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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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volume 1
issue 2
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“I have been an independent full-time for only eight months, although I have been in consulting in one form or another for 20 years. If my experience remains as good as this one, being an a-connect IP could be the cornerstone of my career going forward.” —M.E.B., IP since 2005
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Interview with a-connect Client Jeff Trandahl, Executive Director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
by Rene Limacher
 a-connect recently finalized a six-month engagement with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), assisting them in developing a new mission statement and strategy. The team included two independent professionals (IPs): Sherry Manetta (previously a partner with Ernst & Young, with significant experience in managing non-profit strategic planning exercises), and Ben Matteo (previously a McKinsey consultant, who has done a lot of work in the areas of renewable energy and clean-tech), together with Rene Limacher (one of a-connect’s talent partners) and Matt Huttner (a-connect’s summer intern in the Boston office).
The a-connect team worked closely with both the internal management group and with NFWF’s board, developing and fleshing out various strategic options in a series of workshops and discussions. A detailed analysis of past grant history provided the basis for defining three “lines of business” with distinct objectives, approaches and organizational implications. The resulting strategy strongly emphasizes the need to focus on results and impact, and thus clearly puts NFWF at the forefront of a trend in the non-profit world to be accountable for funds invested in conservation and make sure they achieve the desired results.
Rene Limacher recently reviewed the project experience with Jeff Trandahl, NFWF’s Executive Director.
Short Biography
Mr. Trandahl, who is originally from South Dakota, earned a B.A. in Government/Politics from the University of Maryland in 1987 and holds a Certificate in Management from the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University.
He joined the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in November 2005 after serving on Capitol Hill for 23 years. During his tenure on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trandahl was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2005. In this function, Mr. Trandahl was the second highest constitutional official in the House of Representatives and served as the chief legislative official, leading a team of 300 highly specialized staff. Prior to his election as Clerk, he served for various members of the House and Senate and held various committee staff assignments.
How did you find out about a-connect?
We had a recent change in leadership at the foundation: Paul Tudor Jones took on the role of Chairman of the Board, and he recruited me to join as Executive Director. We both wanted to take this opportunity to fundamentally review our mission and strategy and looked at a variety of partners to help us in this process. Paul had worked with a-connect before on a separate project for the private equity firm he leads. So we contacted a-connect and quickly came to an agreement on scope, approach and team composition for this endeavor.
How would you describe the a-connect team of independent professionals and how did they interact with your own team and your board?
The two IPs who worked with us (Sherry and Ben) turned out to be a great team, who complemented each other very well in terms of managing the project, interacting with staff on a regular basis, making sure we got as much input as possible, facilitating workshops and meetings, providing the analytical fire power to have a solid decision basis, and then obviously also synthesizing it all into frameworks and documents that we could review and refine. So not only was it a great team, I also think it was a good complement to the skills of our internal staff.
What were the biggest challenges of the project?
Buy-in and consensus building was a huge issue, and we probably originally underestimated this. We had multiple staff workshops and meetings, several board meetings, and we also spoke to almost all the board members individually. As always, success is not so much the beauty of the strategic framework, but much more the buy-in, the fact that people really get it and will run with it. And that all comes down to communication!
Looking back six months, are there big differences in working with a-connect IPs, compared to what you originally expected or imagined?
I have personally been involved in more than a dozen strategic planning efforts prior to coming to the foundation. My observation about a-connect compared to other firms was the ability of Sherry and Ben to understand the complexities of the foundation’s activities, its history and the opportunities ahead. I did not expect our IPs to be the positive force they became. Their commitment and professionalism (and their ability to keep us moving forward and thinking bigger and better) made all the difference.
A number of IPs are interested in doing work for non-profits, in addition to their regular client work. Do you have any recommendations for them?
I obviously think this is great and very valuable for people in the non-profit world. In our new strategy, we put a lot of emphasis on outcomes, results, evaluations, return on investments, etc. And these are all concepts that are very familiar to the business world. So there is this big trend towards accountability and results—the Gates Foundation is just one example of that. And if people who have a strong consulting background and line management background in the for-profit world are willing to help apply this in the non-profit world, that’s great. I do believe the non-profit sector is filled with incredibly committed professionals, people who are not always operationally savvy or strategic in business, but who instead are focused on a cause. Therefore, a word of caution is obviously to be aware of the fact that the non-profit environment probably does require a lot of coaching and a lot of process management. It’s not just a question of running a lot of analyses and then jumping to conclusions, assuming that it is obvious what needs to be done. You need to make sure people follow the logic and buy in. But then again, I would assume that this is critical even in the for-profit world.
Thank you very much!
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