SouthCoast business leaders form CEO roundtable

Nascimento
Nascimento

“It’s kind of a support group for CEOs,” said Roy M. Nascimento, president and CEO of the New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, of the newly founded SouthCoast CEO Roundtable. “It’s for [CEOs] to get peer-to-peer advice. It’s modeled after other programs like it that have taken place around the nation. It’s about networking and helping businesses to grow.”
The program was developed in partnership with the New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The organizations will also serve as resources for the CEOs to receive the information they need.
Nascimento said that after conducting a focus group among local CEO’s to see if there was an interest and need for help, the response was positive.
The program has been planned for almost a year. It is currently in the recruitment stage, searching for qualified entrants. So far, Nascimento said there has been some definite interest, including from manufacturing firms.
“The group would be limited to eight to 12 participants, all representing industries that are considered small to mid-size, from $500,000 in annual sales to just under $10 million,” he told Providence Business News last week. Members must have a minimum of four employees and be established for at least two years. They also must not be direct competitors.
Members determine what is to be discussed, as well as scheduling experts or speakers to appear. Applicants must sign a confidentiality agreement, commit to regularly attend the meetings and agree to be honest and accountable to the group.
“The SouthCoast CEO Roundtable is an exciting initiative for local small business CEOs to join in a collaborative effort to improve operations and opportunities by meeting together and confidentially addressing issues common to its members,” said Melinda Ailes, regional director of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network. “It is important … to help companies grow their footprint here in the SouthCoast at a cost that is lower than existing CEO groups.” Members of the three economic organizations have already met with business representatives in a kind of informal advisory board.
Members of the roundtable will meet monthly to seek and provide business advice, and help each other improve the quality of their business decisions. The meetings are controlled by participants.
Nascimento said professional facilitators will help keep the meetings on track, assist in guiding the discussions and finding outside speakers when the group wants to bring in experts for advice on an issue.
The CEO Roundtable program is not intended to help provide sales leads for its membership. The annual membership cost is $500 for Chamber members and $700 for nonmembers.
At the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Michael Prior, director of business development, is hopeful for a boost to manufacturing, even though the workforce has changed and the economy has been difficult.
“We’re looking at this to happen in the manufacturing sector but … the C-level people, the CEOs, top-level management must buy into the system,” said Prior.
Through discussions and surveys he has observed that two things regularly arise in companies that are having difficulty, a lack of leadership and a lack of a distinct plan.
“With the smaller manufacturing sector that we are dealing with, from companies with as little as four and as many as 500 people, you will find that the high-ranking individuals often don’t have the skills or information to get to the next level. He believes a roundtable will help fill the voids. Prior has seen the changes over his 16 years with MEP but the recent economic crunch has taken its toll.
“The companies that didn’t adjust, that didn’t change, in many cases they no longer exist,” he said. “The change was initially for survival. Now, companies are being more conservative because they don’t want to go through it again, but at the same time, it’s caused them to think very thoughtfully about their companies.”
Companies want to hire more people but are also held back due to a lack of skilled workers, he said. Having the CEO Roundtable involved will allow companies to see what positions are disappearing industry-wide and what new jobs need to be created.
“What better way to do that than through a knowledge-sharing, best-practice venue that a CEO Roundtable can bring?” he said.
He is hopeful manufacturers will learn to trust each other. The benefits of belonging to the group includes exposure to a group of like-minded CEOs who can grow to become trusted advisers, friends and teachers, and an alternative form of executive development via frank, honest advice about best practices.
“Hopefully they will collectively come up with some solutions that will take their business to another level,” he said.
Deadline for applications is Sept. 30. •


For more information please contact the New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce at (508) 999-5231; Massachusetts Small Business Development Center at (508) 673-9783 or the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership at (617) 823-1178.

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