At C-Level
A Career in Compassion By Michael Krauss
michael.krauss@mkt-strat.com
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avid Friedman has had a stellar marketing career. He’s a triple threat who succeeded as a strategy consultant at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), in an agency setting as North American president of Razorfish, and in a corporate environment as CMO for Sears Holdings Co. Now Friedman is a CEO, but he’s taken an unconventional path to the top job. Three years ago, Friedman decided to become a social entrepreneur, launching AutonomyWorks, a firm that gives meaningful work to individuals with disabilities with the aim of doing social good and delivering profits. “I spent 25 years in large, complex business organizations,” Friedman says. “I focused all of my energy on business outcomes and growing those organizations. I spent very little time giving something back.” He adds, “When I left Sears, I spent a period reflecting on what I was going to do next. I interviewed for an agency CEO job and for CMO jobs. I decided I was going to build something very personal to me. I have a 20-year-old son who has autism. About five years ago, my wife and I started looking at what our son was going to do after high school. He’s not a young man that’s going to go to a traditional college. We realized that professional job opportunities for adults with autism are almost non-existent. Unemployment rates for that population are 80% or 90%. Of those who are working, most are in low-skill jobs—clearing tables, stacking shelves—not doing things that take advantage of what they are great at.”
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Autism is a complex condition, but many—including Friedman’s son— with the condition have an excellent eye for detail and excel with processes and repetitive acts, Friedman says. “I realized in the digital agency space that there’s a huge amount of process: Intensive, repetitive, detail-oriented work that gets in the way of agency people spending time on strategy development and business growth,” Friedman says. “At a digital agency, we give those tasks to new hires and they get bored after six months. The idea of AutonomyWorks is to combine the power and ability of people with autism to reduce the repetitive work within agencies. AutonomyWorks was born on that idea.” According to Friedman, AutonomyWorks supports agencies in three key areas: advertising operations, content management and performance reporting, which includes ad trafficking, quality assurance of ad campaigns, routine performance reporting, campaign optimization, post-campaign financial reconciliation, content management and accuracy, and weekly, monthly and daily performance reporting. “Reporting is a great example [of AutonomyWorks jobs]. For one
client we produce 25 reports a week so their analyst team can spend time doing analytics. Our client gets to focus on creating conclusions and recommendations, not loading data or building tables,” Friedman adds. “In the digital agency world, we’d hire smart people out of college to do that kind of work. Within nine to 12 months, they get bored. They start itching for their next opportunity. We’d promise to promote them, but it was difficult to motivate them to do this rote, process-oriented, detailed work over extended periods. … We’re solving that problem for agencies.” Like any successful entrepreneur, Friedman has adopted a measured growth strategy for AutonomyWorks: Start small and scale. Prove out the model and then grow. “Initially, in 2013, we treated it like a research project. We asked, ‘Can people with autism do this work?’ We had three clients that first year. We realized at the end of that year that the answer was, ‘Absolutely.’ Not only can people with autism do this work, they’re exceptionally good at it.” Having proven the concept, Friedman focused on scaling operations from three to 12 clients in 2014. “We added new capabilities, new staff and new markets that year,” says Friedman. “We began in Chicago and added clients in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco.” In 2015, AutonomyWorks doubled its business, Friedman says. Today, AutonomyWorks supports digital divisions of Publicis and WPP, as well as a number of independent agencies. The fundamental business model is working. Now Friedman is determined to grow. “Our ultimate goal is to create a business that employs thousands of people with autism. We’re focused on building a single service center in Chicago that could have between 100 and 300 people with autism working in a single location doing meaningful work in a positive environment.” “We believe that will be a replicable model. If we can prove it works, we can build similar facilities in markets around the country and around the world.”
Photo courtesy of Autonomyworks.
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marketing news | February 2016
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Photo courtesy of Autonomyworks.
At C-Level
David Friedman leveraged his years of executive-level experience at Razorfish and Sears Holding Co. to start AutonomyWorks, which helps individuals with autism find meaningful work.
I asked Friedman if the social entrepreneurship approach is ultimately viable. Is it possible to do social good and make a profit? “Like any entrepreneurial venture, we are investing all of our profits in growing the business. We are definitely profitable. We make money on every project,” Friedman says. What really excites him, though, is the social aspect of social entrepreneurship. “Today, the school systems do a good job for people with autism. When these people graduate from high school, there is really nothing for them. Those young adults end up looking backward to high school and what they used to have in their lives,” Friedman says. “AutonomyWorks gives people, like my son, the opportunity to look forward in life to what they could do— what their futures could be.” Friedman’s son is going to community college and taking classes to help develop skills to be a more successful employee.
In addition to AutonomyWorks, Friedman teaches social entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he is the social entrepreneur in residence. “I tell the MBAs that you have choices,” Friedman says. “You’re going to work for 50 years or more. Don’t feel like the choice you make coming out of school locks you in for the rest of your life. You have the opportunity to make change. Sure, go to places like Google, McKinsey or P&G. Learn how to think. Learn how to solve problems. Learn how to apply technology to business problems. Once you have that level of expertise and knowledge, then you can apply it to social problems.” He adds, “But even if you do go to a purely commercial enterprise, mix it up a little. I was 100% commercial for a long time. It might have been better to be 90% commercial and 10% social. Find something you are passionate
about. Different social organizations have junior boards. They’re looking for volunteers. Are you passionate about the environment? Social issues? Voting? People with disabilities?” Friedman believes that if you want to be a social entrepreneur, you have to work on a problem that matters deeply to you. “You have to be passionate about things outside of yourself if you want to be a good social entrepreneur,” he says. “I’ve worked in startup companies. I’ve grown companies from small to large. It takes a lot of work to do that in a purely commercial setting. It’s harder to do that in a social entrepreneurship setting because the organizations are trying to serve multiple objectives. It has to be something that you feel deeply passionate about.” m MICHAEL KRAUSS is president of Market Strategy Group based in Chicago.
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