Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Parks, native Chicagoan and entrepreneur at heart.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I began my career in Sales in 1985 with Messina Group, at the time a small Chicago staffing firm. During my first seven years out of college, I experienced significant growth — becoming a VP, and leading a 24-person Sales and Marketing team. Messina Group started 2 new divisions during this time and grew from 70 employees to over 400.
In 1988, we convinced the owner to automate the business. A consulting company was hired to custom build what would be known today as an ERP solution. My role in the project was as the business architect for Sales and Marketing. This experience was invaluable and set the wheels in motion for my career.
In 1992, I left Messina Group to found Revere Group, an IT Consulting Company. I began the business out of the attic in my house as a self-funded start up and did not draw a salary for twelve months. In the following 20 years, as CEO of Revere Group, we grew the business to over 500 employees with eight offices throughout the U.S. In 2008, the Revere Group was sold to NTT Data, the 6th largest global consulting company. I remained at NTT Data until 2012 as the President of the North American Advisory Services team.
In 2013, my career came full circle when I received a call from Messina Group’s owner, asking me if I would be interested in buying the very business that had launched my career. I have been back at Messina Group since June of 2013. Cultivating professional growth and longevity is a core value of Messina Group and in part, it’s what brought me back to the business. As a further illustration of this, amazingly, when I returned to Messina Group, there were four VPs that were spearheading much of the organization — all were employees I had hired on at Messina Group in the late 1980s!
Additionally, in 2015 I added a Consulting unit to Messina Group as I hired Jim Ingle, one of my key partners from Revere Group, and a long-time friend. Messina Group is now a blend of my first job out of college and Revere Group, my first entrepreneurial start-up.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road has always held many, many turns. As an entrepreneur, I am constantly tweaking, improving, and fine tuning our Go-to-Market strategy. It’s been important to make decisions quickly, and when things don’t go as planned, adjust even quicker.
After I acquired Messina Group, I transformed its legacy Staffing Business, and started a new Consulting Division supplying Analytics and Salesforce consulting services. Juggling two major initiatives was a major challenge.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Messina Group – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We have two divisions: A Professional Staffing division and a Consulting division.
Our Staffing division is led by Ellen Mullarkey and is known for delivering high touch, high quality staffing services. We help clients efficiently find exceptional talent in the fields of Engineering, Accounting & Finance, Scientific & Lab, IT, Project Management and Marketing. We are known for developing deep, long lasting client relationships.
Our Consulting division serves fast growing small and mid-tier companies, many of which are Private Equity backed. We help companies crystallize their growth strategies with Strategy and Planning engagements, become data driven with BI and Analytics, and streamline Sales, Marketing and Service with our Salesforce consulting team.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We have an aggressive growth plan for both divisions. Staffing has a plan to double in size over the next 3 years. It will be a lot of hard work, but we have a great plan and will double our Sales team over the next 12 months.
Our consulting division is experiencing explosive growth and will more than double in revenue this year and should double again by 2020. It’s an exciting time to be a part of Messina Group.
Contact Info:
- Address: 200 S Prospect Ave. Park Ridge, IL 60068325 W. Huron, suite 512, Chicago IL 60654
- Website: www.messinagroupinc.com
- Phone: 847-825-8000
- Email: mparks@messinagroupinc.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/messinagroupconsulting/
- Twitter: twitter.com/MGConsulting_
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