Sherpa Alliance

Mike Richardson

As the President of Sherpa Alliance, Mike Richardson specializes in the strategy, execution and traction challenges of small-to-medium sized and fast-moving businesses.  He helps CEOs, Executives and their teams be more fully In the Driving Seat® of their businesses and their lives, translating strategy and execution into traction.  Mike does this through a range of Sherpa Services, Other Opportuniities to Engage with Mike and materials to Jumpstart Your Journey.  He is growing an international alliance network of like-minded and experienced individuals.

Mike used to be part of the corporate management team of a British public corporation (Spirent PLC) which made it into the FTSE 100, with Mike running the Aerospace Division.  He is an experienced CEO of businesses ranging from electronics to enterprise-software, involving turnarounds, acquisitions and disposals.  His leadership learning journey started on oil and gas drilling rigs with Shell International as a Petroleum Engineer.  Working in a high pressure environment, with individuals of diverse nationalities and types, this is where Mike says he got his “apprenticeship in people”.  From there, via an MBA at London Business School, Mike moved into the Aerospace Industry and rapidly gained experience in multiple line-management and executive roles.  He quickly progressed to Profit & Loss responsibility at a business unit level and then at a Divisional level.

Mike is originally from the U.K. and has brought extensive international experience to his current home base in San Diego, California, where he is active in the community on numerous boards.  In addition to working with a diverse client base, Mike is also a Chair with Vistage International, with 4 groups and more than 60 members (CEOs, Executives and Professional Service Providers) from a wide diversity of industries and businesses.  He also frequently speaks to other groups of CEOs and Executives about fulfilling their role “in the driving seat” of organizational agility.

Mike's focus with Sherpa Alliance is in serving a wide diversity of clients:

• Large and Small; Young and Old; Public, Private and Family/Closely-Held
• Products, Services and New-Economy/Membership-Subscription based companies
• Manufacturing, Software and Professional Services based companies
• For-Profit and Not-For-Profit, Wholesale and Retail, B2B and B2C
• Real-Estate to Biotec, Sports Equipment to Aerospace, Banking to Automotive

We are facilitators (with processes/questions) not consultants (with answers/industry-expertise), believing it is a mistake to out-source your strategic-thinking to outside consultants, creating a dependency which doesn't serve your organizational agility well.  We are more valuable to you because we don't have industry-expertise and because you and your team have all the answers you need - we will help you unlock and assemble them to get and keep everyone in synch on the same page.  No one knows your business better than you do - if needed, "expert" help can be "in-sourced" as part of the process.

The bottom line:  we help organizations develop the advantage of organizational agility, growing Cash-Flow by reducing Wheel$pin and increasing Tra˘tion, for cents on the dollar.  How Serious are You?