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a new
ERA Teamwork has helped Cook Associates stay the course as a leader in its industry
breaking down Sports Camps 4 Girls
focus on Business Financing
get to know Carina Diamond
going for gold
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Diverse groups produce winning results When I glance around at high-profile networking events or board meetings these days, the room looks a lot different than it used to. Back when I started my career, there wasn’t a lot of variety in the crowd. You had a lot of middle-aged white men in suits and ties. These were — and still are — bright, intelligent men who run very successful companies. But there wasn’t a lot of diversity.
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Fast forward a few decades, and that has definitely started to change. Today, the talented people leading board meetings and sitting in the corner offices
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are more and more diverse. As a country, there are obvious benefits that come with taking a step forward in equality. But there are also many advantages to this slow and steady influx of diversity in the workplace when it comes to the success of your company. When you are looking for new ideas, what better group to brainstorm with than one that brings as many different perspectives as possible? When everyone looks and thinks the same, their ideas are more likely to be the same, too. To be able to innovate and grow, you need people with different, unique mindsets leading the way. Diversity fosters creativity, and you will be amazed at the original ideas a diverse group of
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individuals can come up with. Having different perspectives can also help your company reach a broader customer base. The people you serve want to work with someone they can relate to. They want to buy products from someone who knows what is important to them. A diverse pool of professionals will help you achieve this. And in the process of creating a more diverse workplace, you hope you can create a more open, welcoming work environment. Bringing together people with different backgrounds and perspectives isn’t always easy, but it can be the catalyst for discussions on how to change for the better. In this issue of Solutions, we are tackling gender diversity specifically by introducing you to innovative female entrepreneurs and leaders who are among the best in their industries. These are professionals who paid little attention to the term “glass ceiling” and built successful careers and thriving companies. There is something to be learned from their effective efforts as leaders and mentors. We hope their stories and insight provide you with ideas on how to improve your business and become more successful yourself.
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Senior Managing Director
SS&G is a founding member of LEA Global, an international
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professional association of independently owned accounting and consulting firms.
first person Carina Diamond Title: Managing director, SS&G Wealth Management Degree(s)/College(s): Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration — State University of New York at Albany Hometown: Wappingers Falls, N.Y. Year I joined SS&G: 2002
When I was growing up, I wanted to be: A child psychologist. I was already reading Dr. Spock books at age 10, trying to help my parents with my little brother. My first job was: Working at the JCC summer camp. My favorite fictional female character is: Wonder Woman. The woman I most admire is: My mom. She was a war refugee who grew up in Estonia, lived in Sweden, then came to the U.S. and ended up with a family and a career. She is an amazing woman.
The biggest misconception people have of female leaders is: I don’t like when women with leadership roles who have to make tough decisions are given unflattering labels. In reality, I think that women’s collaborative approach to leadership is very effective. My best advice for women on making it to the top is: Follow your instincts and embrace your unique perspective and ability. I wish more professional women wouldn’t be afraid to: Show their feminine side.
One thing people might find surprising about me is: I am naturally very shy.
My defining moment as a professional was: When I became an equity owner at SS&G Wealth Management.
The stereotype about women I disagree with the most is: That woman are overly emotional. I find that many men can be emotional, too — it’s a personality trait that isn’t gender specific.
As a woman in a male-dominated field, my biggest challenge is: I actually think being a woman is an advantage — not a challenge. Most women are naturally good planners and communicators, and that is so important when it comes to financial planning.
I feel most empowered when: I’m prepared — when I’ve exercised, gotten a good night sleep and eaten well. If I’m the only woman at a meeting, I try to: Listen first and then consider what I might be able to bring to the table that others won’t.
My message to young women today is: Don’t limit yourself. Dare to be different and choose appropriate mentors. And don’t get caught up with pop culture’s portrayal of women. j
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industry Active pursuit Game On! Sports Camps 4 Girls teaches girls life skills through teamwork
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hen Barb Lazarus was growing up, sports were an integral part of her life. She credits learning how to throw from her early days spent playing baseball with the older boys on her block — back when there weren’t a lot of sports programs for girls. Then, as part of the first generation of girls to really reap the benefits offered by Title IX, Lazarus became a four-sport high school athlete. Those experiences and opportunities are something Lazarus is incredibly grateful for, and she believes they helped to define her as a person. “Sports offered me a lot in the way of physical and mental growth,” says Lazarus, owner of Game On! Sports Camps 4 Girls and president of Game On! Sports Foundation. “I learned self-confidence, life skills, and a lot of positive values through my participation in sports.” While at the University of Michigan, Lazarus played a year of tennis before graduating and launching an accomplished legal and public relations career that included a stint as the first-ever press secretary for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Northern district of Illinois. But no matter what she was doing professionally, Lazarus never forgot the role that sports played in laying the foundation for her adult life. That’s why, when she left the PR field in 2007, she decided to realize a lifelong dream and create an organization that would pass the love of sports on to a new generation of girls. That is the year Lazarus launched Game On! Sports Camps 4 Girls at Lake Forest College, Illinois. It started as a summer camp, with the focus on empowering girls through sports and encouraging a lifelong commitment to a healthy lifestyle. That first summer, more than 200 girls attended camp — far exceeding expectations. Just four years later, in 2011, Lazarus opened a second location at the Walt Disney Magnet School in Chicago.
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“Sports teach the leadership, teamwork and confidence that are so critical to moving up in a career.” — Barb Lazarus
The camps last seven weeks, although participants can enroll on a week-to-week basis. The girls are given the opportunity to enhance skills in a variety of sports, from tennis, volleyball, basketball, and tennis, to field hockey, ultimate Frisbee, karate, and yoga. The goal, says Lazarus, isn’t to produce elite athletes. It is to encourage confidence, promote good decision making, and provide opportunities to as many girls as possible — and that means continuing to grow the organization. Summer camps will remain at the heart of the Game On! mission, but Lazarus doesn’t want to stop there. Game On! is also working with area schools to create school-year programs that will help extend the organization’s impact. She’s also looking to expand the reach of Game On! beyond the Chicago area. “Our vision is to bring the program to as many girls around the country as possible,” Lazarus says. “We’re not going to explode overnight and have 20 camps all over the country, but we are really interested in strategic growth and bringing our program to girls far and wide.” That desire to connect girls with as many sports opportunities as possible was just part of the motivation behind the formation of the Game On! Sports Foundation. A separate 501(c)(3), the foundation funds scholarships that allow underprivileged girls to attend sports camps and programs. It also supports other organizations and projects that provide quality sports opportunities for girls. “The need for an organization like ours is backed up by statistics,” Lazarus says. “About 80 percent of female corporate executives at Fortune 500 companies played sports, as well as 96 percent of all women at the C-suite level of corporate management. Sports teach the leadership, teamwork and confidence that are so critical to moving up in a career.” j
Reach Game On! Sports Camps 4 Girls at http://gameonsportscamp.com or (847) 229-9959.
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case study
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a new ERA
Teamwork has helped Cook Associates stay the course as a leader in its industry
Photos: Michael Monar
M
ary Kier is in a unique position. Yes, she’s a female CEO. Yes, she is a leader in an industry that, like many others, has traditionally been dominated by men in the upper reaches of management. But that’s not it. She’s in a unique position because her rise to a managing partner and CEO of Cook Associates Inc. came as a result of nearly 30 years of working her way up the corporate ladder. “In this space, it’s unusual to stay with one firm that long,” Kier says. “That, more than anything else, is what gives me a different context as a leader. I’ve been with this firm through many economic ups and downs, through many different changes.” Founded in 1961, Cook Associates is a Chicago-based executive search firm with offices in New York and Boston. Its client list covers a wide spectrum of companies, from family and privately held outfits to Fortune 50 companies with a global footprint. The company’s leadership structure had remained largely intact over the span of its existence, but due to a number of circumstances — primarily the recession of 2008-09 “Believe in yourself, believe in the — the company needed to try a new approach. Which is what Kier people you’ve put in place, and began to do when she was named make bold strides forward.” CEO in 2011. The decision to gravitate away — Mary Kier, CEO, Cook Associates from a longstanding structure was a difficult one. But Kier says it was unquestionably the right move, a fact that becomes more apparent with each passing year. “In 2011, I was taking over for the former CEO, who had led the company since 1966,” Kier says. “He had bought out the founder of the firm, so those connections went all the way back to the start. I was following a decades-long legacy, but it needed to be built upon in a way that would pave the way for future growth. As a team, we had to provide the leadership that was going to help this company span the bridge from that legacy to what was ahead.”
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“You can have a number of strong leadership minds in the same room if they’re all focused on doing what’s best for the business.”
A team approach The act of building that bridge from past to present to future wasn’t a single, macro-level project. Instead, it required numerous decisions that affected the details of how Cook Associates served its clients — details that, when added up, would help refine and reinforce the way the company does business. Because of the need to keep a close watch on many different areas and to foster a more collaborative approach to leadership and strategizing, Kier made the decision to reconfigure the top level of the company. Instead of a vertical flow of authority, Cook Associates would now be led by a team of four managing partners, including Kier herself. “We also made the decision to change from a C corp to an S corp, which we completed in 2013,” Kier says. “Any time you take on that type of change, you look at every element of the business and how it is performing, and that wasn’t going to be just me alone. I worked with the other partners, deciding what changes to make as far as cost adjustments and policies, all with an eye toward advancing the business.” In order to successfully transition to a team-oriented leadership approach, you need the right balance of agreement and constructive disagreement. Circular back-scratching gets a company nowhere, and neither does a culture of constant bickering. The sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle, and it can be a difficult spot to find.
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Kier says the best formula for a leadership team is one in which the principal members agree on the overarching goals of the company but have different backgrounds and perspectives, and perhaps differences of opinion on how to arrive at those goals. But hand in hand with that, there must be a willingness to work together and compromise. “It sounds simple, but we made up our minds to address issues together,” Kier says. “You can have a number of strong leadership minds in the same room if they’re all focused on doing what’s best for the business. It can actually make decisions easier because you have different people in the room who all want the same thing, but their differing perspectives can give you a much more well-rounded view of the issue and the possible solutions.”
Client focused The single most important guiding principle for Kier and her team is to provide the best possible service to clients. All decisions have to help the leadership team, and by extension, the entire firm, arrive at solutions that advance client relationships. “If that’s your focus, there really aren’t any tough decisions,” Kier says. “You know what the right call is in just about every situation.” By bringing multiple perspectives into the decision-
making process, Kier and her team help to ensure that every potential angle, consequence and outcome of a high-level decision is considered, and that all of those outcomes are passed through the filter of client service. “Again, it might sound simple, but you’re relying on your people,” Kier says. “You’re not making decisions in a vacuum. I really view this as an equal partnership among the leadership team. You utilize the vast amount of brainpower on your team and work with your people, instead of just having them work for you.” With a team-focused, goal-oriented approach, Kier says a leader can take an increased level of comfort and confidence in knowing that a thorough process was used to achieve a well-thought-out decision, whether it is for personnel matters, strategy or finance-related. “Expect the best,” she says. “Expect the best from your people. Expect them to do what’s right. Don’t expect them to do less, or if you’re a woman leader, to respect you less. Why put artificial barriers in front of yourself or
“Expect the best. Expect the best from your people. Expect them to do what’s right. Don’t expect them to do less, or if you’re a woman leader, to respect you less.” your company? Believe in yourself, believe in the people you’ve put in place, and make bold strides forward.” And make sure you never lose sight of the fact that it’s a team effort. Kier reminds herself of this on a daily basis, focusing on the fact that even though she’s the CEO of Cook Associates, she’s just one of many people who help steer the company. “Even as the CEO, I’m still doing search work,” she says. “We have a tremendous group of people here who wear many hats, and it’s part of my job to help embody that culture, which has been in place for so many years.” j
Advice for women leaders Mary Kier believes that the difference between a male and a female leader should start and end at the Y chromosome. She has risen to her position of leadership by de-emphasizing the fact that she’s a female leader and emphasizing the fact that she’s a leader who happens to be female. It’s an important distinction, and one that Kier encourages other up-and-coming women in business to make. Here are some of her thoughts and advice on leadership. On
how women business leaders should perceive themselves: “Don’t assume you will be treated differently. Don’t make those assumptions, because all that does is put barriers in front of you. You’re playing mind games with yourself before anybody else does.”
mentorship: “The best mentoring you can do is to strive to be a role model in all your words and actions. But the other thing I would say is to have fun, and allow your people to have fun. Work is better, and life in general is better, if you don’t take everything seriously all the time. If your people are going to have that attitude, it has to start with you.”
On
to live by: These really speak to anyone, male or female, who aspires to lead. The first is by Maya Angelou, who said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
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second is by Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics: “Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ If you can do that, you’ll be a success not only in business, but in life, as well.”
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focus on The road less traveled
Finding financing through less-common pathways
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t’s a scenario many entrepreneurs encounter: You have the plan, you have the passion, but you need the financing to turn your vision into reality. Finding investors willing to provide the initial seed money that allows your business to take root can be daunting, which is why many businesses have to get creative. These two Cincinnati, Ohio, startups did just that, taking less-traveled paths to cover the distance from napkin sketch to open sign.
Empanadas Aqui
Kapture
Pat Fettig first threw around the idea of starting a Latin American food truck with her nephew, Brett Johnson, at a birthday party last August. Without initial access to financial backing, Fettig enrolled in an eight-week program conducted by Bad Girl Ventures, a microfinance organization focused on supporting women entrepreneurs. “At the end of the program, they awarded one company a $25,000 loan and another a $10,000 loan,” Fettig says. “But we didn’t get either one.” What Fettig did get was the support of Corey Drushal, executive director of Bad Girl Ventures. Fettig says Drushal liked the idea and business plan for Empanadas Aqui. She agreed to sponsor Fettig for a loan from Kiva, a worldwide microfinance organization that recruits investors and connects them with entrepreneurs. “The catch is, you have to raise $10,000 within a set period — I believe it’s six weeks — or you don’t get any money at all,” Fettig says. “It’s all or nothing.” The time limit pushes entrepreneurs to recruit investors through the Kiva network, which is what Fettig, Johnson and his wife, Dadni Johnson, did. “The investors aren’t guaranteed payback,” Fettig says. “But you still have to show a workable business plan, and you need to have a sponsor to advocate for you. You can’t just show up and ask for money.” Empanadas Aqui had its $10,000 investment with two weeks to spare, with the remainder of the startup money coming via a bank loan. The empanada aficionados can now be found serving their delicious Venezuela-inspired menu across Greater Cincinnati and have expanded the Empanadas Aqui business to include catering for private parties. To find out where Empanadas Aqui will be next, visit www.empanadasaqui.com.
The idea of a continuously recording wristband that could send audio to a smartphone was born during a vacation that Matthew Dooley’s business partner, Mike Sarow, took about four years ago. “Mike took an old watch, put a sticker on it, and wore it around for nine months,” Dooley says. “Every time he heard something he would have saved, he tapped the watch like he was recording it.” At the time, the entrepreneurs had a bit of money saved up, but not enough to fully fund a startup. Kickstarter, an online funding platform, was among the funding sources that the duo utilized to initially fund the company that would eventually become Kapture. Sarow and Dooley raised more than $162,000 from 1,228 backers via Kickstarter. “The value was obviously in the cash we received, but more so in the market validation we needed and the market research data we gained,” Dooley says. To help gain customers, the pair then asked 20 people to replicate Sarow’s original experiment. “The data we got from that is what helped us get our initial round of investment from CincyTech,” Dooley says. While Kickstarter provided the initial investment for tangible items, the equity-based investment came from regional seed investor CincyTech and a Silicon Valley industrial design team that helped develop the initial Kapture device. “Because of those two initial sources of investment, along with Kickstarter, we’ve gone from generating seed money to being ready to ship our first units in the span of a year,” Dooley says. Visit www.kaptureaudio.com to learn more about Kapture and its wristband.
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the last word
with Bob Littman
One leadership style does not fit all
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hat does it mean to be a leader? Well, the dictionary definition is a person who leads. Not a lot of insight there. But when you think about what it means to be a leader, there is probably no one description that can capture it all. And you could fill a hundred dictionaries with different people’s opinions on what defines a good leader — whether it is having a dynamic, motivational personality, the ability to make tough decisions, or the talent to manage a large, successful company. One of the reasons there are so many ways to define a good leader is because there are so many different leadership styles that work. The question then becomes how to make them all work together at your company. Look at what your staff and your customers need, and find people who are going to approach those relationships with the right attitude and outlook. Maybe you work in an industry that is heavily regulated, with strict professional requirements and demands. In that case, you should look for people who are authoritative and set high standards for performance. Or maybe your environment is more entrepreneurial and creative, so your leadership team can be more visionary and focused on growth and development of talent. It has been well documented that men and women typically have different leadership styles. Generally, research has shown that women tend to be more responsive and motivated by the purpose of their work, while men tend to focus more on control and are very action oriented. Neither leadership style is right or wrong,
“Just because someone may approach leadership from a different angle doesn’t mean that person is wrong.”
nor is it an absolute guarantee that you can predict someone’s leadership style based on his or her gender. Take the time to get to know your people and increase communication among the members of your leadership team for the best results. When everyone understands the needs of your company, they will know how to adapt their leadership styles and when to step up to the plate. Remember and recognize that just because someone may approach leadership from a different angle doesn’t mean that person is wrong. When it comes down to it, everything is situational. Look for people who can best take on the challenges your business is facing and who are flexible in their leadership. The most important thing to do is to recognize the talents and strengths of your people, no matter who they are, and to build off of those to make your organization as successful as possible. j
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