Alan J. Kaplan, founder and CEO of Kaplan Partners, is an advisory board member of the Fischer-Shain Center for Financial Services at the Fox School of Business. (Photo courtesy of Alan Kaplan) 

More than 30 years ago, in a spare room inside his Philadelphia townhouse, Alan J. Kaplan thought about where his career was headed.

“I'd spent three years in banking and around seven years in the recruiting business,” Alan J. Kaplan, MBA ’90, recalls. "And being still somewhat young and somewhat idealistic, but, having had some good success in the recruiting world, I felt like I could deliver a better outcome and client experience in the executive search space.” 

So, he got to work. Three decades later, Kaplan Partners, the firm he founded in 1994, is an industry leader specializing in retained executive search, executive assessment and board advisory for the nation’s top-tier financial institutions. 

“It is hard to fathom how our firm has grown and evolved from those early days,” Kaplan, who also serves as the firm’s CEO, says.

Kaplan is grateful for a growth mindset and for the relationships he has built along the way. To that end, the alum has shared his insight and expertise in a variety of ways with the Fox School of Business community, most recently as an advisory board member of the Fischer-Shain Center for Financial Services.

“Since our client base is heavily weighted toward financial institutions, I thought I could contribute by bringing some people into the fold of the Fischer-Shain Center,” he says. “But I also want to help get more students, particularly those from underserved communities, interested in studying banking and credit which will ultimately help those communities.”

Kaplan also believes success in business comes down to cultivating and securing the talent needed to achieve an organization’s goals.  

“Leading any organization today is more complex than at any time in history and leading with authenticity and intentionality is vital,” he says.

As his firm celebrates its 30th anniversary, Kaplan would like to share five areas where the lessons he has learned could help others as they move forward:  

Area 1: Talent Matters

Everyone knows the old saying “people are our most important asset.” Yet given today’s workforce dynamics, historically low unemployment and demographic challenges, the issues of employee attraction, development and retention need to be taken to another level.

Boards and CEOs should be questioning their chief human resources officers about their plans to tackle these challenges—and CEOs need to take the lead on people issues.

If your human resources leaders are not bringing strategic thinking to the human capital arena, it may be time to revisit this area, as talent management is not going to get any easier in the years ahead. The variable on plan execution always comes down to talent.

Area 2: CEO Succession

The decision of organizational leadership is a board’s most important responsibility. Yet many boards do not emphasize this adequately, often allowing a long-tenured and well-liked CEO to dodge the questions of succession or their own retirement plans.

For a firm with viable internal CEO successors, the lack of a planned succession timeline can breed extreme frustration for internal contenders, perhaps even causing some to depart for a perceived better opportunity.

In addition, many boards also have little real experience navigating the challenges and dynamics of leadership succession and may benefit from outside assistance of some sort for this most important decision.

Area 3: Board Performance

Boards today will benefit from taking a closer look at how they operate, what topics they mainly discuss, and how everyone behaves in the boardroom. As Bill McNabb, former chairman and CEO of Vanguard has emphasized, most boards acknowledge that they would like to spend more time on key subjects such as talent, strategy and risk.

The need for boards to add more strategic thinking, business sophistication, technology savvy and financial acumen remains urgent. Forward-thinking boards should also put in place educational requirements for directors to ensure that board members remain current on key technical, governance and industry best practices.

It is difficult to be a high-performing company without a high performing board.

Area 4: Board Succession

Many boards are aging and slowing the pace of board refreshment. Some are raising or even eliminating mandatory retirement ages. Boards need to take a hard look at director longevity and tangible contributions, especially for long-tenured directors.

In addition, boards are generally striving to get younger and more diverse while elevating the level and scope of the board’s knowledge base.

Nearly all boards today conduct some kind of general evaluation or self-assessment on a regular basis but moving toward “performance-based assessments of directors for continued board service” has become the gold standard. Many directors fear individual peer evaluation, as they view this as a means to drive non-renewal, but often those same fearful directors are on the weaker end of the spectrum.

Proactive board refreshment has proven to be a hallmark of highly effective boards.

Area 5: Lead From the Front

People do not want to be managed as much as they want to be led. Successful leaders have the ability to lay out a vision for an organization, communicate that vision and create the “followership” which drives execution.

Leaders who are authentic in their approach leave employees feeling that their contributions—however small in the grand scheme—really matter.

As Maya Angelou eloquently stated, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is a defining characteristic of great leaders.