IndustryOutlook - Centric Projects

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IndustryOutlook
(front row, left to right)
Bob Dunn, J.E. Dunn Construction,
Dunn Family Foundation
Debbie Wilkerson, Greater Kansas City
Community Foundation
Angelo Trozzolo
Trozzolo Communications Group
Courtney Kounkel, Centric Projects
Debbie Bass, The Foundation for Shawnee
Mission Medical Center
Julie Browne, Government Employees
Health Association
Troy Stremming, Ameristar Casinos
Courtney Goddard, Park University
Christine Kemper, Kemper & Company
Peter Brown, Grassmere Partners
Chris Isaacson, BATS Global Markets
(back row, left to right)
Richard Wetzel, Centric Projects
Cliff Stubbs, McAnany Van Cleave & Phillips
Rich Reda, Lockton Companies
Dennis Boone, Ingram’s Magazine
Blake Williams, Assurant
Employee Benefits
Adam Taff, Jeff Smith Consulting
Kevin Kramer, Bank Midwest
Joe Sweeney, Ingram’s Magazine
Tom Proebstle, Generator Studio
Michelle Sweeney, Ingram’s Magazine
40 Under Forty Leadership Assembly
A Smorgasbord of Views on Leadership in Kansas City
Since its inception in 1998, Ingram’s 40 Under Forty business recognition
program has identified 600 of the most accomplished and civic-minded young
business executives in the Kansas City region. A score of them gathered at
The American Restaurant on April 3 as Hallmark Cards and Crown Center
graciously hosted a unique assembly of past 40 Under Forty honorees, who
discussed the vital quality of leadership in both business and public sectors.
Their two-hour roundtable was a verbal tour of the tremendous assets
Kansas City has in place, as well as a mental exercise in what innovative
approaches might help the region foster the next generation of leaders.
Throughout the assembly, family names like Bloch, Stowers and Hall came
up again and again, almost always in the context of: Whose names will the
city come to revere and rely on in the decades to come?
The assembly was a powerful reminder that the interests of the business
community and the broader region are inextricably linked, and that our best
hope for a better Kansas City lies in strengthening the bonds between the two.
Sponsored by:
The evidence of leadership is all
around us: A revitalized Downtown. A
thriving life-sciences sector. National
recognition for outsized philanthropy.
A closer examination of those tangible
products of leadership—whether it was
driven by corporate executives, personal and family wealth or public-sector
figures—tells us much about Kansas City,
said nearly a score of current leaders
gathered for the first Industry Outlook
Assembly featuring past honorees of
Ingram’s 40 Under Forty program.
To understand how that leadership
is successfully applied, it helps to know
about the philosophic and character
underpinnings of the leadership that
defines this region.
Leadership Assets
“Kansas City is so fortunate, from
an entrepreneurial spirit standpoint, to
have great companies like Hallmark and
H&R Block and J.E. Dunn,” said Troy
Stremming, vice president at Ameristar
Casinos. “You have all these huge companies that were started and founded here
and we’ve seen such a huge commitment
on behalf of those founders in investing
this community and continuing to do all
the right things.”
Those legacy companies are being followed by upstarts like BATS Global Markets,
whose chief operating officer, Chris Isaacson,
said the boldness factor was clearly evident
here. Six years ago, it was unheard of that
a small company from Kansas City could
shake up the equities-trading world and challenge the dominance of the New York Stock
Exchange and NASDAQ. And yet, it’s happened with BATS, and that’s reflective of the
broader community mindset, Isaacson said.
“Whether through naivete or maybe out of
boldness, we’re able to tackle things that are
bigger than most people would,” he said.
Peter Brown of Grassmere Partners,
who formerly served as chief executive for
AMC Entertainment, noted the impact of
a typically Midwestern level-headedness
at work here. “That’s what contributes
to the environment, to be able to raise a
family and live comfortably here,” he said.
We have also benefitted from the leadership of figures like the late Stan Durwood,
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1. One impact of corporate leadership on the region, said Christine Kemper, has been
the contribution of business to raising the profile of the arts throughout the community.
2. Peter Brown cited the contributions of leaders like the late Stan Durwood, but lamented the
lack of a broader community mindset that encourages even the largest businesses to get bigger.
Brown’s predecessor at AMC. “He had a lot
to do with what happened in Downtown
Kansas City; he was a very one of a kind,
though. He kind of had a force of will that
isn’t adopted by a lot of the other business
leaders in town, and that force was that
we’re going to do things, were going to get
bigger, we’re going to acquire others and
do it right here from Kansas City.”
“Fortunately, my company is willing to
go out and find a lot of people and train
them to become great leaders,” said Bob
Dunn of J.E. Dunn Construction. “Some
stay on for a lifetime, others go out and
start their own companies, but it’s great
that we have the talent pool that we have
in this community, and that we have great
academic institutions, whether public or
private, that really help grow business.”
As an executive with Jeff Smith &
Associates, Adam Taff says he’s spent the
better part of the past six years working
with clients from the East Coast. “Based
on what I’ve seen in New York, we have a
genuine, inherent goodness about us, and
about our desire to help our community,”
he said, and to do so without the kinds
of egos that complicate things back east.
Christine Kemper cited the benefits
bestowed by corporate leaders who have
acknowledged the vital role that a thriving
arts community plays in creating a vibrant
city. “It’s very exciting that business people
aren’t now afraid to talk about the arts as
important to the economic welfare of the
community,” she said.
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Surprisingly, a key leadership trait
can be found in the value of simply being
decent and respectful in our relationships
with others. Debbie Wilkerson, chief executive for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, said her dealings with executives from around the nation often touch
on a common theme: You people in Kansas
City are nice to work with, and that’s not
always the case, she’s heard time and
again. “It’s that added plus that nobody
ever thought would be,” Wilkerson said.
Julie Browne, president and CEO
of PPO USA, a division of Government
Employees Health Administration, said
that in her role, “we work with more
national partners than local, so we constantly have people coming in to visit us
from all parts of the country, and that is
what they say: ‘Everyone is so nice here’
and they appreciate us. The working relationship is more of a trusting relationship.”
In a similar vein, Richard Wetzel,
co-founder of Centric Projects, said “we
have a humility and lack of arrogance that
allows us to punch above our weight as
a community.”
So What’s Missing?
One would think that with so much
going for it, Kansas City would be a
trouble-free zone. But the panelists just
as readily noted the leadership gaps—and
potential gaps—that exist.
“I think perhaps our biggest strength is also our biggest weakness,” said
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Angelo Trozzolo, president of Trozzolo
Communications Group. “A phrase I
like to use is kind of the One Degree of
Kansas City. We see it in this room: If we
don’t know each other, we have people we
know in common. We’re all connected
by just one degree.” That helps get things
done on some levels, he said, but “on the
other hand, it causes us to perhaps be OK
with not being as bold as we need to be.”
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1. The Kansas City region needs universities with stronger academic reputations, said BATs
Chris Isaacson. | 2. Bob Dunn noted that a deep talent pool in Kansas City kept leadership pipelines flowing. | 3. Troy Stremming said the contributions of private-sector philanthropists have
been an enormous boost for the region. | 4. Debbie Wilkerson said it was important to remember
the “nice” factor at work here. | 5. Structurally, said Kevin Kramer, the Kansas City region isn’t
set up to produce strong leadership in the public sector. | 6. Angelo Trozzolo cautioned that one
of the region’s biggest strenths—its small-town connectivity—could also become a weakness
if people stop thinking in bold terms about what the community really needs.
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He noted that Kansas City was once
grouped with the likes of New York and
Chicago as cities that set the tone for the
rest of the country. “We were the first to
build two stadiums together, and the
airport, love it or hate it, was unique,”
Trozzolo said.
Chris Isaacson sensed a void in higher
education. “I think one of the things
where we struggle with here is fostering
entrepreneurship due to a lack of schooling,” he said. “Why does Silicon Valley
exist? Because there’s Stanford, frankly.
No offense to any of the schools around
here, but we don’t have a Stanford of the
Plains.”
The K-12 piece is just as significant,
most notably with the Kansas City school
district, several participants noted. “That
just feels like the albatross around the
neck of this community,” said Christine
Kemper. “I don’t care if we come up with
10 terrific things we do in this community,
why can we not fix our school district?”
That point resonated with Courtney
Goddard, associate general counsel for
Park University—earlier in her career, she
represented the Kansas City district. “It’s
going to be very difficult to really move
forward when the school district is where
it is,” she said. “After working there on a
daily basis for a number of years as their
legal counsel, I don’t think the general
public really understands how bad it is.”
Kevin Kramer, vice president for commercial lending at Bank Midwest, noted
the impact of political and geographic
boundaries. “Structurally, we’re not set
up to have a strong leader,” he said. “The
state line runs right down the middle,
we have six counties in the area, a weakmayor form of government—all of that
makes it tough from an elected officials’
point of view to become a true leader in
the community.”
And yet, he noted, that same lack of
public-side influence created a void that
had been filled by successful business
figures. “What’s happened,” he said, “is
folks like the Halls, the Kempers, the
Helzbergs, the Stowers—those are the
people who helped lead the community,
along with others I’ve missed—those
are the folks who have stepped forward.”
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Others noted a communications gap
that too often hinders effective leadership in the community. Christine Kemper
told the story of a trip to Omaha involving
Joni Cobb, head of the Pipeline entrepreneurship program. When business leaders
there told her about an entrepreneurshippromotion initiative they were involved
with, in conjunction with the Kansas City
Chamber of Commerce, “Joni was flabbergasted, because how would she not know
about this in her own town?” Kemper
asked. “Sometimes I think there’s a lot of
energy, but we have to get it focused so
that all the right people are talking to each
other and not running 300 miles up the
road to find out what’s happening in our
own community.”
Tom Proebstle of Generator Studio,
the architectural and design firm, cited
similar concerns. “One great positive for
us is the Crossroads right now; I think we
have something like 50 or 55 digital Web
companies or digital media companies,
and I think it’s second only to Austin,
Texas. That’s a great thing, but who knows
that?” That matters, he said, when talented students graduate from college and
look for the place to start their careers.
“If I’m a kid in Silicon Valley, and I’m
making the call—‘Where do I move to?
Where should I set up shop?’—who do
they call? Where do they go? Does
anybody have an answer for that?”
Joe Sweeney of Ingram’s, moderating
the discussion, noted the relative lack of
nationally known brands based in Kansas
City. A recent trip through Silicon Valley
showed evidence of that community’s
ability to draw or grow big-name brands.
“We need to start thinking more about
the perception, our position in the marketplace, and think more about what that
region of northern California has done to
attract investment,” he said.
Challenges
Identifying shortcomings is a key step
in identifying challenges and setting priorities for overcoming them, and panelists
readily addressed some. Stremming, who
noted the impact of major philanthropists
whose wealth was generated by business
growth, posed a key question. “You start
Kansas City’s Business Media 1
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1. Kansas City is building a reputation for digital Web prowess, said Tom Proebstle, but needs to
communicate that more effectively. | 2. Courtney Goddard lamented the impact that the Kansas City
school district had on the region’s reputation. | 3. Egos don’t get in the way of advancing community
goals here the way they do in New York, said Adam Taff. | 4. Julie Browne of GEHA said out-oftown business contacts marvel at the ease of doing business with their Kansas City counterparts.
to think about who’s next? We can only
rely on those families for so long.”
Kramer seized on that, as well, from
a different perspective. “When you think
about who’s next, what entrepreneurial
companies are going to take the place
of the Cerners and some of the others, I
start to think about who’s next at those
companies, those patriarch companies,”
he said. While there are great chief executives in place around the region, he asked,
will their stockholders and boards future
executives maintain current investments
in the community? “All of us know that
spending time and dollars on community
events builds a better community for
your employees to work in,” Kramer said,
“but it’s hard to translate that dollar for
dollar into a company’s bottom line.”
Peter Brown suggested that a significant challenge is a mental one: Embracing
the need for continued growth. “We
seem to have a mentality, that we’ll get
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to a certain size and we’ll sell out; we
don’t build bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger,”
he said. “But we can think bigger. We can
be the acquirer instead of the acquiree.”
That’s not a tangent to the conversation;
without that kind of mega-growth of companies, there won’t be a future Hallmark
or American Century. “We’ve got to plant
those seeds to start the next generation
of businesses that will be tomorrow’s corporate oaks,” he said.
For Courtney Kounkel, also a Centric
Projects co-founder, a looming challenge
is retaining top talent and drawing students back to this region after college
out of state. Her own story was a good
example of that; she was certain when
she left Kansas City for college that she
was cutting a cord. Not so. The costeffectiveness, the competitive salaries,
the strong suburban and private schools
are powerful magnets that brought her
back, she said, but there’s still a problem:
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“People leave; there has to be some
reason to bring them back,” she said.
The need for future leaders is one
reason why the law firm of McAnany, Van
Cleave & Phillips has engaged in structured efforts to push leadership down,
said partner Cliff Stubbs. “If we’ve got
new associates starting, they’re going
to be involved in something in the community; it’s just expected,” Stubbs said.
“Anything they want to do, it’s going to
be supported.” That’s important he said,
because “when you look at the next group
of companies that I think are going to be
successful and be the next large players in
town, they’re invested in the community
and their core aligns with Kansas City’s
core, and that’s why they’re successful.”
Equally important, said Rich Reda, a
producer for Lockton Companies, is the need
to actively recruit out-of-state talent. “When
we talk about leadership, we all acknowledge
the need, but almost nobody talks about
importing leaders,” Reda said. As a road
warrior who does a great amount of work
in other cities, he often deals with people
who are imports to those cities, as well.
“There are some things we can do to help
out importing some of that talent and not
have such a trade deficit of leadership.”
One of the challenges cited was the
need to build a “cooler” Kansas City—
something that would attract younger
workers and foster entrepreneurship. But,
as anyone who struggled with a cool-deficit
in high school might recall, if you need to
be cooler, you probably don’t have what it
takes to actually become cool. Asked what
kinds of communities have successfully
culled that imagery, several participants
in unison chimed in: “Austin!” And yet,
it wasn’t always the case there, either.
“UT is a great university, but it’s not
Stanford,” noted Richard Wetzel. But state
and local incentives are in place, he noted,
to attract and retain high-energy startups
here. “Our company is moving in the next
few months, and we got tax credits from
the state of Missouri to help. That kept
us in the Crossroads. But a lot of companies are so busy selling their product
or services, they don’t know to knock
on the door in Jefferson City and say,
‘Do you have anything available for me?’ ”
That, said Debbie Bass of the Foundation for Shawnee Mission Medical Center,
gets us back to the communication gap.
“People get excited when we talk about KC
and we love our city, we love the Kauffman
Center, we love the Zoo, we love the new
Legoland, we love Crown Center—we can
go on and on of the wonderful things that
we have to tell,” Bass said. “We just need
to do a better job of touting those.”
A 40 Under Forty Evolution
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1. Courtney Kounkel spoke in personal terms about the magnetism of Kansas City and its ability to retain talented workers. | 2. Other successful cities had long relied on imported talent to
maintain their vibrancy, Rich Reda said. | 3. Austin, said Richard Wetzel, has been able to develop its creative classes even without a Stanford-level university. | 4. Cliff Stubbs said one way
to ensure young leaders emerge is by pushing leadership down within organizations.
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under forty leadership assembly
Joe Sweeney, who has been involved
in the selection of each of the 600 people
honored by 40 Under Forty since 1998,
posed the question of whether the leadership criterion for selection should be
retained. Often, he noted, extremely accomplished young business figures are
passed over for consideration for a lack
of involvement beyond their businesses
and families. How important is the aspect
of being involved on non-profit boards,
acting as a volunteer through schools
or churches, taking fund-raising roles,
mentoring youth, serving on church
committees or coaching youth sports?
“I think it’s everything,” said Christine
Kemper. “There are lots of people making a
lot of money in the community, and that is
their reward for business success, but what
everybody is talking about are the next great
leaders.” She noted the example of the late
Adele Hall. “She gave money, but also her
time, stuffing envelopes, serving on boards
at the highest levels—she never stopped,
and I feel like that’s been a huge differencemaker for our community.” If you take that
part away, Kemper said, 40 Under Forty
becomes nothing more than a competition
over who’s the best lawyer or engineer, or
who’s made the most money. “What makes
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you different,” she said, “is how you give.”
To that end, Joe Sweeney posed the
question of whether future classes of 40
Under Forty might be tasked with group
efforts to address community challenges.
As participants noted, decades-long problems facing the region are unlikely to be
addressed with a handful of meetings from
any small, independent group, no matter
how influential they are. But success can
be achieved at the margins, such as with
concerted efforts to mentor start-up businesses or high-school students, doing more
to promote business involvement with
non-profit causes, or taking on administration of one-and-done events like Ingram’s
CEOpen Executive Golf Tournament.
A project overseen by 40 Under Forty
alumni, the golf tournament has raised
$550,000 in eight years, benefitting 33
non-profits throughout the region.
“There are a lot of smart people in
this room,” said Tom Proebstle. “Let’s
get together and talk about things. If we
make an event compelling enough, we
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1. With so many community assets to boast about, said Debbie Bass, the Kansas City region could
do a better job of just that: Communicating to the rest of the country what we’ve got going here.
2. When it comes to creating mechanisms that foster leadership, trailblazers like the Kauffman
and Bloch families opened up a pipeline that continues to bring young leaders to the fore today,
said Blake Williams.
could bring in big-name people and get
some sort of funding for an event,” something likely to draw sponsorship support
from companies represented by those in
the roundtable.
As Kevin Kramer noted, “We’ve all
been on groups and committees, but success has always been about the execution:
Who’s going to take that idea to the next
step? How’s it going to be executed?
If we lay that out, we can recruit great
support from 600 people.”
Kansas City’s Business Media Partner
40 UNDER FORTY
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