The Atlanta CEO Council‘s mission is to connect CEOs to capital, customers, talent and each other. We execute this through memberships and 14 annual events. We are directly affected by the COVID19 environment but that hasn’t stopped our CEOs from gathering, helping and inspiring. On Monday night April 13th, the usual time we hold our CEO dinners, several CEOs gathered to share their stories with dinner and drink in hand. This article quickly recaps how each CEO is handling business continuation.
Krishna Arangode, CEO/Founder, Kaizen Analytix
It’s a good time for biz dev as our Chief Product Officer (CPO) has a foot in the door with 3 prospects. Some prospects have time; we had a successful call with 60 national football programs. Continuous internal FP&A modeling on 1-3-5-7-9-12 month financial/cash flow scenarios is done on a weekly basis. Clients are calling to request more generous and revised payment terms. Ensuring we have the right strategy and headcount for PPP loans to be forgiven is critical.
Natalie Cheney, CEO, MemberSuite
Global membership based events have been cancelled & rescheduled. Revenue for global brands have been lost or delayed. Pivoting to avatar based event experiences we call ECHO. We are receiving new data on virtual behaviors, introverts are becoming more open, productive. It’s refreshing to see internal teams stepping up and taking leadership. The virtual world, like telemedicine is part of the new normal but nothing will replace face to face interactions.
Shauvik Roy Choudhary, CEO, MoQuality
We are a “nice to have efficiency” solution. Most automation software products and services have been stopped. We paused our Q3 2020 series A plan after a successful 2.5m raise in 2018 and are focused on making our original investors whole this year.
Brian Dally, Co-Founder/CEO, GROUNDFLOOR
Our focus is on the retail investor: they don’t have counterparties, covenants & margin calls. Pivoting to securing institutional investors is tough as they have also stopped buying. Keeping employee morale high is tough through furloughs versus layoffs as it’s tough to say a temporary or permanent “goodbye” to your team. The company is saving cash for employees who are stepping up throughout tough times and giving them unlimited time to get back to work. There’s a positive esprit de corps. We planned for the stimulus to come in July so lucky it was deposited earlier. We are ready to go back into the office in a phased approach.
Mitch Free, CEO/Founder, ZYCI
March’s revenue was slightly impacted and April off to a normal start. We had no layoffs, currently looking to hire a Computer Numerical Control machinist. Fortunate for the sectors we are in now: aerospace, rockets, missiles, aircraft. For COVID 19, we began with producing one face shield, now it’s a couple hundred a day. All of the airplanes are filled with PPE/Medical stuff, other cargo is waiting in line to get out.
Robin Gregg, CEO, RoadSync
After fundraising, we used our personal network and other complimentary resources to hire and onboarded several new employees; challenging to onboard 10 new employees when you started with 10 ees. Moved out of ATDC into a subleased space so rent has increased but we get to enjoy the office when we get back. The cold food chain (freezer warehouses for frozen food) customers like grocery distribution centers are busy. Customers are concerned about safety and struggling since it’s hard to fill jobs in normal times and now. With social distancing, truck drivers can’t get into facilities hence we facilitate contactless solutions for signing, invoicing & payments. We are not used to remote workforce so it was hard to move the team to remote. i.e.physical check processing had to move remote.
Lara Hodgson, Co-Founder/President/CEO, NOW Account
We grew out of the 2008 recession with a timely liquidity solution, alternative to the stimulus money that doesn’t touch the liability side of your balance sheet. NOW has a payment accelerator (not a loan/not factoring) which allows companies to get paid immediately when they invoice a customer, similar to taking a credit card. NOW is an “AND” not an “OR” play so take the stimulus funds and use NOW. See a slow down in segments like auto dealers, mall based retailers, IT staffing, consulting, marketing services. Daily Sales Outstanding (DSO) have never been lower and working remotely has worked better than planned.
Adwait Joshi, Founder/Chief Seer, DataSeers
We are hiring in India and in Atlanta. Working with all size banks for PPP loans and finding that community banks are stepping up. As the stimulus checks come in via ACH, all ACH transactions come through our software to make sure the payments line up with payees. We are moving billions of dollars through our software platform. Currently self funded and net new sales have dropped.
Anju Mathew, Co-Founder/CEO, Oncolens
Cancer patients are encouraged not to come in for biopsies & imaging so the # cases coming in are lower. Cancer staff & admin is being furloughed. It’s only been 4 weeks which has not been enough time for hospitals to develop a rhythm and adapt. Oncolens is hiring for critical positions and then will freeze hiring until the end of summer. The long term solution is the vaccine. For smaller teams like Oncolens, consider going back to work on a rolling basis: 3 people from different teams come into the office but it’s also not worth taking the health risk of a small team.
Pramod Sajja, President, Paramount Software
Since inception, we have been a work from home culture so we are prepared operationally and employee morale/engagement is normal. We are reducing prices to keep contracts alive and did lose on airlines and the service industry but winning in the banking/healthcare arena. The federal space and stimulus package is good for government contracts with DOE/DOD who will be spending money
Trenton Spindler, Co-Founder/President, GreenPrint
Industry clients include transportation, aviation, CPG. Sustainability companies like us are not the first to go and clients are being pragmatic and protective of product/services because we are driving a financial ROI to customers. We were prepared to work from home 6 yrs ago. Highest ever employee morale and happiness. Introverts are more engaged and have great solutions. Good acquisition and consolidation environment for complementary revenue streams. Learning daily from customers is helping us stay in touch.
Our message is to keep your family safe and healthy first and then go execute on your business. Be safe, be well.
See this article on LinkedIn.
