Carsten is the Founder and CEO of COLDPLASMATECH, which pioneers in plasma medicine – focusing on chronic wounds. His healing centered approach to restoring patients is viewed as superior to the actual care-oriented solutions that will disrupt the advanced wound care market.

A Highly Distinguished Rebel

“I’d rather focus on my next goals than celebrating victories” is the short answer of the visionary. As the CEO of COLDPLASMATECH, Carsten received a plethora of awards and merits within the last years. His goal is nothing short of solving two of the biggest problems of modern medicine: chronic wounds and infections with multiresistant bacteria. “Sometimes a system needs rebellious minds to change.” And he is one of them.

Apart from passion and scientific expertise, the principles of the honorable businessman play a major role for Carsten. “We are all part of an economic ecosystem, and I enjoy taking responsibility – for my employees as well as patients,” he explains his patient-centered approach. The company focuses from the beginning of its existence on market and patient needs. In order to leave the scientific ivory tower, he and his team had to master a technology that sounds like science fiction, cold plasma, find out the principles of a market that was built around treating chronic patients, not healing them, understand stakeholders and medical procedures and in the end, find a solution to helping those patients suffering from a non-treatable condition: chronic wounds. And he succeeded. In 2020 his vision became a reality. Science fiction became applicable to science reality. The Plasma-Cube and the Plasma-Patches started revolutionizing wound care.

A Problem Solver, Curious and Innovative, and a Bit Unconventional

Consequently, working in the field of plasma physics and medicine, his co-founder Tobias Güra was not a scientist but a medical economist. “We brought in engineers and scientists after we defined market needs and a target for our development. A rather blasphemic approach in a research institute”, Carsten added. “The only way out of an ivory tower is to look outside.” Subsequently, they added talented people to their team. You have to surround yourself with people who want to make the impossible possible. We are still just a small team – now 12, which is actually a success factor: With this company size, it’s possible to fail sometimes without putting the whole company at risk. And not to forget, we are flexible and can react quickly to opportunities or threats.”

Today, the CPTcube and CPTpatches are approved as class IIb medical devices and have demonstrated their strengths. A threat to the old wound care market – and a transformation towards the wound closure market. “We are now working with great passion, opening up our treatment centers all over Germany and bringing our former vision to patients – and in doing so, perhaps make the world a little bit better,” he concludes.

Impact on the Chronic Wound Market

Today, the chronic wound market—like the diabetes market—is centered around making patients a cash cow and exploiting the situation for monetary benefits. There is more focus on treating the wound rather than healing and eradicating the root cause behind it. Contrary to the market norms, COLDPLASMATECH primarily focuses on solving this problem. “We don’t want people to live better with the wounds. We don’t want people to be treated with those wounds. We want those wounds to heal,” asserts the distinguished CEO. Furthermore, the application of plasma, namely faster, hands-free, optimal treatment, safety, reliability, etc., are some other prominent factors that differentiate COLDPLASMATECH’s product from older handheld plasma devices. This is why the product is viewed as superior not only to the current standard of wound healing but also as a solid basis for the newly emerging field of plasma medicine.

The Technology and the Problem Solved

COLDPLASMATECH uses a cold version of plasma to treat chronic wounds. A wound that has not healed properly even six weeks after appearance is generally considered chronic. Up to five million people a year are affected in Germany alone. It is often the result of diabetes or pressure ulcers in patients with bedsores.

Cold plasma provably inactivates anti-healing germs that are common in hospitals, including those that are multi-resistant to current antibiotics. It also promotes the growth of blood vessels and tissue perfusion and stimulates wound healing. There are now various medical devices that use this technology, but they are either very bulky or can only treat certain wounds.

Apply. Push the Button. Wait 2 Minutes. Done: A Simple Guide

This is different from COLDPLASMATECH. Its offering consists of a handy box called CPTcube and the almost square wound dressing CPTpatch. It is also suitable for the treatment of large, deep wounds. This does not hurt and only takes two minutes per treatment. Positive changes can be detected after just a few days. Dr. Mahrenholz, who founded COLDPLASMATECH in 2015, likes to speak of “Star Trek Technology” because the whole process has a touch of science fiction. This impression is reinforced by the bluish shimmer that the wound dressing spreads during application. “It’s important to make complex phenomena comprehensible. The simplest way to explain our technology is by using Starship Enterprise: There is the dermal regenerator – a manual device that closes wounds with luminous blue rays. In principle, we have developed something just like that. The blue glow is in reality actually purple, and the technology behind it is called cold plasma”, he explains.

“There is another even larger problem in hospitals: multiresistant germs, and we are providing a solution even to this problem.” Bacteria and fungi coming into contact with cold plasma are dying. “Of course, our company has not invented plasma; we just made it applicable – in the form of wound dressings,” Carsten continues. This was an important step this great procedure required in order to help a high number of patients. For the user, the application has to be simple; in the case of the CPTcube, it only requires the push of a button.

The Advanced Wound Care Market

The advanced wound care market is still a rather noninnovative market with huge turnovers for stabilizing products. This is a huge disadvantage for health care systems and costs billions of Euros per year. More effective technologies and innovations are needed and should be fostered. However, centered around patient benefits and not only around economic benefits. “We treat humans and not business cases. Some companies seem to forget that”, the CEO states. There also should be a change in thinking within the market, and innovative technologies such as cold plasma therapy should be made available to all patients with chronic wounds. To Carsten, medicine will change from treating patients to restoring them.

Advice From a “Dreamer” to the Next Generation of Aspiring Business Leaders

“My usual advice to everyone would be to find what you love and start working on it. You will notice that your performance and endurance will increase when you like what you do. A friend once told me I was a dreamer because my goals and visions are often unrealistic to achieve. That bothered me for a while until I understood that I actually was a dreamer. However, as soon as I started dreaming about something, I started to think of ways how to make that dream a reality. I now understand that bridging the gap between visions and the real world is something I am very good at. So, yes, I’m a dreamer, and my advice would be to not be afraid to build bridges to your dreams, instead of seeing dreams as unrealistic ideas.”

The post Carsten Mahrenholz: A Curious, Enthusiastic, and Resilient Leader appeared first on Insights Success.

A data breach or cyber-attack is happening every 40 seconds, most of the attacks are happening through emails. So, Cybersecurity is a must nowadays. Cybersecurity contains defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from the cyber-attack.

Serving and protecting the nation by doing national duty to Co-Founder and CEO of Cympire, Yaniv Shachar, from 2019 he provides security to his clients preventing the cyberattacks. A man with discipline and ethics, took education while serving the nation. As he worked in different organizations at the manager level, he is filled with leadership skills, and the focus is to create a safer world with the help of technology.

Recently, we had conversation with Yaniv Shachar to learn more about the personal journey and how his organization is dealing in the market.

Following is an excerpt of the interview:

Brief our audience about your journey as the CEO of Cympire. 

I started my career in the Israeli navy. I volunteered for the naval combat officers’ course at the age of eighteen (18) and spent the next 18 years as a naval combat officer and commander.

During my service I was able to complete my bachelors’ degree in Economics.

In 2009, I decided to make a change and pursue a business career. I joined a private company – Logic, which was executing mega projects in the homeland security field. I started as Program manager where I led a global group of project teams in large-scale, multi-million-dollar, security projects within the Oil & Gas industry.

In 2013, I was promoted to lead the Project Execution Division where I took responsibility for an extensive portfolio of security programs and projects, globally. My responsibilities included full profit-loss accountability, Projects execution, and both customer and stakeholders’ relationships.

I gained invaluable experience in all the aspects of a senior executive role, and despite this highly challenging and fulfilling time, I completed the Executive MBA program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 2015, I joined Magal Security Systems as part of a management transformation, shortly after the company was acquired by the largest private equity fund in Israel. In addition to leading the Israeli company, my main task was to build and shape seven subsidiaries into the “Integrated Solutions Division” with direct responsibility for the other subsidiaries globally.

Once again, I found myself in a highly rewarding and incredibly challenging environment, culminating successfully when the division was acquired by Aeronautics Group.

After 10 years of senior executive roles in private and public (Nasdaq) companies I decided that I wanted to build something new.

Cyber security relevance increases year over year, and we wanted to build a solution that focuses on developing the human aspect of cyber resilience. We know that the weakest entry point to your organization is through phishing attacks and social engineering. Therefore, your organization invests in state-of-the-art defensive technologies. Unless your response teams know what, they are observing and how they should react, then your investment is not delivering on its potential.

We believe that mission-ready cyber professionals are a critical component towards a safer world. Our mission is to improve cyber professionals’ skills and readiness by providing effective hands-on immersive training in real world conditions – realistic scenarios, using real cyber defensive tools in a safe and challenging environment.

Enlighten us on how Cympire has made an impact in the Cybersecurity training space through its stronghold in the industry? 

We believe in creating a safer world through innovation and education. With that mission in mind, we built the world’s most advanced cyber security training and assessment platform.

Our cloud native platform enables cyber security teams to gain practical and relevant experience that increases their cyber resilience through continuous training and assessment of their cyber skills. The training experience is fully gamified to truly engage the trainees.  Valuable insights are provided for management to easily understand and assess their teams’ skills and readiness level, highlighting, for example, where improvements are needed.  Our “Scenario Builder” allows our customers and partners to create new training scenarios or customize existing scenarios in minutes. It enables you to tailor and/or customize the training to fit your specific organization characteristics. This is a unique capability that helps us grow the business and expand our content offering.

Our platform also comes with a vast library of pre-built simulations. You can easily filter the content by variables such as length of exercise, difficulty, attack vector, and topics (among others). The platform is streamlined to minimize the time and effort needed to prepare or set up the exercises. That is the direction in which we are pushing the industry.

It is very important to mention that the platform is cloud native and completely non-intrusive to your organization. There are no setup costs or infrastructure required and we don’t install anything. All that is needed is a laptop and an internet connection.

Being an experienced leader, share with us your opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies in the cybersecurity sector has transformed the industry and what more could be expected in the near future? 

The cyber landscape is constantly transforming. The defensive tools and technologies are constantly developed and yet cybercrime costs outweigh the cyber technology market by a factor of ten!

That is because threat actors are also ever evolving and improving, but that is honestly one of the things I like about this industry – every day is a new challenge. The development of new and improved defensive technologies takes time, and it can be difficult to keep up with the attackers.

That is why I am a firm believer that the only way to forge an effective defence is through a combination of innovation, education, and a global network of industry professionals to share knowledge. Cloud-based cyber security training is the future. It allows us to deliver training for emerging threats in a fraction of the time it would take to organize an in-person workshop or set up dedicated infrastructure for training scenarios.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how did you drive Cympire to sustain operations while ensuring safety of your employees?

The accelerated digitization changes the way people work and how they interact with content. When we conceived Cympire, we knew that a cloud native solution would be the future of cyber security training

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation, emphasizing just how relevant a cloud-based service is. Our clients were able to seamlessly continue their training without compromising their personal safety.

At Cympire we adapted quickly to operate the company in a hybrid model. Working in cyber security means that we are faced with new challenges every day, so we approached it as another challenge for us to overcome. Of course, there are team tasks that are easier to perform face to face and human interaction within a team is paramount, but safety is our priority.

What is your opinion on inculcating gender egalitarianism within the company culture from a leadership perspective?

Unfortunately, cyber security is still a male-dominated field. We hope that the push to get more women into STEM will also mean an increase of women in cyber security. Progress is slow, but I think the rise of start-ups has helped set a new standard for how workplaces can be.

In recent years, people have become much more conscious of the importance of a good work environment. To that end, it is essential to ensure that nobody is discriminated against and that everyone is given the same respect and opportunities regardless of their gender identity.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the cybersecurity industry and the related market?

I often hear people giving the advice to just keep trying, and while that is true, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. If you try the same thing over and over again, you are not setting yourself up for success. You have to try and fail and try again, but what matters is what you do in between those steps. You have to keep learning and truly become an expert in your field. Even if you are confident in your knowledge and skills, there is usually still a lot to learn. If you ever reach a point where you feel like you’ve learned all that is out there on a particular topic, then that is an opportunity for you to push the boundaries and innovate.

Create your own path and give others more to learn. This approach is a significant time commitment, so you should choose your path carefully and go with something you are genuinely passionate about. That level of dedication and passion isn’t a guarantee for success, but it improves your odds.

How do you plan on scaling Cympire and its offerings in 2022 and beyond? 

Cybercrime is on the rise and Cyber professional teams are understaffed, undertrained, and unprepared. Cympire is committed to continuously improving and delivering the best solution possible to help tackle one of the most important global challenges of our time

There are new cyber threats every day, and our team is continually working on new material for our training platform. We will continue to expand our content library to ensure that our clients are well prepared for current threats – and we keep our R&D engaged in developing easier and faster customization and creation of content. We are also working on solutions based on feedback from our partners and customers. I cannot share the details but there is definitely much to look forward to, so keep an eye on our LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date.

Cympire is creating a safer world through innovation and education. We invite you to join the ride.

The post Yaniv Shachar: Creating Cyberworld Safer through Discipline, Innovation, and Education appeared first on Insights Success.

In the following interview, Netta sheds light on her inspiring journey in the corporate world and the challenges that she faced on the way to becoming the leader that she is today.

Please brief our audience about your journey as the Co-founder of Dipper. 

My journey as Co-founder of Dipper has been a gift. I met my business partner Jacinta Mathis at our former company. We were among the few Black female leaders at the organization and quickly became sisters. She shared her idea about Dipper in a coffee shop, and it gave me chills. The idea of creating a platform that guides professionals to better workplaces and helps companies improve was intriguing. She shared her vision, and I told her I was all in.

My partner, Jacinta, knew pretty well what it was like to be Black in corporate settings. Her late father, Sam Mathis, was promoted to a leadership role in diversity and inclusion at Darden Restaurants, a Fortune 500 company, in the 1990s.

I, however, grew up in a racist affluent neighborhood located in Rhode Island, where our neighbors could not stand the sight of a Black family on that block and looked at us with disgust due to the melanin of our skin. I recall neighbors telling their children not to play with us and pulling them into the house when we got close.

I remember my mom being pulled over in our driveway, and the officer said, “ma’am, are you lost”? My mom said, “no, I just parked, and I’m on my land.” One day, while helping my mother clean the leaves in our front yard, unprovoked, a Caucasian woman walked up to my mother with rage, cursing, spit in my face, and said, “Blacks don’t belong in this neighborhood!” Stunned as a seven-year-old, I vowed to use my voice to protect and empower marginalized people and especially my family from that day forward.

Enlighten us on how Dipper functions and what its goals are.

Dipper, a technology platform aimed at reviewing and rating diversity and inclusivity for employers by people of color, is flipping the script and shifting our workplace cultures for the better. A solutions platform connects all people of color and helps employers and employees navigate diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace.

Dipper guides professionals of color to a better workplace one review at a time, whether good, bad or indifferent. Dipper is a safe community for people to gain real insight into the most inclusive-equitable places that actively break down systemic gaps, offer growth opportunities, and have zero tolerance for micro-aggressions, discrimination, and oppression.

Companies are investing in Diversity and Inclusion, but we don’t see the needle moving.

Dipper is revolutionizing the $8 billion companies spend on Diversity and Inclusion by offering data-driven solutions. We believe that our solutions will scale and disrupt the work culture globally.

Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on how social interaction for working professionals has changed over time and what more could be expected shortly?

We have a golden rule of “do not speak negatively about an employer.” This leads to many systemically overlooked employees not feeling comfortable speaking up about the harm taking place in the workplace. They fear that it will impact their future opportunities. Dipper is safe to have honest conversations, whether positive or negative.

Dipper also qualifies experiences to get an overall sense of how the company feels about diversity. Without Dipper, job seekers would ask different systemically overlooked professionals in their social network or use a social platform like LinkedIn in hopes that someone would tell you something fruitful and be honest about their experiences.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, what initial challenges did you face?

During the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I had a baby girl. Let me tell you, I was so nervous. My husband could not stay with me overnight. I was alone with my baby and paranoid.

I had a cesarean section, and you typically need to keep at least four days+ in the hospital, but I was out of the hospital the day after. I had a one-year-old at home who became ill with the virus. He was admitted to the hospital for a week. Oh, he became sick two days after returning home with my newborn. Let’s just say it was a tough time during the pandemic.

What is your opinion on teaching gender egalitarianism within the company culture from a leadership perspective? 

We should be changing the attitudes of humans to increase equality amongst both in the workplace. At this point, that means that we increase opportunities for women in executive roles. This means that all of us in executive positions should be offering sponsorship to women leaders.

We need to be taking a critical look at our executive teams and ask ourselves, “does our executive team represent our clientele, our workforce, and our society?” If so, then we should be asking, “do we have processes in place to ensure that we continue to value diversity?” If not, then we need to ask, “why would systematically overlooked candidates want to work and stay here?”

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs and professionals? 

Find your tribe, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. You can’t do this work alone. Think about folks you cross paths with and reach out to.

How do you plan on scaling Dipper and its offerings in 2022 and beyond?

Dipper is blossoming, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. We started solely focused on B2C, and our audience requested we have our platform exclusively in their organizations. As a result, we hired a business development leader, Rahdiah Barnes, President of NAMIC organization that now focuses on Dippers B2B advancement.

The post Netta Jenkins: Adding Depth to Diversity and Inclusion with Dipper appeared first on Insights Success.

Marketers are realizing the significance of digital marketing and are plunging into it like never before. This year’s digital marketing trends are expected to bring about a bigger revolution to facilitate better customer reach. Digital Marketing helps companies reach their targeted audience across the globe, with little investments and higher revenue conversion.

However, most digital marketing companies market without a strategy. A marketing strategy gives businesses direction and helps them understand the customer and their position in the market.

Digital Kungfu is one such company that helps businesses carve out marketing strategies and much more.

Digital Kungfu had begun its journey as a content production company while offering services to a variety of clients in different industries. Digital Kungfu began its eventful run with a determined innovative outlook and has never looked back since then.

Today Digital Kungfu has prominent clients of the industry, including Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and other major technology brands. They have generated over $24 million for their customers in over 50 countries and 200 industries.

CEO of Digital Kungfu, Matthew Brown, articulates his vision, the journey of the company, and the impact it has created in the industry. Following are the excerpts of the interview:

Matthew, please give us a brief overview of your journey as the CEO of Digital Kungfu.

Digital Kungfu began life as a content production company with a variety of clients in different industries. Soon, our technical team realized that about 90% of the business’s clientele were technology companies. At first, it was just an observation, but then we started conducting customer feedback interviews and realized that we worked best with technology businesses because we really understood them. We understood their products, the challenges their customers faced, their lead generation challenges, and their markets.

Based on these insights, we took a big risk. Instead of widening our net, we niched down and focused exclusively on technology businesses.

Today, remaining niche, specializing in the technology sector, and working with many of the world’s top technology vendors, distributors and partners has given us unparalleled insight into the value chain challenges that hardware and software businesses face.

Digital Kungfu was the first solution we took to market because it solved the immediate need for sales-qualified pipelines. Without deal flow, technology companies cannot support the businesses they serve. Each new brand we launch solves a different problem, with our proprietary technology forming the foundation of our solutions.

Tell us more about Digital Kungfu, its vision, and how its distinct offerings are impacting the industry and its clients.

I have always been captivated by technology. As a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, I watched first-hand as arcade games shifted into Nintendos, faxes made way for email, and home computers became a reality – not to mention the first Nokias and Motorolas to reach South African shores. In short, I was at the forefront of the first generation who integrated technology into everyday life.

This fascination would only grow as I started my first job at a management consultancy that focused on technology outsourcing. It was the late ‘90s, and I could already see the impact that technology can have on a business. The right tech deployed in the right way has the potential to increase revenue, reduce risk, and reduce expenses. It’s a game-changer.

Today, Digital Kungfu is the premier demand generation and pipeline acceleration partner to technology businesses, a niche I believe is essential if our businesses are going to make a positive impact on the world.

I have always recognized that technology has the power to solve the key challenges that businesses face. Our role is to support their growth into key markets so that they can have the biggest impact possible.

Considering the example of the COVID-19 pandemic, how do you plan to navigate similar situations in the future?

During COVID, Digital Kungfu’s team had grown from ten employees to fifty employees, a steep curve to support the company’s continued growth as new brands are added to the fold.
I have a clear vision of where I want to take the company and grow. The 2024 Vivid Vision that our leadership team is working towards includes Digital Kungfu valued as a USD100-million company by the end of 2024. You cannot accomplish incredible feats as a team if your vision isn’t bold and audacious. It must excite the people who work with you and those that are responsible for bringing that vision to reality.

What efforts did you take during the pandemic to sustain operations and ensure the safety of your team at the same time?

We had made the decision in early 2020 to have fully remote and productive staff. While implementing weekly tasks to ensure the staff and leadership team was mentally fit, I also took time out of my day to call each staff member and check on their well-being.

What is your opinion on the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML in the sales and marketing space?

Through the years, I have realized that the business environment is more unpredictable than it was five years ago and that change is accelerating.

Accelerated change can be disconcerting for some, but we have always embraced the fact that with change comes great opportunities. We love change. The greatest businesses and teams in the world know how to adapt and take advantage of change.

It is a topic I have discussed often on my podcast, The Matt Brown Show, and it centers on whether people have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Fixed mindsets cannot look beyond their challenges. They tend towards a victim mentality and are not able to pivot or adapt.

On the other hand, growth mindsets are very different. They look at the world and ask, what I  need to learn, and how do I need to adapt and change to make the most of my ever-shifting environment?

While many businesses are going out of business or suffering due to COVID-19, Black Swan Technology Holdings and its subsidiaries are making the most of the gaps in the market. By recognizing that the technology landscape will always evolve and that more opportunity comes with change, there is no choice but to take advantage of it.

As an established industry leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the sales and marketing industry?

The key to building a multi-million-dollar business is failing faster, which might sound counterintuitive, but it is the only way to change an industry from the inside out.

Everyone fails. Failure is growth. You need to figure out what does not work before you can perfect what does. One of the advantages that we have always had over our competitors is that Digital Kungfu fails faster. We fail, learn the lesson, adjust our offering and ultimately, find success at a faster rate to stay ahead.

Additionally, we know that anybody can copy the products that Black Swan Technology Holdings takes to the market, but it is far harder – if not impossible – to copy the culture of the company.

You don’t know what you don’t know, which means you are often reaching out into new territory to figure things out, and when that happens, you are very likely to stumble and fall. That’s okay – just make sure you get back up again.

The post Matthew Brown: Enhancing modern Digital Marketing through Strategic Planning appeared first on Insights Success.

Thus, every successful organization requires effective leaders. The lucidity in vision, honesty towards ambitions, and compassion in behaviour are the necessary qualities to become a transformational leader.

One such visionary and dynamic leader is Dr Chad Audi whose leadership style and guidance are the essences to achieve for emerging leaders.

Dr Chad Audi, with over 23 years of executive management experience is the President and CEO of a non-profit firm Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries (DRMM).

DRMM was founded in 1909. It is a leading non-profit organization that confronts homelessness, runs social enterprises, offers skills development and job readiness exercises.

In an exclusive interview, Dr Chad Audi sheds light on the company’s journey, its services, and his vision for the future.

As the President and CEO at DRMM, how has the journey been for you from 1997 until today, and what are the factors that drive you to stay motivated.

The journey has been both challenging and rewarding for me. When I started here as a volunteer in 1997, it was simply because someone had suggested that I lend a helping hand to a nonprofit that was facing some financial challenges.

It was through that person that I first heard of Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries (DRMM). And true to type, I gave it my best, bringing my financial expertise to bear on their challenges. That helped to bring much-needed financial stability to the Christian nonprofit.

Before that time, I knew little about the plight of the homeless, the hungry, and the drug-addicted. All that came to mind were the men and women I had seen at street corners holding signs asking for help. On many occasions, I had given them some money, believing that was all they needed. I never knew truly homeless persons needed more than that.

But while volunteering, I developed a deep interest in the task of helping to bring help to those in dire need – the homeless, hungry, hurting, and hopeless. Seeing my hard work and dedication, the president and CEO, Don DeVos, offered me a job in the Finance department.

Having been on a countdown to the start date of a well-paying private sector job I had secured, I wrestled with the idea of accepting a low-paying job in a non-profit. But looking back now, I am glad I took the non-profit job at DRMM, with the encouragement of my dad who doubled as my mentor. Since then, I have enjoyed helping to put smiles on the faces of less fortunate persons – both young and old – in the Detroit area. You can’t put a price tag on it.

Enlighten us on how DRMM has made an impact on people through its service to the community?

DRMM is in its 113^th year of life-changing faith-based operations in the Detroit area. Since its founding in 1909, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have benefitted from various services aimed at turning their lives around. Many, who for years were homeless on the streets, were rehabilitated and equipped with marketable skills that enabled them to get stable sources of income and live in their own apartment or single-family home.

Many children whose education would have been cut short because of domestic violence, parental loss of income, or substance use disorder were given the opportunity to grow and continue their learning in a safe and stable environment. Homeless Veterans have found hope and help through our dedicated programs.

Countless Detroit kids have made new friends, taken a break from technology, boosting their self-confidence, and developed teamwork skills and resilience at our state-of-the-art camp – Wildwood Ranch in Howell Michigan. Each month, our food bank in Roseville, the Lighthouse Outreach Center, continues to be of great service to over 1000 families facing food insecurity in Macomb County.

And unlike many other nonprofits, the books, clothes, shoes, toys, winter gear, furniture, and other items that generous individuals and organizations donate to us are in turn donated to those in need. We do not sell donated items. In fact, we have difference-making community food and toy distribution outreaches in over a dozen Michigan cities – and we do so in partnership with police departments, mayors, etc.

Being an experienced leader, share with us your opinion on the importance of non-profit organizations working towards public well-being?

The fact is there are many people in our communities who are facing a myriad of tough challenges that governments and businesses are not best equipped to deal with. That’s where nonprofits come in.

They partner with government agencies, businesses, and generous individuals and families to address those tough challenges. For instance, here at DRMM, we have the right know-how and experience to deal with homelessness and substance use disorder and have won so many awards for providing needed solutions.

We are efficient and effective in solving problems that affect people in underserved communities – and we do so at a reduced cost. Besides, we are answerable not only to donor agencies in the public sector and the foundations but also to members of the community who bought into our charitable mission and regularly support us as volunteers and donors. Together, we change many lives for good.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how did you drive your organization to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees?

We heard about the virus before it became public knowledge, and quickly, we began taking the right steps to sustain our operations while protecting our guests and dedicated staff. We bought face masks and hospital-grade disinfectants before many individuals and organizations rushed to get them. And as soon as local, state, and federal authorities announced relevant health protocols, we readily implemented them at our various locations.

Also, in partnership with the Detroit Health Department, regular testing is done at our sites. We also opened overflow and quarantine shelters that have proven very effective in limiting the spread of the virus. While doing all that, we continued updating our partners and donors about our progress, and they have been very supportive.

What is your opinion on inculcating gender egalitarianism within the organizational culture from a leadership perspective?

Women are half the population of the State of Michigan – 50.7 percent to be precise. So, organizations that discriminate against them are denying themselves the skills and good work of 50.7 percent of the population. That means they are shooting themselves in the foot and hurting society.

Here at DRMM, we provide employment opportunities to all qualified and interested persons who believe in our Mission Statement, irrespective of their gender or race. In fact, many staff in supervisory, managerial, and leadership positions are female. Our chief operating officer, vice president for programs, HR director, director of housing, director of community engagement, and director of volunteer services are all female.

I can go on and on. Also, many of our programs in cities like Detroit and Port Huron serve women in need, and we have a strong and well-known policy of not turning away anybody that comes to us for help.

What advice do you have for individuals who aspire to venture into the non-profit public service space?

I will tell them to get a broader understanding of the needs and challenges of their target beneficiaries, create good and mutually benefitting partnerships and alliances, hire people who are dedicated to their mission, and do everything possible to keep their costs low without compromising on the quality of service.

And if they need coaching and mentoring, I will be glad to help as time permits. Over the years, I have had the honor of coaching and mentoring dozens of emerging non-profit leaders who are doing very well in different American cities, including here in Detroit.

How do you plan on scaling DRMM and its services in 2022 and beyond?

We are about to launch our Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in Livonia at a big building given to us by one of our biggest donors. And that’s exciting because the services we will render there meet important needs in the city, and we already have fine support from the city government and remarkable collaboration with important agencies and organizations. Also, we are exploring partnership opportunities with agencies and organizations in a few Michigan cities that have the need for our various services.

The post Dr Chad Audi: An Eminent Leader Serving Humanity appeared first on Insights Success.

An unengaged workforce leads to poor staff retention. Thus, motivating, and engaging employees can help reduce that attrition. It further leads to a better patient experience in clinical trials.

Empowering leaders retain a talented workforce by tapping into their staff’s repertoire of skills, talents, as well as their expectations and demands from the organization. They do it by creating a culture, where the entire focus remains on the people, their engagement, and their overall development by building an exceptional workplace.

Alexandra Gerritsen, the President and COO of Artemis Institute for Clinical Research, has always been extremely focused on employee experience throughout her career and has implemented multiple leadership training programs, and mentorship programs, leading to her earlier company receiving the ‘Best Workplace’ award.

In the following interview, she spoke about the importance of creating a people-oriented organizational culture and how she along with her company is doing it.

Alexandra, please give us a brief overview of your journey as the President and COO of Artemis Institute for Clinical Research.

Before I started at Artemis in 2019, I had never worked in clinical research or medicine/healthcare before. My background is in Operations and Technology, working for e-commerce companies, entertainment, and gaming companies, and starting my career as a technology consultant. In 2019, I won an award for Top Technology Executive in San Diego and was introduced to Vishaal, the CEO and founder of Artemis Institute for Clinical Research, who wanted to grow Artemis in a different way.

We thought my background would be a good fit and I started as the VP of Operations in August 2019. Only six months later the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and we had to alter a lot of our plans. My focus was on building a culture and a team that could stay connected and continues to make sure our patients were safe and healthy when they came to our sites.

In October of 2020, I was promoted to President and COO and proudly had a team of people that were highly engaged during the height of the pandemic. The people have continued to remain a core focus for me at Artemis with a goal of creating the most engaged workforce in clinical research resulting in patients that are raving fans of Artemis.

Tell us more about Artemis Institute, its vision, and the key aspects of its stronghold in the Clinical Research Site space.

Artemis has a core purpose of Prioritizing Patients, Advancing Medicine, and Improving the World. Our vision is to have patients that are raving fans of our people and what we do. We have a robust referral program and make sure our patients are always first. We operate according to five core values which are critical to the success of our trials:

• We put our patients first
• We provide excellent Customer Service
• We work as a Team
• We Do the Right Thing
• We value Continuous Improvement

Our culture, our people, and our commitment to operational excellence as well as a living culture of radical transparency have allowed us to be successful in this space.

Considering the example of the COVID-19 pandemic, how do you plan to navigate through similar situations in the future?

When the pandemic hit, we had to make a tough decision to lay off 25% of our workforce in March 2020, it was the hardest decision in my career. We were open and transparent with each team member about the decision we made, and I cried with them when Vishaal and I traveled to each site to tell each team member in person.

We were able to hire some of those people back in the months after which was one of the best days in my career. We also chose to be open and transparent with the entire company and held weekly Town Halls for an entire year to keep the team informed and updated not only on the status of COVID-19 but the status of our team and our studies.

While we didn’t handle things perfectly, we were transparent and created a culture of over-communication that helped us get through the pandemic and come out stronger. Now we have the largest team in Artemis history, and we still do Town Halls every two weeks to continue that transparency. If we were to ever encounter an issue like a global pandemic again, we would be transparent with our team, get their input, and explain the hard decisions.

What efforts did you take during the pandemic to sustain operations and ensure the safety of your team at the same time?

We appointed Brittany Heath, my Director of Operations, as our COVID-19 officer. She comes with 15 plus years of clinical research experience and was the perfect candidate for the role. She kept up to date with CDC guidelines and local and state guidelines, made sure we had enough PPE, and was proactive in ensuring we were taking all the precautions needed to keep our staff and our patients safe.

Due to her leadership, we were able to conduct some patient visits remotely (we had just implemented a new technology called CRIO that allowed for electronic source documentation that makes us capable of performing de-centralized trials). We could not have gone through the pandemic without Brittany’s leadership.

Additionally, Artemis opted in for the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) even though it was optional for us since we were an essential organization. We did this so our employees had extra time off (10 days paid) if they or a family member fell ill. We did not want our employees to suffer financially on top of all the stress of the pandemic. This was a decision our employees really valued and were able to utilize until September 2021.

What is your opinion on the necessity for Clinical Research Sites to leverage technologies like AI and ML in clinical research, especially when catering to the ever-evolving healthcare needs?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning is something we have implemented on the patient recruitment side to improve our success rate with no shows, randomizations in studies, and completions. In general, technology has come a long way in clinical trials due to the pandemic, but there is still a way to go to allow for de-centralized trials and the ability to see patients remotely wherever possible.

As an established industry leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the clinical research site industry?

The clinical research site industry is changing rapidly over the past 5 years, with more consolidation than ever before. Artemis joined the Headlands Research site network in February 2021, through an acquisition, which has allowed for better relationships with sponsors and greater access to clinical research best practices across the country. For those aspiring to get into this industry, this is a great time to partner with groups like Headlands Research, that are focusing on diversity in trials and acquiring the best sites in the country and beyond.

How do you envision further strengthening Artemis Institute’s stronghold in 2022 and beyond?

For Artemis 2021 was really a rebuilding year, we hired all our Site Directors and filled all management positions within the company, which had been open since 2019. Getting these key leaders in place was a critical step to allowing us to continue to grow in 2022.

Our focus in 2022 is operational excellence at all levels, ironing out our training program and expanding into starting memory clinics at both sites -a new service we will offer at no cost to patients, who are concerned about memory loss. Artemis is expanding into Alzheimer’s trials as well, which we believe is an indication that greatly needs the advancement of medicine.

Beyond 2022, we are planning to open at least two more sites by 2025 in California and expand our reach to other communities that will benefit from participating and having access to clinical trials.

The post Alexandra Gerritsen – An Empowering Leader Creating a Healthy Work Culture appeared first on Insights Success.

An organization may have people with unique talents and capabilities; however, it is the leadership that utilizes individual efforts towards the collective goal since he is the torchbearer for the entire team and contributes to society too.

One such influential and successful business leader is Ahmed Detta, who realized the problems of UK and came up with a solution with its innovative brand Enviroo.

Ahmed Detta is the CEO and the Founder of Enviroo with the purpose to raise recycling rates by shifting the behavioral habits of society when it comes to recycling on the go.

Enviroo is one of the most innovative recycling businesses in the UK for thinking around recycling and offering a solution to post-consumer plastic waste.

In an interview, Ahmed Detta sheds light on the company’s journey, the current industry scenario, and his vision for the company’s future.

Ahmed, please give us a brief overview of your journey as the CEO of Enviroo.

I founded Enviroo because of realizing the huge problem within the UK recycling industry after having done comparative studies in the Middle East and the EU as well as having completed the feasibility of a facility in the Middle East.

The big difference between Europe and the Middle East compared to the UK comes down to habitual recycling.  We have the legislation to recycle but we’re missing the habit to recycle, especially on-the-go recycling which is where the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) comes into play.

Other countries such as Germany have DRS machines across the country so recycling when traveling is easy. In the UK we don’t have that option, so once Enviroo distributes DRS machines across the UK after a while recycling will become an on-the-go daily habit.

The plastic we collect from these machines, along with other plastics from other sources, will then go to our recycling facility. We are building the first net-zero recycling facility next year to recycle PET plastic. We know that this is a material that can be used long term and we plan on focusing on other plastics further down the line.

So, Enviroo is really the solution to the problem that the UK is facing when it comes to recycling plastic now. We’re here to provide the practical recycling element, as well as change consumer behavior and mindset about recycling.

Tell us more about Enviroo, its vision, and the key aspects of its stronghold in the sustainability and technology arenas.

Enviroo’s vision is to create a circular economy for plastic. The legislation is in place by the Government, we have the best tech in the world, we’re going live with our first facility next year and we already have the brand partners who are ready to buy the recycled material. What’s missing is the consumer buy-in to recycle and use DRS machines.

Local authorities across the UK are good at home recycling, it is the on-the-go recycling those needs fixing to enable the UK to become a fully sustainable circular economy regarding plastic. The micro-economy in the Northwest, where our first facility will be built, will be the blueprint for the rest of the UK and internationally over the coming years.

Considering the example of the COVID-19 pandemic, how do you plan to navigate through similar situations in the future?

Ask any business owner what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught them and there is no doubt that the majority will say that it’s helped them become more agile and better at planning for change. It’s also given us all more resilience and taught us that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. So, our vision will always remain the same, but we might have to be agile and make tweaks where needed to overcome certain challenges.

COVID-19 gave many organizations time to take a break, pause and revaluate their business.  However, for us who deal with a material that is serving a primary basic need, to serve food and water, there was minimal disruption. There was less on-the-go litter but once society got back to a semi-kind of normal, that problem came back.

So, a lesson to be learned is that these pandemics or challenges are cyclical, and despite the hysteria, successful companies can step back and analyse the good aspects of a pandemic and bring in their backup plans.

Please elaborate more on Enviroo’s carbon offset program.

Enviroo is currently reviewing the credentials out in the industry now. Ultimately, we want to make sure that we will fully offset and be the first net-zero recycling facility. This will be managed through a combination of independent assessments and ensuring the delivery of the sustainability goals.

What efforts did you take during the pandemic to sustain operations and ensure the safety of your team at the same time?

Whilst our facility is not operational, this was a time when the company focused on looking after the mental wellbeing of staff, ensuring that the team have a good work-life balance. Hybrid working between the office and home has now become the norm and we’ve found that this work culture helps to increase employee wellbeing and efficiency. Keeping the team happy is our top priority.

What is your opinion on the necessity of industries to leverage technologies like AI and ML in developing sustainable products for the economy and managing single-use plastic waste, especially keeping in mind the ever-evolving environment emergency?

We need all the help we can get to tackle the plastic problem. This is a collaborative journey and every person and industry needs to get involved. PET plastic is a material present in everybody’s life. If you use it, you should be responsible for it.

Our tech makes it easier to recycle and no doubt AI has helped with this. We welcome continued innovation within AI to make this process more effective as well as utilizing apps to help monitor and encourage people’s behavior when it comes to recycling. The tech is important but if there is poor implementation, it is useless. So, if AI can help create these habitual behaviors this will be a game-changer.

As an established industry leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the industry?

The recycling industry needs more entrepreneurs, no doubt. It needs people who are passionate about making change and people who are willing to think outside the box. Currently, the UK waste industry is littered with large companies who are fulfilling obligatory service contracts which means that innovation doesn’t exist.

However, newbies to the sector need to be aware of the financial viability of their project and how this can change as they create the team, secure the funding, and take the project. Also, people need to be open-minded to the different help that is out there.

Ultimately, you’re entering an industry with no innovation, and this can be demoralizing, so there’s a need to be strong-willed.

How do you envision further strengthening Enviroo’s stronghold in 2022 and beyond?

We envisage strengthening our stronghold in 2022 by sticking to our commitment to creating a circular economy and not being deterred by pandemics or the hysteria surrounding it. We remain focused on the long goal- Enviroo is a business that will be supporting the life cycle of plastic and remember that plastic will be with us for a very long time.

For 2022 we need to commence construction on our first facility and produce industry first and leading food grade polypropylene. We’re also planning to lobby and up the game for research for DRS. We will be pleased to share our research results with Lancaster University at the end of the year which will give insights into the direction as to where DRS will be successful and how we can implement that ahead of the Government announcements.

Exhibiting Excellence

• Enviroo has won ‘Plastic Recycling Experts of the Year in England – 2022’ from the Global Advisory Experts (GAE) Awards.
• Enviroo Ltd. has been awarded Best Consumer Plastic Waste Recycling Specialists – UK in the 2021 Recycling & Waste Management Awards hosted by BUILD.
• Ahmed Detta has been featured as one of ‘The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to follow in 2021’ by Insights Success Magazine.
• Enviroo has been recognized as the ‘Most Progressive Circular Economy Recycling Firm 2019’ awarded by Build Magazine.
• Enviroo was cited as one of the top disruptive tech companies to watch in 2020 by Industry Wired.

The post Ahmed Detta: An Extraordinary Leader Working for Humanity appeared first on Insights Success.

This niche requires an exceptional skill set to understand the needs and demands of the clients to offer both personalized and diversified services. Public accountants demonstrate this unique skillset depending upon the financial overview of the firms and individuals to execute a variety of tasks that are integrated into a functioning business.

On the other hand, there is an increasing competition in this industry with businesses and individuals striving towards changing how they offer their services and their approach towards clients.

However, trust and uniqueness are the key differentiators with the co-existence of innovative solutions that are going to help business owners in advancing their success. This places the spotlight on Gauvreau & Associates.

Gauvreau & Associates is a public accounting and Tax Law Advisory firm that provides the highest quality of financial reporting and taxation services with a proactive approach to accounting and taxation planning, offering the highest level of client services.

In an exclusive interview, Robert Gauvreau, Founder and Partner sheds light on the company’s journey in public accounting, advisory, and taxation space.

Robert, please brief our audience about your journey as the Founder of Gauvreau & Associates.

When I started my study at ‘University for Business Administration,’ I realized I would be graduating with 2,000 other people who had the same experience and education as me.

Wanting to differentiate myself, I decided that my strengths in accounting and finance, my natural ability in helping others, and my energy for entrepreneurship created a unique opportunity to enter, energize, and make a difference in the finance industry.

When I started working at a global CPA firm, I experienced ‘how traditional the accounting industry was,’ which reinvigorated my desire to create something innovative, contribute more to the success of others, and go for extraordinary.

In 2008, when I started my own practice, I could not have imagined the impact we would have. In combining my accounting experience, my passion for helping business owners, and being an entrepreneur myself, we have had the great pleasure of growing something incredible, to now being an industry leader across North America.

There has certainly been some great moments and some challenging moments throughout my journey, but to now be here with a team of more than fifty professionals is an incredible accomplishment.

Enlighten us on how Gauvreau Accounting Tax Law Advisory has made an impact in the public accounting, advisory, and taxation niches through its stronghold in the industry?

The public accounting industry is a largely well-respected, global industry with lots of large and small competitors that are all slightly differentiated in how they approach their business and the solutions they offer.

Our key differentiator is that we focus on working exclusively with business owners and we continue to innovate solutions that will help advance their future success. For me, our contribution towards change in the accounting industry comes down to two key areas.

The first is our involvement in innovating new creative solutions built on proactivity to help entrepreneurs continue to be successful and build financial wealth for their future. This is a key differentiators versus the other solutions our industry traditionally offers which are more historical based compliance and reporting.

The second is a change in culture and conventions. Traditional public accounting firms all offer the same thing and work inside a perceived box of calculating numbers, trying to figure out how to minimize taxes, or uncovering complex problems that happened in the past.

We pride ourselves on being different in how we approach our culture, our clients, and our innovative solutions. We are invested in growth through innovation, always focused on producing the next best offering for our clients so that they can be a step ahead of their competitors.

Being an experienced leader, share with us your opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies in the finance and accounting sector has transformed the industry and what more could be expected in the future?

Technology is essential, as many technological advancements are focused on creating greater efficiency which enables us to redeploy our resources more effectively into other areas of our business.

From my perspective as innovation and technological advancements continue at a rapid pace, reporting on business finances is going to become a more automated process that is less in demand from the public accounting industry.

Rather the experience, advice and knowledge that public accountants have on how businesses operate and how they can maximize their financial success will be the focus and more widely sought after.

The Finance industry and accounting firms especially have been slow to adopt the technology that makes offering these innovative solutions possible. At Gauvreau, we want to redefine and push the boundaries of the financial industry by asking,

“How can we use our financial expertise to empower entrepreneurs to create something that will make a difference in the world?”

We invest in the implementation of technology to innovate our services to provide the entrepreneurial community with more insights into their business performance, time-saving automation, and to create more accessible programs for business owners who otherwise would not have access to strategic financial advice.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how did you drive your organization to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees?

Our team has seen substantial growth during the pandemic, so much so that we were recognized as one of ‘Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies’ by The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and Financial Times. We knew with the economic shut down our community needed us more than ever.

To ensure the safety of our team and clients we closed our office to visitors and shifted to online meetings. While this shift to virtual came with its own set of challenges it also came with opportunities. We quickly implemented new project management tools that helped us collaborate on projects more effectively and automation that improved turnaround time.

Another critical factor we saw is that entrepreneurs were no longer using location as a deciding factor when selecting a firm. We have seen an influence of clients transitioning to us from across North America as a result.

What is your opinion on inculcating gender egalitarianism within the company culture from a leadership perspective?

Historically, the accounting industry has been predominately male led, although this has begun to shift in recent years. At Gauvreau, we believe that having a diverse team, both in gender and culture, makes us stronger because we collectively learn from each other’s perspectives which fosters greater creativity.

We are proud to have strong female representation at Gauvreau with 56 per cent of the leadership team and 66 per cent are women in our entire team. Additionally, 54 per cent of them are working mothers, which is why we have always made a commitment to our team for work-life balance and flexibility. This has proven even more important during the global pandemic.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the finance and accounting industry and the related markets?

First, do something meaningful to you and surround yourself with collaborative experts that share your values. Keep things exciting, fun, and build something you cannot imagine not being part of.

Second, if you are in the public accounting industry and you are not focused on providing proactive advice then you are missing a great opportunity to be ahead in implementing what the majority of firms will offer in the future.

How do you plan on scaling Gauvreau & Associates and its offerings in 2022 and beyond?

Gauvreau Accounting Tax Law Advisory was established in 2008 as a CPA firm built to help entrepreneurs advance their business through proactive financial services. In addition to traditional accounting firm compliance solutions, we enhanced our offering to encompass the strategic financial advisory services and leadership coaching needed to help entrepreneurs take their business to the next level.

The future of our business is limitless, and our growth trajectory continues to evolve. As we continue to strive to be the (#1) financial expert that entrepreneurs turn to countless opportunities exist to expand into other disciplines to provide the greatest value possible to our clients.

For instance, we recently expanded our suite of business professional services (specialized tax, wealth management, and business financing) to now offer legal services such as corporate restructuring, real estate acquisition, wills, and estates, and more.

We also created an online coaching program, The ‘Ascent Peak Performance Program’ to scale our ability to instil business owners with the knowledge and confidence they need to achieve financial success in business and life.

At our virtual event on January 25-27, The Ascent ‘Million Dollar Year’ Summit, we launched our new Financial Mastery group coaching program, ‘Million Dollar Year.’

This program engages entrepreneurs virtually through on-demand training courses, and weekly group coaching with industry experts.

URL: gauvreaucpa.ca

The post Robert Gauvreau: Revolutionizing the Accounting Industry appeared first on Insights Success.

But as much as we talk about refrigerated transportation, we often forget to talk about one of the aspects of cold-chain logistics that makes it possible: cold storage and refrigerated warehousing.

As demand for the transportation of refrigerated goods increases, so does the demand for value-added services such as repack operations and consolidation. Customers tend to have more stringent requirements for the third-party logistics they are outsourcing to, since retailers and end-users have higher expectations when it comes to palette building and traceability. One company that is fulfilling such diverse demands of its customers is Lowenco.

Lowenco is one of the leading manufacturers of cold storage facilities and has formed a strategy on how to change the expensive, inefficient, and non-environment friendly temperature-controlled storage. It also holds a strong experience with cold storage facilities for high demand markets like the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

In the following interview, Mikael Hoier, the CEO, sheds light on the company’s journey as a leading manufacturer in cold storage facilities.

Mikael, please brief our audience about your journey in the manufacturing/refrigeration industry and as the CEO of Lowenco.

I joined Lowenco back on August 1^st, 2017, as Sales Director/CCO. At that time, Lowenco was a typical entrepreneur-driven upcoming company headed by the founder – with the highest focus on R&D and optimizing the existing product and the developing of new products.

One project at the time – nice and easy – all employees focusing on the manufacturing of the units, delivering and on-site installation, and then home again, relaxing and then waiting for the next project to come.

This is far away from how the business is running today. When I joined Lowenco, I made a strategy and started to move the company from the entrepreneur mindset to a much more business professional focused mindset – and from a passive sales approach to a proactive sales approach.

Now by executing and following the strategy closely, focusing on the clients and their needs – focusing on visiting a lot of potential new clients and sowing a lot of seeds out in the market – we have developed from a small one-project at the time company to now running several projects in parallel, expanding the client base dramatical, delivering solutions to new markets abroad Europe and much more.

The role of CCO developed into the CEO role official in 2020 – which of cause have changed my daily work a bit. But my mindset is still business professional driven, with a full focus on the clients. And this mindset is what I am pushing throughout the entire organization.

As CEO of Lowenco, the coming years will be more focused on strategy, expansions, development of the entire organization, and the company in general, to keep growing the company at an even faster speed than we have one until now.

It is crucial to have the feeling of what is happening at the clients and in the market, to keep moving Lowenco in the correct direction with the right products and services.

What kind of services and solutions does Lowenco offer to its clients?

Lowenco A/S is one of the leading manufacturers of cold storage facilities, and we have formed a strategy on how to change the expensive, inefficient, and non-environment friendly temperature-controlled storage. The solution has been developed under the brand names CON20 and LSSU and more cold storage facilities are under development.

At Lowenco, we produce high-end cold storage facilities, refrigerated units, and freezers from well-known quality components in our facilities in Denmark, but we are also able to deliver custom-made freezers and cold storage facilities where GMP guidelines must be applied worldwide.

At Lowenco we have unique product solutions to the pharmaceutical market. A product that is so much more than just a product.

We are not only offering Large Scale ultra-low temperature freezer storage solutions but solutions where the highest quality goes hand in hand with the highest possible safety—safety for the people handling the products going into the very low-temperature storage area of -80C and safety of the products been stored—and a unique low energy consumption per liter of product stored.

In every product we are developing – saving energy is essential – without any reflection on the quality and performance. We want to help, making the world a better place to live. The name Lowenco comes from low energy cooling – and our slogan is – Creating a better world – one unit at a time.

Every time we can replace existing solutions used in the market with our innovative solutions with much lower energy consumption, we are helping to reduce the Co2 footprint – and creating a better world.

For us at Lowenco, most of our manufacturing itself is still handmade by our staff and not by a huge machine park. Of course, we have diversified machines to secure the very high and constant quality e.g., bending of the refrigeration pipes etc.

However, for niche productions like ours, it is not always a great idea to use machines and technologies for everything – and not even everything of ours is possible to do by machines.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how did you drive Lowenco to sustain its operations while ensuring the safety of your employees?

The pandemic has been a challenge – also for us. We have been busier – manufactured, delivered, and installed more units than ever. But with more and more installations around the world – in a world with closed airports, more planes on the ground than in operation, closed routes, travel restrictions, quarantines etc., have we been forced to think more alternatives, been even more foresee and is better to plan more ahead of time then before the pandemic.

During the pandemic, we have been travelling for installation in the US, India, and throughout Europe. This has of course given us some challenging moments.

Moreover, testing has been very important for us, not only when the employees needed to travel, but also for making sure we will not shut down the entire company for days, weeks or months. But testing, quarantines etc., have given challenges in our planning – for sure.

As within many other companies, we have also had employees and their families infected by COVID. Fortunately, the employees have handled it very professional and been extremely flexible, which have helped us to be able to keep up the production and on-site installation jobs throughout the entire pandemic.

What is your opinion on the changing dynamics of organizational leadership after the pandemic?

The pandemic has given some companies a wake-up call in terms of allowing people to work from home, using online meetings etc. At Lowenco we have always had a very liberal politics about working from home or at the office.

With people working at home and hereof at more locations – and not just being around in the office, as a leader you need to adjust your leadership accordantly. For me, this has not been too much of a change, since I used to have salespeople located at other locations. But I can imagine, that for some, it has been a huge change and a challenge.

But in my opinion, this will be the new normal. We as leaders need to be able and capable to lead people from the distance, let people work from home, have more online meetings etc.

By giving the employees more flexibility – you will get so much more in return. Showing and giving the employees flexibility – means for their freedom – which shows that you as leaders trust your employees.

And if your employees cannot handle the freedom, either you as a leader need to develop the employees to become capable of handling it – if they still cannot, they cannot have the flexibility or they are not the right employees.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who want to aspire into the manufacturing/refrigeration industry?

Be yourself – trying to be another is not you! Develop the people around you – they are the key to your success. Give yourself to the company – instead of expecting to have. Give yourself to your employees and do not expect just to have.

By doing so – you will get so much more return than you are giving. You and nobody else can take care of your career and your life in general – take full responsibility for your own personal development – and you will get success in life. And this advice is not industry depended – that is for you as a leader.

How do you plan on scaling Lowenco and its offerings in the future?

My vision is to bring Lowenco to the position of the most recognized and trusted supplier of high-end cold storage facilities for pharmaceuticals and biotech firms around the world.

But not only the best-in-class product, but also keep the position of being the most innovative and ‘green’ solution for the benefit of our clients, the environment, and for the individual – all of them. Creating a better world – one unit at a time.

For me, the plans are clear. I want to continue leading Lowenco through the great developing process already started, to become an even stronger and greater company to being a part of an open and honest environment, where all are important and know they are important to the company, positiveness, and humor – create a great working environment at Lowenco.

The whole Lowenco team and I are closely following the trends in the market and its segment of product solutions.

Our innovative prefabricated modular, scalable, and highly flexible solutions are unique to the market – and with our daily development and focus on optimizing, with more and more installations made – no longer only in Europe, but also in the US, and Asia, we are expanding into new markets and becoming more and more visible in the field.

This has been discovered by more and more clients – and the best marketing everyone is when clients speak positively about you to a new potential client.

And what is great is, more and more of our existing clients buy more and more times, for expansions of the facilities – but also for new sites. We are becoming “the internal worldwide site standard”.

My personal plan and goal as a business leader – is to develop people, getting them to perform and fulfil their individual potential to become a success. Developing the company to growth and success, performing on the highest level, bringing great products and services to the clients – and fulfilling the huge potential of Lowenco.

URL: www.lowenco.com

The post Mikael Hoier: Powering Innovations in the Refrigeration Industry appeared first on Insights Success.

They are the ones who create their own rulebooks of disruptive innovations, and insightful solutions, and they become internationally sought, thought leaders.

Dr. Graham Bright is that kind of a leader who has striven to drive Euro Exim Bank to the peaks of success and excellence.

In the following interview, Dr. Bright sheds light on the current landscape of the industry, his opinion on adoption of modern technologies within the banking space, and his future vision for Euro Exim Bank.

Brief our audience about your journey as the Head of Compliance and Operations at Euro Exim Bank as well as in the finance sector.

Spanning more than 40 years in the finance industry, my experience encompasses working collaboratively with industry utilities, regulators and Central Banks, consulting, and partner/channels management.

I have a BA (Hons.) degree in Business Studies, a Professional Doctorate in Leadership and Management. I am also a serving UK Justice of the Peace, sitting on the Crown Court appeals.

Previously, I had worked at CDC, SWIFT, Financial Tradeware and EMC. In my current role as Head – Compliance and Operations at Euro Exim Bank, I have received numerous industry awards and accolades, with published thought leadership articles in financial technology press.

Further, I am a recognized speaker at trade industry conferences across the globe. I have also won several prestigious industry awards including ‘Most Innovative Executive in Trade Finance – 2020’.

Enlighten us on how Euro Exim Bank has made an impact in the banking space through its stronghold in the industry?

Firstly, we have specialized in our range of services, with particular focus on pure trade instruments such as letters of credit, standbys, performance bonds and guarantees. As an independent, agile organisation, we do not provide loans, deposits, nor do we collateralise or monetise instruments, provide mortgages, or other high street bank facilities.

We have identified a vital market sector, that is international buyers, where we facilitate issuance of instruments to corporates and SME’s looking to import possibly for the first time.

Many of these companies are inexperienced in the mechanics of cross-border trades and face several barriers from traditional financial institutions. Barriers in terms of huge collateral and funding requirements and service pricing. It increases costs per deal, immediately disadvantaging smaller players, who may be put off trading altogether, as their trades become uncompetitive.

There are also issues like onerous customs and paperwork requirements from Brexit, COVID-19 restrictions and requirements for expense collateral, costs for foreign exchange, adherence to complex terms and conditions. Add to that risks of fraud, theft, misrepresentation, and high insurance, and shipping costs.

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that companies seek alternative providers with competitive rates and quick turnaround, to smooth their navigation of international trade channels.

Being an experienced leader, share with us your opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies in the banking sector has transformed the industry and what more could be expected in the near future? 

With new Fintech companies entering the financial arena, banks need to catch up quickly or face disintermediation. The optimum approach is one of cooperation, as banks need to embrace difficult, costly technologies from trusted sources rather than embark on their own developments.

This is especially the case in trade finance, where the process can be very complex. From the beginning EEB has taken a keen interest in maximizing value and efficiency, and has invested in new technologies, to cope with the many fields of critical data including dates, legal jargon, buyers, sellers, banks, ports, importers, insurers, inspectors, and shippers with often complex conditions.

We continue to digitize and automate this process, with rapid online on-boarding of clients and new agents and partners with due diligence, AML and indemnity checking, scanning identity, shipping documents, bills of lading and documents etc. This is achieved by gathering all the documents electronically and with innovative workflow, covering the entire trade lifecycle, supported by the latest OCR, blockchain and AI innovations.

Technology brings benefits, but these innovations are merely enablers to refine standardise, rationalise and re-use systems and data. The personal touch remains the true differentiator.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how did you drive your organization to sustain operations while ensuring safety of your employees?

Digital trade finance providers, such as Euro Exim Bank, are now able to more widely offer digital trade solutions such as electronic LCs, guarantees and digitally driven supply chain financing. Smart contracts, powered by blockchain are helping to automate the enforcement and settlement of cross border transactions.

EEB is one of the first adopters of blockchain to power international trade settlements. Through our newly developed state-of-the-art, multi-currency global trade settlement platform, Exim Wave, with instant access to over 150 global currencies.

Whilst we are in the grips of more variants and ongoing restrictions, trade is still growing. The post-covid environment will see digital trade finance further increase, along with digitalized end-to-end supply chain monitoring. Together, these developments will lubricate and streamline global trade, resulting in, what we believe will be, a new, leaner but more lucrative age of international trade.

Safety of our staff has been and remains a key part of our operating model. Fortunately, we had already implemented remote working, use of electronic media for conference and video calls with many agents and partners, located now in over 100 countries.

Video also allowed us to roll out our comprehensive weekly training and sales updates via Zoom. Again, we gained great efficiency and financial advantage over traditional methods of assembling teams, from across the world for meetings in a single location.

Respecting COVID-19 rules, office-based staff may work from home, supported by our systems and processes, giving secure access and availability as required.

What is your opinion on inculcating gender egalitarianism within the company culture from a leadership perspective?

Trade finance is a complex business area, and despite, as we rapidly grow our company, we recruit on the basis of willingness to learn, experience and above all ability to do the job. This is no better born out than in our St. Lucia head office, where we are proud to mention that of the eight employees there, seven are women, with Board, Director, and senior roles.

Our Rep office in London, has seven staff, of which two are women in senior legal and accounting roles. Similarly, we have excellent gender representation in over 100 countries in a variety of roles including compliance, IT, HR, and sales.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the banking industry and the related market?

The financial space is extremely diverse, covering payments, funds, forex, trade, retail, wholesale, and complex cross-border challenges.

We cannot be right all the time. But we must make all efforts to learn, adapt and apply oneself to lessen the times we are wrong!

My advice would be to seek out the best resources, collaborative staff, and sales agents with experience. Find mentors, analyze the market, share the corporate vision, keep in mind business sustainability, set realistic timely goals. Also, recognize individuals for performance and actions, while promoting staff to management roles where appropriate.

Our philosophy has always been to encourage teamwork, consistent-frequent training and above all provide development opportunities. Not all strategies work, so be flexible and open to change, as world events, pressures, political and geographic challenges are more pressing than ever and demands constant attention and action.

How do you plan on scaling Euro Exim Bank and its offerings in 2022 and beyond?

Scaling the Bank to be ready for post-COVID-19 trade, and the latest dynamics or working through the pandemic, has already started. From 300 agents one year ago covering 20 countries, we are on the cusp of reaching our aggressive growth targets for our agent and partner network to working with over 2000 people, across more than 100 countries. To do this effectively, we are constantly watching markets and cross industry developments, especially with automation of onboarding and trading platforms.

Clients are more demanding and less loyal than ever. With expectations of service driven by social media encompassing immediacy, great user experience and above all, rapid communication. The finance industry is playing catch up in its efforts, to implement new technologies and become more agile through digital transformation, blockchain, asset tokenization, AI, paperless processes, and robotics.

Euro Exim Bank is one of the first adopters of blockchain to power international trade settlements. It is through our newly developed state-of-the-art multi-currency global trade settlement platform, Exim Wave, with instant access to over 150 global currencies.

We believe the Bank is ahead of the game and can take nothing for granted. Fortunately, with a tech-savvy Board, strong IT development and implementation services, we have purposefully invested and worked to embrace technology as a prime business enabler. It helped us in refining our internal processes, improving efficiencies, and ultimately assisting great end user experience.

URL: https://www.euroeximbank.com/

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