September, 1999

Show Me the Stock Options!
Meet the agent to the corporate stars.
By Rochelle Garner

Neal Lenarsky wants you to help him help you. It's the mantra from the movie, Jerry Maguire, and it rings as true for Lenarsky as it ever did for Tom Cruise as the angst-ridden sports agent. Because while the bespectacled Lenarsky, 42, looks more like a yuppified rabbi than a power broker, he's every bit the top agent for today's heavy hitters. Only for Lenarsky, who is founder and president of Strategic Transitions (STI) of Woodland Hills, Calif., his clients are all business executives.

That's right, an agent for executives. Imagine having an advocate who will scope out the next "A" opportunity while you attend to your board meetings and portfolios. A marketing guru who will help create a personal "brand" that jibes with your career goals. A friend with personal connections up the wazoo in the entertainment, consumer products, ecommerce, and retail industries. And an adviser who will help negotiate the intricacies of salary, bonuses, stock options, and title. It's enough to make the most jaded high-roller salivate.

Love ya, baby: Lenarsky employs his vast personal network of about 7,000 names to help his executive clients find — and keep — the right job. Photos: Cheryl Himmelstein

And why not? Gone are the days when company loyalty translated into rewarding careers. On today's corporate ladder, executives move between jobs and even industries with the frequency of linebackers changing teams. So the business world is beginning to accept the notion of a talent agent. Wielding the skills of shrink, coach, marketer, and dealmaker, this new breed of agent helps corporate stars rise even higher in the business firmament.

But don't expect supply to come even close to meeting demand. Career agents, unlike headhunters, are hard to find. Besides Lenarsky, other executive agents include Joe Meissner, of Executive PR in San Francisco, and outplacement firm Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire in Boston. But Lenarsky is different: He never accepts companies as clients.

The distinction can be critical. "Recruiters are on the till of a company, and I've seen a lot of unhappy people placed in jobs that didn't end up what they were told they would be," says Rita Trevino Flynn, a corporate reputation management and strategic communications consultant, who previously worked at Export-Import Bank of the United States, and as a CBS and ABC Washington correspondent. "

Neal represents you, and he has a vested interest in your personal and professional well-being," adds another of Lenarsky's clients, who asked not to be named and works for a business-to-business ecommerce company in Southern California. "Because of Neal, I had two great offers to consider. One paid 40 percent higher salary than the other. But Neal helped me realize that [the higher-paying one] wasn't the right position for me. If he'd been purely driven by compensation, Neal would have pushed me to take the more lucrative offer." Another reason the client sticks with Lenarsky: he's no pleaser. "He's a friend, a confidant, a mentor, and someone I can always trust for honest feedback. He never tells me what I want to hear."

Lenarsky turns down far more clients than he accepts. Founded in 1996, STI represents 32 executives — and has a self-imposed limit of 50. "My business model is based on my personally spending 25 to 30 hours, each year, on each client," says Lenarsky. That model also depends on Lenarsky's receiving a small percentage of each client's annual salary and cash bonuses. (He won't discuss specifics.) Although STI has only three full-time staffers (including Lenarsky), a retainer fee buys the services of a creative director, image consultant, media consultant and strategist, financial consultant, two psychologists, and an attorney.

Other factors bear even more weight on whether he'll take on a client. First, the person has to be marketable — someone with the talent, drive, and demonstrable track record that companies crave. Equally important, clients must come from the industries in which Lenarsky has an "in," namely entertainment, ecommerce, retail, and consumer goods. "I have to feel comfortable that I can do something for that person," says Lenarsky. "I had a $500,000 player in aerospace come to me, but he wanted another job in aerospace. I really liked the guy, and the fee was tempting. But aerospace is outside my network, so I had to turn him down. About 90 percent of my clients are already in the loop."

Lenarsky keeps careers moving, playing the role of shrink, coach, marketer, and dealmaker.

Of course, if these people are already in the loop, the question can be asked: What do they really get from STI, after giving up part of their salary and bonuses? It's all in the process. As soon as Lenarsky decides to take on a client, the two cloister themselves in a room where, for hours, they zero in on what that person really wants in life and work. Asking the hard questions reveals what clients love and hate about their jobs, their greatest sources of inspiration and pleasure, and their value systems in relation to money, titles, and peer approval. After a few such intensive sessions, Lenarsky knows executives almost as well a shrink or spouse. "For some, the answer might be power or money," says Trevino Flynn. "Neal helped me narrow it to the qualities of being in a place where I have the rank, position, and pay commensurate with my experience — which is considerable — and an atmosphere that's conducive to women. That's not an easy thing to figure out on your own."

Brand aid
Self–knowledge is a wonderful thing, but STI's clients aren't the type to contemplate their navels just for the sake of personal growth. This Zen-like exercise has a point: It creates the filter through which Lenarsky and his clients grade each opportunity, and forms the base of a personal branding campaign. The brand-building is meant to refine the executive's image to match his or her goals. That means developing just the right biographical and pitch materials; identifying the appropriate consumers (read: companies); researching the search agencies that support those firms; and finding out with whom inside that company Lenarsky must arrange introductions. He'll also call on his vast personal network (estimated at about 7,000 names) to find out more about the corporate culture at a particular company. And if clients decide — usually at Lenarsky's urging — to start their own company, Lenarsky will match them with whomever they need to get going.