Matt Zemon, '94

CEO thrives on the challenges of corporate leadership

November 5, 2009

Matt Zemon, '94, has led companies in the entertainment, hospitality and telecommunications industries since graduating from the University of Richmond. Currently the CEO of Element Customer Care in Durham, N.C., Zemon discusses the challenges of leading a company, what he has since learned about leadership and how his Jepson education equipped him with the skills to succeed.

Since graduating you have had quite a career in the business world. You have founded a company and become president of several companies. Did you know while you were at Jepson that you wanted to pursue a career in business?

I’ve always known that I was going to pursue a career in business and I knew it was hopefully going to involve running a business, but I didn’t know exactly how that was going to play out. My parents believed in a liberal arts education and strongly discouraged me from majoring in business, so Jepson was the right choice for me.

What companies have you worked with and in what roles?

Since graduating I have held both marketing and operations roles with an entrepreneurial bent. I have worked in three primary industries: entertainment, hospitality and telecommunications. For the past five years I have been applying skills learned along the way for our investors first as president of a company called Bulk TV & Internet and now with Element Customer Care.

Tell me a little about your current company, Element Customer Care. What made you decide to take on the challenge of leading a company not yet established? How long have you been with the company?

Element Customer Care provides call center, technical support and CSG Systems billing solutions for small and mid-sized cable, broadband and telecommunications companies. This is the second company I have run for two of our investors. We are a little more than two years old and supported by two enterprise-grade partners:  CSG Systems (the largest cable billing company in America) and LiveOps. Today we support over 130,000 cable customers and about 200,000 hotel rooms from coast to coast. We operate with a team of almost 300 employees and contractors.

Overall, I enjoy seeing an opportunity or a need and then trying to meet that need. I thrive on all of the excitement and chaos that comes with setting up a business. Element Customer Care has grown tremendously fast and taking on the associated challenges with this company has been a lot of fun. What I’m doing with Element ties in to all of the other different experiences I’ve had from forming relationships with vendors to business-to-business sales, marketing, operations information management and customer support.

Is the telecommunications industry facing the major changes that other industries are facing?

I think the telecommunications industry is dealing with many of the same issues as other industries including rising costs in a tough economy, meeting consumer demand for more products and better customer service while facing increased competition. Today’s consumers are finding it hard to tell the difference between a cable company, a phone company and a satellite company. As the Internet continues to evolve we are seeing more products and services emerging, all of which require bandwidth. Telecommunications companies spend a lot of time exploring options to deliver and bill for as many products as possible. Element believes we provide a billing and support foundation that will future-proof small and medium-sized companies for being able to bring new products to market quickly and for a reasonable cost.

What are some of the challenges of leading a company, and what have you since learned about leadership?

The biggest challenge we’re experiencing as a company is the challenge of information management. Element Customer Care has customer service representatives and technical support engineers across America and in the Philippines working 24/7. Our clients have franchises, hotels and apartment complexes in almost every state. Our vendors and clients all have different ways of communicating and organizing their internal information, and some are more effective than others. Our biggest challenge is figuring out how to get everybody on the same page, sharing relevant information and working efficiently. The Element Customer Care management team spends a significant amount of time and energy looking at tools to help with information management and collaboration. These are things Jepson teaches you. I believe the challenge of getting people to communicate effectively is becoming more and more difficult as the world flattens and as the speed of change increases.

What is your leadership style?

I’m very good at creating groups and companies and good at recognizing opportunities. I’m good at forming relationships. My role is to get the right people at the table and to find good people to lead their groups – and then to empower those groups to make the necessary changes.  

You were part of the first Jepson graduating class. What made you decide to major in leadership studies? Did you have any concerns then about an unknown degree?

No, the primary reason I went to the University of Richmond was to go to Jepson. I liked being part of something that was going to be “the first.” The combination of history, psychology, ethics and all the different disciplines seemed like a good way to combine the liberal arts with an emphasis. The Jepson School is geared toward being able to succeed in life as opposed to learning a specific task or skill set.

How did Jepson prepare you for the challenges of corporate leadership?

I think Jepson does a few things particularly well in preparing individuals for future leadership roles. First, at Jepson you spend a significant amount of time analyzing interactions between individuals and groups of people. From these analyses you are able to develop your own strategies for how to be successful with your interactions. Second, at Jepson you spend time thinking about problems and challenging situations that others have faced. Through the case studies and classroom dialogue you are able to gain appreciation for other people’s challenges while opening your mind to problem-solving techniques. Finally, Jepson strengthens your communication abilities by forcing you to communicate in writing, in presentations and in small groups.

What is the most interesting thing you have done since graduating?

I’ve been pretty lucky since graduating to have had some interesting life experiences. I enjoyed working in the hospitality industry and being able to see a lot of the world and have really enjoyed growing these businesses. If I think about the kinds of things I’ve done, I can look at almost every year since graduating and point to an accomplishment and something I’m proud of.  

What advice do you have for leadership studies students who want to start their own business or run a company? 

I think I would give two pieces of advice to someone thinking about starting a business. First, if they are not sure what type of business they want to start, I would suggest that they choose carefully between going to work for a large company where they will learn about large company processes and procedures and a small company where they will be given tremendous amounts of duties but in a non-structured environment. If they are motivated and structured, go work for a small company. If not, go work for a large company and learn those skill sets.

Second, if they know what type of business they want to run and can see the opportunity, I suggest they do it and don’t let anything stop them.  Even if they fail I believe there is no real down side to trying. Jepson gives a foundation for communicating and thinking about problems that they can build on with the actual challenges they will have in growing their business.

Article ID: 497