Partnerships between two firms are often difficult to manage and often fail to bring results. This essay digs into one of the more extreme partnerships and how it was made to work with Igor Gonda, CEO of Aradigm Corporation (OTCBB:ARDM), a life sciences firm.
Richard Bravman, CEO of Intelleflex, helped build his last company from a four person team to a 1.7 billion dollar firm. The trick: He works to build companies that innovate to create entirely new product categories in which they take commanding market share leadership.
Investors are easy to understand. They don’t care about CEO’s dreams and plans in the broad sense. They just want what they want, and what they want is financial results. These are the questions to ask yourself before you ask for other people’s money.
Bringing in investors is a great way to ease cash constraints. But, as Paul White, CEO of Novazone Inc found, there’s a fine art to soliciting investment while balancing your company’s day-to-day needs and your family relationships.
CEOs must carefully assess the gap between expectations and reality, whether it’s taking a new CEO position or buying a company. Learn from Tom Oliver at CoolSystems who worked his way through a difficult situation he walked into.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).