Anne Bibb 0:11
Welcome back to Unexpected Journey. Today we are here with Chuck Koskovich. I know that I’m probably going to say that wrong 500 times, but he’ll correct me. You are the CEO at T tech engage. You’ll also tell me what that’s all about in a little while. Chuck is an experienced business executive and dynamic people leader with a demonstrated history of senior leadership roles within leading technology, business process outsourcing, and digital service firms. His broad leadership experience includes leading large customer support operations and client-facing leading teams for companies including T tech, BlackBerry, oh my goodness, we’re gonna start dating ourselves here, Xerox Concentric, and TELUS International. We are so glad that you were able to join us today, Chuck.

Chuck Koskovich 1:03
An honor to be here. Thank you so much, and Happy New Year.

Anne Bibb 1:07
Happy New Year. Happy Happy Spring happy first quarter. We are just you know, happy to be in 2023.

Chuck Koskovich 1:14
Indeed, indeed.

Anne Bibb 1:17
So, Chuck, you got involved in the call center industry in a very interesting way. How did you get involved in call centers?

Chuck Koskovich 1:27
Yeah, that’s it’s a great story. And one I think about often because there are still a lot of parallels to my career today, but I had a very good friend whose father actually was working for MCI telecommunications at the time. And at that time, MCI, you know, this burgeoning company taking on AT&T. And, again, it was after divestiture, but it was just this really neat, you know, entrepreneurial company. And my friend said, You got to go apply there, my dad says, there are great opportunities for young people. And so I went over there, I actually applied for a client services role and had zero experience. So they didn’t hire me for that. But they said, Chuck, look, there’s this really neat call center opportunity, you should go become a call center agent, I thought, Okay, that’s interesting. And I had just graduated from college and didn’t have a job, per se, lined up a full-time job. And so I said, Look, this is a neat opportunity for me, and took the opportunity I competed for the role and was able to join. And so I actually started as a frontline agent. And that’s, that’ll be 32 years coming up here this year, and never looked back. been in the industry the entire time since,

Anne Bibb 2:30
you know, I think that most of us who have been the most successful in this industry did start out in the front. And we’ve used that journey and what we have learned along the way, and remember that experience of what it felt like to take that call

Chuck Koskovich 2:48
it unbelievable. In fact, I still remember, and again, I’m really going today, but we’ll talk about BlackBerry in a minute. But myself when I think about when I first started, because, you know, we had paper training manuals, right, you know, the internet was a thing, but it was not nearly what it was today, online learning was really nascent. You know, I remember still the paper manuals, the green screen, you know, because again, we worked from multiple monitors, and we had a lot of green screen, I don’t think Gui was introduced until I was probably a frontline team leader. So, you know, these are, you know, but in I was talking with someone just yesterday, and as much as things have changed, honestly, you know, the lot hasn’t changed the way you work in the contact center environment, the way you interact with your folks. All of that, I think is, you know, there’s still a lot of those still same principles, but a lot has changed, but it was, you know, it’s still that same caste, environment. And again, one of the things I thrived on and I just relished the opportunity I had, because with MCI and then many other companies that you noted, just some great foundational for me, as I’ve been able to build my career in this industry.

Anne Bibb 3:56
And you what I find interesting, though, is that you were with T tech. And now you are again with T tech.

Chuck Koskovich 4:05
Yeah. After almost 13 years. Yeah, please.

Anne Bibb 4:08
Yeah, I was gonna say, it’s almost like a full circle. So I mean, how did you get started with T tech? Why did you leave? Why did you come back? I mean, that’s a circular kind of world there.

Chuck Koskovich 4:20
You know, growing up in Denver, you know, TeleTech at the time rebranded T tech a few years back, you know, was sort of a pioneer in the industry. And so we knew about them. And you know, they had recruited pretty heavily in the Denver area, I had an opportunity to compete for a role there. Even before I went there, I competed for a role as a site leader, opted not to take that role. And that’s when I first moved into to Dallas sourcing was doing some different things with a couple of other different firms. But I had an opportunity to join as a vice president, and that was back in 2004. And what a neat opportunity and again, I was, you know, really proud to be part of a company that was headquartered there. We’re in Denver, again, a pioneer in the industry. And I spent about six years there left in 2010. As a senior vice president, having run all of the Americas at that time, so had a nice career jump there, and then took a hiatus. You mentioned it for nearly 13 years. I actually rejoined this past September. And why are we joined? There’s just so much DNA at the company. I always competed against t tech when I was with, you know, TELUS International, and Xerox and concentrics. But there was always a special place in my heart for the leadership, senior leadership team, Ken Tuchman, who founded still with the company, the company has been in place for two years, just this past fall. And there’s just something special about the company about the brand. And so when I had an opportunity to go back, I didn’t look back. And it was just, it’s been awesome. I didn’t even know I was gone for so many years. And honestly, it feels like I never left. And it’s been really amazing to come back. There’s still some amazing people. There’s some new people too, but there’s some amazing people that are still with the company. And I think we were going to continue to take on and, you know, reinvent the industry, if you will continue to take on new challenges, new opportunities, both on the engaged business, which I know you want to talk about, but also the digital side of our business, which is, which was also an important element of why I returned.

Anne Bibb 6:23
Yeah, I’m curious about that. Because you said specifically when we were talking a few weeks ago, now, I’m the CEO of T tech engage. I’m not the CEO of T tech, I’m the CEO of T tech engage. What does that mean? Yeah, absolutely.

Chuck Koskovich 6:38
So we really look at our business in a couple different ways. The core business, which is largely what you would know, is traditional business process outsourcing, you know, customer experience work, but it’s broad write everything from we’ve got an agility side of the business, we do a variety of different capabilities, not only selling but you know, CX, as well as leading to dx services or digital services. But years ago, several years ago, you know, Canon and the leadership team at T tech, founded T tech digital, which is really a full services digital services company. And the premise was to leverage the great foundation that we had within T tech core business or TeleTech, at the time, and really spun that into, you know, many of our clients have needs from a digital services perspective. And so whether it’s existing embedded face clients or new prospects, you know, the digital evolution that’s happening, customers want and need those services. And so what a unique opportunity to not only take the you know, we work with some of the biggest and brightest brands in the world today, have an opportunity to serve those customers from a customer experience perspective, but then also help them solve their digital needs as well. And so we made a very intentional effort to keep the company separate. They the way we would describe it as is they’re distinct, but they are connected. And so we go to market with a digital services brand, T tech digital, but we also go to market as T tech engage and engage again, the core BPO, traditional CX services that we compete against, you know, the many of the competitors that you mentioned earlier.

Anne Bibb 8:09
Very interesting. Now, one of the things that you do, as the CEO is manage the operations, and I’m curious, how does the relationship between as you’ve done and you’ve, you’ve been an operations leader, most of your career? How do you feel that the relationship between operations, and really the team that manages the portfolio of the account, whether you call it the account management team, or BD, or what have you, some people are calling it customer success? Now? How does that impact the business? How does that relationship impact business?

Chuck Koskovich 8:56
Yeah, it’s it is paramount that they all work together. So at t Tech, we have, obviously a delivery organization that I have the great responsibility and honor to lead. And then we have a portfolio organization. And these are leaders that, you know, again, you really own the client relationships, so to speak, they own not only making sure that we continue to, you know, grow those relationships, that we find new opportunities. And so there’s a there’s a strong partnership, it has to be, you know, a strong partnership between the two. And then we have a completely separate go to market team as well. But and that has to be, you know, obviously connected. But we have, and I’ve been, you mentioned that I’ve done most of my roles in operations, I did spend a considerable amount of time as a client success leader as well. And so I understand the, the uniqueness of that and the importance of that working, you know, to go and understand the needs of the client, make sure that their needs are founded into the commercial agreements and the structure that we provide for them. But those relationships need to be strong and we partner every single day. In fact, I spend probably a third of my day with our client success partners within the portfolios, along with clients, because again, you know, we need to make sure that we’re, you know, really dovetail together in terms of the way that the clients expectations are, as well as we’re operating the business. And so it is an absolute imperative that we work really closely together. And then we’ve got shared objectives. In fact, if you looked at our scorecards that we would send out for both the delivery teams as well as portfolio teams, they essentially have the same scorecard. They’ve got slightly different weightings because of our different responsibilities. But they’re all focused on shareholder value on client experience, and our frontline team members experience, and then they’re underpinned by the corporate values. And so again, while they might have slightly different weightings, we really still look at the same, you know, objectives from from shareholder client and frontline team, frontline team member perspectives.

Anne Bibb 10:52
So as you’re doing that, and as you’re putting, you mentioned, you were in client services at some point, whether in, it’s interesting to me how some, some companies are calling it client services, some call it account management, some are calling it customer success. And I think client services and customer success are two very different things. But I’ve seen such a kind of a mishmash and merge of these terms and job descriptions lately. But they all have to kind of segment the clients and the teams to take care of the clients. Because whether it’s by verticals, whether it’s by size, whether in order to make sure that things are getting taken care of appropriately. What have you seen fail? What have you seen be successful as you’re putting these away? Whether it be from his client services standpoint, whether it be from an operational perspective, you’ve been here, as you said, 32 years? You’ve seen a lot, you’ve done a lot? What’s good, what’s bad? Yeah, and

Chuck Koskovich 11:58
I think you’re right, with respect to the, you know, the nomenclature for the roles, you know, you know, if I’ve seen business development, account management, client success, I mean, I think at the end of the day, what I think is most important between delivery, and we’ll call it in our portfolio teams, which we have what we call portfolio teams. Within the portfolio teams, we have what we call Client Success partners, that’s the kind of the official role for the individual who, you know, shear here that would go and work on behalf of the client, right to make sure anti tech to make sure that we actually can deliver, when what I’ve seen work really well. And what I’ve seen fail what I’ll talk about what, what works really well. And that is just making sure at the end of the day, that we understand what the client really needs, right? Many, you know, every one of us goes to goes to market with our clients, and have, you know, a master services agreement or a statement of work in place. But when you boil it all down, what I really look to do is to make sure that we’ve got, you know, the service promise excellent metrics in place. And that would be, you know, really focused on a balanced scorecard. So what’s important, you know, on efficiency and effectiveness and CSAT. And so we really tried to boil it down working with our clients success partners to go back to the client, and make sure regardless of all of these things that are in these broad statements, works and master services agreements, that we really boil it down to what really matters for the client, what really matters for their end user customers. And so those are the things that we partner on heavily. And I think when we do that, so if I partner heavily with our clients, success partners, to get that right with our clients. And then we embed that into the scorecards for our frontline teams. That, to me is where I see success, I think, when we don’t do that, and when we’re not engaged, and when we don’t have that strong multi level function with the client. So for example, our client success partners, they take prime on the client relationships. That being said, the delivery folks are absolutely paramount in those as well. And so we spent a lot of time working together, traveling together on client premise together in the delivery operations together. Because again, that’s how I think you bring it all together. So when those things aren’t working well together, and when you don’t take that approach. And that’s when I find that you dropped the ball for the client or you dropped the ball for the frontline teams. And then there isn’t that opportunity to best serve at the end of the day, the end user customer.

Anne Bibb 14:19
That’s a really good point. And I think that I’d like to dig in a little bit more when it comes into kind of talking about balancing the client needs, the business needs, and the employee needs because you can’t make everybody happy all the time. But before I do that, I want to try and give the client or the people listening an opportunity to know Chuck a little bit better. Because you’ve been around the industry a long time. You’ve worked at some pretty big, well known companies and you know, let’s get into Chuck’s head a little bit. Have you ever played a game called this or that?

Chuck Koskovich 14:59
I think I have Yes.

Anne Bibb 15:00
Okay. All right. So this is not new to you. So I’m gonna give you to stop you. So I’m gonna give you two words or phrases, and you pick whichever one that resonates most with you and tell me why. I’ll try not to make it too, you know, too, too out there, right? This is a family show, and not really a family show. But you know what I mean? So given that you worked with Blackberry, I thought this would be a really interesting one to throw out there. Android, or iPhone,

Chuck Koskovich 15:35
iPhone, for sure. And it took me a long time now as a as a proud BlackBerry Crackberry, I think at the time. In fact, part of my story, when I saw when I left T tech, the first time I went to work for Blackberry, and at that time, it was the fastest growing company in the world. And everybody Well, I think everybody that I knew, at that time was using a Blackberry,

Anne Bibb 15:58
either a Blackberry or a palm pilot.

Chuck Koskovich 16:01
I did have a palm pilot for a brief time. And so I remember and I had two teenagers at that time, man, and

Anne Bibb 16:09
froze to leave you.

Chuck Koskovich 16:11
I did. And I remember we had just moved to Texas, and both of them were in middle school. And here we are, you know, they’re on blackberries. Right? Because you know, you can’t, you know, you work for the firm. You

Anne Bibb 16:26
This was the early phases of this for teenagers.

Chuck Koskovich 16:30
Yeah, it was amazing. But, but right at that time, we’re about a year and a half, two years into the iPhone launch, right. And so what was happening is our children were starting to be exposed to their friends who had iPhones and they weren’t, you know, on the same platform. And so it took a little while and took actually after I left BlackBerry to, to win the graces of my children, because they were still on BlackBerry Messenger. And, and again, it was a free service. And it was awesome. I loved it. But no, I’ve migrated to the iPhone platform. To be very honest, I’ve never used an Android device but so I’m not I’m open to it. But I you know, I’m a bit of a late adopter to technology. I want to see it all work. And I just like to make sure it works. And it’s functional. But I use iPhone today.

Anne Bibb 17:16
Gotcha. All right. Gotcha. No, I was very curious.

Chuck Koskovich 17:20
this my Blackberry. I do. It was it was awesome.

Anne Bibb 17:25
You’re telling me you don’t have one just stored in a drawer somewhere?

Chuck Koskovich 17:29
There may be the blue one was the blueberry? No, if you remember that one that was my favorite. So lots of fun.

Anne Bibb 17:36
I may or may not be as dated as Chuck. Awesome stuff. All right. One more. And then we’ll go back and dig in a little bit. Air guitar or air drums?

Chuck Koskovich 17:51
Oh, air drums for sure. Ah, good old just Yeah, I wouldn’t say I’m good at it. But I do

Anne Bibb 17:57
Everybody’s good at Air drum.

Chuck Koskovich 18:00
More than the air guitar. But you know, one thing I didn’t say is I actually want to learn how to play the piano. So when I retire, that’s what I want to do. But both of those are good. But Air Air Air drums for sure.

Anne Bibb 18:10
Okay, well, we can you can play us out as we go out later. All right, going back into the serious stuff. So you know, I think like I was saying, there, we’ve got three things to look at, whenever we are looking at our relationships with, with our programs and our clients, we’ve got what’s good for the client, we’ve got what’s good for our employees, we’ve got what’s good for the business, and in a perfect world, they would all line up. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. And you are generally right in the mix. You’re right at Center Stage, trying to line all of those things up. So, you know, how do you and and unfortunately, our employees are oftentimes the ones that are dealing with the brunt of it. Because from a contractual standpoint, we do what we can to make the first to the client and the business needs meet. How are you from an operational standpoint, the CEO, oh, the leader of operations, that the big man really handling those employee needs? And what’s coming up from that, in this world today?

Chuck Koskovich 19:28
Yeah, and, you know, as a member of the team, and obviously, having had the opportunity because again, at Blackberry, I was on the other side of the fence,

Anne Bibb 19:35
you were on the other side, right? You were the person who was dealing with the decisions that people were making.

Chuck Koskovich 19:41
Absolutely. And I remember working with the teams that we had worked with a couple of great partners at that time. And and that was really my job was to help you know, build out that you know, outsourcing strategy. Most of the work was in house at the time so So I remember those experiences today even because, again, as someone on the other side of the fence, you know, Do you make decisions about, you know, you know, metrics or locations that you serve or volumes and you know, you know, in the way you work with your partners that can have significant impact. And so I think first and foremost, at least from our side of the fence on the tech side, I think it’s important to start, you know, working with companies that, you know, share your values, I guess that’s the easiest way I can say it. And I think we’re really intentional about that, there’s companies that perhaps wouldn’t share our values, that may not be a great fit to work with, and maybe they, they drive too much occupancy, or they drive different behaviors that will not allow us to help achieve our mission. We know in this industry, if you can, you know, obviously keep an engaged workforce, they generally will stay with you longer. And if they stay with you longer, they generally perform better. I know, that sounds pretty elementary, but those are really, I believe, still the basic building blocks,

Anne Bibb 20:55
that sounds like call center 101.

Chuck Koskovich 20:57
It really is. And I think, and I think there are, if you don’t have alignment, though, with the clients, right, and if you don’t have shared values, that can be disrupted very, very quickly. And then to your point, you can have your employees hanging in the balance, right, they can be burned out, they can be stressed out, and then ultimately, they choose to go find a different career. And so I spend my time a lot in that, and in the middle of all of that wanted to make sure that, you know, and again, underpinning all of this, it starts with a good relationship, right? So when we go and work with a customer, you know, we don’t wait until there’s a problem, right? We go spend time with them and understand what’s going on in their business. Right? We go to earnings report, we read their 10k we went we understand what’s going on and their business cycles. So we can help them as they go through. Because you know, companies are gonna go through, just like all of us, they’re gonna go through ups and downs. And I think it’s important to understand those business trends. And so when they see swings and volumes, or they see changes or challenges with their business, you know, business climate, and they work with multiple, multiple suppliers, one, we want to be the best. So they continue to keep work with us. But we want to make sure that we understand those things. And so we can react to those things more quickly. So we don’t have employees hanging in the balance. But now it’s an ongoing effort. And so I think, again, it’s choosing who you work with pretty wisely. So making sure that you align your values with the customers that you work partners that you work with, it’s making sure that you’ve got the right you have agreements in place that allow for a fair and balanced operating environment. And then it’s making sure that you nurture those relationships. And I learned from some great, great individuals in this industry, the power of making sure that you spend time with your clients, not just when you need, you know, volume or when you need more work, but when you know when you need to make sure you understand what their business looks like. And so I spend,

Anne Bibb 22:46
a lot of you say that again, because I think so many people forget that piece, that’s a really important piece, spend time, not just with your clients, right, but with your employees, with your peers, spending time, no matter what’s happening, not just when you need something, not just when things are bad, that’s such an important thing.

Chuck Koskovich 23:11
And I think that goes across so many different things in business in life, right. And again, I think the people that I surround myself that, you know, press into the relationships, right, those are the people that I see get more and again, in an honest and authentic way, right, not just to do it, but and again, so we really try to make an effort here. And again, I’ve mentioned before, but I learned from some great people, it’s just the power of that. And it’s nurturing the relationships, it’s, you know, calling on your clients and clients. And again, the company’s I’ve been so fortunate to work with so many great companies, but where we’ve went and spent time on our delivery operations, right, and broken bread with our employees, had meals with them had one on ones with them, skip levels with them, and just listen, right and understand what’s going on. I mean, you can learn so much. And it goes the same with clients, if you just really understand what their priorities are. That’s where I like to come back to what I mentioned before it really, you know, again, we get hung up on the on the commercial agreements that we have in place. And I understand that those are really important. But when you really boil it down to what matters for the customers, and if you can really get those metrics that matter. And get those on your employee scorecards, it opens everything up, it changes the entire dynamic of the relationship. And generally, you have a better chance of serving them, and then they’re at their end user customers, and in our business that allows you to stay one with that customer and potentially even grow with that customer.

Anne Bibb 24:30
That is really true and how, you know, let’s just go into this one without naming names, because in this business, I’m never going to ask anybody a name of their client unless there’s a reason that they can or want to share it. But without naming names, can you give us some information about maybe your most successful program, you know, why was it successful? Is it something that your client has done? Is it something that you’ve done? Maybe all of the above

Chuck Koskovich 25:00
Yeah, I think yeah, I think it is, I think it’s a joint effort for sure. It’s certainly not one sided. You know, here at T tech, and again, one of the reasons I came back, we’ve got some 20 Year 25 year relationships, right, one of the financial services companies that we have today is was here, when I, when I left the deck the first time, and the company’s still thriving, it’s obviously a brand, you would know very well. And it’s one where we’ve been able to maintain that relationship over it’s like 22 years. And now. And it’s interesting, because, you know, one of the senior leaders is still with that firm, and I was just, it was so awesome to come back and reconnect with him as I came back to T tech. And that individual serves on our client Advisory Board, we’ve got just a great relationship with this firm. But it’s a two way street. Right. And there hasn’t been easy times. Right, we went through, you know, the financial crisis, you know, years ago, I, you know, volumes have, you know, obviously changed lines of business have changed. They’ve had leadership changes on their end. But the core principles, I think, between both companies have always been that we’re going to make sure that we focus on the end user customer. And I think the way the not only the relationship was Boston, but the way that commercial terms, everything, it’s not about the contract, it’s about what do we need to do to make sure that we’re providing world class service to our customers. And I think if you can keep that as the Northstar, then generally, you’re going to have a better outcome. And again, I think that’s what allows these long term relationships to flourish. So that’s one great example. And again, I think there’s many others, including with some of the other firms that I’ve been with, where you’ve had these long term relationships. But generally, again, it’s just establishing the key things and really focusing on what really matters. And in this case, because we serve our customers, our clients who have end user customers, the end user customer has to be in the in the balance, so they need to be the ones that were focused on focusing on.

Anne Bibb 26:55
I love hearing that a client that has been with you for that long is on your client advisory board. That, to me is amazing. And it feels like that is potentially a reason why they have been with you that long. And that you’re still listening. I’m a huge fan of setting up plus customer advisory boards, I help other organizations do that. One of the biggest challenges that I have to help organizations overcome is on that first one, what is the agenda? Because there is this innate desire to present instead of listen. And, you know, I so when you’re having your client advisory boards, how was that struggle there, too?

Chuck Koskovich 27:42
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the other thing, there’s not only those not only that, there’s I think the from the clients perspective, they don’t want to be sold to either. I think that’s something that I’ve also picked up on. Because, again, we bring every, you know, we bring in a lot of folks to present and share our vision and our story, and we really want them to know, but it has to be done, in my opinion. And again, what I’ve seen work really well, is what you said, it needs to be an opportunity to listen. And so there’s there’s several things we do and again, the team that leads that within T Tech has done an amazing job, I had an opportunity, just after I rejoined in October to spend time at the client Advisory Board meeting in Denver with the the cab that we have, again, what an awesome group, again, across all different industries. You know, the the individual that I mentioned before participating, we have, you know, folks that are brand new, you know, to T tech, so we you know, we use across a variety of different industries. But we’ve got you know, folks that have been on you know, are with the company or excuse me, sir, we’ve been serving for over 20 years. I think it’s setting up the agenda we listen and so our CEO of T tech engaged in President of T tech show he swung back had a session just with our clients, right, nobody else in the room. And it was their opportunity to say, you know, this is what this is where we see our company going this is you know, we’d love to get your vision Celli. And they shared some really valuable stuff. And some of it we never learned and you know, Shelley’s going to take some of that and, and use that as we continue to, you know, to unfold our strategy. I think the other piece is we always allow our clients to go and have time together without us. And I think that’s also, you know, I think invaluable. And I think that also brings them back to the client advisory board because they feed off one another, you know, without T tech in the way so to speak. And so I think that is always huge. And then just to validate that we’re thinking about the right things, right. You know, in those most recent session, there’s a lot of focus on labor, given what’s going on with the labor dynamic and geo expansion and different things that’s happening across the globe. But I think if you if you keep the focus on that if you keep it focused on listening, allowing the clients to engage with one another and not sell in an overtly way I think they can be extremely powerful sessions they certainly have been for for T tech.

Anne Bibb 29:58
The general rule of thumb that I’ve always used in a cab is the client should be, unless it’s those one off sessions, I love Shelley having the one off, where it’s just her in the cab. The general is 80% of the client talking 20% You talking. 80% should be you listening. The rest of it is yes, updating them on what’s going on with your organization that you listened to the last session? What have you done with what you learned from last time? You know, it should be a very small portion of what you are sharing versus what they are telling, and you’re listening, and you’re learning from them. And I love that you’re letting them you know, talk to each other and learn that is also something that I am very for and tell people and that the fear that ignites. Oh, we’re gonna let our clients talk to each other? By not, what’s the problem?

Chuck Koskovich 31:00
Powerful? Yeah. I mean, it’s one of the things that I hear the most from our clients today, if I’m with them, in a session, maybe on premise at a location is, you know, they don’t want secrets, they don’t want trade secrets, but they want to know what others are experiencing.

Anne Bibb 31:17
And with the labor market and other things, and you

Chuck Koskovich 31:21
know, in a company of our size, we have the good fortune of working with some great brands, and, and there’s lots of different best practices. And so, you know, the clients have that opportunity to interact with one another, that’s even more valuable, but they’re always looking for, you know, looking for leaders in the industry, such as T tech to, to, you know, to share those best practices, both in that way. And then again, through the clients having those relationships. And they, of course, like I’m assuming, carry those relationships on, you know, outside of the client advisory board, but it’s, I think it just gives it gives all of us an opportunity to better ourselves and the industry and ultimately, the experience that we provide to the marketplace.

Anne Bibb 31:59
Absolutely. So looking back over your journey, is there anything you would change?

Chuck Koskovich 32:08
You know, I think, I think maybe spending a little bit more time. You know, one area that I haven’t, I’ve really never spent time on in the in the industry was within HR and in finance. And again, I have such respect for those organizations. And, and I always say, I always thought if I went back to school, because I have a Master’s, but it’s an organizational management, which is very fitting for what I do, but I always thought, you know, getting an MBA, because again, I think, you know, that’s an area that I think is so important in this industry and all industry business, but I wouldn’t maybe spend time, I’d love to, you know, and again, I think that maybe we never know. But I think having an opportunity to serve as a chro or having an opportunity, you know, because I think that those different experiences can just help better around you as well. I spent the vast majority of my time in frontline delivery operations, and client success, which has been just fabulous, I’m so blessed. But I’d say I’d love to, I would have loved to had an opportunity to do maybe a stint in one of those organizations as well.

Anne Bibb 33:08
So there, we have a lot of listeners and across all levels of employment, from the C suite down to, you know, VPS, directors, senior managers, and some of our managers and directors or they’re looking to work their way up, they want to eventually be in the C suite. So what is your advice to the managers and directors out there who are watching and they want to move up into the C suite someday?

Chuck Koskovich 33:41
Yeah, I think there’s a couple things that I would leave I think first and foremost. You know, it comes down to being humble and never forgetting where your roots are. And again, I we talked a lot about, you know, starting as a frontline agent, and I have never forgotten that. And I know we didn’t mention here I think we did in our earlier talks. But I look at the team leaders and Frontline operations managers, and those are still today, the most important people in our company, and again, so for those that are in those roles today and that have aspirations of doing something more, continue to press into that because you’re in an amazing training ground. And again, I was with some great companies that I had the great opportunity to learn and grow and work alongside others. It’s look, I think it’s it’s listening to your leaders. It’s surrounding yourself with good people. There’s no way that we get done what we do here at T tech without being surrounded by great people. I continue to when I work with a leader that is on my team. One of the things that I talk about is like I can’t I can’t operate your business from an airplane or Dallas, Texas where I live or, you know, from Denver, where our HQ is, you know, these leaders have huge responsibilities. They’ve got keys to run those operations. So you’ve got to be surrounded by a great people. So I would say surround yourself with great people. Continue to learn continue get to listen, I think we talked a lot about that on this podcast. And again, whether it’s to your clients or to your frontline teams, making intentional efforts to do that. And then I think is we also talked about building relationships, you know, I build relationships across the aisle and across different organizations, you know, not just when you need them. But before you need them, I think that’s really important to do. And again, I’d say, and work your butt off. I think, for me, I put in extra hours, I still remember those days at MCI, any opportunity, I could take on extra hours do different things. And maybe I’ll say this to this industry in particular, allows you always talk about it, you can kind of tip your toe in if you want, or you can kind of submerge yourself. And I think I’ve been very blessed to, to work in a lot of different circles. But when those chances have come, I’ve worked to go get them. And I think I think that’s the other thing. Don’t Don’t, don’t be shy, don’t hesitate. If there’s an opportunity, and you’ve put in the time and you’ve got the experience, then go compete for it and and then work your butt off there. And then that’ll lead to the next, the next opportunity for you.

Anne Bibb 36:07
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Chuck, really appreciate it. If somebody wants to reach out to you. One, why would they reach out to you? And two, how would they reach out to you?

Chuck Koskovich 36:20
Yeah, so look, I’m I love to mentor I’ve been I’ve had some great mentors along my career. And so I get a lot of people reaching out on LinkedIn. So I’m certainly available on LinkedIn, you can find me Chuck cost KOVITCH. And I’m also I think that’s probably the easiest place and to be honest with you, so maybe I’ll leave it at that. I don’t use Twitter. And so maybe some of the other social media platforms. But LinkedIn is a great way and I’d love to connect with you. And so please, please reach out. And, again, for anything at all. I mean, whether it’s mentoring advice or if your firm’s, you know, maybe you’re looking for, you know, leadership, I’ve got a good network of colleagues out there that I could refer. Maybe there’s a way that we could serve you here at T tech, again, any of those ways or just to say hello, I’d be honored to connect.

Anne Bibb 37:09
Perfect. Well, again, thank you for joining us on Unexpected Journey. Really had a great talk today, and we will see everyone next week. Thanks, everybody.

Chuck Koskovich 37:19
Thanks, Dan. Thanks all