The implicit understanding among Alliance members is that, in exchange for their willingness to share their own experience and knowledge, they gain access to the extraordinary collective wisdom of the Alliance community of CEOs. Our members do amazing things and here we've collected some of their lessons learned to preserve and highlight the wealth of knowledge in our membership. Alliance Founder & CEO, Paul Witkay, also shares his perspectives on topics such as leadership, strategy and innovation.
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As we gradually emerge from the global pandemic, applying these COVID-19 leadership lessons to your business can help prepare you for the next new normal.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
Developing a strong business innovation strategy requires attentive observation, creative analysis, and out-of-the box thinking. Alliance Founder & CEO Paul Witkay shares his thoughts on how to get it done.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
Staying resilient is essential when faced with adversity. These COVID-19 leadership resources shared by Alliance Founder & CEO Paul Witkay can help you build that strength.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
By working with so many CEOs within our diverse community, Alliance Founder & CEO Paul Witkay has seen how today’s innovative leaders are already anticipating the upcoming challenges and opportunities next year will surely bring. Here are a few thoughts to help us plan how to take decisive, positive actions in 2021—despite the current unpredictability.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
The world is changing at exponential rates and, as a result, the competition for talent, customers and investors is more intense than ever. Competitors are now global, and new entrants can appear at any time and from any place. So that others may feel they can make a meaningful difference in this dynamic new world, leaders must be able to communicate the opportunity of joining them in their cause. In this article, Alliance Founder & CEO, Paul Witkay, discusses some of the ideas behind Simon Sinek’s latest book, The Infinite Game, and the critical need to cultivate an infinite mindset.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
We are now living in an age in which technology cycles outpace planning cycles. Undergoing an exponential pace of change, we can no longer depend upon creating a plan to be executed. Agility and speed will typically trump a larger competitor’s size or ability to scale. In this article, Alliance Founder & CEO, Paul Witkay, reflects on our current pace of change and the need for leaders to broaden and deepen their access to ideas, information and other leaders.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Leadership Strategy & Planning
The key to creating good strategy is understanding that the world is constantly changing and that markets evolve in both predictable and unpredictable ways. To succeed, leaders must continuously review their current situations, challenge their assumptions and, when appropriate, be willing to change their strategic direction. In this article, Alliance Founder & CEO, Paul Witkay, reflects on his own indoctrination into corporate strategy in the late 1980s while working for Air Liquide America, and notes similarities mentioned by Richard Rumelt in his book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Strategy & Planning
Paul Witkay
The implicit understanding among Alliance members has always been that in exchange for your willingness to share your knowledge and experience, you gain access to the extraordinary collective wisdom of the entire community of CEOs. I believe that during volatile times, it is even more critical to share our experiences, knowledge and ideas with each other. Read my recommendations as to how to best use the unique resources within the Alliance community of CEOs.
Read MoreCase categories include: Founder’s Insights Strategy & Planning
Since March 19, 2020 Alliance leaders have participated in a CEO survey to measure how businesses are experiencing the COVID-19 crisis -- to gauge the depth of impact, the latest business trends and the progress of returning employees to their workplaces. Here, you'll find the most recent Week #92 (December 13, 2021) CEO Survey results.
Read MoreCase categories include: CEO Survey Health Leadership Strategy & Planning
In the spirit of sharing the collective wisdom of our Alliance community during the COVID-19 crisis, we invited leaders from world-class organizations to share their critical considerations for “Return-to-Workplace” (RTW) planning at our Alliance Leadership Forum on April 29, 2020.
Presenters in areas of Health Issues (One Medical), Employee Issues (Lattice Semiconductor), and specific industries including Manufacturing (Flex), Construction (Webcor Builders) and Scientific Laboratories (Triple Ring Technologies) shared their Back-to-Office principles and timelines, employee health, safety and training plans, strategies for risk mitigation and more.
Read MoreCase categories include: Culture Health Human Resources Leadership Operations Strategy & Planning Trends
In a flash survey completed by members of the Alliance of Chief Executives taken on March 19, 2020, just a few days after the USA’s first shelter-in-place order, 75% of the CEOs report negative impacts, while 9% are being positively impacted. Collectively, these Bay Area leaders believe it will be 4.9 months before we return to “normalcy.” The survey was completed by CEOs in the six Bay Area counties who were issued the shelter-in-place order on March 17. The State of California just expanded this order statewide on March 20, and more than likely, other states will follow. CEOs in other regions can look to this data to help make their own plans.
Read MoreCase categories include: CEO Survey Health Leadership Strategy & Planning Trends
As Alliance members John Aisien of Blue Cedar, Linda Hand of Prealize Health, John Kelly of Zenreach, Johnny Loiacono of Movius, Alon Matas of BetterHelp.com, Rick O’Connor of Invicta Medical and Said Ouissal of ZEDEDA can attest, accelerated change has profoundly impacted the challenges they face–including how they manage, who they hire and how they communicate. It also forces business leaders to confront an almost impossible question: How does one lead when everything seems subject to change in today’s digital age?
Read MoreCase categories include: Leadership Strategy & Planning Technology
The Alliance creates private, safe environments where leaders have confidential conversations, exchange strategic insights, and challenge conventional thinking. Something magical often happens when talented leaders with diverse backgrounds and experiences come together. They find ways to collaborate on new strategies, extraordinary ideas and opportunities, and sometimes create entirely new companies. Here, we share a few of the many impactful connections made by our amazing community, with a spotlight on Alliance members Alex Ashton of Image Design Works, Nate Harding of FoxEye Robotics, Joe Heanue of Triple Ring Technologies, Lynn Heublein of SkinSpirit, Cal Lai of Ask.Vet, Phil Murphy of GNU Group, Dave Summa of Business Model Innovations and Dean Zikria of AsthmaTek.
Read MoreCase categories include: Leadership Strategy & Planning
With the increasing speed at which technology is fueling change, running a real-time business can be a huge difference maker. But as Alliance members Chris Beall of ConnectAndSell, Victor Chapela of Suggestic, Yvonne Linney of Transcriptic, Dennis O’Malley of Caliva, Rodney Pearlman of the Bluefield Project and Jack Peurach of Ekso Bionics can attest, theory and practice are two different things. One thing is certain, running a business in real-time can lead to incredible breakthroughs and achievements, but it also comes with a heavy set of challenges.
Read MoreCase categories include: Leadership Operations Sales Strategy & Planning Technology Trends
Alliance members Ian Cohen of Experian Consumer Services, Himanshu Dwivedi of Data Theorem, Ted Elliott of Jobscience, Ju-kay Kwek of Switchboard Software, Ersin Uzun of Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Christy Wyatt of Dtex Systems, discuss the sweeping new Data Privacy and GDPR rules taking effect, and how organizations should reconsider the ‘what, where and why’ behind their data practices.
Read MoreCase categories include: Finance Human Resources International Business Marketing Operations Sales Strategy & Planning Technology Trends
Peter Koshland
New businesses that tap into large and severely under-met needs are destined to grow rapidly. But if the founders starve the company of capital, their conservativism eventually will kill growth. Even more important, it will burn out the founders. It is also avoidable. The story of Koshland Pharm and its Founder, Alliance member Peter Koshland, illustrates this well. In this Forbes article from Alliance Director and Founding Principal of CEO to CEO, Robert Sher, learn how the key to stability and long-term sustainability for growing, profitable businesses is increasing throughput.
Read MoreCase categories include: Executive Development Leadership Operations Strategy & Planning
Alliance leaders know that today’s labor force is experiencing fundamental, permanent change. Alliance members Laura Bergheim of Wordsmithie, Andy Berkenfield of Duncan Channon, Nathan Collins of SRI International, Ross Fernandes of Q Analysts, Glo Gordon of Cisco-Jasper, Kathy Zwickert of NetSuite, and Alliance Director Marion McGovern, share their strategies for growth in the gig economy. This transformation will create critical questions for today’s leaders, and their solutions will be customized for each unique situation. Given the track record of Bay Area innovation, we think it’s not a matter of if the answers will come, but when.
Read MoreCase categories include: Human Resources Leadership Operations Strategy & Planning Trends
Todd Johnson
If trust is the foundation of all strong, positive inter-company relationships, then transparency is the primary path to achieving that trust. This article by Alliance member Todd Johnson, President of Kollective, identifies and describes the essential categories of content that form the foundation for best practices in employee engagement; content that builds trust and positively influences company culture long-term. Keep these ideas in mind as you build and fine-tune your own blueprint for internal communications success.
Read MoreCase categories include: Leadership Operations Strategy & Planning Trends
Alyson Watson
Stories of company sales are riddled with strife. The staff that is asked to weather the transition often experiences wage cuts, department rollbacks and painful non-alignment among competing business units. Alyson Watson, former President of RMC Water and Environment, survived to tell the tale of her company’s acquisition. Better yet, the story is one of harmonious success, a triumph that began with letting go of control.
Read MoreCase categories include: Ethics Leadership M&A Strategy & Planning
In a fast-changing world, Alliance members Joe Budelli of ABBYY USA, Bill Grosso of Scientific Revenue, Arwed Niestroj of Mercedes-Benz R&D North America, Barb Paldus of Finesse Solutions, Glen Shu of Bay View Funding and Antoine Villata of Planisware USA share their strategies for preparing to meet future market needs.
Read MoreCase categories include: Entrepreneurship Leadership Strategy & Planning Trends
The Alliance of Chief Executives is an active community of business leaders that focuses on deep strategic exchanges, challenging existing assumptions and generating fresh ideas.
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