I ran a $35 million organization with five hundred staff for thirty years. Today I lead a Vistage group of chief executives, and I advise owners and boards on the same decisions.
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Who he is
Matt spent thirty years as CEO of one of Illinois' largest social-impact organizations, running five hundred staff and a $35 million operation. Over those thirty years he built its endowment from nothing to $40 million.
So the calls he takes now are calls he has already made himself, with his own payroll and his own board on the other side of them. He has had to cut a program he built. He has had to tell a funder no. He has sat through the week where the story broke.
He still takes operating roles when an organization needs one, so this is current work rather than a career he is looking back on.
What he advises on
These are the five that come up, in the words leaders use when they pick up the phone.
What to do when the information is incomplete, the board wants an answer this week, and the window is closing.
Telling your staff, your board and your funders the same true thing, in the words each of them can actually hear.
Getting a board to govern instead of manage, and getting an executive team pointed in the same direction.
Why people stay, why they leave, and which of those a leader can actually change.
The layoff, the investigation, the funder who walks, the story that breaks. What to do in the first forty-eight hours.
How he works
Matt does not publish client names, client lists or case studies. What he is told stays with him, including the fact that the conversation happened at all.
What a leader brings him is usually the thing they have not told their own board yet.
He works with a small number of leaders at a time, because this is a standing relationship rather than a project with an end date. The value is being the person who already has the context when the call comes at eight at night.
Impact Boardroom is the one exception to the privacy. It is a group program a foundation or a board can sponsor openly, for the leaders coming up behind the one in the chair.
Background
Matt stepped down from the Harvard Business School coaching role to lead his own Vistage group and continue his work through Glassroot Partners.
The firm
Matt co-founded Glassroot Partners with Mike Silvestri, a CPA who builds software.
The firm writes the strategy and then builds the tools that run it, so a client leaves with a written plan, a list of who owns what, and software their team uses. Thirty-one of those tools are running for clients today, and you can see what they are.
Glassroot works with chief executives, owners, boards, foundation leaders and professional athletes, across industries from mining and heavy construction to nonprofits and federal contracting.
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Say which of these it is and roughly what is going on. I will tell you whether I am the right person, and who is if I am not.
Ongoing counsel for a chief executive, an owner or an executive team.
Keynotes, workshops, retreats, podcasts and interviews.
Board advisory and governance work.