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Support: Paul Greenhagen President and CEO of Westwood (Minneapolis, MN), a firm that’s been focused on enhancing communities with smart engineering for almost 50 years.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
G reenhagen focuses on corporate development, strategic alignment, risk management, and sustainable and scalable growth. His strong leadership style emphasizes a culture of integrity – one that enables staff to achieve success through client satisfaction and personal and professional growth. “Through my experience doing acquisitions and entering new markets, I’ve learned that culture is more important than numbers,” Greenhagen says. “In the beginning, we looked more at the numbers than the people and their cultural fit. It caused more damage than any monetary gains an acquisition could bring. A strong culture and good leadership has proven to be our biggest differentiator and brings us greatest success.” A CONVERSATION WITH PAUL GREENHAGEN. The Zweig Letter: What are the three to four key business performance indicators that you watch most carefully? Do you share that information with your staff?
Paul Greenhagen: Revenue, profit, backlog, and utilization. We share these details in a “State of Business” summary at our monthly town halls. Our employees appreciate the transparency. Having an understanding of this information along with business trends, helps them understand how their hard work and contribution is so important to achieving our goals. TZL: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are potential disruptors across all industries. Is your firm exploring how to incorporate these technologies into providing improved services for clients? PG: Yes. We have a dedicated staff member who focuses on innovation and new technologies to improve our performance and client satisfaction. Innovation is deeply embedded into Westwood’s culture and we recognize the potential for technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to transform our industry. We continually invest in our vision and strategy to provide a basis for integrating new technologies. Our teams are in early discussions on implementing AI into our business
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