So Intergrowth is a global leadership advisory firm. We have locations across the Americas, the Europe and the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific region and what we do is we work with our partners to help them with talent and organization issues. That includes executive search, executive coaching, leadership development, organizational design, risk, culture transformation, and strategy. My role is as a senior associate. So what that means is I get to be on the front lines of our client engagements. I get to do consulting work across our practice areas, and make sure that our clients, our partners are getting the best possible solutions to their critical leadership problems. So this client, Logistics and Transportation Corp approached us with a request for proposals, an RFP. And what they asked was for an executive search firm, and that's one of our hats, is an executive search firm, to source and select, or help them in selection of their chief financial officer. So we replied to their request for proposals, we were awarded the search, and after that over a period of a year, we got engaged with them through a bunch of different practice areas. So our first reaction to the problem was that it was a little funky for an organization of this size, a $2 billion enterprise. But there was no succession plan in place for their chief financial officer. Normally for a company this big, that's something that would be thought out. And that would be well aligned so that in the event of an opening an action plan would be in place. So that was the first flag. But after we started to engage with them on this project and a few others, what we found was that there were many deep rooted organizational dynamics issues at play in this company that stem from their history. Some of that history is a really beautiful story. They were founded by two immigrants who came to this country, worked hard in blue collar jobs, maxed out their credit cards, bought a bus, slept in that bus, and then grew an enterprise over 30 years to the size it is today. But a part of that history is also problematic. The founders were never really operationally sophisticated, and so they struggled in moving from old economy thinking to competing in the digital age of transformation enterprises. So now with the emergence of things like Uber and Lyft, we were weary going in and we recognized this after working with them, that there may be some disconnects between how the company is operating and how it ought to operate. I could get into it for a while and I'm sure I will about how this company's organizational dynamics were interesting, problematic, and needed support. But ultimately this was a great client and a great story of how critical thought around leadership and leadership intervention can really benefit organizations. So the industry is one, that as I just mentioned briefly, is going through a lot of change right now. As you can imagine with companies like Uber, and like Lyft, and like Tesla, transportation isn't what it was 30 years ago, or as it had been 100 years ago. And so the context of industry is really important, because going in we knew that an enterprise of this type, that's enormous, but still being run in a very mom and pop style, would have some problems around innovation management. So understanding the industry, understanding the complex landscape they're operating in, and what the road looks like ahead, and what next practices should be, it's really critical to nailing this case.
