January 2017 – Croixstone

Mayor’s Mentoring Alliance Award Winners 2017

This month, the Mayor’s Mentoring Alliance hosted a series of events in Charlotte in celebration of National Mentoring Month.

The events — which included a mentoring town hall, mentor 101 training, an agency/mentor speed networking session and awards ceremony — helped provide community members with more information about the importance of mentoring, connected potential and existing mentors to local mentoring agencies, and celebrated the great work that mentors do in our community.

The Croixstone Consulting team congratulates the following people and organizations who were honored at last week’s award gala at the Harvey B. Gantt Center:

Mentor of the Year — Jordan Boyd
Mentee of the Year — Dajanique Burton
Group Mentors of the Year — Alphas of Charlotte
Business Partner of the Year —Beacon Partners
Alliance Best Practices (Large Agency) — Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Charlotte
Alliance Best Practices (Small Agency) — WINGS for Kids
Educational Leadership in Mentoring — ourBRIDGE for KIDS

A special shout out to Sil Ganzo (Executive Director) and the ourBRIDGE for KIDS team! ourBRIDGE empowers refugee and immigrant children and their families through education and cultural awareness and is one of Croixstone’s designated charities. Mark Weber, Croixstone’s Managing Partner and Founder, currently serves as the Board Chair with this high-impact non-profit organization.

Learn more here.

Consulting Industry Leaders Forecast Robust Growth in 2017

So just what do 100 Managing Directors, Partners and Vice Presidents think about the state of the consulting industry?

According to the team at CONSULTING magazine, they are exceptionally positive about the prospects for growth in 2017 and maintain a “pedal to the metal” philosophy. The magazine has just published its annual “executive outlook” for the new year and the CROIXSTONE consulting team noted the following highlights with great interest.

Consulting industry leaders are “especially giddy about the forecasts for the year ahead” with some having reported sales growth above 20% in 2016.
The consulting industry is among the first to see signs of an economic slowdown and no such signs are being seen.
65% of consulting industry leaders experienced real revenue growth above 10% in 2016.
96% of leaders project that net profits will increase in 2017, with 57% forecasting that net profits will be up more than 10% in 2017.

Read the full article here.

Top 10 CFO Risks for 2017

So what is keeping CFOs awake at night in 2017?

North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management and Protiviti recently surveyed 735 board members and executives worldwide about risk issues that will likely have an impact on their companies this year. The top 10 risk issues cited by the respondents included:

Economic conditions
Regulatory changes
Cyberthreats
Rapid speed of disruptive innovations
Privacy/identity management
Succession challenges/attracting top talent
Volatility in global financial markets
Organization’s culture doesn’t identify risk
Resistance to change
Sustaining customer loyalty

Learn more via CFO magazine here.