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Bay Area leaders take top honors in Entrepreneur of the Year™ awards

Three Bay Area business leaders took home top national honors in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Awards program.

The national overall winner is Hamid Moghadam, CEO of Prologis; Tom Bedecarré, CEO of AKQA, was named top entrepreneur in the Media, Entertainment and Communications category, and Nicholas Woodman, CEO of GoPro, won in the Retail and Consumer Products category. EY announced the 11 national honorees Nov. 16 in Palm Springs; the list of winners is here.

These winners were chosen from a group of more than 250 outstanding entrepreneurs from across the country. It was a very strong showing for Northern California—direct evidence that the region continues to be an innovation engine that produces new companies, technologies and ideas.

All nominees, as in all the years that I have been involved with this program, are diverse. The companies these entrepreneurs lead are a mix of public, private, family-owned, nonprofit and women-owned businesses.

Many candidates are serial entrepreneurs and have made fortunes; even though many of them don’t have to work, they wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. What drives them and makes them so successful? Among the traits I’ve seen, a strong work ethic and family are most meaningful to these CEOs.

Some of the other common traits of these high-impact performers include:

  • They address business problems by being flexible and focusing on core strategies.
  • They recognize the value and strength of honest communication and transparency.
  • They have vision—and they stay focused on that vision.
  • All share a sense of action. As one said, “You can’t just talk your way out of situations, you need to take actions. That is what employees and customers are expecting.”
  • They take risks. Part of being a risk taker is having a strong belief in yourself, your ideas and the people you work with. This was evident with everyone. It’s easy to look back and say you took a risk and it worked, but what separates these folks from most is that they did take the risk.
  • They know how to attract and retain talent. This was a universal trait; it’s a key indicator of success for any business.

Much is said about the ripple effect of the work and efforts of these job creators, and I believe the world is watching them and the organizations they build. We do this not out of envy, but because they are the role models for what it takes to be successful in the 21st century.

They bring the best ideas to market, build the strongest teams and deliver the best products and services, and their companies energize the economy and promote stability and long-term growth. Recognizing these achievements is a key reason RoseRyan is proud to be a sponsor of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ program, which is in its 27th year.

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Headlines from the ‘IPO Bound’ seminar

Taking your company public is a heady thought. But as soon you climb off Cloud 9, you realize there’s a lot to contemplate—including people, process and technology—as you start down that road. Three Silicon Valley experts recently shared their insights on making IPO dreams a reality at a popular RoseRyan-sponsored seminar, IPO Bound? New Strategies, New Ideas and Tips for Success.

Kelley Wall of RoseRyan, Matt Taggart of Ernst & Young, and Dan Winnike of Fenwick & West aimed their advice at high-tech, life sciences and cleantech companies that are beginning to plan for IPOs. Here are the headlines:

Your journey to a successful IPO requires planning for three phases: the one to two years prior to your big event, the actual IPO process and post-IPO operations. Each phase presents legal, audit and accounting issues and requirements. Anticipating the issues and staying up to date on the requirements can minimize risk and accelerate execution of your IPO.

Among other things, you may be wondering how you’re going to accommodate IPO planning on top of managing and growing your company. And how can you recruit a board of directors that will help take your post-IPO enterprise where you want it to go? Good questions!

For the answers, and more insights on preparing for the big event, check out the seminar presentation slides.

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Entrepreneurs: success comes with teamwork and taking risks

Congratulations to the 2012 Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year® Award winners!

The nine honorees were announced Saturday in San Francisco, and I was fortunate to join some of my RoseRyan colleagues at the awards gala at the Fairmont. The Ernst & Young program, now in its 26th year, celebrates the belief that “a community of entrepreneurs is a powerful force that can transform economies, address large, complex problems, drive innovation and improve our communities.”

The winners’ companies are diverse, from those that seem like they’ve been with us forever, such as Wyse Technology (founded in 1981) and Sleep Train (founded in 1985), to relatively young companies like GoPro, which brings us the GoPro camera.

While they all differ, over the years that RoseRyan has been involved with this program I’ve noticed that these people of vision share elements critical to their success. Some years the focus is on finding disruptive technologies; others, company culture takes the stage as the essential element of success. Here are a few themes from this year:

Embrace risk. Believe in yourself enough to take a risk. If you aren’t failing, you aren’t stretching enough or challenging yourself to take a big enough risk.

Be driven to make things better. When you walk into a room, look around and ask how you can make things better. Focus on things that are really inefficient.

Teamwork leads to success. Many CEOs said they are part of a team and the dedication, hard work, energy and passion of their employees was key to making the company successful. And a number of the CEOs spoke about the strong support from their family that enables them to take the risks, put in the hours and devote their talents to their business.

During the celebration, it was said that that an entrepreneur is someone who asks a simple question and changes the world. Entrepreneurs are visionaries, innovators and leaders. They are imbued with inspiration, imagination and vision.

RoseRyan has been a proud sponsor of this program for a number of years, and it is a privilege to be able to participate in nominating, selecting and celebrating these entrepreneurs. We share their spirit.

The 2012 Northern California winners are Geoffrey Barker, RPX; Tom Bedecarre, AKQA; Lawrence Blatt, Alios BioPharma; Dale Carlsen, Sleep Train; Lisa Im, Performant Financial; Tarkan Maner, Wyse Technology; Matthew Monahan and Brian Monahan, Inflection; and Nicholas Woodman, GoPro. The national winner will be announced in November.

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Seminar gets real about XBRL

RoseRyan, along with Ernst & Young and Morrison & Foerster, is presenting a free breakfast seminar, “XBRL: It’s Time to Get Real,” on May 2 in Palo Alto.

We all know that XBRL implementation can be tough—especially if you’re not crystal clear on the process, don’t know what’s possible and aren’t sure where the pitfalls are. Of course you want best practices, but who can say what they are when the rules keep changing? On top of that, maybe your limited liability is expiring—and what exactly does that mean? Perhaps most of all, what does the SEC really want?

“XBRL: It’s Time to Get Real” will give you the answers from people who’ve been toiling in the XBRL trenches and have done the sweating for you. These experts will provide concise, practical advice on key accounting, legal and audit do’s and don’ts, illustrated with plenty of real-world examples. The presenters are:

Lucy Lee, XBRL practice chief, RoseRyan: Lucy is the chief architect of RoseRyan’s XBRL practice, an elected member of the XBRL US 2012 Domain Steering Committee and a voting member of the XBRL Global Ledger Working Group of XBRL International.

David M. Lynn, partner, Morrison & Foerster: David, a leading authority on SEC matters, is co-chair of his firm’s global public companies practice and former chief counsel of the division of corporation finance at the SEC.

Natalie Zimmer, senior audit manager, Ernst & Young: Natalie, a recognized XBRL expert, advises on XBRL implementation and has presented on the subject in multiple forums.

The seminar will be held 7:30–9:30 a.m. at the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto. Attendees receive 1 CPE credit. Get details and register here.

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Entrepreneur insights: be open, take risks, encourage questions

My colleagues and I have just finished over a dozen interviews of Bay Area CEOs who were regional semifinalists in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award program. It was an amazing opportunity, and I want to share some of their insights on managing businesses, leading teams, what motivates them and how they overcome obstacles.

But first, congratulations to the 58 semifinalists—and 30 finalists, who were announced yesterday. There was a record of 166 Northern California nominees this year. The regional winners will be announced at an awards gala June 25 at the Fairmont in San Jose. RoseRyan is proud to be a sponsor of the program, which is in its 25th year.

  • Many candidates are serial entrepreneurs and have made fortunes; however, even though many of them don’t have to work, they wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. The most dominant theme: a strong work ethic and family are most meaningful to these CEOs.
  • One CEO shared three lessons on building successful companies: Figure out how to address the business problem, keep a synergy with your core business when you expand the tool set, and recognize that strategy that works in one area doesn’t necessarily work in another.
  • All these people share a sense of action. As one said, “You can’t just talk your way out of situations, you need to take actions. That is what employees and customers are expecting.”
  • I asked one candidate how he’s gone from being a technologist to running a company that is looking at an IPO. He said, “You need to be coachable by the top talent you bring in to run the functional departments.” True insight from a leader.
  • Several CEOs believed that honest communication and total transparency kept their employees with them during “dark hours.” “If your employees know who you are, where you are going, and who you are not or where you won’t go, it helps them make the best decision,” noted one. “If you have a 25-year-old programmer working at  2 a.m. [and] he/she doesn’t know what the company is all about or know exactly where we are going, they may make the wrong judgment.”
  • Some CEOs said that they like it when an employee questions a direction, because they know it means others are wondering the same thing. This was a good demonstration of leadership: A CEO doesn’t always have to be right, but they do want open discussion with their employees.
  • They all have vision—they are looking three or more years down the road.
  • They all take risks. Part of being a risk taker is a strong belief in yourself, your ideas and the people close to you in the effort. This was evident with every individual. It’s easy to look back and say you took a risk and it worked, but I think what separates these folks from most is that they did take the risk.
  • Here’s one for us finance pros. We asked the CEO of a company that recently went public what it’s like being public. He said (and I quote), “Being a public company is easier than being a private company because of corporate governance.” He said he wasn’t talking about SOX (leave that to the CFO) but about goals. Multiple investors with restricted stock have varying priorities; once public, their shares are converted to common stock and they are all on the same page about what the company needs to do.

Finally, what makes an entrepreneur or visionary? Lots of things. But one said it was because he has a “gift of talking with financiers and can translate the tech stuff into commercial talk.”

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