Rubbing Elbows: How Florida’s CEOs Network
Peer networking is essential for Florida CEOs and high net worth investors…. But how?
Many of Florida’s current and former CEOs live busy lives, both professionally and personally. It’s a lifestyle that makes networking with their peers challenging, especially for those seeking to find new investment opportunities for their companies and for themselves.
Geography makes things harder. Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Naples, Jacksonville, and Miami are all relatively close to one another, yet for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and investors, each community represents its own economic zone. Meanwhile, Florida CEOs and high net worth individuals choose to make their homes in small pockets around the state. These individuals tend to stay put, making their business and social circles substantially local. “You tend to know the people in your community while statewide visibility is difficult,” says Jon Cole, a New World Vice President and long time Board Member. “Florida is a vast state in terms of its sheer size”, says Cole. “It is a farther drive from Key West to Pensacola, than from Pensacola to Chicago.”
CEO’s Look for insightFUL people
The most successful business leaders understand that no one can succeed from within an intellectual walled garden. Remaining competitive and successful requires peripheral vision and change. Thus CEOs prioritize building networks of trusted people, whose insight they value. When Florida’s CEOs and investors do have the opportunity to break out of their usual domain, they are selective.
“I look for people in business and technology from whom I can both learn and teach,” says former CEO Ron Tarro, a New World Vice President, Board member, and Investment Committee member. “The idea is that you must continuously capture new insights and new models for doing things, and you must aggregate disparate pieces of data that could give you an edge in some interesting way.”
When you’re a CEO, or any other C-suite executive, there’s an endless parade of colleagues, vendors, consultants and sales people all seeking your time and, in many cases, your money. It’s part of the job, to be sure, but it’s not the only part. “I look for collaborative and learning environments where I learn more than I’m pitched,” says Ron Tarro, . “Like other CEOs, I have been at the center of peoples’ attention for a long time. We develop a sixth sense of who is manipulating and who has fundamental insights.”
Don’t assume, however, that CEOs simply network with other CEOs. Insight emerges from smart people, not from hierarchy and status. “When I look around a room, I’m fine meeting the other CEOs, but I’m really much more interested in meeting a product person with an insight about customers or meeting a technologist with insight about emerging technology,” says Tarro. “CEOs who only hang out with other CEOs are called politicians, not change agents.”
CEO’s Seek people committed to solutions
Contrary to the movies, properly focused business leaders and investors, are not simply driven by money. They understand that money is a byproduct of doing something valuable. Thus they see a bigger picture, by first focusing on a problem or an opportunity to change our world, and then by focusing on the solutions that solve that problem or capture that opportunity. “An entrepreneur who expresses a desire to be rich has misplaced their priorities. Meanwhile, an entrepreneur intent on solving a problem always gets my attention,” notes Ron Tarro.
Commitment to a purpose colors the company many CEOs choose to keep. Guided by their principles, many CEOs look for people who can execute on a vision, and who really care about making the world a better place. It’s even more rewarding when these people have a skill set that complements or broadens one’s own.
CEO’S INVEST COLLABORATIVELY
Florida angel investment groups like New World Angels offer an opportunity for financial gain. But they also allow Florida’s CEOs and high net worth individuals to be a part of true, purpose-based, peer network. We are sharing our backgrounds and experiences in the advancement of people and technologies that can change our world. “If you spend all your time on one thing, then you get very good at the one thing,” says Tarro. “But this narrows your field of view. That’s why it’s so important to build and maintain a network of trusted people, each with a diversity of experiences and abilities beyond your own .”
“One member may be a biotech person; another may be a telecommunications person or a satellite person. Everyone’s run a business in a different space or has knowledge and engineering from a different place,” explains Tarro. “All of that comes together in support of an entrepreneur. We all discuss an investment. We’re sharing knowledge. We’re guiding entrepreneurs, and we are developing trusted relationships with our peers.”
The group transcends the geographic distance between Florida’s movers and shakers. By bringing “angels” together from across the state, each member gains visibility to Florida’s diverse industrial base and to the Floridians creating Florida’s future.
“You take investors and founders all across Florida and unite them in an investment activity. That’s the key,” says Tarro. “Florida’s a big state, so if you really want to serve all of it, you need to unite all of the CEOs and entrepreneurs across the state, not just geographically, but also in terms of expertise, knowledge and background.”