My Guest My guest today is a particularly personal and a particularly special one for me: I have been fortunate to call Jim Sharpe a mentor and friend for over 10 years now, and I am thrilled that he agreed to join the podcast. In this week’s episode, we discuss the realities of running aContinue reading “Managing a Business During Inflationary Periods & Understanding Pricing Power”
Author Archives: sdivitkos
The Biggest Temptation of a Software CEO
Listen to This Blog Post In his book, The Five Temptations of a CEO, author Patrick Lencioni discusses five areas in which CEOs tend to inadvertently prioritize the wrong things. These “temptations”, as he calls them, can lead to poor decision making at best, and can risk the very survival of the company at worst.Continue reading “The Biggest Temptation of a Software CEO”
Employee Burnout and The Great Resignation
My Guest My guest today is Carin-Isabel Knoop, Executive Director of the Harvard Business School Case Research & Writing Group. Carin has spent decades writing cases on managers and leaders all over the world across a wide array of functions and industries. In 2019, alongside co-author John Quelch, Carin published Compassionate Management of Mental HealthContinue reading “Employee Burnout and The Great Resignation”
Should You Become an Entrepreneur?
Listen to This Blog Post Within your first-degree network alone, I suspect you know a large number of people who, at one time or another, have expressed a desire to pursue an entrepreneurial career path. Yet I also suspect that, of those people, only a small percentage of them have actually elected to take theContinue reading “Should You Become an Entrepreneur?”
Having Hard Conversations (Live Panel Discussion from 2022 MIT Sloan Search Fund Summit)
In this week’s episode, we discuss the importance of having difficult conversations, something that CEOs find themselves doing on a near-daily basis. We discuss three primary types of difficult conversations, including: Hard conversations around internal company dynamics (eg: terminations); Hard conversations about dynamics external to the company (eg: politics and global affairs); Difficult conversations thatContinue reading “Having Hard Conversations (Live Panel Discussion from 2022 MIT Sloan Search Fund Summit)”
A Leader’s Most Important Skill
Listen to This Blog Post Though effective leaders tend to possess a multitude of different skills and abilities, my experience as a CEO taught me that the most important skill for any leader to possess is that of clear and effective communication. Indeed, a CEO’s strategy is only as good as her ability to communicateContinue reading “A Leader’s Most Important Skill”
Quality of Earnings Analysis: What You Need to Know Before Buying a Business
My Guest My guest today is Chris Hutchinson, a Partner in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory Services Group. Chris has over 15 years of experience advising clients on M&A, financings, valuation projects, and due diligence mandates, with a specific focus on private lower-middle-market businesses. Chris and his team have completed an untold number of QualityContinue reading “Quality of Earnings Analysis: What You Need to Know Before Buying a Business”
Lessons Learned in Capitalizing an Acquisition
Listen to This Blog Post Among the myriad variables that must be carefully considered when acquiring a business is the question of how the acquisition is going to be financed. My intent in the material that follows is not to cover the countless options available to acquirors stemming from this question (that wouldn’t be possibleContinue reading “Lessons Learned in Capitalizing an Acquisition”
Aaron Ross: Author of “Predictable Revenue” and “From Impossible to Inevitable”
My Guest Though Aaron Ross wears many hats, he is perhaps best known for co-authoring the global best seller Predictable Revenue, often referred to as “The Sales Bible of Silicon Valley,” which details an outbound prospecting system that’s created more than $1 billion across Salesforce.com and other companies. Most recently, Aaron published From Impossible toContinue reading “Aaron Ross: Author of “Predictable Revenue” and “From Impossible to Inevitable””
The Entrepreneur and the Spousal Relationship
Listen to This Blog Post It’s no secret that meaningful and fulfilling relationships require deliberate work, often require trade-offs to be made between partners, and possess more than their fair share of peaks and valleys. Though these realities are true of substantially all long-term relationships, they seem to be especially true in instances where oneContinue reading “The Entrepreneur and the Spousal Relationship”