Gerry Sepe
Gerry Sepe is proof that success doesn’t have to follow a traditional path. His first year of college was interrupted by the Vietnam War, and he enlisted in the Coast Guard. After his service, he was recruited by IBM, finishing his college degree through their training program. He was part of the massive machine that was IBM for three decades before starting his own consulting firm. The self-described “boomer” tells us about his simple life growing up in New York, playing sports in the neighborhood and delivering newspapers. Those days have helped him appreciate today’s tremendous growth in technology. He gives us his take on college, mentorship and consulting in this intergenerational conversation.
How did your educational environment affect your personal development as a leader?
I’m a boomer. After I graduated high school, I very quickly went to the local community college at the New York Institute of Technology, which was where I intended to become an electrical engineer. At the time the Vietnam War was going on. I enlisted in the US Coast Guard in the middle of my freshman year. When I got hired by IBM, they trained me and sent me [back] to college. By then, I was less interested in technology and more interested in business and so I switched my major and eventually when I graduated, it was with a Bachelor of Science in Business and Finance. College is where you make your friends. That happens more in college because these people are in your personal affinity group and you wind up sticking with them as you become an adult.
How did your experience working at IBM prepare you for starting your own business?
I worked for IBM for almost 30 years and retired from IBM. I’m hugely indebted to the learning that I got from IBM. The business culture and processes were very well established, and you were expected to follow them. There were jokes about guys who had to wear blue suits, white shirts and red ties. That was the IBM uniform. You really had to adhere to these cultural practices. After over 25 years, some of the decision-making that took too long or processes that were overly bureaucratic eventually became frustrating. I felt as though I was spending more time working on the internal IBM machine, rather than working with IBM’s clients and customers, so I retired from IBM, and I worked in consulting for myself and for another company, and eventually started ePM.
How do you find the right balance of personalities in your employees to keep your business running smoothly?
In a consulting business, the client expects to have people who are experts in their field. They have to be intellectually and technically capable, and they also have to be hard working. They also have to be able to communicate well and understand people. That’s another critical capability that I look for when I’m hiring people.
How do you work with businesses when their ideas don’t match yours?
When we get hired, it’s because the client has a certain set of ideas that aren’t working for them and are frustrating them in some way. They are looking for answers or a path or a process to let them succeed. The client is kind of stuck and they are looking for us to unstick them. We tell our clients right from the beginning that when you hire us, you’re looking for a different point of view. If we don’t give you a different point of view, then we’re not worth the money. We give them information and advice that they may not like. Our job is to say we know how to get you from here to there. That’s what we sell our clients and that’s been successful for us.
Who is your biggest mentor and what did they teach you?
I can think back over my professional career and recall different people who were providing me guidance. You make networks of people, and when you need help, these people will pull you forward. Sometimes you’re in a position where you can pull someone else forward. Having these networks is important, whether it’s professional or personal. Be on the lookout for people who are capable and willing to help you move forward. Those are good people to have in your network.
Do you still have childhood friends you keep in touch with and how have those relationships shaped you? Also, who was your first friend from another culture and what did you learn from them?
I was born and raised in New York City. It was common that your little neighborhood was likely to be people who are in your cultural group, but at school, everyone was in the same classes and sports, and that’s where you had multicultural exposure. You made friends with people who were from outside your own six blocks. I still keep in touch with people from my youth, largely through Facebook (Meta).
Were you a good student?
I wasn’t a straight A student. I wanted to be out playing sports. I wanted to be socializing. I didn’t just have school. I had a job before and after school delivering newspapers when I was 12 or 13.
What was your greatest challenge in school, and what is your greatest challenge today? Are they related?
My teachers would say he’s a smart guy, but if he worked harder, he would be an excellent student. I still find that in myself today. I’ve proven to myself that I can work very hard, and I do. The difference is when I was 12 or 13, I had less discipline. If I got a good grade on my English test, it was because my parents were giving me encouragement. It wasn’t me self-generating that encouragement. As an adult, it has to come from inside.
Is social media a good or bad thing?
Yes, it’s good. And yes, it’s bad. I think we’re in a period of transition and learning. Because of that, social media is a new tool for the human race, and we’re still figuring out how to use it. Ultimately it will be helpful to the human race if we can communicate with each other in a more democratic way. Check back on this question in 20 years and see if you get different answers.
What’s one thing that exists today they never would have imagined when you were a kid?
Everything. The technology, certainly. If I had written down my thinking when I was 12 or 13, not much of this would have been in it. I would have thought that we’d still be using telephones that have wires on them. It’s been a phenomenal time to be alive and see all the improvements in technology. We were much less informed and worldly in the 1950s and the 1960s.Things were simpler then. Today if you want to play sports, the likelihood is that someone would put you on a community soccer team. You’d have a league in your neighborhood. For me, there were no organized sports; you played sports in the school yard or in the street. You didn’t wait for a schedule. You just went out and played. I think today things are much more controlled and organized.
