Doug Haynes: Our Inspirery Exclusive Interview
Doug Haynes is the Managing Partner at Council Advisors and has spent the latter part of his career as an advisor to top executives of private and public enterprises.
Before joining Council Advisors, Doug served as President of the Point72 Asset Management, one of the United States’ premier equity hedge funds. Prior to his time at Point72, Doug was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, leading the Northeast Region of the United States and the Global Operations practice. Doug was one of the leaders for McKinsey’s High-Tech industry practice and co-founded the Firm’s practice in technology-based services. Before going to business school and attaining his MBA, Doug worked as an engineer for GE’s Plastics Business Group and a software developer for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Doug is an active philanthropist and focuses a lot of his philanthropic work on organizations that focus on fighting poverty, supporting veterans, and making education more accessible. He is a founding board member of the Cohen Veteran’s Network, Cohen Veteran’s Bioscience, and The Center for Global Enterprise. He is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation in New York and Camp Southern Ground in Georgia.
Doug graduated summa cum laude in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University and was a Shermet Scholar at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virgina.
How did you get started in this business?
I had never even heard of management consulting until I went to business school. My background was in engineering, mathematics, and computer programming. I loved Darden’s case method for teaching and loved the diversity of industries, problems, and ideas that were featured in the cases. By the time I left business school, consulting seemed like the perfect fit.
Looking back, I could never have imagined the opportunity to collaborate with such terrific clients and colleagues on such interesting and important work. In some ways, my career has been a random walk but I would not change a thing. I have learned new things at every step and on each path.
How did you work your way up in this business?
I retired from McKinsey & Company because I wanted to focus on CEOs and the unique challenges of that role. Becoming a CEO — or in my case, a company president — was a turning point in my understanding and appreciation for the challenge. As one of my clients said, “You really don’t get it until you have had the job.” After leading a company for four years, I returned to consulting as a CEO adviser with more energy and purpose than ever before.
What made you want to work in this industry
Joining McKinsey opened the world to me. I had the privilege of working with brilliant colleagues on interesting engagements all around the world. McKinsey was a unique community to which I was completely committed. Those 22 years were formative in every way.
Looking back, I could never have imagined the opportunity to collaborate with such terrific clients and colleagues on such interesting and important work. In some ways, my career has been a random walk but I would not change a thing. I have learned new things at every step and on each path.
What is it that you feel makes you good at your job?
Faith in myself. I remember the moment when Steve Cohen asked me to go from advising him to running his investment business like it was yesterday. It was a big leap of faith to join him full-time and take on those responsibilities. Steve and the experience of leading his firm taught me an enormous amount about public markets and the ecosystem of businesses around them.
What are the perks of working in this type of business?
The relationships I have been able to build and foster. My father instilled this principle in me as a kid:
Don’t work with people or organizations that lack integrity. Quality work is its own reward. That can be hard to see at the time, but it is infallibly true. The second principle is the real key to success because it defines success. You spend the majority of your waking hours working. Doing so with people and organizations that do the right things for the right reasons is success.
I’m fortunate enough to have been surrounded by some incredible people during my time in this industry and it’s part of what keeps me going.
What are the disadvantages of working in this field?
The level of doubt when trying to make something from nothing can feel suffocating. The only way through, at least for me, is to focus on delivering as much value as possible to others — clients, colleagues, your community — whichever is most relevant for what you are doing. Dedication is the remedy for doubt.
What’s the most rewarding part of your work?
One of the most rewarding parts of my work is that it has afforded me the opportunity to give back. Becoming involved in not-for-profit organizations was another “door” that opened for me when I left McKinsey. My work with The Robin Hood Foundation, Camp Southern Ground, Cohen Veterans Network, and several other great organizations inspires and challenges me. It is a blessing to be able to use some of the skills I have learned in my “day jobs” to give back to others.
Where is your industry headed? What excites you about the future in this line of work?
I believe that objective advice and counsel, particularly for enterprise leaders, has never been more important or harder to find. Leveraged business models and the pursuit of “scale” are seductive. Many firms have been drawn down a path that treats relationships and trust as a means to an end, fueling a business model. We believe that personal relationships and earned trust are the end. I am excited to see how clients are responding to objective, informed, and experienced counsel, delivered personally by senior advisers.
What advice do you give people who want to get into your field of work?
Do the work that is in front of you to the best of your ability, every day.
Are you willing to be a mentor? If so, how should someone contact you?
Not at this time, my plate is full.
Connect With Doug Haynes.
Originally published at https://inspirery.com on March 15, 2022.
