Family Business Audiocast | Episode 20 | Kyle Chapman | Barry-Wehmiller

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About Our Guest:

Kyle Chapman has served as the president of Barry-Wehmiller Group for the past four years. With two decades of experience in private equity and operations, Kyle has made substantial contributions to the company's success, growth, and global presence. Under his guidance, Barry-Wehmiller has expanded from approximately $20 million in sales to around $3.5 billion, demonstrating impressive growth through both acquisitions and organic development. In 2009, he co-founded BW Forsyth Partners, a hybrid private equity firm that serves as a direct investment entity for Barry-Wehmiller. Kyle is particularly recognized for his people-centered leadership philosophy, which mirrors the values instilled by his father and family, emphasizing the importance of balancing individual care with strong performance.

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[Transcript]

R. Adam Smith: [Intro] Welcome to the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn. I am R. Adam Smith, creator of this audiocast series. As an entrepreneur, investor, founder, investment banker, and board leader the last 25 years, I am fortunate for my many experiences within the family firm industry.

A warm thank you to our live audience on LinkedIn today – and for those listening in the future.

A brief comment on why I created this broadcast: private companies are a passion of mine, having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, and having engaged for two decades in deals, strategic transformations, investments, and boards, with an array of fascinating family enterprises, family firms, and family offices. I founded this series to offer a useful platform for listeners to hear from veterans, academics, and leaders in the vast family firm ecosystem. Whether you are a family business owner, building, running, or advising a family office, or just expanding your family office activities, I hope these conversations are useful and enlightening. And now, it is time to turn our attention to our [01:00] accomplished guest on today’s episode.

Today is also the 20th episode of the Family Business Audiocast. It is a very special day today to have someone I admire, and a friend, and a veteran leader on our show. Let's get into it a bit. Let me tell you about Kyle.

So, Kyle is the president of Barry-Wehmiller Group. Barry-Wehmiller is a $3 billion private company based in St. Louis. It's an industrial manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in St. Louis, as I mentioned, with a global footprint. The company was founded in 1885 and Kyle has been president of the organization for four years and has been in the organization prior to that as well. Today, he leads the organization and its myriad of platforms including a direct investment entity called BW Forsyth Partners, which is a hybrid private equity firm he co-founded in 2009. Kyle has two decades of experience in private equity and operations and has contributed greatly [02:00] to the business and working with his family very closely and very successfully as well.

Kyle has been very active in acquisitions in addition to organic growth. Barry-Wehmiller has grown substantially from around $20 million of sales. Today it's around $3.5 [billion] or so over the course of the last couple of decades experiencing dramatic growth. Finally, Kyle is known for his people-centered leadership philosophy, as is his father and his family, emphasizing the harmony between caring for individuals and driving performance.

So, we're very happy to have Kyle today. We're going to talk about culture, governance, strategy, building a positive culture of empowerment, as well as the mechanisms of building private companies as a family business and also, related to that, a family office and direct investments.

I think if you look into Barry-Wehmiller as a proxy for [03:00] private companies today in the family business environment, you'll see a couple themes. You'll see a smaller company of many decades ago. You'll see Gen 1 going to Gen 2, Gen 3. You'll see a business that becomes extremely profitable despite a couple of difficult chapters in its history. And then you'll see a business that has been able to become quite impactful in its local community also going global as well, all within retaining the unique and admirable culture of caring for making money and also doing good at the same time. We'll talk about that a bit later.

So, over to you, Kyle. Let's talk about yourself and your background a bit and how you got to where you are.

Kyle Chapman: Adam, first off, can you hear me?

R. Adam Smith: You're good now. Great voice. All good.

Kyle Chapman: All right, all right. Thank you so much.

I'm sorry for that miscommunication. I assume you were overly generous in your comments in your lead-in, so I appreciate everything you said.

R. Adam Smith: We talked about you a little bit while you were away, yeah.

Kyle Chapman: [04:00] Okay, cool. So, really quick background: went to the East Coast, grew up in St. Louis — a wonderful city to live in and run an organization in — went to the University of Virginia, studied finance, got right into private equity on the East Coast and Bank of America's captive private equity arm Bank of America capital investors.

When you think about the background and some experiences, we've had that positioned me for where I am today, just the pace and the diversity of things you see in private equity just is an unbelievably steep learning curve, and you see different business models, all sorts of things. We can talk about that later.

Did that for a number of years, and then decided that I want to get out of behind just the strategy and Excel spreadsheets, and got into an operation of a company that the private equity firm had bought, and really started putting, kind of, where the rubber meets the road, trying to get strategy going, developed an acquisition program, [05:00] started building out regions in this insurance services business. And then, that led me to, 15 years ago, coming back to Barry-Wehmiller to start BW Forsyth Partners.

R. Adam Smith: Yeah, that's where we met actually. We met after I originally met your father. He was nice enough to meet with me. I think I lasted about 28 minutes when we tried to negotiate something and, of course, he won, but he did it in a gracious way. So we laugh over that. And then you were building a direct private equity business which has really become integrated into the whole.

I find that fascinating. I mean, there's really few family businesses that cover family offices and family businesses. Of course, we do M&A over the years, but it takes a unique organization to be able to build a corporate organization and also create an investment arm which is distinctive from the corporate M&A and acquisitions itself. Can you just talk about that for a minute?

Kyle Chapman: [06:00] Yeah, absolutely. My dad just didn't love the private equity model in one of our board members, and we said, “You know what? We should be able to bring something different to the market, leveraging Barry-Wehmiller’s core skill sets.” Remember, Barry-Wehmiller grew from about 20 million in 1987 to about a billion at the time we started this.

And he just found that we have operating skill sets, we have cultural skill sets, we have M&A skill sets. And we wanted to expose more of the world to our culture. And so, how do we do that? We can ask people to listen to us, we can do a variety of things, but going out and building great businesses with our cultural initiative as one of the critical value points was the best way to build followership and the best way to expose both our business model thinking and our cultural initiatives [07:00] to more of the world.

And so, it was not only a point of diversification when we launched it, but also kind of this cultural platform that we could show you could buy businesses, not use high leverage, go back to good old fashioned operating value creation, and do something great over the long term without having to sell it or chase IRRs and things like that. We built a pretty nice platform since, and it's been great.

R. Adam Smith: It's incredible. I encourage anybody to look into Barry-Wehmiller as an organization, but also to look at this division of the private equity investments. I think some of you would find that very interesting, especially Jim [Carroll] and Obediah [Ayton] and Lina [Chehab] and others in the call, Monika [Nadova Kroslakova], that are looking at family businesses and family enterprises then getting large enough to create a family office.

The majority of family businesses that I talk to are looking [08:00] to create wealth through buying and selling businesses and occasionally set up a family office. But very few of them are able to create a diversified investment arm which can also be synergistic with the core mothership. So, that's really cool.

And going back to Kyle's father, Bob, how I met Kyle, he really inherited the business around 1975 from his family. Let's talk about that moment a bit back then. I think what I read was about 20 million of revenues. Now, you're the third generation of the family?

Kyle Chapman: That’s right. My grandfather came into the business in the mid-50s as an accountant, then general manager. The business was a single product line serving the brewery market, and Busch was a major customer, and it never really grew out of that level.

In the mid-60s, [09:00] my grandfather kind of backed into ownership by being an employee that raised his hand to help buy out some of the previous owners. And then he brought my dad aboard later in the mid-60s. And then, you know, my dad worked. Kind of did a self-made management program for the next seven years, worked intimately with my grandfather. And then in the mid-70s, my grandfather unexpectedly passed away at the age of 59, and my dad kind of took the reins of this organization at 29. And that's really where the rebirth of Barry-Wehmiller begins.

R. Adam Smith: In that moment, the business wasn't doing great and you had lenders. Talk about that moment of tension. And how did Bob attack that tension and change and move forward?

Kyle Chapman: Business is based on relationships, and some of the banking relationships resided with my grandfather. [10:00] And when he passed away, the bankers didn't necessarily know my dad and so they were less keen on lending to him, and so they kind of started talking about pulling the loans. That jump-started my dad into action and with the threat of losing the company right at the beginning of his career, he, in the next six months, kind of turned the business around and made more money in that six-month period than they had in the previous three years combined.

That kind of launched a growth pattern and my dad came into his own. He started just doing things organically with some innovation here and there.

R. Adam Smith: He hasn't left that zone, though. How old is he now?

Kyle Chapman: He's 78.

R. Adam Smith: Okay.

Kyle Chapman: And he is still as fiery and go-get-’em attitude as he has ever been.

So, they grew to about 75 million and then [11:00] everything, all his growth initiatives, started kind of crumbling a bit in 1983 and the $75 million business fell back down to 55-ish. These are rough numbers, but that '83 to '87 period was really challenging, on the verge of bankruptcy here and there, living payroll to payroll. And there's, by the way, a whole Harvard case study written on this.

The end of the story is, he kind of cobbled together some acquisitions, got some big orders here and there, and his international MD came to him and said, "I can take our international division public." This is the $35 million revenue business going public on the London Stock Exchange. It seems impossible today. And they said, “And if we do it, we can pay down your debt and you can maybe have a couple million bucks in the balance sheet.”

And it turned out that the organization that was going public had some tailwinds to it. It was oversubscribed and they ended up [12:00] paying down their debt from the proceeds of the London IPO, had something in the range of $15 to $20 million of cash on the balance sheet, and 30% ownership of a public company in Barry-Wehmiller National.

I tell you this story, one, because it's a really cool story, two, because that's where a lot of the lessons learned that drove Barry-Wehmiller from 1987 on, and three — and this is maybe the most important — this is where we're really a G2 company versus a G3 because the stats for G3 leaders really stinks. And so, I like to think this was the rebirth of Barry-Wehmiller in 1987. And I'm technically a G2 leader. So, I don't know if that will pass the sniff test, but hopefully, it does.

R. Adam Smith: You know, it's interesting but still admirable to keep it in the family. We’ve talked on this audiocast series with experts from Martin Roll, to Lina Chehab was in the line, to Christina Wing at Wingspan, to Alfredo De Massis.

Many of us talked [13:00] about legacy, and legacy can mean different things for different people. It's not just money. It can be many things. But the persistence and the dedication and the passion to continue a family business within the family for whatever legacy that is, is really admirable and it's hard to do with each successive generation, as you said.

Now, way back, Bob had noted that the vision for the culture was anchored in this concept of truly human leadership and that, at its core, this doctrine pursues the intent to send people home feeling fulfilled. And in the interview with Forbes, it was noted that his approach was, he said, "That's how it began, that very simple thought.” I think that's very impressive and inspiring to me.

I'd like you to talk more about these special values of what got the business here and what's driving, taking that corporate philosophy. How does that corporate philosophy proceed and persevere, and how does that also relate to how the company works [14:00] together to transform and grow?

Kyle Chapman: I've been president of Barry-Wehmiller for just about four years now, and leading up to that, I was interim CFO, and before that, I was kind of financial advisor to my dad while doing the hybrid equity investing. And we just saw these wonderful things, these ingredients that got our organization to where it is today. And one of the most important things was our culture, our dedication to truly human leadership.

My dad has written a book called Everybody Matters, and it's a series of epiphanies that he had while leading the organization starting in the late 90s, kind of culminating in the early 2000s, about what it meant to really care for your people, etc. And he came up with our why statement, which is that we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. And so, when you think about the transition and my dad coming to the realization that what [15:00] got us to this point, what got us here, may not get us there, you have to start thinking about, okay, what's going to change?

And so, the one thing, four years ago, I said is never going to change — in fact, I put it outside the wall of my office in this big display — is our why. We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. That is the lens through which we make all of our decisions. That is what got galvanized during the ‘08/‘09 crisis when our business kind of took a hit, but not as big a hit as other people. And we came together as a family and preserved jobs and everything and came out of it stronger. And so, that cultural foundation can't change, won't change, and it's really kind of, as I think, about how do I take it forward, right? We need to do some things differently, our old play patterns.

We did some things really well when we bought. You know, we've done about 130 acquisitions. We've done things [16:00] really well. But our next phase of growth is going to need a more complete play pattern and my goal is to show that A) we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people, but to show that we can have people and performance in total harmony and not one in sacrifice of the other. If I can prove that, if we can attract, retain, develop the best talent in the world, if we can innovate, if we can cultivate vibrant customer relationships, if we can continue to do M&A, and as a result of all those things, our financial performance is in the top quartile, decile, people will not only read my dad's book, they'll study it like they do GE, like they do Danaher, like they do with these other industrial academy companies, and they'll show that you can perform with excellence and you can care for people at the same time.

And by the way, it's the only way to lead organizations, not just something this sleepy little family company does. And so, when I think about what I'm trying [17:00] to do, it's just to make sure my dad's legacy extends decades. Decades beyond his time on earth.

R. Adam Smith: Yeah, I like that. That's a great approach to legacy. There's certainly a ton of fans reading and thinking about leadership regardless of the industry you're in, whether it's corporate or family office or public companies or philanthropy. I'm sure that Bob's name will sit up there over time with the John Maxwells.

I mean, look at the inspiration that Tony Robbins brings to people's actions, right? To look at the why, like you said. I spent time with Tony Robbins coaching and several seminars. I think the why is really powerful. And so, looking at Barry-Wehmiller, the why is very clear, which is to build a company, but also to do it in a way that is good for the culture and its people.

I think your dad said once that the employees of the company, your employees, are somebody's precious child. [18:00] That type of empathy and emotional intelligence is quite unique. I'll brag about him briefly here just for the listeners, but definitely would encourage you to read Bob's book. I'm sure, Kyle, starting this podcast and the YouTube video, you'll be having a lot more, and books of your own, but the family is quite impressive, not just commercially.

I like Bob's work in the Wall Street Journal bestseller. It's called Everybody Matters. He co-authored that with the founder of Conscious Capitalism. He sold over a hundred thousand copies. I think that's a wonderful piece. And then, of course, you have a leadership consulting institute called the Chapman and Company Institute, and then you have a nonprofit called the Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities. Also, I was excited to see your dad was honored by Ink Magazine as one of the top entrepreneurs in the world recently, which is really cool.

So, you have a multi-generational [19:00] company and there's a lot of transition growing globally and going through generationally. How do you all work together within the organization and bring those lessons together? Do you go on getaways, and you have strategic planning sessions? Do you have committees? How does it work internally?

Kyle Chapman: You know, I'm lucky that the opportunity to work with my dad, who is a business mentor, a best friend, and my father all kind of wrapped into one, and our working relationship represents that. He has always been about creativity, inspiration, etc., and he continues to be that. People love their time with my dad out in the field and just getting to hear from him and be inspired by him. He lacks, in some cases, process and discipline and he doesn't always love data and things like that, and I filled that [20:00] void nicely for him, and so we work just incredibly well together. He is chairman and CEO, I am president, and we kind of co-run the business leveraging our strengths.

Now, he spends a lot of his time taking our message out beyond our four walls, Adam, as you have seen and experienced, because we are facing a crisis in our world about, you know, people that view business as not a source for goodness in the world. In fact, it's a source of stress. People would choose to fire their boss rather than take a raise, and the stress is really hurting people. And my dad's view is, if we don't help businesses see this, if we can't start teaching, getting to the root cause, which is the fact that in many cases we teach people to behave like this, then we're going to miss a real opportunity to change the world and prove that business can be the most powerful source of goodness in the world if we simply teach people how to care for others.

[21:00] And so, his mission is that, and so he spends a lot of time externally doing that. And as it relates to internally, I'm trying to make sure Barry-Wehmiller lives up to its promise and it can be, kind of, the clichéd shining light on the hill for his message. But yeah, I mean, we do strategy sessions, we do off-sites, we do global executive leadership teams, we do operating reviews, we do all these things that everybody else does running the organization, and I brought a lot of that element to the table.

R. Adam Smith: Right, and part of the structure corporately can also stem from bringing expertise from different businesses and environments, right, whether it can be consulting, let's say, from a McKinsey, or from private equity in terms of the operating model and reporting metrics and KPIs. What are some of the things you brought to the organization that you're incorporating that are incremental?

Kyle Chapman: That's a great question. So, I mean, obviously my intensity around data and metrics and KPIs and [22:00] using that to kind of be the foundation of strategy. My dad, thank goodness, didn't need all of that to generate great strategy and I have unfortunately. I need that more than he does. But we brought strategy operating disciplines, kind of getting in and helping people see the opportunity or see the problem that we're facing a bit clearer and maybe attacking it more surgically than through just kind of gut, trying things here and there and creativity and just seeing the issue, etc.

The other thing I brought to the table is, I've seen a lot of different business models through my private equity experience. I've seen different ways of financing, different ways of setting up deals, etc., and so I've brought some of that deal-making creativity, different industry experience, and a set of fresh eyes to the organization. That is just complimentary to the foundational programs my dad and his insanely good leadership team over the last few decades [23:00] have deployed.

R. Adam Smith: Amazing. Yeah, I can see that. So, just a side question. How big can Barry-Wehmiller be, if you assume no limitations on time and money? What do you guys think about that? Do you have a goal? Or is it more you just address what's in front of you?

And what do you think about that question in terms of the scale of family offices and family businesses today?

Kyle Chapman: We have a clear path to about 5 billion or 3.5 today: a third through M&A activity, a third through market-driven growth, and a third through innovation. So, we have a path to 5 billion. And we're not doing that necessarily just to have a notch on our belt and say we did that; growth creates opportunity, it creates stakeholder wealth in terms of better for our communities, our employees, our shareholders.

And so, that's one of the reasons why we're doing it. The other reason, again, is to prove that people and performance can exist in harmony. And if we're just a family company that sits still [24:00] without any urgency or we become complacent, no one's really going to follow us, right? And my dad's views on how business can be the most powerful source for good need to be heard by more people and followed by more people, and if we can be that example through the growth, I think it'll be awesome.

And you asked, what do I think we could be? I don't know why in the next 10/15 years we couldn't be a $10 billion organization. I say that only because if you remove constraints of capital, right, as a family organization, you tend to be a little more conservative. Our message is resonating. We're business builders. We're leader builders. We are trying to create a better world through business, and when people are trying to look for a home for their company and for their people, if they're selling their organization, they view us as legacy preservation. They view us as a company that can help them go out and unlock [25:00] the full potential of the organization that they've been building for decades.

So, a lot of people want to join us, both from a talent attraction standpoint — we've attracted the most impressive talent in our history over the last five years — from an acquisition opportunity, people are coming to us frequently, new platforms want to join us. So, you know, right now, you ask the question at a time I feel we have the most momentum we've ever had based on our track record and our world view of people and performance in harmony.

R. Adam Smith: That was inspiring. Well, in the old days, 3.5 million would be quite large, but today it seems just about right. I think there's a huge opportunity for you guys and also for other family businesses that are committed to continuing that legacy. Acquisitions are wonderful, but they're not a replacement or a panacea for effective organizational growth and that organizational growth comes also from culture, [26:00] not just from the KPIs and money.

Just two side notes that are irrelevant to the points we're making: number one, Kyle Chapman is one of the most capable executives of St. Louis, just so you know. He's not the Kyle Chapman that's actually a diver and a prominent nationalist in the country. So, that's not the Kyle Chapman we have today. Just FYI.

Kyle Chapman: Appreciate that clarification.

R. Adam Smith: That person has a lot more airtime, but not the good airtime that this Kyle Chapman has.

Now, coming back to the last questions here. So, Bob once said the following about the evolution of the company. “We came to see that leadership was more than just creating value. We came to see that the way that we lead impacts the way people live. This opened our eyes to the profound responsibility and privilege of leadership. Thus began our fervent commitment to creating a sustainable business that not only gave people a future but also offered them meaningfulness and fulfillment through their contributions.”

Like you were saying, that's super unique. [27:00] What's it like when you walk around St. Louis and you go to Cardwell’s before you go to the Ritz for a drink, and then you're talking about business, and all of a sudden people are talking to you about are you part of saving the world? Are you changing business models? Are you not just looking to make money? I mean, how does that work for you when you're talking about business? I'm just curious.

Kyle Chapman: You know what? It's really easy. The funny thing is that we have overcomplicated business in general, right? So, everybody thinks that they've got their self inside their home. And then when they walk in through the threshold of our lobby, they've got to put on their professional self, their bureaucratic self, this business thing they've learned about, right? And what we're doing is really simple. Be your authentic self. Bring it to the workplace. And all we're trying to show is if you just care for the people who've entrusted their lives to you, right, as their leader, if you just care for them like you would your own family, you are literally flipping the script [28:00] on how most people feel about the business that they work for.

And so, it's an easy thing to talk about, Adam. People think it's like jobs for life, and you guys don't care about performance, you must be a non-profit, and things like that. But that's just not the case. And that's why I've got this bug to prove to the world that people and performance can exist in harmony. And people get it. People talk about great culture. People talk about things. They think it's harder than it is to do. And it's just be authentic, just care.

So, it's really easy to talk about. It's fun. You know, Barry-Wehmiller is an awesome place to work. I'm so lucky for the opportunity to lead it. We have so much opportunity ahead of us. It's crazy. I can't believe we've been talking for 30 minutes. I could talk forever about it. And so, it's a fun organization. Still, people think Barry-Wehmiller is a jeweler in St. Louis, which is pretty funny because we've never done that.

R. Adam Smith: [29:00] I love that. Maybe you should start a new jewelry division in honor of the past. That's not so bad. Classic and heritage brands are all the rage now.

Kyle Chapman: I think so. I'm getting enough grief for kind of diversifying into insurance services and other things, so I don't know if jewelry would be the next logical step for me.

R. Adam Smith: All right, so we're going to open up to a couple of questions which I occasionally do when I'm in the mood. So, anybody who has some questions in the next minute or two, please go to the bottom on your phone or to the audiocast under ‘React,’ and then you can raise your hand on the ‘React’ and ask a question and I'll pull you up on stage.

So, we'll start with my friend Susan [Lindeque] who runs a single-family office in Florida and is actively building her family business, I'm sure, as well.

Susan Lindeque: Adam, hi. Good day. Kyle, hi. Thank you so much for this session. This is really fascinating. [30:00] I've been on your website and I love what you say, that we see value where others don’t because companies don't create value but people do.

I've got a question for you. We're in the fourth industrial revolution, and it's very much the rise of the machine in terms of automatization, machine learning, mobile computing, AI, and there's a lot of people fear out there that they are going to lose their jobs because of machines.

So, I want to know, what is your views in terms of that? Because I think that my personal view is the fourth industrial revolution is all about empowering people and it's not about the rise of the machine. But I would like to get your views on how you view that and how you see the future going forward with all these machines coming into our lives effectively.

Thank you.

Kyle Chapman: My pleasure. [31:00] What a great question and very timely. I mean, obviously, with AI, machine learning, all this stuff going on, it's overwhelming to think about. First off, I mean, the capital equipment that we make is, you know, old-school automation, right? We take labor-intensive things and automate it and produce tons of stuff. So, it would be hypocritical if I say, "Oh, this machine learning, machine automation, stuff like that is for the birds," because that's kind of how we were built.

But when I think about it mostly right now, A) it's needed because of labor availability, labor shortages, given the US took some time off of focusing on manufacturing. And so, I just view it as productivity enhancements, safety enhancements, etc., and the opportunity to upskill our team members so that they can have more thinking time and less rote job work or rote machine work or having to remember what's the pattern of [32:00] steps I take to get this machine restarted?

You start taking them away from things that aren't engaging their brain and you start equipping them with productivity enhancement tools that make their job more fun, more fulfilling, allows them to learn new skills, engage the correct side of their brain and think more. And so, I would hate for any of our team members to think this is a job replacement wave coming up.

In fact, I would encourage our team members, anyone in the workforce, don’t be fearful of it, but use it as a productivity enhancement tool that allows you to spend more time on value-added things. And machine learning is one of those things.

We're trying to figure it out. It's not easy. And if we can make our machines prevent unplanned downtime, order parts, help people resolve issues without having to call someone so that they [33:00] remove frustration. If we can do those things, it'll make the workplace more productive and more enjoyable rather than, "Hey, you can run this machine with one person instead of 10 people." I mean, that's not our focus.

R. Adam Smith: That's well said. That's great. We've got time for another question or two.

Lina [Chehab] is our former guest on this audiocast. She's one of the leading family business experts in the Middle East, and she's a dear friend, and I'm really happy to be joining us today. So, Lina, over to you.

Lina Chehab: Yes. Thank you, Kyle, for this inspirational story, especially working side by side with your father for the past 20 years, where you've benefited from the experience of your father, who's a great leader.

What are you doing to transfer the legacy of what you've learned and you're still learning from your father to G4, to the [34:00] next generation, to preserve and transfer this legacy to empower, inspire the way your father inspires you, to inspire them? How are you going about that?

Kyle Chapman: That is a phenomenal question, and I would say, hey, four years into my job I haven't thought much about G4. I would tell you what we're trying to do, and regardless of if this is a family-owned but professionally run organization, which I think it is today — I happen to be the good fortune of running it — but what we're trying to do, like literally stuff we are doing today, is to make this business better than how we found it. We are making decisions today that influence the next decade or two of leadership. I mean, we're not talking about what do we do for next year. We do that, but everything we're doing is to build this business for the next two/three decades, [35:00] allow it to be perpetually private, allow it to continue building wonderful businesses that embrace our culture, allow wonderful people fulfillment and growth, both professionally and personally.

And so, what we do is we do things like this, Lina. We make sure our message is heard. We ask people to come look at us. My dad wrote a book on it to make sure legacy is preserved. I mean, people can hold us to, like, “Chapter six, page 19,” you know? “You said this and do you still believe it?”

And so, writing it down, talking about it, engaging with our global leadership teams, trying to be a force for good in the world is kind of how we view the opportunity to pay it forward. And, I am lucky that I continually talk about my dad's recipe for getting the business here and want to make sure that when we say “What got us here may not get us there,” it's not saying we have to forget what got us here, [36:00] it's just that we have to take a more holistic approach to our next wave of growth, and sustainability. So, that's what we're really focused on. But, it's a great question.

R. Adam Smith: That's great. Okay, we're going to do one more question. My friend Oren is a partner at the leading human capital firm in the world, at Korn Ferry. He's focused on financial services, which also includes some big companies in investment banking, real estate, and also, of course, family offices and multi-family offices and wealth management can also become financial service companies.

And I'm sure he's curious about probably the governance side of the business. So, Oren, why don't you pop in here?

Oren Klaber: Thanks, Adam. Kyle, very inspirational. Thank you. Very interested to hear what some of your challenges have been around talent because, you know, it's been a challenging time kind of broadly in terms of companies acquiring or [37:00] finding great talent. Just, any thoughts on some of the bigger challenges you’ve faced over the last couple of years?

Kyle Chapman: I'd love to say we had a challenge finding talent because that's the thing to say. Over the last three years during Covid, I'm not kidding, we attracted the best talent in the history of our organization. We are in the best place we've ever been from a talent attraction standpoint. And I'll just give you a quick statistic. So, that's like leaders and kind of level one, level two type leaders. But we have an engineering consulting group, right? And so engineers, really hard to find, in high demand right now. We hired, in 2021 I think, 442 engineers. [38:00] That is insane.

It was the highest level of hiring we've ever had in our history. And so, I don't know if we just caught it at the right time, if our message is finally resonating, but we've attracted some of the best talent. The statistics support we attract the best talent. Yes, in certain markets we have trouble finding assemblers, and engineers, and field service technicians, but that's not unique to us. The talent magnet, we called it the “great attraction versus the great resignation” because we just felt it in spades that we were finding people leaving the pressure cooker of other organizations and wanting to join something bigger than themselves.

And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to connect people to our broader mission and vision. And they see it. The cool thing is, we have so much opportunity that they're like, “Oh, I can help you build what you're talking about here. I don't have to just join it and kind of do what you all say. [39:00] I can actually put my fingerprints all over it.”

So, I'm not sure that's the answer you were looking for, but it's kind of our reality.

R. Adam Smith: Thanks, Kyle. What a great conversation today. We could go on and on, of course. So happy you decided to join the audiocast format live. Great working with you to prepare for the conversation. This will be professionally prepared and streamed globally, shortly on eight different channels. So, it's great to have you here today and hear your story.

I'd really like to thank you again for your time and sharing a lot about the business and the culture and what inspires you and your own experiences. I'd like to thank also our guests today. Really learned a lot today, so thanks again for coming.

Kyle Chapman: Thank you so much.

R. Adam Smith: This is R. Adam Smith signing off. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn.

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Explore the strategic intricacies of family business success with the RAS Family Business Audiocast. Join R. Adam Smith as he delves into exclusive discussions with global leaders shaping the future of private wealth and enterprise. Each episode offers a rare glimpse into the core decisions driving prosperity in high-stakes markets. Tune in to gain expert insights and innovative strategies that empower family businesses to thrive across generations.

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Family Business Audiocast™