May 29, 2018

How an Interim Chief Information Officer Transforms Good Companies to Great

All companies use information technology to some degree.

Great companies have CIO leadership on the management team to purposefully leverage information technologies in creative and sometimes disruptive ways – to grow business, produce faster than competition, enrich customer experiences, and make business transformation happen.

Many full-time CIOs dedicate their careers to one specific industry, and so their experience is vertically deep. Interim CIOs on the other hand, provide a unique perspective blending innovation and technology transformation across a variety of organizations and industries. They specialize in change, bringing an attractive depth-of-experience from a career of change management, while leveraging ever-evolving technologies. It is this change-leadership experience that is highly valuable to a proactive board or management team facing the challenge of business transformation, especially where information technologies are an enabling and differentiating factor.

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May 14, 2018

RED Team Members Publish Book On Interim Leadership

Congratulations to InterimExecs RED Team members Damon Neth, Bill Mince, and Jim Treleaven on the publishing of their new book, X-Formation. Damon, Bill and Jim made a conversation we had a few years back into a reality, combining their expertise to create the comprehensive book on the unique makeup of interim leaders and how they transform companies and bring incredible results to organizations worldwide.

The InterimExecs team added insights on finding, assessing, and engaging interim executives, drawing from years of matching companies with interim leadership. Check out X-Formation on Amazon here: https://a.co/3S42UdS!

March 28, 2018

M&A 101: What’s the Difference Between a Financial Buyer and a Strategic Buyer?

The world of mergers and acquisitions can be complex for owners focused on building their companies.

We’re often asked by owners about their options to exit and sell the company. Often, work needs to be done to prepare – in advance of any sale process – to ensure maximum value is realized. Owners may opt to bring in an outside perspective like an interim executive to provide an operational roadmap to improve operations and package the company for eventual sale. This process, however, typically begins with two types of targets in mind:

Strategic buyers (Strategics) are companies who are already operating in the field/industry where acquiring your business will be complementary to their business, expand their customer base, or give them a competitive advantage.

Financial buyers include private equity funds, family offices, and individual investors who provide their own equity funding and borrowing to acquire businesses as a path to future gains.

Let’s dive in to the difference between strategic buyers and financial buyers:

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March 20, 2018

Growth Story: $4B Company Engages Transformational CEO to Spinoff Software Startup

Corporations know that innovation is key to their continued growth, but what happens when serious product or service reengineering is not within the organization’s DNA? What if the company is just too successful or set in their traditional world?

That is exactly what happened when a multi-billion dollar construction company came to us with a software division they had launched internally. While the company was superb at architecting, planning, engineering and building major construction projects, developing software was a new ball game.

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January 31, 2018

2017: Done. Predicting the Future in 2018 and Beyond

Robert Jordan | CEO, InterimExecs

2017 offered daily excitement. The markets continued an unrelenting upward streak. While some debate the strength of underlying fundamentals, valuations public and private rose all year long.

In our business at InterimExecs, demand for interim management continued strongly while gaining momentum in the US. We had fun matching inspiring companies and executives together that were focused on growth, transformation, or taking on big initiatives and goals (see some of our favorite moments of 2017 here: www.interimexecs.com/2017-review).

Thanks to Peter Diamandis and the Abundance360 team, I now know 2018 will prove to be even better in all respects.

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June 30, 2017

Case Study: How Interim CEO Led Turnaround of Family Owned Manufacturer Losing Millions

After two years of unrelenting decline and $6M in losses, the owners of Styrotek, a packaging manufacturer for table grapes decided they needed to bring in outside help to turn things around.

Styrotek was founded in 1973 by a group of grape growers who came together to produce boxes for their farming operations in the central valley of California. While manufacturing was not originally in the company DNA, the business got to the point of creating a consistent product and quickly grew along with the grape industry.

That was until 2014 when things started to go sideways. “The company was somewhat in disarray,” Chris Caratan, one of the owner’s of Styrotek said. “Our management team at the time was not working up to par and there were some surprises in year-end numbers.”

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June 7, 2017

The Billionaire’s Self-Curse: This Mistake Could Limit Your Company

Robert Jordan | CEO, InterimExecs

It’s a big day in Helsingbord Sweden – opening day for the Museum of Failure, which features such items as Harley-Davidson perfume, Bic pens for women and Google Glass.

Failure can be very entertaining – when it hits someone else. For company leaders, failure is to be avoided at all costs.

And yet, so many company builders report that their success was achieved after a spectacular failure. You would think this leads to a lifelong lesson to embrace setbacks, but for most it doesn’t. We seem to be hardwired to avoid failure.

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April 26, 2017

Seven Signs an Interim Executive Can Help Your Company

James B Treleaven | Interim CEO, Turnaround

Interim executives, or interims, have recently become an important tool that organizations can use to effectively address a variety of pressing needs. Having said that, many companies are either unaware that interims are even available or appropriate for their current situation. The most common understanding of the role of an interim is to fill an immediate need in the executive team caused by a sudden voluntary or involuntary departure. In this case, a seasoned executive can step right in and allow the company to progress unabated. While much of what an interim does is similar to consulting, successful execution is critical and unique to the role of interims. This blog presents seven case studies to help companies better understand other instances where interims can help. There are certainly more examples, but these are representative. While seven represents everything from the apocalypse to luck in gambling, we’ll stick with seven.

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April 20, 2016

Inc. Article: 8 Reasons Flat Organizations Don’t Work, According to a Turnaround CEO

This article featuring Association of Interim Executives RED Team Member, Richard Lindenmuth, was originally posted on Inc.com.

You’ve heard a lot about the benefits of non-hierarchical organizations, from Morning Star Tomatoes to Zappo’s to the David Allen Company. And you likely know by now that while a flat organization is an appealing concept, some companies have backed away from a flat structure or reported that they can be tricky to get right.

Or maybe they just don’t work at all. That’s the opinion of Richard Lindenmuth, who for 30 years has served as an interim CEO, and works with the Association of Interim Executives. One of his most recent tasks was turning around the troubled company Styrotek. He achieved this goal in large part by un-flattening its previously flat management structure and was able to return Styrotek to profitability in three months — even though it was affected by the California drought.

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March 4, 2016

NPR Discusses the Rise of Interim CEOs

In a recent NPR story about the rising demand for interim executives, Association of Interim Executives CEO, Robert Jordan shares that a temporary CEO is not a babysitter, but rather a specialized surgeon. “It creates a bias in favor of action and against playing politics,” Robert said, then commenting that Interim CEOs are “trying to solve a problem and work themselves out of the job.”

Association RED Team Member and Interim CEO, Richard Lindenmuth, is also interviewed sharing about his turnaround of Styrotek, an agricultural packaging company in California that contacted the Association in the midst of a 3-month drought and big financial losses. Dick was able to parachute in as Interim CEO and get the company quickly back to profitability. He says “you really have to listen – the solutions are generally within the company.”

Listen to the Story: https://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469149268/interim-ceos-passive-placeholders-or-rented-fixers