Please give a warm Georgia Tech Welcome to our guest. Thank you and thank you Georgia Tech and very special thanks to Terry blong for inviting me to come over and talk today I have to admit last week I snuck in here and listen to the speaker and kind of to see what the audience was and frankly to learn what I had said yes to several months ago to Terri. And then I went online and did some research and looked at the archives of videos of speakers that you've had here and it's amazing I know some of you are encouraged to come to this because of your class work but I would encourage you to look at that list of speakers in the future not maybe not necessarily today and look to see who is here because it's amazing lineup but you will not have the opportunity to listen or hear from C.E.O.'s like Bill Nuti in this kind of intimate setting so to encourage you to take every advantage of as you could I would also encourage you. If you don't know Terry belong to introduce yourself in addition to getting me to come up and speak today Terry's in charge of the inclusion post-secondary academy here Georgia Tech Yes. And go online and take a look at our talk to Terry what I will tell you as a father of two special needs kids is that whatever you can volunteer to help Terri out with you will get repaid tenfold just in terms of what you get out of that program so to encourage you to get involved with that. I also want to think Florrie over here to my left was one of my early mentors and he doesn't like to use the term but bosses frankly when I was at Accenture I did leave Accenture just note that. And I would also just want to quickly say that I took a little bit of. David Day as a tech C.E.O. I wore my jeans I didn't put on the suit normally and nor did I do what I had to do when I worked for you which was I could do there were a blue shirt or a white shirt and that was the choices and if I happen to ever get up from my desk I had to put my jacket on even if I was just going down to the bathroom down the hallway. So times have changed I think for the better. I'm still a little conflicted to be honest with you. But it's funny when we think about these things and you shine the light of the present and eliminate the past often things seem a little illogical or silly so keep that in mind as we go through the discussion today so I've got three parts of the discussion today I want to talk to you about I've got the first part which will give you a little bit of insights and into my background and where I've come from second part a little bit of my professional journey to get to where I am today here in our offices when I say here my office is literally just across the street at the Biltmore building. And then third part is to talk about the aspects of building a purpose driven company what that means and hopefully that will lead to some questions at the end of which I've left on a twenty twenty five minutes for you guys to ask me questions as you can stand here my answers from so I did say I would give you initially some. Insight into my background and where I've come from but before I do that I do want to give you a little bit since already and will be easier by called rather than rural sourcing will get through the presentation a lot quicker. Is not as big a brand name perhaps as Coca-Cola or in C. Our Home Depot so the tech guy can't work. So. There we go now. So part of building up purpose driven companies is to ask yourself why why do you do what you do and what difference does it make in the world. And I think rather than me telling you about rural sourcing it may be more helpful to see a short video here that aired on the B.B.C. back in February of this year that talked a little bit about our model and what we're doing. To the companies across the United States that have been just back from overseas so his wages rise across the world the top ancillary that investigates whether the tides turning on one of the biggest trends. Internet world the body factory is no longer just about me. It's also about me. More living to. Know what more. Could but with. Just the least. Says they can be found that. American companies are going to look for cheaper ways. For less expensive way to get things done that's part of being in business and we're offering them this way that nobody can say that's a bad thing because we are creating jobs here in the U.S. we can do it as cost effectively as a viewer and. Small towns here let us. Play development centers the low cost of living in late last year alone. Pete points. Today. In order to develop a. Program go out there understand the business problem quickly develop a sense of. What the market. Sourcing. Center and their clients are in insurance retail and I see histories most of them used to get done. So what is it like to be on the receiving end of American. Don't really feel. Dismissed because they say all the months drops simply have to go in fact. For. Companies. That are going to go back because I think people in. The US just don't. Come Because science and technology. People. Long ago I don't. Know. It's the new mindset for more and more people away. Again. OK so that's a little bit of a quick intro background into rural sourcing our model and what we're trying to do in the world today is promise I want to give you a little bit of background of. Where I've come from and some of my personal history I think it will start you see how it ties in to building a purpose driven company. I was born right here this is my hometown this is one of the two stoplights in that hometown it's down about five thousand people stuck in the foothills in the backwoods of northeast Mississippi. So a tiny small place and so the idea of bringing jobs to places where we don't locate in towns the small but opportunities to places like this. Was very intriguing for me but one of the several things I learned about myself and growing up in a small town like this and my parents were great love my sisters and I very much but hard workers so I didn't come from a whole lot my mom was a nurse all of the truck driver works live paycheck to paycheck and encourage us to get out and do your own work as well so doing your regular chores of cutting the grass. Clean your room. Working half a day in the garden picking strawberries and potatoes and all those stuff that was kind of table stakes that's why you got to live and eat at their house right now if you want to get real money then you had to go out and get a job and so very early on I started working I started selling newspaper magazine subscriptions I had a newspaper route actually with my grandmother get at five A.M. and she would drive me around and I would throw the papers out or work in her store later on she was a real entrepreneur and she kept creating business is businesses and so I think part partly so I could have a job. But some of the things I learned about myself that. Made me what I am today and a part of my D.N.A. whether good or bad is growing up in a place like that and understanding the value of hard work what it means I also learned about myself there was very competitive. I had a competitive streak I played all sorts of sports in high school. And as Mr Florey pointed out earlier as well to me that I'm a little bit impatient which is true I'm guilty of that that was not what I put in my slide deck. And that those things start me well so I after high school I went on as most people do kind of. Where I Came From went to junior college first actually got to play football on Saturdays. And what I also learned about myself was that if you knew about their herds of kind of some commentators talk about players from their deceptively fast which means they're faster than they actually look. Well I was deceptively slow I was slower than I looked. But what I learned is that I could catch because catching was repetitions right catching was working with the quarterback over and over and over again your routes you know where to get your hands in the timing and all those things I learned I could do that also didn't hurt that he was my roommate. So I spent a lot of time figuring that out because I could outwork the next guy to get that position. I went on from there went to small division three school in Jackson Mississippi called Millsaps College. Very well regarded academic school not so well regarded football program which is why again I got to play football for a couple more years but in the process also got a great education. My first job out of undergrad was actually in sales and I went about selling my school Millsaps College I worked in the admissions office my territory was Georgia anything basically east of the Mississippi. So if you want to talk about a challenge try coming to Atlanta visiting the private schools here in the public schools here and convincing them that they could come to Mississippi of all places and get a really good really expensive liberal arts education. The toughest job I've ever had. That was not an easy sell mind you but I did I got some folks to come over there and it worked out well and I learned a lot in that process especially about selling intangible goods. I venture with after three years there I went to S.M.U. for business school and. I realized there as I had all these steps along my my path at that point in time. That each one I took seem to get more and more competitive and I had to do something to make sure that I stayed competitive with that group I was with so my first I had a partial scholarship in a working program at S.M.U. and my first job was to go through all the resumes and applications of my fellow students because S.M.U. had a mentoring program where you could go and out of one hundred mentors in the Dallas business community give us your top one two and three and we would match you up with those and that was my first job so I got to know all the intimate details about my classmates. And as I started reading through those applications I realize now that here's this redneck from rural Mississippi in classes with folks from Harvard Princeton and Yale. And I was scared to death of Starling wonder how in the world I compete with this right I don't have the background to do this I don't have the raw potential to do this. But I kind of fell back to what I knew which is work hard and I daresay that there's probably no one in my class mates to spend as much time in those two buildings on as a new campus where the business school is an idea and it worked out well. From there I had a buddy who had played football with Millsaps who is working here in Atlanta happen to be working for a company called Andersen Consulting most of you now know that is it. He called there what are you going to do when you graduate so I'm not sure about that around different job interviews here in Dallas got a few couple of offers not really that excited about them and he said well why don't you come over to Atlanta and interview with Accenture. It's a great what do you do right I had no clue so we travel a lot we work a lot we play a lot it sounds good to me I'll come over. So. I get on a plane. And they're willing to fly me out to Atlanta from Dallas I'm twenty six or twenty seven years old at this time. First plane flight ever I've never been on a plane before and I didn't let Accenture know that I was a redneck from rural Mississippi right. And I learned to fake it until I make it right. So I got on that plane I came out here they put me up at the Ritz Carlton fed me dinner fed me lunch the next day I was sold. All I could think about it got if they give me an offer I'm signing it on the spot no negotiations I'm here. And they did somehow I worked my way through that now they were not at that point in time hiring a lot of M.B.A.'s and they didn't really know what to do necessarily with the M.B.A.'s in the program they hired a lot of smart people like you all sent them to St Charles Illinois put them through programming classes taught them how to break big rocks down into little rocks Meanwhile I had been learning to become a C.E.O. or C.F.O. or even a C.E.O. and they put me in St Charles and asked me to do programming in a language that most of you have never heard of called COBOL. Well I saw. I am absolutely Allen will probably agree with this the worst programmer that Accenture ever hired over the years they've been and they've hired a lot. Fortunately for me this thing called business process region nearing came along and they said. You might be better doing this kind of soft skills stuff rather than these programming languages and I was absolutely delighted to get out of programming I was really bad so it's ironic now that I run a company that we do programming work. But that was kind of my career up until that up until that point and I gave you all that to just give you some kind of level said here because I thought A might be some interest in knowing where I've come from be felt a little bit guilty because I've had the yak app for the last several semester so I know a lot about you guys. More than I probably care to really frankly but you are funny and you get my day started off with a great smile. So after accent sure. I got to the point where I felt like I could make it there I felt like I knew the next steps in the path to get to the partnership and once I felt in my head that I could get there maybe the other partners didn't agree with that but at least in my head I thought I could get there. That box was checked for me I did like being a small fish in a big pond. And so once I had that box checked in my ego as small I said earlier for the guys and myself left Accenture to start a company called Clarkston consulting. We grew that business to about eighty million dollar business it's still around today I'm still a shareholder but I'm no longer involved with them. We had offices all over the U.S. one in Europe one of Latin America and so by all rights fairly successful company and it was a little eccentric if you will basically because that's where we do all the work that's where we all came from so our model was based off of what extent your did and how they did things. With a few things that we can change. But frankly after. Twelve or thirteen years of doing that I got to a point where other partners were working for me. And I felt like I was doing nothing more than kind of counting their successes and what they were doing and how much revenue they were bringing and how much they were building clients and I got bored. And so I started looking around for the next opportunity I needed the next. Thing to fix and the next thing to start and so I started looking around it was very open with the founding partner and talk to him about it. And then I realized something that we had done we had bought a actually taken a small minority interest in the company. And before I get into that I was asked question here will audience participation anybody recognize this picture at all. And would say no. Anybody ever heard of Led Zeppelin. If your hands your hands are good so. That's pretty good band right so back when the music industry when you actually made albums and sold entire albums or work was a big part of those albums being released. Zeppelins last album they did. A new work anyway was called in through the out door. And I say all that and get this picture up there because that's what I felt like I did so I didn't really leave the Clarkston family we had bought were taken a minority interest in a company called Rural sourcing it was based in Jonesboro Arkansas so I'm not the founder. We took a forty forty percent stake in two thousand and seven kind of began to work with them thought we could bring them their folks onto our projects and get some leverage that way. Was pretty rocky A lot of the partners did know why we had spent the money to do that wasn't going all that well as I said I was at a point where I was relatively bored and decided that. This might be interesting right. Again going back to my background. Taking a look at what they were doing thinking about how we could do it better maybe differently position a little differently. And so I began to talk to the folks that work there use them on a couple of my projects got interest in what they were doing. And then as I thought about. What was driving me what was my motivator while the outside skin on this rural sourcing company at the time was not all that attractive I absolutely fell in love with the model and the concept and the concept of bringing thousands of jobs to the U.S. technology jobs where they wouldn't otherwise be. And so that was interesting that was motivating for me and that was my why I wanted to do that. And many of you have heard I'm sure of Simon Sinek Have you anyone. Seen maybe the video. I want you to take a listen to what scientists is like a two minute clip here of what Simon says about the question of why not what you do or how you do something but the why of what you do. I do. The work. You know the world. Right. Well you know about your life and back in the early twenty's then. Like the probably very. Likely. That. You. Will wind up one. Hundred or. More. The. Work that you. And the more. Work. I mean. By. One of the things that. Simon said the very beginning is something that he said it much more eloquently than I have over the years but I tried to do this in interviewing candidates for jobs to spend the first half trying to figure out make sure they got the requisite skills and experience they were looking for and that they could do the job adequately and the second half trying to figure out what their motivator is why do they want to do it why they want to come work here they believe as he said what I believe in and what we have a mission to do and I will tell you that over the years we've been very successful when we were able to get what I've term the head and the heart because we get both of those things in one person they and we will be successful. So I want to give you a little context for our aside now on the timing of this thing so I realize that many of you in late two thousand and eight early two thousand and nine were in high school grade school maybe middle school you by know what was going on in late two thousand and eight two thousand and nine. Yes or. Bad stuff the Great Recession it was there was very well put these are some of the headlines from that period of time. So during that period of time the stock market law lost over half its value. During that period of time eight million Americans lost their jobs. During that same period of time four million houses were foreclosed upon and the families kicked to the streets. And there were two and a half million businesses that shuttered and closed and never open again. Now the government did support some of the businesses the ones that were too big to fail right a G and others. But maybe those small and mid-size businesses close their doors and still have not opened the back up so it was a tough time it was difficult right. And this was the time when. I decided that it would be the perfect time to do what I did and this was further proof of the times so this picture was on the front of the Atlanta Journal Constitution in September of two thousand and nine. And you can see folks there dressed in their interview garbs their suits both men and women stand in the Atlanta heat in September. For five hours hoping to get inside in the air conditioning where they might get a shot at an interview that might. Not so good but might lead to a job. So this was the time. So I decided being the smart guy that I was that this was the perfect time for me to cut two thirds of my salary leave that with Clarkson Clarkston to go off and take over a business that had lost close to a million dollars and then try to reposition. As an alternative to the huge offshore companies like Wipro and cognizant and others so that's how smart I was. This was going on and I thought what was it let's give this a shot. But the reality is it was the perfect time to do this. Because of what we were trying to do because of trying to create jobs where there were none in the technology space it did turn out to be a very good time and so we got lucky frankly. And I don't know if you have you ever seen this book or heard of this book blue ocean strategy. Was written in two thousand. Five came out published in two thousand and five I read it in two thousand and nine after I decided to do this not before. But as I read it I began to get an idea of how we really could position the company for success into a blue ocean and the strategy here blue ocean is one of instead of creating a company and going after the same customers with the same products maybe at a different price point or with a few more features that everybody else is going after you're starting something new why not create a new category a new blue ocean that you can swim in and swim in along. And so in the book it talks about such business examples as. Yellowtail wine which position itself as an alternative not to be confused with very well a. High cost premium wines but to be more compared with beers so folks who grown out of drinking beer decided that hey I can now forty yellowtail wine looks very approachable it's easy we can do that there's very successful another one with Cirque du Soleil So the circus. Revenues as an industry we're going hard right for bringing brothers others in that business we're not doing very well Cirque De Lay came out and said we're not going to be in that business will have that name but we're going to be more of an entertainment we're also not going to be a Broadway show but some of what we do will look like that won't have animals running around looking like a circus but we will have ringmasters and stuff and so they create this whole new category for themselves. Similarly a role sourcing what we've done is create a new category. So at the time and still dated a large part if you want computer software programming done you have two options one if you need big scale and inexpensive labor typically you go offshore typically to India or the Philippines The other alternative is you are expensive on site boat. Yes to come into your building kind of disrupt your flow of things talk to your people and take up their time and do programming on site. And those are the two options. So what are we decided we there might be a better way let's do to leverage the labor arbitrage available to us within the states and take these jobs to places where there are plenty of qualified talent but it's just that that talent has chosen location over vocation they're not willing to move to Silicon Valley or even to Atlanta or to Dallas they want to live in Augusta Georgia they want to live in Mobile Alabama and that's where they're going to stay and consequently they've somewhat. Not risen to the full level of their talents and so we come to those places and say hey guess what you don't have to give up on location any more we'll bring the work to you you can do work for Pfizer pharmaceutical You can build an app mobile app for Game of Thrones for Turner here in town and you can still stay in Augusta Georgia and do all that work. And guess what when you leave work at five o'clock or five thirty or six you can be home in ten minutes you know have to deal with the traffic I deal with. So it's kind of a win when we gave our clients an opportunity to get stuff done more efficiently more effectively than they were experiencing offshore and a much lower rate than what they were typically used to having to pay from the bigger consulting houses here in the U.S. And so that's where we decided to plan our our flag and go after that space now since then there have been others who have created models that look similar some different twist underneath the covers. But it was nice in the fact that we went out there and created this whole category called domestic sourcing. And. We've been reasonably successful at that. We have not reached our mission our goal is to create thousands of U.S. based technology jobs in places where they don't exist today we've created hundreds so we're well on our way. But we still have a long ways to go we currently have three centers I'm leaving on Sunday this week to go out to our four Center which will be announced on Monday with the governor of that state so we're looking forward very much looking forward to that. The. Other thing that I had a chance to do just recently as I was going over some of this stuff with our H.R. recruiting team and talking about a number of our fiscal year ends at this Friday in a very good year we have fifty percent over fifty percent growth year over year prior year so we talked about the number of people we hired a. Revenue that we've done the growth etc. And that's what you guys have to be very proud that he should be very proud of accomplishments but I don't want you to lose sight of the fact that you are here for the primary factor of changing people's lives. And as recruiters some of what they get to do is the one story in particular there was a young woman working and had grown up on the coast in Alabama moved off to follow her dream and her job in D.C. was working for a large Fortune five hundred company there in a technology leadership role. Her father became ill. Had long been divorced from from the mom really had no one around Moby all to look after him he. Came down and developed a case of diabetes. And as it would turn out his health grassing downhill very quickly he wasn't taking care of himself he wasn't watching his diet he wasn't taking his medications and so she picked up left her job in D.C. and moved back to Mobile Alabama to look after him with no idea that she would ever have a job there in what she wanted to work in the technology world. She opened up the laptop one day and did a search and found out that we were look. For a technology leader just for the skill sets that she brought to the table and said her day her father is doing great he is fantastic and she could never be happier with being near her father and having a job that she really wants to do in a place that she wants to live so. You really do impact lives and you shouldn't lose sight of that. So when I first started talking about our assign what we're doing what we want to do. I'm sure many of the folks who may need some more technical help. There go. Thought of me as the crazy ones I remember What do you do when you you know have a business you're trying to be able to go out meet with all the people that you've done business with the past the friends that you have the mentors you have and you talk about what you're doing and I dare say that probably the majority of those people looked at me like I'd lost my marbles right what I wanted to do but sometimes and this is a favorite quote of mine from Steve Jobs It's a crazy ones who can who can change the world. So with that. I. Conclude my remarks and look forward your questions. Thank you. OK I said you commented on shorter commutes and making people happier as a result of it so have you found that people are willing to work longer hours as a result of having a shorter commute because they're not having to leave that time. I would love that if they did. And that's kind of the environment right grew up with with the extension the big four consulting is you you work with. Every required to work. And my model of what we built parks and on was very much the same thing we pay people a lot of money and we really don't want to hear a lot of complaining about how much work. That's not the case now with our side. People live in these places because they want the lifestyle they want to show up at their daughter's volleyball game at five thirty they don't want to miss that part of life they don't want to get on planes and travel they want to work and live in the same spot and so we respect that so rather than do what I used to do which is suck it up and go now we sit down have intelligent conversations about how how can we take that workload by throwing more people at it and so occasionally they will right you always step up to the challenge if you have to but we really try to put our colleagues first so our business model is based on three simple see it's colleagues clients and community colleagues come first that's that's the resource that we don't have enough of right we can get enough clients were good enough clients we don't have enough colleagues and so we really want to take care of them want to make sure that that they're pampered but they feel like they're listened to and that's one of the secrets that we can recruit away we move into these towns so there's lots of good talent there some are coming directly out of school some in turn ship with us that's a we have a robust internship program. But many others are mid senior level in their careers but we're able to go into these places like Augusta immobile and pull them out of jobs that may not be all that exciting so we're working I T. typically not all companies want to offend anyone or certainly not offend any of our clients but when you work in I.T. internally at a company who sell something else your support mechanism. When you come work I.T. technology development software development in our shop. Your profit center your how we make money we treat you differently we listen to what you have to say. You're the player on the field you're not the concessionaire And so we really think we do a good job of going in and one of our core values is to be the employer of choice so when we go to one of these locations we want to make sure that we and we outfit the building we're in Augusta we like older repurpose buildings it's a one hundred year old mill building it still smells like a cotton mill building but it's beautiful and it's got a sixteen foot ceilings the raw being exposed ductwork ping pong table foosball table Red Bull in the refrigerator all the stuff that you would expect in a Silicon Valley software development shop is now in Augusta right and the people love it right they they hang out after work to do games more probably than to work to answer a question but that's what we want that's involvement want to create. Mr Hamilton. So I really love tell you want to talk about how you want to build a company that was purpose driven but in the same way you're able to tap into a part of the market in it in a new and innovative way but I was wondering if you could touch on very quickly just some of the challenges that came with having to solve problems in different ways and to be able to go to market that was potentially already saturated in the technology industry and be able to come up with something that was innovative so some of the challenges associated with that sure well some of the challenges early on the hurdles that have been thrown up over the years were especially with the offshore companies are you seeing a level sort of acacia and blah blah blah have no idea what it means the reality is that the government standard doesn't mean anything but it was a nice hurdle we didn't really mess around with that anybody that wanted that we just said that's not what we do. Other hurdles that were real. Was a hurdle of scale so when you're selling to big companies which most of our companies are Fortune one thousand or billion dollars private companies. They want to know how big you can get with them should they need. Right and if they need it and for years the large consulting firms the offshore firms their models were built exactly on that it was scale and cheap labor right and so clients got used to buying that way so when I would go in and say well guess what we got thirty people now in a Jonesboro Arkansas like. OK And. It wasn't really very compelling and a quick story on how we can overcame some of this stuff and as a start up as an entrepreneur struggling business you get very creative right you have to get creative with no money to figure out how to win clients and get confidence Luckily I had worked at big companies and I had clients in the past that trusted me and would give us some of that business. But one of my clients and I call them actually my early investor as opposed my first big client because they did do very well with us but they. Decide they want to come out and see the center in Jonesboro. It's as a sales person you tend to stretch sometimes things of the numbers of people you look forward I was a project like six months down the road that's you know that's number will be it. So the CIA did not know very well the director of I.T. who were working for already wanted to come out and see the center and so to get or get to Jones or Arkansas you're flying to Memphis and they drive about an hour and a half through the delta the north east Arkansas and so I met them at the airport we started driving out and I was really concerned about the image that we would go up because at the time we were in a economic development building that was a ten building little roof on it we share with three or four other companies it's not very impressive. And so every few minutes I would lean forward from my backseat and say guys just want to mind you know we're a low cost operation so we don't put a lot of moral. Rolling glamour and glass into our office buildings right you know we try to keep the costs low to be low for you and like yeah we get money that would lean forward a few more minute miles down the road they just want to mind you know rare low cost and they go yeah just shut up we got we'll get there so we get there and I'm sweating bullets I mean you pull up in there's fields on this side of our office building there's a huge industrial welding operation on this side of our building and we're in the small little tiny ten shack here. They pull up the parking lots flooded there's about a dozen cars in the parking lot. And prior to getting there the C.E.O. who really my C.E.O. who I could not have done this with without who was coming from Boston every week and flying in and making sure the operations were getting up to speed. She'd gone out and brought in some temporary workers to fill up the cubes that we had in there and put them to work put into work so they were doing value added stuff and so at least when the client came through didn't look like we were three quarters. Now that's been a great client of mine and they know the stories have been full transparent with them. But but it goes to show that there are challenges early on and specially ones of scale with clients want to know hey I'm going to be safe with you right. And it's sometimes a little tough we've gotten over that hurdle now I don't get so many Those scale questions anymore with over or will soon be three hundred people here. Now the challenges are just around. People's personal biases. So when I go to pitch my former clients in New York Chicago other places hey I've got this great solution for your software needs I've got some people in Jonesboro Arkansas all. Really mine seriously but what kind of talent are you going to get in Jonesboro Arkansas and you'd have to help them overcome the fact I remember several My New York buddies I would say look I know you guys are special here in New York but you really don't. Have a monopoly on intelligence there are other intelligent life outside the New York metro area and so we would bring them out and eventually meet the people understand there is good intelligence out there there's sharp hardworking smart people who can solve their problems through software technology so that was a couple of the Early on funding is always a issue early on right especially in the Services business. There's about a ninety day gap between hiring someone and then getting eventually paid for that someone that's assuming you've got good terms with your big clients that doesn't always happen either. And so cash flow is awfully important and you have to make sure we were fortunate early on as a part of Carson that they helped us in the cash flow here. But that's all good now as well. OK. A little bit about your personal leadership style and maybe how does change since going from a larger company like Accenture to having like a your own but smaller company sure. I would like to say I'm a softer kind of Monti but that's probably not true. I am who I am right I think that's why I want to get some insights into my D.N.A. and growing up where I did and some of the experiences I had I think that those things mold you into what you become later on as a leader. I have been hugely hugely fortunate lucky in the people that I work with across the street. And I see you know as I mentioned she got on a plane every week from Boston flew in to Jonesboro and really quit that team into shape and made it happen. I think I tend to enjoy working with people that are similar to me in terms of. Competitive in terms of hard working and certainly in terms of believing in our mission so the. C.E.O. is former basketball player my V.P. of H.R. road crew at West Virginia University. So people who are naturally competitive and played team sports and get the idea of what that means or what it entails I enjoy being around those folks. As far as leadership itself you know again I'm the dumbest person in this room I can tell you right now because I could never get into school here and so I believe fully in hiring people smarter than I am. Pointing them in the right direction point in the direction we'd like to go. And then staying out of the way as much as possible I'm not a micro-manager it's not my deal I do believe in. Paying visions for folks setting goals out there that are stretch goals in some cases. And then encouraging people to get there so. Most of. The questions which I had have been answered by you in your previous responses but I have a different question for you you initially mentioned that sometimes when you look in a flashback and you see that something's happened which were. So. From your experience that some of the things which happened and they were really seedy to you and they were hard to digest and if they were then what should we do to you know. Just gives. Yeah I will say that it's tough in the moment because as I put this presentation together and I look back at what was truly going on in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine. And had I sat down and put all those things on paper and looked at what was happening in the economy what was probably going to happen for the next several years I would have never done this we would not I did I would not have reached a logical conclusion to go do this to invest my own money to go. Give up a bunch of salary and cushy job to go go do this thing. So it really was a gut decision a heart felt the surgeon to go do something I thought. Needed to be done but I think we often shine the light of the present to live in a past and see that things that we do are you know illogical in some cases but the good news is they sometimes work out well right. And and it's not necessarily a wrong decision but I look back at some of the things that we've done that maybe were mistakes early on we partnered with a company and we didn't really do our due diligence they didn't do so well on the engagement we were supporting them and that kind of set us back probably a year in terms of our growth. And so that was one where we probably should have followed our our gut that said this feels a little queasy doesn't look exactly right on the surface. But it was revenue and it was revenue right there that seemed to be easy we didn't have to go out and sell for and it was a long sales cycle so we did it we ended up getting burned by. So if there's any lesson now that I would say you know listen you're gonna do your due diligence. Not every deal is a good deal. So first off thank you for your presentation and second my question kind of has two parts one with your competitive personality would you describe yourself as a serial entrepreneur like you see yourself getting bored with R.S.I. and looking out in the future and two would you ever classify your competitive personality as a weakness in the business insanity or are there. Sort of the first questions here locks were I you know. I don't think that I am so I stayed somewhere twelve thirteen years before I came in and did this thing I will tell you though that having to. On this now. I have two or three other ideas that I want to do is this one gets to a point that someone else can take it over. And so given that stuff I would say maybe I do fall into that category I'm fortunate I'm blessed with a wife and a family that supportive of that and allows me to leave great jobs at Accenture and go do something that start up and and then do it again and twelve years later that seems like a silly time in terms of weakness sure I mean any strength I think can be turned into a weakness. And I will give you examples of probably the competitiveness right so sometimes you look at deals and you want to win that deal and you will do things in terms of cost cutting other things that you know that might come back to bite me and sometimes it does so but I hate to lose I don't like to lose and I remember growing up as a kid shooting baskets in my backyard of homemade basketball go for hours at a time and then never lost a game when I was playing myself you know how you shoot you go it was foul another shot go the line and never lost right I don't like to lose. Or you talk about working. And checking the box off when you feel like you're ready to go can you elaborate on what you learned there and what made you feel confident moving on yeah I would tell you right now is the best learning environment I've ever had right so the training that they give you the environment they throw at you the responsibility they throw at you as such an early age is fantastic and so I learned a ton and. You know and the reality is that a lot of what they teach you I used today. Of breaking big rocks down into little rocks making a to do list and checking it off the day but in terms of the check in the box thing that my comment there was really around. I worked really hard to make sure I could keep getting to the next step and getting to the next step really fast as well and remind me I'm not patient. And so as I got to those next steps and I got to the step I could see the next wrong on the latter's partner and then knew what it would take to get there and I knew I could do that to get there. That was kind of OK for me like I didn't have to go prove it anymore to myself I knew I could get there if I stayed around hung around did the right things. And so that was kind of my box checking for myself it also taught me that I I really like to see the ripples in the pond that I make. Because I got to that point and geez I could be partner I know what it takes I know how many years it's going to be. But I'm still not sure I want to be in control of my own destiny and I didn't really like that part too much because I'd have senior partners who would say hey you want to do this or you need to go do this. And so I like having that and maybe it's another weakness. That control of my own destiny or trying to make that path. That makes any sense at all. Sure. I fear I so thank you so much for sharing your story and my question and it's fascinating how much your senior has changed since where you came from your college experience and your professional life and I know that a lot of the leaders that we've heard from and that we've just experienced our lives that they've had figures in their life that have kind of pointed them in the right directions you know is whether their model like where they're they're really close to them or just people that they look up to so where where do you think you found most of those figures. Certainly playing sports coaches so I have wonderful high school coach I spent a lot of time with growing up. My first job after Millsaps as I said was in the admissions office I work for the Dean of Admissions gentleman by the name of John. And Mr Christmas passed away about three or four years ago. But I remember I was at and it's a small liberal arts school right so when you graduate and you show up and the professors have you over the house to have a drink and back in those days you could drink it under twenty one. And in talk about your future what are you going to do and I had shown up there and I never had met Dean Christmas because I was an athlete kind of came through a different channel. He cornered me and he had this is a man who had played football issue it served in the army gotten his degree through a V.J. program at it and say Millsaps And so he cornered me on and said you know what are you going to do so I don't know Mr Christmas I've got a couple offers here from the two banks in town basically and I guess I'll go learn how to be a bank or start as a teller and that sounds really exciting. And he goes once you come work for me. So what I don't really know what you do. They said well what are you one of them to pay you. And he said and I said you're going to give me fifteen thousand dollars starting salary because I'll give you fifteen thousand dollars starting salary and a car go so we had done drop the mike I'm in I don't know what you do but it sounds better than going being a bank teller. And so he was a wonderful role model. He sold an intangible product better than I've ever seen anyone sellable for and it was a great thing even though I didn't get to actually start leading my own selves efforts at Accenture but I had that experience before watching him do this watching him work a crowd and it's somewhat of a complex so I've got to convince the student that they're interested in my product and then I've also got to convince the parents that they're willing to pay for that product. And so he was a great mentor for me for me. Many many many including Al folks. At Accenture who were partners there that I looked up to and I saw and I honestly tried to take the parts I liked from different ones they're not all great they're ones I didn't like the ones I didn't get along with. But many and most were and I love that kind of leadership and the mouth time there were in Spain with people if they saw that you're willing to commit as well to do that. And then my partners that we started Clarkston with you know we were all kind of the same age and same experiences but we had different strengths and weaknesses that we brought to the table and we got along fabulously for the most part. We've had our issues over the years you can't do that be in business for twenty years without having to those folks are still on my board today. OK. Thank you for that long part yes I have. One tentacle work so we do. Java development Open Stack development we build business applications enterprise applications we do Dot Net share point were we do some off the shelf application work support around S A P Sales Force dot com Some others as well. Last question very OK no steps has an incredible brand you know especially going back to the civil rights era and what it is this fifty year anniversary of them first meeting African-Americans in the college one hundred sixty five way before any other public institution it very very cool school anyway my question since I don't know coding and stuff like that is there why. Obviously. What kinds of knowledge and competencies do you hire for especially. How to school for the variety of jobs that you might hire for and secondarily given the cost effectiveness that's necessary. How do you. Develop sure that your employees maintain their. Competence of over time in a changing world Yeah so we look for folks who largely in the past it was pretty easy became out with a computer science degree there are certain number of schools in these locations that we partner very closely with but we also do a lot of quality assurance Q.A. work around that software now there are no degrees in Q.A. software programming these days. But one of the things that we're talking about with some of the colleges where we do have these relationships is to put that kind of curriculum in but in terms of skills people who are general problem solvers. People who can focus for long periods of time that's not a strength of mine either. And who can understand business concepts and turn those into technical programs. We we hire people who we no longer require a college degree for entry we really want to hire for the capabilities not for the sheepskin. And one of the things that I've been a proponent of for many years are several years now and getting some of our folks to in our communities to try to get on board with. Idea of coding camps right so a person who knows this is what they want to do they want to be a software programmer they want to get in that field they may not have the means to go to a four year school to go through all the requirements to get there coding academies let you do that in an immersion program over a typically a twelve week period of time also allows you to come out without a lot of debt and many of the people that we work with and who are our first. Generation college graduates who've put themselves through school so it's not always easy for them to afford the tuition and the other things associated with the four years in many cases they aren't all that interested in the requirements to get to where I really actually take the courses that I want to get to. We have a very robust internship program and so we have begun to get some of the questions of students working for us to say hey I'm learning more here working for you part time than I am in class what should I do I defer on those questions to the the family you need to take that offline. But in terms of continuing to keep those skills sharp which is critical. We invest a lot in ongoing training. And apprenticeship model so in order for instance in order to get into the Sales Force dot com world we went out and hired experienced people who have Sales Force dot com. Ten twelve years of experience and they will bring in a relatively young new job or programmers to learn the Force dot com platform to tutor under them to learn under them. And then within a short period time they pick it up like nothing it's just another language for them. And so we will always invest in people's keeping their skills sharp because that's what our clients are asking for as they move up the technology curve. Thank you all thank you.