Executive Profiles: Stories of Chicago Business and Organization Leaders

He is a founding board member of the Outdoor Industry's Outdoor Foundation. He has also served in an advisory capacity to Bainbridge Graduate Institute and provided insight into its creation of an M. VFC , a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear and accessories.

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Bailey has more than 25 years of brand leadership and retail experience, 13 of which have been with VF. He has held a number of leadership roles throughout his career. In , he was named Coalition President for the Imagewear coalition, comprised of both the Image division and the Licensed Sports Group division. He came to VF with more than 20 years of global experience in operations, marketing, merchandising, sales and manufacturing. Prior to this appointment, Mr. VF divested its LSG business in early He has more than 30 years of apparel industry experience spanning finance, operations, manufacturing and sourcing, product development, and brand management.

He led the organization through a period of transformational change, including its divestiture by VF to Fruit of the Loom, a division of Berkshire Hathaway. Scabbia Guerrini has nearly 30 years of experience in the lifestyle apparel and fashion industries. As the need for improved infrastructure becomes more compelling roads, bridges, public buildings , the cost of capital programs will also increase to reflect the higher interest rates.

Without federal subsidies for infrastructure, A. Advisory will become more involved in more creative financings that will reduce municipal costs — public-private partnerships P3s , as they are generically known. My youngest daughter graduated from Duke. Now all three of my daughters have completed their college degree, a major goal ingrained by my parents since I arrived in the United States many years ago. We've pursued a number of strategic hires and appointments, including Pamela Harless, our new chief human resources officer.

Mark Stutman, a longtime leader within our firm, was named chief learning officer. We also launched our China Business Group. Steady improvements in consumer confidence and housing are helping stimulate greater business optimism, but the economy is still fragile. According to our most recent CFO survey, concern about whether fiscal policy is sound 47 percent and the lack of tax reform 31 percent continue to be a bottleneck for U. Our clients are also concerned about the recession in Europe and slowing economies in emerging markets, but many of them are committed to growth.

That's providing Grant Thornton significant opportunity to help. By the end of June, we will have launched 10 new courses and engagement opportunities and 17 startup companies as part of our new "pathway to entrepreneurship" program. Startup hub and New World Ventures, J. Earlier this year, I was named president and chief executive officer of Acco Brands, and I am privileged to have so many talented people supporting me in my new role. As for challenges going forward, during difficult economic times, leaders separate themselves from the also-rans. We have the opportunity to be a leader and accelerate our top-line and bottom-line expansion through organic growth and acquisitions.

I just returned from Uganda, where I visited some of our clients who have been able to work their way out of poverty after receiving support and training from Opportunity International.

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Seeing the faces and hearing the voices of the women and children we are helping was incredibly uplifting. I'm also proud to share that our board of directors recently affirmed my appointment to not only serve as the CEO of Opportunity International U. This move will enable us to centralize operations and better manage, improve and expand our financial and training services to clients around the world. Lack of a federal policy on climate and energy will create continued uncertainty in clean energy investments over the coming years. The recovering economy, on the other hand, will drive people to entrepreneurship, so if we can support these innovators, it can be a great time to start a company.

We've got to neutralize the unproductive political squabbling to implement thoughtful tax reform and a federal budget that continues to support research, innovation, and growth in the economy.

Gian Fulgoni, executive chairman and co-founder, comScore Inc. Since last year, the digital media industry has seen a complete paradigm shift as people consume digital content across desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. ComScore's data show that mobile devices are now accounting for almost half of all time spent online. In recent months, comScore has introduced multiplatform offerings for each of our three core product suites. I traveled the world evaluating opportunities and was more than a little surprised to find that the very opportunities I was seeking were right under my nose.

With the merging of Chicago tourism organizations and a city administration deeply committed to mining the deep vein of untapped tourism, I realized that there is an unfulfilled need for hotels with a different and avant-garde formula for profit-making. Tourism demand is subject to the cyclical or temporary ups and downs.

However, this city has so much unfulfilled demand for tourism that, over the long term, the industry is relatively impermeable to short-term headwinds. Boyden concluded a recent global meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, where we successfully launched our proprietary Boyden University global learning and development platform. We believe it to be the first in our industry. Boyden U will continue as a live and online resource for all our associates.

As for the business climate around us, we recently launched a significant growth initiative based on market sector analysis and client input and expect to make an important announcement about that effort this summer. Benefactor's Award on behalf of ITW. At a company that counts innovation as one of its core capabilities, diversity of thought is critical. We believe in the UNCF's mission to invest in our future, and we are proud to help support the important work of this organization, particularly as it relates to grooming students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

We also announced the acquisition of another college in Brazil, which includes a medical school, our third globally. DeVry Brasil now serves more than 30, undergraduate and graduate students. One challenge is that persistent high unemployment has many prospective students hesitant to commit to college. Yet the return on educational investment of a college degree remains strong.

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DeVry's focus on academic quality plus diversification is helping us work through the cyclical weakness. We just soft-launched a preview of the Orbitz loyalty rewards program.



Because it is a test, not all visitors to Orbitz may be seeing it, but the full program is coming in the fall. We have been very pleased with the customer response and how it is incentivizing them to shop and buy on Orbitz. For the customer, it's very easy — book your airline ticket or favorite hotel on Orbitz and earn "Orbucks" to use on a future hotel stay. There is no requirement to meet certain levels to cash in a reward.



1. Chicago's Notable LGBTQ Executives | Crain's Chicago Business.
2. The CEO’s role in leading transformation | McKinsey.
3. Senior Leadership Team :: VF Corporation (VFC).
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It is very popular with our HotelClub customers abroad, and we think it will be a big hit here in the U. I remain committed to my vocation as a professor, and my university students are primary in my life, challenging me on a regular basis. My avocation and inspiration come from the younger students to whom I feel responsible — the Haitians, their parents, their community, who comprise the School of Choice. Since the time of the profile, I have spent most of my time working to demonstrate the potential impact of education to change a nation and then using that evidence to encourage funding for the school's future.

People forget about Haiti when it is off of the front page. We go into the beta-testing phase on the healthy weight Canyon Ranch Lifestyle Diet in July and have marketing partnerships with the huge weight-loss site SparkPeople and the tracking-device company Body Media.

The plan is to launch in January. Our book "Hunter Farmer" is selling well, and we filmed an hourlong special about it with Dr. Mark Liponis, our corporate medical director and the author. It will air over the summer on PBS stations. A slow economy, the low interest rate environment, and rising regulatory costs create significant hurdles to saving and recapitalizing community banks. These same factors make it more difficult than ever for executive teams and boards to forecast the future.

Despite the challenges, I continue to be heartened by the commitment of employees and leaders of these institutions who are working hard to keep their organizations viable and vital in the midst of their uncertain future. Sticking close to their customers and staying connected to the communities they serve go a long way in building confidence.

The uncertainty in the economy could make the airport an attractive investment opportunity, given its role in the tri-state transportation network. At NiSource, our board recently increased the dividend on NiSource shares for a second straight year. We just launched the first companywide African-American employee group, to add to groups focused on women and Latino employees. On the personal front, I have met with several executive recruiters about a corporate board position.

I was pleasantly surprised when Hyatt was awarded the Gallup Great Workplace Award for the second consecutive year. Hyatt also released its first corporate responsibility report, detailing sustainability, volunteer and philanthropic efforts. While the pace of economic growth in the U. Our strategy remains focused on key markets in important geographies, including France, India, China and U. To harness the transformative power of the top team, CEOs must make tough decisions about who has the ability and motivation to make the journey.

There is no substitute for CEOs rolling up their sleeves and getting personally involved when significant financial and symbolic value is at stake. Everyone has a role to play in a performance transformation. The role of CEOs is unique in that they stand at the top of the pyramid and all the other members of the organization take cues from them. CEOs who give only lip service to a transformation will find everyone else doing the same. Those who fail to model the desired mind-sets and behavior or who opt out of vital initiatives risk seeing the transformation lose focus. Only the boss of all bosses can ensure that the right people spend the right amount of time driving the necessary changes.

Transformations require extraordinary energy: Where does this energy come from? A powerful transformation story helps employees believe in the effort by answering their big questions, which can range from how the transformation will affect the company down to how it will affect them. CEOs who take time to personalize the story of the transformation can unlock significantly more energy for it than those who dutifully present the PowerPoint slides that their working teams created for them.

Some leaders include experiences and anecdotes from their own lives to underline their determination and belief—and to demonstrate that obstacles can be overcome. Most CEOs invest great effort in visibly and vocally presenting the transformation story. Lafley says, in "Leading change: Reinforcement should come from outside as well. Sharing such stories helps crystallize the meaning of the transformation and gives people confidence that it will actually work.

Ravi Kant, the managing director of the integrated Indian auto business Tata Motors, deliberately identified people who would serve as examples to others. In " Leading change: An interview with the managing director of Tata Motors ," he talks about how he highlighted the achievements of one young man whose success on a risky project and subsequent promotion showed colleagues that talented and determined people can rise through the hierarchy.

Emphasizing the positive, behavioral research shows, is especially important.

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In , University of Wisconsin researchers who were conducting a study of the adult-learning process videotaped two bowling teams during several games. The members of each team then studied their efforts on video to improve their skills. But the two videos had been edited differently. After studying the videos, both teams improved their game, but the team that studied its successes improved its score twice as much as the one that studied its mistakes.

Evidently, focusing on the errors can generate feelings of fatigue, blame, and resistance. Emphasizing what works well and discussing how to get more out of those strengths taps into creativity, passion, and the desire to succeed.