Entrepreneurial Encore

A year and a half ago, I was at lunch with two people I have immense respect for – past guest lecturers in the class I teach on leadership at the University of Colorado Denver.  We were sharing stories of the challenges we faced as leaders in an assortment of roles, when the senior member at the table said, “We have a tremendous amount of insight and experience to offer towards the development of future leaders.  The heck with being best in the world, let’s figure out a way to leverage our strengths and talents to be best for the world.”  His statement was the catalyst that created the J3 Leadership Group, LLC where we now help build extraordinary organizations… one leader, one team at a time.  Our primary tenet is to help senior leaders align heroic aspirations across their organization to accelerate change and drive growth by building on core strengths to create unity of purpose and alignment.  We do not offer paint-by-numbers solutions, but require leaders to take on the dual role of student and teacher

At a time when many boomers are seeking encores for their careers, we took a hard look at which entrepreneurs were seeing success.  Much to our surprise, a recent Forbes article pointed out that, “Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University researcher worked with the Kauffman Foundation in 2009 to explore the anatomy of a successful startup founder. That survey of more than 500 startups in high-growth industries showed that the average founder of a successful company had launched his or her venture at the surprisingly high age of 40. The study also found that people over 55 are almost twice as likely to launch high-growth startups than those aged 20 to 34.”  I personally believe it depends on the type of the venture; the passion, experience and skills of the founders, and the ability to pair with those that have complementary skills.

To this end, the J3 Leadership Group has created a very unique offering by pairing with a highly successful strategic branding company, and a unique sales and business development practice focused on helping C-level executives connect for fruitful B2B relationships.  *What we know is that driving organic growth while maintaining profitability is a difficult balancing act (and a source of pain in most organizations), so our partnership will combine brand and sales expertise along with an operational leadership approach to create the Sustena Group.  The three disciplines under one umbrella offer a unique approach to help senior leaders align and accelerate three interrelated and essential business functions – brand development, business development and leadership development.

We look forward to sharing what we learn by helping leaders, teams and organizations realize their full potential and deliver the encore performance their stakeholders expect.

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