Member Voices is a monthly feature where we ask C-Suite leaders from within our Chamber membership to share their insights on key business topics. If you would like to participate in Member Voices, please contact Carmen Sevilla at csevilla@novachamber.org.
Shyam Salona, CEO, REI Systems, Inc.
"This year we experienced a significant shift in the way we work. The hybrid work model has created opportunities to engage a geographically dispersed workforce. It has also made sustaining collaborative engagement and an organizational culture challenging in this new environment. The use of technology to support the dispersed workforce has resulted in a porous security perimeter for the organization’s digital assets, significantly increasing the security risks.
Inflation and the great resignation phenomenon experienced in 2022 will continue to make the shortage of skilled talent in the workforce a significant challenge. Finding, hiring, developing, and retaining are critical drivers for an enterprise and will require extreme focus and attention.
In summary, three challenges that come to the top for me are the shortage of skilled talent in an inflationary economic environment, sustaining organizational culture in the hybrid work environment, and protection of digital assets with an increasingly mobile workforce and increased sophistication and frequency of cyber security attacks."
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Arthur E. (Bud) Morrissette, IV, CEO & Group President, Interstate Family of Companies
"Uncertainty is always a challenge for CEOs, but at this time I see the breadth and scope at a new level. It’s literally global in 3 critical areas; Political, Economic, and Health. The stability of each of these is a necessity in the sustainment and growth of business. In the past, any one or two could be concurrent in a specific geographic area or country. But today we are hard-pressed not to identify volatility in all 3 of these key areas in all parts of the world. Usually, we have been able to lean on regions of strength to help overcome any one of these threats, though the dependability of doing so that we have become accustomed to in many instances in the past, no longer exists.
I believe today more than ever, collaboration amongst leaders in every capacity must take place, especially where it hasn’t commonly occurred. We have to work across obstacles and boundaries, incorporating as many as possible, inclusive of all. Put pride, ego, disputes, and distrust to the side, for the challenges today and those that lie ahead outweigh all the reasons and excuses not to convene. Answers, solutions, and paths forward do exist when working together. With them, we can create anticipation and realization of what the future can and will hold, greatly minimizing but never eliminating the uncertainty."
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Babs Doherty, President & CEO, Solerity, Inc.
"Next year we will see an even more seismic shift with employees demanding work-from-home opportunities while the government is moving back to the office which will continue to put a strain on program execution and delivery."
