Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building Boardsi: How Martin Rowinski & Boardsi Place Executives on a Journey to Board Opportunities | Staffing Series

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Building Boardsi: How Martin Rowinski & Boardsi Place Executives on a Journey to Board Opportunities | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Martin Rowinski, the CEO of Boardsy.
• 0:22
  They transform board membership and executive development
• 0:25
  through its board suite, offering education, branding,
• 0:28
  profiling and placement services.
• 0:31
  Their mission is to empower businesses by bringing
• 0:34
  exceptional leaders and organizations together using AI
• 0:39
  to ensure precise executive board placement.
• 0:42
  Now, under Martin's guidance, Board C has earned impressive
• 0:46
  accolades, including Inc 5000 in 2023 and 2024, Inc Power Partner
• 0:53
  2022 and Real Leaders Impact Company of the Year for 2024.
• 1:00
  Martin is an accomplished leader in technology and executive
• 1:03
  consulting, holding past roles in strategic planning and
• 1:07
  operations. He has helped many organizations
• 1:10
  achieve growth by focusing on innovation, leadership, and
• 1:13
  strong partnerships. Through his years of experience,
• 1:16
  Martin has shown a commitment to placing senior leaders in roles
• 1:20
  where they can excel and make a lasting impact.
• 1:23
  I'm excited to explore his journey and how he's overcome
• 1:26
  challenges to reach success. Before we get into all that good
• 1:29
  stuff, though, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:32
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:00
  today, the CEO of Board C Martin Rwinski.
• 2:03
  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:05
  Yeah, thanks for the great intro.
• 2:07
  I want to meet that guy. Just kidding.
• 2:10
  When I when I run into him, I'll let you know.
• 2:13
  OK, So Martin, like so many other other entrepreneurs,
• 2:17
  you've had several waypoints along your career before the
• 2:21
  idea for Boardsy came up. Pick one that's maybe the most
• 2:25
  notable. And what was the biggest thing
• 2:27
  you learned through that experience?
• 2:29
  Man, which one to pick from so many.
• 2:32
  I've definitely had my share of startups and, and fails, but I
• 2:39
  would say there was after the mortgage meltdown.
• 2:44
  So I actually had a mortgage company that I owned.
• 2:47
  Things were going great, of course.
• 2:49
  And then 2008 hits and you know, all the wholesale reps are like,
• 2:55
  oh, it's going to be great. We'll get through it no problem.
• 2:58
  So you're like, you know, holding on.
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  And I was holding on to it and held on to my employees and kept
• 3:04
  paying everybody and draining my account because there's nothing
• 3:07
  incoming. And then realized it's done and
• 3:10
  over with the mortgage business for brokers was done.
• 3:14
  So after that, which I just told you about 11 failure that I've
• 3:20
  had went through my financial struggles and really try to, you
• 3:25
  know, figure out what am I going to do next?
• 3:26
  All while I'm like just literally, I can't even, it was
• 3:30
  hard to think straight after that going through the 2008 and
• 3:36
  being in that business. So I needed to really think
• 3:40
  outside the box, how to friends that, you know, weren't my
• 3:45
  partners at the mortgage business, but they were also in
• 3:47
  the mortgage business. So me and Juan connected and we
• 3:50
  were just throwing ideas up and, and finally I said, Hey, I think
• 3:55
  we can do something in search engine placement, help companies
• 3:59
  get on the first page of Google. I think I got this figured out.
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  And this is my tech background. I'm like, you know, I've, I've
• 4:04
  read the algorithms. I think we can follow these
• 4:07
  patterns, put, you know, put these directories up and really
• 4:10
  help people. So we did and we launched it and
• 4:13
  it grew from a literally from my dining room that we we took
• 4:18
  over, my wife was super happy about that to an office.
• 4:26
  And yeah. And then we were in the office
• 4:30
  growing and things were actually looking pretty good.
• 4:32
  And learning lesson from this one was we had somebody that
• 4:37
  came on partnered with us, signed up as a reseller of our
• 4:40
  service. They did pretty good with it on
• 4:44
  paper that that the whole team looked amazing, especially the
• 4:49
  CEO of that company. And we were just excited to be
• 4:52
  working with somebody that's, you know, way done bigger, way
• 4:57
  bigger things than we've ever done.
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  So, you know, being 2 entrepreneurs, we're all
• 5:01
  excited. They eventually pitched us on
• 5:04
  partnership and merging together and doing it as one, you know,
• 5:08
  going through a whole name change and everything.
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  We did all of that. And after a few years and the
• 5:14
  real, the real CEO, we saw the real colors and what his
• 5:19
  ultimate mission was, was a tough lesson for us.
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  We walked away from the business.
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  You can say we exited, but let's just say it wasn't anything I
• 5:30
  can retire off of. But a learning lesson was don't
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  trust what's on paper. Really get to know somebody.
• 5:38
  So yeah, that was a tough one. Let's let's unpack a few of
• 5:43
  these things here 'cause you, you packed a lot of ups and
• 5:47
  downs into a, a very short, you know, few sentences there and
• 5:51
  people listening are like, Oh yeah, that must have been hard
• 5:53
  as you know, as mortgage business closed.
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  But when you've been through something like that, it's not
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  just hard, it is gut wrenching. It is soul crushing.
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  It is identity separating, like existential threat kind of a
• 6:09
  thing that it it's hard to put into words.
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  Yeah, it it is 2008 through 2009 were were very that was a very
• 6:20
  tough year, very short amount of sleep, a lot of work and.
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  Like you said, it's hard. It's hard to even think.
• 6:31
  Yeah, it it, it really is. And then on top of that, you got
• 6:34
  lack of sleep. You know, I was the technology
• 6:37
  side of everything. So I was literally working with
• 6:39
  wasn't on the business. It was on the tech side.
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  So it was just it was tough. But you know, you got a family,
• 6:48
  you got to how you got to keep your roof over your, you know,
• 6:52
  over your head and you got to provide food.
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  And thankfully my wife at this time was just actually, we
• 7:00
  weren't married at this time, but my wife currently, she was
• 7:04
  just getting going as a hair stylist.
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  So again, she's an entrepreneur on top of all of this.
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  And we actually utilized our Google search engine tools to
• 7:20
  get her going. And she was like, I would, I
• 7:23
  would say she was probably one of our very first clients,
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  obviously not paying for the service, almost like a Guinea
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  pig, like, let's see what we can do.
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  And we lived in a small town in El Dorado Hills, right outside
• 7:35
  of Folsom. And we literally destroyed
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  anything you Googled with hair. She was on the front page.
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  So her business just flipped and boomed right away.
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  I mean, she was all super busy, build clientele super fast.
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  She had people that would fly in for weddings from New York.
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  And of course they're Googling. Boom, they got, you know, she's
• 7:55
  got a New York client sitting in their chair.
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  So it was, she was a great example of of, you know, how
• 8:03
  powerful search engines at that time were and and how.
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  Did you know what to do? How?
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  Were you guys so good at it so fast?
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  Just studied the Google algorithm and provided exactly
• 8:16
  what Google wanted to see. And you know, of course they
• 8:19
  went through all their changes all the time.
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  You know, they always had nicknames for their changes or
• 8:24
  they named them just like hurricanes.
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  But every time they would make a change, you know, something
• 8:30
  would maybe fall apart or a little bit and then just had to
• 8:33
  make adjustments and, and it would all come back.
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  So just have to stay on top of their their algorithm and make
• 8:39
  sure we provide and you know, no Black Hat trickery was all
• 8:43
  exactly that. Is going to be my question.
• 8:44
  I didn't want to go there, but you're doing some, you know,
• 8:47
  weird stuff behind the scenes, no.
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  Just nothing. Just gave them white hats that
• 8:52
  they wanted, yeah. Yeah, OK.
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  And so, you know, you had your girlfriend now wife that, you
• 8:58
  know, was kind of a Guinea pig client.
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  You're like, OK, yes, we we understand this.
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  We know what to do. We went out, started marketing
• 9:04
  and picking up more clients. And then there was this
• 9:06
  partnership opportunity that that came about that seemed like
• 9:09
  this was going to be really good and you thought you knew the
• 9:13
  guy. You find out later that you
• 9:15
  didn't. Looking back, like, what would
• 9:20
  you have done differently in those early days?
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  Like what could have been a better way for you to sort of
• 9:25
  flesh out what his true colors were?
• 9:28
  I think two things, one, probably just not done the
• 9:34
  merger and just stay with a reseller partnership.
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  Let him keep doing what they're doing.
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  Maybe waited longer to see how successful they become as a
• 9:45
  reseller. The second one would be probably
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  a heavier financial evaluation and actually having a merger
• 9:57
  that provided some financial money towards me and my partner
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  versus the way that we did merge and a lot of promises, yeah, a
• 10:06
  lot of promises. And, you know, their sweat
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  equity was going to go into it and all that.
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  And I, I just felt like it was all my sweat equity that kept
• 10:16
  going into it. So yeah, so I mean, they, they
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  helped out, especially in the beginning from finances, we were
• 10:23
  able to move into a better location, better off as.
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  So there was definitely some help.
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  I wouldn't say it was personal financial help.
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  Like, you know, my account didn't grow significantly
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  personally. And I, you know, again, I just
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  came out of a 2008 struggle. So yeah, it we, we were, what I
• 10:41
  would say, vulnerable, yeah. And when did you realize that
• 10:46
  this was starting to go sideways?
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  Like what were the early clues? When we would bring certain
• 10:54
  ideas to the table that were shut down when we actually were,
• 11:03
  I would say the biggest sign was we were looking at selling the
• 11:07
  business and I can't, I don't want to name the company, but a
• 11:11
  large publicly traded company. And he kept us out of the loop
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  on purpose, just kept saying I got it, I'll handle it and and
• 11:24
  really kept us out of the loop of know how.
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  I was brought in on a call one time just to explain our
• 11:30
  technology. Same question you just had.
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  Is it Black Hat? Is it white hat?
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  Is it what it is? And that was the only time I had
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  interaction with them and just kind of kept us out of the whole
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  loop. And he flew out the to the
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  corporate offices, came back, gave us that, you know, the
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  summary of what happened. And you know, it's, it's, it's
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  still a few months away. So that was a, that was a red
• 11:56
  flag. And of course we weren't just
• 11:58
  going to let it go. So we started digging in deeper
• 12:00
  of what was said, what happened. And then we found out some
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  things and we heard some things that weren't what he told us and
• 12:11
  kind of figured out the hidden agenda and just had to walk
• 12:15
  away. The hidden agenda was what to
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  squeeze you guys out. Yep.
• 12:19
  Yeah, 100%. OK, so I mean, it sounds like
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  you had sort of a 1-2 punch, like, you know, you had the the
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  mortgage downturn totally out of your control.
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  You start this business, it feels like it's going well and
• 12:30
  not you got this, you know, partner doing shady things
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  behind your back. How hard was it to pick yourself
• 12:37
  up the second time? Well, it wasn't my second.
• 12:40
  I was pretty used to pivoting. You had battle scars by this?
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  Point yeah, I've I've been I've been an entrepreneur since 16.
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  So yeah, not not my first rodeo. It it wasn't hard, but I was
• 12:54
  looking for something a little bit more stable and we were able
• 12:57
  to actually find a company that really wanted to grow.
• 13:03
  We saw the issues that they had. We came on us consultants and we
• 13:07
  were actually there for three years or almost three years and
• 13:11
  really helped the company grow and it paid off.
• 13:13
  I mean, we, we did pretty good financially.
• 13:16
  That included my partner. He came with me on this project.
• 13:21
  We changed. We were consulting on SEO or
• 13:23
  what? No, no, no, totally different,
• 13:26
  totally different product, totally different service.
• 13:29
  But my technology site went into, at first it wasn't all
• 13:34
  tech, but then it, I ended up basically helping them, helping
• 13:38
  the company streamline a lot of their processes.
• 13:42
  And my business partner, by the time I got into the tech side of
• 13:46
  that company and really found holes that needed to be filled,
• 13:51
  my business partner basically helped them expand the office
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  and grow it, or I should say second office.
• 13:57
  So yeah, we we were very successful, very, very lucky
• 14:03
  with that opportunity provided income, great income, got us
• 14:09
  back on our feet family wise. And from there we basically
• 14:16
  left. And this is when the board's eye
• 14:19
  idea came to for wishing because again, this wasn't my first time
• 14:24
  doing consulting either. I've done this before and I
• 14:27
  wanted to, instead of being a consultant, watching the success
• 14:33
  of a company and me being the one that's helping them get
• 14:36
  there, I've helped companies go public.
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  I've helped companies sell to a publicly traded company.
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  This is in my younger years, but never saw the financial reward
• 14:46
  for that because I was just a consultant.
• 14:48
  So yeah, great. The reward is thanks, you did a
• 14:51
  great job, but no finances came from that.
• 14:55
  So I was like, you know what, I need to get on the board.
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  I need to be a board advisor. I want, you know, 1 to 3% stake
• 15:01
  in a company and I'll help them grow.
• 15:03
  That was my thinking. So of course, I'm online looking
• 15:06
  for board advisor roles or board roles and couldn't find
• 15:09
  anything. So then I went to my business
• 15:11
  partner and said, you know what? I cannot be the only executive
• 15:14
  wanting to help other companies. There is a missing link out
• 15:20
  there, Some kind of a portal or something that can?
• 15:22
  Provide some kind of matchmaking service.
• 15:23
  Yeah, yeah. So.
• 15:24
  So then he laughed and he goes, yeah, like, like, you know, like
• 15:28
  match.com for love, for lovers to meet up.
• 15:30
  But on the corporate world, I said exactly.
• 15:33
  So boards I was born. And I feel bad.
• 15:36
  In the introduction I pronounced it boards.
• 15:38
  I boards potato, potato, it's all the same at the end of the
• 15:43
  day. And I appreciate your
• 15:45
  understanding there. OK, so the idea for boards, I
• 15:47
  was born and, and so then what were kind of the first steps to,
• 15:51
  I don't know, you know, you sort of like you felt that there was
• 15:55
  a, a need for this. Did you go out and try to prove
• 15:59
  that there was a a bigger market fit for it or did you just like
• 16:03
  jump right into building? Yeah, we jumped right into it,
• 16:06
  built it, started reaching out to executives and we definitely
• 16:12
  felt like there was a need for it right away.
• 16:15
  And the hardest part to figure out was how to find the
• 16:18
  companies, which we did. I just took a little bit longer
• 16:21
  to figure that out and a lot of testing and AB testing and
• 16:26
  finally we got the formula figured out, we got the data
• 16:28
  figured out. And, you know, and this is all
• 16:32
  while we're building the brands, of course, it's not like we're
• 16:36
  were out there LinkedIn or Facebook, like, oh, we're, we're
• 16:40
  we're a big, big name in the game.
• 16:42
  You know, there, there was no name, there was no brand.
• 16:45
  So definitely at this point, seven years later, it's a lot
• 16:50
  easier. A lot of people know who boards.
• 16:52
  I am who you are. So basically the approach was
• 16:55
  you were running ads to find companies that, you know, had
• 16:58
  board seats that they wanted to fit with, filled with really
• 17:01
  smart people. And then you're running separate
• 17:03
  ads to find people that would be, you know, that want to be on
• 17:07
  a board that they have those really smart minds that would be
• 17:09
  a good fit for these companies. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:11
  And then match make them. And then and So what is the the
• 17:14
  actual matchmaking part look like?
• 17:16
  You know, somebody's got experience in, I don't know,
• 17:19
  industrial. You've got somebody over here
• 17:22
  who's got a, you know, a retail brand, maybe they're not a a
• 17:26
  great fit for each other and that's that one's obvious, but
• 17:29
  there's more nuances to how, how to pair people up.
• 17:33
  Yeah. No, there, there is a lot and I
• 17:35
  won't get into the whole science of it.
• 17:37
  But at the end of the day, if we were lacking that executive that
• 17:42
  exactly fit what the company told us they're looking for, we
• 17:46
  would go out there and find them and have them join the network
• 17:49
  and and then get them an interview.
• 17:52
  Is it almost like like executive recruiting at that point?
• 17:56
  Yeah, it is, But we're more platform based and you know back
• 18:00
  in those days we were just a simple matchmaking service.
• 18:03
  And as you said, now we have a whole board suite.
• 18:06
  So we've grown as a company into providing education services,
• 18:10
  branding services, creating an executive impact reports.
• 18:14
  A company can quickly look at this individual executive and
• 18:18
  see exactly what kind of impact they can make on on their for
• 18:22
  their company as a board member or advisor.
• 18:24
  So we've come a long way since day one.
• 18:28
  So you guys are generating a fee from the company?
• 18:32
  An executive. Mainly the executives, they're
• 18:36
  they're paying a fee because it's worth it for them.
• 18:40
  They're going to make some money by being on this board, get some
• 18:42
  more exposure themselves, probably have other
• 18:44
  opportunities. Get education, get branding,
• 18:47
  Yes. Yeah.
• 18:49
  And so you guys also offer education through your site to
• 18:54
  the executives. Yes, yeah, it's a, we have 4
• 18:57
  courses right now. They're all board leadership
• 19:00
  courses. What it takes to be a board
• 19:01
  member, you know, no matter what the executive level they're at,
• 19:08
  not all of them have served on the board.
• 19:10
  Not all of them. You know, as ACEO of a private
• 19:13
  company, sure, you know, I'm a board member.
• 19:15
  Of course, if you're ACEO, you're a board member naturally
• 19:18
  of your board. But to be a third party advisor,
• 19:22
  to be a third party, it's a whole different leadership.
• 19:25
  It's not, you're not in there as ACEO.
• 19:29
  You're not the one making the changes.
• 19:31
  You're there to, you know, provide governance, provide
• 19:34
  guidance. So it's a different type of
• 19:37
  leadership. So yes, we have, we have courses
• 19:39
  that cover that what what's expected of you as a board
• 19:41
  member. Can you say a little bit more
• 19:43
  about what's expected? Like, you know, am I going to
• 19:46
  like a, a quarterly meeting and sitting at a, a in a conference
• 19:50
  room and saying that's a good idea, that's a bad idea?
• 19:53
  Or like am I expected to do prep work outside of that?
• 19:56
  Like help? Help get a picture for me.
• 19:58
  Usually you're going to do prep work.
• 19:59
  Outside of that. A perfect board would be.
• 20:04
  You would receive APDF that has or or some kind of a document.
• 20:10
  There's there's great these days there's a company called Zack.
• 20:14
  I'll drop their name under you're welcome, Zack that really
• 20:19
  make it easy. I actually had the CEO Zack on
• 20:22
  my podcast. So, but they're, they're a great
• 20:26
  company to build out a a deck for a board meeting.
• 20:29
  So usually you would get a deck prior to board meeting.
• 20:31
  So you can go through it, look at the financials, try to find
• 20:34
  the holes. So when you come to the board
• 20:36
  meeting, instead of saying yes or, or you're just sitting there
• 20:40
  voting, you can actually provide feedback or Hey, I really
• 20:43
  disagree with this. Or you know, hey, your growth in
• 20:47
  or our growth in employee really needs to be stronger on the
• 20:52
  customer service side. Looks like we're really losing
• 20:55
  on the customer service side, whatever the feedback is you're
• 20:57
  bringing. And yes, typically quarterly
• 21:00
  meetings, if you're a board advisor, you're going to be in a
• 21:02
  lot more meetings. CEO will typically reach out to
• 21:05
  advisors a lot more often, not wait for that quarterly meeting.
• 21:08
  There might be an issue that pops up somewhere else.
• 21:10
  So it's all, it's all dependent, but your typical company will do
• 21:17
  quarterly meetings. So what would be sort of the
• 21:20
  range of the time commitment? So a lot of a.
• 21:25
  Quarter 100 hours 1/4. Yeah, a lot of people think that
• 21:28
  they can sit on like 10 boards and and do great.
• 21:32
  I think there's a there's a limit because there is a time
• 21:36
  commitment and you don't want to be that board member.
• 21:41
  That's not an effective board member.
• 21:43
  You just sitting there to have a seat so you can put it on your
• 21:45
  resume. You should be a board member
• 21:49
  that is effective and that actually dedicates time.
• 21:53
  And I like to even say more than that, make sure that you don't
• 21:58
  just take a seat just to take a seat.
• 22:00
  Make sure you believe in that company's mission, vision and
• 22:02
  values because those should align with your personal
• 22:05
  mission, vision and values. When those things align, there's
• 22:09
  a lot more passion, so a lot more great things can happen and
• 22:13
  be done. How do companies think about
• 22:18
  compensating their board members?
• 22:20
  So there's several factors, right?
• 22:23
  We work a lot with private companies and a lot of times
• 22:27
  they'll be a combination of money and usually some
• 22:33
  percentage of the company, which is usually earned over time.
• 22:37
  So if they say, hey, Max ceiling is going to be 3%, we're going
• 22:42
  to start you off with a quarter right now at the end of the
• 22:45
  year, we'll get that to 1%, at the end of second year, 2%, at
• 22:48
  the end of third year, 3% and then we'll re evaluate where
• 22:52
  we're at at that point. I also tell a lot of companies
• 22:56
  or I don't personally anymore, but we tell the companies, hey,
• 23:00
  create an Advisory Board in the future.
• 23:03
  This would be your first go to if you're looking for
• 23:07
  independent board members, your first go to would be to your
• 23:11
  Advisory Board because you've already had experience of
• 23:13
  working with them for a year or two years and you know their
• 23:15
  personality, you know who you like, you know who you can work
• 23:18
  with, you know who's brought value to that company.
• 23:21
  That is your fishing pond for bringing on board members.
• 23:25
  So you guys have been doing this a little over 7 years starting
• 23:28
  in 2017, Yeah. How far into it were you,
• 23:32
  Martin, before you realized this is working?
• 23:36
  About a year. OK, that's pretty fast.
• 23:39
  Yeah, it was pretty quick. Yeah, Yeah.
• 23:41
  So pretty quickly you figured out how to run those ads and
• 23:44
  talk to people in a way that, you know, got them into the
• 23:47
  system and and had them intrigued to use your services.
• 23:50
  And if somebody's listening now where they're, let's start first
• 23:54
  with the company and they're like, huh, like that sounds
• 23:56
  interesting. Like what's the profile of a
• 23:58
  company that would be a good fit for the boardside platform?
• 24:02
  I would say most companies we work with are mid range
• 24:05
  companies, so doing over $1,000,000 in revenue.
• 24:09
  A lot of them are a lot bigger than that, a lot of
• 24:12
  international companies. So it ranges quite wide, but we
• 24:17
  do also have startups that come to us that are really
• 24:20
  struggling. You know, maybe they got a
• 24:22
  product, they got her off the ground, but are struggling in
• 24:25
  distribution. So they're like, hey, can you
• 24:27
  guys help us out, find a advisor that, you know, maybe somebody
• 24:32
  that used high level executive that's at Amazon.
• 24:35
  We really need help to figure this out how to distribute our
• 24:38
  product. So yeah, it, it ranges all over
• 24:42
  the place. Most companies are privately
• 24:45
  held companies. We did have the opportunity to
• 24:48
  work with a few publicly traded companies.
• 24:52
  We've also had and this has tried the most exciting example,
• 24:56
  work with privately traded companies that were about to go
• 25:00
  public and they really needed to diverse diversify their board
• 25:04
  and those, those were awesome. And in all honesty, I don't know
• 25:08
  if we're working with anybody right now that's in that stage.
• 25:12
  I'm sure somebody is, I don't know if they're actually like
• 25:15
  working on going public, but we knew specifically of a few
• 25:19
  companies because they were pretty open about and they said
• 25:21
  we really need to work on diversity of our board.
• 25:25
  And yeah, seeing it go public six months later, seven months
• 25:28
  later. And that the thank you emails
• 25:32
  from the executives who, you know, maybe talk on a position
• 25:34
  not making a lot of money. Maybe it was just a we'll give
• 25:38
  you 3% or 5% or actually one of them got 10%.
• 25:41
  I don't know how lucky she got, but.
• 25:44
  And when they they went public, their, their lives changed.
• 25:47
  Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so for somebody who's on the
• 25:51
  executive side that's listening, wondering if they might be a
• 25:54
  good fit for a role like this, what's their profile?
• 25:58
  Yeah. So typically, definitely
• 26:00
  C-Suite, anybody in the C-Suite directors at this point.
• 26:05
  We've even had the opportunity of working with some VPS that
• 26:08
  might not be quite ready to serve on the board, but they're
• 26:12
  looking for trajectory and hitting that next level, maybe
• 26:16
  changing their career and finding AC suite position.
• 26:19
  Maybe they've been AVP for five years and they're like, you
• 26:21
  know, I want to, I want to be ACEO or I want to be ACEO.
• 26:27
  Taking that courses online really preps them for that.
• 26:30
  Doing branding really gets them exposed.
• 26:33
  We have seen executives that have had career changes that
• 26:38
  were positive, whether they jump companies or within their own
• 26:41
  company been promoted and then eventually they'll be ready for
• 26:45
  a board position. But of course, entrepreneurs,
• 26:48
  successful exit founders can bring great value to startups,
• 26:54
  leading them down the path that they have already lived.
• 26:58
  So those those types of people are definitely great board
• 27:01
  members, board advisors. With your focus on sort of
• 27:08
  connecting matchmaking companies and high level executives, are
• 27:12
  there any surprising insights or trends that you've observed?
• 27:18
  And that's a really open-ended question.
• 27:20
  I don't know if there's an answer to it, but I mean, you
• 27:22
  get to see kind of a lot of different things going on.
• 27:26
  Is is there something interesting that you've noticed?
• 27:30
  I'll tell you something interesting and funny.
• 27:34
  That's a great combination. Notice that some executives, and
• 27:41
  it's usually the ones that have a ego, you know, I'm the
• 27:45
  greatest CEO in the world and not in.
• 27:50
  When I said that I was quoting, I wasn't saying I'm the
• 27:52
  greatest. Just be clear.
• 27:55
  I have that wasn't we're we're going to pull out that snippet
• 27:59
  just right there. Martin Morenski saying he's the
• 28:01
  greatest CEO in the world. Thanks.
• 28:03
  Yeah, I've seen that done to other people.
• 28:07
  Yeah, so, but the ones that have an ego that come to us and have
• 28:14
  unrealistic expectations and 30 days later after joining the
• 28:19
  network, not taking any education courses, not doing any
• 28:23
  branding, actually not doing anything at all, come to us and
• 28:28
  complain that they haven't, they haven't been placed yet 30 days
• 28:33
  after joining the network. The reason I say it's funny is
• 28:38
  because I always want to, If I was on the phone, I'd be like,
• 28:43
  how long did it take you to become ACEO?
• 28:46
  Was it 30 days? Did you get out of college and
• 28:49
  you went to Microsoft and you told them, hey, I want to be
• 28:51
  your CEO? And they're like, yeah, we've
• 28:53
  been waiting for you. Where have you been all our
• 28:55
  life? So a board position or even an
• 29:00
  advisory role, that's a whole higher level that's makes ACEO
• 29:05
  level even smaller. So how and why do you expect
• 29:09
  that, first of all? Second of all, there are working
• 29:13
  pieces that of course we're doing all the matchmaking that
• 29:16
  can take 30 days just to find appropriate companies that we
• 29:19
  think they'll be a good fit for. Assuming that assuming that the
• 29:22
  executive is ready. Correct.
• 29:24
  Let's assume they're ready. Let's assume they've been on the
• 29:26
  board before. Let's assume that they've had
• 29:30
  great success before. Let's just perfect executive
• 29:34
  ready to be joined, joining a board.
• 29:37
  OK, So now we identify companies.
• 29:40
  Now we're going to send out their information, their impact
• 29:43
  report, their LinkedIn. We're at the mercy of a third
• 29:50
  party, that company that's looking for this advisor to come
• 29:52
  and tell us. One, we want to interview these
• 29:55
  people. You sent us 20.
• 29:56
  We want to interview these two. So we're waiting for that e-mail
• 30:01
  from them or a phone call from them.
• 30:04
  And then once that happens, now we got to schedule the
• 30:07
  interview, obviously find appropriate time for both
• 30:10
  parties to meet and interview. And then let's just say that
• 30:15
  happens. Let's say that happens within 30
• 30:17
  days. Now they got to make a choice
• 30:19
  between the two people, five people they interviewed.
• 30:22
  Who knows how long that takes? So they come back and say, OK,
• 30:25
  great, we're going to work with John Smith and great.
• 30:31
  So we put him in connection. You're on your own at this point
• 30:34
  because we're we're hands off. We don't do the contract side or
• 30:37
  anything. So now they got to work out the
• 30:39
  contract. You're telling me you expected
• 30:42
  all of that to happen in 30 days?
• 30:46
  You do not. OK, so the other side of it,
• 30:49
  let's flip it. You as Aceo, you got this ego.
• 30:52
  You think it should have happened in 30 days.
• 30:55
  Put yourself in the shoes of the company for one second and say
• 31:00
  you're looking for an advisor. Do you think within 30 days
• 31:05
  you're ready to make a commitment to somebody without
• 31:10
  doing your homework, doing your research, Googling that person?
• 31:14
  Which is why we tell people to do executive branding so that
• 31:17
  they can be identified and found easier.
• 31:20
  Companies can find articles and go, Oh my gosh, he's written an
• 31:22
  article about whatever the industry, health industry, and
• 31:27
  oh, he's written five articles. Oh, he's written a book.
• 31:31
  Wow. This guy's a real, you know,
• 31:33
  he's a thought leader. This is the this.
• 31:34
  Is part of the education that you make available to them,
• 31:37
  where you're coaching them? Yeah, he's taking this education
• 31:40
  courses at Boards I which would be on their profile if they
• 31:43
  didn't and finished and took the tests and passed it.
• 31:49
  So again, put yourself in the company's shoes.
• 31:55
  No, these companies can take 3-4 months before they even get back
• 32:00
  to us, telling us who they want to interview because they're
• 32:02
  doing all the research, all the background.
• 32:03
  Maybe they're not in a hurry to hire.
• 32:05
  They shouldn't be in a hurry. They should take their time and
• 32:08
  make sure they bring on and build the right board so that I
• 32:12
  went on attention there. I'm sorry, but yes.
• 32:14
  So those people, those people make me laugh.
• 32:18
  But I'll tell you what we did, and this is, this is, I don't
• 32:22
  know if this is where they get, maybe they found this article,
• 32:25
  but we did have a case study about 1 executive that literally
• 32:28
  took 30 days. But there's a reason behind
• 32:32
  that. We've been working with this
• 32:33
  company for over six months and this was a publicly traded
• 32:36
  company. We've presented them hundreds of
• 32:41
  executives. They were very specific about
• 32:44
  who they wanted. And we really had a hard time
• 32:47
  finding this person. Not only did they want a female
• 32:50
  board member, they wanted a female that's a mom with a very
• 32:56
  specific age group of kids. I mean, when you're talking
• 32:59
  about a whole next level of very niche.
• 33:02
  Yeah. So, you know, we presented great
• 33:04
  executives, including males that we were like, hey, we're running
• 33:07
  out of options here. But this, this this guy's a dad.
• 33:12
  So I mean, we were trying everything.
• 33:14
  So that was over six months of working with them.
• 33:17
  They were losing a little bit of faith.
• 33:18
  We kept them. We're like, hey, just give us a
• 33:20
  little bit more time. And literally one day this
• 33:26
  executive joined our network and she was the cookie cut, perfect
• 33:33
  fit. I mean, it was just amazing when
• 33:35
  we found her. So before we even told her
• 33:39
  anything, as soon as she joined, we sent her profile to the
• 33:43
  company. We're like, hey, if this doesn't
• 33:46
  work, we're running out of options like this.
• 33:49
  This member just joined. She's amazing.
• 33:53
  Look at all she's done. And sure enough, they went, they
• 33:56
  did their homework, did their research.
• 33:58
  Two days later they came back to us.
• 33:59
  They're like set up an interview.
• 34:01
  She interviewed, She's sharp. She's been Acmo, which is what
• 34:08
  they were looking for. Somebody with CMO background for
• 34:11
  large companies, like huge, very successful.
• 34:16
  She was a mom. I mean she.
• 34:19
  Fit boxes. She fit everything.
• 34:21
  She interviewed Florida State. A week later, she had an offer.
• 34:25
  A week later, she accepted. So within 30 days, she got the
• 34:29
  position. So is it possible?
• 34:32
  Yes. What are the odds?
• 34:34
  The stars, seriously. And the planets have to align
• 34:38
  again. This person, we've been working
• 34:41
  with this company for over six months.
• 34:43
  How do you think all the other executives feel?
• 34:45
  Oh, yeah. You're just stalling on me.
• 34:47
  No, we've been sweating, working, doing everything that
• 34:51
  we say we do. It's just the third party.
• 34:54
  The company is not looking for you.
• 34:57
  So is this a mix of sort of like old fashioned like, you know,
• 35:01
  hands on manual and like tech and AI That's.
• 35:06
  So together back in those days, I'm talking about, this is a
• 35:09
  quite a few years ago, it was a lot more manual.
• 35:11
  Right now we're what we call a hybrid AI.
• 35:15
  So a, we do have AI tools for our admins or recruiters that
• 35:19
  help them align those stars a little bit quicker.
• 35:22
  We do have a lot larger of a network now too.
• 35:24
  So, you know, running through thousands of executives manually
• 35:28
  would be would probably miss a lot.
• 35:31
  So yes, AI can go through and find the closest matches and
• 35:36
  kind of streamline that into a smaller list.
• 35:38
  And then we manually, since we call it hybrid, we still
• 35:41
  manually go through it. So you guys sound like you're
• 35:45
  doing really well now. I've been around for seven
• 35:47
  years. You're the founder and the CEO.
• 35:49
  I'm curious, what is your involvement like today?
• 35:53
  What? What sort of functions?
• 35:55
  What roles are you playing? I still play a lot of functions.
• 36:00
  I still, I'm still working, we're still growing.
• 36:04
  We're opening a new office actually on the East Coast now.
• 36:06
  So going through that. And why?
• 36:10
  Why do you need that office? Do we need it?
• 36:13
  Why do you want it? Because we want to pick up East
• 36:16
  Coast hours, pick up more hours. We're also thinking it's going
• 36:21
  to help us with our international clients who are
• 36:24
  way ahead. You know, from on the West
• 36:26
  Coast, they're 8-9 hours ahead of us.
• 36:29
  This will put a little bit closer to 5-6 hours ahead of us.
• 36:33
  So I it just make things a little bit easier and it would
• 36:37
  be great. One of our partners moved on the
• 36:40
  East Coast. So there's another reason right
• 36:42
  there. But but yeah, no, it's, it's
• 36:46
  your typical CEO still involved day-to-day.
• 36:51
  Are you doing like a lot of biz dev or you going out and
• 36:53
  finding, you know, new companies to to?
• 36:55
  Bring, yeah, one of our, our partners, he's dedicated to
• 37:01
  bringing on the companies. So he runs that.
• 37:06
  Sorry, I wouldn't drink there. Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm like
• 37:12
  involved on that side. I'm involved but not like
• 37:16
  digging in daily. So you guys are opening up this
• 37:19
  new office on the East Coast so that you've got, you know, more
• 37:23
  coverage for East Coast hours and and international hours a
• 37:26
  little closer to them. What other things are you guys
• 37:29
  working on in terms of growth, new projects, new services?
• 37:33
  A lot of tech just keep improving.
• 37:36
  We're just stocking on to it. So I would say there's a lot of
• 37:41
  tech development, of course, always trying to reinvent, add
• 37:46
  value with marketing. How can we, you know, save money
• 37:50
  in marketing? It's always a big expense.
• 37:54
  Branding interviews, me being on this interview right there.
• 37:59
  But yeah, we're, I would say we're always reinventing and
• 38:03
  adding value, finding ways and things we can do to help our
• 38:06
  executives. Branding might expand into even
• 38:11
  a deeper, there's a test we're running right now with a handful
• 38:15
  of executives. We might expand our branding
• 38:17
  efforts even deeper than than we have before.
• 38:20
  So we're always testing, we're always growing.
• 38:25
  We're I wouldn't say we're ever going to be comfortable.
• 38:31
  All the partners are very involved.
• 38:34
  We're all hands on, you know, all hands on deck and how can we
• 38:38
  be better? How can we do better?
• 38:39
  Oh, this client wasn't happy with that.
• 38:41
  How can we change that? What can we do?
• 38:44
  So always looking to improve. Continuous improvement.
• 38:48
  Martin, do you guys have any competitors?
• 38:50
  Is anybody trying to do something similar to you guys?
• 38:52
  This is a brand new concept to me.
• 38:54
  Yeah. No, there is a few.
• 38:57
  They're very. So there's one competitor and
• 39:02
  I'm not going to name any names, but they're, they're all about
• 39:05
  board preparation. So education, they do webinars,
• 39:09
  they do very driven towards the preparation of an executive with
• 39:17
  not really helping with any placement.
• 39:19
  Just hey, we're going to help you be ready to be on a board.
• 39:22
  We obviously have that service. It's part of it, but we also
• 39:26
  help finding matches for them, for executives.
• 39:29
  And then there's the flip side, there's a bunch of websites and
• 39:33
  they're even free. You can, you can join their
• 39:35
  network for free and whatever you see opportunity wise, if
• 39:40
  there is any, you can apply to them.
• 39:42
  But there is no hand holding there, you know, two to three
• 39:45
  employees kind of operations that put this together.
• 39:49
  And, you know, they might have one or two, 3, five companies
• 39:53
  maybe that are looking for board members and they got, because
• 39:55
  it's free, they got, you know, 200,000 members.
• 40:00
  Trying to get a board seat for five companies that they have
• 40:03
  listed. So I don't want to say we don't
• 40:07
  have competitors. They're people trying to do
• 40:10
  similar things, but you guys are kind of in a class by, yeah.
• 40:12
  We're over 100 employees. We're hands on.
• 40:15
  We have recruiters, we have customer service, we have our
• 40:18
  account executives that bring on the onboarding for the executive
• 40:22
  side. We have account executives on
• 40:24
  the B to B sides that bring on the companies that go through a
• 40:27
  whole interview process on both sides.
• 40:29
  So we're very hands on, very human with an AI obviously help
• 40:33
  out the recruiters on the backside.
• 40:35
  But we're, you know, we're not a 5% operation trying to make it
• 40:40
  look like we're a large operation.
• 40:42
  We are a large operation. We have a great platform.
• 40:45
  We provide everything from board preparation to board placement
• 40:50
  services and we're very proud of the fact that we're able to help
• 40:54
  a lot of companies grow and it's very, very satisfying.
• 40:58
  And you guys have your own podcast?
• 41:01
  Yeah. And we have, yeah, that I, that
• 41:03
  I host, yes. What?
• 41:05
  What is it called? Where can we find it?
• 41:07
  Yeah, it's board's eye leadership talks.
• 41:10
  Yeah. OK.
• 41:11
  And what would somebody find? But what kind of interviews
• 41:14
  would they they hear there? Yeah, typically I got lucky.
• 41:18
  I just did a the 2 yesterday and the one I did the week before.
• 41:22
  So they publish weekly. So there should be 1 published
• 41:25
  today hopefully. But last three people actually
• 41:29
  spoke quite a bit about board, board work and what it takes to
• 41:34
  be a board member. So it's always great to get that
• 41:36
  perspective, but for the most part, it's entrepreneurs,
• 41:42
  C-Suite executives, founders that had a great exit.
• 41:46
  Like I said, I had a Zek CEO that really talked about his his
• 41:52
  vision for what a board deck should look like and why they do
• 41:55
  what they do. I've had NFL players that have
• 42:02
  transitioned from NFL into the corporate world or
• 42:07
  entrepreneurial world. But yeah, it's it's very high
• 42:11
  leadership level. We talk about their personal
• 42:13
  journey, why they they chose what they did, why they do what
• 42:17
  they do, what's their passion, Any fails that they've had,
• 42:22
  what's a learned lesson from it? Yeah, it's 1/2 an hour and 25
• 42:26
  minutes to 30 minutes Max. Quick.
• 42:30
  Sounds good and tell us the name again and they can find it on
• 42:32
  any of the major. Yeah, they can find it on
• 42:34
  boardseye.com. There's a whole section under
• 42:38
  there, but it's called Board's Eye Leadership Talks.
• 42:40
  Yes, you can find all the audio Spotify, Apple or any any audio
• 42:46
  platform and of course on YouTube Board's Eye Leadership
• 42:50
  Talks. So you guys, you've grown to 100
• 42:53
  employees, which sounds like a pretty significant headcount
• 42:57
  for, you know, this type of organization That's off to you.
• 43:01
  What, what do you look for in somebody to join your team?
• 43:05
  What's the either the personality traits or the
• 43:08
  skills? Like how do you sort of
• 43:10
  determine if they're going to be a fit for board side?
• 43:13
  Try to find somebody and of course, you know, there's,
• 43:15
  there's the perfect, there's the OK, let's see if we can groom
• 43:18
  them into this somebody that's passionate about what we do.
• 43:21
  I mean, I don't just say, hey, mission, vision, values, you
• 43:27
  know, board members should match it.
• 43:29
  Well, so should employees because then it'll bring a
• 43:31
  little bit more passion. I would say not every single
• 43:35
  employee is perfect and fits that that cookie.
• 43:39
  But that's that's our ultimate goal is be passionate about what
• 43:44
  we do. The matchmaking we do makes a
• 43:46
  difference for the executive and for the companies that they they
• 43:49
  join. So it's, it's a passion project.
• 43:52
  It's exciting. It's yeah, it's pretty awesome.
• 43:56
  And a lot of these folks, maybe they've got some kind of
• 43:59
  recruiting background. Some do, yes.
• 44:02
  Yeah, but we actually hired quite a few recruiters and there
• 44:08
  was a handful of them that we really struggled with because
• 44:11
  there were more stuck in that head of head hunting.
• 44:16
  And and that's not what we do. It's it's quite a bit different.
• 44:20
  So sometimes it's easier to teach a green person than it is
• 44:24
  to change gears on somebody that's been doing it for years
• 44:27
  as a head hunter or as a recruiter for tech company.
• 44:31
  You know that all they focus was on do you know JavaScript?
• 44:35
  Do you know, do you know this, do you know that?
• 44:37
  Do you know C++? That's what we need.
• 44:39
  You know, those things are pretty easy and technical.
• 44:42
  This is a lot different. So there's still whether they
• 44:47
  have been a recruiter or not, there's still a lot of learning
• 44:50
  of the ropes of what we do. But it's more of a passion.
• 44:54
  If they're passionate, you know, we encourage them to read the
• 44:58
  book that I wrote a few years ago called The Corporate
• 45:00
  Matchmaker, which really explains both sides.
• 45:04
  It explains the side of executive side and then explains
• 45:08
  the company side and how to put it all together.
• 45:11
  So yeah. Where can we find the book?
• 45:14
  Amazon, the corporate matchmaker.
• 45:17
  Corporate Matchmaker and we'll include the link in the show
• 45:19
  notes. I have a new book coming out
• 45:21
  too. Oh, let's hear about that.
• 45:22
  What's the? Title.
• 45:23
  The new book. I'm hoping it's going to get
• 45:25
  published this week. I've been working with the
• 45:28
  editor for a while now, but I think they're finalizing the
• 45:32
  cover page. I might have gotten an e-mail
• 45:35
  while we're doing the talking here, but hopefully it's coming
• 45:39
  out this week. But the title is beyond the
• 45:42
  title and this book is dedicated to executive branding and why
• 45:48
  we're so passionate about it. Why we want to help.
• 45:51
  And I'll give you that quick why and I kind of already did a
• 45:55
  little bit, but the why is when we send 2000 executives to a
• 46:00
  company, they will search you and what we found from after
• 46:06
  doing this for a few years, trying to figure out why did
• 46:09
  they pick these people to interview them.
• 46:11
  So when we went back and had enough data to actually do some
• 46:15
  digging of our own, we found the people that the companies would
• 46:18
  pick for interviews are the ones that had some kind of a mark
• 46:22
  under or had a better LinkedIn profile, as in filled in all the
• 46:26
  way and not just their name. So everything out there is being
• 46:32
  looked at. If you're looking to grow your
• 46:35
  career, if you're looking to get a board seat, you're being
• 46:38
  looked at. So you might want to Google
• 46:40
  yourself and see what you find. And so does this book include
• 46:45
  tactics on how to sort of work the SEO part of it that you know
• 46:50
  is so familiar to you? Yeah, I would say not the SEO
• 46:54
  side, but yes, it talks about, you know, everything from
• 46:58
  writing articles to finding your UVP to getting on podcast like
• 47:05
  here, doing an interview, stepping out, making yourself
• 47:09
  vulnerable to eventually maybe hosting a podcast like we just
• 47:13
  talked about like I have. And it breaks it down.
• 47:17
  If you decide to host your podcast, you know, here's some
• 47:20
  mic suggestions, here's some camera suggestions.
• 47:23
  So it's a little technical like that.
• 47:24
  Really try to make it a blueprint why and how you can
• 47:29
  write a book. There's so many tools out there
• 47:32
  these days. So it really breaks it down to
• 47:38
  how simple you can start. There's free tools out there.
• 47:41
  You know, LinkedIn has a newsletter section.
• 47:43
  Start posting articles on there if you want.
• 47:47
  If you're a member at board's eye, of course, you know, you
• 47:49
  get you get access to the third party website we run, which is
• 47:53
  called Litify. That's where your biography gets
• 47:56
  published. That's where your articles would
• 47:59
  get published. So there's a lot of tools out
• 48:02
  there, you know, if they want to invest money beyond above what
• 48:07
  we do at Board's Eye or if they don't, they don't join the
• 48:10
  network. But they're like, I always
• 48:11
  wanted to write for Entrepreneur.
• 48:13
  There's ways to do that. You have to qualify that.
• 48:15
  There is ways to do that. So I I still to this day, I used
• 48:19
  to write for Forbes, Fast Company, Entrepreneur and Inc.
• 48:24
  That was actually overwhelming, to be honest with you.
• 48:28
  So I write for Entrepreneur Inc and yeah.
• 48:34
  And that's it, I think. And what's the benefit for you?
• 48:37
  It's just that personal branding component.
• 48:39
  I'm going to guess they don't pay a whole lot.
• 48:41
  No, it's personal branding. No, they don't pay.
• 48:44
  It's personal branding. It's a way for me to give back.
• 48:48
  I write a lot of leadership articles.
• 48:52
  I've, you know, written about executive branding.
• 48:55
  Why do it? So it's just a way to get the
• 48:58
  word out there. You know, I've written about
• 49:00
  empathy and leadership, a lot of leadership stuff that I think
• 49:05
  it's important and kind of get it out there the more people
• 49:09
  read it. I'm just looking to encourage
• 49:11
  somebody to be a better leader. And if it's one person a year,
• 49:14
  great. I did my job.
• 49:17
  We just got featured in USA TODAY, which was pretty awesome.
• 49:20
  So yeah. That's cool.
• 49:23
  Was SEO or is SEO helpful in building board's eye to where it
• 49:30
  is today? It wasn't focused, but we
• 49:37
  followed the pattern that we discovered a few years ago,
• 49:40
  obviously. And yes, I, I think it is
• 49:43
  because we do come up for a lot of terms when it comes to board
• 49:48
  stuff and we've seen our traffic explode.
• 49:53
  So yeah, I guess you can say yes at the end of the day.
• 49:56
  Because of all the content that you guys have 100.
• 49:58
  Percent. Yeah, We write a lot of articles
• 50:00
  and publish them on board's eye, all board related.
• 50:03
  Yeah. We kind of talked about a couple
• 50:07
  of, you know, pretty significant challenges in your professional
• 50:11
  career, but maybe we can find another one, whether it's
• 50:15
  professional or personal, a serious challenge that you've
• 50:18
  overcome. Maybe go into a little bit more,
• 50:20
  what was it? How'd you get through it?
• 50:22
  What'd you learn coming out of it?
• 50:24
  Are you ready for this? I'm ready.
• 50:27
  So you heard about my 2008 mortgage meltdown?
• 50:31
  Yeah. And then of course, new
• 50:34
  entrepreneurship and the struggles comes around 2009.
• 50:38
  We're still going comes around 2010.
• 50:44
  Sorry if I get emotional. This is personal and it is
• 50:48
  written in My Autobiography that hasn't been published yet, but
• 50:51
  it's in works. So 2010 comes around while all
• 50:55
  of this garbage that we're dealing with, including the the
• 51:01
  takeover of the company and chaos, and I'm dating, looking
• 51:10
  to be engaged and married. My stepson at 7 years old gets
• 51:19
  hit by a car and passes away. Yeah, I was about 25 minutes
• 51:27
  away. Received a phone call from the
• 51:30
  other stepparents. They didn't actually have the
• 51:34
  details. They just said he's being taken
• 51:36
  to the hospital. They can't get hold of Amy.
• 51:38
  My wife or no? My wife, she was obviously with
• 51:44
  a client in her chair. I said no problem, I'm on my
• 51:50
  way. Which hospital?
• 51:51
  This hospital. OK, I'll try to get hold of Amy.
• 51:54
  I'll keep calling till she picks up.
• 51:55
  They said OK we'll see you there.
• 51:58
  They get hold of our other kids, my son, my daughter and my
• 52:05
  stepson. Both of my sons, my stepson and
• 52:11
  my son jump on their bikes and they're riding bikes to the
• 52:14
  hospital and my daughter was with her mom, my ex-wife, at
• 52:20
  that time. So she drives her there and
• 52:23
  meets us all there. My partner ended up driving me
• 52:26
  because I was in no condition to drive and he's trying to
• 52:35
  encourage me as he's driving saying hey could just be a
• 52:37
  broken arm don't stress, don't put too much stress on you.
• 52:41
  And the the darkest things go through my head and I finally
• 52:48
  get hold of my wife after I don't know how many times I
• 52:50
  called her. She finally picks up.
• 52:54
  And I tell her, hey, Carter's in the hospital.
• 53:00
  This is the hospital. I don't know any details.
• 53:04
  And she says, oh, my gosh, the sirens I heard that's what it
• 53:07
  was because she was very near where he was playing.
• 53:11
  And I said, yeah, that's probably what it was.
• 53:13
  And she goes, OK, let me tell my client I'm leaving right now.
• 53:16
  I'll meet you there. So we all meet there waiting for
• 53:19
  the doctor to come out. He comes out, he says, hey,
• 53:22
  Carter's on life support. We're trying everything we can.
• 53:25
  So obviously it's not a not a broken arm.
• 53:31
  A few minutes later, he comes out and he says you guys should
• 53:33
  come in and say goodbye. So yeah, now I had that to deal
• 53:40
  with. OK, Sorry.
• 53:48
  Wow. It was a lot easier writing
• 53:54
  about it than talking about it. Wow.
• 53:59
  Martin, I asked you if you were ready.
• 54:03
  I wasn't. How many years ago was this?
• 54:08
  So this is in 2010. Carver is his name.
• 54:14
  Yeah, 15 years ago he was 7. How do you even begin to put 1
• 54:22
  foot in front of the other after a day like?
• 54:25
  That faith, that's all we had in a incredible community.
• 54:35
  We grew up, like I said, in a small town and community was
• 54:43
  there for us. You know, because of the whole
• 54:47
  2008 debacle, I lost my home. So we were renting.
• 54:51
  Owner was incredible. It was like, don't I don't even
• 54:56
  want to stress or think about rent.
• 54:59
  We're here for you guys. We've had donations, we had food
• 55:05
  and my wife didn't have to think about cooking anything for the
• 55:07
  kids. It was a it was a very tough
• 55:11
  time that the community really helped us get through.
• 55:15
  We were supposed to get married that year.
• 55:17
  Obviously we cancelled our our wedding.
• 55:20
  Not like we had any plans, but we didn't even know where we
• 55:23
  were going to get married. Our closest friends got together
• 55:26
  and said, you're not cancelling, you're going to have something
• 55:30
  good happened this year and that's going to be our wedding.
• 55:34
  So yeah, they planned it. You've got some good folks
• 55:40
  around you. I did, I do still.
• 55:45
  You're still close with these folks today.
• 55:46
  I am. We are, yeah.
• 55:49
  Wow, thank you for sharing that Martin.
• 55:54
  I can tell it wasn't easy. I thought it was going to be
• 55:57
  easier. What?
• 55:59
  What more can you say about in the months and years that have
• 56:03
  followed? It was tough, it was hard.
• 56:07
  It still is. I have an incredible wife,
• 56:14
  extremely strong. We realize after years how
• 56:20
  vulnerable anybody's life is. You know, it's not supposed to
• 56:26
  happen to your kid. You're not supposed to see that.
• 56:31
  Parents should be first to go, but yeah, it was.
• 56:42
  It's not easy to move forward, but it's not impossible.
• 56:52
  Obviously, you just have to focus on what you have.
• 56:58
  So we did. We focused on the three kids we
• 57:00
  had, try to give them the best that we could.
• 57:04
  They were broken. They were very close with
• 57:07
  Carter, he was the youngest and just got to find and focus on
• 57:16
  the positive things and live day by day knowing that tomorrow's
• 57:22
  not guaranteed. Yeah, anyone listening, this is
• 57:26
  a great reminder to go and hug somebody today.
• 57:29
  Whatever you're close to, your kids, your siblings, your
• 57:33
  parents, your friends, your neighbors, you're not guaranteed
• 57:37
  another tomorrow. Wow.
• 57:45
  So for you, it was faith, it was family, it was friends, it was
• 57:50
  focusing on the things that you had.
• 57:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:54
  Yeah, and trying to be there for who's my who's now?
• 58:02
  My wife. But try to be there for my wife,
• 58:03
  because again, it was my stepson that I was very close to, but it
• 58:08
  was her young little precious, full of joy Boy and I, I have to
• 58:18
  be the rock. So I did the best that I could
• 58:24
  to be there for her. And by the way, it was my first
• 58:28
  tattoo. I was going to ask if you guys
• 58:31
  the what do you do for remembrance?
• 58:34
  That's in his handwriting from one of his school assignments.
• 58:42
  Yeah. Anything that you guys do on a
• 58:44
  on a regular basis to talk about him, think about him, remember
• 58:48
  him, the things hang up in the house or is that too hard?
• 58:51
  Yeah, no, there's pictures of him everywhere.
• 58:55
  You know, hardest times are his birthday is Christmas.
• 59:00
  He loved Christmas. He loves, yeah.
• 59:11
  What were his favorite things to do?
• 59:13
  His favorite color was green. He.
• 59:17
  He. Sounds like an entrepreneur in
• 59:18
  the making. He.
• 59:21
  Loved green. During our wedding we had a
• 59:26
  green dragonfly flying over us. Pretty cool.
• 59:34
  Did he play sports? He did.
• 59:37
  He played soccer. He kind of followed our our
• 59:42
  older kids. I coached soccer for many years.
• 59:46
  I didn't coach him. He was literally just getting
• 59:48
  started in it. It was very short, even for his
• 59:54
  age. He was just pretty small kid, so
• 59:58
  it was the cutest thing watching him run around.
• 1:00:00
  Yeah, he loved SpongeBob. He loved playing video games.
• 1:00:08
  Yeah. What was his favorite video
• 1:00:10
  game? Don't judge Call of Duty.
• 1:00:16
  Yeah, I would. I would.
• 1:00:18
  I never let him wear the headset.
• 1:00:20
  So I would wear the headset while he was playing and there
• 1:00:24
  would be people, you know, talking crap.
• 1:00:26
  They always do. I don't know if you play Call of
• 1:00:28
  Duty. You didn't want to hear the
• 1:00:30
  other players. No, no.
• 1:00:32
  And then and then he would. He was really good.
• 1:00:36
  His kid was good at 7. At six, he was really.
• 1:00:39
  Good. Yeah, the the.
• 1:00:41
  So I would talk, yeah, I would talk crap back to people.
• 1:00:44
  I'd be like, you just got you just got smoked by a 7 year old.
• 1:00:49
  That's the ultimate trash talking.
• 1:00:50
  Yeah. Oh, Martin, thanks for sharing
• 1:00:57
  that. It feels like anything else from
• 1:00:58
  this point on is sort of less consequential, but there's
• 1:01:02
  there's one more question I want to wrap up with.
• 1:01:06
  Yeah, let's change gears. Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  So before I do that, I want to do 2 things.
• 1:01:11
  First of all, I'm going to invite all the listeners to go
• 1:01:13
  ahead and hit the follow button on their favorite podcast app.
• 1:01:17
  Get more great, sometimes emotional content like we've had
• 1:01:20
  here today with Martin Berwinski.
• 1:01:22
  Fantastic interview today, the CEO and founder of Boardsy.
• 1:01:27
  Martin, I also want to let people know the best way to
• 1:01:30
  either get in touch with you directly or the company or to
• 1:01:33
  just even to follow your story. What would that be?
• 1:01:36
  Yeah. So I'll give you everything.
• 1:01:40
  boardseye.com, BOARD si.com. When you come to the website, it
• 1:01:45
  breaks down into two sections. If you're a company looking for
• 1:01:48
  advisors, just click on the company section.
• 1:01:51
  There's a, you can schedule an appointment with our B to B
• 1:01:55
  team. On the left side is the
• 1:01:58
  executive section. If you're looking to join
• 1:02:01
  Board's eye, take advantage of the education, branding, all
• 1:02:05
  that stuff. Click on that and then you can
• 1:02:08
  schedule on that calendar as well with our executive team.
• 1:02:13
  And as far as me personally, you can find me and whole bunch of
• 1:02:19
  stuff about me at boardseye.com. I'm sorry, at
• 1:02:23
  martinrovinsky.com, that's my personal website.
• 1:02:29
  If you're looking for a speaker, I'm I'm available.
• 1:02:32
  I can talk about branding, about board placement, if you want
• 1:02:37
  everybody to cry in the room. I can talk about what I just
• 1:02:39
  shared. You're very.
• 1:02:42
  Versatile that way. Yeah, I got all kinds of
• 1:02:46
  options. You want to talk about
• 1:02:49
  resilience, I've been through it all and, and here I am.
• 1:02:52
  So I do have, like I said, the new book coming out beyond the
• 1:02:58
  title. You can find information on that
• 1:03:00
  and links to it once it's published on martinrobinski.com
• 1:03:05
  and My Autobiography will be available hopefully this year at
• 1:03:12
  some point and you can learn even more stuff about me beyond
• 1:03:16
  this. What else?
• 1:03:19
  LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best way to find
• 1:03:21
  me and communicate with me. Connect with on LinkedIn.
• 1:03:24
  It's just Martin Rominski. I don't think there's that many
• 1:03:27
  Martins out there. CEO of Board's Eye.
• 1:03:30
  We'll include links to all these things that you've mentioned in
• 1:03:32
  the show notes and it'd be great to have you back when the book's
• 1:03:36
  published and maybe we could talk about some, some more
• 1:03:38
  things that are in there. But last question I, I want to
• 1:03:41
  wrap up with Martin is, you know, as you think about the
• 1:03:44
  future board SCI over just the next two to three years, what is
• 1:03:48
  it that you're most excited about?
• 1:03:53
  You know, we've been living in this age of AI now for a little
• 1:03:58
  bit and for us short as we've lived in it, it itself has
• 1:04:08
  improved so much. Like there's been so many
• 1:04:11
  changes in AI. And I am not one of those people
• 1:04:16
  that's fearing of it's going to replace us.
• 1:04:20
  AI is going to kill all of us. Terminated days are ahead of us.
• 1:04:26
  Love the movie, but get in the Chapa if you want to live.
• 1:04:32
  I think AI is a great tool. It's a great job enhancement
• 1:04:39
  tool. I think more people should use
• 1:04:42
  it. It has enhanced our work a lot.
• 1:04:46
  We've actually since we initiated using AI.
• 1:04:50
  Since then we've already had updates because it just keeps
• 1:04:53
  getting better. So I see us moving forward with
• 1:04:56
  more tools, more AI on the back end, maybe even some of it on
• 1:05:01
  the front end for the executives.
• 1:05:04
  But I think we're going to keep growing technology wise and
• 1:05:13
  looking for some, you know, further expansion
• 1:05:15
  internationally. Like I said, since we're adding
• 1:05:18
  some 3 hours to our time zone, hopefully we'll be able to take
• 1:05:24
  care of our international users a little bit more.
• 1:05:28
  Martin, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing
• 1:05:31
  both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:05:33
  I really appreciate it. Absolutely.
• 1:05:36
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:05:39
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:05:41
  today. Thank you.