San Diego – January 23, 2012 – The Chairmen’s RoundTable (CRT), a San Diego non-profit organization that provides pro-bono mentoring and strategic advice to the region’s businesses, announced today that it has elected Steven Mendell as its Chairman.

Mendell takes the reins from Jeff Campbell, who will remain on the board as Chairman Emeritus.

“Steve has been an active mentor with the CRT for several years,” saidCampbell. “We are excited to have him take the same passion and wisdom he has shared with those companies over the years and channel it to guide our organization.”


Steven Mendell has more than 25 years experience leading established and early stage organizations in the medical device and biopharmaceuticals businesses. He headed European marketing and German operations for Becton Dickinson and is the former chairman and CEO of XOMA Corporation. He served as president and CEO of LMA Medical Corporation and Prizm Pharmaceuticals. Mendell has also served as chairman for a public university foundation and was appointed to the NASDAQ corporate advisory board. Over the years he has been recognized for his achievements including being named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and being awarded the Gold Chief Executive Award in Biotechnology in 1989 – the highest honor — by the Wall Street Transcript.


The CRT also announced the balance of its 2012 board of directors appointments: Michael Tedesco – Chief Financial Officer; David Oates – Vice Chair, Marketing; Alan Creutz – Vice Chair, Client Evaluation & Mentor Assignments; Terrance Bruggeman – Vice Chair, Partner Relations; William A. Lofft – Vice Chair, Quality Assurance; Jeff Campbell – Chair Emeritus & Vice Chair, Mentorship; Vern Yates – Vice Chair, Program Development; and newest member Cory Grant – Vice Chair, Sponsor Development.


David Thompson and Sayed Ali depart the board after selflessly serving the organization and its mission to strengthen San Diego one company at a time.


About Chairmen’s RoundTable
The Chairmen’s RoundTable is a non-profit volunteer organization comprised of more than 40 current and former Chief Executive Officers, with extensive board experience and diverse industry backgrounds, and 20 sponsor organizations. CRT mentors provide businesses in San DiegoCountypriceless business advice and mentorship without compensation as a way of giving back to the community. CRT’s well-defined mentoring program is ideal for small to mid-sized companies at a strategic crossroad that are looking to gain an outside perspective on key business issues. To date, more than 250 local companies have benefited from CRT’s mentorship. For more information and to read about past client successes, please visit www.chairmensroundtable.com.

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Vern has been an active angel investor, consultant, advisor and mentor to start up companies since his retirement in 1996.  He also was the founder of the San Diego Band of Angels, a 160 person angel investment group.  This group combined in 2000 with the Tech Coast Angels to form a group which now covers Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Diego Counties.  Members of the Tech Coast Angels have made over $100 million in investments in Southern California start up businesses.  Vern formerly served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Tech Coast Angels.

Vern is currently serving as Chairman and CEO of Ameranth Wireless, and as a board member of Filmetrics, Controltec, and Virtual Metrix and has formerly served on the board of five corporations (Sandpiper Networks, MineShare, enonymous.com, Vectron and Tourmaline Networks), is currently an advisor to Transaction Wireless, and has been a former advisor to eight companies (BizRate.com, GreenPlum, CollegeClub.com, Alitum, Fetch Technologies, Path1, Teleflage, mSnack and Dtection Systems), and serves as an executive mentor to several persons seeking to start businesses.  Vern also is an active member of The Chairman’s Roundtable, an executive mentoring organization in San Diego, and an active participant in various CONNECT and UCSD von Leibig Center programs.

Vern has extensive experience with both internal and venture funded start-up companies having served as: President and CEO of Primary Access Corporation, a San Diego based venture backed telecommunications access systems company that was sold to 3Com; President of the Electronic Payments Division of Deluxe Corporation that was spun off in 2000 as a publicly traded company named Efunds, Vice President and General Manager of NCR’s Personal Computer Division, an internal startup which he formed in 1984; Vice President and General Manager of NCR’s EFT & Data Services division which he formed in 1982; and as Vice President of Sales and Marketing of COMTEN, a telecommunication startup, from 1970 through its acquisition by NCR in 1979.  In the 1960’s, he served in sales and marketing positions with Collins Radio company and was involved with the communications system for the Apollo program and its associated ground tracking systems.  He graduated from George Washington University with an Electrical Engineering Degree and is a member of the GW Engineering Hall of Fame.

We recently caught up with him on his experiences with CRT.

How long have you been involved as a mentor in CRT?

I am not exactly sure but I believe  I joined CRT in 1999.

What got you interested in the organization in the first place?

I started the local network of the TechCoast Angels in 1997 and was very involved with helping entrepreneurs start companies and raise money.  I knew most of the early CRT members and was invited to join.  There were only 10 or 12 members at that time.  I had been mentoring startup companies since I fully retired in 1996, I enjoyed the CRT members and the rest is history.  Besides the mentoring, I enjoyed getting to know my co-mentors by working with them.

Any idea how many clients you’ve helped? What kind of industries?

I do not know the exact number but I usually had two clients a year so I would guess it is over 20 companies.  It has been a diverse set of companies.  There were several software companies, a steel fabrication company, a construction company, a mobile office leasing company, a re-seller of copy machines, a maker of equipment to inspect the quality of coal at the source, a computer company serving the government market, a website developer of church websites, a hat company, a nurse sourcing company, a developer of web stores, a company that sources targeted lists for email campaigns, as well as eCopywriters.

What keeps you involved in CRT?

I still enjoy mentoring entrepreneurs and helping them reach their goals, enjoy learning about the products, markets, and technologies that our clients are involved with, and the people that I get to associate with.

Ake Persson brings more than three decades of management experience from the international telecommunications industry. When retiring from Ericsson in 2004, he was a member of the Group Executive Management Team, the head of business unit CDMA Systems and President of Ericsson Wireless Communications, Inc. Prior to that, Ake was the VP of Marketing and Sales with global responsibility for Ericsson’s portfolio of wireless systems products.

Ake has been the General Manager of several of Ericsson’s business units including Cellular Systems, Mobile Radio, Mobile Voice & Data Systems and CDMA systems. As the Executive VP at Ram Mobile Data Inc from 1991 to 1992, he helped deploy and operate the world’s first wireless data network supporting Blackberry devices. Ake has served on the boards of several Ericsson companies around the world, holds a B.Sc. in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden and has received Management and Business Administrative training at Centre European d’Education Permanente atInsead,France.

Residing inSan Diego, he is today active in the industry as an advisor, corporate board member and management coach.

A member of the Chairmen’s Roundtable since 2006, Ake has provided pro bono mentorship to CEOs and management teams of eight companies in a wide range of industries; many of them outside of the technology space. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Jacob’sSchoolofEngineeringat theUniversityofCalifornia San Diegoand is an active board member of several local organizations including CommNexus, EvoNexus, the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce San Diego and The House of Sweden.

We recently caught up with him on his experiences with CRT.

What keeps you involved in CRT?

I get the opportunity to meet with companies and business owners from all sorts of industries. I’ve had the pleasure of working with high-tech companies but also with glass and glazing manufacturers, sport bike and security services companies. I find it exciting and refreshing to look at different industries.

What role do you play for each of the companies that you mentor?

We hone in on strategic issues; helping the business owners outline a path toward profitability and growth. At times, we recommend bringing in experts to help with operational and financial management issues in order to lay the foundation by which we can look at the bigger picture.

How do you relate with owners of companies in industries in which you have no prior experience?

It’s never as much about the particular nuances of a market as it is the leadership and management qualities that must be present in order to succeed. That’s where we as CRT mentors spend our time. We see that time and time again how our experiences are directly translatable to any business.

What elements must exist for a CRT-client relationship to be successful?

The biggest thing is for the business owners and management team to be “coachable.” Defense barriers must be lowered and two-way communication must be present in order for progress to be made. These are traits I still try to uphold in my own day-to-day activities, but they are critical for a company to move ahead.

How did you get introduced to CRT?

A member of CRT, Scott Fox, brought me in to the group, and I’m glad he did. It’s been a rewarding experience these past five years.

We at Stalwart Communications have been getting a great deal of interest of late, and we’re extremely appreciative of the referrals by people who think highly enough of us to do so. Some of them have been true start ups, literally one step beyond the concept stage, but far enough ahead of a full-fledged launch and customers.

Marketing dollars are in short supply for these organizations, so they naturally want to generate as much free publicity as they can. Hence our introduction. Often times, though, I find myself giving them a dose of bad-tasting medicine; that PR cannot – and should not – be their first line of offense.

Here’s why; reporters and editors of media outlets – particularly those that cater to the general public – are less apt than ever before to write about a novel concept at its launch without having the market validation. This is a significant change from slightly more than a decade ago, where all one needed was a website and a mission to “disrupt the brick and mortar side of their industry.” Hype was all that was required to garner press. The problem came just a few months later when the dot-com boom busted, and entrepreneurs, patrons and investors all came back down to reality. Those stories in the media that touted the “next great thing” turned out to be wrong. The legacy from that is in how reporters now look at new companies; with a far more skeptical eye.

That’s not to say that all startups are resigned to not see their names on the home page of TechCrunch or the Wall Street Journal when they launch. There are several exceptions, but many center around how well their founder is known by consumers and stockbrokers. If Netscape’s founder Marc Andreessen, Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet even think about a new idea for a company, someone will most certainly pick it up. For the rest of us, good positive coverage will only come after achieving significant customer traction – to the tune of tens of thousands — and exponential projections for more.

But know this – the lack of press doesn’t signal a referendum on the company’s prospects. It’s more of a sign of how news organizations look at events. Their number one criteria to determine what makes news is how many in their audience is interested. A start up with no clientele will be seen as potentially interesting, but a bit too early for worthy coverage. However, when market traction is gained, the company founders better be ready for the landslide effect of press and customer that ensue. And we’ll be ready to help when the time comes.

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David Oates, APR, is the President of Stalwart Communications, (www.stalwartcom.com) a San Diego-based Pay-on-Performance marketing and public relations firm that charges its full fees only when its clients get press, awards and other marketing deliverables. He also launched the social media site, Pay-on-Performance (http://payonperformance.com), to engage business leaders in discussion on this revenue model.  David can be reached at david@stalwartcom.com.  He is an active sponsor of The Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization providing pro bono strategic advice to companies in San Diego.

Like any respectable San Diego State alum, I was ecstatic over how well the men’s basketball team played this year. As a PR practitioner though, I was even more excited that folks were able to get reacquainted with legendary coach Steve Fisher. For as he made his way back to the national spotlight, he showed what a master he is at the media interview. Fisher is not very charismatic or gregarious, but he’s certainly got a way about him that corporate executives should take note and follow. 

There are several positive tactics Fisher when on camera or conducting a phone interview, including these three:

Stick to key messages. Keep an eye on how Fisher answers questions in an interview. He always does so with the mindset of bringing home specific points about the team’s focus and dedication to the next task at hand as well as the strong fan student body support that his staff and players have enjoyed this year. Those are key aspects of his program that he emphasizes at every turn, and I rarely see him miss a chance to express it.
Think before you speak. Though perhaps a bid awkward to others, Fisher ensures that he takes a moment to pause before he answers a question. Controlling an interview without coming across condescending or inconsiderate is an art form that takes time and practice to master, and Fisher has done so over his 40-plus years of coaching.

Be yourself. If you didn’t know before seeing him speak that Fisher was born and raised a Midwesterner, you’d certainly know it from one of his media interviews. His matter-of-fact, low-key style is not one you find often coming from coaches of Southern California schools. But Steve’s style is genuine and sincere. He knows that coming across otherwise would be disingenuous and – more important – less effective.

Rest assured, no matter how the Aztecs play this next year, I’ll be a loyal watcher of their games both for the players’ conduct on the court and their head coach’s continued master of the interview off it.

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David Oates, APR, is the President of Stalwart Communications, (www.stalwartcom.com) a San Diego-based Pay-on-Performance marketing and public relations firm that charges its full fees only when its clients get press, awards and other marketing deliverables. He also launched the social media site, Pay-on-Performance (http://payonperformance.com), to engage business leaders in discussion on this revenue model.  David can be reached at david@stalwartcom.com.  He is an active sponsor of The Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization providing pro bono strategic advice to companies in San Diego.

The mid year brings with it an opportunity to take stock of New Year Resolutions to see where they stand. I guess it’s natural to take a moment and reflect upon what’s worked and what hasn’t. For most of us, it’s probably a mixed bag – some things exceeded our own expectations with others fell short.

That’s perfectly okay though; if all the goals were tracking perfectly in my world I would question whether I was pushing myself hard enough. The reality is that new ventures and challenges always come with a risk of not succeeding. But that doesn’t mean that the initiative wasn’t worthwhile or won’t ultimately support a significant achievement. The opposite is often true – what we learn from the things that don’t go right the first time will lead to even greater success down the road.

I’ve often heard from entrepreneurs and business managers that “failure is not an option.” I wholeheartedly agree, but most likely have a different definition of the term than they do. I look at the phrase more of a factor as to the level of effort and commitment that an individual puts forth. The true test of success isn’t so much as to the outcome as it is for the perseverance and dedication that an organization and its team gives, particularly if things didn’t initially pan out as expected.

Here’s an example – it took Thomas Edison 3,000 attempts to create the light bulb. When asked about it years later, he stated “I didn’t fail 3,000 times. I found 3,000 ways how not to create a light bulb.”  I find Mr. Edison’s logic profound, enlightening and liberating; it gives all of us permission to try new things without fearing that it won’t go well. What’s more, this mentality is embedded in the fabric of our society on so many levels. A Major League Baseball player who leads the league in batting, for instance, will hit somewhere around .350 during the year if he’s lucky. That means that even though he’s the best in the game at that moment, he still doesn’t succeed in getting even so much as a bloop single more than two-thirds of the time he stands at home plate. Chances are, though, he’ll learn the pitcher’s delivery mechanics and other tell-tale signs that will generate a base hit sometime before the last out is recorded.

Failure has more to do with a person’s heart than it does their skill level and achievements. I try to employ that philosophy in myself and my team; that we must learn from our mistakes to try not to repeat them, but we shouldn’t dwell on not achieving our goals the first time out of the gate. Rather, we should pride ourselves in picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off and getting back into the thick of things with a better understanding of what to do and how to do it. I guarantee, our success will come if we do just that.

“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth.” Rocky Balboa.

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David Oates, APR, is the President of Stalwart Communications, (www.stalwartcom.com) a San Diego-based Pay-on-Performance marketing and public relations firm that charges its full fees only when its clients get press, awards and other marketing deliverables. He also launched the social media site, Pay-on-Performance (http://payonperformance.com), to engage business leaders in discussion on this revenue model.  David can be reached at david@stalwartcom.com.  He is an active sponsor of The Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization providing pro bono strategic advice to companies in San Diego.

What? Cookie Monster mislead us? That’s like questioning mom, apple pie and the 4th of July!

But he did. If you don’t believe me, just watch this very short (one-minute) video clip.

Where’s the fib? In his implication that there’s only one right answer to the question.

From a very early age we‘re taught by authority figures to think in rigid ways. In particular, we’re taught that there is one, and ONLY one, right answer to every problem or question. As evidenced by the video clip, even Cookie Monster gets in on the act. And he’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Did you take the SAT or ACT exams in high school? Or maybe the LSATs on the way to law school? Remember how many of the multiple-choice questions had several likely answers? I can remember constantly fighting the urge to fill in more than one bubble.

If I had, not only would I have gotten the question wrong, they would probably have put me in the “special” class. That’s how strong our bias is for seeking THE right answer. And it gets baked into our impressionable brains from the time we start watching Cookie Monster until the time we can no longer eat cookies without dentures.

Here’s the problem: that’s not the way the world works! Especially in business.

Almost all problems have multiple solutions. Some are better, easier, cheaper, more feasible, etc. than others. But very rarely do we encounter situations where only one option is the only right one.

Our job as leaders isn’t to find THE right answer. It’s to identify as many possible answers as we can and choose the best one or combination of ones, meaning the solution that most supports reaching our desired destination.

Why is this flexible approach to problem solving and decision making so important?

Because in today’s chaotic markets the development of strategic agility — which I define as the ability to move fast with flexibility and focus — needs to become management’s #1 strategic priority. When entire markets can change overnight, organizations need to respond quickly without losing focus on their vision of winning.

This kind of agility sometimes requires adjusting our definitions of what winning looks like. But far too often companies react to change in panic mode and respond in ways that don’t necessarily support reaching their desired destinations.

Developing strategic agility starts with rearranging how we think about the world. First we have to let go of the notion that we need to constantly find THE right answer. Then we need to make a habit of considering multiple possibilities, especially when we know we have the right answer.

This is no easy task for brains that have received lifelong training in right-answer finding, but it can be done. The following techniques will help to shake up your brain and get it used to considering new possibilities on a regular basis:

• Ask a lot of “What if…?” questions. For example, “What if our ‘right’ answer is wrong? Is there another way we should be looking at this?”
• Consider second best. Ask, “If we had to choose the second-best answer to this question, what would we look at?”
• Put on different stakeholder hats. “If our customers were considering this question, how would they answer it? Our employees? Our vendors? Someone outside our industry?”
• Solicit alternative viewpoints. “It sounds like we’re all in agreement on the solution here. I’m wondering if anyone sees it differently.”
• Have people come up with the worst possible solution to a problem. Have fun with it.
• Trade problems. If marketing is struggling to resolve an issue, let purchasing take a stab at solving it.
• Challenge your assumptions. Ask, “What underlying attitudes and beliefs are causing us to see this as the best or only solution?”
• Have a contest to see who can come up with the most answers or solutions. Give a fun prize to the winner.
• Don’t settle for the first good answer. Good often gets in the way of great.

Perhaps most important, learn to look at things differently. One of the most successful products of the past decade, the iPod, was invented by putting together readily available, off-the-shelf components. No new intellectual property. No technological breakthroughs. Just looking at what already existed and putting the pieces together in different ways.

Cookie Monster meant well and so did all of your teachers who graded you on getting the ‘right’ answer along the way, but the lesson they taught does not serve us well in today’s business world. Stop looking for THE right answer and who knows what you might come up with!

Holly G. Green

As CEO and Managing Director of The Human Factor, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz), Holly helps business leaders and their companies achieve higher levels of performance and profitability.  Her unique approach to consulting – based on the approach Pause, Think, Focus, Run - provides the tools, techniques, and skills companies need to reach their destinations and achieve their strategic goals.  Holly is an acclaimed speaker, author, consultant, and columnist.  Her top selling book, More Than a Minute, how to be an effective leader and manager in today’s changing world, is available in five languages globally.

I was at a high profile networking event in San Diego earlier this year. The speaker was a venture capitalist who was incredibly forthright about the state of his industry and the lack of liquidity within it. It became clear to anyone in the room that this man was wickedly smart.

About halfway through the talk the moderator announced to the room how much he appreciated his guest’s candor and reasoned his willingness to do so in part because he told him that the audience would not blog or tweet about his statements nor could he expect any press coverage from it. He obviously didn’t talk to me or anyone else in charge of securing such interest. For if he did, he would have known that there were four reporters in the room.

Furthermore, you can’t expect 450 people NOT to keep the public information solely for themselves, even if the event was closed to reporters. It’s just impossible to do so with the increasing ability for individuals and companies to be their own broadcaster; posting their comments and views about various items of interest on social media sites like LinkedIn as they happen to their colleagues, friends and families from wherever and whenever. What’s more, I was shocked that someone would speak in a public forum just to keep the conversation amongst those in the room. Any credible networking organization would want just the opposite, and instead encourage those in attendance tell their colleagues all about what they missed in the hope that they will come out for the next program.

This incident is a classic case of how futile it is to essentially “put the genie back in the bottle.” The near ubiquitous state of bloggers and online media outlets makes any business forum and the information presented within just that – open for public consumption. What’s more, social media platforms like Twitter have the power to make any public event accessible in near real time to interested individuals from all over the world. Perhaps it was possible years ago to limit the dissemination of information at an event, but those days are long gone, with no hope whatsoever of coming back.

So for anyone moderating an industry event in the near future, I would take this example to heart – be sure that you and your guests on stage treat their presentation at an official function the same was as they would be interested on a cable news channel – they have the distinct ability to have their comments broadcasted around the globe.

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David Oates, APR, is the President of Stalwart Communications, (www.stalwartcom.com) a San Diego-based Pay-on-Performance marketing and public relations firm that charges its full fees only when its clients get press, awards and other marketing deliverables. He also launched the social media site, Pay-on-Performance (http://payonperformance.com), to engage business leaders in discussion on this revenue model.  David can be reached at david@stalwartcom.com.  He is an active sponsor of The Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization providing pro bono strategic advice to companies in San Diego.