Nick Gunn of The NiVACK Group: How To Take Your Company From Good To Great

An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski

Have a compelling mission. When the President visited the Houston Space Center back in the 1960’s, at the height of the space race, he saw a janitor and asked what he was doing as he cleaned. The janitor’s answer was shocking to nearly everyone. “I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man on the moon.” I say it was shocking to nearly everyone, and not everyone, because some people knew exactly what that man was doing. Those were the people on NASA’s leadership team who created that compelling mission and a culture where every employee believed in that mission!

As part of my series about the “How To Take Your Company From Good To Great”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nick Gunn.

Nick believes that he is probably better at buying things than you. This is not meant to be inflammatory or combative. It’s just the nature of the skillset that his experiences have given him. Before he took a leap of faith and started his own business, he was in charge of spending billions of dollars at a Fortune 10 company. Now, as CEO of The NiVACK Group, he helps other companies buy things better.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

One of the greatest television shows ever made, Star Trek, debuted in 1966, just a couple of years before I was born. While I didn’t recognize it at the time, Star Trek had a huge impact on my life. Watching it as a kid, I became fascinated with technology. As I consumed episode after episode, I always believed a lot of the fictional things I was seeing on the show would become a reality in the future. So, much to the surprise of my parents I chose to study Business and Information Technology at University, instead of Law. And, remember, back in ’89 there was no internet, smart phones, social media, etc., so I ‘grew up’ in the age when some of that Star Trek fiction became a reality!

And while early episodes of Star Trek were airing, there was this Company, Hewlett Packard (HP), that was seemingly taking the ideas on screen and engineering them into reality. When I graduated, I was offered and accepted a position at HP and I was thrilled. Over the next 30 years, with a lot of hard work and luck, I slowly climbed up the corporate ladder. I built a career within HP’s Procurement function and spent about a decade leading the organization.

For those who don’t know, the Procurement organization is basically the group in charge of buying things for a company. If HP sold a $1,000 computer and made a 10% profit on it, then $900 dollars of parts, labor, and overhead were purchased by Procurement. Multiply that by a lot of computers and other Star Trek-esque technology, and our Procurement function managed over $23 billion in annual spend. During my time in charge of the organization, I had about 1,500 fantastic people working for me.

That was a lot of people and a lot of money I was responsible for, but the biggest responsibility I had at HP was in overseeing the Company’s separation into 2 other companies, Hewlett Packard Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

If you read about HP on Wikipedia today, you’ll read the following sentences, “On November 1, 2015, the company spun off its enterprise products and services business Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Hewlett-Packard retained the personal computer and printer businesses and was renamed HP Inc.” Those two sentences do not convey how difficult and impressive our transformation efforts were. This separation was the largest in corporate history!

In early 2019, I decided it was time for a change. I convinced a small handful of those fantastic people I referenced earlier to join me at the company I had just started with my son, who has a background in accounting and consulting. The NiVACK Group helps businesses become more profitable by helping their Procurement functions develop world-class capabilities.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I don’t like to think I faced hard times in my career but there were certainly challenges throughout. Early in my career, some of the biggest challenges I faced were due to the fact that I was young, inexperienced, and new to the role.

Being young, inexperienced, and new to a role, you have to fight for recognition and prove to yourself and others that you’re capable of tackling what’s in front of you. This is okay and it’s certainly one of the things that helped me focus and become more successful over the years.

Over the years, there have definitely been times when I thought about giving up. Times when obstacles piled up and everything seemed too hard, too challenging, and not worth the effort. I was raised to never quit, though; so I always tried my best to persevere and maneuver through these situations. I’m always surprised by how resilient we are during these tough times. And not just my resilience but peoples’ resilience. We really can tolerate a lot of difficult times!

Starting my own business has been challenging as well. There are a lot of times when you feel alone and you wonder whether or not you’ve made the right decision to start a business to go out on your own, you wonder if you have the right DNA to do that, you wonder if you have the right idea, or the right approach and the right methodology and you seek help where you can to help you develop your business and to grow. And then you take the little wins you take the base hits instead of looking for home runs and that’s really the kind of thing that helps see you through the difficult periods and the challenges. You really have to have a lot of self-determination and motivation to be an entrepreneur. You need to be determined to stick with it and to overcome the challenges and honestly to do some of the things that are very difficult when they are not a natural fit for your skillset.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Well, I don’t know if this story is funny but I do recall this one moment very early on in my career, when I was still in the UK.

I had to do a presentation to our senior leadership team and I was nervous. I spent a long time preparing and practicing. l rehearsed the presentation with friends and colleagues to make sure that I had all my facts straight and I made sure that my slides looked really, really good.

This meeting was back in the days when we used to meet face-to-face, (you know, before COVID,) so I arrived in very professional attire — suit and tie — and I did my presentation from start to finish. I genuinely thought it went really well! I thought I was very, very professional and that I thought I did a really good job.

After the presentation I spoke to one of my mentors, an Irish guy named Tom Davis who was on the senior leadership team at the time. I asked him, “how did you think it went?” and I told him I thought I did a pretty good job.

He replied, in his thick Irish accent, “Nick it was great. The presentation had all the right information in it. It was very professional. Everything was perfect!” But then he paused. “Everything was perfect except you!”

I was shocked. “You were so boring. You had no passion and it was obvious. The material was great but I don’t think you sold it to a single person in that room!”

I was absolutely horrified. I had no idea what to think, let alone what to say! Luckily, Tom is a really helpful guy, so he gave me some great constructive feedback. “Nick,” he said, “I’ve seen you present in other situations where you were more relaxed and in those situations you are much more yourself and your passion comes through about the topic you’re presenting.” I remember nodding, still a bit in shock. “You need to find that passion if you’re going to convince people, especially senior leaders, to take action! Having the facts and the correct material is important, but you need to be more convincing when you communicate.” He gave me some really great tips on presenting, including how to use body language and storytelling to communicate effectively.

It might not be funny, in a conventional sense, but it sure was shocking! Imagine your mentor telling you “Everything was perfect except you!” That right there was an early mistake that I remember vividly to this day. Part of the reason I remember it so well is that I’ve actually learned from it and changed by behaviours because of it.

Reflecting on this experience, I do a lot of things exactly the same way I did before. I still prepare a lot. I still do research. I still rehearse. I still dress appropriately — although with zoom meetings I only have to dress my top half appropriately. The thing I try to do differently now is that I try to ensure my passion and enthusiasm come across. To help with this, I developed a little acronym: R.A.D.

• Relatable: I make sure to support data with terms and examples the audience can relate to by creating a common frame of reference, like analogies or metaphors.
• Accessible: I ensure the audience understands me by minimizing the technical jargon.
• Digestible: I present content in bite-sized chunks that are easy for the audience to consume.

I’ve used this formula for decades now, and it remains super, super helpful whenever I am presenting!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

If there was a list of the most trusted professions, nurses would be near the top, along with teachers and firemen. Consultants, on the other hand, would be near the bottom — right above lawyers and politicians.

Consultants, or consulting firms, to be more accurate, are opportunistic and self-interested. Instead of solving their client’s problems, they’re unbelievably focused on getting higher and higher consulting fees out of each of their clients. One of the big 4 consulting firms even coined a phrase for this tactic. “Land and expand.” Their whole goal is to come into a company, identify 100 things that are going wrong, and sell the company on exactly why they should hire them to solve those 100 problems for $1 million each. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but so many of these consulting engagements fail.

Why do they fail? There’s a few reasons, but one of the big ones is that consulting firms don’t assign their best people to work on your project. Why would they? Their best people are expensive. Instead of their best people, they assign the 22-year-old who just graduated from university and doesn’t know a single thing about business. They give that 22-year-old a playbook along with instructions to follow the steps in the playbook and try not to ask too many questions.

Now, the NiVACK Group is a consulting firm. Don’t get me wrong. But what makes us stand out is that our people have real experience leading world-class Procurement teams. With NiVACK, you don’t get a 22-year-old with a playbook, you get a well-versed team of Procurement professionals who have dealt with your exact problems first-hand. I personally work on all of our engagements and we have talented individuals with even more experience than I do who lead some of our accounts. We strongly believe that this real experience enhances the positive outcomes our clients see.

Our clients are also amazed by the family spirit we have within our team. The name “NiVACK” is representative of this. It’s an acronym that borrows letters from myself, my wife (Vanessa), my two sons (Ash and Charles), and my daughter (Kate). Yes, I got an extra letter because we needed another vowel!

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

My tip is this: You have to put everything into perspective! Work is important, but so is family and your personal well-being!

Work-life balance is such a cliche and overused term. Tons of employees and employers pay lip service to the idea but don’t really practice it. I believe in hard work and dedication to the cause (whatever that means for each person), but not at the expense of everything else, like family, relationships, mental and physical health. Life is just too short. As I’ve gotten older, and hopefully wiser, I’ve witnessed colleagues and friends who have passed away far too early and I’ve never yet met anyone who said they wished they’d worked harder and longer.

People make personal sacrifices for work all the time. Late nights. Missing kids’ sports games. Working from the couch on weekends with the TV on in the background. We make all kinds of sacrifices and we don’t even realize they’re eating away at our lives.

And the worst part is that a company (any company) is just a faceless entity that consumes resources in order to meet its goals. We, as people, are resources to these companies, and we will be taken advantage of if we don’t put up some serious boundaries. It’s up to each of us, whether you manage others or you’re just fending for yourself, to balance the important things in life against work.

My kids played soccer growing up and I always made a real effort to watch them play, even during highschool when matches started at 3:30 PM. My work didn’t suffer because of this. In fact, in some cases it even improved. I would take a break for a few hours to watch a 3:30 match, and then I would log back on to finish any tasks for the day — feeling rejuvenated. I never once regretted doing this.

Work-life balance works differently for everyone and it’s not something that you figure out right away when you start a new job, but it’s important to find your own equilibrium and balance. This is especially difficult when it feels like you are so important to the company. You know the feeling, when you think, “if I don’t get this done everything is going to go wrong and there’s no one else that can do this.” But that feeling is nearly always wrong.

A mentor of mine helped me develop a perspective on this by referring to an old story. I won’t explain in detail, but the point of the story is this: If you put your hand into a bucket of water and then you take your hand out, there’s not a hole in the water where your hand used to be. The water moves quickly to fill the place where it used to be. If you remove yourself from matters and reclaim a bit of your life, the business will go on without you.

When Steve Jobs passed away people were convinced that Apple was over; but since 2011, they’ve invented like a dozen new iPhones and their stock price is almost 10x higher! The point of these two stories is to illustrate that your company can manage without you for a few hours or days… take a break!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are many people who deserve some credit for whatever success I’ve had.

My working-class parents. They gave me a terrific upbringing and taught me so much. My wife. She has been totally supportive throughout my career, she’s a great mum to our 3 kids, and she keeps me honest and makes sure my ego doesn’t get too big!

I’ll always be grateful for a couple of co-workers, who earlier in my career, encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone. Katrina Stephens, a boss who taught me the value of creative thinking and how to be a great leader without being an A-hole! Tom Davis, a mentor, who always encouraged me to be introspective and a big-picture thinker. Becky Cornett, for pushing me to move from the UK to California and swim with the big fish. And finally, Chris Hsu, who trusted me to swim with the biggest fish of all, the C-Suite and the Board.

There were many people who helped me to be successful and they all deserve some credit, so I guess the story here is that no person is an island and we all need to bring each other along to achieve something meaningful.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?

There are lots of good companies out there, but far fewer great companies. In truth, greatness is only fleeting, it doesn’t last forever.

Good companies do the right things the right way. They focus on creating a positive work environment for their employees, treating them with respect and dignity, and empowering them within an accountable environment. Good companies are customer-centric: they listen to their customers and they try to provide a positive customer experience. Good companies also work with partners and suppliers in a mutually beneficial manner.

But in my experience, the thing that separates good companies from great ones is that great companies always look to the future and push the envelope.

Great companies are proactive when it comes to their Corporate, Social, and Environmental responsibilities. They have genuine inclusivity and diversity programs for both employees and suppliers which are based on real capabilities, not some arbitrary guidelines designed to make them look good from the outside. They employ and develop great people and leaders. They take risks. They innovate. And they always try to anticipate the needs of customers, even before the customers themselves are aware of those needs. And, finally, great companies realize they are only as great as their employees! They create a mission for employees to rally around and they invest in employees so that they can deliver that vision.

That’s what separates the good from the great!

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Have a compelling mission

When the President visited the Houston Space Center back in the 1960’s, at the height of the space race, he saw a janitor and asked what he was doing as he cleaned. The janitor’s answer was shocking to nearly everyone. “I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man on the moon.” I say it was shocking to nearly everyone, and not everyone, because some people knew exactly what that man was doing. Those were the people on NASA’s leadership team who created that compelling mission and a culture where every employee believed in that mission!

2. Ensure your mission supports the needs of your customers and investors

Blockbuster had a mission statement, “to provide our customers with the most convenient access to media entertainment, including movies and game entertainment delivered through multiple distribution channels such as our stores, by-mail, vending and kiosks.”

But what was the point of that mission statement when their competitor, Netflix, was on a mission “to become the world’s leading internet subscription service for enjoying movies on TV”?

Famously, Netflix figured out much faster than its competitor that customers would be willing to pay for the convenience of online streaming, which rendered Blockbuster’s physical distribution of content completely obsolete within just a few years.

Blockbuster had a mission, but the mission didn’t support customers as the technology and media landscape evolved.

3. Create an operating model to execute the mission

Having a compelling mission is not enough. Companies have to have an operating model that allows them to execute the mission.

A few years ago, Aruba was a great networking company with a great mission and quality products to compete head-to-head with Cisco. But it didn’t have a mature, global Go-To-Market capability. It didn’t have the right operating model to execute the mission and compete with the Bay Area’s networking giant.

HP, another Bay Area tech giant, had a very strong global Go-To-Market capability and an operating model that was perfectly suited to compete. Luckily for Aruba, HP was looking to purchase a networking business that could compete directly with Cisco, and in 2015, HP acquired Aruba. This gave Aruba the Go-To-Market tools it needed to execute its mission and properly compete with Cisco.

4. Hire and develop the best people who can deliver that mission

Companies don’t need to hire Ivy league grads to fill vacant positions, but they do need to hire, develop, and retain exceptional talent at all levels.

At HP in the 2000’s, the company’s strategy was to hire most executives externally, and at a high price. Senior leadership held the belief that expensive external talent would lead the company to more prosperity, but that wasn’t the case.

More than 250 executives were hired externally over just a couple of years, but after 5 years, 90% of those executives had left the company. More disturbingly, this external-hiring practice sent a message to everyone in the company that they wouldn’t be promoted to an executive position, which caused a lot of promising junior leaders to leave.

Meg Whitman changed this external-hiring practice when she became CEO and she put a far greater focus on employee development and promotion from within. With her and her philosophy, there was an expectation that leaders were empowered and accountable to deliver results. Those leaders then successfully executed the Company’s mission, which at the time was to separate Hewlett Packard into three smaller companies.

5. Execute the mission in an exemplary manner

Even if you have a great vision and great products, customers won’t buy from you unless they think your company has great corporate values.

Now more than ever, consumers are aware of which companies behave unethically or irresponsibly, whether with their own employees, with suppliers, or with the environment. People want to buy from businesses that take these responsibilities seriously, so it’s important to execute your mission in an exemplary manner.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?

For some of the reasons mentioned above, the social impact angle is becoming increasingly more important. More and more, consumers are spending their money on products and services produced by businesses that are more socially responsible. One of the biggest areas is that of sustainability.

Products and services that rely on sustainable methods are becoming increasingly sought after. Consumers, especially younger ones, consider this to be a critical component in their buying decisions. Thus, sustainability is becoming a differentiating factor for a lot of businesses, especially when companies can achieve sustainability and still compete on price with competitors. Great companies cannot survive if consumer sentiment moves away from their products and services.

Here’s a personal example, I visited Queensland in Australia a couple of years ago on a work trip and learned that the chemicals in many sunscreens were damaging the ocean ecosystem, especially Australia’s coral reefs. At the same time, I learned that zinc sunscreens are better protection for your skin and don’t have a negative impact on the environment. Since that trip, I have only bought zinc sunscreens! When enough people realize something like this, buying preferences will shift and there will no longer be a market for chemical based sunscreens.

It’s better for companies to pivot sooner rather than later on social and sustainability issues.

What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?

If growth has stalled, seek external help. Don’t waste too much time trying to fix things yourself by guessing at untested solutions. Try to pinpoint the problem and please get outside assistance if it will speed things up!

“If you can’t name the problem, you can’t fix it.” This was some of the best advice I ever received and it came from Meg Whitman, my former CEO at HP and HPE.

My advice on seeking external help may not fix your problems right away, but it should be the starting point in understanding why growth has stalled. You have to know with absolute certainty why your growth has stalled before you start throwing a ton of money at potential solutions.

Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?

1. Invest in the future when times are good. Don’t return all the profits to shareholders, but spend some on R&D and infrastructure modernization for instance. You won’t have the resources to do this as well in a tight economy.
2. Spend every dime as if it were your own. Spending profusely during high growth periods can have negative effects in a downturn, especially on overhead expenses like real estate, events, and sponsorships which are not part of cost-of-goods-sold. These items are not easily variablized and they will quickly eat into your profit margin and your ability to generate demand in a downturn… always keep some powder dry when the rain comes!
3. Focus. In a downturn, focus on your products and services that customers still want and try to offer creative ways for them to purchase. This might mean extending payment terms, offering discounts on future purchases, etc.

In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

Attracting, developing and retaining clients is the toughest element of running a company. Having the best product or service is irrelevant if you cannot market to your potential clients.

The steps to create and convert your pipeline of leads differs across market segments and industries. For instance, as an Executive Advisory Consultant, it would be costly and ineffective for me to buy online advertising or do TV spots. I’m in a business where word of mouth is critical and relationship building is key. At my company, we focus our efforts on creating content and participating in forums such as this interview where we are able to demonstrate our thought leadership and build our brand credibility. We also work extremely hard to ensure our clients know we value them!

As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies a business should use to increase conversion rates?

Boring answer, it depends on the business.

In general, people feel better about themselves when they think they got a good deal on a purchase, so consider offering your customers something of value for free or at a discounted price to get their interest.

Also, make it super, super easy for customers to buy from you. This is so important and businesses often fail here. If you’re selling something online, your customers have to understand what you do and be able to buy from you in as few clicks as possible — maybe just two.

Finally, across every interaction you have with potential customers you have to demonstrate your value and build the relationship. This is especially important in a services business like mine.

Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that a business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

I’m no expert in branding, so I won’t go too in depth, but I will give one example.

Although readers wouldn’t realize, I have a pretty thick English accent which I developed over more than 30 years in the country. While I lived there, I once purchased a reasonably expensive suit from a small boutique clothes store. After a couple of years wearing the suit, the lining started to come apart, so I took the suit back to the boutique so they could repair it (at my cost). To my surprise, when I returned to collect my suit a few days later, not only had it been perfectly fixed, but they did it for free and credited my account with 150 GBP!

I never bought suits from anywhere else after that. In one interaction, they took me from a satisfied customer, to a fiercely loyal one. To me their brand was synonymous with customer service, great products and reliability. I told all my friends to shop there, and now I’m even telling you! Robert Old & Co. is still there and still selling suits while most of their big department store competitors have now disappeared!

Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?

Treat every customer as if they are your only customer. Guide them through the experience working with you and your company, and make them feel that you truly care about them. Do this by putting yourself in the shoes of the customer.

I used to run Procurement at a Fortune 10 company. That means my ‘customers’ were the internal business units within the company. For some items, like office supplies, these ‘customers’ would order items and then my team would facilitate the purchase of the items. In order to ensure the ordering experience was easy for my customers I put myself in their shoes. I sat down to order office supplies on our internal purchasing tool and guess what? I gave up after 20 clicks. It was just too painful. Why should I expect my customers to order something in my team’s system when they could order the same thing on Amazon in just 4 clicks!

As a result of that experience, my Procurement team modernized our purchasing tools, policies, and processes to create a better customer experience for our employees.

The other key thing to do is always pay attention to dissatisfied customers and turn them into advocates. If you don’t, they will create far more noise and negativity around your brand that will undo any good work you do.

What are your thoughts about how a company should be engaged on Social Media? For example, the advisory firm EisnerAmper conducted 6 yearly surveys of United States corporate boards, and directors reported that one of their most pressing concerns was reputational risk as a result of social media. Do you share this concern? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

I am concerned about brand and reputational risk as a result of social media. Whether we like to or not, social media, or anti-social media as I call it, is here to stay.

The problem with social media is that regardless of whether you think it is good or bad, as a business you cannot ignore it. Most businesses need some form of social media presence, either to sell directly or to create brand awareness and establish relevancy.

One of the issues with Social Media is that it attracts bad behavior and nasty, vitriolic comments like bees around honey. People can hide behind the relative anonymity and distance to behave in a manner that they might not do when up close and personal. This can expose your business to potential commentary and narratives that you cannot control.

Also, Social Media “trolls” demand you take a position on everything. As a business trying to be politically impartial, you are now vulnerable to those who would say you are part of the problem if you don’t come out in support of the latest social justice cause. And remember your customers are likely from both sides of any social debate and it is not good for business to alienate either faction. These are difficult waters to navigate, but I still personally believe that most people don’t sit on the fringes of anything, they are in the middle somewhere and form the silent majority… These are the people your business should care most about from a social media perspective, the ones who don’t say anything.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

This one is super easy to answer. The most common mistake I’ve seen is that CEOs and founders refuse to ask for help. Let me tell you, getting help is the single most important thing a CEO or Founder can do. Get help!

This is the one thing above all else that business start-ups should do. Nobody can do everything and if they try, they certainly cannot do it well. The type of help a start-up needs will vary over time, but it’s good to start by reaching out to people, friends, mentors, etc., as this will pay dividends over time. Their advice is free and often very insightful. These are the people that care about you the most and the people who really want you to succeed.

Secondly, unless you are going to be a one-man band, get a business partner with complementary skills and experiences to you.

Third, trust and verify. There are a lot of places that purport to help start-ups. Most of them say they guarantee leads or revenue. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Simple… my movement would be about treating all people with respect and dignity, regardless of what walk of life, race, or political persuasion they belong to. We are all human beings, yet many of us choose to use our gift of being the most intelligent species on the planet to create fear and division and to hate. We should be using our “superpower” of intelligence for the benefit of the entire planet. Don’t hate people who are not the same as you, embrace the diversity and learn from it!

How can our readers further follow you online?

The best way to follow me is to connect on LinkedIn. I’m active every single day and I love engaging with people on the platform.

I’m pretty easy to find on LinkedIn and Google, too. If you google me I’m either the first or second guy that pops up. I’m in a bit of a Google search war with another Nick Gunn. Actually he goes by Nicholas and he’s a really great top-ten charting musician. It’s been a battle, but one day I’ll permanently unseat him as the #1 Nick Gunn!

If you’re old school, or more direct, you can email me at nick.gunn@nivack.com. I’m happy to chat!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you!

About the interviewer: Jerome Knyszewski (Kenchefski) is the CEO of HeavyShift. Jerome serves as an advisor to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies as well as entrepreneurs who disrupt their industries and therefore tend to be targets of malicious online attacks. His company builds, protects, and repairs the online presence & reputation of many celebrities, products and beloved brands.