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PROFILE
Creating opportunities: Ciro Cuono Founder and principal of Cuono Engineering, an engineering firm dedicated to renewing the past and building the future through structural engineering design.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
A 2024 winner of Zweig Group’s Best Firm to Work For award, Cuono, founder and principal of Cuono Engineering (White Plains, NY), says his life circumstances at the time first pushed him to start his own firm and now he’s so glad he did. He had young kids and a long commute and wanted to spend more time with family, so he launched the company in his hometown, White Plains, New York, in 2012. He now has a second location in Manhattan. TAKING A DEEP DIVE INTO FIRM MANAGEMENT. It was during the early days of COVID when everyone was sitting at home that Cuono and his staff decided to really dig in and focus on “designing” the firm. They treated it like a design project and at the end of the process emerged with two comprehensive documents for overall firm management: ■ A position matrix. This outlined every position in the firm and included technical and managerial responsibilities. This was done for staff level engineers up to principals and everything in between, including all current and future anticipated administrative positions.
■ A “path to principalship.” This became their defining document and outlines company culture and serves to demystify the career path process. Once these documents were developed, they shared them with the team and began a new strategic planning process centered around the company values defined in the core document. “This well-defined company culture and clarity on career path has given us an edge in hiring some of the best and brightest and helped make us shine even more,” he says. CREATING OPPORTUNITIES. At the same time, they also started working on an ownership transition plan. While it’s likely earlier than most companies, Cuono says one of the main reasons behind it was to create opportunities for its current leadership team and to make sure a pipeline of future leaders is ready to step in when the time comes. He also teaches a course at Manhattan University (formerly Manhattan College) and finds this has been a mutually rewarding experience. He’s honed his presentation skills and learned a lot through the
See CREATING OPPORTUNITIES , page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER MARCH 10, 2025, ISSUE 1576
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