Challenge: In a talent-friendly market, CXOs may be approached with opportunities outside of their sector experience. Deciding whether to make the leap and learn a new industry can be daunting.
Solution: Take inventory of your transferable skills, focus on what you can gain from switching industries, and expand your horizons to learn valuable lessons across businesses.
Participating Executives:
- Brian Briggs, President and CEO who moved from information technology to food and beverages
- Dana Upshaw, CMO who moved from equipment maintenance to e-commerce and marketing
- Jason Gootzeit, VP of Finance who moved from marketing to environmental services
Assess Your Transferable Skills
Gootzeit: No matter what industry you’re in, there are some standard best practices. Lean on those similarities. For roles I’ve been in, examples of those similarities would be:
- Setting a monthly close schedule or timeline with standardized review processes
- Examining customer profitability to drive revenue
- Creating good processes, checks and balances, and controls
Customer profitability was always top of mind at my former role. Managing expectations, helping project managers understand profitability and how to drive revenue with their specific customer subset are going to be top of mind no matter what industry you’re in.
Briggs: The ability to do...