www.mirrorreview.com February 2020
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INSPIRING
VUCA FORCE
The Severity Of The VUCA World On The Corporates. What It Demands From Their Leaders?
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LEADERS To Watch Out For In
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TECH LABELLING
Tech Labelling And How It Is Useful In Setting Apart The Brand
STEVEN LAW CEO & Founder | Deltadata Mandiri
A MAGNANIMOUS LEADER HELPING COMPANIES ENABLE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FAST
EDITOR’S LETTER
Changing Mindsets With Emerging Trends Welcome to our latest magazine issue of “The 10 Inspiring Business Leaders to Watch Out For in 2020.” Change is the only constant thing in this world. With the evolving customer expectations, an increase in competition along with a transformation in organizational culture is forcing today’s leaders to change their perspective. These leaders need to think out of box ideas and concepts, go beyond the conventional mindsets, and keep pushing the envelope. To meet the current demands and needs of the market, they need to be on their toes 24×7. They have to perform various operations and maintain the balance between different roles and responsibilities. Moreover, female entrepreneurs are rising in number. The combination of female and male leaders has brought forth new opportunities and open doors to new possibilities. Their combined vision is bringing a new perspective to solve complex business issues. To reach this position, these leaders have gone through numerous trials and tribulations. Their journeys were not easy, but they forged their way to achieving success. In our latest magazine issue, we are featuring inspiring business leaders who are leveraging their backgrounds and years of experience to deliver stellar customer experience as well as bringing transformation in the business landscape. Our Cover Star, Steven Law, the CEO and Founder of Deltadata Mandiri, is helping companies enable digital transformation FAST. We have also included amazing articles in the VUCA Force and Tech Labelling sections for our voracious readers and magazine subscribers. For our readers, “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” — Rosalynn Carter
DEEPALI SARWADE Editorial Coordinator
PUBLISHER ARCHANA GHULE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF VIKRAM SURYAWANSHI
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR DEEPALI SARWADE VIDYA JOSHI RAKESH MAHTO SHUBHAM BIRADAR
PROJECT MANAGERS ROGER JOHNSON RAHUL VISHWAKARMA
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VUCA Force
Tech Labelling
The Severity Of The VUCA World On The Corporates. What It Demands From Their Leaders?
Tech Labelling And How It Is Useful In Setting Apart The Brand
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Steven Law: A Magnanimous Leader Helping Companies Enable Digital Transformation FAST
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Brendan M. Egan:
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Chris Efessiou:
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Dr. Jacqui Taylor:
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Ilissa Miller:
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Lindsey Myers:
A Serial Entrepreneur Leveraging His Experience In Web Development And Marketing
A Multi-Faceted Leader Transforming Science-Based Endeavors Into ProďŹ table Commercial Enterprises
Leading The Transformation For The Industrial IoT
Embracing Failure With Leveraging Time Wisely
A Fantastic Storyteller And A Born Salesperson
COVER STORY
CEO & Founder Deltadata Mandiri
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STEVEN LAW: A Magnanimous Leader Helping Companies Enable Digital Transformation FAST
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I believe there is no success without failure. No failure means we are not trying hard enough.
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transformation FAST. Its company culture is agile, modern, and advanced that helps customers do more with less and happy employees create happy customers.
n today’s tech-driven world, being an exceptional leader is more about getting the job done. The leader has to balance the team’s needs, stay relevant with industry, fulfill customers’ demands and achieve the defined goals. The CEO and Founder of Deltadata Mandiri, Steven Law is an example of one such exceptional leader with proven track in sales and leadership role.
Healthy Culture Motivating Employees Steven has implemented transparency and open-door policy at Deltadata. Employees have the freedom to work from anywhere as well as collaborate their work in the agile workspace platform they have. In this company, Steven wants to create an environment that motivates employees to do their best as well as make them feel secure and comfortable. Therefore, he has set up FIFA 20 PlayStation match all the way from CEO to staffs to enjoy. Also, employees have coffee breaks and Friday tech kind of gathering. Furthermore, every year they have overseas offline work where developers meet up in certain countries and have fun.
During his teenage, Steven lived with his eldest sister and was away from his parents. The sense of independence helped him to become a creative and forward-looking individual. After completing his education, he started his career as Channel Development Manager in aneka infokom. From there, he moved through various roles in the different organizations, eventually reaching the CEO level. Currently, the candor leader is responsible for accelerating the growth of Deltadata and its clients. The Story behind Deltadata’s Established and Logo
Four Elements Highlighting Deltadata Uniqueness In 2014, Deltadata was established as a regular system integrator for next-generation data centre. At the time, the hardware business was saturated with a paper-fulfillment company doing system integrator. The development of applications was slow and costly, integration and automation was more jargon than the value it can see. Furthermore, there was a lack of talents and the IT sector was crowded with paper fulfillment companies, vendors selling products and salespersons. However, the digital transformation the customers need is far from reality.
Every organization has its own sets of principles, beliefs, and values, which differentiate itself from others. For Deltadata, these elements are Talents, Process, Technology, and Leadership.
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So, when Steven joined Deltadata in 2015, he restructured the vision reflected in the company’s logo. The dark background in the logo is reflecting that the IT industry for developing countries is dark. The four blocks of blue represent, they were born selling every IT system. The three blocks mean rather than they sell everything, they wanted to be focus on what matters to their expertise. The next two blocks signify that they want to emphasis more on the DevOps concept, DeltaApp for rapid application, automation, and integration consulting (Dev) and DeltaInfra, focused on operating, managing and monitoring digital transformation product (Ops). The one final block means they wanted to be a special company that enables digital transformation FAST for their enterprise clients.
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Now, Deltadata is the fastest enterprise digital transformation implementation partner, consulting, and service company that provides effective digital transformation leveraging the latest advanced technologies and extraordinary talents to help clients enabling digital
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Talents: The company has developers and engineers talents in Jakarta, Jogjakarta (Indonesia), India, Ukraine, Columbia that develop applications and systems very fast using agile following the sun methodology. This resulted in making the company the fastest digital transformation enabler in South East Asia region. Process: Deltadata has differentiated value in understanding digital transformation from business, data, application, and technology, and people layers. Steven shares, “We believe there is no digital transformation when we face IT team that uses traditional way, think traditional way.” Technology: Steven with his team is worried about how less and less skillful resources and talents are implementing technology the right way for the right need. Leadership: In digital transformation, leadership is an important aspect. The versatile leader with his team cannot adjust to it unless they do enough research and development and be comfortable with failure. “Comfortable with failure until we find the
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Well I am a typical Nano manager, but in a way, not managing nano, but I tried to know as detail as possible to the job my team is doing but then we delegate.
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COVER STORY right equilibrium for the new tech, new process, new way in executing digital transformation,” says Steven.
paper fulfillment business with less and less value for customers. Furthermore, decision makers are proud buying expensive products but reduce man-days for talents as well as when he cannot help and give clear value to clients enabling digital transformation FAST. All of these pushes and motivates Steven to scale his own talent, to train and enable them to be powerful digital global IT citizen that can help client enabling digital transformation FAST.
Managing CEO Responsibilities “I typically deal with three areas as my KPI. #1 Go to market Execution, #2 Talents and technology, #3 and #4 marketing and #5 Operational excellence,” says Steven. In go-to-market, he focuses on how to introduce Deltadata’s 16 digital products to the market that is filled with western brands. As for talents and technology, he has to keep up with the best talent all over the home countries and the world. At the same time, focus on what is technology direction for rapid application, automation, and integration that he needs them to learn, train, and focus on. Operational excellence is more on how the business execution looks like on real paper, finance, accounting, tax. Furthermore, he adds, “I do all-around job that maybe feel like I am not the CEO doing developers job, read mongodb, angular codes, node js, at the same time, doing high touch activities helping my sales and presales, and product team for roadmap and enhancements, daily operational excellence related jobs.”
Success and Failure Goes Hand-In-Hand The quote “Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” By Coco Chanel signifies that a person who has faced his/her failures will become a success in the end. Similarly, Steven shares, “Well, not many in Information technology has failure more than I did. Being an executive to a global company with a nice life, and transform to be CEO of a very small organization with limited vision and value comes with a lot of failures”. He believes that no one can predicts the future correctly so the best anyone can do is to size up chances, calculate risk, and walk with confidence. Expecting Better Outcomes in the Future
Despite having such a busy schedule, Steven ensures that he stay healthy and fit by eating less and working more as well as running on treadmill more.
Currently serving more than 30 enterprise-scale clients, Deltadata has successfully completed dozen of applications, automation and hybrid cloud projects in a short period of time. By doing more projects in less time and resources in 2019, its vision of facilitating digital transformation has been proved. So, Steven expects better outcomes in 2020 as the client starts to see the value that nobody cares about initially.
Facing Insecurities Head-On Insecurity can affect leaders as they are continually monitored and carry the burden of responsibilities on a daily basis. The insecurities Steven has observed are lack of skilled workers as the IT sector does not value people but appreciates the goods and IT companies keep becoming
Speed
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We passionately believe that IT company today in Indonesia can only survive through focus, expertise and by keep improving quality of service.
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EFFECTIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
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Business Leader
Info
Brendan M. Egan Founder Simple SEO Group
Simple SEO Group helped hundreds of clients like you get better results from their websites and digital marketing. www.simpleseogroup.com
Chris Efessiou Chairman & CEO Alzyn
Scientific tests showed that daily application of Alzyn delivers a combination of four critical nutritional compounds that performed better than if each of the same compounds were taken individually or in different combinations. www.alzyn.com
Giovanni Patri MD Phoenici
PHOENICI is a startup in Identity Protection. Some want to categories us as REGTech company, other as a FINTech, honestly we like both, but the most important is not how you are called but what we do for our customers. www.phoenici.com
Ilissa Miller CEO & Founder iMiller Public Relations
iMiller Public Relations (or iMPR) is a public relations and marketing B2B consulting firm focused on the communication infrastructure sector. www.imillerpr.com
Dr Jacqui Taylor Founder & CEO FlyingBinary
FlyingBinary is leveraging the latest IT tools to meet you business objectives. www.flyingbinary.com
Jam Nelavai President & CEO TechAffinity, Inc
TechAffinity is a technology-driven custom software solutions company, founded in the year 2000 in Tampa Bay, Florida. www.techaffinity.com
Lindsey Myers Founder Concrete Blonde Consulting
Concrete Blonde Consulting is a full-service consulting and marketing firm www.concreteblondeconsulting.com
Michael Grove Founder & CEO CollabWorks
CollabWorks began its journey to discover WaaS by working with the University of California at Berkeley and interviewing 26 corporations from Autodesk to Facebook. www.collabworks.com
Stas Borukhoff CEO & Founder MobiLine
MobiLine is the first enabler of Live instant connection to help people PREVIEW of incoming calls before accepting the call from any person. www.mobiline.com
Steven Law Founder Deltadata
In 2014, Deltadata was established as a regular system integrator for nextgeneration data centre. At the time, the hardware business was saturated with a paper-fulfillment company doing system integrator. www.deltadatamandiri.com
Brendan M. Egan: A Serial Entrepreneur Leveraging His Experience In Web Development And Marketing Founder Simple SEO Group
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I established Simple SEO Group in 2009 whilst I was also the Founder and CEO of an online education company. Back then I had terrible experiences with other SEO companies, thus as a solution I ended up forming an inhouse team to handle their marketing and SEO. Not long after, friends, family and colleagues were asking me for marketing help, which led to the foundation of Simple SEO Group in 2009.
good leader is not the one who leads by title but one who leads by an example. A company’s success is highly dependent upon the approach of the leader. In this highly competitive world, we are surrounded by two kinds of entrepreneurs—successful entrepreneurs and others who ultimately fail to execute their approach. Though, failure is part of everyday life, but, the fact can’t be ignored. To further understand the thin line between successful and less successful entrepreneurs, the team of Mirror Review came across Brendan M. Egan, Founder of Simple SEO Group who took out some time from his busy schedule and shared his thoughts and approach to leadership. Born and raised in Chicago, Brendan is a serial entrepreneur who focuses on levering his experience in web development and marketing to dramatically impact businesses. In early 2020, Brendan published his first book “101 Tips from the Marketing Masters” and also launched a new podcast, “The Brendan Egan Show”. Being familiar with entrepreneurship and the approach towards the obstacles faced in the journey, he enlightened us with some interesting answers. Below are the highlights from the interview.
Quality and Experience is non-negotiable What would you say are the unique qualities that differentiate your company from its competitors? I think the key differentiator is quality and experience. In other marketing agencies, oftentimes projects get assigned to account managers and are not given the required attention. We are a boutique marketing firm where we don’t believe in assigning account managers to projects. I personally get involved in all our projects, which means whether the client’s project is large or small, they are getting quality and experience. Focusing on the Positives What is your take on failure? Is there any specific approach to tackle them? In my opinion, failure is an inevitable part of life. The differentiator, however, remains is the way we approach them. My team’s and my approach as an agency are to scale what works and quickly cut what does not. Personally, this approach has helped me quickly get away from anything which is not working while we scale/monetize what does work.
From an in-house team to a company What is the story behind the establishment of Simple SEO Group?
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To be a real entrepreneur you always have to be looking forward. The moment you rest on your laurels is the moment your competition overtakes you. the way, which enables me to relate to my team and understand their challenges and road blocks. Secondly, I believe heavily in external motivation. We live in a very chaotic world full of distractions, and every day I start my day reading a motivational quote, watching a motivational video, or listening to a motivational podcast. This helps me stay focused and remember to lead every day.
Vital to be Structured Describe your daily routine in one word and how you manage it? If I could conclude my whole day in one word it would be ‘Hectic’. As a leader the roles and responsibilities too are varied. There are constantly new challenges and different responsibilities to tackle every day. Daily there are different things to juggle, and sometimes more balls in the air than you have hands to catch them with. It is important to stay structured, have systems in place, and stay accountable. You can navigate hectic days by simply having processes and systems in place to ensure you accomplish what is needed.
Working on Improvement What is your opinion on insecurities as a leader? In my opinion, every individual, irrespective of his roles in the organization may get insecure. Personally, I sometimes let the client feedback get in my head or I take it too personally. Everyone has opinions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong. As I said even I am far from perfect and I need to continue to grow to be less impacted by critiques or feedback from clients or projects. This stems from our culture of excellence and quality, and is something I continue to work on improving.
Keep Motivating Yourself How would you keep yourself and your team members motivated who are struggling in day-to-day task? Often through the day, we may encounter tasks that are too exhausting to tackle. In moments like this, organization is the key. Project management tools help us keep everything organized and keep our team firing on all cylinders.
Aiming for Faster Growth Can you elaborate on your future plans for the company? Right now, we are at an excellent stage of our business. We are successful and doing great but we are aiming to scale faster and grow. I am also involved in about a dozen other startup companies in varying roles from a member of the board to an investor to a team member and it helps keep things interesting every day!
Culture of Excellence Are you satisfied with the current company culture or do you wish to see any changes? Company culture cannot be compromised as it drives the success of the company. I am satisfied with the current company culture. But then again there is always room for growth and with time change is necessary. Right now, even I am far from perfect, but I believe our culture of excellence, attention to detail, quality, and results is something that is very deeply instilled in everyone both internally and externally at our company.
Investing in Health A role of leader demands you to be on your toes. Despite of your busy schedule, how do you keep yourself healthy? Health is something I am very passionate about. In fact, I am in the middle of launching a new business that offers a line of health products which I am incredibly excited about. I make sure to eat clean, and workout daily. Also, I am a huge fan of daily sauna use, and make sure no matter how busy I am I get a solid 8 hours of sleep per night.
Believer of external motivation How do you enhance your leadership capabilities? Is there any specific practice you would like to share? My leadership capabilities stem from two major experiences. One is that I have grown this company from the ground up and know what it takes to do every job along
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Tech Labelling
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he first known label to mankind emerged in the year 1700 in the form of handmade drawing on th small medical containers. During the 18-century, wineries put printed label on their bottles. These labels were printed on a homemade paper by a wooden press and then glued to the bottle of wine. After that, the labelling was used in different types of product. In 1935, self-adhesive label allowed this industry to grow rapidly. The first intelligent label appeared in 1970s as the technology evolved, it allowed use of electronic reading to put a large amount of information on the labels. The time has brought considerable change in the labelling sector. The market research done by the labels and labelling shows that the label printing market was standing strong at 34.46 billion USD until 2017. Labelling Market will grow at a rate of 2.8% per year. At this rate, it might reach 39.5 billion USD by 2022.
labelling is quite significant in grabbing attention of the customer. It encourages potential buyers to purchase the product and it also provides all the information related to consumer. These techniques can be used get the product appeal more than the products from the same categories. Next-gen labelling techniques used to bring change in the industry The packaging industry is continually moving towards decreasing the weight of the product by using switching to flexible plastic format. Though labels do not significantly add to the weight of the product, still the manufacturers are using smaller labels and thinner material to cut down the weight. The improvement in material science has reduced the volume and thickness of label materials, but it does not compromise with the strength for handling and printing processes. The use of recyclable material in packaging is growing across the globe. The labels can affect the purity of the plastic which can make it unrecyclable. The purity of the recovered plastic granules will depend on how easily the adhesive can be removed. The development of new label adhesive has been introduced to make sure that the molecular bond is dissolved, resulting in high purity recyclable material. The demand for faster turnaround with greater customisation is driving the label printing industry. The big player in the industry are making heavy investment in high tech management information system, that is integrated with specialised inspection and colour performance software and technology and fully automated press and finishing line set up systems. The aim of this investment is to establish abilities that will be automated and streamlined workflow 24/7.
Importance of labelling as a marketing tool The packaging is a very important part as it is used to identify a product and to differentiate one product from another. The labelling enhances the appearance of the product which is used for promoting. It also helps in providing information about a product to a prospective consumer. Companies use labelling as an extension to their brand. The label contains pictures, logos of the company which helps customer to recognise the brand. The products' label delivers a specific message about the product to the consumer. It explains the benefit of the product of the competitors. The labelling has to follow certain rules and guidelines to get final approval before it gets printed on the packaging of the product. Companies have to abide by the mandatory consumer product information standards under the CCA, Food standards code if the company is involved in the food industry. It is very important now a day as
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better use and help their label manufacturer have a deeper understanding of what is expected from them. Also, label development can lessen the chances of waste or error occurring during printing. Companies have to make through plan about the labels that are going to get printed on the container of the product. The mindfulness is necessary about the essence of the product before designing the label. It should bring out all the qualities of the product and put it in front of customers in a visually attractive manner.
Thermal technology and its use in labelling The thermal printing has a wide range of solutions for the companies who want to improve their packaging. The thermal printers are favoured due to their portability, speed, and capability to create high quality, vibrant labels which are sturdy and visually appealing. It is done by the implementation of thermal imaging technologies, which is available for different packaging solutions. The top-grade thermal printers are made to produce high volume printing in a rough environment. The strong equipment can print content including barcodes, texts and imagery on labels and tags at super-fast speeds round the clock. The printers can label items, package, shipping and many more.
Labelling plays a signiďŹ cant role in the success of a product, as market is full of commodities in the same bracket that targets similar group of consumers. It is important to look apart, cement products individuality and bring out the persona which is different from the others. The technologies and strategies are in place to bring the necessary changes in the labelling industry. But it comes down to the intent and the creativity of an organisation to push the ides through innovative labelling on the product.
Labelling strategy and how to approach it Developing a clear and focused labelling plan is an important component of a branding strategy because labels and packaging are usually the ďŹ rst things consumers notice. Small businesses and start-ups tend to have fewer resources at their disposal making it harder for their product to compete with better-known brands. A well thought out label development plan can put a business' limited resources to
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Chris Efessiou: A Multi-Faceted Leader Transforming Science-Based Endeavors Into Profitable Commercial Enterprises Chairman & CEO Alzyn LLC
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intellectual ability, diversity, culture and individual strengths, and weaving them into the fabric of the company.
oday’s leadership culture strives to detect and exhibit great leaders. The role of an ideal leader is to inspire others and bring out the best in them. One such experienced, forward-thinking leader is Chris Efessiou, Chairman and CEO of Alzyn LLC. For over 25 years, he has led and advised businesses in various fields such as strategic planning, marketing, operations and management in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and OTC products, to name a few. He has a proven track record in engineering strategic initiatives, joint ventures, M&A, raising capital, over 40 new product introductions, national and international business development, organizational effectiveness, and maximizing enterprise value.
A very valuable personal experience helped me crystalize the way I lead today. I raised my daughter as a single father since she was seven. I did this successfully by applying many of the sound business principles to my parenting. Likewise, I apply the same concept to my team. As a result, people feel that they have a voice, that they are heard, they are respected, and they are treated with kindness. In return, I have their respect, loyalty, and willingness to go beyond the call of duty. Patented Topical Spray Promotes Brain Health and Protects Aging Brain Cells Tell us about Alzyn and how its unique offering is different from others? The Alzyn compound was discovered by Dr. Ewa Bienkiewicz, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Florida State University College of Medicine, whose research was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzyn, LLC was subsequently formed and licensed the intellectual property from the Florida State University Science Foundation (“FSURF”). The current composition of Alzyn’s transdermal product is a topical spray delivering four key ingredients (Vitamin B-12, EGCG, Resveratrol, and Melatonin) that testing has shown to be effective in promoting brain health and protecting aging brain cells. The United States Patent and Trademark Office describes Alzyn as a “Combinational Approach to Treating Alzheimer’s Disease.” Although we have no plan
Our team of Mirror Review interviewed Chris to further understand his role as a leader and about his company. Below are the excerpts from an insightful interview. Practice Leadership By Example What is the role of a good leader? Can you tell us about your personal experiences that helped you to become a good leader? A good leader must inspire his/her team to push themselves and the company to greatness. To do this, the leader must demonstrate team spirit and lead by example. I believe in understanding, valuing and recognizing everyone’s
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Running a company is a game of chess, not a game of checkers. To make sound decisions you need a clear, focused, strategic and analytical mind, allowing you to delineate important matters from ambient noise. to market or promote the product for Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia, we are marketing Alzyn as a nutrigenomic agent that helps the body help itself in protecting and sustaining brain health. In spring, Alzyn will also be available in a sublingual tablet for those consumers who prefer an oral supplement.
No Success without Failure How did you overcome failures? And what lessons have you learned from it? I define “failure” as an endeavor in which the outcome was not successful, and in that outcome, absolutely nothing was learned or gained. I am proud to say that I did not have any such “failures”, but I’ve had several occasions in which the desired result did not materialize. From those cases I learned valuable lessons by dissecting each situation, analyzing what went wrong and what we did correctly and building a roadmap to avoid similar mistakes in the future. The bottom line is that failure, or lack of success, is never easy to stomach. What makes it palatable is the silver lining containing the golden nuggets of knowledge and experience that you derive from the forensic examination of an unsuccessful outcome.
Four Basic Elements Being a CEO, how would you describe your daily routine? There is no routine in the day of the head of a company because no two days are the same. That said, my “routine” consists of several elements. I begin my day in the gym. I spend time researching relevant news, market, business, environmental, social and clinical developments, and anything else that provides intelligence, which validates our present position and illuminates the road ahead. I discuss issues with my team, inhouse and outside business and science consultants and investors, and encourage them to execute on the stated plan while they use a good part of their time innovating for tomorrow. Lastly, I spend a lot of time thinking about strategy, “what if” scenarios, and building contingencies while envisioning a future in which age-related cognitive decline will be much less of a concern than it is today.
Building A Healthy Lifestyle What steps have you taken to maintain your health? I start almost every day in the gym. I work out at Orange Theory Fitness, a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) program that includes a daily dose of running, rowing and weight training. I find it rejuvenating and a great way to set my mental compass pointing North. Furthermore, I maintain a healthy diet, take time to read and rest, and spend time with my family. I also apply one spray of Alzyn daily to promote and protect my brain health. It has made a huge difference in my focus, concentration, and quality of sleep.
Motivating Employees By Example How do you motivate your employees? I understand that running a company is a team sport in which one cannot be successful unless the team succeeds. No single individual can complete the company’s daily tasks, so I motivate my team by example in a collective march to reach our maximum potential. That includes being emotionally present and available to all who may look to me for a reassuring nod. Ideally, they have my nod and support before looking for it, and when that happens, everyone’s satisfaction is greater.
Innovative and Disrupt What are your future plans for Alzyn? In the next 3-5 years, I plan to grow the company and its product line by innovating and disrupting the status quo in the marketplace, increasing the channels of distributions, creating strategic alliances domestically and internationally, and increasing our value to our consumers and investors.
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Dr. Jacqui Taylor Leading The Transformation For The Industrial IoT Founder & CEO FlyingBinary
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I established FlyingBinary with a fellow engineer who also had mastered software engineering principles. The foundation of the company was based on an inclusion agenda delivering Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the World Wide Web, it’s for everyone. My research in education with the transformation of the examination system formed the basis of the foundational web science we have created today.
oday women are seen handling the leadership positions and leading from the front. However, back in the 70s, the situation for women was not the same. At that time, women were almost unknown in engineering and had limited career opportunities in many other sectors. As a woman of the 70s era, Dr. Jacqui Taylor (Founder and CEO at FlyingBinary) emerged as an inspirational figure for others. She had potential and skills but did not get the opportunity to put this into practice in her chosen career.
Deeptech Services for Industrial IoT Can you pinpoint the one unique quality of FlyingBinary that distinguishes it from its competitors? That one unique quality is that we build deeptech services for the Industrial IoT. I’m proud to say that unlike almost all companies in our field we have never taken investment. Most companies have needed millions but we have been profitable from month one rather than taking years to be profitable. In a recent market analysis of European companies, we were recognized as the only company to create deeptech services using secured and accredited services with no reliance on the EU/US Privacy Shield.
Jacqui shared her journey with Mirror Review on how she gracefully swayed all the roadblocks and overcame the failures. Here are the excerpts, Transforming Education What is the story behind the establishment of FlyingBinary?
Being Straightforward With Failures
I was professionally trained to be in aerospace but could not pursue my career in it due to the stereotypical limits. So I began my career in IT. In 2009, I chose to leave a lucrative IT career to support a group of young people, one of whom was our son. I embarked on fundamental web research to understand how these young people leverage technology to unlock their talents. This led me to build a technology platform they could use within school and in their examinations.
How did you embrace the failures you encountered in the journey? Failures and obstacles were a big part of my journey. This has made my approach to failure quite straightforward. I go by the mantra of risk winning every day by failing forward …fast. One can learn more from failure than success and I
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Courage, Confidence, Energy, and Insight I believe are the keys to leadership, like most leaders I work on each of these every day. did too. The failures have often rewarded me with a new perspective about myself and taught me how and where I can improve.
and they are invaluable as a support for us all particularly when we are required to overcome unexpected or difficult challenges.
The Unknown Is the Daily Routine
Moving Beyond Digital Savvy
How do you describe your day? Do you have a schedule/routine that you follow throughout the day?
What are your future plans for the company? Currently, in the era of Industrial IoT, there is a change needed to achieve entrepreneurial success. Once you create more than 10% of your revenue online an entrepreneur needs to move beyond Digitally Savvy and become a CyberSafe entrepreneur. The skills required are quite different from digital. The pivot we have just done is to build the technology for 1 million entrepreneurs to become CyberSafe.
To be honest, I have no routine and that itself has its own challenges. The deep tech we build is part of the security response for Europe which means that the unknown/unknown is my daily life. I do have a pattern though, I am a lark and like to start work early. I have written seven books and when I start the next book I will structure my days around completing my writing in the first part of my day. I plan on a 90-day horizon and schedule in the next 30 days. Goals in concrete, but due to the nature of our work plans are often in the sand.
I have also created a download based on World Economic Forum research for the readers which explains the Cyber risks which need to be addressed. This is my free gift to readers and can be downloaded from https://wef.jacqui.online. If we meet online or in-person please do say hello, in the meantime… risk winning.
Turn Challenges to Opportunities
Self-Care Is Priority
How do you keep yourself and your team members motivated through the challenges?
Despite your busy schedule, how do you keep yourself healthy?
Challenges become your opportunities or define the evolution of your business; day to day tasks are the foundation of everything we do. For me, the young people we support with the technology we build are my passion and my motivation. With any challenge no matter how many there are on any day, I view them as my opportunity to improve and learn. This is true for our team too.
Self-Care is of utmost importance and in the busy schedule, I try to keep up with it. I include a self-care routine in my everyday life. I keep a gratitude journal, meditate and exercise to keep me fit and ready to meet the day. In an always-on web world, it is vital to unplug to keep some sense of perspective, at least one day in every seven is mine to keep up with the folks’ dearest to me and pursue my many hobbies.
When you can measure the impact of what you do across 60% of the world’s GDP that is motivation in itself. We have a mentoring system in our company which uses a meritocracy business model. Mentors support our journeys
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Ilissa Miller: Embracing Failure With Leveraging Time Wisely CEO & Founder iMiller Public Relations
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qualities. Too often, we see other firms representing multiple companies that sound very much the same. The relationship with your PR and marketing firm is sacred. Companies share insights into strategy, vision, and competitive game plans. I feel, if a marketing firm is representing a competitor and doing the same thing for every company, your share of voice and message will immediately be diluted, and no one will know who your company really is.
ver the years, the definition of leader has drastically changed, from just being a prominent figure in the company to a multi-skilled leader. To meet the current demands and need of the market, a leader needs to on his toes 24x7. With diverse industry background and experience in product management, business development, marketing and communications, Ilissa Miller, CEO and founder of iMiller Public Relations wants to take her passion and help many more companies find their corporate message and key differentiators to propel them and get their fair share of voice in the market. Our team of Mirror Review interviewed Ilissa to further understand her role as leader and about her company. Below are the excerpts from an insightful interview.
Listing Top Five Items to Accomplish In the Day So, being a CEO and founder of the iMPR, how you describe your daily routine? Absolutely! It’s tough to be in the CEO’s shoes, especially when you have to manage everything and keep cool. To keep my clear head, every day I create a list of the top five items I want to accomplish in the day. It could be a project, task or new initiative that I am working on. I find this to be a great way to accomplish what I know the company and its clients as a whole need, rather than having more individual tasks dictate how and where I spend my time. I have a running list of projects and initiatives at all times, which allows me to shift priorities based on the needs of the business and communicate these with my management team regularly on our weekly calls. It also helps me knock out the items I need to without distracting myself with new initiatives. I am about completing the task – not simply starting and creating new ones.
In the highly competitive market, what is that unique quality that makes you as a company stand out from your competitors? Firstly, I would like to brief you about my company. iMiller Public Relations (or iMPR) is a public relations and marketing B2B consulting firm focused on the communication infrastructure sector. Coming back to the question, I feel it is impossible to differentiate your message and brand when you don’t have a unique perspective. There are many ways in which, we as a company are different from others. Our expertise and our dedication to the ethical standard are the two unique
Focuses on Execution It’s tough to be in the leader’s shoes. Please share your experiences on leadership and have any of your personal
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Great leaders have empathy and the time to explain the WHY in what they do. experiences helped you to become a good leader?
embrace your failures and what is your learning from it?
As both a leader and an individual contributor, I believe that my individual contributions are stronger than my ability to lead. I focus on listening, understanding, clarifying and then executing. Typically, I am unable to effectively execute something if I do not understand what is needed. So, I must take the time to understand the goal of a project when I have my clients and team available to be sure I leverage that time wisely. Many people make assumptions on initiatives, which as a result slow down the ability to execute if the assumptions made are incorrect. Teaching this to my team is one of my leading passions. It helps with everything we do from time management to effectiveness and ultimately the purpose – why are we doing and what we’re doing?
This is a great question because failure is inevitable. I embrace it both by continually evaluating and working to our firm’s strengths and ensuring we as a company continue to provide services that leverage the collective team’s capabilities. We pride ourselves on not being everything to everyone – nor can we with our strong ethical responsibilities to our clients. This means identifying where our insights and capabilities may not be, or have not been, of best use to the client and being transparent about those while delivering strong outcomes in all other areas and continuing to hone our skills. Being honest about change and conscientious about how we adapt is a key way that my team and I work to embrace our failures and ensure we are continually offering our best and most strategic work to those that entrust their brand to us. It helps us learn where we may not be as strong as we previously were while ensuring we set in place best practices to empower new opportunities moving forward.
Celebrating Milestones of Every Individuals A good company culture lifts the morale of the entire company. It motivates everyone including the leaders. Please help us to know about your company culture.
Publishing the Best Practices To end the interview, please tell us about the future plans of the company.
Our entire company is remote. This makes creating a company culture quite a challenge. There are a few things we do that help bring us together. For example, we celebrate milestones for individuals in the company by hosting virtual video parties! Everyone is notified and invited and encouraged to make them festive (dress a certain way, prepare a certain type of food or drink, put up a fun background for their video chat, etc.). We have happy hours, baby showers and more. Providing the team with tools for personal and professional growth is also a passion of ours. We are in the process of offering video-based stress relief yoga two times a week to help provide the team with exercises – even just for five minutes a day – to remind them to take breaks and to focus on themselves.
By running my business over the past eight plus years, I am aware of all of the initiatives we have done and continue to do to help the team grow and learn daily. We regularly revisit our training and communications materials and tools to strengthen the team’s capabilities and amplify goals to the team over and over again. This process and the materials that are generated from it have created an opportunity for us to share our experience and insights differently with the market. As a result, we are going to publish all of our best practices and make them available to our clients as a transparent tool. It will take the mystery out of our approach while providing insights into how we think and approach our clients’ needs. The market will be able to purchase these both for their own use and to help them know what to hire us for.
Embracing Failure With Continues Evaluation The great Albert Einstein once said, “Failure is success in the process.” As a leader of your strata, how would you
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VUCA Force
The severity of the
world on the corporates. What it demands from their leaders? VUCA: Actual world scenario
VUCA: The Origins VUCA—the term first produced and implemented by The U.S. Army War College to train their officers in the response of collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. VUCA describes the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world after the Cold War. Therefore, it was specifically a lesson learned from the conditions arose due to the Cold War between the US and USSR.
Therefore, VUCA designates unpredictable events in the world, whether in case of a country like Afghanistan or the case of an organization like Nokia. Afghanistan was once known as a fast developing country with a healthy economy. Similarly, Nokia was a leader in phone manufacturing and was selling the most number of phones across the world. In both cases, these two elements have suffered a drastic fall from prosperity to a great depreciation in their value.
VUCA, which was once a military training term has become trendy managerial acronym today. But what made corporates to follow this acronym? One of the reason is the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008—a once-in–a-century financial crash. Nearly a decade later we are still dealing with its fallout, and thinking of another, even larger, debt-caused crisis. Presently, VUCA is best acronym that encapsulates the impact of such thunderstorms which are just begun to unleash upon the globe.
These downfalls are the recent examples of ineffectiveness in tackling rapid changes in defense and in technological world respectively. Thus, neither countries nor organizations and their leadership strategies are spared in the today’s fluctuating world. Just turning on 5 min news can show you the live volatility and uncertainty in the world. One can see the end of relative stability in the business, politics, or science which ultimately forcing humans to be more dynamic,
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aggressive, and prepared for upcoming disasters. This proves that the present world is unlike anything people have ever seen.
VUCA: Benefits of Learning Agility The evolutionary example of SpaceX clearly states the need of the present uncertain world. Leaders don’t need to work towards making detailed plans but testing various hypotheses about emerging technologies and quickly recognizing ways to get things accomplished. However, the higher leaders go—the more volatile uncertain, complex and ambiguous the job becomes and it challenges them to create their own way.
VUCA: Leaders and their strategies—Now and then The leaders in every business, public administration, education, science, culture, entertainment etc. are dealing with VUCA atmosphere on a daily basis. They form various strategies according to their industry or locality. However, ill-prepared plans worsen the existing situation. Similarly, leaders who started in stable times find it difficult to match with the present highly turbulent digital age.
Dr. W. Burke, Thorndike Professor of Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, has been able to measure learning agility based on 4 years of initial research. He determined that people who are more learning agile demonstrate that agility in 9 different ways—Flexibility, Speed, Experimenting, Performance Risk Taking, Interpersonal Risk Taking, Collaborating, Information Gathering, Feedback Seeking, and Reflecting. According to the test consisting 38 questions, the research finds the learning agility in a leader. A leader with higher learning agility tends to have a successful future.
This is because, most of the old heroes are comfortable with a gradual changes and stick to industry boundaries. Rather than launching working on breakthrough advancements, they prefer analyzing rivals’ strategies and scaling end-products slightly more efficient than the previous ones. This standard planning system is radically affected by the current global market and most of the leading companies have failed to match the speed of the market. Remember Kodak? —the pioneer in cameras—now struggling with keeping its name in the industry.
This is because agility comes from the motivation to think out of the box, try new things and learn with them. Additionally, probing deeply into views and asking
VUCA: The Fighting Species The question is who are suitable for thriving in the VUCA world? And the answer is—there are too many elements that are beyond the control but those who are flexible as well as open to change and dare for new experience can hope for a success. This can be referred as acrobatic learning, investing continual efforts day and night to achieve anything more than competitors, moving forward to new ideas and preparing to fight in the tomorrow’s world. About twenty years ago, no one would have believed that space rockets would be recycled, sent and received safely like an email. This unthinkable milestone is achieved by a private spaceflight company, SpaceX. One rocket with minimal mileage, moderate lift capacity, can used for delivery of goods to Earth-orbit, and 100% success rate in flying back to earth!
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VUCA Force counter questions on them can clear the clouds in a strategy and helps to focus on consistent application of effective decision making.
VUCA: The Breakthrough innovation approach In the case of startups, most of them are born out of an idea which identifies a need that other, more established organizations have ignored. But to consume work ahead with the VUCA change, startup leaders must produce game-changing, innovative products and services that can fundamentally change the way people live or work. This is helpful in making a distinct and unique business that can beat its competition with its end products.
VUCA: Disruptive strategies—Matching the change Old and successful companies had a humble beginning. However, they matched with the changing wave. The wave that demands more—different and useful or simple, reliable, and productive—anything, which very few can predict, very few can dream of—but one can strive towards becoming those very few people with disruptive strategies. Initially, walked as an online bookseller to a flying retailer of nearly every product, Amazon has recently achieved a trillion dollar valuation with its disruptive strategies.
In conclusion, VUCA environment calls for different kinds of leaders who are highly focused on existing solutions or the ones with the ability to turn vision into reality, catching the fast pace tech realm. One can say VUCA typically require a fusion form of leaders and machines who can work continually, creating innovative offerings and streamline business process to keep running with the change. Similarly, to fortify the efforts, a brief understanding of VUCA can always give a reminder of the external environment to change the game with ground-breaking products, strategies, models, and self-built capabilities.
Similarly, the leading payment service provider, MasterCard jumped to a different path than its rivals. It approached remote countries which were ignored by other payment giants. MasterCard found out the need for mobile payment options and excelled in that arena with solutions, bringing easy-to-use mobile payment features.
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Lindsey Myers: A Fantastic Storyteller And A Born Salesperson Founder Concrete Blonde Consulting
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Be Structured and Follow the Schedule Being a Founder, how will you describe your daily routine?
he industry has seen a remarkable growth amongst female entrepreneurs. The leadership skills and strategies by women have been extremely welcomed by the industry. One such exceptional leader who has marked the industry in a short time, with her excellent leadership is Lindsey Myers, the Founder of Concrete Blonde Consulting. She is an exceptional communication expert and a successful womentrepreneur. In the consulting industry, she has an unbelievable winstreak for counseling clients from the Fortune 500 companies, to assist in increasing profits, manage brand reputations and gain market share.
The roles and responsibilities of leader can get tedious throughout the day. So as a leader, it is important to have a structured schedule. In my personal experience, I think that creating a structure for your day is really important and for me, the lynchpin to that is typically a solid workout. Once I have gotten in a good run, everything else just falls into place. Excelling At Media Relations And Company Visioning What would you say is that one unique quality that differentiates your company from its competitors? My company is a full-service consulting and marketing firm. At Concrete Blonde Consulting, our area of expertise is not only in media relations and company visioning but, we also do a substantial amount of work with influencer campaigns. My skillful team examines your business development pipeline and identifies the new areas for the growth to create new strategies and amplify current opportunities. This all has been a central area of focus, in addition to the growing crisis communications division.
Apart from being an exceptional entrepreneur, Lindsey believes in sharing her knowledge with peers. She is a guest lecturer at several universities, including Hofstra University and Saint Joseph’s University. Her lectures have always been critiqued as “possessing a presence people often find unforgettable.” Her leadership and expertise have been rewarded several times, besides her award cabinet comprises of PRSA Big Apple award, PRSA Bronze Anvil Award, eight MarCom awards, nine Fair Media Council Folio Awards, Communicator award, SABRE award and an Excellence in Communications award.
I believe what separates us from the competitors is that we believe every client is unique. We partner with them to unearth their core business goals. Then we create bespoke strategic marketing plans with benchmarks to chart our progress and target our methods. We feel a sense of responsibility to our clients and we are responsive not only to their needs but also to the ever-changing world in which they operate.
Recently, Lindsey engaged with Mirror Review to clear the misconceptions about leadership and give us some interesting insights on her journey. Here are the excerpts,
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Being underestimated in the industry is an advantage in the challenging business world. Approach Failure as an Opportunity How did you embrace your failure? Did your failure change you in anyway?
Guideposts for Developing Leadership Have any of your personal experiences helped you to become a good leader?
I have always believed that failures are the stepping stone to success. No journey is prone to obstacles, and I too had to face my share of failures. But, whenever I hit a speed bump I always asked myself, “what is this here to teach me?” In my opinion, failures are the way we learn and when we approach it as an opportunity instead of threat you can find value there, usually more than from your success! You can say that the real trick is keeping your mental energy in a positive place and not beating yourself up over your mistakes. We all make mistakes, but it’s what you do with them that distinguishes you.
Absolutely! I believe we are the product of our experiences in the life. Each and every experience helps us in shaping in a certain direction. Being a leader is not an easy job, we have to deal with several issues and also keep ourselves calm. My experiences with all of my relationships i.e. both personal and professional have been the guideposts for developing my leadership skills. Insecurity Can Be an Advantage According to you, what are your insecurities as a leader? I think my biggest insecurity has always been that my kindness is mistaken as a weakness by others. But, that doesn’t stop me from being kind! I feel as though people often underestimate me, however, sometimes that’s an advantage in the challenging business world.
Always Be Optimistic How would you keep yourself and your team members motivated who are struggling in day-to-day tasks? Every day cannot be similar and there are days when one lacks motivation. In times like this, I remind myself and my team to focus on the vision of what we are trying to create, and expect that we will be able to do it!! For me, the most important part is knowing what you want and creating a clear vision of what it will look like and how you will feel when you accomplish your goals.
Scale for Growth or Impact What are your future plans for the company? Expansion is always on the roadmap. We growing quickly right now and the next decision we are focused on is determining whether we would like to scale for growth or scale for impact.
Always Room for Being Better Are you satisfied with the current company culture or do you wish to see any changes?
Health Has To Be a Priority Despite your busy schedule, how do you keep yourself healthy?
I certainly love our company culture, but I also believe that there are few things that we can do better as a growing company. I believe that there should always be room for betterment. I try to examine what works and what could work harder and then tweak it as we go along. Throughout my journey, I have learned a lot from my entrepreneurial clients. I’m so grateful for all the partnerships that helped and are continuously helping in shaping us as a company.
I vigilantly focus (and re-focus!) on my health – working out, eating right, sleeping eight hours a day are all a huge part. Apart from living a healthy lifestyle what I believe people often forget is to focus on mental health. One cannot simply compromise on mental health. For me, mental health is equally as important as physical health and meditation is a large part of my routine.
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