It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

William Ferguson, Founder & Chairman, Ferguson Partners, interviewed by David Kong

• David Kong

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Bill shares how he differentiates Ferguson Partners by meeting his clients’ many needs and the founding of his nonprofit foundation - Centers of Excellence by scaling the Marriott Sorenson Howard University idea to 25 universities. We discuss the chapters of his new book ‘Living Beyond Your Dreams’ and he used the powerful and inspiring stories of Tom Baltimore, Leslie Hale, Daryl Carter and Mit Shah to illustrate the essence of several principles in his book - ‘Character Counts’, ‘Get Back up’, ‘Find Your Champions’, ‘Live to Learn’, ‘Play the Hand You’re Dealt, and ‘But Don’t Settle’. Don’t miss his valuable tips on preparing for job interviews and how he evaluates top candidates.

David Kong:

Greetings. I'm David Kong, the founder and principal of It's Personal Stories. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Bill Ferguson. He is the founder and co chairman of Ferguson Partners. It's a global talent management company specializing in real estate, hospitality, and hospital services. It's a great pleasure to have you, Bill.

Bill Ferguson:

Well, David, thank you so much for having me on your show. You've had a wonderful list of very impressive speakers. I'm honored to be part of that company.

David Kong:

It's wonderful to have you. Bill, let's start with your career journey. I have known you for a while and I've also read up on you. You've had such a remarkable journey. Would you mind to share some of the key inflection points that shaped that journey and led you to your current success?

Bill Ferguson:

Yeah, it was, it was an interesting journey. When I get out of business school, I was always intrigued with the recruiting business. I actually had an offer coming out of business school to become the assistant. To the chairman of one of the recruiting firms, and I thought that was a little bit of heresy, but I was always intrigued by the business. And so I ended up joining Russell Reynolds in the Chicago. I became the assistant to the president, so I ended up in a role that I thought I really shouldn't end up in 2 years before when I went to General Mills. I spent about 9 years at Reynolds and great training, co head of the real estate business. When I decided one day, David, that I wanted to be more involved in some of the strategic conversations that our clients were having, I wanted more access to the boardroom. I came up with the concept of plagiarizing the old Booz Allen Hamilton. And a lot of your viewers may not remember, but Booz Allen back in the day, and we're talking the early 80s anyway, 85, 86, was actually in the search business. They were in the management consulting business. And they were in the executive compensation business. And I said, that sounds like an interesting aggregation of services because you can work not only to help a client think through their strategy, but also execute. And I really wanted to go out and apply this concept to our industry, which I define as real assets, which is everything from real estate to infrastructure. I knew I couldn't be everything to everybody as an entrepreneurial firm. I knew I wanted to be global because firms like Blackstone and Hilton were global firms. And so I embarked upon this journey. I created a firm that was a global talent management firm. And we have businesses now, besides our board and C suite search business, we have three consulting businesses, executive comp, management consulting, and leadership consulting. And they all work together to serve pretty much the entire spectrum. of talent management services a client can have. So it's been a great relationship approach for us, and it's worked very well. We've been in business for 35 years, and we've at least done something right. So, it was just one of those things where I said, I want to try it. I knew if it didn't work, I could always go back to Russell Reynolds or another search firm. And fortunately, I've never looked back. So it's been a good story.

David Kong:

Congratulations on your tremendous success and Ferguson Partners is such a well respected global company. I'm delighted to have you on our show to share your wisdom with the audience. Now, aside from Ferguson Partners, you also founded the Centers of Leadership Excellence. It's a nonprofit and I was wondering if you can share the mission and the impact that you're hoping to achieve through this foundation.

Bill Ferguson:

It's interesting, David, since you were one of the great CEOs in the hospitality business, it did all start around the hospitality business. Arne Sorensen was a dear friend and he died prematurely from pancreatic cancer. And the Marriott family made a 20 billion gift. To Howard University, and they created the Marriott Sorensen Hospitality Center for Leadership Excellence, and the concept behind the center was that they wanted to expose talented undergraduate students, typically diverse undergraduate students, to a career in hospitality. So they created a hospitality minor. Uh, they hired a director to run the program, and they started teaching, I think, a couple of courses a semester, and may now be up to as many as five, uh, courses per semester. And then Marriott went out of their way with these students who were minoring in hospitality, and there were probably 15 to 20 at a time. They helped them find summer jobs as sophomores and juniors. and full time jobs as seniors. And I looked at this concept and I said, if you scale this concept from one college, meaning Howard, to many, maybe 25 colleges, and could access a much broader population of talented students, and provide them with an introduction to not only the hospitality business, but all other facets of real estate and infrastructure, you could really create. a wonderful conduit of leadership talent. Many students are first generation going to college. Very few of them do anything about our industry. And so we started the foundation about three years ago. It's been marvelously successful. We've raised well over 8 million, and we now have 150 students in the program, and we've got another 50 corporate partners who will hire these students either as summer interns, as sophomores and juniors, or full time as seniors. So we're very blessed. Thank goodness for Marriott. Thank goodness for Arnie. Uh, because it just has been a wonderful and very meaningful experience for me. And I count my blessings every day. Arnie was a very special leader and I just have always been very honored to know him. And it's great to create something that should be a legacy to him as well.

David Kong:

Thank you for taking a very good idea from Barney Sorensen and Marriott a step further and expanding it into 25 universities. You're right, why stop at Howard University, you know, and to that many more universities, you're helping that many more people. Thank you for doing that. Now, back to your, uh, search background, I, I admire the fact that you have over four decades of search experience, and I was wondering if you can share with the audience some of the key attributes that companies are looking for these days, and individuals, and C suite positions, and how they can develop these qualities.

Bill Ferguson:

CEO succession and search work, so it's a very relevant question. Our industry, historically, has been a very entrepreneurial industry. And I would say over my lifetime, uh, it's experienced a fundamental metamorphosis. It's gone from basically local to global. It's gone from private to public. And it's gone from basically regional to institutional. And as it's morphed and scaled, leadership has become increasingly important in running these big enterprises. And in an industry where a lot of people start off as dealmakers, It's not always easy to make that transition into leadership. And what we look for, what our clients look for in succession candidates is really at the intersection of what I would call a leadership and strategy. Great CEOs have to be great leaders, but they also have to be great strategic thinkers. And those are two skill sets, David, that are not easy to learn. You can't necessarily pick up a book, read a book and become a great leader. Or become a great strategist, the only advice I can give younger people growing across corporate America is find a good mentor, find somebody who respects who is greatly and is a great strategist and just do everything you can to absorb what that person does, why they do it and why they're successful.

David Kong:

You're so right. Leadership and strategy are two important attributes and it's. Very difficult to develop these qualities organically. You've got to work for people or with people that have those skills and you learn by osmosis or you have someone mentor you. That's how we can start to develop those skills. So thank you for sharing that very important. Absolutely. Now, I'm also curious, what are some of the favorite questions that you like to ask candidates and. What are some of the answers that stood out in your mind?

Bill Ferguson:

It's a good question, David. I always like to ask the question, why? And when I'm interviewing a candidate, I also encourage my clients to do the same thing. I like to ask two questions. One is why they feel they are qualified for the job. And then secondly, I like to ask why they're interested. And I can learn very quickly about how somebody thinks, how well prepared they are, and ultimately how much they take responsibility for their own career and success. Because with good people, it's not about how many opportunities they're going to have. It's a question about making the right choices as far as the opportunities that they do take. And that's all about being thoughtful and ultimately being prepared and really knowing yourself, you know, what you're good at, what you're not, what you like, what you don't, and being prepared to say no in situations where you don't think there's a good fit, and also being prepared to aggressively go after something that you feel really would match well your skill set and your abilities.

David Kong:

Very good advice. Thank you for sharing that. I am also curious, what would be your advice for someone who is preparing for an interview? And is there a difference between preparing for an interview with a recruiter versus a company?

Bill Ferguson:

It depends on the recruiter, David, and how good an interviewer they are. I think at the levels where we work, where I work, clients expect me to interview as thoroughly as they're going to interview, and if they don't pass my test, chances they aren't going to pass the client's test either. So it's just extremely important to really dive deeply on their qualifications, their interest level. And I find over time that history repeats itself. And so if I walk through a person's career, and I start to see certain fact patterns, certain behavior patterns, if I see people who get knocked to the ground and get back up, and they never quit. Or they have an idea, it's a creative idea, and they run it to ground. And It may not work, but that doesn't stop them from doing something again. It's really all about the conviction, the tenacity, and quite honestly, the creativity. Um, to really step outside the box, to some degree like I did when I formed the company, because there was no company like that I could pattern after. Um, but those types of attributes speak volumes to me, uh, relative to who the person is and what they've accomplished in their life. And chances are what we hope them to accomplish in the future.

David Kong:

Such good advice, Ian. And like you're saying, history repeats itself. A person's track record can tell you a lot about that person. Let's talk about your new book, Living Beyond Your Dreams. I love this book, by the way. I've read it twice now. Let's start with your motivation behind this book. What, what are you hoping to achieve?

Bill Ferguson:

In faith of full disclosure, I feel a little bit like a person, you know, pining upon a stock and they want to know whether I'm an investor or not. Just for all your audience, you are one of the 24 CEOs in essence profiled in the book and very blessed to have you participate and share your life story with me, which was once again, was fascinating and we'll get into that a little later, but thank you for being part of what was just a marvelous journey. What motivated me to write the book, to be frank, was our industry, which is arguably the largest industry in the country when you look at it in its totality. And quite honestly, the largest industry in the world had become so ineffective at identifying and recruiting diverse talent. I had a number of friends, I'm sure you did too, who would go to Wharton, they'd go to Stanford, they'd go to Harvard, and they'd interview eight students, and all diverse students, and these students would end up going to Goldman Sachs, they'd go to McKinsey, And these friends of ours would have the audacity to come back and say, Bill, I tried. And I said, No, you didn't. You failed because you looked in the wrong places. Okay. So the whole genesis behind the foundation is to identify colleges, uh, that were rich in undergraduate diversity. And in many cases had undergraduate real estate minors or related minors, so that we knew the diversity was there, uh, we knew they were interested in our industry and then our job was to go out and find the best and the brightest and in essence, give them kind of exposure to the foundation. And for those who were accepted into the foundation to then introduce them to companies in our industry. We asked him said, okay, well, if you can't find these students, we'll go out and find them and we'll introduce them to your company and all the great companies across our industry. So the reality was that a lot of the CEOs were just looking in the wrong places to source the talent, and I think we've cracked the code in doing that, and that's why the foundation has been as successful as it has. And just in case you're Audience may or may not be familiar with the foundation. We have a very special value proposition for the students to get into the foundation. And we accepted 50 sophomores out of 200 applicants for this last class. They get tuition assistance. We give them 10, 000 in tuition assistance. The average tuition is 22, 000. So we pay for about half of it. We give them holistic mentorship. Which means both professional mentorship, which prepares them for a career in the industry, but we also give them personal mentorship. We assign a coach to every student, and David is, we'll talk about this in a bit. The hurdles these students face, even in getting through college, are monumental. The cost factor is a big factor, and a lot of them try to get through college, earning a modest amount of income, working three or four jobs. So the tuition assistance is meant to allow them to really focus on going to school and not making money. And then on the mentorship side, you'd be amazed at how many of their mothers and fathers ask them to quit school to go to work to help pay for the family. Or, heaven forbid, you get a drug addicted brother or sister. who says, why don't you c side? And this is a lot e money. You can sell drugs a career. So there are a issues that affect these we're not there to help t Chances, they're not going to graduate, and if they don't graduate, we're never going to have an opportunity to give them exposure to what you and I feel is probably the greatest industry in the world, and then we find them their career opportunities as well as their summer internships. So the foundation is really designed to do everything we can to allow these students to have a fulfilling and rich experience at the undergraduate level, graduate, and then it's up to our corporate partners. To give them a great experience once they join the company's full time. So it is a very special value proposition that fortunately a lot of the students feel is a wonderful opportunity for them.

David Kong:

I applaud you for this wonderful undertaking. You're helping so many people that are underprivileged and would otherwise not do well or not be in the industry. So I appreciate all that you do to cultivate our leaders of tomorrow. Thank you.

Bill Ferguson:

Yeah, it is amazing, David, because a lot of these are our first generation college attendees. And most of them, none of their relatives or anybody they know has ever been in our business. So the opportunity to expose them to the business and really give them a chance to learn the business, it's a game changing situation. And I just feel so blessed to be able to offer them the opportunity.

David Kong:

It is game changing. Now, your book covers 11 principles, and I love all of them. But two particularly resonated with me because that happens to be the advice my parents gave me when I left Hong Kong. And these two chapters, Character Counts and Get Back Up, tremendously resonated with me. Would you mind to share the background and advice from these two chapters?

Bill Ferguson:

I feel that integrity is fundamental to any great leader, to really any great human being. There are many different opportunities for us to cut corners and do the right thing, but maybe totally not do the right thing. And, and the reality is that I found in all my days of working with leaders and assessing leaders. That integrity is fundamental. In fact, if you look at the tagline on my email, I said, leadership is all about humility, it's all about integrity, integrity, and it's all about generosity. And I have conviction around all three of those attributes to ultimately be a successful leader. It reminds me of my interview with Tom Baltimore. at Park Hotels. And he said to me one time, he said, Bill, the more you give, the more you get. And I said, Tom, what do you mean by that? And he said, I spend a tremendous amount of time developing people. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. But I get so much back for that because they continue to grow and be successful. And I feel like I've made a difference in their lives. It's just harkens back to this whole idea of integrity. And doing the right thing and being selfless.

David Kong:

Yeah, I enjoy reading that chapter very much. And another chapter, find your champions, also resonated with me. And this ties into our conversation earlier about mentorship to develop leadership and strategy skills. Would you mind to share some tips on finding and collaborating with champions?

Bill Ferguson:

It's a situation where I think as a younger person, David, you have to be bold. For instance, I think about Leslie Hale. And Leslie's also profiled in the book. The CEO of RLJ Lodging Trust. I think she's been interviewed on your show before. And Leslie was bold enough to, what I call, redefine her Pearson. Tom was in the office, I can't remember if it was every Saturday or every Sunday, but he was in the office one of those two days every week. And she made a point of being in there with him and learning from him and so forth. And some may think it's a little bold to say, I'm going to redefine my peer set as Tom Baltimore. But look where she is today. She's the CEO of ROJ. She's on the board of Delta Aero. She was on the board of Macy's before that. And she did it all respectfully. But she knew that she could learn a lot from Tom. And the same thing with Jodi McLean at Edens. I think when she came into Edens, Joe Edens was still running the company, and obviously hard to get a CEO's time. She knew that he came in early every morning, and guess what? Guess who else was in early every morning? She was. And so she had time to spend with him, and to learn from him, and to talk to him. And once again, it gets back to redefining your Peer Set. She did it respectfully, but she knew If she was going to ultimately learn and be successful, she didn't know if she was going to run that company or not. As it turns out, she did. You have to find your champions. You have to be bold enough to develop a relationship, learn from them and stay with them and success speaks for itself.

David Kong:

Yeah, for sure. This ties into the next chapter, which is live to learn. I've always been a fan of. The continuous learning habit, and I, I love this because if you want to be successful, you have to put in the effort and you have to want to learn. So, would you mind to share the essence in this chapter?

Bill Ferguson:

I think about our interview. You are a person who was a constant learner, whether it was a Hyatt or even before when you were in Hawaii, when you were in the restaurant business initially, you were always learning and you were not only learning about the business. But you were learning about leadership and different leadership styles and what worked and I can remember when I was interviewing you said at one point I didn't really have the charisma of a lot of leaders and I think that's what's required to be a leader and you were around enough leaders and you looked at the ones that were successful and you said not all leaders need to have charisma. I think you used the word ooze, Chris, and you're exactly right. I always tell clients, don't fall in love with the personality, fall in love with the person, and look where you ended up. And you weren't afraid though, to your credit, you weren't afraid to voice your ambition. And that is so critical, and it's much different than charisma. You were bold enough to tell people ultimately where you wanted to go, and you wanted to be a CEO, and guess what, you ended up there. Right. But you did it respectfully, but you were always learning and you weren't afraid to be who you were. And at the end of the day, you were a great leader. So kudos to you for your career and your success.

David Kong:

Thanks for sharing that story. I appreciate that. Now, many leaders that we interviewed said challenges are opportunities in disguise. So your chapter is on get back up, play the hand you've dealt with and Don't settle. Deeply resonated with me because quite frequently we go through challenges. We feel defeated, deflated, and our minds are not in a good place. And we need to wake up and realize that it could be an opportunity in disguise. And it's our mental attitude that actually determines how things pan out. Can you share some of the highlights in these chapters?

Bill Ferguson:

Oh, I can indeed. premise behind the book when you talk about living beyond your dreams. What I was trying to do was to profile the people who became CEOs and the hurdles they had to overcome to get there, because I would argue that your generation, my generation, earlier generations, when, you know, you're not a white Anglo Saxon male, uh, you have additional hurdles that you have to get over, uh, in order to become great CEOs. I think we're more enlightened today. Uh, than we were a couple of generations before, uh, but still, and that's what the book's all about, is to show the students that if you persevere and stay the course and don't give up, uh, because there are going to be hurdles put in front of you that not everybody has put in front of them, uh, they can succeed. There, there are a lot of great examples, and if you think about Daryl Carter, uh, who's a dear friend, uh, Daryl's African American. He runs the largest private affordable housing business in the country. He was at the University of Michigan as an undergraduate student. And David, you're talking 19, maybe 75, 76. And, and a professor took him aside one day, David, and you read about this in the book, and said, son, you don't belong here. And he said, what do you mean? And he said, son, you don't belong here. So he went home to his mother. And he said, mom, what did this person mean? And she said, yeah, she, she had a great response. She said, I don't care what he meant. You go back to school tomorrow. And you finish school. And you embark upon a career that you're passionate about. And you know what? You're going to be successful. And that's exactly what he did. And, and if it wasn't for his mom saying, okay, you stay the course, you don't give up or whatever, you're going to be, you're going to be successful. And, and that's just one example. I think about Mitch Shaw that no, right. When Mitt came over to the States, his dad owned a hotel, and the tender age is 16 years old. He was put running the front desk, and he ran into all kinds of customers who were rude, and they weren't happy with what was going on. Probably a limited service hotel is my guess. And there were days where he would walk home with his head hanging down and say, is this worth it? Or he would see all his friends at the playground and he'd have to go back to work and you know what he got through all that. And he said, you know what? I'm going to stay the course. Uh, I have an obligation to my family and I, I like this industry and I think it's going to be great. And there's just another example of somebody who persevered. And then the last, the last person once again is Leslie Hale. Leslie grew up in Washington, D. C. The South part of L. A. Okay, where too many people like her became a statistic, literally, and she and her parents on the weekends will drive the family outside of Southern L. A. And say, you know what? This is there. There is a little life. And so she got through high school, went to a great college, went on to Harvard Business School, and she is who she is. But it would have been so easy to paint her life as one where you're never going to get out of those surroundings and make a difference. And yet she persevered and she did it. So there, those are three examples of people who I have enormous respect for. I know you do too, because we know them all in our industry and they're great leaders. But they ran into these obstacles and they overcame them. And thank God they did because they've been great mentors and developers of subsequent generations of talent. And we're very blessed to have them as friends and peers in the industry, for sure.

David Kong:

Thanks for sharing these very inspiring stories. The book is chock full of them. And that's why I read it twice. I find inspiration every time I read it. I feel so empowered after reading those chapters. So thank you. Appreciate the hard work in putting this book together. I highly recommend it. We're coming to the end of the show. I was wondering if you could share a final piece of advice on self empowerment.

Bill Ferguson:

Yeah, I think self empowerment is a combination of factors. I think it starts with your heart or drive. You've got to have those fundamental genetics or learned attributes. And then you have to be smart enough to surround yourself with people who can help you develop into a great leader. And, and so I think it's a combination of having that heart, that soul, that conviction, and then just being smart enough, thoughtful enough to surround yourself with people that you respect and are willing to mentor you and develop you and you have to be humble enough to learn from them. And get through whatever life throws at you. So it's a little bit of the inside and it's a little bit of the outside that allows people to become self empowered. Yeah.

David Kong:

Very good advice. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that.

Bill Ferguson:

Yeah. And Bill,

David Kong:

thank you for taking the time to be on our show to share your wisdom. I find your insights tremendously helpful and inspirational in many ways. Thank you, Bill.

Bill Ferguson:

Thank you. Thank you, David, for all you did in our industry. And how many people you mentioned, you were a great peer to so many of the great CEOs and this next chapter is wonderful, the mission you're on now, and I, I honestly believe that the best way to address the economic divide in this country is to do what we're doing, which is to give people a great opportunity. And let them self actualize. So, thank you for all you're doing as

David Kong:

well. I absolutely agree. Thank you again.

Bill Ferguson:

For

David Kong:

our audience, if you enjoyed this interview, I hope you can join us on our website. It's personalstories. com You'll find over 250 other interviews. We'll hope to see you there. Thank you.

Bill Ferguson:

Thank you, David. Appreciate the opportunity.