogan on a TV Commercial. It is lived by

June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

David Giangano: A Passionate Leadership Redeﬁning the Boundaries of Success

ore than a designation, leadership is a moral responsibility that makes things happen. A noteworthy example of such a leadership is David Giangano, CEO at Nectar, who transformed his dream into reality.

paid his way through college playing music at weddings, bar mitzvahs, parties and clubs. David ultimately set his sights on becoming an entrepreneur. Today, he has achieved his entrepreneurial dream, but also takes the time to cherish his love of music by playing jazz on the piano.

company specializing in monitoring and diagnostic solutions for the Uniﬁed Communications market. It serves a wide range of customers including managed service providers, system integrators, and enterprises that span all vertical markets globally.

David believes that his life is similar to the movie, ‘Brooklyn’. He was raised along with his sister in a working class family which believed you provided for your family by working hard and taking responsibility for your own actions. His family values also taught him to pursue his dreams with passion and achieving them through perseverance.

Nectar- Innovating Software Solutions

Unified Communications is the integration of real-time communication and collaboration services such as instant messaging, presence information, telephony, video conferencing, desktop sharing, data sharing, call control and speech recognition. Nectar’s flagship product, the Unified Communications Management Platform (UCMP) has revolutionized the way in which contact centers, enterprise businesses and service providers manage their UC voice, video and collaboration applications, systems and networks. Unique in its vendor-agnostic approach, Nectar offers a comprehensive, multiplatform UC solution supporting Cisco, Skype for Business, and Avaya UC environments.

David always maintained a keen interest in studying math, science and music. His original plan was to make a career in music and he even won a music scholarship to a prestigious college. Then came a turning point in his life. After he won the scholarship, his father sat him down and said “David, you need a steady career which pays the bills and takes care of your family. Remember no one can ever take away your love for music.” Thereafter, he decided to pursue a major in electrical engineering and

David Co-founded Nectar in 2006 to bring “straight talk” to the world of Uniﬁed Communications by simplifying the management and monitoring of an otherwise complex process. Nectar is a software

Never give up, never let pride cloud your decisions and surround yourself with the best talent you can aﬀord.

A Moment of Revelation After completing his education in electrical engineering, David started working in the Aerospace industry. June 2018

table. It was a big gamble and carried the risk of ending his career. Fortunately, the client came back and on terms that suited everyone in the room. That decision instilled a positive selfbelief in the entire organization. Based on such numerous experiences, David has a few words of advice for upcoming entrepreneurs. He says, “Be positive and never give up on hitting the targets. Do not waﬄe, but check the ego at the door and be nimble. If you made the wrong decision then admit it, deal with it and course correct swiftly and always inspect what you expect.” He adds, “Never give up, never let pride cloud your decisions and surround yourself with the best talent you can aﬀord.” David Giangano

Hiring Challenges

CEO

Nectar

However, the job only tempered his ambition of owning a business of his own someday. He did quite well with the aerospace firm, rising through the engineering ranks in his 10 years there until which time the firm was acquired. As with many acquisitions, the new organization can, in the end, look much different. It was in that moment that David decided that he had devoted enough of his early career to corporate life and it was time to pursue his dream of being an entrepreneur. The dream began when David created his own consulting practice. An Approach Infused with Self-belief David has always maintained a positive approach to life and business, even in the face of adversity. One example, is a time when David elected to walk away from a large opportunity with a top global organization because it was a poor deal financially for Nectar. Many on David’s team, including his board, questioned his decision. However, David had a positive belief in his company and the superior technology they could deliver and truly believed the client would also come to understand that and return to the negotiation June 2018

As a leader of a fast-growing company, hiring and attracting the best talent available in the market has been a great challenge for David. David also believes, for CEOs, involving that talent to work as a cohesive team, with everyone rowing in the same direction, is even more challenging. To cope with it, compensation packages must be highly attractive to hire top talent even at a small company. According to David, managing that talent without destroying the egos of strong minded successful executives is a careful balancing art that also requires excellent people skills. A Horizon of Opportunities According to David, the upcoming future will be dynamic for IT companies. He sees an opportunity on the horizon of robust growth and fulﬁlling opportunities. He said, “As we continue to grow as an organization, I see myself as the captain of a fast-moving ship that’s heading in the right direction. Always staying mindful of the climate and keeping a close eye on any approaching storms that may require course corrections along the way, so we reach our ultimate destination.”

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Greg Nielsen: A Telecom Trailblazer Making a Difference with Collaborative Communication Services

Business leaders are no diﬀerent than the ship captain. They must have an ability to inspire a great team of individuals who can relentlessly work to transform a leader’s vision into reality. One such example of an astonishing business persona and team leader is the Founder and CEO of TeligentIP, Greg Nielsen. Headquartered in Texas, TeligentIP is one of the leading communication service providers around the world. The company has recently innovated some unique messaging and collaboration products. It oﬀers a widerange of communication services, including enhanced Call Centers, hosted IP PBX, IP Trunking, and Skype for Businesses. As a trailblazer at TeligentIP, Greg Nielsen leads the

innovation at the company by emphasizing the creation of a corporate environment where everyone from the smallest team member up to management wins.

“

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them

“

famous French aviator and author, Antoine de Saint Exupéry once wrote “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” As the quote depicts, it’s not just enough for a captain to be an idealizer, it is equally important to build a committed team which shares the same aspirations.

to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Stepping into the Shoes of Great Legacy Greg was fortunate to have been born into a family that spent their lives and sweat to be successful entrepreneurs.

He mentions, “My dad was an entrepreneur, and I always remembered watching him as he carefully managed his business.” It was Greg’s father Ron who taught him and his brothers about some of the essential values to follow as an entrepreneur. Irrespective of whether they listened to his words or not, his father used to convey his thoughts while driving and watching TV. His father always encouraged Greg and his brothers to help him work on some of his projects. These memories instilled in Greg an intense need to try to live up to some of the values his father possessed. Advancements that Nurtured the Interest During his college days Greg was fascinated by telecommunications. He foresaw the sector to be relevant to almost every aspect of business. When the Telecom Act of 1996 was passed and opened up a booming industry of competitive communications companies. This further peaked Greg’s interest, and enticed him to try his hand in the emerging telecom arena. Consequently, he decided to dig in and learn as much as he could, and he started working with some of the best companies during that era. June 2018

Greg Nielsen Founder & CEO

TeligentIP Empowering Traits: Dedication and Resiliency There is always some unforeseen obstacle that challenges an entrepreneur or CEO to the core. Sometimes an individual might feel lonely after making an uncompromising decision. It can feel as if while trailblazing, you’re chopping away the branches of an undiscovered jungle, and questions of self-doubt can emerge regarding the value of your existence and if you are even moving in the right direction. But according to Greg, commitment coupled with mental and emotional toughness is one of the essential qualities that help a leader to conquer these obstacles. Perception of Innovation Greg asserts, “I don’t think the challenge is as much about being innovative. You either are or you aren’t. The real challenge is in the perception of innovation because of all the noise in the marketplace.” By noise Greg means overuse of digital advertising and other marketing methods. According to him, such methods quickly make a splash and confuse the market with a ﬂashy product that doesn’t really have much June 2018

depth or scalability. The “instageneration” is easily fooled into believing in such products at times. Thus, Greg mentions, the biggest challenge for true innovators is in piercing through all the digital and marketing noise to demonstrate and show the relevance of your innovation. Focus on the Small Wins: Advice for Emerging Entrepreneurs Greg is more than just an entrepreneur, he is an influential one. He advises other budding entrepreneurs to first focus on building small products or companies instead of chasing after an extensive development and engineering project, which can quickly consume significant amount of time and money. Building a big company or project is a tiring process. It takes way too much time, always more than expected. It can lead to investor and employee exhaustion and ultimately starts to affect product quality or it even becomes irrelevant by the time its completed. Hence, Greg recommends building a basic usable product first then building upon it step by step so that you can easily ensure that you are getting real-time feedback from the market and that it has the potential to sell.

According to Greg, the biggest key to success that will get you through roadblocks and challenges of running a company is who you work with. Throughout his time as an entrepreneur, he has worked with team members across the spectrum at various companies. Poor quality, incompatibility and lack of loyalty from team members will always lead to failure. His current co-founders and team members are like a strong family that challenges each other, but still love and respect one another despite diﬀerences. Thus, his advice for emerging entrepreneurs is to surround themselves with people who share common goals and will stick with each other through thick and thin. Innovating Tools and Products to Stay Ahead of the Curve There is a substantial change in the way millennials and our current generation communicates and collaborates. Greg’s company envisions cashing-in the opportunity and has already started innovating tools and products to continue staying ahead of the curve. Its new message and collaboration service is just the beginning.

Attributes of a

Good L

eadership is about using the power of a position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A leader’s task is to implement the plans that usually look good on paper, through a delegated team, in a speciﬁc time with an ongoing motion. She/he may use the traditional method or may think out of the box. It depends on the leader as how to do it; the ultimate motive is to get the job done. Although, each and every individual has a diﬀerent approach on leadership, some might say it is about setting examples, some might say it is about sharing the authority; what matters is, taking the right decision when it is most needed. Leadership varies from one organization to another. An organization is a dynamic body and

creates new probabilities every now and then. And with new probabilities, come new challenges. Although, it is impossible to overcome every challenge, the business environment has adopted certain leadership styles for the efficiency of business: The Participative Leader Participative Leadership is the process of sharing authority with the work force in order to get optimum efficiency. The team, after getting access to certain powers, works responsibly to accomplish the goals set by its leader. The shared leadership also helps in case of any requirement of change, as the employees adapt quickly in such environment. Incidentally, this style of leadership fits best in a scenario when there is a limitation of time.

The Transformational Leader A transformational leader inspires the team through effective communication and an intellectual environment. However, these individuals require more detail oriented managers to successfully implement their strategies. Transformational Leadership is considered among the most effective employees of the organization. One of the examples of this type of leadership is when a leader is assigned on a higher level for effective environment. The Transactional leader The transactional leadership, as the name suggests, enables the leader to incentivize the team corresponding to their performance. The team gets rewarded when it attains the goals and the Leader has the power to review the results and act

June 2018

The Art of Leading accordingly when the team fails to do the same. The goals and the strategy to attain them are decided by the leader and the team itself. The Situational leader Situational leadership is a theory that the best leader will adapt to the required leadership style according to need of the hour. A Situational leader may adopt democratic style while discussion business with senior executive, but may switch to transactional at the time of team review. However every individual has a natural style of leadership and it may be diﬃcult to switch roles at a certain point of time. Qualities of a good leader There is an old proverb that says, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.” So is the case with leadership. One of the basic qualities of a Leader is to pass on the leadership skills.

Integrity C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Be it giving credit to one of the team members or be it admitting a mistake, a leader wears integrity as a badge of honor. They do what is right, no matter what. Ÿ

Empowerment As mentioned earlier, Leadership is about using the power of one’s position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A good leader shares his authority with the team in order to get the job done. By doing this, he shows conﬁdence in the team and obliged by the gesture, the team works with full enthusiasm to accomplish the goal. Ÿ

Decision making There is risk in decision to making. Great leaders take great decisions when the stake is high and it is the success of those decisions that make them great. To add up, a good leader takes right decision at the right time. Ÿ

In conclusion, a good leader can be deﬁned by the dynamics of his style in leadership, the values that he brings to the organization, the methods he uses to make the best of the resources, and the kind of decision he makes in the given situations. At the end it is about the attitude of an individual to bring the change for good.

Following are some of the qualities of a good leader: Communication Skills Communication is the basic requirement for eﬃciency in a business. As the level of hierarchy elevates, the requirement of communication grows. Especially, when it comes to leadership, there is no scope for lack of communication. A Leader who fails to develop this skill is looked up as incompetent, because it is his job to send the message loud and clear. Although, it is also important to listen as it is an integral part of communication. Ÿ

June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Gregory W. Pierce: Revolu onizing the Healthcare Industry

n individual who realizes opportunities and crafts pioneering works of art out of them is the definition of a CEO. A beacon of inspiration, an amicable coworker, and the enthusiasm to be the torch-bearer of an organization’s vision, are the evident traits of a complete leader. Similarly, Gregory W. Pierce, the CEO of EngiLifeSciences, has been a frontrunner in developing solutions that allow Medical Device, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Manufacturers to efficiently bring compliant and high-quality products to market. During his 28 years of experience, he has worked across the Healthcare Value Chain with high profile companies such as Ethicon EndoSurgery, Abbott Laboratories, Cardinal Health, and the United States Air Force. He continually innovates and customizes value added solutions for Product Development, Supplier Management, Manufacturing, Quality Systems, Regulatory Compliance, and Information Technology. He avidly participates on industry initiatives collaborating with FDA, Industry Representatives and Universities on Artificial Intelligence, and Product Quality Metrics within the Healthcare Industry. His extensive and comprehensive educational background includes an M.S. in Computer Science/Distributed Systems as well as an MBA in Computer Resources/Information Management. He also holds a B.A. in Organizational

Management and an A.S. in Medical Lab Technology. An Industry Pioneer EngiLifeSciences is a consulting ﬁrm and provides services across the healthcare value chain. The company’s consulting solutions are funneled towards Quality Systems, Product Development, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Regulatory Compliance, Software Compliance, Software Technology, Computer Systems Validation, and Quality & Business Performance. It oﬀers an array of services that are targeted at increasing the bottom line for an organization. One of the visions of EngiLifeSciences is to be a transformational agent in the life sciences industry, bringing more innovative approaches to organizations and impacting the internal processes. It helps organizations in keep pace with the rapidly changing regulatory ecosystem and become more agile so as to attune faster to the external conditions in the market. The company’s mission is to transform the Healthcare Value chain by creating end-to-end visibility, driving the highest-level product quality and improving business performance to stimulate innovation, ultimately helping save more patient lives. In the quality systems area, EngiLifeSciences helps with process improvement including compliance. Addressing the regulatory concerns and issues, we assist our clients in

transforming their processes to a compliant state and also help in remediation of various areas of the quality systems. When it comes to quality and business performance, the organization focuses on manufacturing, product development, information technology, quality systems, and how these processes can integrate to oﬀer end-toend visibility, helping organizations identify opportunities. Drawing Inspiration Gregory’s Career started in the United States Air Force working within the military hospitals as a Medical Laboratory Technologist and then transitioned to working in Research and Development for a major Medical Device Manufacturer; in the development of technology which falls in the category of Digital Health, and later in working for corporate America in the development of new technology medical products. “The pivotal point for me was when I decided to start my own company helping companies in the medical device, pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industry,” states Gregory. A Challenge-Driven Position Over the last 28 years, Gregory has observed that corporate culture is the greatest barrier for innovation. He asserts “Corporate Culture has become one of those buzz words that is apparently very diﬃcult to attain, yet of primary importance to succeed. I believe that cultural change starts by changing current behaviors.” He also adds that for any CEO, breaking the paradigm, ‘that’s the way we have always done it,’ which reveals that traditional work methods which add up to the challenges involved in the designation. According to him, taking an open and honest view about operational processes and involving everyone in eliminating all non-valueadded steps in those processes while June 2018

“

How we see success depends on how one defines it. It is about how we can make a difference to humanity in a posi ve way. It is about making a difference and the value that we can add. — Gregory W. Pierce

CEO EngiLifeSciences

reinforcing and creating value-added activities, can aid CEOs in working efficiently. Gregory comments, “Allowing ‘common sense’ practices to drive our behavior and involving the organization in that change, develops a culture of ownership and accountability which opens the door to innovation and increased visibility.” Overcoming Adversities For Gregory, striving to provide highest quality of service for his clients has been the biggest challenge. He recalls a significant project which involved helping a client in remediating Quality system for Software Validation from Product Development, Manufacturing and IT Enterprise in addition to remediating all the software systems which had regulatory implications. The program had aggressive timelines with a tremendous effort required in a short amount of time. “This program was one of those when looking at it appears to be impossible to meet the time commitments,” states Gregory.

the time lines and quality required to pass the horizontal and vertical audits first time really, drove positive feeling in accomplishing something that almost looked impossible within the constraints we had,” he adds while expressing his contentment towards the efforts of his team. Beholding a Triumphant Future According to Gregory, technology and digital health is expanding at an accelerated rate, including the use of artificial intelligence and other technology solutions to bring value to the healthcare. With EngiLifeSciences’ relevance to this expansion, he asserts, “For us to be an accelerator in the healthcare value chain, bringing more innovative approaches to organizations, and impacting internal processes resulting in agility and innovation is necessary.” Gregory’s advices the aspiring CEOs by stating, “The keys are Focus and Persistence, never give up, no matter how difficult it becomes to pursue your dreams.”

“However, working with the team and watching them grind through all the challenges one by one, and when we all met June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Revolutionizing Education and Communication through Simple Accessible Resources

Karsten Boehrs simpleshow

echnological innovations take time to enter the growing market. For an entrepreneur, monitoring and providing the best user experience is a quest that can’t be achieved over night. Open conservations about setting goals and deﬁning timelines for the product development, paves a creative way towards success. Besides, learning, adapting, and improving are the keys for becoming a successful CEO of an organization. One such agile personality, having a focused vision to achieve his goals is Karsten Boehrs. While helping his children in studies, Karsten realized that education and learning processes are continually witnessing changes. His son’s passion for gaining knowledge through online videos inspired Karsten tremendously. This advent of technology in the education sector and its rapid digital transformation motivated him to become a Co-investor and CEO of simpleshow. Karsten started his career working in the logistics and sales industry. He has an excellent experience of working at management positions with various multinationals including Axel Springer and Otto Group for over two

decades. Now, in his role at simpleshow his focus is on the strategic expansion of the company’s market position through internationalization and focused technology development. About simpleshow simpleshow is the leading professional explainer video production with several thousands of videos produced in the global market. The company with its production team delivers services essential in creating videos and interactive eLearning courses for corporate customers in a variety of different styles and formats. With the mission to provide simple and effective explanations for everyone and anytime, the company is developing intelligent solutions for wide target groups, such as the online DIY video maker mysimpleshow.com mysimpleshow.com offers business and enterprise plans with premium features directed across all small-scale and large-scale companies. The intelligence behind the application includes text inputs running through a semantic analysis, a natural language processing stack, and an integrated world knowledge database to produce iconic June 2018

visuals. These are then arranged and animated by an intelligent layout algorithm resulting in a video, which the user can individualize, download, and share. With offices in ten countries, the company builds on a universal and scientifically proven methodology that blends simple messages with visuals that stay in mind. Under Karsten’s guidance all of the company’s offerings follow this approach, focusing on five fundamental elements: Context— An effective explanation, looks at the topic from the target group’s perspective, providing a context the audience can refer to. Simplification— An effective explanation focuses on the essentials. This entails reducing the topic to its core messages and simplifying the language.

As simple as possible, but as complex as necessary.

Storytelling— An effective explanation is embedded in a story, as stories help to create identification and are easy to remember. Visualization— An effective explanation uses the power of visuals. Multisensory— An effective explanation stimulated several senses. A Visionary Leader Karsten’s love for the sports made him an enthusiastic cyclist as it combines all the qualities and values mandatory for understanding the roles of a CEO. He believes, the key enablers for his achievements are passion, perseverance, strategic thinking, smartly adapting with changes, constant learning and improvement. With the vision that the people are the most valuable resources of a company he states “I always try and develop my corporate family to be the best they can be.” An example of his leadership style that focuses on empowering others, Karsten recalled a meeting in New York, where he was really impressed meeting a young freelance creative writer. He kept supporting him throughout the years that made the writer a confident and a trusted decision-maker. Today the former concept writer co-leads the company’s 50 people operations in the US. Besides, leading and nurturing a smart and loyal team, he states “We have so much potential to seize opportunities, tackle challenges, and grow our business.”

June 2018

Under the leadership of Karsten, his team has created an online browser-based tool ‘mysimpleshow’. This tool allows its users to create their own simple explainer videos, transforming the way people communicate. The company has integrated AI into this tool, which is referred to as its ‘Explainer Engine’. Karsten’s entrepreneurial vision is to change the world for the better. With simpleshow his idea is to revolutionize communication and learning through simple and accessible resources. Catalyzing the Market Change Karsten’s idea of creating learning and communication resources is changing day-by-day with the growing digitalization. simpleshow is investing time and resources into creating amazing tools, products, and content resources to catalyze to this evolving change. They are constantly improving mysimpleshow.com as a software product and establishing brand awareness to be the go-to DIY explainer video creation tool. Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs Karsten’s advice to new-age entrepreneurs is to stay focused. Deﬁning the goals with agility will help them to achieve milestones. In addition to produce a business model, he adds, “Decide how your product and methodology will stand out from your competitors and make those distinctions your unique selling points.”

Rob Leslie Founder & CEO

Sedicii

June 2018

Mentor’s Opinion

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: SEDICII’S CALL TO ACTION

he pace and scale of technological change is fundamentally altering how value is created and distributed in the world. Executives in established companies across all industries are under increasing pressure to reinvent their businesses to stay relevant in the face of stiﬀ competition from digital natives. While the relationship between incumbents and insurgents is often portrayed in adversarial terms, there is enormous scope for mutually beneﬁcial partnerships. Digital Transformation

requires changes to key enablers or the istallation of new ones – big data and analytics, IT systems, operating models, people, and organisational culture. While digital transformations are obviously about technology and processes, technology often turns out to be relatively easy to get right. The changes to how people work are more diﬃcult to get right. How can industry incumbents and disruptors work together to leverage digital enablers to become more innovative and adaptable? How does this aﬀect an

innovative start-up attempting to lead transformation activities in the digital world? Thinking about how far the world has progressed in recent years with respect to the digitisation of every facet of our lives - in ﬁnancial services, manufacturing, travel, security change has been extremely rapid and profound. Thirty years ago there were no mobile phones, no drones, no autonomous vehicles or complex robotic manufacturing equipment. Yet,

About the Author Rob Leslie, Founder and CEO, Sedicii. He is a successful entrepreneur, a true visionary who delivers business results by taking opportunities, chances and risks when required. He has a solid track record of building and leading teams to positive results. An engineer by background Rob has a serious interest in identity, trust and security. Rob lived and worked for almost twenty years in Japan where he held senior management / director level positions with Datacraft Japan, PTS Ltd., eSafe Japan and Dell Japan where he was part of the initial management team that launched Dell into the Japanese market. Rob is also co-founder of Global Business Register which specializes in identity and compliance solutions for companies with AML & KYC regulatory needs.

June 2018

we have embraced them enthusiastically in our personal lives. So why then do we find it hard to accept these changes when it affects our business lives? Organisations tend toward a status quo; inertia provides a capacity to resist change. Staffs are so busy with their regular daily grind that experimentation and “thinking outside the box” becomes the exception rather than the norm. Of course there will be pockets of innovation but it is generally localised rather than being culturally pervasive across the organisation. Actively looking at ways to improve and move to the next level across the enterprise tends to be driven by a top-down initiated focus. It is when small pockets of experimentation lead to more formalised experimentation that activity becomes intentional and the initiatives become more audacious. The excitement of possibility becoming reality then takes hold. Formalisation leads to strategy and quickly, or not so quickly, the idea formalises into a strategic goal. This evolution then becomes the norm. The adoption of change can become systemic. Sedicii is a pioneer in the space of identity verification systems where it uses a patented zero knowledge proof (ZKP), cryptographic protocol, to help people and businesses prove their identities in a fully privacy preserving fashion. So where does Sedicii fit into the new world order that is our new digital reality and even more importantly why does it matter? “90% of CEO’s believe the digital economy will impact their industry, but less than 15% are executing on a digital strategy” according to M.I.T.’s Sloan School and Cap Gemini. For me, this is fundamental and it drives my thinking on how to make the digital world work for both business and the consumer. Having an ethical business that provides a service in which all parties in the transaction chain benefit is the objective; the business becomes compliant, more efficient, ethical and profitable and the consumer has confidence that they are being treated fairly, that they are being appropriately rewarded for their loyalty and that their assets and personal data are secure.

journey to deﬁne a pathway to the next point in our development journey. We are constantly thinking hard about how we can leverage new technologies, like blockchain and cryptocurrency, to apply them to our work with digital identity. From this work Kriptan was born. So, what is Kriptan? The Kriptan Network is a global identity network which enables real-time identity veriﬁcations from trusted identity providers (governments, banks, telco’s, utilities) ensuring that businesses can react quickly to new information about their customers while at the same time providing the highest possible levels of privacy. Data is never exchanged or copied over the Kriptan network unless the customer expressly consents. Payment for these transactions is made through the use of a new digital asset that is recorded on a new style of blockchain. This makes the transaction fast because it is executed via smart contracts; it is low cost because there are no middlemen, it is highly secure because of its implementation using distributed ledger technology and it complies with existing regulatory standards for KYC and AML. With the new General Data Protection Regulation coming into force on the 25th May 2018, this kind of lateral thinking provided a way for us to create a service that businesses are going to need to overcome many of the inherent challenges that they are shortly going to face. We are moving into a post-truth world where the truth will be hard to discern; where either trust or distrust will be the basis of how we interact with each other and where everything we once believed to be correct will be challenged on a daily basis. Given this is where our world is going we have made the Kriptan network so it will deliver more than just a service. We want our customers to see it as an arbiter of trust and a source of truth which becomes an intrinsic part of their daily lives. We want Kriptan to become indispensable as it responds to the challenges that will occur over the months and years ahead. So, in the words of Steve Jobs, Co-Founder, former Chairman & CEO, Apple Inc. “Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.” That’s how we see the world.

Considering digital transformation is at the heart of everything Sedicii does, it means we are on a constant

June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Keith Norris: Connecting Productivity with Purpose

all it a quirk of behavior or call it an obsession, Keith Norris is a “measurer”—he strives to define the current reality, and then find a way to improve on it. This drive to continuously improve has helped him compete as a triathlete, hockey player, as an entrepreneur. Keith is an advocate of continuous improvement, progressive goal planning, a leader in the Culture of Productivity tribe, an author, a lifelong entrepreneur, and a proud husband and father. He has over two decades of entrepreneurial, sales, operations, and managerial experience in the startup environment—extending to software, recruiting, event production, sales, marketing, real estate, business development, and project management. Keith is the CEO of Complete XRM, which owns and operates several CRM, ERP, strategic planning, and productivity software and SaaS offerings, including: PlanPlus Online, Pocket Informant, KPI Fire, EBSuite, and CRMRealEstate—helping organizations and individuals align their purpose and activities. “When you can connect what you do all day with why you do it, you generate positive energy, focus, and determination in your personal life and in your organization,” said Keith. This alignment of purpose and work results in a “culture of productivity.” Culture evolves when a group of people gather together—so it makes sense that a culture would develop in the workplace. A positive company culture supports work-life integration and motivates and empowers employees. A negative company culture, often result in high-turnover, low-quality work, and increased stress. Company culture shouldn’t evolve on its own—smart companies invest in building a culture of productivity. Complete XRM helps organizations thrive by increasing alignment between the three core expressions of culture: what we think, what we say, and what we do.

“You can’t generate and sustain a culture of growth and productivity without developing leaders and leadership,” Keith said. “For example, every new employee is the most important employees. Each person adds to the culture in their own way. It’s not important that everyone’s the same, but the recipe and combination of people is critical to success.” “At Complete XRM, we spend our time envisioning and creating productivity tools and subscription software for individual leaders and their entire organizations. But without the foundation of low tech personal-management and productivity skills, these high-tech tools seem burdensome. As a result, we not only offer advanced productivity tools we also work to instill the low-tech principles of leadership, time- and self-management, business processes, and continuous improvement. That’s where to find your real culture.” It’s the drive to help create cultures of productivity that has motivated Complete XRM to acquire companies such as PlanPlus Online, Pocket Informant, and KPI Fire. Keith received a Bachelor’s from Weber State in Business Administration with Marketing emphasis, and also an MBA from Weber State University where he was awarded the Goddard Scholar designation. Keith was awarded the Honors at Entrance Scholarship out of high school for exceptional GPA and ACT test scores. He also was awarded with the Goddard Scholar designation in the MBA program, a designation reserved for the top 10% of the Graduating MBA class. Academically Keith graduated high school with a near perfect grade point average, and was in the 99% percentile for the ACT a national test administered to all high school seniors. This academic achievement earned him the Honors at Entrance Scholarship at the University of Utah. Keith transferred to Weber State University in his 2nd year to pursue another love of his, Hockey where he graduated with a BS in Business Administration/Marketing. After 10 years in professional fields, Keith went back to school and once again excelled academically. First earning a score on the Graduate School entrance exam that earned him a scholarship to Weber State University, and upon graduating he was named as a Goddard Scholar, a designation reserved for the top 10% of the graduating class. In the real estate industry, Keith won numerous annual awards from Coldwell Banker, including the prestigious Presidential Elite and Top 1% Producer awards. PlanPlus Online PlanPlus originally started as a digital version of the FranklinCovey Planner in 1995 when it replaced what was June 2018

Striving to ensure a culture of productivity. then known as Ascend Software. PlanPlus evolved through various platforms including PlanPlus for Windows, PlanPlus for Outlook, and PlanPlus Online.

Keith Norris Complete XRM

Over the years, hundreds of thousands of people have used various versions of PlanPlus planning software to increase their individual levels of effectiveness. In 2007, FranklinCovey and Complete XRM partnered to create PlanPlus Online, the first version of PlanPlus to be available on the cloud. Later, Complete XRM acquired the exclusive rights to the PlanPlus Online software business from FranklinCovey and currently operates PlanPlus Online as a separate company. PlanPlus Online (planplusonline.com), which is based on FranklinCovey methodology, allows you to set and track goals, prioritize, and manage projects in a proactive environment in order to help you achieve success—and had been used successfully by over 15 million people. PlanPlus Online offers Essentials—a productivity system for individual leaders, and Professional and Business for sales professionals and small to medium-sized businesses—including the only CRM that’s CultureCentric, meaning it’s the only CRM for companies who’re determined to make company culture a priority as they grow. Pocket Informant In 2016 Keith brought Fanatic Software—creators of Pocket Informant—into the Complete XRM fold. Later that year, Pocket Informant what chosen as the Best Business & Productivity App. Previously, Mac World chose Informant 2.0 as “Best of Show” in 2011, and in 2015 as the Best Calendar App for iPhone and iPad. Pocket Informant (pocketinformant.com) has been a leader and innovator in the mobile Calendar/Task/ Personal organizer space for almost 20 years. It has been a leading app on numerous platforms from windows mobile, android, and IOS. Since its creation in 1997, Pocket Informant has been one of the all-time best-selling iTunes productivity apps. June 2018

KPI Fire Newest to the Complete XRM stable is KPI Fire (kpifire.com). While both PlanPlus Online and Pocket Informant offer an emphasis on planning excellence, KPI Fire focuses on the measurement and execution of planned strategies by engaging and aligning workers around organizational goals and continuous improvement. KPI Fire offers organizations a visual way to plan and monitor their progress on the path of continuous improvement and is rooted in the principles of Lean SixSigma. Helping to make personal and organizational intentional choices Whether you’re an individual leader or an organizational leader, the tools offered by Complete XRM help you identify and intentionally choose how you will spend your time, energy, and focus. Because the tools help you first identify your mission and values, then your choices are a powerful reflection of who you truly are and what you truly believe. While goals can be a tremendous asset to any person or organization, poorly defined goals have the potential to destroy progress, kill motivation, and create attitudes and culture that are worse than they would be if the goal had never been set. When goals are poorly defined or ambiguous, they are often viewed as irrelevant, and there is frequently a general feeling of apathy about them. Accordingly, the goal planning process can come to an abrupt end before it really even begins. Companies with good strategy execution can accomplish virtually any objective they set a plan toward and can lead their industries in financial performance, customer satisfaction, product quality, and employee engagement.

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Kirsi Ekberg: Redening the Meaning of Learning

“

ou can be creative in anything - in math, science, engineering, and philosophy - as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” - Sir Kenneth Robinson, author, speaker and educationalist. Creativity is an essential part in all areas of human life. Science, Arts, Math, Technology, Cuisine, Education, Family life, Politics, Business.... You name it. In many fields, that role is undervalued yet very, very important; a balanced combination of creativity and academics or entrepreneurial tasks enables us to be innovative and encourages to learn and do new things. Many companies are providing web-based services, applications, solutions and games to boost the learner’s or customers interest. Only imagination is the limit of how we can harness the possibilities of technology by remaining true to our nature. Technology is a good servant yet a bad master. In education, teachers are keen to add new technologies along pedagogical methods to learning process. And yes, Children as most adults as well, have more interest in game based learning than traditional classroom studies in school. In modern classrooms, gamification and technology can be used to enhance student engagement, participation and skyrocket the research to dimensions. Even definition of classroom can reach totally new spaces that aren’t limited to school buildings anymore. For that VILIKE was founded by Kirsi Ekberg. Company has been developing digital tool for preschool education to support children’s kinetic learning skills growth and elevate evolution of education with technology and gamification. Solution is for parents, schools and educational institutes.

Kirsi is also working for Dutch Explect.com which was founded in 2015 by Bart and Martijn de Ruiter. Explect is a forwarding company that provides digital platform for international trade to help SME’s to export and import their products globally. Apart from this, she is working with Moiko.ﬁ, a Finnish design company producing reﬂective accessories. Kirsi is also part of Mymeeko.com, a company designing and producing electric kickbikes. Kirsi Ekberg is a mother, an entrepreneur, and passionate towards sports and arts. She studied physical education and art management and played various sports including soccer for more than a decade. Sport education studies was the starting point which lead her to the path of startup entrepreneur. She played the role of single mother beautifully and witnessed the growth of children in her life and with her work. She also studied ICT and software development that give her better understanding on technologies and software which can be used in new-age education. The Light Bulb Moment It all started out from her interest to have digital tool to support work with children’s physical exercise (P.E.) education. She believes that physical activity and art are as important as academics for children. Kirsi was inspired by Arja Sääkslahti, Ph.D. in Physical Education from Faculty of Sport and Health Science in University of Jyväskylä: In her lecture she told about APM inventory, a method to assess pre-school children’s perceptual and basic motor skills. Arja also told her June 2018

about the impact of physical activities i.e., the more children move, the better they can perceive their bodies. This was the time Kirsi decided to figure out how to digitalise this tool. Problems Faced During Early Phase Initially, she learned about algorithms, how the analysis needs to be coded and ways software development along gamification can be utilized. Along the way, another challenge along big mistake at the backend of the first version, was and is the money. She ran out of savings to finalise to product and is walking in so called “valley of death”. But still after the obstacles, she is being encouraged by the people around and that faith keeps her trusting on intuition. With that support, the strong determination stays alive and keeps her thriving forward to accomplish the desired goals. Also grit to learn new things and seeing the golden lining in very storm cloud helps Kirsi to overcome the hussles and hurdles, every day. Kirsi’s Definitions of Success “Be the change you wish to see in the world “ quotation by Mahatma Gandhi is something that keeps her motivated to achieve her goals. According to Kirsi, it is vital to keep your feet on the ground, heart with the people and head creatively open to the future. To go forward in business by generating growth with the pace of people are even more important than money. True success is made by and with the people. Always give priority to well-being of one making the vision happen and take care of yourself along others. If you wish to make your vision come true, you need to be hands on part of the change and truly work for it.” it.

Follow your heart and never give up on your dreams, real success can only be achieved by following your heart.

Kirsi Ekberg Founder & CEO Vilike

Her Next Move for Future For VILIKE.fi, she is raising seed capital for further developments, she is helping Explect with Growth Hacking. For Moiko.fi and Mymeeko.com, she will start international sales and Marketing to grow the companies globally. She has dreams for more innovative products for global markets. Kirsi will continue doing what she has been doing with the addition of getting back to development side and finalising the products for launch.

June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Maarten Vandecruys: Realizing a Vision and Executing Excellence

value, but also holds the capability to impact the society and the environment. This led to the eventual formation of Urban Crop Solutions.

“At that time, I had limited knowledge about plant science, but the idea of indoor vertical farming was already on my mind and intrigued me a lot,” he recalls.

Tackling Globular Challenges Urban Crop Solutions is a total solutions provider in the indoor vertical farming industry, with one important goal to its name: tackling the challenges our planet is facing by optimizing supply chains around the globe.

t was while pursuing an elective course with existing entrepreneurs, when Maarten had the chance to develop a business plan; a plan that went on to change his life forever.

With time, Maarten got acquainted with the concept of plant science. He used to spend his time validating various hypotheses with the group of entrepreneurs, whom he mentions to be “a tough crowd.” While many opposed Maarten’s idea, one surprisingly showed interest and joined hands. It was Frederic Bulcaen, a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Typhoon, a Belgian cleantech company. Together with him, Maarten adapted the model which they had envisioned and the idea of Urban Crop Solutions came into existence. Today, Maarten Vandecruys, the CEO and Co-founder of Urban Crop Solutions, has led his company towards success to make a mark in the emerging urban farming industry. The Birth of an Idea During his educational tenure, Maarten has enjoyed a broad economic background. He started oﬀ with a degree in marketing and followed it up with a degree in business administration. Maarten later on pursued General Management from the Vlerick Business School. Speaking about his shift into plant science, Maarten asserts “It seemed important to me to have a broad background, so after my studies I continued educating myself in plant biology and machine building.” Ever since he was a kid, Maarten was always on the lookout for innovative solutions for all day problems, which could decrease his dependency on others. Later, Maarten switched gears into creating solutions that only boast an economical

Led by Maarten and Frederic, the company designs, builds and engineers turnkey solutions to allow its customers to grow their crops indoors, independent of the outdoor climate and seasons. On top of this, the in-house team of plant scientists at Urban Crop Solutions investigates the most optimal parameters for a plant to grow, called plant recipes. “This enables us to allow everyone to become a farmer by a mere touch of a button.” As a total solution provider, the relationship of the company with its customers doesn’t end after it has sold the system, rather it keeps on supporting them with maintenance, spare parts, distribution of consumables, and biological consultancy. Realizing a Dream and Achieving it The initial period of the company saw it develop a vision of being a fully automated plant growing solution provider across the globe. But in order to develop this successfully, Urban Crop Solutions needed a lot of know-how on both a plant-biological level and an engineering level. “Luckily, a lot of know-how on both items exists in Belgium. We have a lot of agricultural research institutions, worldleading universities and international renowned automation experts. So we started asking questions to all of these parties, but always received the same answer: too ambitious, not realistic, etc,” Maarten recalls. Soon the company met an experience prototype engineer in the food sector. He was in love with the project and his June 2018

Maarten Vandecruys CEO & Co-founder Urban Crop Solutions

If you will always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten.

profile was the one which the company needed at that time. Maarten and his team spent weeks explaining him the plant biological level aspects a machine needed to be able to deal with and what the expectations were. Then we went back to those parties and we were able to convince at least some to start working with us. Maarten continues saying “I have to admit, sometimes everything you present can be great and well thought off, but it also matters who presents it and how it is perceived by the other party. If that one person wasn’t honest to us, it would have taken us probably way longer to realize we had perception against us to have the ability to realize our ambition.” By keeping on asking questions, Urban Crop Solutions has been able to realize and keep alive its initial dream of being an international company. Start Small and Think Big Maarten advices emerging entrepreneurs and leaders, “Try to find a niche market with global relevance so it has the opportunity to scale quickly. And make sure it is relevant by looking further than the economic impact of your idea, but also the impact on society and environment if you want to build a real brand name.” As the CEO of the burgeoning company, Maarten has been able to build an environment which promotes creativity and generates new ideas. He firmly believes that the biggest danger for a company is stagnation in idea and creativity, and to tackle the same he has built a culture that consistently strives to bring-forward innovation.

June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

TO WATCH 2018

Michael Lambert: A Leader Powered with Passion and Conviction

eadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading your passion, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers. The famous world leaders are armed with such empowering traits. Their unwavering passion and compassionate leadership is a major driving force behind the success of any organization. One such humble and passionate leader is the Managing Director of Media 33, Michael Lambert. Media33 is a bespoke media buying/communications agency, that specializes in providing clients with high level advice and expertise, to deliver sound business growth. With sound strategic and responsible recommendations, the company bestows its clients with cost-effective ways of advertising which assures the clients that their investment works, prior to blowing it all in one hit. As a Managing Director of Media33, Michael negotiates annual deals across all media platforms and delivers supreme success with his precise leading precisions. Stepping into a New Horizon Michael began working in the media industry in 1998. Since then he has been extensively contributing in this innovative and forward thinking industry. He mentions that, during his exploring period, the media organizations emphasized on an individual’s capability to work hard and a willingness to learn; the academic qualifications were not considered as a major part. There were not many schools or colleges that taught media. Hence, whatever he learned in that period, he learned through guiding personas and his own experiences. While explaining about his initial phase in media industry Michael asserts, “It can be an extremely

hard slog in the early days in this industry, long hours for not a huge amount of reward, but if you can stick at it and ride the good times and bad, it’s extremely fulfilling and an industry I feel privileged to be part of.” Michael was deeply influenced by some of his mentors that played a vital part in shaping his career. He ardently mentions, Bob Baddock. Bob was extremely experienced and had been in the industry since its inception back in the 70’s with Harold Mitchell. Michael met Bob at Mitchell & Partners and started working for him at the age of 30. It was Bob who encouraged Michael and guided him through this period. Instead of being loud and flashy and playing political games, Bob preferred being humble, honest and hardworking. This advice resonated with Michael throughout his career and made a significant impact on each of his professional decisions. Overpowering Roadblocks with an Approach Driven by Values Trust, Honesty and Integrity are the core values at Media33. These values have formed a positive work environment and a non-hierarchical approach in the organization which accommodates in overpowering every roadblock. Michael believes roadblocks and challenges infiltrate businesses when values are not matched, or team members don’t agree with them. Thus, his company allows its employees to create their own happy and comfortable day to day environment that enables them to take their own leadership. As a managing Director, Michael focuses his efforts to build such environments and believes such ingenuities delivers added productivity that can’t be underestimated. June 2018

‘‘

We all leave

footprints in the sands of time,

some the mark of a heel, others the mark of a great soul. The quality of effort is vital. — Michael Lambert Managing Director

Media 33

An Advice of a Passionate Believer Michael has been in the media industry for nearly two decades. He has helped several organizations around the globe with excellent outcomes. He strives to provide his clients with a high level of expertise and qualitative campaigns irrespective of shape, size and advertising budget or their organization. Michael’s professional astuteness is bespoken in the media industry.

go hard at it. Go hard at it with your heart, if you do and you’re truly passionate about it, the ﬁnances will follow and sort themselves out.” Additionally he opposes the attitude to follow the law of averages. He claims that anyone who goes out to make millions, as the key objective, fails most of the time as the individual particularly focuses on the bank balance. He feels such approach constraints them from the making the decisions they truly believe in. Heading towards Future with Adaptable Plans

Michael advises advertising industry enthusiast to stay passionate about what they do. He asserts, “The number one characteristic that everyone should have in life, not just CEO’s at work, is to be passionate about what you do. Without passion, you have nothing. It should be the cornerstone of everything that you do, or care about.” He believes the passion is thing that enriches individual’s ability to do their best work and fuels them to ﬁnd selffulﬁllment. He also emphasizes on having an unwavering trust on what you believe. He mentions “If you feel you’ve found a niche, June 2018

Michael trusts there is a fruitful future ahead for Media33. While expressing about the future perspectives, he states “We can plan for the future, but at the end of the day, you need to be adaptable to change and if that means revising plans to be innovative and managing growth responsibly, it needs to be done.” He has made some astonishing plans for the next 6-12 months, but he emphasizes that Media33 is extremely considerate of revising plans and direction every one or two months. He beliefs are, that that is what keeps active people engaged and helps them in being creative.

Successful

Personality

Traits to Learn from

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

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

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

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million. Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world's first online banks.

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

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

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

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

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the ﬁeld of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

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

June 2018

Imparting Wisdom

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reﬂection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run. Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a ﬁrm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well. Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities

June 2018

as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected end-results. It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his ﬁrms. Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry. There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

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INSPIRING 20MOST

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Oswald Werle: A Logistics and Transportation Visionary

rust forms the basis of all relationships and interactions; it is just as important in professional relationships as it is in personal ones. A sense of trust is one of the key factors that affect employee performance in any organization. Companies that foster strong workplace trust are better able to weather competition in the market as well as difficult times within the organization. However, it has to be cultivated by managers and leaders, not from words but through consistent, long-term actions and policies. inet-logistics personifies this mentality. Its CEO, Oswald Werle credits trust with fueling the company’s success. Oswald strives to create a positive corporate environment and has been instrumental in leading the company to its current position as a market leader.

He first worked as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for a big European logistics provider, where his contributions were highly-appreciated by industry leaders. However, Oswald had bigger plans. He had a keen interest in logistics, transportation and the trucking business, and decided to pursue this further with Master’s degrees from both the University of Switzerland and Berkeley. At Berkeley, he learned about internet capabilities and the benefits of network collaboration. This knowledge led him to use these new technologies to optimize the transportation businesses. And in 1999, he founded inet-logistics to persue what he desired.

From Passionate Management Guy to Visionary Leader Every great visionary has an urge to do something that will make the world a better place.

inet-logistics: Creating a Collaborative World inet-logistics is the leading European provider of Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS) cloud-based solutions for Transportation Management, Freight Cost Management, Container Management, and Transportation Analytics. Today, the company is one of the Top 5 providers of transportation management systems (TMS) worldwide.

From an early age, Oswald had a vision to contribute to the ﬁeld of logistics. He says, “I am not an IT guy, I am sort of a management guy who dreamed of contributing to the dynamic ﬁeld of logistics where everything changes, every minute.”

The inet TMS connects global multi-mode transport networks on the inbound and outbound levels. Its software has been proven to reduce transport costs by an average of 20 percent by networking all participants in the supply chain on a web-based platform in real time. inet’s modular

June 2018

If you have a great idea, you’ll have to go for it. You must be 100% committed to your vision.

Oswald Werle CEO inet-logistics

logistics software can also naturally be extended at any time. The platform plans, manages, and optimizes all transport management processes on a stable, eﬃcient and sustainable basis.

the Steve Jobs thought to stay hungry and stay foolish. Hence, he mentions if someone has a great idea and a strong belief that they can make their idea a reality, then the individual must give himself – and his idea – a chance.

Their approach lets clients increase transport capacity utilization and reduce their carbon footprint. Its transport management software can be used for national and international transport, courier and express deliveries, cross docking, multi-mode transport (air, sea, land), full truck loads and less truck loads, and supports combinations of full and empty load ﬂows.

Oswald acknowledges that there will be hard times but says that self-belief and the joy about intermediate success is absolutely crucial. He also suggests forming an adaptive team which shares the same vision and will work hard to realize it. His own journey is the perfect example of goaldriven progress.

With over 9,000 transport partners and more than 11,000 suppliers, the inet TMS is one of the biggest technicallyintegrated supply chain networks in the world. The company’s innovative framework, reliable services and its remarkable success is an example of Oswald’s ability to transform his vision into reality.

Today, inet is a global leader in transportation management and has oﬃces in Europe, the U.S. and the Asia-Paciﬁc. Oswald envisions an open minded culture and wants to empower, associated organizations and clients with trust. Through this trust-fueled environment and comprehensive strategies, Oswald expects to deliver excellent solutions to the global transportation market and contribute to making the world a better place.

Ideas Drive Everything Oswald advises budding entrepreneurs to have a strong belief in their idea. He explains that not everyone is capable of having a great idea and that not every idea is great. He strongly believes in June 2018

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

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Robert Bell:

An Avid Enthusiast Bringing-forward a Change

Robert Bell CEO

KlickEx.co

eadership is the timeless practice of guiding others in the pursuit of a common goal, outcome, or desired conclusion. The traits of a leader are of paramount importance in a CEO; the Chief Executive Officer shoulders the responsibility of leading the company, its development, and the execution of its long-term objectives. Robert Bell, CEO of KlickEx personifies these qualities and has used them to take this relatively young company to unprecedented heights of success. KlickEx provides payments infrastructure and Robert believes that, with the right approach, the financial industry can itself contribute to financial inclusion. The Entrepreneurial Story Robert grew up in the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. On the outer islands, he was exposed to many sights and sounds that most of us will never personally experience or even see, including farm life and barter economies. Seeing first-hand the difference in people’s lives technology and infrastructure can make instilled in

Robert a desire to do something meaningful that would benefit people, no matter where they lived. He chose banking. His goal was to build a diversified business that served its customers while also building communities, and to be part of an organization that inspired others to do the same. Prior to becoming CEO, Robert managed the non-Pacific Businesses, including the US, Australia, Asia, and Europe. Today, he is an international award-winning financial innovator, an experienced business leader with proven expertise in the energy, technology, trade, cyber security, economics, banking, and digital financial infrastructure sectors. Robert holds degrees in both Finance and Economics, is a graduate of Stanford University’s Advanced Financial & Quantitative Engineering program, and studied Cyber Security, Policy and Network Resiliency at M.I.T. Robert guides regulatory policy formation and national regulatory operations. He is regularly invited to speak as an expert on digital financial security, international payments exchange and financial inclusion at world forums, including the G20, United Nations, Commonwealth Heads of Government, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.

June 2018

Robert was twice the NZ Hi-Tech Young Achiever of the Year (2012, 2013), twice listed in the Top Banking Executives to Watch (2013, 2014) by Bank Innovation Magazine, and in 2017 received a New Zealander of the Year Medal for services to local communities. Inception Story of KlickEx The idea of KlickEx came from a myriad experiences and individual bursts of inspiration. One early moment was when Robert was at HSBC; he realized that banks don’t slow down payments on purpose - they do the best they can. This realization opened an entirely new road of innovation for him. Robert quickly realized that the Holy Grail of real time payment systems and inter-operability was close at hand. This vision came to life when one evening Robert walked out of his Trading Desk job into a World Bank forum on Infrastructure. His conversation with senior executives at the forum led to the foundation of KlickEx. That was in 2006. Today, KlickEx manages its battle-hardened suite of tools from headquarters located in Auckland’s CBD. These tools enable economies to work more closely together. It enables commerce at a lower cost, with higher compliance conﬁdence than anywhere else in the world.

made the diﬀerence. He attributes this stunning series of successes to his team’s adoption of his philosophy to maintain focus on customers, not fads.

I’m here because I believe the money industry can really help people if done well. challenged by VC-funded discounts on existing products. And making money is the new novelty. However, KlickEx too is leading that race, taking basic banking fees to zero, as well as being one of the most proﬁtable businesses in the sector.

They greatly simplify and accelerate the transfer of ﬁnances between bank accounts and fuel mobile money systems across the Paciﬁc.

When Robert ﬁrst started, nobody with a salary over $50k thought he had a viable niche. Then, no one thought that they will survive competition. And even then, nobody imagined their company will be the biggest. But that’s because nobody listens to their customers like KlickEx does. So it is important for CEOs to keep your team focused on customers and not on fads.

Initial Hiccups No matter how big or small a company is, there will always be roadblocks on the path to success. How a CEO confronts these challenges and keeps his team working towards the end goal is the true essence of his leadership.

When Robert’s idea started to gain traction, the common perception was that his company would not be able to stand up to the big players. When KlickEx did that, too, they doubted it could become the leading player itself. Now, it has.

FinTech is one of the most innovative sectors in the world and every CEO is

At every juncture, it was Robert’s commitment to his customers that

June 2018

Advise to Budding Entrepreneurs Everybody likes to have a CEO that empowers and pushes them to achieve more than what they thought they were capable of. In fact, most people have no idea what they are truly capable of until they have been pushed. As a CEO you have to tread that line carefully because you can’t drive people faster that they can go, but people also get frustrated if they don’t get driven as fast as they could be. Managing the team dynamics, and keeping the team focused on the customer is such an art. “Know that the journey is going to be harder and longer than you expect. You are probably going to be the most excited person you know about your product, for a very long time. Make sure you’re ready, and your family is too,” adds Robert. Future Roadmap There are many elements of the banking user experience that can be improved; the sector is still running on the fundamental theory that has existed for about 400 years. Platforms like KlickEx are proving that there is another way… but change is a gradual process. On the banking technology front, KlickEx has already been on the cutting edge for over a decade. It has implemented the ﬁrst genuine DLT/Block chain service with IBM. The company has also had real-time, mobile, NFC, and biometric lead payments throughout this decade. The strength of the industry is not measured by the rate of change when times are good but by its steadfastness when times are uncertain. With Robert Bell at the lead, KlickEx has maintained its innovation and growth through the hard times, as well.

What I Learned about the

CEO’s Role in a Fast-moving Tech Company

ust two years ago, Innoviz Technologies was created by the shared vision of four co-founders who identified a huge and important problem that we believed could only be solved by the best engineers in the world. We knew that the “solution” was less of an end-point and more of an ongoing process, but we took on the challenge anyway, with the belief that we had the ingenuity and perseverance to get the job done. Today, the company has over 150 employees, we’ve received $82 million in funding, and we just announced a major design win in the autonomous vehicle industry -- with BMW selecting our LiDAR technology and computer vision software for series production of its autonomous vehicles. So much has happened so quickly that it’s sometimes difficult to step back and soak it all in. But in those rare moments when I find the chance to reflect on the last two years, I realize that the seeds of culture we planted early on reaped rewards that have paid tremendous dividends over time. Tech CEOs -- and startup CEOs in particular -- face a torrent of challenges that leaders of more established companies do not. Things tend to move so fast in the world of technology that you sometimes don’t even realize the magnitude of your decisions until months, or even years, later. I was very fortunate to have excellent mentors and a stellar team around me, but even then I had to learn some lessons the hard way. So to help other technology leaders in their journeys, here are the 9 most valuable lessons I’ve learned about being the CEO of a fast-moving technology company. I skipped the obvious ones of choosing the right partners, investors and market. 1. Ready, Set, Go. Time is the most expensive resource. Before you run into execution, spend enough time to make sure you are really solving the problem. Good decisions are right decisions made earlier.

2. Empower your employees and management team. Give your employees the power to follow the career trajectory that is dear to their hearts, making them feel fulfilled professionally. Do this one thing and you are guaranteed to get the best effort and output from every single person who works for the company. Empower your managers to make difficult but important decisions on their own. When you only hire top talent people, you don’t need to manage them -- just make sure they are aligned with your expectations. 3. Take risks -- and manage them. As the head of a startup company, I have an obligation to take risks in order to aim high and achieve our ambitious goals. But taking risks is the easy part. Any startup can take risks. Successful startups also learn to manage those risks through a deliberate process that includes a well thought-out contingency plan. 4. Encourage respectful debate. Debate is necessary to find the answers most startups seek, but it must be done in a way that each party shows great respect for the other side and actually listens to what they have to say. This starts by defining a culture in which people aren’t afraid to speak their minds. 5. Refuse to fail. One of the most common sayings around our office is “Failure isn’t an option.” We run into “deadends” from time to time, but I believe that what we are doing is mission critical to autonomous driving. If LiDARs don’t get to the required standards of performance, safety, reliability and cost, there won’t be autonomous cars at mass production. We believe that our team is a key enabler to achieving mass commercialization, so we are charging ahead while refusing to fail. 6. Invest in HR. Before you have a product, the only thing you have are people. Your employees are the reason to believe that your customers might think you can achieve your vision. Your team is the face of the company, so it’s important to invest in your Human Resources and June 2018

Leader’s View

Omer Keilaf CEO

Innoviz Technologies

About the Author Omer Keilaf has spent over 19 years driving cutting edge technologies from inception to commercialization. Before founding Innoviz, Omer led the system and product deﬁnition e orts at ConsumerPhysics, building the world’s ﬁrst handheld molecular sensor for mobile devices. Previous roles include leading the system architecture and engineering teams at bTendo (acquired by ST Micro) and Anobit (acquired by Apple). Omer spent 7 years in the elite technological unit of the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, where he served in leading and critical roles involving large scale technological systems. He holds a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering and an MBA, all from Tel Aviv University.

June 2018

Recruiting departments so that they can help you find the best talent available. HR is the bridge between the needs of the company and people and it needs to make sure that the equity of good is always left large enough for any tough times that may come up. 7. Keep your eyes on the road ahead. It is easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day operations of running a startup. But a good CEO must always look to the future and envision where the company will be a year or two (or five or ten) from now. If your company has reached its goal before you set a new, higher goal, it means you didn’t manage correctly. True innovation is only achieved by continually raising the bar to achieve the impossible. 8. Lead by example. How many times has this advice been proffered? That’s because it is perhaps the most important thing a leader can do. Your own deeds manifest the work culture. If you want to create a culture of respect, curiosity, perseverance, trust and teamwork, you must embrace these qualities yourself. 9. Aim high, but expect lows. There will probably numerous occasions during the lifespan of your company that you think to yourself, “There’s no way out, it’s over.” If you don’t hit that point, you are probably aiming too low. So it’s important to set your sights high, and just expect that in order to get there, you’ll have to get through some low points, but have the trust and belief that you will prevail. Tech CEO’s have their work cut out for them. Nothing comes easy, and there will most assuredly be missteps along the way. But by following these nine rules, their chances of success become much brighter.

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INSPIRING 20MOST

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Satya S S Sagi: An Avid Entrepreneur Delivering Biopharma-Excellence

he Life Sciences industry is constantly challenged with new technology trends. Evolving technology advancements such as electronic medical records, wearable health care devices, next-generation sequencing, breakthroughs in genomics, immunotherapy, and use of real-world evidence (RWE) and data analytics have primed the life sciences sector for disruption. Each year, these advancements bring changes and challenges to the Life Sciences industry.

combination of education and skills, he has had opportunities to work on and manage some of the industry leading, regulatory compliant enterprise software platforms in the areas of clinical development, drug safety and medical aﬀairs. This unique blend of education and experience compelled Sagi to develop an all-in-one solution platform for the biopharma and medical device industry. True to his vision, Sagi formed Techsol Corporation.

Over the last decade, the interest of new technology companies in this sector has shifted towards futuristic technological advancements. Some of the companies have focused on the technological adoptions and have developed some impeccable products and services for the Life Science industry. These companies have managed to excite the market with their notable products, and shown an immense growth within the ﬁve to ten years of their inception. Techsol Corporation is one of them.

Techsol: Advancing Pharma through Technology Solutions Growing under this astute leadership, Techsol Corporation specializes in oﬀering cloud-based, information technology services and innovative software solutions to global pharmaceutical, life sciences, and healthcare companies. Its domain-speciﬁc business solutions are focused on establishing cross-platform integrations, business process automation, facilitating stakeholder collaboration, riskbased validation, and providing operational insights with advanced data analytics.

Techsol Corporation has been successfully addressing key biopharma industry challenges through its integrated cloudbased, fully managed solutions, since its inception in 2010. Today, the company is a market leader in providing highly conﬁgurable, process-oriented technology solutions for digitally transforming pharmaceutical business operations across medical information, medical aﬀairs, clinical development, and drug safety. The chief motorist behind Techsol’s remarkable success is its Founder and CEO Satya S S Sagi. His resourceful insights and compassionate leadership has been the driving factor behind the formation of an extraordinary platform.

As a trusted technology partner, the company continuously engages with industry leading companies including Oracle and Veeva to provide strategic consulting services for solutions implementation, systems validation and crossplatform integrations. While explaining about the perception of the solutions, Sagi mentions, “We constantly are expanding our solution portfolio to extend the depth and breadth of coverage in the existing process areas and in new process areas with our automation enabled, process driven, advanced data sciences and analytics based solutions.”

A Visionary with Unique Education Background Sagi founded Techsol Corporation with a vision to address some of the speciﬁc customer challenges that he experienced during his previous positions at enterprise software companies such as Oracle Health Sciences. He has a biotechnology and pharmacy education background with training in software development. Due to this unique

Empowering Traits that Make Sagi a Successful Entrepreneur Success as an entrepreneur is determined by many traits. The ability of an individual to communicate is a major one of them. An individual can be the best at what he/she does, but if they are not communicating eﬀectively with clients, staﬀ and the market it becomes hard for them to build a

June 2018

team that can transfer their vision into reality. Having better communication skills simply allow individuals to develop exceptional people and public relation management skills. Entrepreneurs must have people management skills to enable them to share their vision effectively and to help them to create a positive environment in the company. According to Sagi, an entrepreneur should possess high Integrity, moral-uprightness and must have exceptional people management skills. Sagi claims it is these skills that have played a vital role in making him a successful entrepreneur. An Insightful Advice to Overpower Major Challenges There are multiple challenges CEOs face today. Effectively managing rapid advancements in technology and the changes associated with them, is one of the main challenges faced by tech company CEOs. Due to this challenge, our technology has undergone considerable changes over the last two to three years. As a result, balancing existing investments and resource pool to address legacy, current and future market needs has become a big challenge in the fast-paced medical industry. Sagi advices budding entrepreneurs to focus on building strong relationships with people involved in running business such as customers, colleagues and partners. He states business run on people and entrepreneurs must have exceptional people and public relation management skills to overcome challenges and motivate people. Vision to Explore the Power of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence As a tech company, it is pivotal for Techsol Corporation to adopt and utilize newer technology to address and improve the way it delivers its solutions today. The company has proven itself over the past few years in adopting and successfully delivering solutions on the cloud. Sagi is currently utilizing technologies like analytics/insights using data science principles and artificial intelligence to explore and propose proof-of-concept, projects to his customers in the areas of signal management, real-world evidence, automation etc. Techsol Corporation has witnessed fruitful benefits of this adoption. Hence, Sagi envisions accelerating Techsol’s progress by exploring and deploying more of such technological advancement projects.

June 2018

‘‘

I see a bigger picture in whatever I do. As a person, I constantly

motivate myself and people around me to reach mutual

objectives and goals.

THE

INSPIRING 20MOST

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Vijitha Kaduwela: A Trusted Analytics Advisor eadership is never easy; good leadership is even more difficult. The best leaders are often those born with inherent qualities which are then molded over time to help them fulfil their true potential. Candor, knowledge, skill, and vision, combined with the ability to relate to people as individuals allow a good leader to guide their organization effectively through highs and lows.

Mr. Kaduwela was born and raised in Sri Lanka and received a scholarship to attend college in the former USSR. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgian Polytechnic Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a Master’s degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Arizona. He dropped out of the PhD program to start his corporate career.

That is how people who know him describe the CEO of Kavi Global, Vijitha Kaduwela. Leading from the forefront of business growth, Mr. Kaduwela regularly consults with business leaders and industry analysts on topics including digital transformation, data analytics strategy, systems solutions for IoT, Big Data, Machnine Learning and AI.

During his corporate career Mr. Kaduwela became painfully aware how inefficient the data analytics function as practiced in large organizations. It was very heavy with inefficient manual processes that are both expensive and risky. He voiced his frustrations to the leadership and also to vendors but they were all not motivated to disrupting the status quo. Mr. Kaduwela decided to address these inefficiencies directly, and left behind his corporate career and founded Kavi Global. Several members of his former corporate teams followed him to form the core team at the new company.

Rich Experience Mr. Kaduwela is an 11-year GE veteran and he pioneered the awardwinning Business Analytics program at GE Capital. Under his leadership, the division was honored with the prestigious TDWI Enterprise Intelligence award in 2008. It also won the SAS Innovation Award in 2007. Prior to GE, Mr. Kaduwela served in the R&D Group at United Airlines.

A Company with Comprehensive Solutions and Remarkable Capabilities Founded in 2008, Kavi Global is a boutique business analytics solutions company headquartered in Barrington,

Illinois. Their solutions automate the data-driven decision-making processes that enable clients to be more productive, profitable and competitive. The value Kaduvwela’s company brings includes business and technology expertise, solutions delivery experience and a proven process framework for successful implementations. Kavi Global’s comprehensive service offering also includes consulting and support services across several industryleading and open-source technologies. The Pivotal Moment The pivotal moment was when Mr. Kaduwela’s frustration over corporate inefficiency met the realization that it was possible to address that inefficiency to accelerate and scale analytics. AI and Analytics can be applied in pretty much every field. As a growing enterprise that acknowledges this paradigm, they have clients in diverse fields such as Industrial, Manufacturing, Transportation, Healthcare and Higher Education. “How analytics can help the world is quite rewarding” says Kaduwela. Comprehensive Range of Services Right from the beginning, Kavi Global team decided to invest in R&D and June 2018

created Kavi Labs. The idea is to enable clients bring their own data and help them develop analytical solutions. Kavi Global has access to vendor software and open source emerging technologies. It provides skilled data engineers and data scientists. The company mentions Innovation Lab as a great resource for its employees and its customers love it. The lab helps them reduce costs and risks tremendously. No other company of their size has access to such a luxury.

Vijitha Kaduwela CEO & Founder

Kavi Global

“

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

June 2018

The company’s flagship software, Plexa is designed to improve the efficiency of the data analytics delivery process, to reduce risks and has other benefits as well. They have developed a unique capability to develop AI and Big Data Analytics solutions leveraging a graphical and logical interface that is technology-agnostic. They also have an intelligent engine that can create code and run it in multiple technologies, thereby blending the best of human and machine capabilities. These solutions result in a huge reduction in labor requirements while mitigating solution obsolescence and skill obsolescence risks that plague the industry. The company’s focus now is on showing the world that there is a better way. In doing so, they have unlocked a blue ocean strategy for data analytics. The blue ocean strategy refers to how a company can differentiate itself by creating a new market instead of competing in a bloody or “red” ocean. This strategic move has created a leap in value for the Kavi Global and their clients while unlocking new demand and making the competition irrelevant. A Better Tomorrow Vijitha asserts, “In our space, the previous generation of technologies had a long run of over 30 years. Not the case anymore. The pace of change is accelerating. The technology obsolescence and the resultant skill obsolescence are happening at a much faster rate now. The way to catalyze the change is to innovate and find ways to mitigate those risks.”

CEO Challenges in a Data-driven Era A

n ongoing challenge for many industries is the high volume of data received, and the insurance market is no exception. Thousands of spreadsheets are being presented each month, containing information on premiums written, premiums paid, and claims made. Each spreadsheet can contain thousands of rows of data with multiple columns, so a single document could contain millions of individual cells of data. CEOs across the insurance industry are therefore faced with the big challenge of managing and handling vast amounts of information. Early days In 2010, my brother Richard and I launched VIPR to develop software solutions for the insurance industry, having recognised a massive opportunity to help insurers get to grips with their data management problems. At that time the industry was reliant on age-old manual processes and it was clear that manually checking and organising mass data was becoming virtually impossible. The industry was standing still and needed to embrace the digital revolution in order to speed up processes, standardise and improve the accuracy of data, as well as produce reports for regulations that were on the horizon. Whilst you would think the industry would welcome new technological solutions with open arms, this was easier said than done. Our challenge was trying to get CEOs who had used the same processes for decades to agree to change, and invest in new technology - not an easy task. However, the value of our products and the beneﬁts they could bring was easy to understand, and although it took time, they are now widely used by the industry. This includes our best-selling data management software, Intrali. It is one of the most extensive self-administered bordereaux management

solutions in the London Market and is currently used by over 30 clients. Recognising change A few years ago The London Market Group (LMG), released its London Matters report which highlighted challenges within the industry, particularly its diminishing share with emerging markets. In response to the report and in order to improve business with London, the London Market Group has been on a mission to make London an easier place to do business with. This places a huge emphasis on modernisation and new technology to improve the way business is processed in London. Although this spurred the industry to embrace technology, the market is still slow to change. More CEOs need to realise the potential and pick up pace. Costly IT failures in the past cannot be allowed to stifle future innovation and should not be used as an excuse for inertia. Customer influence Much of our success has been down to recommendations from clients but also the fact that our business model is centred around them. They are what drive our innovation and opportunities for product development. This is what makes us disruptive in the industry. Although we offer ‘out of the box’ solutions, our software systems are tailored for each client based on their needs. We listen to them and forge strong relationships from the very first meeting. We get to know what they do, their processes, their struggles and build solutions based around this information. For us the customer is number one. Collaborate to innovate Innovation can come from collaboration and should be considered by CEOs as an advantage to get ahead of the competition. For example, we recently launched an industry-first solution, in partnership with ACORD Solutions Group, Inc (ASG). ASG provides full scale June 2018

Thought Leader automation services and solutions for the global insurance industry. Together we launched an automated ‘US to London’ data exchange between global Managing General Agents and London carriers, which enables straight-through processing of bordereaux data. In an age of modernisation in the insurance industry, much of the market is moving away from manual practices and embracing the benefits of standards-driven automation. However, until now, there have been no major advances in straight-through bordereaux processing between the US and London markets. This initiative is a major step forward for the market which will hugely benefit the global industry. Challenges as advantages As data accelerates, more products and solutions are being brought to the market, which means more competition. It may be a challenge but we see this as an advantage. We analyse the market and create products that are the very best and are tailored for what our customers need in order to thrive. Unfortunately the IT industry is littered with products that often do not achieve what they promise and are simply just not fit for purpose. Our products are designed to make the complicated simple, allowing the industry to effectively improve processes and understand their business better. Prepare for the inevitable As new technology innovations come to the market to deal with data, new trends will become apparent in the insurance industry - it’s happening and will continue to do so. CEOs shouldn’t avoid the inevitable otherwise there is a good chance of failure. To survive, see innovations as catalysts, adopt new technology and change in order to spur growth and create faster processes, better business practices and increase revenue. If you don’t do it then your competitor will gain the edge they need to get ahead. Ensure your business strategy is looking forward rather than focusing on the ‘here and now’ and plan accordingly before new innovations take over and you miss out in the blink of an eye.

June 2018

Bob Brown CEO

VIPR

About the Author Bob Brown, CEO at VIPR started his career in the insurance market working as a Lloyd's broker for over 20 years, including 15 years with Marsh. He has also launched and built several successful companies including, in conjunction with his brother, the rst personal nance comparison site to launch in the UK – moneynet.co.uk. Currently, Bob looks after the overall strategy for VIPR ensuring the team implement it successfully. He also oversees sales and spends time visiting both existing and potential clients, as well as promoting VIPR at industry events across the world.

About the Company VIPR delivers a modern, comprehensive suite of dedicated software solutions – providing end-to-end management for the insurance market. Its IT solutions are sophisticated but easy to use, designed to make the complicated simple. Because VIPR focuses entirely on delegated authority business, working with VIPR means you will be working with experts that navigate the insurance industry like no other. Service is central to its ethos; VIPR pride themselves on maintaining and delivering excellent customer service.