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P R O F I L E
Chen Moore & Associates employees at a holiday party.
Conference call: Peter Moore President and CEO of Chen Moore & Associates (Best Firm Multidiscipline #26 and Hot Firm #88 for 2018), a 70-person firm based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
“E ven more important than a good partner, though, is making sure that a very frank con- versation is had with that good partner to fully out- line all the responsibilities in the project from the first day of the pursuit to the final closeout,” says Moore, referring to the design-build delivery mod- el. A CONVERSATION WITH PETER MOORE. The Zweig Letter: While plenty of firms have an ownership transition plan in place, many do not. What’s your advice for firms that have not taken steps to identify and empower the next genera- tion of owners? Peter Moore: I would tell the owners of these firms to prepare themselves for a reality check that is go- ing to hit them incredibly hard. Unless they are very fortunate, their lack of planning will hurt their egos, but even more importantly, it will im- pact their pockets. TZL: There are A/E leaders who say profit centers create corrosive internal competition for firm re- sources. What’s your opinion on profit centers?
PM: When we opened our first branch office, we spent a lot of time setting up our accounting sys- tems to compare the “home” and “branch” office, including setting up a complicated formula to apply the “corporate” overhead. During the downturn, we consolidated all of the information to focus on the overall health of the company. As we grew, instead of putting the profit centers back in place, we fo- cused on projections for individual project manag- ers and we now manage staffing based on different combinations of our project managers in the office where they primarily work. This has led to project profitability focus, rather than competitive offices. TZL: The talent war in the A/E industry is here. What steps do you take to create the leadership pipeline needed to retain your top people and not lose them to other firms? PM: We’ve grown the firm from three people to 70. We’ve done this more out of a desire to provide management and leadership opportunities for our young and mid-career talent. By developing addi- tional offices, disciplines, and specialized teams, we’ve provided a large number of positions to fill.
Peter Moore, President & CEO, Chen Moore & As- sociates
THE ZWEIG LETTER Octo
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