Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic and tactical planning and execution for the global higher education market, including analyzing feasibility and business options as part of market planning reviews.
• Develop market business strategy, opportunity assessments, and annual financial targets that fully realize the goals and objectives of the strategic plan.
• Recognize and communicate an understanding of market issues, directions, and trends, and assess their impact on business strategy.
• Proactively manage team talent and pipeline at all levels.
• Represent market through direct contact with customers, partners, and affiliates; maintain relationships with key accounts and strategic partners.
• Drive product development as it relates to overall market-by-market strategies and design and implement sales and marketing plans.
• Define business requirements/application development for products/services as well as go-to-market strategies.
• Establish and manage strategy and work with product development organization to execute on practical applications and tools that maintain and extend market position.

Qualifications:

• Proven leadership skills and a creative, entrepreneurial business perspective.
• At least 10 years of successful related experience in senior-level general departmental management or product management activities in a data-intensive organization.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• The ability to travel at least 50 percent.
• Publishing industry experience is a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree; MBA or other Master’s level education preferred.

Scott Lubeck

Executive Vice President / President, Executive Consulting Services

slubeck@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Develop U.S. strategic plan and contribute to overall global company strategy.
• Establish and manage U.S. office.
• Develop annual operating budget.
• Implement strategy and manage operations to achieve financial and operational goals; manage P&L; evaluate performance on a regular basis.
• Support efforts to establish and retain partnerships and other business relationships; approve major initiatives.
• Increase visibility of the company’s brands in the U.S. through outreach and communication with key opinion leaders, attendance at meetings and conventions, and visits to clients and customers.
• Provide leadership to and grow talent within the organization.
• Monitor developments in health care and health care information delivery/usage.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA desirable.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in electronic publishing/information, with at least 5 in a management position.
• Staff management experience; ability to effectively manage and motivate a disparate staff.
• P&L management experience.
• Experience in and understanding of the U.S. health care field.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Must be a strong strategic thinker with proven ability to execute against plans.
• Experience working in an international organization and successfully engaging different cultures.
• Comfort in a multiple-stakeholder environment.
• Demonstrable experience in how technology is and can be used in the development and dissemination of information.

Kathy Berlowe

Executive Vice President

kberlowe@bertdavis.com

Jeanne Bertelle

Vice President

jbertelle@bertdavis.com

Qualifications:

• Experience working and thriving in entrepreneurial and technology-driven companies.
• 5-10+ years of work experience in Business Development, Account Management, or a related field at a publishing, technology, or internet related company.
• A strong practice in consultative selling and relationship building in media, publishing, or content-centric industries.
• An analytical and agile approach to the development of contract terms.
• Pragmatic negotiating skills informed by both customer/partner requirements and the evolving business models of content-centric businesses.
• An extensive network of executive-level contacts in media, publishing, and content-centric businesses.
• Ability to work independently in achieving objectives as well as experience in managing and developing a small team of business development professionals.
• Attraction to and experience in start-up or fast-growth environments that are high-energy, cross-functional, and highly collaborative.
• Strong interpersonal, account management, and sales skills.
• Ability to thrive in high-velocity and rapidly changing business environments.
• Must be highly self-reliant and able to solve problems in real time.
• Fearless attitude towards sales: not afraid to cold call/email companies.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.

Interested candidates should send a resume and cover letter to: Scott Lubeck (slubeck@bertdavis.com) or Craig Miller (cmiller@bertdavis.com).

Scott Lubeck

Executive Vice President / President, Executive Consulting Services

slubeck@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Develop an annual regional strategy and implementation plan. Determine specific activities and resources necessary to implement the plan. Articulate the strategy to the wider business in order to gain buy-in and engagement.
• Achieve regional sales targets through developing a pipeline of sales and up-sell opportunities and ensuring opportunities are effectively managed through to sale.
• Recruit, manage, motivate, coach, and lead a successful sales force.
• Identify and manage relevant regional sales channels, including agents and purchasing consortia.
• Take direct responsibility for high-level negotiations.
• Identify opportunities for significant deals and manage through the pipeline to completion.
• Identify investment opportunities for new revenue streams with regional and global scope including acquisitions and partnerships.
• Implement/project manage new initiatives.
• Work with the wider publishing team to deliver regional content with global appeal and content specific to the region.
• Align publishing priorities with the regional growth strategy to identify and realize opportunities to generate quality content.
• Set and manage an annual budget for the region.
• Manage the overall relationship with customers and key stakeholders in the region.

Qualifications:

• Seven to ten years of experience in management roles within the business/professional or academic publishing industry.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required.
• Sales experience is essential.
• Knowledge of digital and technical standards used and developed in the market.
• Ability to think strategically and develop long-term plans.
• Advanced negotiation and closing skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication abilities.
• Ability to build relationships with customers and network with internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience managing teams, including line management, motivation, and mentoring.
• Good presentation skills; ability to deliver powerful presentations.
• Must be proactive and a self-starter, with the ability to make decisions without support or direction.
• Must be goal-oriented and sales-focused.

Linda Rascher

Senior Vice President

lrascher@bertdavis.com

Jeanne Bertelle

Vice President

jbertelle@bertdavis.com

Leading international media company seeks a Director, Content Sales who will be responsible for selling content to businesses with a specific interest in specialized premium content. The Director will have experience in bringing content offerings directly to clients versus selling to third-party aggregators. He/she will work in close collaboration with the business and editorial teams.

Responsibilities:

• Identify and develop new revenue opportunities (products and content platforms).
• Develop and present business cases for premium content offerings.
• Partner with the business and editorial teams to identify prospects.
• Collaborate in the product development process to ensure client needs are met.
• Build corporate sales portfolio.
• Suggest product improvements and enhancements based on feedback from the marketplace.

Requirements:

• At least 7 years of institutional content sales experience.
• A proven track record in meeting sales and revenue targets.
• P&L experience.
• Expertise in and familiarity with content in one or more of the following areas: national security, international finance, technology, and energy.
• A solid Rolodex of clients in both the public and private sector that can be leveraged for sales opportunities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to translate business needs into actionable proposals.
• Self-starter with strong entrepreneurial bent required.
• Four-year degree a must; degree in international affairs or international interest preferred.

Mary B. Gallatin

Vice President

mgallatin@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Lead the psychometrics team and contribute as a psychometrician.
• Be a strategic partner on product design and measurement/analytics strategy, for individual products as well as a suite of integrated products.
• Analyze educational measurement talent mix to meet product development goals.
• Work directly with product, content, and technology teams to evaluate the pedagogical efficacy of educational software.
• Quantify the knowledge and skill mastery of individual students as well as the overall student population.
• Advise and assist in the design of technology-driven measurement systems for automated reporting and continuous product improvement.

Qualifications:

• Must be qualified as a Ph.D. in educational measurement, psychometrics, industrial/ organizational psychology, or a closely related field.
• Recent experience leading a psychometric development team.
• Minimum 8-10 years of experience working in the high-stakes testing industry (e.g., SAT, ACT, Certification, or Licensure).
• Prior experience working in a hyper-growth and fast-paced environment.
• Track record of successfully publishing in peer-review journals or publications is preferred.
• Experience working in or around a professional certification organization is strongly desired.
• Healthcare industry experience is strongly desired.
• Experience with SPSS, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word required.
• Must be able to effectively present and communicate information in one-on-one and group situations to employees and clients of the organization.
• Must be willing to travel as needed.

Kathy Berlowe

Executive Vice President

kberlowe@bertdavis.com

Janine Subel

Vice President

jsubel@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Advise and assist the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board in the strategic planning and execution of the publication’s editorial program. Manage the peer review process and peer review systems for the publication in accordance with defined policies and processes.
• Interface with staff and volunteers to ensure rapid publication.
• Contribute new content to the publication’s web site regularly.
• Plan and execute annual Editorial Board meeting.
• Assist in budgeting and forecasts related to the publication.
• Work with marketing or outside promotional organizations to develop a strategy and implement a plan to raise awareness of the publication.
• Conduct and analyze reader surveys and present results and recommendations to senior management.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a field of science or technology.
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in a technical publishing leadership role, and extensive subject matter knowledge.
• Extensive experience in publication planning and scheduling, and knowledge of the publications process. Ability to balance editorial consensus of the Editorial Board with the best business interests of the society.
• Ability to write well and critique other authors/contributors, especially with regard to highly technical and complex proposals.
• Knowledge of online peer review systems is preferred. Proficiency in Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and e-mail systems, such as Microsoft Outlook or Gmail, is required.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.

Linda Rascher

Senior Vice President

lrascher@bertdavis.com

David Kornacker

Senior Vice President

dkornacker@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Create social media strategies and ROI metrics that align with global business objectives.
• Develop global community management social strategies and ROI standards for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, etc., as well as advising on owned, paid, and earned social strategies as needed.
• Devise ways to use social media to enhance and measure corporate/business reputation and employer brand.
• Identify training needs and deliver appropriate resources to assist colleagues on how to use social media platforms to reach global business objectives; provide regular overviews and presentations on social media trends, habits, behaviors, and ROI analysis.
• Develop and perform audit analysis of individual businesses’ and brands’ digital properties.
• Provide action plans on how best to use social media to promote events, conferences, and announcements, measure ROI, etc.
• Create strategy for integrating social media/mobile into existing client digital platforms.
• Develop social media content strategies to support business objectives.
• Gain industry awards and recognition for the accomplishments of the organization’s social marketing initiatives.

Qualifications:

• Experience in a hands-on capacity in social media, PR, and consumer marketing for 3-5+ years. Total work experience of 10+ years. Experience working with a global enterprise preferred but not required.
• Extensive social media experience including development and execution of content marketing campaigns and expertise with social marketing tools in a business context.
• Social media savvy and up-to-date knowledge of changes, capabilities, and functionalities of major social channels from a global perspective.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and effective management skills.
• Must be a well-organized, independent decision-maker with good judgment.
• Excellent relationship-building skills with evidence of successfully influencing without authority.
• Must be a tactical and “big-picture” strategic thinker with the ability to devise strategy from 30k feet to 5k feet.
• Experience training/leading workshops around social media, best practices, and case studies.
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience.

Kathy Berlowe

Executive Vice President

kberlowe@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Provide annual business plan with quarterly updates, revisions, and modifications.
• Establish and report on metrics to monitor progress toward plan objectives.
• Identify target partners and universities that would add value to the program.
• Oversee the revamping of the division website to current technology and ease of use. Bid the work, award the contract, and manage the execution.
• Ensure helpdesk operations are efficient and provide high customer satisfaction.
• Oversee financial planning and reporting.
• Present at company meetings.
• Recruit, hire, develop, and provide performance management related direction to staff. Provide direction with leadership development, coaching, and succession planning.
• Present at prospect and client sites, conferences, and partnership meetings.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of eight years of B2C operations management experience, preferably in the higher education, travel and leisure, hospitality, or e-marketing industries.
• Three or more years leading operations, with partial to full P&L responsibility.
• Additional five years of executive-level management and administrative experience emphasizing business planning, budgeting, and operations leadership roles.
• Start-up/turnaround or small company management experience.
• Verifiable history achieving aggressive operating, expense, and profit goals as a direct sales executive.
• History of driving employee and manager responsibility and performance ownership.
• Well-developed expertise in relationship management with company customers and internal clients.
• Demonstrated track record, preferably within the B2C space, of understanding and driving the company’s direct marketing operations and strategy, and developing a best-in-class team that is results-oriented and customer-focused.
• Strong understanding of financial documents and budgeting.
• Experience developing and using metrics.
• Bachelor’s degree required; M.B.A. preferred.

Interested candidates should send a resume and cover letter to Scott Lubeck (slubeck@bertdavis.com) or Craig Miller (cmiller@bertdavis.com).

Scott Lubeck

Executive Vice President / President, Executive Consulting Services

slubeck@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Act as the visionary of the company’s future product suite. Define product vision, strategy, and roadmap.
• Present new product ideas to the leadership team with clearly defined value proposition, market validation, and ROI assessment.
• Build out current product suite.
• Develop and maintain the pricing strategy of products and services.
• Track competitive marketplace and industry trends.
• Conduct market research to understand customer needs, create vision documents for products, and develop prototypes and wireframes to clearly communicate product requirements.
• Ensure on-time and on-budget product releases.
• Work with senior management to define product, technology, sales, and marketing strategies and priorities.

Qualifications:

• Extended experience in product management including at least five years in a leadership role.
• Demonstrated success in defining and launching successful software products.
• Experience with pricing software subscriptions.
• Budget management experience.
• Experience as an active participant in the development of corporate strategy.
• Strong commitment to customer-centric product development and customer-centric selling.
• Bachelor’s degree; MBA a plus.
• Stellar analytical and communication skills.
• Must be comfortable and effective in a team-driven environment.
• Must thrive on ambiguity and managing complexity.
• Must be flexible and hands-on, with a roll-up-the-sleeves, do-whatever-it-takes approach.

David Kornacker

Senior Vice President

dkornacker@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Develop and deliver a compelling marketing strategy to support organic growth initiatives and leverage each market’s/channel’s products and capabilities.
• Responsible for building and delivering an integrated value proposition and solution to drive and support key strategies.
• Support and lead the company’s brand strategy transformation.
• Responsible for linking market intelligence, customer needs, and competitive analysis to support and deliver upon company strategies.
• Responsible for the recruiting, hiring, training, retention, and development of marketing leaders and associates within the group.

Requirements:

• Fifteen years of increasingly responsible business experience including several years in a leadership position responsible for the marketing function.
• Direct experience in leading marketing teams in the educational space and/or organizations with business-to-business experience.
• Multi-channel marketing background with solid experience bringing products to market through direct selling, direct/database marketing, and e-commerce.
• An undergraduate degree in business is required; advanced education and/or an MBA is desired.
• Experience in LEAN, Six Sigma, or other continuous improvement programs is a plus.
• Some travel required.

Mary B. Gallatin

Vice President

mgallatin@bertdavis.com

Kathy Berlowe

Executive Vice President

kberlowe@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Define and own the strategy and roadmap for the segment.
• Gather industry knowledge and competitive intelligence to support segment.
• Drive the creation of innovative and compelling product offerings for the segment.
• Manage the integration of companies, technologies, and/or assets acquired.
• Contribute to the development and execution of segment sales and marketing strategies.
• Manage and control departmental expenditures within agreed budgets.
• Manage and develop a team of professionals.
• Participate in organizational activities to meet or exceed company objectives.
• Represent the company within the industry.

Qualifications:

• Track record of success developing and bringing to market innovative digital workflow solutions for professional customers.
• Experience functioning as an agent of change in a technology-driven information company.
• Experience recruiting, developing, and leading successful professional staff.
• Ability to work effectively with matrix-managed as well as directly managed resources.
• Prior experience managing a P&L is a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree in a business-related discipline or equivalent work experience; MBA preferred.
• Ability to proactively pursue professional development activities (e.g., attending seminars, reviewing professional publications, and establishing personal networks).
• Ability to manage time and company resources appropriately.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally approximately 30% of work time.

David Kornacker

Senior Vice President

dkornacker@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Determine the content and presentation of information in databases and publications. Direct the acquisition of content for bibliographic and hybrid databases. Set standards, approve new subject areas, participate in evaluations, and approve selections of content.
• Evaluate research on user behavior in the use of association products to set new directions for content acquisition and development of features and services.
• Recommend new products or changes in how products are presented to the marketplace.
• Direct the development of services derived from the rich data found in database fields such as grants/sponsorship, affiliations, and cited references.
• Guide the development of standards for areas such as entry and maintenance of publisher and materials records.
• Negotiate contracts to provide services and products for the database.
• Lead staff in continuous process improvement.
• Manage a variety of research projects to inform strategy, product development, and delivery of products and services.
• Set direction for large-scale outsourcing of most production projects such as creating basic records for the databases.
• Advocate for bibliographic databases in the library market and scholarly community.
• Work closely with IT; keep abreast of new technologies.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree; Master’s or Ph.D. preferred.
• Ten-plus years of experience managing large database projects with emphasis on content development, technology, human resource management, project planning, and project implementation.
• Knowledge of all facets of publishing, particularly secondary databases and electronic dissemination; skills related to information science (libraries, abstracting, indexing, etc.).
• Understanding of Web environment and electronic commerce.
• Understanding of membership organizations including culture and governance.
• Strong communications skills (verbal, written, listening).
• Leadership abilities and good skills in management of human resources.
• Skills in preparing and administering large budgets.
• Demonstrated negotiating skills.
• Strong analytical skills that include directing market research and competitive intelligence.
• Ability to envision the broad landscape and plan for the future yet still track important details.
• Must be collaborative, collegial, flexible, and self-motivated.
• Ability to advocate for positions that run counter to popular opinion without rancor.
• Experience in leading industry groups.

Jeanne Bertelle

Vice President

jbertelle@bertdavis.com

Linda Rascher

Senior Vice President

lrascher@bertdavis.com

Responsibilities:

• Oversee and provide strategic direction for a  Sales & Marketing team responsible for positioning and selling a portfolio of products including journals, a digital archive, and conference proceedings.
• Manage the day-to-day activities of the Sales & Marketing team, with emphasis on analytics, derivative product development, and the expansion of international sales infrastructure.
• Grow institutional and open access revenues and meet or exceed the annual revenue budget and expenses.
• Expand the marketing program to include additional usage-based campaigns, increased and more targeted services, and market research to better understand constituents.
• Advise publishing staff on publication marketing trends and challenges. Work with senior management to develop and implement the organization’s strategic initiatives.
• Work with senior management to identify and exploit new business opportunities in publications product areas, including those in rapidly growing international markets.
• Responsible for achieving annual budgeted revenue targets and for revenue growth in keeping with strategic plan targets.

Qualifications:

• Four-year college degree; 5-10 years’ experience in senior-level association or commercial publishing management.
• A minimum of 10 years’ expertise overseeing all aspects of sales and/or marketing for a scientific publisher.
• Demonstrated success in growing institutional revenue, innovative product development, and international business development; experience in business development involving Asian partners a significant plus.
• Experience in, or in-depth understanding of, volunteer management preferred.
• Outstanding leadership, budget/analytical, and management skills and the ability to take on increased responsibility over time.
• Ability to establish working relationships with a wide range of constituencies.
• Ability to effectively work with and productively engage with scientific and engineering members (volunteer management).
• Excellent oral and written communication skills; the ability to successfully represent the society to diverse groups and to develop high-quality presentation materials.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and lead strategic initiatives.
• Strong focus on staff development and team-building; excellent skills as a coach and mentor.

Linda Rascher

Senior Vice President

lrascher@bertdavis.com

Most conferences that cater to the traditional book industry today focus on the
disruption created by the eBook. The eBook – even in its enhanced versions – is
a facsimile of the printed book. Although the digital format is challenging the
business, eBooks aren’t breaking any new ground or rules of the game. If you
want to understand how rapid the world of content consumption, including
reading, is really changing you need to be at SxSW. New forms of narrative
creation like transmedia are responding to radical changes in narrative consumption
that are not fads. According to the conference organizers, 72% of Interactive
attendees are under 40 years old. These are folks who live and breathe content
outside of its traditional packaging.

And, of course, all of this is changing the nature of leadership, management, and
hiring and retaining the talented people that make this happen. This year there
was a campus dedicated to talent management in all of its aspects and many
excellent discussions that I will report on here.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” –Lao Tzu

There are a host of clichés about leadership: “leaders are born not made,” “the mantle of leadership,” “leadership is doing right when no one is watching,” “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things,” and so on.   The fact is that leadership is an ambiguous concept.  There is no recipe for creating a great leader, and while leadership is written about extensively, it is nearly impossible to teach.  It is not a vocation or a skill and no MBA confers leadership on the graduate.   This is because leadership is a quality of being that resists measurement and defies quantification. But, in its absence strategies fail, customers are disgruntled, and stock prices plummet.   The best way to understand and assess a leader is by the impact the leader makes on the entire business ecosystem: the executive team, managers, employees, customers, consumers, and the world at large.

The ROI on leadership is what I intend to follow here by illustrating that impact, whether for good or bad.  The intent is to illustrate and trace the qualities that make leaders effective or disastrous to the organizations that depend upon them.  My focus is on content-centric businesses as they navigate the epic transformation underway, but the lessons can and will be drawn from all businesses worldwide.

Michael Hiltzik’s, in the LA Times, eloquently describes Kodak’s approaching demise in a way that aptly illustrates my purpose. I could easily substitute any number of content-centric companies and organizations that are now at an identical inflection point.

“It’s not uncommon for great companies to be humbled by what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called the forces of “creative destruction. Technology, especially digital technology, has been the most potent whirlwind sweeping away old markets and old strategies for many decades. Changing economics and global competition have reduced behemoths of the past, such as General Motors, into mice of the present.

Then came digital. Far from scorning the new technology, Kodak ramped up research and development to nearly 10% of sales in the mid-1980s and integrated digital features into its product lines, including video systems, scanners and photo enhancement software.

But its executives couldn’t foresee a future in which film had no role in image capture at all, nor come to grips with the lower profit margins or faster competitive pace of high-tech industries. At one meeting with Microsoft’s Bill Gates to discuss integrating Kodak’s photo CDs with Windows, Kodak Chairman Kay Whitmore fell asleep.”

But building the A Team is not usually a straightforward proposition. Managing change is managing complexity:  there is a business that generates revenue and value to current customers, and then there are the new opportunities and new customer demands that must be rapidly met. Building the A Team in a time of transformation is rebuilding the plane while flying it. There are risks that must be recognized and managed well.

There are no simple recipes for building the A Team. Every A Team member must be strategically defined and, thus, must be related to a clearly articulated strategic plan tied to specific business objectives.  In the absence of this, a major risk emerges: opportunistic hiring. Obviously, changes in a business environment create pain and a heightened sense of need. But, without a clear strategic direction, the tendency is to “throw bodies” at the problem. There is a very high cost to this approach: loss of financial resources and loss of agility and momentum, which result in a loss of competitive advantage.

Here I intend to track the requirements and challenges in building A Teams for content and information-centric businesses.  Where technology is strategic, what are the core competencies and what should be outsourced? Where data and analytics are the driving force in both customer engagement and channel management, what do leaders need to know and do to drive profitable growth? Where content is king, who and how do you lead the development of a robust content architecture?  If online is the primary channel for engaging the customer, what makes your product and service discoverable and valuable? And, of course, this is just the beginning.

In the content-centric businesses of publishing, media, and information, the requirements for talent to navigate digital content creation and distribution are changing and evolving faster than ever before.  Consumers of content—from the general consumer to professionals and educators—are demanding content to be served wherever, whenever they want, and in the format of their choosing.  Yet, few companies in these industries are prepared to meet these demands.

Penguin’s CEO John Makinson recently told a Reuter’s sponsored media conference, “It is tougher to predict how we will be 12 months from now, as an industry, than pretty much at any time that I can remember” and that “structural changes in the industry that were largely outside the control of publishers made it very hard to predict next year’s performance.”

I plan to follow these developments closely with a specific emphasis on identifying the kinds of strategic leadership that provide businesses with greater control over their environments, especially with regard to the predictability that comes from analytics and the value that is created from greater proximity to the consumers of their content.  This will include profiles of the new CEO, illustrations of the strategic importance of the CTO, the new leadership roles required in marketing and sales in the world of social media, and the rapidly emerging role of analytics in understanding and harnessing the incredible velocity and volatility of markets today and well into the future.

The rise of web-based businesses almost 15 years ago illustrate that in times of transformation, talent is the only effective weapon.  During the dot.com boom at the turn of the last century, there were heated battles for acquiring the new talents required to build the innovative platforms, products and services that were becoming the backbone of the Internet.

I was involved in a number of startups when the hiring of web designers, web developers, database administrators, developers, and network administrators (to name just a few) took place at record speed, truly living into the maxim: he who hesitates is lost.  But it wasn’t just technical expertise that was needed.  Managing and scaling new businesses that run entirely on the Web also required the vision, leadership and management experience that comes from seasoning in the field: experiences with both success and failure.  My role was, in fact, to help these businesses fill this gap.

When the dotcom bust came, many said that the war for talent was over, but the Internet bubble of the late 90s was, in retrospect, a mere skirmish.  We are in a time of continuous business transformation where the “steady state” of business as usual is hard to imagine.

Michael Moe, Co-Founder, GSV Asset Management and GSV Advisors, spoke about the transformation in education and educational technology on November 29 at SIIA’s Ed Tech Business Forum and concluded that “the number 1, 2 and 3 challenge are talent, talent, and talent.”

People are central to your strategy. Or, as was posted on the smallbusiness blog several years ago:  If the answer is, “It’s People, Stupid,” what’s the question?   The question is: What is the one most important Critical Success Factor for an organization to achieve success?