Fleeing famine and communism in Ethiopia, Tadiwos Belete came to America in the 1980s for a chance at survival and success. With a fresh start in Boston, Belete enrolled in cosmetology school. Working his way up from assistant stylist to salon manager, Belete pooled resources with seven friends to open a hair salon.

In 2002, the 53-year-old entrepreneur returned to Ethiopia. This time around he ventured into the hospitality industry, opening Boston Day Spa in Addis Ababa. Later he opened the upscale Kuriftu Resort and Spa in Debre Zeit.

“Whenever you hear about Ethiopia, you always hear about hunger and starvation,” Belete says. “I came back to be part of the development here. I want to be one of those people helping to put Ethiopia on the map again.”

Belete’s resolve to execute his vision twice is unusual. Below are three strategies in Belete’s journey that you can incorporate into your personal and professional efforts.

Be flexible. “This is important because life is not linear or predictable,” says Barry J. Moltz, serial entrepreneur and author of Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success (Wiley; $24.95). “When people set big goals, they have to set small steps to achieve them and not just keep talking about them without making progress to get there.”

On previous trips to Ethiopia, Belete performed a feasibility study complete with detailed startup costs, market analyses, and projected earnings for Boston Day Spa.

Be prepared. One evening in Boston, while giving haircuts to a married couple, the wife, Tera Chung, asked “why I had to work so hard if I owned the place,” Belete says. “I told her I was planning to start a business in Ethiopia.”
Chung then asked to see a feasibility study, which Belete presented to her the next day. Belete’s preparation paid off, leading Chung to invest in his company. The two remain business partners.

“If [Belete] had come back in months, she may not have been interested anymore,” says Moltz. “You have to strike while the iron is hot.”

Be principled. “Define success not just in money terms,” says Moltz. “You cannot call it victory if you break all your principles along the way.”

Belete remains determined to change the business landscape of his nation. Convinced that Africa has to be changed by Africans, he believes in hiring local talent. “Almost 68% of them were laborers from the local village,” Belete says of his employees. “I sent most of them to school to be trained so we can help the community. We’re not just trying to do business; we want to add value wherever we go.”

This article originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

Time management and productivity expert Peggy Duncan.

Tanvier Lee says she moved from Washington, D.C., to New York City in early 2008 with high hopes. Leaving behind her job as a financial adviser, Lee looked to start an interior design company. It wasn’t long before she found herself overwhelmed.

Admittedly, she says New York City can be overwhelming by itself, but coupled with the added responsibilities in starting a new venture, the then-23-year-old Lee was quickly juggling more than she was used to. In order to pay her bills, Lee worked full-time as a kitchen and bath designer. Simultaneously, she functioned as an entrepreneur: Trying to bid on design contracts, market her services on several online job boards, and attend industry events.
“I was just too bogged down with working a nine-to-six and heading into the city to meet with prospective clients,” says Lee, who also volunteered weekly at the Junior League of New York City (www.nyjl.org). “It was a lot.” And although she felt drained, Lee says she pushed herself because she felt she needed to keep it all together—a common rationale. We often feel there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish tasks of work, home, and extracurricular.

However, Peggy Duncan, a time management and productivity expert and author of the book, The Time Management Memory Jogger (GOAL/QPC Inc; $12.95), says this unwillingness to stop may be one of the biggest reasons why we struggle.

“You have to stop long enough to figure out the best way to do things,” says Duncan. “Look at what’s on your plate and prioritize. Be selfish right now and focus on yourself. If you don’t, you won’t be a good parent, boss, or employee. If you feel like you’re getting overwhelmed, something has to go.”

After months of living out a frenzied schedule, Lee quit her full-time job, giving full attention to launching her design firm and creating a balanced, less besieged life.

Miss Manage
Time management and productivity expert Peggy Duncan helps clients get on track to effectively manage their responsibilities and lives. Here she offers these three helpful tips:

Get organized. If your eyes always see a mess, your mind becomes a mess. Get organized so you can think better. Even if it takes you two or three weekends, take the time to put your workspace in order. That goes for your time and calendar as well. Keep a time log so you can figure out how you’re spending your time.

Focus yourself and your efforts. Multitasking doesn’t work, so prioritize. What activities can you eliminate? What things can you put on hold while you sort yourself out? When you’re doing work that requires you to think, you can’t afford to multitask. Ignore the phone. Hide yourself until it’s done.

Barter when possible. You’ll either spend your time or your dime to get certain things done. When there is work you must do that requires expertise you don’t have, consider bartering a service you can perform in exchange for the expertise you need.

This article originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

“The young people of my neighborhood were being destroyed by rage, drugs, violence, apathy, fear, and despair,” writes Strickland in his book, Make the Impossible Possible: One Man’s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary (Doubleday; $23.95). The 62-year-old president and CEO of what is now the Manchester Bidwell Corp. tells of how pursuing seemingly unrelated passions paved the way for his life’s success.

More than just a community arts program, the center now includes an adult career-training center, a greenhouse, and even a Grammy award-winning record label that in part funds Manchester’s work.  “The center is a collection of insights that offers a different way of thinking about the elimination of poverty,” says Strickland.

What started as a one-man operation in a small row house now covers 163,000 square feet, employs a staff of 150, and annually reaches more than 3,400 students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools system and throughout the region, including the inner-city neighborhood where it started.

This article originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

In the

Finding a job requires many of the same approaches it takes to manage your career: strategy, focus, clarity, insight, and networking. You’ve probably sent out dozens of résumés and created career profiles on Monster, CareerBuilder, and every employment Website in between. You’ve asked friends to be on the lookout for job openings and have even begun buying newspapers from other cities to look at their classifieds, too. You’ve done all there is to do, right? Not quite.

“It is imperative in the current global economy that you are known and recognized for something specific. Now more than ever, with more educated workers and a service-centered economy, without a brand, you could just as easily join the faceless millions posting their résumés on career sites,” says Veronica Conway, founder and president of Black Professional Coaches Alliance. “Focusing on your strengths is not a luxury. Get with the program and do what you are brilliant at. You will ultimately have the competitive advantage.”

The following is a checklist of strategies to amp up your search for the perfect job despite a tough market.

Determine what you’d like to do before you decide where you’d like to work. Most people panic at the idea of not being able to find work, so they focus on what jobs are available. “Most of us start our job search in exactly the wrong way by asking what’s available and not what our contribution is,” says Bob Rosner of Workplace911.com. Identifying your interests is much more closely aligned with your skills and talents and will help you focus on opportunities that suit them.

Conway suggests that her clients write down their ideal job description based on their innate strengths. “What would your new role look like and what would you be doing every day? For one of my clients, this meant writing proposals, business networking, negotiating contracts, and leading, not doing operations,” she says. “Focus on the 20% of what you do that creates 80% of the results. In a business, there are only two or three things that yield the best results. And as people in careers, we don’t focus on the critical few.”

Kill the career history résumés. “Describe the results of your activities. That’s what employers are paying for,” Conway says. Instead of chronological résumés that list job titles and tasks, functional résumés describe the impact of each activity, says Joe Watson, author of Without Excuses (Macmillan; $24.95) and CEO of Strategic Hire, a Reston, Virginia-based executive search firm. He explains, “Quantify your work: I led the team that delivered this many days ahead of schedule, this much under budget.”

Get ready to sell. After you’ve successfully outlined your skills and talents on paper, you have to be confident in delivering your story—liken it to a sales pitch for a great product, Watson says. “Some tend to be reluctant to do this because they don’t want to be seen as bragging,” he says. “But telling people that you took a business from zero to 15% is not bragging. It is giving them information to make an educated decision about you.”

Build your network. “Networking is a big part of how people get jobs,” Rosner offers. “I’ve had a recruiter say to me, ‘When I post a job on a Website or [in a] newspaper, it means I’ve failed. I should have been able to fill that position through my network.’”

A great way to develop your list of contacts is to conduct informational interviews. These are face-to-face meetings, usually 15 to 30 minutes long, with senior level executives in a particular industry solely for the purpose of gaining industry insight and gathering information on trends. “It’s a non-threatening, non-needy way to get on people’s radar,” Conway says. “I’ve had several clients that have gotten jobs through doing informational interviews. If you don’t leave with a job, you leave with five more contacts.”

Additional Resources to Equip You for the Job Hunt

Click: Ten Truths For Building Extraordinary Relationships By George C. Fraser (Amazon; $16.47).
For building a networking game plan.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009 By Richard Nelson Bolles (Ten Speed Press; $18.95).
Offers guidance on how to change your career and/or industry.

The Power To Get In By Michael A. Boylan (Macmillan; $14.95).
Offers guidance on how to land and prepare for informational interviews.

The Employment & Career Channel
A clearing house for job hunt advice from recruiters and coaches, cover letter and resume writing tools, and insights on career management.

Previously in the series: Advice on Remaining Relevant | Identifying Your Skill Set

Originally published in the November 2008 issue.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 598,000 unemployed U.S. workers in January 2009, spiking job loss since the recession began in December 2007 to 3.6 million. Unemployed in August 2008, Kelly Mitchell, a financial analyst in prime brokerage sales and hedge fund consulting, expected to remain in finance. “I was exposed to all areas of hedge funds,” she says, “and had done a lot of hedge fund business consulting. These were things I thought would transfer well to hedge fund marketing and investor relations management.”

Despite her work experience, finance jobs haven’t come as easily as she’d hoped. Mitchell, newly employed, took stock of transferable skills that she says would afford her opportunities outside the industry. “My experience interacting with high net worth positions in nonprofit fund development, while the skills of being client focused and getting sales results piqued my interest in advertising,” she says.

Beyond an increased awareness of what you bring to the table, a clear understanding of your skills portfolio is important for managing a career in uncertain times. Transferable skills may be the difference between being stuck in a hard-hit industry and identifying exciting possibilities elsewhere. “Who’s to say a more social work kind of approach wouldn’t be an asset in the financial sector?” asks Veronica Conway, founder and president of Black Professional Coaches Alliance.  “A person with an emotional intelligence skill set in a financial financial principles.”

Professional skill sets fall into several categories, according to Keith Wyche, author of Good is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals (Portfolio Hardcover; $24.95). They include knowledge-based skills, personal skills, and talents and experience. The most important of the three is your experience, which defines your value within an organization. In addition to identifying these skills, however, it’s important to quantify them.  “It’s not enough to say, ‘I was the best recruiter in the HR department,’ ” Wyche cautions. “You should be able to say, ‘I’ve saved the company thousands of dollars by filling open positions in 30 days or less.’ Or, ‘My marketing campaign improved sales by 25%.’ ”

The first step in unpacking your skills toolbox is to start with yourself, says Joe Watson, author of Without Excuses (Macmillan; $24.95) and CEO of Strategic Hire, a Reston, Virginia-based executive search firm. “Get a blank sheet of paper and write down what you do on a daily basis, from when you come in to when you leave,” he says. Keep a copy of your job description handy, and measure your performance against what you are charged with doing. You’ll start to see certain recurring words—take note of them.

Mentors, managers, and colleagues are the next step in a skills assessment. “Ask best? Where do I make my biggest contributions?’” suggests Bob Rosner of Workplace911.com. And be prepared for honest feedback.

Conway differentiates between skills and strengths and recommends the Kolbe A Index and StrengthsFinders as effective strengths assessment tools. Career coaches and résumé-writing services are another resource. While career coaching is often a long-term relationship in which goals, objectives, and strategies for meeting them are set, a résumé-writing service will identify strengths and talents on paper and may be a cost effective alternative.

Further Reading

Knowledge Skills: What are your degrees and certifications? What languages do you speak? What is your area of training?

Experience Skills: What are the toughest challenges you’ve had in your career? When did you implement a change or improve a process at work? What’s the best or worst business decision you’ve ever made? How have you handled a bad review or poor customer feedback? How have you impacted people around you?

Personal Skills: How would you define yourself? How would you define your strengths? What would others want to change in you? How would others define you?

Previously: Advice on Remaining Relevant
Thursday: Action Plan — Let’s Find Work

Originally published in the November 2008 issue.

How do you remain indispensable to a corporation even during downsizing?

If you’ve been at the same job for four or five years and neither the functions nor the company has changed much, seek change. Ask for increased responsibility or a complete job change.

Tell your supervisor, “I love the job I’m doing but I seem stuck. I would love to join X or Y opportunity or work on a special project.” Most special projects end with a presentation to senior management. You’ll meet people outside your department, you’ll learn something new, and you’ll be more visible to senior management, all of which position you well for staying relevant.

Ask for a transfer to a different department. I’ve seen people in the legal department doing work related to employee relations who then join the HR team. This broadens your skills, your functional relevance, and the platform on which you can be promoted. I’ve seen people from legal join HR as a liaison and wind up becoming an HR generalist.

What are some indicators that you’re becoming obsolete, and how do you begin addressing them?

One litmus test for obsolescence is the traffic across one’s desk. If one is sought out less frequently for input by colleagues; if one’s boss asks for counsel less frequently; or the nature of projects crossing one’s desk is less challenging, it is a good bet that one’s job is on the way to being considered obsolete.

Years ago we were a manufacturing society, but we’re now leveraging technology more and moving to a service-based economy. These are trends that you can take advantage of whatever job you’re doing. If you are in a goods-producing job or sector, look at ways that technology is being leveraged. Perhaps those with skills in supply chain management could consider transferring those skills to Internet-based distribution companies. If you can relate to technology, you can drive the transitions and make sure that your job capitalizes on the needs of companies as they change over time.

Beyond your company, how do you maintain relevance within your industry?

Four things: First, take classes. When you’re back in school, you can refresh your skills.

Second, connect with associations and attend conferences. Once we’re in an industry for a while, we tend to forget about the importance of associations; but they’re a good place to get information on trends. Conferences tend to be magnets for representatives from different companies. You’ll meet execs and get good counsel.

Third, keep up with trade journals. If you haven’t been reading them, it’s not a bad idea to get the last 10 to 15 issues and get right back up to speed.

Finally, keep in touch with your executive recruiters. I hear of people who have been working for five or six years and have not kept in touch and then feel very isolated when they need those resources to make a move.

Wednesday: Identifying Your Skill Set
Thursday: Action Plan — Let’s Find Work

Originally published in the November 2008 issue.

Sheldon Gilbert knows your favorite color. He also knows how many times you added that flat screen TV to the online shopping cart without buying it and what you like to do in your spare time. The creator of Proclivity, a behavior predicting software, he knows the ins and outs of data mining.

Sitting in his Fifth Avenue office in New York City, Gilbert explains, “Every time you click a link, it’s a request for information you’re making to a server.” The 33-year-old tutored students in chemistry on the side while he spent a year writing the software. “We can then mine the data stored on the servers to create a profile of a person’s likes and dislikes—or proclivities.”

With this software, the 25-person firm Proclivity Systems has increased online sales by as much as 30% for clients such as Barney’s New York, by predicting which offers to present to which customers, says Gilbert. Proclivity’s motto: Predict behavior. Drive revenue.

Launched in April 2006 with $750,000 from angel investors, the startup recently raised an additional $5.5 million in venture capital. The funds will be used to expand Proclivity’s platform and services into new vertical arenas and channels, as well as bring on senior management, says Gilbert.

Whether he knows it or not, Gilbert has tapped into one of the hot spots of entrepreneurship. But what are the others? Black Enterprise, to borrow an old, yet fitting adage, followed the money trail. With the understanding that venture capitalists have their collective fingers on the pulse of the business world, BE looked at where they’re investing their money. In short, these are the places entrepreneurs want to be. In the following pages, BE identifies these areas and, most importantly, how to tap their potential.

Follow the money

From a venture capitalist investment standpoint, the standouts are software, biotechnology, medical devices, cleantech energy, and telecommunications. Of 17 industry categories, representative of all sectors of the economy, these five accounted for two-thirds of all reported venture capital funding in the first and second quarters of 2008, according to the MoneyTree Report, a study on venture capital investment prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

What gives these industries the edge? Scott A. Shane, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press; $26), suggests four reasons: business models focused on selling to other businesses and the government; relatively high barriers to entry as a result of patentable technology or technical know-how that provides new businesses with sustainable competitive advantages; continued alignment with economy-shaping global trends; and change that allows new businesses to get a foothold in markets and challenge the status quo. “Research shows that when put together, these characteristics help new firms in these industries out-compete other firms,” Shane adds.

Hard cash in software

“Software has almost become like air,” says Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C., speaking of the ubiquity of computer code. “So many industries have software as the core component of their products—from electronics to assembly lines, automobiles, even sneakers.”

Its functionality across industry lines, low startup and overhead costs, and scalability have made software the darling of venture capitalists. “You write a piece of software once, and from one location you can duplicate and deploy it to stores all over the country,” says John Taylor, vice president of research with the National Venture Capital Association.

Partly in response to piracy concerns, but also an indicator of the pervasive reality of the Internet, software distribution is moving to an on-demand, utility-based model, which is what Proclivity Systems offers. “Instead of breaking the shrink-wrap on a CD, you’re accessing your new software online through a vendor’s server,” explains Wasch. “The support infrastructure has changed.”

Wasch says opportunities exist for businesses offering help-desk and tech support services as well as software coding for cell phone content and other Web-based applications. Other opportunities lie in the development of educational software accessible to students via their phones and/or iPods. Wasch adds, “Internet security and applications that increase efficiency, reduce operating costs, and streamline business processes will always have a market.“

Biotech boom

Biotechnology is risky business. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America reports that for any group of 250 screened compounds in preclinical testing, only five enter human clinical trials, and only one ends up being approved for sale to the public by the Food and Drug Administration.

NanoVec, a biotechnology firm, was launched in January 2006 to produce artificial vaccines.

Most vaccines require biological systems to manufacture and require significant time to scale-up, but NanoVec vaccines can be produced in one to two months. Although based in Philadelphia, NanoVec is operated virtually; the company outsources its lab work to contracted research organizations.

Principal Founder, President, and Chief Science Officer Chad Womack, who also serves as president and chair of the executive board of directors of the National Association for Blacks in Bio, raised about $300,000 to begin design and development of a prototype vaccine against influenza.

Though biotechnology is potentially lucrative, Womack cautions, “Most biotech companies take five to seven years on average before ever reaching the stage when they start to generate significant revenue.” He notes that his 2-year-old firm has yet to turn a profit. “The global flu vaccine market alone was $2.2 billion in 2006. Upon product launch, we hope to capture up to 25%of that market.”

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, an independent research group affiliated with Tufts University, puts the cost of developing a new drug at an estimated $1.1 billion, a figure that limits development to the big players.

However, with genetic testing and personalized medicine being two of the fastest growing sectors within this industry, Stephen Keith, president and COO of Panacea Pharmaceuticals in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and also a co-founder of NanoVec, adds that the biotechnology boom means entry points for the creation of new businesses to conduct contract and clinical research for the preclinical and clinical trials required for FDA approval.

Womack agrees: “A lot of biotech is done virtually until the human clinical testing stage.” He confirms that NanoVec spent about 50%of its cash flow in outsourcing its lab work and about 40%in legal fees to protect intellectual property. And a summer 2008 study by biotechnology analysts with the investment firm Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, revealed that contract and clinical research outsourcing is projected to reach $29.4 billion by 2011, up from $16.3 billion in 2006.

Medical devices in demand

Further advances in surgical apparatuses and the discovery of safer and more flexible synthetic materials for implanted equipment are among the factors driving the growth in medical devices, according to Matthew Gardner, president and CEO of BayBio, a life science advocacy group in San Francisco.

“A lot of investment is going into high-reliability devices such as circuit boards and mainframes for medical devices that are not likely to be outsourced,” says Julian Harris, a research analyst with the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio. “These devices are found in minimally invasive surgery equipment and cardiovascular regulatory devices and have stricter quality standards.”

Gardner says that even in a bad economy, the development of new equipment remains resilient because product development takes a great deal longer than an economic cycle. And research funding from government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, that sustain medical research allows such development to continue on a positive growth curve. However, he adds that regulatory processes significantly prolong the time-to-market.

“Diagnostic devices often enjoy faster returns on investment and less regulatory restrictions than devices for surgery or treatment,” Gardner says.

Mark Leahey, executive director of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, says that considerable opportunities within the industry include clinical trials, distribution, and contract manufacturing for device components, especially miniaturized equipment.

Going green with Cleantech

By developing new or renewable sources of energy and raw materials, and by improving the efficiency of consumption, cleantech is answering a vast market opportunity, says Brian Fan, senior director of research at the Cleantech Group, a global cleantech industry research and consulting firm in San Francisco.

“Technologies that improve efficiency or open up new sources for things such as water are profitable,” says Fan. “Also, opportunities in recycling range from designing new methods of sorting and managing waste to applying advances in chemical and material sciences to make use of previously unusable garbage.”

Venture capitalists are investing in batteries, power electronics, and engines focused on optimizing efficiency, says David Prend, co-founder of Rockport Capital Partners, a cleantech venture fund in Boston and Menlo Park, California. Prend adds that green building and smart utility grids are also in demand.

Of course, one of the greatest challenges for the growth of cleantech companies has been inconsistent regulations and policies, says Ron Pernick, co-author of The Clean Revolution (Harper Collins; $26.95) and managing director of Clean Edge Inc., a Portland, Oregon-based firm that tracks and analyzes cleantech markets.

“Case in point: the investment tax credit and production tax credit for renewables is about to expire if Congress doesn’t extend it,” says Pernick. “Places where we’ve seen the greatest growth are those that have long-term plans and programs in place such as in Japan, GermanyCalifornia.”

He adds that some growth areas to watch out for are bio-energy and biomaterials harvested from waste streams and dedicated energy crops such as algae used for biodiesel.

Telecom: 1 trillion and growing

With the amount of sensitive data exchanged over the Internet via phones and computers, ancillary opportunities for entrepreneurs who provide security products and services is in demand.

Grant Seiffert, president of the Arlington, Virginia-based Telecommunications Industry Association, projects increased demand for the construction and installation of advanced communications networks, saying, “The need to carry voice, video, and data over broadband and wireless means that all the companies that manufacture, deliver, install, and service these products either for the enterprise or for the home have a shot at being successful.”

Rob Ayoub, a network security manager and analyst with the growth consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, cites on-the-job security training, assessments and audits, scam identification, data protection/encryption services, and improved teleconferencing security products as avenues for new businesses. He also believes that the Internet and increased demands for wireless functionality are blurring the distinction between phone and computer.

There are additional opportunities for providing media and entertainment content on mobile platforms, says Emily Mendell, vice president of strategic affairs at the National Venture Capital Association. “You can’t have 20 different Facebooks,” Mendell says, “but there are opportunities for consumer-driven content, such as online gaming, fitness, lifestyle, and similar services.”

“You don’t personally have to be the expert to connect yourself to an opportunity. You can connect yourself with someone else who has the expertise you need,” says Darrin Redus, chief economic inclusion officer at Jumpstart Inc., a Cleveland-based venture development firm that prepares entrepreneurs to present their ideas to venture capitalists. “There’s a whole new technology revolution taking place now and, at minimum, learning how to support these industries is a great way to get involved.”

Originally published in the November 2008 issue.

SCENARIO: THE U.S. MANAGER OF A GLOBAL PROJECT TEAM at Goldman Sachs became frustrated when team members in Japan offered little feedback during conference calls. Across the world, the Japanese team members felt similarly discouraged, feeling their input wasn’t being solicited. Is any side to blame?

Goldman Sachs has more than 30,000 employees representing about 160 nationalities. Like most major corporations, its conversations around diversity have expanded from domestic concerns about race and gender to international discussions around culture.

In 2005, it took six months for American firms to exhaust the federal quota of 65,000 H1-Bs—work visas given to foreign college-educated employees. In 2008, these visas were gone in a day, according to U.S. officials. Factor in outsourcing, increased emerging markets, and the growth of multi-national companies, and you have a veritable global village redefining HR’s role.

In its annual study on workplace diversity, the Society for Human Resource Management reports that the “current global business environment has created many growth opportunities for organizations, however, there are new challenges facing today’s organizations, such as cultural differences, divergent expectations, and dissimilar belief systems.”

One of the biggest challenges for human resource professionals now is managing fundamental business procedures that in a global setting are no longer that basic, says Karen Beaman, founder and CEO of the Jeitosa Group International, a San Francisco-based HR consulting firm for global organizations.

“Lateness is defined differently in different cultures,” Beaman explains. “In some cultures it’s five minutes, and in others, it’s 30 minutes. Also, there are cultures that shy away from emphasizing the role of the individual above the role of the team, but this is precisely the point of most American performance reviews.”

GAINING CULTURAL DEXTERITY IN MANAGEMENT IS KEY TO CREATING A GLOBALLY UNIFIED WORK ETHIC. LET’S REVIEW THE JAPANESE SCENARIO:

Managing leadership Divergent expectations were to blame, says Lance LaVergne, Goldman’s vice president and global head of diversity recruiting, and Aynesh Johnson, vice president and global head of the office of global leadership and diversity. The Japanese team came from a culture where deferential preference is given to leaders.

Once the project manager understood the different perspectives, he was able to proactively engage the Japanese team members, who then felt more comfortable offering their input, LaVergne says.

New Roman;”>Managing meetings “In some cultures, building camaraderie comes first,” Johnson explains. “It’s more about making sure we connect, that I know you as an individual so that we can agree. In other cultures, it’s transaction-oriented. Understanding those nuances will impact how business gets done.”

Managing language Idiomatic expressions often don’t transfer well across cultures. “Being specific and clear when communicating is the best policy. “For example, could you turn this around for me? To one person, that could mean on my desk in the morning; to someone else, that’s later in the week,” Johnson says.

Even simpler adjustments can make a difference, LaVergne says, such as “varying the time of global conference calls so that the burden of late-night calls is shared equally among the regional participants, or understanding the issue of deference versus assertiveness.”

Stressing the importance of global diversity is a corporate imperative, Johnson adds, “Over 50% of our revenues are generated outside the U.S., [reinforcing] the business case for diversity.”

This story originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

Sitting in his Fifth Avenue office in New York City, Gilbert explains, “Every time you click a link, it’s a request for information you’re making to a server.” The 33-year-old tutored students in chemistry on the side while he spent a year writing the software. “We can then mine the data stored on the servers to create a profile of a person’s likes and dislikes—or proclivities.”

With this software, the 25-person firm Proclivity Systems has increased online sales by as much as 30% for clients such as Barney’s New York, by predicting which offers to present to which customers, says Gilbert. Proclivity’s motto: Predict behavior. Drive revenue.

Launched in April 2006 with $750,000 from angel investors, the startup recently raised an additional $5.5 million in venture capital. The funds will be used to expand Proclivity’s platform and services into new vertical arenas and channels, as well as bring on senior management, says Gilbert.

Whether he knows it or not, Gilbert has tapped into one of the hot spots of entrepreneurship. But what are the others? BLACK ENTERPRISE, to borrow an old, yet fitting adage, followed the money trail. With the understanding that venture capitalists have their collective fingers on the pulse of the business world, BE looked at where they’re investing their money. In short, these are the places entrepreneurs want to be. In the following pages, BE identifies these areas and, most importantly, how to tap their potential.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

From a venture capitalist investment standpoint, the standouts are software, biotechnology, medical devices, cleantech energy, and telecommunications. Of 17 industry categories, representative of all sectors of the economy, these five accounted for two-thirds of all reported venture capital funding in the first and second quarters of 2008, according to the MoneyTree Report, a study on venture capital investment prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

What gives these industries the edge? Scott A. Shane, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press; $26), suggests four reasons: business models focused on selling to other businesses and the government; relatively high barriers to entry as a result of patentable technology or technical know-how that provides new businesses with sustainable competitive advantages; continued alignment with economy-shaping global trends; and change that allows new businesses to get a foothold in markets and challenge the status quo. “Research shows that when put together, these characteristics help new firms in these industries out-compete other firms,” Shane adds.

HARD CASH IN SOFTWARE

“Software has almost become like air,” says Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C., speaking of the ubiquity of computer code. “So many industries have software as the core component of their products—from electronics to assembly lines, automobiles, even sneakers.”

Its functionality across industry lines, low startup and overhead costs, and scalability have made software the darling of venture capitalists. “You write a piece of software once, and from one location you can duplicate and deploy it to stores all over the country,” says John Taylor, vice president of research with the National Venture Capital Association.

Partly in response to piracy concerns, but also an indicator of the pervasive reality of the Internet, software distribution is moving to an on-demand, utility-based model, which is what Proclivity Systems offers. “Instead of breaking the shrink-wrap on a CD, you’re accessing your new software online through a vendor’s server,” explains Wasch. “The support infrastructure has changed.”

Wasch says opportunities exist for businesses offering help-desk and tech support services as well as software coding for cell phone content and other Web-based applications. Other opportunities lie in the development of educational software accessible to students via their phones and/or iPods. Wasch adds, “Internet security and applications that increase efficiency, reduce operating costs, and streamline business processes will always have a market.”

BIOTECH BOOM

Biotechnology is risky business. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America reports that for any group of 250 screened compounds in preclinical testing, only five enter human clinical trials, and only one ends up being approved for sale to the public by the Food and Drug Administration.

Philadelphia, NanoVec is operated virtually; the company outsources its lab work to contracted research organizations.

Principal Founder, President, and Chief Science Officer Chad Womack, who also serves as president and chair of the executive board of directors of the National Association for Blacks in Bio, raised about $300,000 to begin design and development of a prototype vaccine against influenza. Though biotechnology is potentially lucrative, Womack cautions, “Most biotech companies take five to seven years on average before ever reaching the stage when they start to generate significant revenue.” He notes that his 2-year-old firm has yet to turn a profit. “The global flu vaccine market alone was $2.2 billion in 2006. Upon product launch, we hope to capture up to 25%of that market.”

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, an independent research group affiliated with Tufts University, puts the cost of developing a new drug at an estimated $1.1 billion, a figure that limits development to the big players. However, with genetic testing and personalized medicine being two of the fastest growing sectors within this industry, Stephen Keith, president and COO of Panacea Pharmaceuticals in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and also a co-founder of NanoVec, adds that the biotechnology boom means entry points for the creation of new businesses to conduct contract and clinical research for the preclinical and clinical trials required for FDA approval.

Womack agrees: “A lot of biotech is done virtually until the human clinical testing stage.” He confirms that NanoVec spent about 50%of its cash flow in outsourcing its lab work and about 40%in legal fees to protect intellectual property. And a summer 2008 study by biotechnology analysts with the investment firm Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, revealed that contract and clinical research outsourcing is projected to reach $29.4 billion by 2011, up from $16.3 billion in 2006.

MEDICAL DEVICES IN DEMAND

Further advances in surgical apparatuses and the discovery of safer and more flexible synthetic materials for implanted equipment are among the factors driving the growth in medical devices, according to Matthew Gardner, president and CEO of BayBio, a life science advocacy group in San Francisco.

“A lot of investment is going into high-reliability devices such as circuit boards and mainframes for medical devices that are not likely to be outsourced,” says Julian Harris, a research analyst with the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio. “These devices are found in minimally invasive surgery equipment and cardiovascular regulatory devices and have stricter quality standards.”

Gardner says that even in a bad economy, the development of new equipment remains resilient because product development takes a great deal longer than an economic cycle. And research funding from government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, that sustain medical research allows such development to continue on a positive growth curve. However, he adds that regulatory processes significantly prolong the time-to-market. “Diagnostic devices often enjoy faster returns on investment and less regulatory restrictions than devices for surgery or treatment,” Gardner says.

Mark Leahey, executive director of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, says that considerable opportunities within the industry include clinical trials, distribution, and contract manufacturing for device components, especially miniaturized equipment.

GOING GREEN WITH CLEANTECH

By developing new or renewable sources of energy and raw materials, and by improving the efficiency of consumption, cleantech is answering a vast market opportunity, says Brian Fan, senior director of research at the Cleantech Group, a global cleantech industry research and consulting firm in San Francisco 

“Technologies that improve efficiency or open up new sources for things such as water are profitable,” says Fan. “Also, opportunities in recycling range from designing new methods of sorting and managing waste to applying advances in chemical and material sciences to make use of previously unusable garbage.”

Venture capitalists are investing in batteries, power electronics, and engines focused on optimizing efficiency, says David Prend, co-founder of Rockport Capital Partners, a cleantech venture fund in Boston and Menlo Park, California. Prend adds that green building and smart utility grids are also in demand.

Of course, one of the greatest challenges for the growth of cleantech companies has been inconsistent regulations and policies, says Ron Pernick, co-author of The Clean Revolution (Harper Collins; $26.95) and managing director of Clean Edge Inc., a Portland, Oregon-based firm that tracks and analyzes cleantech markets.

“Case in point: the investment tax credit and production tax credit for renewables is about to expire if Congress doesn’t extend it,” says Pernick. “Places where we’ve seen the greatest growth are those that have long-term plans and programs in place such as in Japan, Germany, and California.”

He adds that some growth areas to watch out for are bio-energy and biomaterials harvested from waste streams and dedicated energy crops such as algae used for biodiesel.

TELECOM: 1 TRILLION AND GROWING

With the amount of sensitive data exchanged over the Internet via phones and computers, ancillary opportunities for entrepreneurs who provide security products and services is in demand.

Grant Seiffert, president of the Arlington, Virginia-based Telecommunications Industry Association, projects increased demand for the construction and installation of advanced communications networks, saying, “The need to carry voice, video, and data over broadband and wireless means that all the companies that manufacture, deliver, install, and service these products either for the enterprise or for the home have a shot at being successful.”

Rob Ayoub, a network security manager and analyst with the growth consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, cites on-the-job security training, assessments and audits, scam identification, data protection/encryption services, and improved teleconferencing security

products as avenues for new businesses. He also believes that the Internet and increased demands for wireless functionality are blurring the distinction between phone and computer.

There are additional opportunities for providing media and entertainment content on mobile platforms, says Emily Mendell, vice president of strategic affairs at the National Venture Capital Association. “You can’t have 20 different Facebooks,” Mendell says, “but there are opportunities for consumer-driven content, such as online gaming, fitness, lifestyle, and similar services.”

“You don’t personally have to be the expert to connect yourself to an opportunity. You can connect yourself with someone else who has the expertise you need,” says Darrin Redus, chief economic inclusion officer at Jumpstart Inc., a Cleveland-based venture development firm that prepares entrepreneurs to present their ideas to venture capitalists. “There’s a whole new technology revolution taking place now and, at minimum, learning how to

support these industries is a great way to get involved.”

For more than 25 years, minorities especially have acquired master’s in business administration degrees to gain a competitive edge in sectors ranging from finance and marketing to media and technology. While M.B.A. holders are still on track to upper management, the degree no longer guarantees a move up the ranks.

“Indeed, the ’80s and ’90s provided for a financial windfall for people of color with M.B.A.s indicative of the alumni who made BE’s list of ‘The 75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street’ [October 2006],” says Kenneth Roldan, CEO of New York-based Wesley, Brown & Bartle, a diversity management recruitment firm, and author of Minority Rules: Turn your Ethnicity Into a Competitive Edge (Collins; $22.95). “However, in today’s tough economic climate, simply having an M.B.A. or being a person of color with an M.B.A. does not have the cachet it [once] did. While the M.B.A. still remains a useful tool, corporate experience has more value.”

The M.B.A. has become more of a first step of a longer journey. Simply being credentialed by an institution is not enough to set you apart, although receiving the degree from a leading business school such as Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will almost always open doors. The value of the M.B.A. is in the instruction gained, especially in the arena of global business management.

B-schools also provide indispensable contacts. “You want to get a global top brand M.B.A. if you want the same transformative effect of the ’80s,” says Chioma Isiadinso, former member of Harvard Business School’s admissions board and author of The Best Business Schools’ Admissions Secrets (Sourcebooks; $17.95). “[It] will give you access to a global network, and that’s really powerful.” About 1,800 universities and institutions in the U.S. and abroad receive GMAT scores from more than 100,000 applicants each year, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. On the following pages, three B-school recruits discuss the application process and coursework at three top business programs. For those considering applying to an M.B.A. program, their comments may be enlightening.

Name: Frederick L. McPherson
School and term: First-year student, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
Undergraduate major: Mechanical Engineering, Florida State University Graduate degree: Master of Science,
Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Stanford University
Work experience: Four years, design engineer at Ford Motor Co. in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico
Career change: Yes
Focus: Venture capital and private equity. Says McPherson: “There will always be excitement in bringing new technologies to market, whether I’m designing it or investing in a company that’s working on it.”

Which schools did you apply to and why did you decide on Tuck?
I considered Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth (Tuck), and University of Virginia (Darden). I did not get accepted to Harvard or Stanford, but was admitted to Tuck and Darden. I felt that the alumni base at Tuck was stronger with more access to professionals in private equity and venture  capital.

Describe your first year at business school.
Intense. Undergraduate and graduate level engineering were technically challenging, but the business school curriculum will challenge any person. It is a huge workload that seems unreasonable until you learn to thin-slice the content and extract the real information you need. It’s also about learning to operate in a team environment, and once you create a protocol for the team to get deliverables completed, you’ll be able to relax a bit.

What are some challenges you faced during school?
There are so many things competing for your time such as course work, sleep, career prep, social outings, and family responsibilities that can get you really stressed.

If you could do the preparation and application process differently, what would you change?
I knew in 2003, when I graduated with a master’s in engineering, that I would most likely go to business school within five years. I should have prepared for and taken the Graduate Management Admission Test then. The test scores are good for five years after taking the exam, so why not score your highest when you are still in active study mode?

The second thing, if you can help it, plan to take at least two months off between leaving your job and starting business school. I took only three weeks off. If I had known that the program would be this intense, I would have stopped working sooner. Create a plan for the GMAT, the essays, the school visits—the process of planning two years before beginning your M.B.A. program is critical so that you are mentally, academically, and financially prepared to get the most out of the program.

How has business school changed you?
I learned to make better decisions with less information. The reality is that you don’t need to know all the information, just the right piece of information. Many of the things you learn in business school can be learned on the job, but I felt that it was easier spending two years accelerating that knowledge growth.

How did you manage your business school preparation?
It was a struggle. I dedicated at least one hour every day to doing something for business school prep; even if it was doing flash cards or practicing some math I hadn’t seen since grade school. There were times when I just wasn’t motivated. Sometimes, I was so tired. After a long day at the office you just don’t want to study. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Study the next day.

Also, communicate to the stakeholders in your life that you will have less time; you don’t want to drop out of doing things with the mall of a sudden. You will need the people who are important to you to be on board.

Name: Michael Alston
School and term: Fall 2008, Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego
Undergraduate major: Electrical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Graduate degree: Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering, U.C. Berkley; Masters of Science in Applied Physics, Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, U.C. San Diego
Work experience: 16 years, microchip design for  several companies, including Silicon Connections Corp., Metaflow Technologies, and V.I.P. Design, California
Career change: Possibly
Focus: Finance. Alston says: “In addition to semiconductor chip design, I am interested in perhaps one day influencing issues related to K-16 education, globalization, alternative energy, healthcare, and the current decline of the U.S. dollar.”

You’ve been a circuit design engineer for almost 20 years and hold a doctorate in electrical engineering. Why business school?

Recent trends in the field of microchip design indicate that, increasingly, white-collar, computer-based design and development work is following the route of blue-collar manufacturing work and going overseas. As design teams are downsized or disbanded in the U.S., design centers are being expanded or established in countries such as China, India, and Malaysia.

This globalization trend has compelled me to sit up and take notice. I’ve decided to create a back door for myself to transition from doing chip design work to managing chip design work. I believe that earning an M.B.A.—more than any other graduate degree—will best complement my electrical engineering degrees and provide new career options for me.

In addition to microchip design, I’m interested in perhaps one day influencing key issues related to education, corporate governance, and public policy.

What schools did you apply to, and why did you eventually choose U.C. San Diego?
State, the University of San Diego, and U.C. Irvine, I applied only to the Rady School at U.C. San Diego. After attending a couple of Rady’s on-campus information sessions in 2005 and 2007 and reading the archived transcripts of recent online chat sessions, I found the school particularly appealing for three reasons: its emphasis on technology-based entrepreneurship; the opportunity for collaboration with other schools on the U.C. San Diego campus; and its proximity to San Diego’s Sorrento Valley, also known as Telecom Valley.

If you could do it over, would you handle your preparation and application process differently?
If I had to do it over again, I would have begun to study and practice for the GMAT weeks earlier, using more online resources and a test prep center such as Kaplan or Princeton Review.

Name: Tuesday Tibbs
School and term: First-year student, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon
University
Undergraduate major: Business Administration, Hampton University
Work experience: Two summer internships at accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers, human resources and auditing; Summer internship at Genworth Financial, internal auditing
Focus: Corporate finance, accounting, and organizational behavior. Tibbs set her sights on an M.B.A. as early as her freshman year of college. “I knew that I eventually wanted to be a leader,” she says, “so when I started my undergrad degree at Hampton University, I started with my eye on the prize.”

Did you worry that you would not be accepted without any work experience?
Yes, I did. A lot of schools wanted at least three years’ work experience. I felt it was because they wanted someone who had business knowledge and leadership potential, so my strategy was to show that I had those things through my involvement in extracurricular activities and internship experiences.

How did you prepare yourself?
Mentors and organizations. I had great mentors who encouraged me to apply, looked over my essays, and helped me prepare for the GMAT. There are also organizations that connect you to the right resources. I joined INROADS, an organization that connects underrepresented minorities with opportunities in corporate America, and it helped me get the internship at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. In applying to business school, I went through the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. I also got connected to the National Black MBA Association and received a $10,000 scholarship. It offers scholarships to undergraduate as well as graduate business students.

Why do you think you were accepted?
I think that my internships and leadership experiences in student organizations played a large part, and I even think that my part-time job as a waitress at Red Lobster played a role. They showed that I have a strong work ethic and that I know how to successfully balance and prioritize things.

Where else did you apply, and how successful were you?
I applied through the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which is an organization that gives full-tuition scholarships to mostly underrepresented minorities and anyone who can uphold the mission of the organization, and to my knowledge, if you get in and receive a fellowship to your first choice, you don’t hear from the other schools you apply to. Tepper was my first choice. I also applied to New York University and University of Virginia.

How is it being one of the less experienced members of the class?
It’s been great. My classmates are so willing to share what they have learned in the workforce with me and, since many of them were not business majors, I can share what I learned in undergrad with them. In fact, many of them are impressed that I was admitted without work experience, and they respect my work. They even elected me to be an officer in student government. I felt so honored.

This story originally appeared in the July 2008 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.