Simply Driven Blog

Eric Harton is an amazing, global, CFO talent flying under our radar here. His career has taken him literally all over the world with some of America’s premier CPG companies. It’s a cold Thursday, but we’re in a warm spot at Muldoon’s in Carmel. KB: Eric, thank you for meeting me. EH: Glad to be [...]

It’s Thanksgiving week.  For many (not in sales), it’s the beginning of the end.  People start manufacturing all kinds of excuses on why things can’t get finished/get started/get bought/get sold...you name it.  Thanksgiving week leads to the week after Thanksgiving, when many have a Thanksgiving hangover.  Then there’s about two weeks in December when things [...]

Both recruiters and external job candidates alike become mortified when they hear a hiring manager say, “We may have an internal candidate.”  After all, how can someone who is unknown compete with someone who is known?  It’s difficult – but not impossible – to overcome. What fascinates me is when this occurs in the middle [...]

Few people I encounter embrace risk.  Let me restate that...few people I encounter want anything to do with risk.  Granted, my audience is mostly accounting and finance professionals.  But shouldn’t we be particularly attuned to risk?  Aren’t we professionally trained to evaluate and assess risk?  Accountants and finance people are (supposedly) trained to gather facts [...]

Simply Driven is on the march to a record year.  A lot of things have contributed to the company’s current success, but perhaps none more than our ability to get focused late in Q2 of 2018. The world is a noisy place.  There are bright lights and shiny objects everywhere.  It’s so easy to lose [...]

It’s that time of year.  Summer is over, and school has started.  Raises are in place, and promotions are finished.  Fall is here...but the Holidays are still a good five or six weeks away.  It’s time for the annual ritual – One Last Move.  The final migration of CPA talent from one firm to another. [...]

People do business with people.  Beyond that reality, people do business with people they like. It’s always been that way.  My guess is that it will always be that way.  I’m fine with leveraging technology to facilitate the transaction...but the transaction and the relationship are two very different things.  Jeffrey Gitomer says, “If you make [...]

Kay Whitaker has had quite a run as an Indianapolis CFO. A builder and a fixer, she’s made a name for herself with successes at RenPSG, Odyssey, First Internet Bank and Central Indiana Community Foundation. In 2012, The Indianapolis Business Journal honored her as its CFO of the Year for her work at CICF. KB: [...]

You might be surprised.  We had one of the more egregious ones just this week.  Our candidate in this case was very responsive and engaged throughout the process.  Said all the right things.  Expressly said they wanted the job. Several times.  Our client was excited.  Thought they were making a good hire.  So, what went [...]

Stephanie Peavler is engaging, energetic and fearless. She’s two months in as the new CFO of BSA LifeStructures, although she’s no stranger to the company. We’re at Scotty’s Brewhouse on a Thursday afternoon and it’s absolutely pouring outside. KB: Stephanie it’s great to see you. SP: Glad to be here. KB: Tell me a little [...]

I sat and watched in amazement as Tiger Woods won the PGA Tour Championship this past weekend.  As the final holes played out, the crowd of people running and rushing behind him to the 18th Green was a sight to behold.  Five years and four back surgeries later, Tiger would finally win again.  As he [...]

Over the past 20 years in this business, I’ve learned that clients often don’t know what they want when filling a position.  They think they know, but as they start evaluating talent, it becomes apparent that something is amiss... One of the biggest “tells” that a client lacks clarity is when they continually ask for [...]

I encounter a surprising number of people who are afraid of success.  In their defense, I’m not sure most of them are aware of it.  It commonly reveals itself as resistance to my call, in responses like: “I’m happy where I am.” “I’m not in the market.” “I’m not looking.” “I’m not interested.” In some [...]

I recently called an executive about someone who had worked for him in the past.  I was seeking feedback on this person as a potential candidate for a search I was leading for another client.  My executive friend was candid as always, explaining to me this individual’s strengths and weaknesses.  The overall feedback was positive. [...]

Every day for the past 20 years, I have helped people make decisions.  Pretty big ones.  At times stressful ones.  In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe began a project that led to the creation of the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – a checklist of 43 items designed to inventory “fundamentally important environmental [...]

It’s not unusual or infrequent, unfortunately, that people in my business are received poorly by corporate human resource and talent acquisition professionals.  Some of this...I get.  There are lots of schmuck recruiters out there.  That’s unfortunate as well.  But, this is reality. One of my Search Consultants recently connected with a business executive who is [...]

Occasionally, I run into the scenario where a company does not hire my candidate because they are “too good.”  It just happened to me last week.  A client I have done business with in the past referred me to one of their sister companies.  The sister company needed a Controller.  I was flattered by the [...]

Communication is such a funny thing.  When executed poorly, two people can walk away from a conversation with very different perceptions of what just happened.  I just experienced it today. My Firm was negotiating an offer between client and candidate.  We had all the terms buttoned up and were awaiting the offer letter.  Upon receiving [...]

Candidates ask multiple times weekly about the option of working from home.  There are many approaches, from the reasonable “Would I be able to work from home if the roads are bad?” to the overt, “How much will I be expected to be in the office with this job?” Working from home can be nice.  [...]

I have a personal bias against out of office email replies and out of office voicemails.  There.  I’ve said it.  It’s out there.  During the Summer months especially, I hear/read over and over again: “This is Tim, I’ll be out of the office from July 15 – 23 with limited access to voicemail and email.  [...]