The 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders Making a Difference 2022_Profile

Stephen Roche: Helping Organizations Succeed

With the intent of helping those in crisis mode, Cloud Services Solutions, Inc.’s mission is to help companies manage the ERP purchasing process from cradle to grave. Cloud Services Solutions provides global advisory services for clients to measurably improve the performance & efficiency of their ERP ecosystem. It serves the global market with offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Utilizing cost-effective ERP application solutions, and strategic consulting services, Cloud Services Solutions, Inc.’s clients improve their performance and processes and increase efficiencies. This includes higher education, government agencies, and commercial clients. Stephen Roche, the CEO of the organization often says, “We sat in your seat. We are former Directors, CIOs, CHROs at global Fortune 500 companies. We understand the frustrations; blown budgets, project-stalls, understaffed and overworked.”

Under Stephen’s leadership, the organization’s goal is to remove all the guesswork within ERP Cloud Systems by providing an ecosystem that improves all aspects of any business organization. Stephen and his colleagues ultimately cut down on the time involved in the investigation, selection, and implementation process by dealing only with vendors that fit their clients’ needs. In addition, the firm advocates for its clients, through vendor sales and negotiations allowing them to save thousands of dollars.

Providing Cloud ERP for Every Need

Stephen and his team provide Cloud ERP for essentially every area of need including financials, human capital, implementation and/or upgrade, and management and planning. From start to finish, Stephen’s company handles the selection of vendors, the facilitation and implementation of clients’ ecosystem, and any necessary training to ensure they understand the ins and outs of the new Cloud ERP.

With the Vendor Assessment Matrix, the firm successfully removes emotions from the vendor selection process. Its experience has taught it that when selections are made based on facts, not emotions, clients save both time and money. The company’s product-agnostic approach enables it to help its clients select the correct products for their unique needs.

After 20+ years of experience on ERP projects costing $5M+, Cloud Services Solutions’ trusted experts have developed 10-steps that companies need to follow to have a successful ERP rollout. The company’s proven system for integration of your needed ERP cloud solution is time-tested and optimized to save you time and money.

Serving Clients Proactively

Cloud Services Solutions serves a variety of clients across the globe including the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The firm’s international team of ERP experts enables it to meet the needs of the clients in both a proactive and comprehensive manner.

Stephen believes clients choose to work with Cloud Services Solutions because it takes a holistic approach to human capital management. Stephen and his colleagues help their clients walk through the entire process, from choosing the right software to selecting the best implementation partner. This level of service and expertise translates into cost and time savings for the clients of Cloud Services Solutions.

When the Pandemic Happened

One of the biggest challenges Stephen, and his team have faced, over the last few years, has been the worldwide pandemic, which has touched almost every aspect of not only their business but commerce on a global scale. While it’s been challenging to navigate the restrictions, Stephen has found, that Cloud Services Solutions’ business; and its team, are very resilient, and has adapted to the changes well.

Another unforeseen challenge the firm is closely monitoring is what people are calling the “mass resignation”. For what many find to be a complete mystery, people are resigning from their positions in high numbers. And it’s not just a select group of people. It’s people from many different industries with different levels of seniority. While Cloud Services Solutions has not faced this challenge internally yet, the company leadership is proactively keeping their eyes on the phenomenon.

A Good Team is Key

Cloud Services Solutions’ team is essential to the success, of itself and the client outcomes. When Stephen looks for new candidates to join his team, he requires at least 10 years of global experience. And with offices across the world, Stephen’s international team can serve a variety of cultures. While competitors might find this challenging, Cloud Services Solutions find that its international presence and attention to detail from a cultural perspective give the company a competitive advantage.

Daily, the firm utilizes the talents of its staff to be the best possible advisory experts and client advocates possible. Stephen likes to think of Cloud Services Solutions as an insurance policy for its clients and when recruiting, he desires to build his team with the best and brightest individuals who bring experience and excitement to the fast-paced company.

Future Roadmap

Looking forward, one of Stephen’s primary points of focus this year is expansion into the European and APAC regions. As the pandemic is slowly receding, he and his team have seen many projects that were put on hold, start to resurface. So, they have begun re-engaging with clients and talking about resuming their projects.

Lane Mendelsohn: Vantagepoint A.I., the World’s 1st Company to Give Independent Traders the Power of Artificial Intelligence for their Computers.

The Prime View magazine is pleased to present a trailblazer in the FINTECH industry; founded by Louis Mendelsohn, this remarkable company is Vantagepoint A.I.

Founded in 1979, Vantagepoint A.I. was the first company in the world to offer traders the power of artificial intelligence for their home computers. Louis Mendelsohn has been dedicated to levelling the playing field for independent traders, helping them to control their own destinies, and creating the freedom of life lived on one’s own terms. Their patented, predictive technical analysis forecasts and patented Global Intermarket Analysis help traders in over 160 countries trade smarter and be their own trading guru. They no longer need someone to send them trade signals, they aren’t reacting to the headlines, they aren’t getting caught in trades for too long or missing out on prime opportunities because they are hobbled by lagging data.

A Family Commitment to Excellence

Lane Mendelsohn, Louis Mendelsohn’s son, has taken the role of President of Vantagepoint A.I. He is recognized expert in his own right in the financial space and has continued to grow the company his father founded. Lane has been involved in the world of trading since childhood, he was passionate about the markets from the time he could read and has been actively involved in the company since he was a child. Lane has worked in every aspect of the company and today leads with a comprehensive understanding of controlled growth, superior customer care, and a company culture that maintains the core values of teamwork, innovation, communication, passion, purpose, positivity, integrity, and respect.

STRAIGHT FROM PRESIDENT’S DESK

This story begins with Lane Mendelsohn’s father, Louis Mendelsohn. He was the first person to introduce strategy backtesting to the financial markets. He created the FinTech industry with the release of the first version of his software.

“As a child I was at his side, formatting the big floppy discs for traders to use on their home computers (most of which did not have a hard drive!) at a time when very few people actually had a “microcomputer.” Over the years, I held every position in the company related to sales and marketing. I built our first website. I also become a Charted Technician through CMT at 13 years old. That was a huge accomplishment and has been part of my success over the years. I was fascinated by the financial markets and I continue to be – I’m always working to improve my own knowledge and carry that innovation into our company so we can use it for the good of traders around the world.”

“My father took an early interest in Artificial Intelligence and how it could be used to automate repetitive tasks, he wanted people to have more time for what matters to them and for innovation. Today, our company provides patented, predictive market forecasts created by using artificial intelligence to traders around the world. I’m very proud of that. Our predictive forecasts reliably help traders anticipate market movements up to 3 days in advance with up to 87.4% accuracy. We’ve been training our neural networks for over 30 years and our forecasts just continue to grow in accuracy. We safeguard our traders by ensuring that we can forecast a market with a minimum of 70% accuracy before it is incorporated into our software; each year we are adding more and more markets as the machines are learning faster. Our software is performing valuable analytic functions for our traders so they can trade with calm, assured confidence even when the markets are extremely volatile.

Since my father stepped back from the daily operations of the company, I have been leading our team with a focus on our growth, product improvements and new capabilities for our traders. We are dedicated to growing our family of traders and our team without ever sacrificing the quality and customer care we are known for”, explained Lane Mendelsohn.

THE INNOVATIVE TEAM AT VANTAGEPOINT

The team at Vantagepoint is exceptional and Mendelsohn works hard to support them in all they do including driving Vantagepoint’s unique company culture. The team is fiercely dedicated to their core values which guide every decision they make and every action they take. The team is all-in on Teamwork, Innovation, Passion, Purpose, Positivity, Communication, Respect, and Integrity. As a natural extension of those core values, the team is also dedicated to giving back to their community. Vantagepoint A.I. regularly donates a portion of its profits to Shriners Hospitals for Children, The Children’s Cancer Center, and many small, local charities that are often overlooked by large corporate giving programs.

COPING WITH TODAY’S “NEW MARKETS” AND STRATEGIZING FOR THE FUTURE

The financial markets are very volatile right now; anyone trading in the financial markets will acknowledge it’s been quite a rollercoaster. Independent traders are being pushed and pulled not only by the ups and downs of the market but also by a huge disparity of opinions about what’s next. VantagePoint software gives traders the power of artificial intelligence with a predictive moving average. Traders have the tools at their fingertips to get off the rollercoaster and start looking at the markets from a data-driven predictive perspective. VantagePoint also helps traders find hidden opportunities in the markets with their Global Intermarket Analysis and their IntelliScan feature. But probably the greatest protection their software can offer any kind of trader is their predictive market high and low each day. Traders can trade more confidently when they see where to set their stops, what the momentum looks like, and how strong the trend is that they’re trading. Most VantagePoint traders say they can’t imagine trading without that edge!

THE TOUGHEST DECISION MADE

We asked Lane what the toughest decision is that he’s had to make along the way. He said, “Like most people running a company, the pandemic forced us to take a whole new approach to the business. Vantagepoint had a very vibrant in-office culture. It was tough on everyone when we had to deploy our team to work from home. Since then, we’ve worked to find new ways to hold the fabric of culture together while we’re physically apart. It’s worked really well and I credit my leadership team for their flexibility and innovation. Because the team has been able to adapt so well, I’ve made the difficult decision to maintain a remote working model. I do miss some of the excitement of our daily office atmosphere but I also want to ensure my team is safe, healthy, and protected. It was a difficult choice but truly the best one for taking care of my Vantagepoint family.”

WHAT’S ON THE VANTAGEPOINT HORIZON

Vantagepoint is known for its high-calibre customer care. The company has been growing quickly but with great care. Lane and his father both believe in a controlled growth model. This mindful approach to growth is a contributing factor to why Vantagepoint has been around for over 40 years and maintains an A+ Better Business Bureau rating. “Yes, we’ll continue to grow, expand, innovate and bring even more functionality to our traders,” says Lane, “but we are fiercely committed to ensuring our growth includes being able to provide the services, training, and level of support we believe is required of us and that our traders deserve!” That said, they are looking for all-stars to join the team on a regular basis and they will continue to expand – always with the utmost care.

GIVING BACK MEANS MORE THAN WRITING A CHECK

As mentioned before, Vantagepoint A.I. regularly donates a portion of their revenue to Shriners Hospitals for Children and The Children’s Cancer Center. But there’s more to their philanthropy! The team involves their patient ambassadors in their Vantagepoint family too – they join into their events, fun contests, and quarterly meetings. The team also supports local food banks, homeless shelters, veterans’ programs, and other local charities where they know they can make a difference in people’s lives in their community.

“For businesses in the fintech space that are looking to establish themselves and offer a service to people, my first advice is to help make your customers’ lives easier. Give people something that is useful, practical, and helpful. In the world of software, you can design all kinds of shiny widgets and cool interfaces, but at the end of the day does it make people’s lives better? It’s also important to have integrity in business; we hear so many horror stories from traders and we work to do our best to take good care of our customers – we call them our Vantagepoint family, and we mean it. Our customers’ success with our software is our true measure of our own success!” shared Lane Mendelsohn. “Our third generation of family leadership is already in training. My girls (12 and 8) understand how important our traders are, how vital our team is, and what principles we are dedicated to in our business. I can’t wait to see what innovations they bring to our company!”

Mark Kidd: Enabling Businesses to Perform Better

It’s a real honour to be selected by Prime View as a business leader making a difference in 2022. The reality is there are thousands of business leaders out there making a difference every day who are highly motivated to do inspiring things in their community or society, so I am proud to be asked to share some of my insights.

The Safe365 story has been driven by wanting to make a difference. Internationally the data on the level of workplace safety and associated harm is quite staggering. We could see that results weren’t improving, mostly because standard approaches weren’t changing either. The Safe365 journey has been about wanting to disrupt the norm and reset expectations on what great safety could look like using technology as an enabler and removing barriers to creating safer workplaces around the world.

This philosophy is very much engrained in the Safe365 vision and values. Everyone in the team is passionate about making a significant social impact in the community through reducing harm in the workplace. Better decisions on workplace safety culture and performance can only be made with better insights. The road to improvement starts with those insights about what the key strengths and weaknesses are and what needs to be done to improve outcomes.

Safe365 is essentially a safety ecosystem for businesses, allowing them to have everything at their fingertips with resources to improve their safety using mobile friendly technology. The insights generated on health and safety performance and the ability for businesses to benchmark themselves over time, and compare themselves at a sector and a country level is a key driver to propel positive change.

Transparency, engagement, assurance and governance need to be woven into everything relating to safety and risk management if it is to be successful.

As a team we fundamentally understood that one of the key barriers to creating safe workplaces was poor information flows and engagement between employers, employees, contractors and community. Core to our proposition was to create a seamless, intuitive experience for all workplace participants so we could increase engagement and awareness, making everyone part of the solution and not the problem.

While it is incredibly gratifying to win three international awards in the last 12 months, judged by some of the leading safety, risk and tech experts on the planet, the most gratifying aspect for us is hearing from our clients globally that we are making a difference to their safety performance.

Our number one goal is to have more workers return home safely every day, but to do that, businesses often need to change some deep seated behaviours and create a culture where safety becomes part and parcel of their everyday organisational performance.

After only six years in operation, we are fortunate to have thousands of clients across every sector of the economy in 40+ countries. Our clients are part of our family, they have become our biggest champions and sales channel, actively promoting Safe365 into their networks.

Our client list ranges from Amazon right through to small sporting organisations with 2-3 people. I am extremely proud of the work we with do with charities, giving them our product at cost price as well as our efforts amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, in making our product available free to organisations during a really tough time. This was an easy decision for our team and while we all had to work our butts off to make this happen it was the right thing to do at the time and truly aligned to our values.

A key philosophy for our business and a strong mantra is ‘outside-in thinking’. Putting the customer at the forefront of everything we do is critical to our business success. I’m proud to say there is nothing built in Safe365 that hasn’t come from our customers. That’s because we are in the business of solving their problems, not ours.

Personally I think it is incredibly conceited to think you know what’s good for the market. Our approach is guided by one of my favourite sayings ‘feedback is the lifeblood of champions’. This applies to our clients and staff, the need to have open conversations about what is working, what is not and what needs to be done differently. Having an agile mindset is critical along with an environment where everyone feels they can contribute. We give everyone the license to provide feedback.

However, it has not always been plain sailing. Creating change always has its detractors. Being extremely disruptive means changing the paradigm. In entering the market our biggest resistance came from existing safety professionals worried that we were going to ‘cut their lunch’. However, once they understood that they could bundle our offering into theirs to help them grow their own business while improving safety outcomes for their clients, their position changed. We now have premium partners across multiple countries.

Creating and having the right team, with the right values is critical. We have been very conscious of getting the right skills and expertise in the business. People who know their stuff in the disciplines they excel in. They also need to be passionate about safety and the difference we can make at a societal level and take pride in what they are doing, with loads of drive, energy, tenacity and resilience. They all have these attributes in spades to the point that several are now shareholders in the business, investing their own money to join the journey on another level. They are also having fun with purpose, critical to business success!

Some parting observations: I personally think of business as a team game. If you treat your business like a sports team things will happen. You need a vision for what outcome you are trying to achieve, you need the right players with the right skills, attitude and behaviours aligned to the vision. You have to love your players as both professionals and human beings and respect diversity on all levels. Take the BS out of the environment and enforce a ‘no poor-behaviour’ mantra as it can destroy your culture in a heartbeat. At all times remain yourself and let others be themselves, let them breathe and grow. Authenticity is critical, your team and customers can smell inauthenticity at 100 metres.

By all means be aware of your competition but don’t be obsessed with them. Instead become obsessed with your own game and the market you serve. Iron out your weaknesses, adapt, change and learn. Really get to understand the underlying problem and the solutions that address it. Learn from things that don’t go well – ‘it is only a failure when you don’t learn from it and adapt’. Surround yourself with people who are better than you, remain agile, pivot in need and always listen, listen, listen to your customers. You can’t be world class with a closed mind.

There will always be challenges in business so confront them. They only become a problem when you don’t address them and find a solution.

I am excited about 2022 as it will see a return to normal, albeit a new normal. Covid-19 has left an indelible footprint. People are more digitally aware and tech savvy, having been forced to engage, communicate and survive using technology. Great for SaaS businesses like Safe365.

Boards, executive teams and businesses have a greater awareness and appreciation of safety, health and well-being. The latter will have even greater importance especially as businesses adapt and accept flexible workplaces, people working remotely and the impact this has on developing safe and endearing cultures and workplaces at home and at work. 2022 promises to be an exciting year for change.