This executive search is for a private equity-backed, revenue-generating, 7-year-old high-growth company that represents the next generation in healthcare innovation—PatientsLikeMe brings together patients in e-communities who create insights on their diseases and treatments by sharing information that improve their conditions.  At the same time, these insights bring value to large pharma and biotech companies, influencing the way they develop and deploy drugs.  With more than 100,000 registered consumer patients, PatientsLikeMe re-balances the healthcare system, ultimately returning power to the patient.

BSG Team Ventures is  retained to identify the VP of Client Services.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the Vice President of Client Services will play a senior leadership role within the management team, overseeing all client project scoping, management and delivery.

MORE COMPANY DETAIL:

The roots of the company are anchored in one of three brothers who developed ALS, a neuromuscular disease that ultimately proves fatal.  Ben and Jamie wanted to do all they could to help their brother Stephen, and—leveraging their prior career experience and entrepreneurial leanings—decided to try to help their brother gain insights from other patients with ALS in order to improve the understanding of how the disease progresses and what might be done to ease and improve one’s condition.  And so was born PatientsLikeMe, a health data-sharing platform.  The Heywood family’s fight to save Stephen has been chronicled in the book His Brother’s Keeper as well as the documentary “So Much So Fast.”  For more, preview an interesting short video piece on their story athttp://www.patientslikeme.com/about.

THE ROLE

This position will be responsible for the overall success of all commercial client engagements including those with pharma, payers, providers, and other related healthcare NGOs.

In addition, as the key liaison between PatientsLikeMe and the business customer,  the VP of Client Services will be responsible for driving key account relationship development, deepening the understanding of the customer’s needs with an eye to expanding PatientsLikeMe’s strategic role in providing data and analytics to further the customer’s knowledge of patients, conditions, outcomes, and insights.

Below is a bubble diagram outlining  key career & functional attributes critical to success for this role:

Specific responsibilities:

Drive PatientsLikeMe project scoping during project definition and contract development and execution phases.

Manage the engagement estimating function in order to drive , pricing consistency, accuracy, and profitability from engagement to engagement.

Coordinate overall internal project management across R&D, analytics, and technology development

Create and manage internal and external delivery timelines.

Communicate, in tandem with PatientsLikeMe business development staff, project progress against timeline, scope changes, and other periodic updates.

As necessary, build and lead client services function by hiring, motivating, and managing internal teams assigned to specific projects.

Lead the budgeting and execution of all client services-related activities.

Manage external third-party partnerships engaged to help deliver on PatientsLikeMe client related projects, including consulting firms, valued-added resellers, or other strategic engagement or delivery partners.

Work closely with internal business development, leadership & engineering resources, knitting together collaborative and energized cross-functional project teams.

Qualifications & Experience

Prior successful experience in a client engagement and delivery leadership role in the broadly defined healthcare consulting and/or healthcare data & analytics industry.

A strong understanding of the overall business frameworks of PatientsLikeMe customers, including pharma, biotech, healthcare payers & providers, and government & medical & health research and academic organizations.

Successful experience in an entrepreneurial, growth-stage corporate environment of less than 100 employees.

Success in scaling organizational and functional processes related to client engagement management that balance the drive for efficiency, innovation and creativity.

An unusual combination of proven analytical ability with strategic business savvy

B.A. or B.S. required; M.B.A. or other advanced degree strongly preferred

Skills & Personal Characteristics

Defined by others as smart, capable, hands-on, energetic, and someone who possess a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

A client ombudsman with outstanding strategic and conceptual thinking skills. Someone who is able to adjust rapidly to changing market conditions and new opportunities.

A strong, assertive personality, able to make a creative contribution and build buy-in for ideas, as well as integrating with the ideas of others

This executive search is for a private equity-backed, revenue-generating, 7-year-old high-growth company that represents the next generation in healthcare innovation—PatientsLikeMe brings together patients in e-communities who create insights on their diseases and treatments by sharing information that improve their conditions.  At the same time, these insights bring value to large pharma and biotech companies, influencing the way they develop and deploy drugs.  With more than 100,000 registered consumer patients, PatientsLikeMe re-balances the healthcare system, ultimately returning power to the patient.

BSG Team Ventures is  retained to identify the VP of Product, an expert in e-community consumer acquisition, engagement, and retention.  With current pharma customers like Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi-Aventis, the Company’s goal is to grow to 2+ million registered users in the next several years.   This role will lead consumer online acquisition, experience & engagement, serving as the internal voice of the consumer.

MORE COMPANY DETAIL:

The roots of the company are anchored in one of three brothers who developed ALS, a neuromuscular disease that ultimately proves fatal.  Ben and Jamie wanted to do all they could to help their brother Stephen, and—leveraging their prior career experience and entrepreneurial leanings—decided to try to help their brother gain insights from other patients with ALS in order to improve the understanding of how the disease progresses and what might be done to ease and improve one’s condition.  And so was born PatientsLikeMe, a health data-sharing platform.  The Heywood family’s fight to save Stephen has been chronicled in the book His Brother’s Keeper as well as the documentary “So Much So Fast.”  For more, preview an interesting short video piece on their story at http://www.patientslikeme.com/about.

The Role

As VP Product, this consumer web expert needs to have the following 4 experiences as builder-leader:

Success in companies whose mission is to acquire & develop vibrant online B2C relationships with consumers who are drawn to affinity groups and online associations

Ownership & leadership of the entire consumer lifecycle and product roadmap, from acquisition through engagement & retention

Strong grow-it/scale-it-stage experience, having grown companies or divisions from at least $10M to 25M or more in revenues

Prior track record of recruiting A-caliber teams with the skills and experiences required to deliver a world-class web-based consumer experience

Companies that might be part of this executive’s career progress (although less likely their most current position) include horizontal social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), online affinity groups (Eons, Weightwatchers, sports fan communities like FanIQ, etc.), social commerce properties (BuyWithMe, Gilt, Groupon), or social gaming destination sites (Gamesville, Worldwinner, Zynga).

Below is a bubble diagram outlining  key career & functional attributes critical to success for this role:

[This is part 1 of a 3 part series on the evolution of leadership theory—the history, most recent thinking on the topic, and what to look for when trying to identify it, including a look at charisma, executive presence and their contributing roles to successful leadership]

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As retained executive search consultants, we are constantly interviewing and assessing executive talent for our clients.  After interviewing these candidates, our clients often reference key characteristics they found (or didn’t) in an executive that are not found in their resumes—charisma, executive presence, or other purported leadership behaviors that are generally thought to be important to success.

But clients continue to ask questions about these traits that sit in the invisible spectrum.  Is charisma an essential ingredient to leadership? If so, for all sizes and types of companies?  Are there other types of leadership where charisma isn’t present and are they successful and in what types of circumstances? What about management versus leadership?  How do we define the differences, and when is a manager better suited than a leader?  And what’s up with “executive presence”? Is that just another term for leadership, or is it different? How? Are these differences important?

All great questions.   And—although we won’t be able to answer them all here in appropriate depth and breadth—we’re going to try to lift the curtain a bit.

With the book and now movie, “Moneyball,” the question of what to look for and what to measure in picking leaders for organizations should be rethought.  In “Moneyball,” the fulcrum of the book is based on a different way of measuring the potential and future performance of pro baseball players.  In the book, the Oakland A’s general manager turned upside down what had been considered the gold standard for sports talent assessment by baseball scouts in favor of a much less obvious and intuitive set of statistics.   Pro baseball would never be the same.

So, adapting this concept, it’s worth reviewing some popular (mis)perceptions of what makes a leader.

First principles—What does an organization need: Leaders or Managers?

Leaders/leadership by its own definition indicates the following situational characteristics—

Where one is now is not where one should be.  Rather

1) One should “follow” someone or something to another place, in theory a “better place”

2) This “better place” is both NOT self-evident (convincing is required), AND

3) It requires effort to get there, and is not frictionless, calorie-free, or zero-cost.

Managers, on the other hand, are most often those who create efficient operating systems once the “better place” has been reached.

Charisma as an essential ingredient to successful leadership—True or False?

The world “charisma” comes from the Greek word for “gift.”  Charisma is better thought of as a skill that enhances leadership effectiveness by dint of a superior ability to influence others to change their initial positions, perspectives, or opinions.

I was first offered a deeper insight into the concept of charisma in leadership by the teachings of Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School.  Dr. Khurana has done extensive research and writing on the topic, from articles in Harvard Business Review (“Curse of the Superstar CEO”, HBR 2002, http://hbr.org/2002/09/the-curse-of-the-superstar-ceo/ar/1) to complete books on the topic (Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Corporate-Savior-Irrational-Charismatic/dp/0691074372).  More popular business authors like Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, wrote about “Level 5 Leadership” and addressed charisma in relation to this “top leadership level.”  Collins has been quoted as saying, “Being charismatic and wrong is a bad combination,” and “I’d go so far as to say that [The Level 5 leaders Collins chronicled in the good-to-great success case studies in his book] were uncharismatic for the most part.”  (http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_0)

Regardless of good or bad use of charisma, there is still a great deal of additional research and writing on the topic.  Clearly we associate the effects of charisma with enhanced motivation, inspiration and intellectual stimulation it engenders in the listener.  But can it be taught?  One branch of research surrounds this argument.   If you read the works of Professor Robert House at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, he deconstructs “how” charisma works.  From House’s work, one could infer that charismatic behavior may be both “born in,” but also taught with enough study and practice (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/674.pdf).

The Dangers of Charisma

What are the pitfalls of charisma in the corporate context?

• Charismatic executives tend to suppress individual thinking and leadership development in subordinate teams.  Leaders with charisma can create a culture of “followers,” rather than young, budding leaders and the next generation of a company’s executive team.  Narcissistic tendencies don’t allow others to flourish instead creating dominant monolithic thinking, “I don’t even argue with him anymore because I always lose.”

• This in turn leads to challenges for succession planning.  Often charismatic leaders leave a vacuum of next generation leaders, having created instead a strong set of followers.

• Life of the party isn’t always “engine of achievement.”  Charisma can be used to achieve personal goals as the primary objective, at the expense of organizational goals.  There is no question it is always best to have alignment of personal and organizational goals so that by achieving one, the other is also achieved.  However, this mandates that the charismatic leader be programmed to strive for a “win-win,” vs. a “win-lose.”   In fancy organizational behaviorist language, this ends up being the difference between those leaders who have “higher activity inhibition” and those who have lower levels.  If a leader has lower activity inhibition, they tend to seek win-lose outcomes with the “win” side being the individual over the organization.

What can the charismatic leader do to counteract negative repercussions?

The charismatic leader needs to ensure that they either surrounds themselves with others who have strong self-confidence and ideation, or that the charismatic leader makes a great deal of effort to cultivate an environment open to sharing other opinions, perspectives, and ideas rather than defaulting to “the charismatic boss.”

As referenced earlier, charisma is really more situationally valuable.  Typically, charisma is most valuable when change is the goal.  Innovation, revolution, new paradigm adoptions are the best projects for the charismatic toolbox.

Some popular examples of positively and negatively directed charisma include the following:

Good = Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the failed Antarctica expedition he saved | John F. Kennedy | Martin Luther King

Bad = Hitler |Jim Jones and the 909 deaths in the Jonestown massacre in 1978 where Jones as dogmatic cult leader got all his followers to commit mass suicide

A few additional interesting links to resources on charisma and leadership

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/01/15/207161/index.htm [lighter reading]

http://www.aom.pace.edu/amj/february2001/waldman.pdf [heavier reading]

As executive recruiters, we often get asked about executive compensation.

So often—after we finish up a search—we aggregate the compensation data we’ve collected across the search, and share it back with the innovation community. In this case, we recently finished a VP Sales  search for a profitable SaaS software client located here in the Northeast  in November, 2011.

Here is the snapshot of compensation highlights from our search—

The footnote at the bottom of the image above articulates the following criteria for the majority of companies in this data set:

SaaS software companies (all B2B)

This compensation data was specifically from those who had at minimum national sales responsibility for the U.S.  Regional Sales VPs were not included (i.e., Eastern, Central, or Western Regional VP Sales titles)

Although a number of these companies had venture capital/external funding, many were also larger publicly traded companies

Profitable stage

Companies were located in across the US, with about half located in the Northeast, 25% in the Southeast, and 25% in the Northwest US (Northern CA & WA)

There are many variables to consider that influence where to pinpoint one’s own compensation vis-a-vis the above:

The more  urban locations,  the more likely compensation will be higher

The later the stage of company development, the lower the incentive compensation, the earlier the higher.  Yes, this is counter-intuitive, but usually the larger the company, the more mature and capped the incentive compensation plans become

Note that no equity has been included in this data set of compensation highlights.  This does not mean to imply that no equity was held by many of the VP Sales executives surveyed.    However, in general, equity is considered less important for the sales team and sales leaders, as their incentive compensation plans serve a similar purpose, simply allowing the sales team and sales leadership to “cash-and-carry” on a quarterly and annual basis more so than the rest of the executive team members who do not share in the same incentive structures and therefore rely on smaller annual bonuses, and typically a larger stakeholder role.

As executive recruiters, we often get asked about executive compensation.

So often—after we finish up a search—we aggregate the compensation data we’ve collected across the search, and share it back with the innovation community. In this case, we recently finished a CFO  search for a profitable SaaS software client located here in New England in September, 2011.

Here is the snapshot of compensation from our search—

The footnote at the bottom of the image above articulates the following criteria for the majority of companies in this data set:

SaaS software companies (virtually all B2B)

Venture capital/externally funded

Profitable stage

Series A-D in funding, usually between $5M and $20M raised

All companies located in greater Boston area

There are many variables to consider that influence where to pinpoint one’s own compensation vis-a-vis the above:

The closer toward Boston/Cambridge and the  urban locations these represent,  the more likely compensation will be higher

The later the stage of company development, the higher the CFO compensation, the earlier the lower

The more money raised, usually the higher the compensation is in the above range

Once a company reaches consistent profitability, executive compensation increases across the functional spectrum

If a non-founder CFO vs. founder-CFO, cash compensation is likely higher (and equity lower in the range)

As executive recruiters, we often get asked how executive compensation compares between the two venture capital hot spots in the US —  Boston vs. San Francisco.  Yes, these areas are larger than their cities, so the Boston area is inclusive of Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire, and often Rhode Island and Northern Connecticut.   San Francisco is even more complicated, with East Bay, Silicon Valley/the peninsula area, San Jose, and Mill Valley/Marin County covering a huge geographic spread.

So, often after we finish up a search, we aggregate the compensation data we’ve collected across the search, and share it back with the innovation community.  In this case, we just finished a medical devices CEO search out in the Bay area in September, 2011.

Here is the snapshot of compensation from our survey—

The footnote at the bottom of the image above articulates the following criteria for the majority of  companies in this data set:

Medical devices companies (510K FDA regulatory pathway)

Venture capital/externally funded

Product development stage (either pre-revenue, or early revenue stage)

Series A-C in funding, usually between $5M and $20M raised

There are many variables to consider that influence where to pinpoint one’s own compensation vis-a-vis the above:

The closer to Silicon Valley or urban location like San Francisco, the more likely compensation will be higher

The later the stage of company development, the higher the CEO compensation, the earlier the lower

The more money raised, usually the higher the compensation is in the above range

If key milestones like 510K regulatory or Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement approvals have been granted, CEO compensation is usually higher

If a non-founder CEO vs. founder-CEO, compensation is likely higher (and equity lower in the range)

We’re pleased to partner with Cooley LLP, Ernst & Young & BMO Capital Markets to put on this invitation-only conference.  Below is an agenda overview and speaker highlights.

If interested, please email clark [at] bsgtv.com.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011 |  12:00 noon – 7:00 pm

Mandarin Oriental, Boston 776 Boylston Street  |  Boston, Massachusetts

Cooley LLP, Ernst & Young LLP and BMO Capital Markets invite you to an exclusive gathering of leading executives, investors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the medical device industry for the second annual Cooley Medical Device Growth Conference in Boston. This event will focus on the key drivers affecting the medical device industry and explore growth strategies for medical device companies.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Michael J. Cima – Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED [ view full agenda ]

• Pulse of the Industry: Medical Technology Report 2011 – Ernst & Young’s annual report on the medical device industry
• Developing and Implementing a Sales & Marketing Strategy -  Keys to achieving growth and ensuring regulatory compliance
• An Open Discussion with Thought Leaders – A fireside chat with CEOs at revenue stage medical device companies on the medtech industry, opportunities and challenges, lessons-learned, etc.
• What’s Getting Done? A discussion of trends in IPOs, M&A deals and strategic collaborations

REGISTRATION REQUIRED. This event is by invitation only. Registration is limited to representatives of medical device companies and investors, and is subject to approval.

PANELISTS AND MODERATORS INCLUDE

• Joseph Army – General Manager, Medtronic Advanced Energy (Formerly President and Chief Executive Officer, Salient Surgical Technologies)
• Michael Cima – Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Casey – Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
• Drew Gantt – Partner, Cooley LLP
• Ron Goldman – Chief Executive Officer, Accuvein
• Larry Knopf – Senior Vice President and General Counsel, HeartWare, Inc.
• Michael McGrail – Attorney, Cooley LLP
• Yiannis Monovoukas – Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, TEI Biosciences Inc.
• Michael Neuberger – Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Group, BMO Capital Markets
• Stu Randle – President and Chief Executive Officer, GI Dynamics
• Charles Sherwood – President and Chief Executive Officer, Anika Therapeutics, Inc.
• Mark Speers – Partner and Managing Director, Health Advances
• Peter Stebbins – Vice President, New Business Development, DePuy Mitek and Codman, J&J Family of Companies
• Kevin Seifert – Chief Executive Officer, Facet Technologies, Inc.
• Don Stern – Partner, Cooley LLP (Former US Attorney)
• Mark Weeks – Partner, Cooley LLP
• Robert White – President & Chief Executive Officer, TyRx, Inc.

How & What Growth-stage CEOs Are Ending 2011 & Planning for 2012

Below is the hyperlink to take the Q4 CEO peers speed-survey, exclusively for growth-stage CEOs. This survey focuses on “How & What Growth-stage CEOs are Ending 2011 & Planning for 2012″

This shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes of a busy CEO’s time–

We here at BSG Team Ventures periodically take the temperature of the markets we serve. The survey is no more than 15 questions, most simple multiple-choice.

These surveys are created and compiled by BSG Team Ventures as a courtesy to our executive ecosystem with the belief that knowledge is power. Aggregated peer-provided knowledge is “actionable power.”

To compare how you’re feeling a year later with the survey results from Q4 2010, titled “CEOs Plan for 2011”, go to http://www.bostonsearchgroup.com/blog/q4-2010-ceo-survey-of-growth-stage-companies/

We make an effort to survey only those who fit the category (in this case, sitting CEOs or board member/founders of technology/science-driven growth-stage companies). [Note, if you don't fit the aforementioned description, please refrain from responding.]

Feel free to forward to the qualified CEOs in your sphere of influence. The more data generated, the more accurate the trend lines.

All responses are anonymous due to the web-based survey technology employed.

We will forward the survey results within the next two weeks to the email address on file. Please let us know if there is another email address you wish us to send the results to as well.

The Company

Securing Business

The Company is one of the largest global providers of IT-security solutions and IT-Services with a focus on consulting, implementation and services.

The Company has offices in 8 countries – UK, Germany, USA, France, Switzerland, Austria, United Arab Emirates and Singapore with around 500 employees. The Company has more than 3,500 blue-chip customers and a range of government agencies.

Offerings include:

• Consulting in all aspects of IT-Security

• Continuous development of a holistic IT-Security Service Portfolio via our Managed Security Service Center and Call Center

• Close relationship with the key product vendors

• Holistic portfolio of IT-Security Solutions and Products

The Position

As a key member of the Americas executive team, the VP Sales will be the primary owner and driver of revenues for the Company, responsible for selling Managed and Professional Services (MAPS) solutions keying off of its core overlapping areas of service excellence:

o Data Protection

o Mobility

o Threats & Vulnerabilities

o Risk & Compliance (GRC)

o Cloud (securing the cloud)

The VP Sales will be part of the senior operating team for the Americas with principal responsibilities including:

• Exceed quarterly and annual revenue targets

• Develop & execute strategic sales and distribution plan: provide strategic and tactical thinking, as well as broad business insight. Take a leadership role in developing the sales strategy to support the growth of the business, while continuing to drive gross margins, quarterly bookings goals, and other KPIs

• Peer with the Professional Services team on client prospecting, engagement, and delivery

• Divisional revenue ownership

• Sales team-building

• Sales leadership and sales pipeline management

• Develop and managing detailed budgeting & forecasting

• Lead the management, maintenance & development of key partnerships in upstream indirect sales channels

• Foster teamwork and create a positive work environment for a geographically disparate sales force

• Lead and develop a dynamic and creative sales infrastructure that fits the needs of the business and the products the Company provides to its customers

• Drive internal discussion about strategies, ideas, new opportunities and the best methods for achieving success in a changing marketplace

• Consult with customers on their needs and provide feedback to other departments supporting sales efforts

• Forecast, track and report sales performance using internal tools and applications such as Salesforce.com

• Conduct internal pipeline meetings and reviews with the executive team

• Manage overall budget associated with sales plan

• Lead team in structuring strategic and integrated partnerships with key customers

• Personally assist in closing large deals and managing strategic accounts

• Travel as needed to ensure that sales and client needs are met and exceeded

Ideal Candidate Profile

The diagram below illustrates a comprehensive intersection of competencies critical in the VP Sales position:

Team

Reporting to the President of the Americas, the VP Sales currently manages and leads a sales team of 11.

Compensation

Compensation is competitive with the position’s requirements. In a performance-based environment, this will include base salary and incentive bonus structure based on both individual and company milestones.

The Company

Creating Privacy in the Workplace via Technology

Our client is a pioneer in sound masking, paging and music engineered systems. Their products  feature cutting-edge distributed audio technology for the workplace that combines extraordinary audio performance, low impact installation and affordability. Their systems are deployed in millions of square feet of workspace while supporting normal acoustical privacy in open plan spaces and confidential speech privacy in private offices.

The company is headquartered  in the Northeast United States.

The Position

As heir apparent and key member of the management team, the Chief Operating Officer will partner with the CEO on strategy, sales & marketing as well as all decision-making issues affecting the organization Key to the role is an ability to bring prior experience and success in building and growing multiple distribution channels, scaling teams and organizations from 25 to 50+, and expanding domestic and international partners and customers.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The diagram below illustrates a comprehensive intersection of competencies critical in the COO position:

The COO’s core responsibilities will include the following—

Strategy, & Product Marketing Direction:

Collaborating with the CEO to establish a short and long-term business direction that drives the company to become an industry leader and maximize the penetration of the markets served. The COO will bear primary responsibility for refining and carrying out The Company’s strategy. This will include such activities as monitoring The Company’s current markets and its standing within them; assessing current and potential competitive activity; and evaluating opportunities for growth (new but related products, entirely new initiatives which leverage the Company’s relationships, intellectual property and intellectual capital, possible acquisitions, etc.).

Marketing:

Ensuring close symbiotic relationship between product development and customer market needs, creating demonstrable competitive differentiation and performance benefits of CSM products vis-à-vis industry competitors.

Sales & Business Development Leadership:

Setting the approach to commercialization, including direct sales, distributor agreements, and independent representative networks. First and foremost, the COO will play a hands-on role in building The Company by acting as its most-senior business generator and evangelist. He or she must understand both The Company’s capabilities and the market’s needs, and combine those understandings to identify and pursue specific new opportunities.

Engineering, Manufacturing & Operations:

To a lesser extent the COO will share oversight of engineering, manufacturing and production teams responsible for product development, production, establishing build/buy/outsource decisions, quality control etc.

Staff— team building, development, mentorship:

The COO is responsible for human capital planning and hiring. As important, the position will actively be responsible for developing new and existing staff to help prepare them for company growth and increased leadership responsibilities at all levels. Finally, the new COO will serve as leader and mentor to the founding team and as a complement to their existing skills. He or she will do this through personal interactions with colleagues, as well as by maintaining management practices which reinforce a positive internal culture and help the company establish a reputation as a rewarding place to build a career. This individual will be expected to set high standards and hold people accountable, and to create an environment in which people work cooperatively and focus on building the long-term value of the enterprise. When management slots open up, the COO must be able to hire executives who can make significant contributions, not only as individuals but by building effective teams in their own areas of the business; he or she will also have to upgrade the organization when necessary by replacing underperformers with strong new recruits.

Investors/shareholders & board — milestone management, any follow-on fundraising, and liquidity strategy: Along with the CEO, the new COO is co-liaison to the board and will aggressively manage milestone deliverables, be a key leader at board meetings and to board/investor communications. The COO will be responsible for developing and managing against an annual operating plan and in addition to possible follow-on fundraising, will be accountable for optimizing the harvest for all shareholders. This includes continuous improvement of operational efficiency and effectiveness by assessing, upgrading or installing new operational systems, processes and methodologies. In addition, the COO will continually review activity reports and financial statements to determine progress and status in attaining objectives and revise tactics in accordance with current conditions. Combining these, the COO will execute and achieve annual growth targets while gaining increased leverage on costs and operating expenses.

STAGE:

Key background & successful experience with company growth stage includes—

• Board/investor communication and management

• VP level hiring across the organizational spectrum

• Growing sales from `$5M to >$50M

• Industry partner mapping for growth and harvest

• M&A negotiation experience

INTERNATIONAL:

Previous exposure to international business, in particular international dealer and distribution channels is beneficial. This includes the ability to work effectively in other parts of the world, and an appreciation for the ways in which cultures and business practices differ from country to country.

EDUCATION:

Undergraduate degree required, with preference for mechanical or electrical engineering, MBA or other advanced degree a plus.

GENERAL:

Finally, this individual should have as many as possible of the traits required to succeed in any CEO position:

• High levels of intelligence, analytical strength and conceptual ability.

• The ability, and willingness, to set and communicate demanding standards for professional staff and to hold people accountable for their performance; at the same time, sensitivity to, and insight into, individuals’ capabilities and development needs.

• Decisiveness when necessary, coupled with a willingness to seek input and build consensus as much as possible.

• Unquestioned honesty and integrity; also, loyalty to colleagues and to the organization, and the ability to inspire loyalty. This person should have the ability to identify and focus on The Company’s best interests, rather than the agenda of any individual or group within the Firm.

• A very high level of energy and commitment, combined with enthusiasm and a positive attitude.

• Excellent writing and speaking skills; this individual must be able to communicate complex ideas and information clearly and concisely.

• Outstanding planning and organization skills.

• Good strategic instincts and long-term vision; the ability to address both big-picture issues and detailed, day-to-day management concerns.

• In general, the business and personal skills, and the absolute commitment, required to make a major contribution to The Company during the coming years.

Team

Reporting to the CEO, the COO shares the responsibility for sales, marketing, operations, product and finance. Total employee base is approximately 25 and growing.

Financial Backing & Budget

The Company is profitable and growing at a 30%+ annual rate.  Seed and growth capital has been provided by one strategic partner in a joint-venture structure.  No other outside investment capital has been required.

Compensation

Compensation is competitive with the position’s requirements. In a performance-based environment, this will include base salary, incentive bonus structure based on both individual and company milestones, and a stakeholder position in the company.