Click here for Part I

Reducing business risk with an emphasis on integrity, impact, and positive change

Steve Odell is the CEO of Odell Studner, a boutique insurance consulting, risk management, and insurance brokerage firm located in Radnor, Pennsylvania. Odell Studner serves clients in a variety of service areas, including cybersecurity, commercial insurance, personal insurance, and employee benefits. The firm’s practice groups encompass captives, staffing, human services, real estate and construction, and life sciences. Odell Studner has been recognized as a top insurance firm and a best place to work by Business Insurance, the Philadelphia Business Journal, Inc. and more. Apart from professional services, the firm also contributes to its community through the Odell Studner Foundation, which provides assistance to families in distress.

Steve Odell spoke with Jeff Mack, Executive Managing Director at Newmark Grubb Frank, for this interview.

JEFF MACK: You founded the company in the midst of the recent financial crisis. How has it been since then?

STEVE ODELL: You know, I’m thrilled to be able to sit here and tell you that it’s very different than what it was in September of 2008. We’ve got a chief operating officer, a chief legal officer in house, and some extremely talented middle management folks that really make my job now much easier. I’m much more of the visionary and back in sales, which is what I always love to do in client engagement, as opposed to the blocking and tackling I had to do in the beginning when no one else was willing to help me. We’re all about culture. After making so many mistakes in your career is you realize it’s all about the people you have, Jeff, so everything that we do, everything we work towards in our hiring practices, testing—we bring in three different interview teams to hire folks—we want to make sure that they’re going to be a culture fit. We want to encourage them to interview elsewhere. We want to make sure they’re interviewing elsewhere, because at the end of the day, we want to make sure they’re going to be good hires. Today I honestly can say that I think every one of our folks that we have in place is a great, great hire. I believe in delegation and playing to people’s strengths. We’ve got some very strong people. I have learned what my weaknesses are, and I’ve tried to surround myself with people that have strengths in those areas that I don’t. If anything, it’s really working hard to give authority and responsibility together to those people and giving folks a chance to rise up in the organization.

Q. As CEO, how do you envision your role in the company?

A. Even though they show me at the top of an org chart, I really view myself as at the bottom of the org chart. My job is to do what I have to do to support the rest of the organization and make their jobs easier.

Q. How did your father prepare you for the role?

A. My first day at work, I showed about 15 minutes late and he was standing there at the door. He looked at me and said, “this is the last time you are ever going to be late,” and he was correct. You always have to respect other people’s time. You only get one chance to make a first impression. That was another one of his big lines to me, and he also said, “ never burn your bridges.” Philadelphia is a small town and everybody will always remember you. Twenty people will find out one bad thing you did and only three people will find out one good thing you did. So, we’ve tried to really work hard on our reputation doing the right thing, fulfilling our core values and working hard that way.

Q. What do you think are your firm’s defining characteristics?

A. I go back couple of my dad’s points, which still resonate with me today. I think if you were to ask any insurance carrier to talk to our customers—even our competitors—the feedback you would get we would tie back in with the best places to work. We’ve got a very high profile reputation in our space. The insurance carriers value the relationship that they have with us. The integrity of our people, as well as the integrity of the work product that we put out, is as good as anybody’s. Our reputation is the number one thing I’m most proud of here. We’ve got some young folks who are very heavy in Temple’s Risk Management and Insurance School. They’re the number one rated school in the country. We’ve hired eight of their kids over the past five years. We have an intern every year, and every single intern has taken a full time job. These kids have helped us take data analytics and metrics benchmarking to a whole other level. So, we now can actually send spreadsheet to a client and say, “it’s not about what you’re quoted, it’s about what you should pay.” We can show them through the actual numbers and the hard data and benchmark them against other industry standards and tell them what they should be paying, not what they are paying.

Connect with Steven on LinkedIn

ABOUT NEWMARK GRUBB KNIGHT FRANK

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NGKF’s 12,800 professionals operate from more than 370 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

With roots dating back to 1929, NGKF’s strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NGKF’s full-service platform comprises BGC’s real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

NGKF is a part of BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets. BGC’s common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: BGCP). BGC also has an outstanding bond issuance of Senior Notes due June 15, 2042, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (NYSE: BGCA). BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.

Jeffrey E. Mack, Executive Managing Director

Jeffrey E. Mack is a senior leader in Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Philadelphia operation. Jeff has been a significant member of the commercial brokerage community in Philadelphia since 1979. He co-founded Smith Mack & Co. in 1984 and has continued to lease and sell more suburban office space than any other individual agent. He served as past chairman of the Philadelphia Board of Realtors, commercial and industrial division. NGKF acquired Smith Mack & Co. in 2012.

Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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