As part of Lenovo Pro Community’s ongoing effort to bring you valuable business advice from some of the most talented people in their fields, we introduce the Resident Expert Series, as well as our first Resident Expert, John Downey.

John has extensive experience and knowledge in a variety of business management topics, but for this phase of our Resident Expert Series, John will focus on leadership topics including the following:

• Is there one leadership style that is right?
  • We’ll explore different types of leadership styles and flush out the pros/cons of each and their effect on the organization.
• Depressurize: Proven Strategies to Improve Your Effectiveness & Reduce Your Stress as a Leader
  • Being a leader can be exhausting. We will explore proven strategies that help scale your leadership efforts while reducing your day-today stress with your team & business.
• Don’t run from a recession, lead your team through it.
  • Recessions are scary. Use these tactics to maintain business momentum, keep team morale up, and do more with less.
• My team culture is out of control…help!
  • Organizational culture has a huge impact on productivity & retention. We’ll chart a path to help leaders gain positive momentum.
• Making Your Vision a Reality
  • We’ll explore how to take your business aspirations, translate it to a planning process with your team, and manage your progress as you march towards achievement.
• Set your team up for success: Create a closed loop talent system
  • Human beings are what make a business successful. Learn how to set values for your organization, hire the right type of team for your culture, assign individual goals that support your vision, and performance manage through this closed loop.

About John

John Downey is a seasoned business executive with extensive experience in building and managing market-leading international businesses. He has been instrumental in driving growth and profitability for companies ranging from completely new ventures to multibillion-dollar P&Ls.

John's most recent role was as the Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer for Hurtigruten, a global leader in expedition travel with nearly $700M in non-pandemic annual revenue. In this role, he was responsible for driving growth and innovation across the company's commercial and marketing functions.

Prior to Hurtigruten, John worked at Amazon, where he held leadership roles for Amazon Go, the world's most advanced shopping technology, and Fulfillment By Amazon. He was instrumental in developing and launching new products and services that have transformed the retail and logistics industries.

John began his career at Motorola, where he had global responsibility for a market-leading Bluetooth wireless headset portfolio of over 20 product lines. He developed and executed strategies that helped the company maintain its market leadership position and drive revenue growth.

John holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Psychology, also from Northwestern.

About John’s Company: Crux Advisors

Crux Advisors, the company founded by John, is a strategic advisory firm that leverages mental models and processes developed at top-performing companies like Amazon to guide executives (CEOs, C-Suite, and VP level) and their teams in solving strategic, operational, and organizational problems while reducing their own personal leadership stress at the same time.

Crux helps its clients achieve tangible improvements in revenue and profitability across their businesses through individual coaching, team-level seminars, and longer engagements where they embed with the leadership team to diagnose more systemic problems and develop solution paths.

Crux Advisor’s approach is rooted in a deep understanding of business strategy and a proven track record of success. With John's leadership and expertise, the company is poised to help businesses of all sizes and industries achieve their goals and drive sustainable growth.

We look forward to bringing you the content outlined above and more from our first Resident Expert, but we also want to know what topics you’re interested in.

Let us know which leadership topics you’d like to know more about, say hello to John, join the Leadership group and let us know what you are looking forward to here!

Let us know what you’d like future Resident Experts to focus on in the comments below!