Tune in to this episode of Bigger. Stronger. Faster. and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform to receive updates on our latest content.
Behind the CXO Title: How Ryan McNally Went a Mile Deep in His Niche
In this episode, Ryan McNally, COO of Courser, reflects on his journey from investment banking and private equity to operations. The CXO Fellows Program was the catalyst for his transition, enabling him to take a deep dive into the IT services industry and move from advising businesses to actively leading them. As Courser has grown, he has focused on process improvement and aligning strategic goals with execution, driving the company’s growth while advancing his leadership journey.
Transcript
Introduction
Anderson Williams: Welcome to Bigger. Stronger. Faster. the podcast exploring how Shore Capital Partners brings billion-dollar resources to the microcap space.
This episode is part of a series in which we interview participants in Shore Capital's CXO Fellows program about their experiences as a young executive in the microcap space and the role the CXO program has played in their growth and development.
In this episode, I talk with Ryan McNally, the Chief Operating Officer at Courser Technology Group. Ryan talks about his previous experience evaluating IT service providers for potential investment, and how that taught him a lot about the industry and what it meant to invest in a founder led company.
But he shares that this work felt a mile wide and an inch deep, which CXO Fellows Program and the opportunity to dive a mile deep And to the operations of a single company at Courser. He describes Courser's rapid growth and the need to regularly reevaluate and update strategy, invest in processes and people, and build rapport with the teams at each of the Courser partner companies.
He also shares how Courser actively learns and shares best practices. to create a sort of portfolio effect that ensures they maximize the collective wisdom of their partner companies.
Welcome, Ryan. Thanks for joining me today. Will you start just by telling us who you are, what you do, and where you do it?
Ryan McNally: I'm Ryan McNally. I oversee operations for Courser Technology Group as the COO. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Anderson Williams: And how long have you been doing that?
Ryan McNally: I joined Courser in August of 2022. So I'm coming up on two years here.
Anderson Williams: And tell me a little bit about what Courser does.
Ryan McNally: Courser is a IT services firm. We're commonly known as a managed service provider. There are thousands in the country, and we really focus on providing outsourced IT support for small to medium sized businesses. Our typical client size is 50 to 150 employees.
Anderson Williams: And was that an area you were already interested in? Do you have experience in that IT service provider space?
Ryan McNally: Yeah, so prior to joining Courser, I had some private equity investing experience focusing on business service companies in general. For about a year and a half, I had worked on IT services companies and a theme in the IT services world. So investing in IT services, but more importantly, helping add value and run operations for some IT services companies that we were evaluating that could be potential good growth opportunities for the prior firm I was working with.
Anderson Williams: Let's say more a little bit about that just before joining CXO Fellows program. Say a little bit more about what you did prior to that, and then I want to hear why that seemed like a good opportunity or career move for you.
Ryan McNally: So prior to joining CXO Fellows, I was in the M&A world, private equity investing, even prior to that.
Investment banking, but my entire career was working with small and medium sized businesses that were transitioning from founder owned businesses to institutionally owned private equity backed companies. What was really great about that career was I got to see what made a company click, what made a company very valuable, and typically that was a pretty well-run management team, a good operating strategy, and that translated into financial success for the team, financial success for the founder, growth opportunities for employees.
Those industries range from transportation, logistics, and then eventually moved into more business services, white collar, and then IT services world. So I developed a thesis and developed a, you know, niche in focusing on, you know, what makes it really good IT services investment. What I enjoyed about what I previously was getting that breadth of experience and oversight of these types of companies where I was struggling and didn't see it as a long-term career for me was I felt a mile wide and an inch deep and I really wanted to go deep in a company.
To the point of I would be working with the company saying, hey, I'm going to be doing this initiative and I'm working with the CFO on this and the CEO on this operating strategy. And they'd say, Ryan, thank you, but you know, that's not your job. You need to focus on the next company and helping us make another investment in XYZ business.
So, that really led to me thinking, okay, I want to find my way into operations and really didn't know what that route would be until CXO came around, specifically Shore reaching out to me.
A Mile Deep
Anderson Williams: I'm curious with your time in the CXO program, as well as with Courser and thinking back to that previous time, any thoughts on what you've learned?
As you've started the process of going a mile deep, uh, as compared to a mile wide, what have you learned about, you obviously learned a lot before about what makes good founders, what makes a well-run business. How have you expanded on that now that you've been able to go deeper with Courser?
Ryan McNally: I think what I learned was going a mile deep isn't deep enough. You could go really deep with these companies and there's no shortage of initiatives and opportunities that you have. Specifically, if you're on the growth trajectory that we are on at Courser, you know, there's more people being added to the business each day, greater talent, and you're only as good as the team and the processes that you put in around you.
In my prior career, it felt like our teams were two to three people, and your success was measured in weeks. Here, our success is measured in months and quarters, and though sometimes we don't think that's fast enough, it's pulling a bunch of teams together and managing projects and pulling everyone in direction and getting a vision set to say, Hey, here's where we need to be 90 days from now.
Here's how you're going to play a role in it, and here's why it's going to be beneficial to you and to this company. So I'd say the biggest learning experience has been your success isn't really your success. It's the company's success. And you're really just there to help push it forward and be a positive force of change.
Anderson Williams: And will you just provide a little context for where Courser is in that journey in terms of growth and scale and just as part of the Shore portfolio, that evolution, what sort of stage would you put Coursera at?
Ryan McNally: We joined the Shore family and partnered with Shore in March of 2022. We were about 50 to 60 employees, two locations.
Today we're about 10 locations and just under 300 employees. About two and a half years into our journey with Shore, so we're squarely in the middle of our journey and feeling the acceleration and the flywheel effect of the success we're having here. Our goal is to add anywhere from five to seven new locations each year.
Hit the Ground Running
Anderson Williams: And you joined right as the Chief of Staff in your first year. Will you just describe, because that's a common first role for a CXO fellow, describe what that Chief of Staff role looked like and what that first year looked like as you joined a new team. You're picking up pace and growth. What does that first experience look like?
Ryan McNally: When I joined, we were just past the 100 day plan that Shore and our CEO Reed Wilson worked on with the company. And from there they said, okay, you know what the growth is that we need to do. We need to organically grow. We need to invest in other partners to join our company. Go and so where I joined was saying, let's create that plan.
We know what we need to do, but what are the dollars and cents behind that too? What do we need to invest in first? When can we invest in it? We can't just go hire the rockstar team that we have in 60 days because we may not have the financial backing to grow that we need to prove it out. And so what I helped with was starting with a financial model and a strategy plan to say, here's where we want to be in three years so that our executive team can align around that.
And then plan out when we want to make these investments in our executive team. What would those executives do? Let's make the case to the board. Let's go to the board meeting with this plan. And then from there, let's see what questions they have for us and come back to say, okay, well, when we do add on these companies and we do make these investments in the executive team, what's our integration strategy?
How are we going to bring them in? To make them feel like a Courser entity instead of multiple locations that are under one umbrella. So the first year was really helping build that team out and get us to a stage where we can then say, okay, how did we do against our plan? Luckily we met our plan and we were able to look back and say, okay, let's do it again and let's push the limits of where we think we could go in 2023.
And from there, it was really working with the Shore team plus our executive team, plus the people that we added in the last 12 months to just go back and say, Where did we miss on our strategy and where can we tweak it and make sure that we can go faster in the next 12 months?
Anderson Williams: And how did that process as that Chief of Staff role and that work you jumped in and led, how did that prepare you to take on the COO role? And we just talked a little bit about that transition.
Ryan McNally: So during that year and a half where I was the Chief of Staff I worked with, again, the executive team to say, what are our financial goals? And then let's translate that to budgets and re-forecasts and operating metrics that we can help work on with our individual geography leaders who were former owners of their businesses who then joined the Courser company.
What I didn't realize was going on over that year and a half was I was building rapport with these geography leaders, with their operations leaders and their teams. I was helping set these goals and helping them achieve certain operating initiatives, but really just making sure we were on track to hitting our plan.
From there it became apparent when I was offered the opportunity to go from Chief of Staff to COO that I was in a good position to say, look, I could be accountable for what our growth plan is and keeping us on the rails here and pushing forward our operating initiatives, because I know what these. geographies need to do.
I could help translate the growth plan down to the actual operating initiatives. I've built the rapport with the company as well and built the rapport with the team. Like I said before, you know, we're only as good as the teams that are around us and I really appreciate it. Look, we've got a really good group of geography leaders who built incredible businesses.
Let me help keep them on track and help them achieve the growth that they want to achieve while also staying accountable to my team and the Shore team as well of are we on track or off track and where do we need to pivot.
Building Relationships
Anderson Williams: And talk a little bit more about that because I think it's so important that idea of building rapport and doing it early and doing it as a young executive and how important that is when someone has built their business, they're partnering with private equity, which comes with excitement, but I'm sure trepidation as well.
Just say a little bit more for anybody who might be in a CXO role now or as a young executive about what that building rapport looked like, because it seems like it set the foundation for you to succeed in the next role. And it was critical for those new partners to feel a part of Courser, you know, after years of building their own business. Just say more about that rapport.
Ryan McNally: The first thing I did was getting on a plane. To go meet each of these geography leaders to say, Hey, what's important to them? What concerns may be on their mind now that I'm in this role, any questions that they have because building rapport is all about listening and my advice for any CXO that's in a position that's thinking, Hey, I could move into an operational role is you really don't know what's best for the company.
If you're operating from a ivory tower. And saying, we need to do this, this, and this to achieve our goals. You really need to listen because you may not have the best idea, but the best idea is out there. And you're working with these leaders who have built their businesses. Some of them in our case had been owners of their business for 25 years.
And now they're in this whole new way of doing things. And for us, it's a asset to us. to have all that institutional knowledge from them and saying, Hey, how can we take what's doing well here and evangelize it across the course or portfolio? How can we take this certain process that we are not doing well and leverage your mind to say, Hey, we could plug in your best resources.
We can plug in your processes to make that for the better and make sure that this group grows together. And I think that was the biggest learning opportunity or learning curve for me was saying, we can't just implement change without soliciting. Where can we do this? best and where are we doing this best across the company and leveraging those people and partnering with that group of geography leaders that are so valuable to us.
Anderson Williams: It almost sounds like you're talking about it the way Shore thinks about investing is almost a portfolio effect, right? I think that different partners can bring different geographies, can bring different areas of expertise, can bring different process learning into Courser that this Isn't an approach where we partner with you and then we shoehorn you into our way of doing things, which I think is probably not what people expect for you to think we've partnered with you.
Now, what do you do great that we can share across other sites versus, okay, now you're in the Courser model. So I just think that's worth highlighting because it's an important difference and a different story than even I would necessarily expect.
Ryan McNally: And look, we get together twice a year and we call it our Leadership Summit where our geography leaders meet. They'll bring a operating leader that they have or a solid N-1 is what we'll call them to come together to really collaborate and do that best practice sharing.
We meet once a week to get together for our leadership standup meeting. It's about an hour and a half. And for that, it's going over our initiatives, but we dedicate about an hour of that meeting really just to what issues are coming up with the business. How can we help move these initiatives forward? And what help can we do as Coursera, but more valuably is what help can this group of geography leaders and former owners of their businesses do to help bring the best out of any other business that's having an issue going on.
We touched a little bit on the people and the process side, but one thing I got real religion on was process. You need to have a process. You need to have a way of, this is the way we do things and you need to adhere to it. And at first, when I took the seat as COO, I said, great, we're going to meet once a week. We're going to get the best ideas from the business, and then we're going to go forward. And then all of a sudden it was, there's all these great initiatives that are going on.
There's no shortage of opportunity here. We need to collect and prioritize and build process around this so that we can make sure that we are capturing the value creation opportunities that are going on now. And meeting at a normal cadence and driving these initiatives in a predictable way so that you have the buy in from the team.
You know that the important things are being worked on. You have the confidence of your executive team that you're getting the things done that need to get done. And without process and a consistent way of delivering results and communicating, you're going to lose the faith of your team pretty quick. So you need to be disciplined with that process going through.
Proper Planning
Anderson Williams: And I got to imagine that there are a hundred things from a hundred different perspectives that a lot of different people think are different priorities at this stage of the company and given the growth and the acquisitions and so forth.
From your seat, how do you prioritize as a young company and a fast-growing company so that you don't get swallowed by doing everything just okay, but you really hit those high leverage priorities?
Ryan McNally: So what really helps me is my amazing team. So I've talked about the geography leaders and the process that we have there.
We also have our own operations team, a product manager that works with me, and an operations associate who's really, the operations associate has taken on a lot of the Chief of Staff responsibilities that I needed to shed when I was going into the COO role. But what our team is really good with is dividing up a annual goal.
Here's our budget for the year. Here are the growth initiatives that we have for the year. And breaking those down into 90-day chunks, which we call Rocks. Really they're 90-day goals. And we meet quarterly to say. Look, here's the 28 things on our list and that's not an exaggeration right now. There's 28 things on our list and it's what's at the top of the list.
What really needs to get done in the next 90 days? Who needs to be accountable for it? Who needs to be responsible for it? Who needs to be informed and who needs to be consulted? Really that RACI methodology. And then from there, it's what do you need to do to get those initiatives done? Is it realistic?
And then what's going to measure success at the end of 90 days? And then after that quarterly meeting, we go off, we check in on it once a week. Again, there's our process, making sure that we are sticking to our plan. And at the end of the 90 days, we say, how did we do? If we get 80 percent of our goals done, that's a fantastic quarter.
Those other 20%, either it was, hey, we overestimated our might. That happens to us all the time. We over allocate our time and say, okay, we can get more done than we think we can. Or it's really halfway through the quarter, we had to pivot. We said that that goal wasn't really as important as we thought it was at the beginning.
Or we learned something that we need to course correct. And that quarterly check in with those weekly touch points really helps us push our initiatives forward and that we're all aligned. Because if those goals aren't being talked about each week and you're dragged down by the minutiae of the day to day because side tasks happen, your day job happens, You, we really need to think about time management.
Do we have the right resources allocated or do we need to delegate the things that really are outside of our purview that more of our team could take on?
Anderson Williams: I love the, it's a disciplined and structured process and approach, but with the flexibility to recognize that we are still learning and growing and iterating, and maybe these goals weren't as important.
But we're not going to wait a year to find that out. We're going to have these regular conversations and nobody's going to be surprised at the end of the quarter that we thought this was a priority. It's been shifted down. I just love the combination of having the discipline to the process, but the flexibility in the goals and the way you're working through those so that you leave yourself room to iterate and learn.
Ryan McNally: And one thing we've done, you know, Shore has a very structured budgeting and forecasting process, and you meet with your board all the time and they say, hey, where are you thinking we're going to be at the end of the year, three years from now? So you always have that in mind. And there's great metrics that Shore has for us around that.
But one process we've taken on, it was part of my first full year as Chief of Staff was we got halfway through the year. And we said, look, we set budgets for our company at the beginning of the year. There have been other locations that have joined that didn't necessarily were a part of the budgeting process.
Let's take another shot. Let's just do a quick reforecast for the end of the year, just so that we could say, look, you may have called your shot wrong. We may have been wrong about what we could have done under this revenue line, and we had to over invest here. That's okay. Let's call our shot again. Let's give ourselves another chance because with the swings up and down, we may be okay.
We may have a chance to course correct. We might be able to make some operating changes. So taking that data driven approach, I couldn't stress enough how important that is. That has been life changing for us as a company. And I think it set us up well for our standing with Shore, but also well for, you know, what's our value creation strategy and how well are we tracking towards that?
Seize the Opportunity
Anderson Williams: So you've already shared some insights about your own personal growth. I'm curious as you think about somebody who may be just joining the CXO program, or maybe they're early in that Chief of Staff role. What advice do you give them about seizing that opportunity, finding that next role as a COO or otherwise?
Ryan McNally: Immerse yourself, absorb as much knowledge as you can from the executives that are around you, the geography leaders that have joined your business and have said, hey, this is something I want to be a part of. Learn from them because you've had a great career thus far. You've been picked to become a part of this group of rock stars.
And I'm always in awe when I come to these quarterly summits with the CXOs. I almost look around and say, how the heck did they pick me out of these?
Anderson Williams: It's an impressive group. It's an impressive group.
Ryan McNally: I mean, they, they, they have awesome backgrounds and it's become a family. I've made some great friends from that team and they're going to be in my network for life.
And I hope the same for them. But you've had this career to date and you've learned a lot. And your team is going to learn a lot from you, but you have just as much, if not more to learn from your team and anybody that has joined that company to say, I want to be a part of this and learn from it. If you have the opportunity to go visit company, don't be afraid to get on a plane, go meet them, build rapport, listen, and take every chance you can.
There's great industry peer groups out there. There are conferences. You're going to be traveling a little more than you've expected, but that's okay. That's what your first year, two years or four to build that foundation of not just industry knowledge, but outside perspectives, operating knowledge. You're going to have no shortage of learning opportunities and you just need to seize them.
Anderson Williams: When you think about rapport, and you've talked a lot about building rapport out with partners, I would love to hear you say how you built rapport with your CEO, with the other executive leaders, as a young executive.
Any thoughts for other CXOs or young executives on building rapport with the rest of the leadership team?
Ryan McNally: So as a CXO, you have several skills you can offer, but your greatest skill is being flexible and hardworking and supportive to your team. Those three things will set you up for success because you're going through a fast growth journey.
Your CEO is taking this step into a new universe that's going to require him to get outside of his comfort zone. Same thing with their CFO, same thing with any other operating leaders that have joined. There's change management involved and you are. A part of that change, but you're not there to dictate the change, you're there to assist with the change and help make it as comfortable as possible and help us achieve that growth that's at the end there.
So, you as a CXO, you probably got chosen and earned your way into this because you understood, hey, what's on the other end? Of this change, what's this growth vision that your executive team has signed up for? And wherever you can help, whether that's a operating model that your CFO is trying to pull together, whether it's a strategy session, board slides that your CEO is asked to pull together.
There's a lot of different places that don't seem as hard to you, but may seem a little bit uncomfortable to your team that you should just dive in and roll up your sleeves on it. Help out with because that is going to set your team up for success and it's going to help prove you're there to help and that you're there to be a part of the team and not just overseeing whatever change is going on.
Anderson Williams: What haven't I asked about your experience or within Courser or within the CXO program that I should have and that you want to make sure we get captured?
Ryan McNally: I think the one question I could think of is where else could CXOs land? We talked a lot about the CXO to COO path, and I don't want people to leave this conversation thinking the CXO is just a breeding ground for the COO.
I've met plenty of my contemporaries who have gone into the CFO role, who have gone into a Chief Strategy Officer role, have, you know, remained Chief of Staff. And for a while I thought I was going to remain Chief of Staff and I was really excited about that. I think you should think of the CXO as a utility player.
If you were drafting a team and it was, am I drafting for a specific role or am I drafting the best available? Go for the best available. Go for who you think will be the best fit for your team, culturally. Work ethic wise and see where they go from there because if you are an executive listening to this right now or if you are perspective CXO and you think you know where the business needs to go, you're probably wrong.
You probably don't know where it's going and that's okay. And I think if you have in mind, you know, this is what the CXO needs to look like, I would scrap that idea and just say, look, Who's going to be the best help to your team that you're going to want to spend a lot of time with and don't necessarily have where that role can be.
There's going to be a need for your business, and if they fit into that role eventually, great. If they don't, they'll help you find that person. So I think there's multiple avenues for the CXO program, and I think what Shore does a great job with is leaving it open ended for where the company need is and what Shore wants to develop these executives into.
Anderson Williams: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure and check out our other Bigger. Stronger. Faster. episodes, specifically highlighting the CXO Fellows program, as well as other CXO Fellows profiles, at www.shorecp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts.
This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners with story and narration by Anderson Williams, recording and editing by Austin Johnson, editing by Reel Audiobooks, sound design, mixing and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.
Special thanks to Ryan McNally.
This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.