Moving Into the Future

This column is about the company I formed 18 years ago, and an admission that the leadership that helps create a company isn't always the leadership that can move it into the future.

Those who know me, know I'm a fan of Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma. His work helped launch Borrell Associates in April 2001. Our first project was a joint effort with his protege and my friend, Clark Gilbert, from Harvard's Entrepreneurial Unit. Our goal was to help the CEOs of Knight Ridder, Tribune, A.H. Belo, and Media General learn from the innovator's dilemma and seize the digital future that lay ahead.

Today, I find my company immersed in its own innovator's dilemma. We've been brimming with new ways to provide valuable data and insights to the advertising world. We've tried to launch several. We even created two separate companies, Beampoint Marketing and Borrell Analytic Services LLC. Both failed.

It takes fresh ideas and great people to transform a company, yes. More than anything else, however, it takes a leadership change. I've see it happen at many of our client companies. When someone retires or steps aside after decades of leading the company, things happen. Good things.

It is in that spirit that some of the key people who started Borrell Associates are stepping aside. Kip Cassino, who was instrumental in developing our innovative and disruptive way of calculating local ad spending, retired at the end of 2018. Colby Atwood, who joined me a few months after we started, is passing his title of president to a new leader, signaling his own transition into eventual retirement.

In their place will be two great people, brimming with ideas and eager to challenge the way we've always looked at things. We've found those new leaders in Corey Elliott, who was named Executive Vice President of Local Market Intelligence last month, and Jim Brown, who was elevated to the title of President of Borrell Associates this week.

These changes underscore a high level of confidence in Corey's research brilliance and in Jim's ability to take a greater leadership role. Both are first-class individuals with a great deal of intellect and integrity. We're lucky to have both.

Colby and I have guided the company through the creation of our popular Compass product, through two acquisitions in 2006 and 2010, and through the creation of the largest survey of local advertisers in the nation. We believe the company has a great deal of potential to grow even more in the coming years, and we're confident that both Jim and Corey are the ones who can make that happen.

Leading up to this change, we made a few other key hires, including a marketing technology director and full-stack developer. The new hires are aimed at helping Borrell bring some very dynamic changes to Compass, now used by 3,000 subscribers from companies such as Tribune, Hearst, Nexstar, Graham Media, McClatchy, The Washington Post, Gannett, Cox, Hubbard and many others. We'll unveil major enhancements later this year.

Colby will continue in an executive role with the company, as senior advisor and executive director.  I will remain as CEO until the transition is complete -- a process that we expect to take two to three years.

I'm excited about moving our company into the future in a bold and more dynamic way, and more confident than ever that a change in leadership is what will make it happen.