 Good afternoon. My name is Ray Tsuchiyama with another episode of Business in a Beautiful Place, like the background of Waimea Bay, of the ocean, for a state of 1.2 million residents, a lot more daily, from Asia, the mainland, from Europe, as tourists. And today we're going to be investigating the world of top CEOs, C-level individuals who lead organizations, business, Hawaii Fortune 250, and how it's unique, how it's same in some aspects with recruiting globally. We have Benjamin Anceta Jr. from Inkenin and Associates. He's the president and he's with me now. Alright, how are you? Fine, fine. So what do you now do at Inkenin and Associates? How do you define your role in this market, in business, and in an economy dominated by tourism, retail, hospitality, but yet there's banking areas, insurance, some manufacturing, a lot of service. So you see the landscape, and what have you discovered about your role in this world? Inkenin and Associates, we focus on executive search, we're the premier executive search term in Hawaii. We really focus on finding leaders for Hawaii organizations. We are generalists when it comes to industry. We're working on all the industries that you mentioned, tourism and lodging, travel, the hotel industry, healthcare, insurance. We don't focus on industries, we don't focus on verticals, we actually focus really on Hawaii. And our job is to bring leadership into Hawaii and populate throughout the company. Last spot I want to get back to you because that's a big theme of this current age. And so why don't we kind of define it a lot more? There are other executive firms globally and of course, do business in New York and London and Tokyo and Singapore and so forth. And others that are very focused just on New York or Cincinnati or San Diego markets. What is so different about the state and its market compared to a global market? Sometimes you do bring people from other areas of the United States or globally, but yet when we talked before, there's value on people who were born and raised here who can really assume leadership roles in Hawaii. So give us a little background on that. I'll start within our industry, within executive search. There are huge global competitors that do business all across the world in every major market and they do drop into Hawaii every once in a while to do an executive search from a West Coast office. Within our industry you also have boutiques like us that are either regional boutiques where we focus on a particular geographical territory or you have people that might focus on just an industry vertical like you. And so what we're trying to do is really carve out our place in the market as being the best here in Hawaii. And that's what we focus on. We try not to focus too much on the competition and more on what we do best. And I think that's important because Hawaii is a really unique place. I think that gets talked about a whole lot. People don't always know why. Some of the reasons are self-evident. We're geographically isolated 2,000 miles from the nearest land mass, relatively small population, less than a million and a half people. There are other cities in the U.S. that have populations like that but they're connected by highways and much shorter flights. For us, being an island chain in the Middle Pacific, being as isolated as we are, we're a less fluid labor market and that causes us some really unique challenges which is why I think our services are really valuable here. Now you left for the mainland also and lived there for how many years? 17 years. 17 years. Wow. So you came back and experienced a high-growth adventure with pro-service, a company that's very famous now in Hawaii, but that allowed you really to interact with sea-level people, individuals from throughout the state because HR and benefits and payroll, of course, affects every company. Tell me about that, your mainland experience coming back to Hawaii. Any culture shock or business down here, vis-a-vis the mainland, you left. Go ahead. Sure. I'll start with the reason why I left. Like many kids that graduate from high school here, I was looking for an experience to go and learn on the mainland, so I went to college in Minnesota of all places. I took a big jump and I ended up getting my degree there and working on the mainland in various places and getting a graduate degree over 17 years. I wasn't really looking to come back to Hawaii. I actually got a call from a friend, one of the partners who had initially purchased pro-service to come back and join the firm. And that was a tremendous opportunity for me. It's really difficult to move back to Hawaii when you get used to mainland career-path-ing, the speed at which you develop, and especially competition, but pro-service was a kind of a unicorn here for Hawaii, where it was growing really fast. The valuation was increasing. It was private equity-owned, and so it provided a lot more opportunities than most companies in Hawaii that might be larger and more mature. It was an incredible experience. I joined that executive team, held several roles there, the last of which was overseeing sales, marketing, and account management. That allowed me to get out and talk to, as you said, so many business owners, small to medium-sized, all the way up to the larger analysis. What did they tell you? Any themes that came out of your discussions? Of course, they want a smooth-running operation, and they want a happy workforce, paying them on time, and the benefits and so forth. But what else did you learn from your interactions that gave you insights that Hawaii is different for the mainland? I think a lot of local businesses struggle with growth because we're a relatively small market that depends on money from the outside, but for the last 10-plus years that money has been flowing in through tourism, I think people have been struggling with growth because of the employee shortage, especially in scale barriers. Right. So we go back to the theme of lack of trained staff in order to grow in Hawaii. And even beyond that, I would say beyond just trained staff is lack of leaders who are willing to take risks and take on roles that they might not be comfortable with, and that's the kind of personality that will drive growth within organizations in my mind. So which is it that Hawaii has an economy that limited size constraints growth, or that there are few leaders that can hire to drive growth, think out of the box, and really delegate and promote great managers? You asked me either or, and I think that that's an end. I think being in an isolated market depending on tourism, that will limit our growth in terms of the total number of dollars coming in. But once those dollars come in, our ability to multiply them I think depends on our ability to produce things for export, to provide more and more valuable services to people who are here, and that takes talent. That takes people who are willing to take risks. That takes entrepreneurship. It takes a lot of skills and a lot of motivation that isn't readily available here. I'm not going to ask another ad or question, but again, going back to the differences between the Hawaii economy, business, culture, and the mainland. There's always people out there, a CEO who are thinking of hiring somebody or the board trying to hire a CEO or CEO that says, oh, we can't find them in Hawaii. We have to go to the mainland with these skillsets or background, and versus the homegrown, trained people, the pathways that really give local people opportunities in the boardroom. Is that an ad or a question? I think it's definitely an issue that every organization deals with when they have a major leadership position that becomes vacant for whatever reason. I think because we're a small market, there are relatively few large companies. There's a small talent pool. We don't have the fluidity between our market and other markets to bring in people, and so it's a higher risk hire whenever you bring in someone from the mainland. When we talk to our clients, they almost always have a preference for people here if they can find the skill set that they need. There are certain roles where it might only exist in a very large company in one industry, and if there are only two or three different competitors of those in this market, then by definition, there won't be very many people to fill that role. We've heard of examples of of how people are being hired from the mainland, and they go lying back to the mainland after two or three years and could not fit or could not really understand or become part of the culture or HANA of an organization here in Hawaii. Does that limit, again, when you think it's kind of like a paradox trying to draw people who have great skill sets, but they can't fit into culture or the cost of living for various reasons in Hawaii? Is that still an issue out there? Absolutely. It's an issue. It's one that we see every day in our business. Just because people may turn around and leave within two or three years, I don't think that that's without value. I think if going into that, you kind of know that that's a risk. There are certain things that you can do to help to mitigate that risk or at least try to maximize the value you get from those people while they are here. I think you have a good point. It's nothing new. It hasn't been around since statehood or even before. That's a good point. It's just that the board or the people who are leading the search should have a plan to really find areas to succeed. How does this new hire succeed and give him a whole road map and training in that area? Do you see that happening, though? I don't see that happening a whole lot. I think when people hire in those high-level executive positions, they tend to just assume that the person is going to hit the ground running. They may not go the extra mile to really make sure that person is embedded in the community. I haven't seen a whole lot of explicit plans to that effect. Good question, though. Maybe that's something to explore with many boards on Bishop Street. The other thing that you just talked about is, of course, on culture. Is Hawaii culture really that different for people to navigate? I think absolutely it is. I think business culture here is really different from, well, there are also different business cultures between the West Coast of the U.S. and the East Coast of the U.S. So saying that Hawaii business culture is unique, I don't think it's all that different. New Orleans, for example. I haven't done business there. The dominant cultural paradigms that exist in any geographical market are going to cause that kind of uniqueness. Hawaii is very much a mix of East and West. We have a lot of Asian business culture here. We tend to be more consensus-oriented. We don't tend to have leaders that go out front and take big risks. So, yes, it is different. And I think integrating into that culture when you're coming from a market that's very different, it takes some lumps to do it. Well, we're going to go back to some of the themes that just arose. Each one will take 30 minutes, but we'll be back after this exciting break. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. My program airs every other Monday at one o'clock on Think Tech Hawaii. Most of my programs deal with my own life and law experience. Recently, I interviewed Alex Gempell, who I have known for over 30 years about his voyage across the sea as a lawyer from Tokyo to Hawaii. Those are the type of stories that I like to bring and like to talk about. Human stories about law and life. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Keisha King, host of At the Crossroads, where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Won't you join us on ThinkTechHawaii.com or on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel. Our conversations are real, relevant, and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Welcome back to this ever-exciting episode of Business in Hawaii. My name is Ray Tuchiyama with our guest Benjamin Anceta from Incanon Associates. We've had a lot of interesting insights into how, what is the culture of Hawaii, business culture? And Ben just mentioned several big themes here, and I just want to take several of them, just kind of delve into one at a time. Consensus. You think that in Hawaii, you just can't tell people what to do and order them, and they're going to do exactly what you said they should be doing? I don't know if you can't order them, but I don't think that's the predominant business culture. I think people here like to get along, and there's some pluses and minuses to that. And I don't think just ordering people to do things is the preferred method of motivating people. It's usually let's get together, let's come to some kind of consensus decision and get it moving. So that kind of skill set will be ideal in a person coming from the outside? Again, I think it's a balance. Sometimes having someone coming from the outside to shake things up is exactly what you need. If you're in a turnaround, if you're in a very stable business, then sure bring somebody who's going to fit in. If you're in a turnaround, you need to break some china, then you bring in a two to three year rental to come in and break it up, and then replace it with a different kind of business. That's a very good point. Risk. I think in much of the Hawaii economy, there's a stable kind of product or service, hotels, all kinds of banking retail. There's nothing from the outside that's coming in and suddenly having a disruption or a paradigm shift. Or do you see them? I mean, people have been talking about the end of many things, but we still kind of muddle along and economy is doing great. But yet, looking into the future, are we truly planning for the 21st century? Oh boy, you open up some big issues there. I mean, do I see disruption? I definitely see it. I think things come a little bit slower to Hawaii, but I mean, you see the same large retailers that are disappearing here forever. 21 was one of those recently, but that's been going on for a generation. It's shocking to see that. Yeah, and people now worry about Amazon and the same way they worried about Costco and Walmart before, and there'll be something else after Amazon. So disruption is going to keep on happening in the market. It'll happen slower here in Hawaii. We can look to the mainland for analogs for that. But the hotel industry seems to be stable. I mean, what is there to replace this? I don't know. They weren't so happy about transit accommodation records, right? I mean, there's an Airbnb comes in the market and shakes that up. And to the extent that we want to regulate that, that's fine, but there will be something else to replace it because there's a market there. But will Hawaii companies look for leaders who take risks or they want people to stabilize and meet quarterly goals for shareholders? We're talking about shareholders and their lack on how people can do business or how to do governance. It's a whole new world where you don't see a long range. There should be a think tank on tourism. What will tourism be, 10, 20 years? And we should be planning ahead. But there isn't much being done. Do you think it's complacency or it's just that we can't respond to things that are way out in the future? Personally, I don't know how much I believe in big organizations or groups of organizations coming together to create really big plans for the future because I don't think anyone of us knows what the future holds. I believe the secret to success is going to be entrepreneurs and smaller companies taking risks. I think that's where you see more risk taking in our economy with smaller organizations that are looking to grow and capitalize on opportunities in the marketplace. Large companies tend to be more risk averse. They tend to follow the market rather than lead it. So if you were going to be influencing the UH Shidler curriculum going forward and with your knowledge and insights of what great backgrounds and skill sets future CEOs should have in their quiver, what would they be? I really like the focus on entrepreneurship that they have at the Shidler School. I think that's critically important in today and tomorrow's work economy I don't think we know what the jobs of the future are going to look like even 10 or 15 years from now and so I think the best thing we can do is prepare people to recognize opportunities, to prepare themselves for those opportunities, build plans, and act. I think the lean startup movement has been a really great one to get people to take small actions in getting things moving and I think that's probably one of the most important skills that I think the workforce tomorrow needs. Technology? Technology is all around us. I think that's going to happen whether you train people for it or not. I think with the new generation of people coming up, their natives, they grew up on cell phones and smartphones whereas we did not. Teaching technology, I don't know if that's as necessary because it's just shot through the curriculum as enabling tools already. Back to your, I guess, day-to-day business. Where did the leads come from? Do you get a call from a board member out there or HR and they said, oh, we have this profile and then but at the same time when you read the the scope of reciprocabilities or, oh, this doesn't work or maybe you're looking to the moon for these type of candidates, what are stories you can tell us about this interaction? Where does it start? I mean, luckily, when I acquired the business from the previous owner, the founder, Kathy, a year and a half ago, it came with a wonderful name. The Incanon brand is really strong here and so we get a lot of inbound calls. I think there are secular trends in the marketplace that people have been talking about for a long time with the silver tsunami. There will be people retiring from leadership positions. There will need to be people to fill those spots and so I feel like our work is needed more than ever. Are companies planning? Transition planning? Successive planning? Are they doing it well? I think companies are doing the best that they can with the resources they have available. I think we talked about the trends since the 70s and 80s of the focus on shareholder value and not on community value or value to employees. I think companies have been running leaner and leaner. This includes nonprofits for decades now and so it's hard to do succession planning without internal redundancy. How do you train someone to be the next CEO if you don't have some fat in that managerial layer to allow that person to be, you know, to duplicate effort? So I think that's a real challenge for organizations here and so succession planning has become, well, that person is retiring so I need to go hire someone else. How about family business? Of course, Hawaii is unique in that it used to be the big five until the 80s and 90s. They're all gone and now it's a landscape of companies with fewer than 60, 50 people. That's big in some ways and there's a top portion of banks and insurance companies and hotels that are huge. What are they looking for? Do they come to you and discuss things, family business and what are the insights that you've gleaned in that world? I think the family business sector of the economy is huge. I don't think people realize that most employees in the world are employed by family companies and not by big global public companies and it's a really dynamic market, you know, from small to very, very large. Even in Hawaii we have some really large family-owned companies that people don't sometimes talk about or think about but I think there's a lot of opportunity there for family companies to I think forge a way forward and show Hawaii how to run an organization that's more community-minded, more focused on value you bring to a community than value you bring to a shareholder. I think generally families do a little better job of succession planning. It may not look like it all the time but they have built in succession plan at least one layer because they have family memories. Sometimes that's not the right person. That's an example with Incanon where I took it over from the owner even though her daughter had her own business and didn't want to take this one on. But I think the University of Hawaii has a great center on the family business that actually supports family businesses really well. I've been to a few of those events. Professor Butler is a dynamic guy. Exactly and they do a great job of I think supporting family businesses through that generational transition process. So I think family businesses are leaders. They've been doing succession planning for a really long time. So when you came out this new world that you do any surprises that oh I didn't think of this or this was just something that I didn't encounter in the previous job or industry or anything that came to you. What surprised me most was well what I tell people about the business is it's very simple to explain. We find leadership for companies but it's really difficult to actually do that. And so it looks very easy from the outside that oh you send me a resume. I hire them. You get paid. It's very easy but the amount of legwork that goes into getting that one great candidate that ultimately gets an offer and has an impact on that company it's shocking. And that was the biggest surprise to me was how much effort it took to make every single. Where would you see areas that you would like to see much more efficient in this process or is it that ultimately it's about humans human people human beings and that's something you can control is sometimes emotional sometimes you know of course logical but not so anything. Yeah man I see technology and processes as enablers to help us do what we do best but ultimately it's about us finding great matches for career opportunity and for company need. And that comes down to people understanding each other and understanding where an organization is headed. I think the editorial license that we have in making those matches is incredibly valuable. You're like a kind of like a Nakuhodo you put two people together you know in marriage sometimes. Do you spend a lot of time explaining about the candidate to the company explaining the company to the candidate which sometimes is more in all this because you have not I don't want to use the word sell but you must describe it in a way that it's a great fit for the candidate and the company. Yeah I think it's all the above. We spend a lot of time talking to both sides. We don't think of ourselves as salespeople. I think of it more we're educating and consulting on both sides. We tend to be very candid about what the company's work culture is like and what their strategic plan is at the same way we're very candid about what we believe the potential candidates strengths and weaknesses are because the last thing you want is for those people to get together and then there to be surprises because then you have you know divorces using your example that's not good for anyone. Is there any case where you thought you did a really great job but somehow the candidate declined or the company says all we're going to go and looking back was there something that didn't make it happen? Every week something like that happens where we thought it was a it was potentially a great match. Company makes an offer candidate declines and that's you know I think that's a function of the market now where candidates have choices. It has become in some way a seller's market from the candidates perspective. They might get multiple offers on the table before making the decision. I think that's changed a lot in the last you know 30 years or so since Cathy had started the business. Well you're in a dynamic place in a dynamic market and industry and we have to close at this 30 minute period and we could go on forever many many topics. Thank you very much Ben for your insights and I hope the CEOs of Hawaii Business 250 are listening intently and getting ready to call Ben on their next search or just to talk story and how to make a fit even better in the community. Thank you very much. This is Ray Tsuchiyama.