Two Careers, Two Circles

(Part 2 of 2) In Part 1, I told the story of a circle.

How as head of marketing for Olympus Americas we struggled to get value out of the $60 million, 5-year U.S. Open Tennis Series sponsorship, whereas my daughter now takes her J.P. Morgan clients to matches every September, a phenomenally successful program.

The second circle completing itself: After Olympus I worked for Best Buy; then BBDO, the largest ad agency in America; then AlixPartners management consulting, performing M&A work for private equity and corporate clients. The full cycle of operating roles within manufacturing, retailing, agency, and M&A that I'd need later on. I’d stayed in touch with Olympus senior leaders, and my timing proved as perfect here as it was imperfect years ago when I started my Olympus digital cameras job a month before Apple first put a camera in a phone.

When I joined AlixPartners pre-pandemic, I told the new CEO of Olympus Americas that AlixPartners excelled at solving complex problems, like what to do with a now-unprofitable digital cameras division whose revenue had shrunk 15x since its peak. We were invited to pitch and beat out several “usual suspects” (all global management consulting firms you’ve heard of).

Having originated and pitched the work, I also got to co-lead it in the Americas (alongside my global teammates in Japan/Asia and Europe). We helped rebuild the Americas go-to-market strategy, consolidating key accounts to major players like Best Buy, and grouping smaller retailers into a photo specialty distributor channel. Fewer direct relationships, a leaner sales team to cover them, a cleaner P&L. We helped amalgamate the Americas and Europe into a Western Hemisphere business unit and worked with their customer service call center in Czechia to ensure it could properly serve American customers despite drastic time zone differences.

Together, we turned around the business from unprofitable to profitable, from unsellable to sellable (to a Japanese private equity firm), enabling Olympus to carve out its smallest division and focus on its core medical technology business: endoscopes are digital cameras small and light enough to tunnel through the human body.

It went so well that Olympus insisted on having AlixPartners back to carve out its second-smallest division, scientific solutions, renamed Evident Corporation and sold to Bain Capital Private Equity.

Over the 2+ years spent across the two M&A engagements, I worked for Olympus as a consultant for about as long as I was an employee. Critically, the second stint gave me skills in exit readiness: preparing clients’ businesses to sell for a far greater premium than they otherwise would.

At Parallel-49, I help marketing services firm owners exit wealthier. Thinking about an exit? michael@parallel-49.com