Jensen seems suited to the task. In describing her experience at Napster, she says, "It had lots of intense times, but I was definitely the calming person and I tried to keep an even keel." Bringing that influence to a rapidly growing nonprofit, she realizes, would not be the choice of many finance executives. "They need to know why they want to go into the nonprofit world," she cautions, adding that for her, "it isn't about the money. This is where I am supposed to be." — L.C.
Return to Your Roots
Tom Sager grew up in a family-business environment. His
father, Howard, ran a milk-delivery business with a heavy emphasis
on customer service and small-town values — the very values that
Sager, who worked at six different companies, including two stints
as CFO, found lacking in Corporate America.
"I spent years building my credentials to get to the top. And when I got there, I didn't enjoy it," says Sager, who mostly blames the "quarterly board-meeting mentality" for souring him on corporate life. So in 2002, the 47-year-old left his position as CFO of Zoots, a national dry-cleaning chain, to run his own family business: Tri-Valley Sports, in Medway, Massachusetts.
"It just came naturally to me that this business would be something I'd enjoy," says Sager, who, along with his wife, has been both coach and cheerleader for the multiple teams on which his three children, Kevin, 22; Valerie, 21; and Craig, 18, played. "Watching kids play, providing them with equipment, that's real fun," he says.
Still, Sager has called on many of his finance skills to run the small store, located just eight miles from his home. At Zoots, Sager was involved in installing an innovative system that helped turn "a mom-and-pop operation into a big, centralized cleaning company." At his own company, "we put in a new computer system," he says, "so we're now able to track inventory with a great point-of-sale software application." While Sager does not plan to grow to Zoots's level (78 stores in nine states), he is certainly keeping an eye out for the future, despite having "no short-term, definitive plans. The business is growing organically, and when it has grown as much as it can, I'll look to broaden the market."
Being the owner, however, allows Sager to be much more hands-on both with day-to-day decisions and customer interactions. "You don't need a Harvard MBA to be sincere and polite and fair with customers," he says. And while he's happy to be out of corporate finance, he is thankful for the experience. "I'm absolutely happy with my decision," he says. "You may not know what you want to do, but you certainly know what you don't want to do." — Gareth Goh
Start a Winery
Ask Dennis Groth to order a 2003 cabernet sauvignon and you'll probably make out OK. The onetime Arthur
Young partner became a wine connoisseur during his time in the company's San Francisco office, partly because of
the time he spent entertaining clients. And in the early 1980s, that passion led him to scout properties in Napa Valley.
Groth wasn't just window-shopping. In the back of his mind, he had the audacious notion that he could make wines. Of course, drinking wines and making them are decidedly different pursuits. Moreover, Groth was already knee-deep in his second career as CFO at electronic-games pioneer Atari, which at the time was on a roll.
Still, once Groth and his wife, Judy, found their dream 165-acre vineyard in Oakville Appellation, he parlayed his accounting background and Atari's success into bank financing to start the operation. It was short-lived, however. Within months, the overheated video-game industry crashed — and so did Groth's financing. But instead of pulling out, the 64-year-old left Atari and moved his family onto the farm. Armed with only a building permit to construct a wine-making facility, he got creative, opting to outsource his grape-growing — a common practice today, but unusual in 1984. "We put off constructing our building," he explains. "We wanted to first demonstrate we could make good wines."
The gamble paid off. Although it took Groth Winery and Estate two years to sell all 10,000 cases of its 1983 cabernet sauvignon, word spread. Then, in a stunning development, critic Robert Parker gave the 1985 Groth Reserve Cabernet a 100 rating — the first California wine ever to receive his perfect mark. Suddenly, business skyrocketed, with sales doubling and then tripling.
Last year, Groth Winery and Estate sold 65,000 cases, and word is that several larger operations wouldn't mind buying the farm. But Groth has too much skin in the game. "Judy and I were looking back at the data recently, and we said, 'What ever prompted us to take this risk?' We put everything we had into it." — John Goff
Spread the Word
Blythe J. McGarvie remembers
the trigger very well. It was August
2002, and she was a shocked
bystander as former accounting
giant Arthur Andersen — the firm
where she had spent her formative
work years — was dismantled,
almost overnight.
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