Written by Ric Camacho, Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice
Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice
Closing out the 2013 SIIA Information Industry Summit was a rather interesting roundtable on the importance of the CEO to change and innovation in enterprise. David Reimer, CEO at Merryck & Co. moderated with the participation of Nina Link, former CEO at both the Children’s Television Workshop and the Magazine Publishers Association as well as Merrill Brown, Director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University.
Although billed as a discussion around the critical role of the CEO, much of the discussion centered around the challenges of large “legacy” companies acquiring and integrating innovative smaller companies. Both participants emphasized the challenge of corporate culture and how big legacy companies repeatedly stifle the sought after innovation – one of the principle reasons for an acquisition – as they often subsume the acquired company within a company where innovation is alien and change isn’t necessarily the overarching mode of operations. Link emphasized that importance of running parallel operational tracks – in essence leaving the acquired company alone – so that innovative practices can be absorbed by the larger entity – admittedly a tall order.
Brown indicated that significant and systemic changes often need to and should be adopted by the legacy company and in particular, these companies often need to adopt the perspectives and working culture of the smaller entity around things such as product strategy and development and the myriad of marketing and other activities that surround that endeavor.
Both Link and Brown thought the CEO had to be at the heart of these changes and foster an atmosphere of change within the organization while also pushing the agenda at the board level. Interestingly, Link thought it was hugely important to co-opt outside industry leadership in support of an CEO – led innovation initiative at the board level to give those efforts gravitas and integrity and to help navigate around potential resistance.
One of the trickier issues was raised by Brown. He indicated that one of the significant challenges in legacy organizations is the empowerment of change agents, particularly in companies where generational shifts in expertise and digital competence were at the core of the necessary change. Oftentimes, he said, a company’s first reaction to revenue pressures is to downsize and let go new, young talent with little seniority – talent which generally holds the keys to overall change, new thinking and innovation. Companies need to rethink their efforts in this regard and CEOs need to spearhead the management of this change.
One important shift in corporate governance that Merrill brown has seen in recent years is a greater willingness of corporate boards to provide better executive incentives to support innovation and move away from the quarter-by-quarter goals that often militate against risk-taking and innovation. Only time will tell whether this shift truly takes hold and provides a significant boost and support to C-suite behavior in that direction.
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Ric has held senior product and management positions at a number of start-ups as well as at Reuters Media and Dow Jones. Most recently he was GM at Vitals, a NYC area-based Health 2.0 start-up, and headed up its B2B segment that delivered tools, technology and digital marketing services to the health provider market. Currently Ric is working on strategy and business development work for MyCollegePrice, an education innovator providing analysis and forecasting tools for the college advisory market.
