Building a Start-up with Executive Know-how

February 1, 2009 - By Jane Gendron

Long before Richard Hanks answered the siren call of Silicon Valley, he was a Northwestern MBA student with three career goals: to become a leader at a Fortune 500 company, to teach as a professor at an Ivy League school and to become a successful entrepreneur. Now at 48 years old, the president and chairman of Mindshare Technologies, Inc. (which conducts and analyses customer and employee surveys, then delivers rapid feedback) is well on his way to polishing off these objectives.

Despite Hank’s impressive physical stature (yes, he plays basketball) and five star résumé—executive vice president and corporate officer at Marriott, strategic planner at PepsiCo’s  Frito-Lay and PriceWaterhouseCoopers CPA—he comes across as an unpretentious, witty, hardworking guy.

As Mindshare CEO John Sperry puts it, “He just executes.”

Hanks may be a man of action, but he certainly doesn’t lack for words. He travels the world as a speaker and regularly contributes his expertise to interviews and discussions. Hanks’ dream of professorship came true when he transitioned from visiting lecturer at Cornwell University to adjunct professor; he wrote and taught a 40-hour summer course for 10 years in the university’s Professional Development Program. Recently, he added author/publisher to his achievements with his book, Delivering and Measuring Customer Service.

Taking on a challenging situation with tenacity is one of Hanks’ specialties. His former Marriott colleague Stephen Weisz notes that Hanks is adept at pulling apart problems and devising good solutions.

“He is one of the most bright, insightful, determined individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with,” Weisz says.

Hanks spent 12 years working his way through three careers across several disciplines at Marriott. He honed expertise in pioneering revenue management, worked on restructuring the company’s brand groups as well as restructuring and ultimately running the sales department with responsibility for $18 billion in sales, 10,000 employees and 13 brands.

In short, he became a leader of a Fortune 500 company. So, when venture capitalists approached him with a CEO position at Salt Lake City start-up MyAssociation (later called BlueStep), Hanks was ready for an entrepreneurial leap.

Caught up in the “dot-com swirl.” Hanks raised $20 million during two meals for the collaboration software company. Two years later, after 9/11, he spent seven weeks begging for funds. Though BlueStep’s “sales curve was astronomical,” as Hanks says, “we needed some more money runway for the plane to take off and all that money dried up.”

After BlueStep sold in 2002, though, feeling lucky given the dotcom casualties at the time. Hanks wasn’t quite ready to jump into another start-up. He worked for a year as a consultant for international corporations while BlueStep’s chief technical officer, John Sperry, tried again, this time with a venture called Mindshare Technologies.

As Mindshare began to “rev its engines” Hanks joined Sperry. Today, the two work in tandem as each other’s bosses—Hanks as the president reporting to the CEO and Sperry as the CEO reporting to the chairman, who happens to be Hanks.

“Rich is everything I’m not. He’s organized. He’s detailed. I’m the eternal optimist and he’s the pessimistic realist, so between the two of us we actually end up with at least half a glass,” says Sperry. Likening their respective roles to an Oreo cookie, he adds, “I like to say that I’m the creamy filling and he’s the crunchy cookie.”

That cookie-combo is enjoying 70 months of consecutive revenue growth, serving clients like Hertz, Marriott, Sizzler and Café Rio. In fact, Mindshare serves more than 25 Industries in 73 countries and 19 languages, receiving 40,000 completed surveys per day. Given that Hanks touts “urgency and responsiveness” as the keys to service industries’ success, Mindshare offers more than surveys and analysis. Through proprietary software, the company provides virtually instantaneous turnaround of survey information, allowing clients to respond to feedback quickly.

Aside from sophisticated software, the secret to what Hanks refers to as “knock on wood” success, may be good old-fashioned hard work.

“Business is business,” explains Hanks. “If you’re willing to put forth effort and the time and sometimes the sacrifice, you learn things that make that industry work. You just work your guts out to do it.”

Credit for Mindshare’s success, Hanks says, goes to all of Mindshare’s 38 employees and accolades, ( Entrepreneur of the Year nominations and Inc. 500 praise) are company achievements, he says, It’s an all-for-one and one-for-all atmosphere with an emphasis on a work-hard, play-hard balance (which may be why the office burns through foosball tables regularly).

Balance, in Hanks opinion, is like the guy spinning plates on the Ed Sullivan show. It’s a matter of focusing on whatever is “front and center.” However it’s defined, his colleagues say he’s got it.

“He works extremely hard at his job, yet I admire him because he has the ability to give the right kind of balance in his life with time with his family, his church-both of which are of paramount importance to him,” Weitz explains.

Hanks is clearly besotted with his “fabulous” wife of 25 years, Liz, their three children and six month-old granddaughter. After church and family, his involvement in Quelessebougou Utah Alliance (a non-profit involved in education, health care and economic development in Mali) is closest to his heart, he says. And he’s a football fan, holding season tickets to his alma mater, BYU, and also attending almost all of U of U home games.

In what little spare time he has, Hanks shoots hoops and enjoys woodworking.

“I like building clocks. I like building companies,” says Hanks. And though he seems well on his way checking off his final goal on his list, he scoffs at the thought of “flipping” a business. Though his constant hunger for learning has taken him through roughly seven careers and he “still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up,” Hanks isn’t going anywhere just yet.