Community Service
Lante CEO's Basic Instinct
It was at a fundraising event for the Glide Foundation in San Francisco that Lante president and CEO Rudy Puryear found himself on stage with actress Sharon Stone.
The Chicago-based e-consultancy had digitized the nonprofit organization's silent auction for free. Nearly 50 Lante employees volunteered their time to the event, which was also attended by comedian Robin Williams.
Stone summoned Puryear (pronounced per-yeah) to the stage. "Purv-ee-ar" she exclaimed. "I didn't know CEOs came cute anymore," cooed Stone. "I understand you donated five computers to the charity event. I don't think that's enough. How many do we have in the audience? I want 50, she said. As Puryear studied the situation, Stone got the crowd chanting, "Fif-ty! Fif-ty! Fif-ty!" Out-vested, Lante's CEO quickly gave in. "Let's hear it for Lanzo!" shouted the platinum-blond actress, before planting a lengthy kiss on Puryear's cheek. "Lanzo! Lanzo! Lanzo!" the crowd responded. "There was nothing I could do but give her 50," the "Lanzo" CEO recalls.
Public Enterprise
How Booz Built Its Olympic Team
Ever wonder how Booz-Allen staffs client engagements? As part of an on-line strategy that appears to be as much a recruitment tool as a public relations one, Booz has put a number of video clip "episodes" on its Web site that reveal the staffing techniques it has used for its Special Olympics, pro bono client engagement.
The episodes, found at www.boozallen.com
/special olympics, offer video summations on how the firm staffs its teams, and how it balances the needs of a unique client with its own. Booz has continued to update the episodes throughout the engagement. Prospective employees cannot miss the links to the career opportunities in the center of the site.
While many consulting firms like to protect client confidentiality, they are more apt to talk about their pro bono engagements. For the past two years, the firm has provided about $1 million worth of pro bono work to the Special Olympics, which has a goal of adding a million athletes, or doubling the number of athletes involved with the organization, around the world.
Talking Tough
e-Consultants Trade Goatees for Gray Hair
Ever since iXL Enterprises chairman Bert Ellis told Wall Street that a couple of "grizzled veterans" would be stepping in to run iXL, Inc., following the abrupt departure of its 34-year-old CEO, Bill Nussey, the world of e-consulting has appeared ready to amplify the virtues of gray hair and battle experience.
And nowhere are those virtues being touted more loudly than at four-year-old Scient Corp., where the firm's 56-year-old CEO is today fond of articulating his own grizzled vision of the future.
"I'm an old guy all right," says 56-year-old Bob Howe, whose consulting career includes stints at IBM Corp. and Booz-Allen & Hamilton.
"I'm from a generation that had a lot of parents who landed at Normandy, where even the guys who lived were scarred, and I'm telling you if you can get up on that beach, climb up that hill, and get into Paris, you are going to have the time of your life, but it's going to be a battle to get there, and the one way to make sure you'll never get there is to focus on the near term — day in and day out. The capital markets are going to have to do what capital markets do. If you
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