2008 Year Business Report

Dear Friends of JWF Advisors:

In the midst of the Perfect Storm in the world economy, with punishing waves crashing over the bow, hail denting the hull, and wind shredding the ensign in minutes, I wanted to write what is essentially a progress report.

JWF Advisors has just completed a record year, both financially and in the level and quality of executives with whom we have worked. To say that I learn from each of my clients would be a vast understatement.

The success of the business and the destruction of the storm are I believe coincidental and not related.

Having opened the business in 2002, it now seems established. One person went so far as to say “you are a brand”! The quality of the enterprise has rested on two factors, neither of which I understood fully when I started. First, nearly everyone with whom I work is referred by someone who knows me, perhaps not intimately, but well enough to know that we might well relate effectively. For these referrals, I thank you. Second, the focus of the business, that is, the need to discover one’s real gifts and interests, then set a course, can go out of focus in a catastrophic job market. People want names, numbers, and employment targets.. I have for the most part resisted changing the business. In EVERY case, the first task is to set a course after some period of self-examination. Thereafter, I am happy to help an individual with contacts and tactics for a job search.

My thirty years in executive recruiting has been instructive. There remains an extraordinary level of confusion about how these intermediaries work. It is relatively simple for me to interpret and expedite some of these relationships and transactions. And my former counterparts have been helpful to many of my clients whenever it served their own objectives.

I remain stunned by the wasted resources represented by those senior executives, over 50 years of age, who are underutilized, despite records of real distinction. There is rampant age discrimination in the high end of the executive job market. It is often unconscious, but never subtle. What I do NOT know, because there is no data, is whether there is a sufficient amount of talent in the next generation to replace this cadre. If so, it is understandable that some will have to move aside as they age to make room. This year I have seen, on a more positive note, a few examples of people in their sixties prevailing in searches for top positions over younger competitors. But the phenomenon of age discrimination must be one of great anachronisms of all time, given health and life expectancy changes.

JWF Advisors has generally not done corporate outplacement work. I have found that, while sometimes a deal breaker, committing to pay a fee by the individual almost always assures a very high level of engagement in the transition process. Whether it is cause or effect, it has become a key pillar of the business model.

This year, I have been reminded of another reason I choose not to do much outplacement. In a stormy economy like the present, people are evidently more anxious, sometimes damaged, with an often unrealistic sense of urgency, as well as significantly compromised powers of self-analysis. They want jobs. They need a kind of support that I am not qualified to provide. I can add considerably less value in that environment.

Working with people from other parts of the U.S. has proven to be much more workable than I had originally expected. Again, it probably goes to the quality of the initial referral, and a situation where trust can be established relatively quickly. This past year, JWF Advisors has experienced a vast expansion of geographic coverage.

I have also decided not to do hourly work. Put simply, as compared to a six months retainer, an hourly arrangement proved to be a financial disincentive to meet, to ask questions, and to expand the dialogue. The longer term fixed fee encourages frequent dialogue in person or by phone, whenever desirable.

Perhaps the most predictable happy outcome has to do with my own idiosyncrasy. I, for many years as an executive recruiter, realized that we only got to know people as they wanted to be known. There was nothing natural about most interviews, they lasted up to 90 minutes, and I often never saw the person again. I very often wished I could have known them better. My present business is built around the trust that knowing one another better and more thoroughly will help, not hurt the process. Clients learn the most when they are willing to explore their inner selves. Hence, the journey is expedited.

Finally, my favorite story about the business is a quote from one of our children. When they read on the website that I would be careful in selecting those with whom I worked, they hooted. “Dad, you can’t make it sound like it is hard to get in, like a club.” It’s not like a club. But to have exercised care, doing quiet checks on reputations, confirming details of work histories, has resulted in the privilege of working with a group of exceptional, ethical, and curious executives. Each is capable of making a serious contribution.

May we all stay nimble, durable, and opportunistic in 2009. And let’s pray that our new national leadership is able to bring the storm to the soonest possible abatement.

Sincerely,

John W. Franklin, Jr.