{"id":3632,"date":"2012-05-14T14:05:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T14:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=3632"},"modified":"2017-08-08T15:56:35","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:56:35","slug":"on-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/on-board\/","title":{"rendered":"On Board"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brent
Brent Turner at Pier 66 on Seattle\u2019s Puget Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a guy from Middle Tennessee, Brent Turner, MBA\u201999, sure uses a lot of nautical terms. That may be the impact of having lived near the Puget Sound in Seattle for the past 12 years, but his choice of words is fitting nonetheless. Turner is helping steer the future of Owen as chair of the school\u2019s Alumni Board, and his enthusiasm, drive and leadership are just the types of invaluable assets you\u2019d want in someone at the helm.<\/p>\n

When Jim Bradford, Dean of the Owen School, asked him to lead the board last year, Turner was both honored and surprised. Even Turner\u2019s assistant good-naturedly asked him if he was absolutely sure Bradford was serious. (Those are the kinds of self-effacing stories Turner likes to tell about himself.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t immediately tell [Bradford] yes, but I didn\u2019t have to think about it long,\u201d says Turner, Executive Vice President of Call Products for Marchex, a Seattle-based digital call advertising company.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because of his deep-running zeal for all things Vanderbilt. Turner is one of the youngest members of Owen\u2019s Board of Visitors, composed of corporate leaders from some of the world\u2019s most prominent companies, who advise the dean on curriculum, the needs of the business community and the overall strategic direction of the school. He also serves as a class representative on the school\u2019s Alumni Council, which encourages alumni participation and promotes philanthropic support. He even keynoted last year\u2019s Discover Weekend for prospective students and has helped hire Owen graduates. And as if that isn\u2019t enough, this marks his third year on the Alumni Board and second as its chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a passionate guy,\u201d says Dave DiFranco, MBA\u201999, a Principal at private equity firm Blue Point Capital Partners. \u201cWhatever he decides to spend his time on, it\u2019s 100 percent. That\u2019s true about SEC football, the Titans, the Owen School. That\u2019s how he is, and he inspires others, like me, to get involved, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having a well-respected classmate lead the Alumni Board gives DiFranco a sense of confidence. \u201cHe\u2019s not afraid to deal with tough stuff,\u201d he says of Turner. \u201cYou might not always like what Brent has to say, and he doesn\u2019t shy away from the tough issues. But that\u2019s what a leader does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s decision to immerse himself in board activity at the school was fueled in part by Bradford\u2019s all-hands-on-deck approach to bringing Owen closer to its goals. \u201cHe understands,\u201d Turner says, \u201cjust how important it is to have as many people in the boat as possible if you\u2019re trying to turn it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the Returns<\/h3>\n

Turner was inspired to accept a leadership role because he saw that Bradford valued alumni input and sought answers to difficult questions. \u201cI was impressed,\u201d Turner says, \u201cthat he was willing to tackle what had been the central issue at Owen, which was: \u2018What is the school\u2019s strategy going to be? What\u2019s going to be the role of rankings in determining our success?\u2019 That\u2019s a very hairy conversation to have, but I noticed him having it at both the Alumni Board level and Board of Visitors level as well as with faculty and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe period in my life when my perspectives on the business world, and the world in general, opened the most was the two years I spent at Owen.\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u2014Brent Turner<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cBrent is a doer, a no-nonsense guy who is passionate about Owen and committed to its success,\u201d Bradford says. \u201cThese qualities are the reason I picked him for this job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner bears in mind that many of his fellow board members travel thousands of miles for meetings because of a strong desire to \u201cmove things forward,\u201d as he says. He has redesigned the Alumni Board into a working board, with teams to help support the school in targeted areas, such as alumni connectivity, student recruitment, career placement and fundraising.<\/p>\n

Members have assignments and goals and report their progress regularly. \u201cThe idea is to make it meaty enough that it\u2019s appealing but not so bad that it smacks of volunteer labor,\u201d Turner says.<\/p>\n

Fellow Alumni Board member Russ Fleischer, MBA\u201991, who is CEO of HighJump Software, a supply chain management software company, offers his own take on Turner\u2019s style. \u201cHe\u2019s not shy about reaching out and getting people involved,\u201d Fleischer says. \u201cLike so many of us, he has a strong passion for the school. That\u2019s the attribute we both share\u2014a deep passion for the school and a deep willingness to do whatever will help the school succeed and thrive in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s personal focus as a board member\u2014improving alumni engagement\u2014is approached with his usual fervor. His challenge for his fellow alumni: \u201cI\u2019m going to invest now with my time, talent and treasure because I want to be part of the returns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s board experience has helped him see the value of every contribution. With classmate Alli Zaro Fitzgerald, MBA\u201999, he hosted a well-attended webinar in 2011, in which he presented his thoughts about the school\u2019s strategy. He followed with a live presentation to Seattle alumni.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that everyone who attended left the call with a renewed enthusiasm for Owen,\u201d says Fitzgerald, Director of Finance and Marketing at SecuriCheck LLC, a background research company. The positive vibe was created in part, she says, by Turner\u2019s characteristically frank discourse, particularly about the elephant in the room\u2014the perception by some alumni that the Owen School is undervalued in rankings. His message was clear: Any advancement will come about in large part from increased alumni involvement on many levels.<\/p>\n

Turner is quick to say that no one considers rankings the only end goal, knowing that a school\u2019s position can ebb and flow for no apparent reason. However, he says most people acknowledge that some of the rankings contain legitimate, objective measures of success and have to be heavily considered when planning and building strategy. In particular, they matter to prospective students and recruiters, who often perceive rankings as a litmus test of a school\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe philosophy for a long time has been to build a world-class business school and the rankings will follow,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of that that\u2019s true, and a big part that\u2019s not true. There are some tough choices that have to be forced by the market. The dean\u2019s big contribution is the message that we ought to take these more seriously, but we shouldn\u2019t sell out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alumni support is \u201cthe real chicken or the egg issue,\u201d Turner likes to say. He believes that, if Owen is to make significant strides forward, alumni need to engage and support the school now instead of waiting to see if the new strategy works. It won\u2019t be successful, he says, without their participation.<\/p>\n

After receiving some lackluster class alumni giving numbers via email in January, Fitzgerald recalled that it took about 30 seconds for another email to hit her inbox. This one, from Turner, simply said, \u201cLet\u2019s talk.\u201d Within minutes, a five-point plan was in place to stimulate class participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not afraid of difficult truths and approaches them head-on,\u201d Fitzgerald says. \u201cYet he\u2019s very approachable. He doesn\u2019t lead by intimidation or try to impress everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting Somewhere Together<\/h3>\n

When analyzing problems, Turner relies on his training as an engineer to help him remain dispassionate. \u201cThat\u2019s a gigantic asset in the business world,\u201d he says. In the same breath, though, he admits to being not as strong in other areas. \u201cOn the other end, I struggle a lot with ideation and creativity,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m completely lost in a marketing meeting or going over advertising copy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner majored in electrical engineering at the University of Memphis and went to work for Porter-Cable, a power tool company in Jackson, Tenn., after graduation. He was with Porter-Cable for nearly four years as parent company Pentair positioned the brand for sales in big-box stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an engineer, I had a chance to be in a lot of the management meetings,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I also walked the shop floor a lot and got to understand the differences between what the management team was trying to accomplish and what was actually happening on the front lines. It was very valuable. I learned how important it is to care about the people you are working with and who work for you. I learned the importance of clarifying their roles and making them feel safe if you wanted their best performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That perspective led him to think seriously about entering management. \u201cI can do this,\u201d he thought.<\/p>\n

Turner got to know an MBA intern from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern who was sent by Pentair to evaluate Porter-Cable\u2019s progress. The intern encouraged his interest in business, and Turner enrolled in some accounting classes locally. Surviving those, he then decided to take the GMAT, apply to \u201cthe big MBA schools,\u201d as he says, and see what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best fit, easily, was Owen,\u201d Turner says. His interview was affirming and straightforward. Everyone he met \u201cwas being real with each other,\u201d he says, \u201cand I did not forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His Vanderbilt degree gives him a great deal of pride these days. \u201cI will say that easily the period in my life when my perspectives on the business world, and the world in general, opened the most was the two years I spent at Owen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His classmates were \u201cphenomenal,\u201d he says, and his training matched that of his peers in the industry, adding, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine it being much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there was pressure on Turner and his classmates to do good work, \u201cwhat emerged was a collaborative, participatory environment,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a culture where everybody kind of understood we were all trying to get somewhere together. That\u2019s not necessarily true in a lot of schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Friedman, the Brownlee O. Currey Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Faculty and Research, remembers Turner as a stellar student, respected by his classmates. \u201cHe was focused on managing people and had a sense of the importance of relationships,\u201d Friedman says.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBrent\u2019s got a level head about him and a way of building relationships. He\u2019s focused on what we have to do and the need to get beyond planning and brainstorming to saying, \u2018Let\u2019s make things happen.\u2019\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u2014Ray Friedman<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

He\u2019s been equally impressed by Turner\u2019s work as an active alumnus. \u201cHe\u2019s got a level head about him and a way of building relationships,\u201d he says. \u201cHe\u2019s focused on what we have to do and the need to get beyond planning and brainstorming to saying, \u2018Let\u2019s make things happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating from Owen, Turner did a short stint with a private equity group in Dallas before moving to Seattle and a company called Avenue A, a startup focused on Internet advertising. Over the next nine years, Avenue A became aQuantive, which in turn became the biggest acquisition in Microsoft\u2019s history at a reported $6 billion in 2007.<\/p>\n

Turner, who had been Vice President of Operations for aQuantive, moved into the role of General Manager for Search and Media Network Businesses for Microsoft. He was part of the 2008 global rollout of Microsoft Media Network, Microsoft\u2019s online display media business. Then, in 2009, he helped lead the global launch of Bing, a Microsoft Web search engine that now also powers Yahoo! Search.<\/p>\n

From Microsoft, Turner headed to Marchex, a publicly traded company that is experiencing rebirth through a focus on digital call advertising. Marchex helps companies reach the right prospective customers using mobile media.<\/p>\n

Instead of advertisers calling customers, smartphones provide the opportunities for consumers to place calls through the digital ads that they encounter while searching and browsing the Internet. \u201cMost advertisers are intimidated by the complexity of figuring out how to place all those ads effectively,\u201d Turner says. \u201cThat creates a role for an intermediary. We develop relationships with publishers of mobile advertising and make placing ads with them easy. Our job is to drive phone calls for our advertiser partners in a way that works for them economically and is not overly complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner enjoys being on the front end of this new frontier in advertising. \u201cThere are a lot more opportunities than most people realize in these early stages,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Understanding the Conversation<\/h3>\n

Not surprising, Turner directs his energy into volunteer work in Seattle as well, chairing the board of REST, or Real Escape from the Sex Trade, a faith-based organization that seeks to divert at-risk minors from being trafficked into prostitution. There are a surprisingly large number of minors working as prostitutes in the Seattle area: REST puts current estimates at 450.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the garden variety case, a girl has a broken relationship with her parents and becomes a runaway,\u201d Turner says. He explains that she might take a job in a strip club or a bikini barista stand where she is then befriended by a pimp who makes her feel special, at least initially.<\/p>\n

Turner channels his business acumen into understanding, as he says, \u201cthe demand side of the equation so we can come up with strategies for reducing the number of \u2018johns\u2019 hiring the girls.\u201d REST also works to proactively identify girls who are at risk and give them alternatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to find choke points where we can prevent them from entering the life. We want to help them find work and understand their identity\u2014that they are children of God,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The work is difficult and emotionally demanding\u2014\u201cThis ain\u2019t for everybody,\u201d he explains\u2014but it\u2019s ultimately rewarding when girls come out of life on the streets.<\/p>\n

Although Turner loves Seattle and is connected to the city in many ways, he relishes each opportunity to return to Nashville. When not in meetings at Vanderbilt, he often hops in his car for a visit to Columbia, Tenn., where his mother lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably see her more often than most parents with local children,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

That filial devotion is not unlike the commitment he feels toward Owen. Turner believes that the school and its focus on an intimate community should not be taken any more for granted than a parent. It\u2019s a message he hammered home in a speech to last year\u2019s graduating class. \u201cMake sure you appreciate just how special our culture is at Owen. Don\u2019t forget just how awesome your classmates, faculty and fellow alumni are because you have had the opportunity to get to know them so well,\u201d he said in the speech.<\/p>\n

Turner is frequently reminded of the high caliber of people associated with the school, particularly in his work with the Board of Visitors. \u201cThis is an impressive stakeholder group,\u201d he says. \u201cThese people are used to board seats and understand the conversation. They\u2019re very good at getting their fingers right on some of the key issues or root drivers of problems and then stating their views on how to solve them. It\u2019s pretty amazing in that crowd how quickly you go from stating an issue to some fairly clear and prescriptive input at a tangible level.\u201d<\/p>\n

As deserving as Turner is to be among those Board of Visitors members, he can\u2019t help but inject some self-effacing humor into the discussion of his own place on the board. \u201cThey\u2019re lowering their standards to have me on this thing,\u201d he says. And then, he pauses to reflect on the scope of his alumni work at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my life, I\u2019ve had the opportunity to do lots of things that are pretty amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a guy from Middle Tennessee, Brent Turner, MBA\u201999, sure uses a lot of nautical terms. That may be the impact of having lived near the Puget Sound in Seattle for the past 12 years, but his choice of words is fitting nonetheless. Turner is helping steer the future of Owen as chair of the school\u2019s Alumni Board, and his enthusiasm, drive and leadership are just the types of invaluable assets you\u2019d want in someone at the helm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":10662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,15],"tags":[16,67],"class_list":["post-3632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover","category-features","tag-main","tag-spring-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8790,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions\/8790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}