In this episode, Tara Conger reflects on her journey from athletics to executive leadership and how the lessons of great coaches shaped her approach to business. She shares how building trust, investing in people, and leading through change helped her guide Tandem HR through growth and a successful exit. Tara also discusses what makes private equity leadership unique, the importance of balancing impact with effort, and why resilience and culture are at the heart of every great team.

Key Takeaways:

• Lessons from the field to the boardroom show that teamwork, preparation, and accountability turn potential into lasting success.
• Investing in people and culture creates the foundation for growth, where engagement and purpose drive performance.
• Great leadership grows from trust and resilience, guiding teams with clarity and empathy through transformation and uncertainty.
• True impact comes from focusing energy on outcomes that matter, not just the effort behind them.

Chapters:

1. 00:00 - Introduction
2. 04:40 - Lessons from the Field to the Boardroom
3. 09:41 - Building Culture Through Clarity and Connection
4. 13:51 - Leading Through Change with Empathy and Resilience
5. 22:53 - Focusing on Impact, Not Effort

Listen to our podcasts at:

https://www.shorecp.university/podcasts

You'll also find other Microcap Moments episodes, alongside our series Everyday Heroes and Bigger. Stronger. Faster., highlighting the people and stories that make the microcap space unique.

Other ways to connect:

Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog

Shore University: https://www.shorecp.university/

Shore Capital Partners: https://www.shorecp.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shore-university

This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, or a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the “Terms of Use” page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:18

Welcome to Microcap Moments, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the stories of founders, investors, and leaders who have taken on the challenge of transforming ideas and small companies into high growth organizations.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:32

The journey of building and scaling a business takes one down many unexpected paths.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:38

It's a journey where we learn from our mistakes fall down often, but have the entrepreneurial grit to pick ourselves up and persevere.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:45

Within this series, we will share these stories of success and failure of the challenges and the rewards faced by those who dare to dream big.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:54

And through their lessons learned, we hope to inspire others who are on a similar journey of becoming, growing, and leading.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:02

In this episode, I talk with Tara Conger, Executive Partner at Shore Capital Partners, and the former CEO for Tandem HR, a Shore Capital portfolio company.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:11

Tara started her career in sports and even worked as an assistant athletic director, but she wanted to see how all she had learned about successful coaches and teams translated to the business world.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:21

While obviously this was a big career jump, it more importantly shows Tara's voracious appetite for asking questions and learning.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:27

Which was critical in her subsequent transitions from HR to COO and then to CEO with a successful exit in a relatively short period of time.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:36

She shares the importance of investing in people and culture and provides some defining practices she implemented as CEO of Tandem to sustain that culture amidst rapid change, Tara also shares a personal story well outside the scope of her being a CEO that reinforced.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:51

Sure.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:51

Same commitment.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:52

To people and culture.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:54

She wraps up our conversation by sharing one moment for all the work and growth and travel and difficult conversations and leadership challenges that reminded her why it was all worth it.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:05

Welcome, Tara.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:06

Thanks for joining me today.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:07

To get us started, will you just introduce yourself and give us your name and tell us what you do here at Shore?

Tara Conger: 00:02:11

Sure.

Tara Conger: 00:02:12

I'm Tara Conger and I'm an Executive Partner now at Shore, and I'm excited to tell you a little bit about my background and how I got here.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:18

How did you get here?

Anderson Williams: 00:02:19

What's your career?

Anderson Williams: 00:02:20

We'll come back to your being a CEO at Tandem HR, but what did you do prior to joining the Shore Family?

Tara Conger: 00:02:25

My career is a little bit unique, so right out of college, I was actually in the sporting industry and I spent about five years in the sporting industry in collegiate athletics, professional sports, and then I was an assistant athletic director.

Tara Conger: 00:02:36

So what I loved about that is you built teams, right, and culture, and you saw good and you saw bad.

Tara Conger: 00:02:43

And I saw coaches that were very successful and I saw coaches that weren't as successful.

Tara Conger: 00:02:46

So I wanted to take that and morph it into the business setting.

Tara Conger: 00:02:50

So I left there, and then I was in healthcare and industrial business, and I did HR for both of them.

Tara Conger: 00:02:56

So again, building teams, building cultures, and I loved the people part, but eventually I realized I wanted to do more than just the people part.

Tara Conger: 00:03:05

'cause I was very passionate about business strategy, operations, and financials.

Tara Conger: 00:03:09

So from there I was hired to run an outsourced HR firm, which is, some people known it as a PEO and I can talk a little bit about what that is.

Tara Conger: 00:03:17

And that was a turnaround situation and I ran that and it was very successful.

Tara Conger: 00:03:21

And that I became heavily involved in the national PEO Board and Industry Association and fast forward, that's how I met Tandem.

Tara Conger: 00:03:29

And then Tandem approached us and you know, Ryan Kelly's very persuasive and nine months later we were Tandem's first add-on acquisition.

Tara Conger: 00:03:38

So unique.

Anderson Williams: 00:03:39

That's Yeah, for sure.

Anderson Williams: 00:03:40

Well, tell me more about.

Anderson Williams: 00:03:41

What you learned about successful coaches and successful teams that you transitioned into the world of business?

Tara Conger: 00:03:48

Yeah, it was interesting.

Tara Conger: 00:03:49

One of the situations I think of when I was an Assistant Athletic Director, I was out in New York and men's lacrosse is very popular out there, and the first year I was there, the coach was fine, but not maybe as motivational.

Tara Conger: 00:04:01

And he had a hard time, I would say, picking the leaders and surrounding himself with a really good team, and it really fell to the coach.

Tara Conger: 00:04:10

The second year they made a coaching change and they brought someone in who was fantastic and he picked his captain's wisely.

Tara Conger: 00:04:16

When you talk about leadership, you want followership who's gonna run through a wall for you and the captain's were amazing.

Tara Conger: 00:04:22

And they were able to just create this cohesive team and group of people and everyone had their specialties and they did those really, really well.

Tara Conger: 00:04:30

So the coach was awesome.

Tara Conger: 00:04:32

And actually that year we won a national championship.

Tara Conger: 00:04:34

Oh wow.

Tara Conger: 00:04:34

So when I was on the sideline for it, oh my gosh.

Tara Conger: 00:04:36

And we won 13 to 12 in triple overtime.

Tara Conger: 00:04:39

It was, it was pretty incredible.

Anderson Williams: 00:04:40

That's amazing.

Anderson Williams: 00:04:41

So in that, is it talent evaluation?

Anderson Williams: 00:04:43

Is it strategy?

Anderson Williams: 00:04:45

How would you summarize that?

Tara Conger: 00:04:46

Yeah, I would say it's a little bit of both.

Tara Conger: 00:04:48

For sure, getting the right talent and in the right roles and positions on the team.

Tara Conger: 00:04:53

Yeah, so he made changes and put the best players on the field that worked well together.

Tara Conger: 00:04:58

So their position maybe even changed actually from the year prior.

Tara Conger: 00:05:01

But making sure you have the right people in the right roles and that's the same thing in business, right?

Tara Conger: 00:05:05

It's the same thing that I dealt with at Tandem.

Tara Conger: 00:05:07

'cause you're only successful as your weakest team member.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:10

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:05:10

So he made some changes.

Tara Conger: 00:05:12

There were some people on the team that didn't have great attitudes.

Tara Conger: 00:05:14

He changed them out.

Tara Conger: 00:05:15

And then strategy, I mean, he was so prepared mentally, physically with the players and watching game film.

Tara Conger: 00:05:21

And I'd be there 11 o'clock at night and he's still there prepping for the next game.

Tara Conger: 00:05:25

So a lot of it is preparation processes, but it was a fun journey and evolution to watch and see.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:31

And what part of that did you take into your HR leadership roles?

Anderson Williams: 00:05:35

You know, some people think about HR in a broad set of different ways from looking at it as primarily being compliance based to being really core to the strategy of the business.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:45

And certainly in a growing business.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:46

How did you translate what you had learned there into your version of HR leadership, first in a turnaround, but then through the rest of your career?

Tara Conger: 00:05:54

So to me, HR is so much more than compliance for sure.

Tara Conger: 00:05:59

Right.

Tara Conger: 00:05:59

And I think that's what people think of.

Anderson Williams: 00:06:01

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:06:01

Right?

Tara Conger: 00:06:02

When they think of an HR leader, and to me it is all about talent.

Tara Conger: 00:06:06

I mean, you have to be a talent attractor and a culture builder.

Tara Conger: 00:06:10

If I can summarize it in two things, it's talent and culture.

Tara Conger: 00:06:12

That's what's really gonna drive the company forward.

Tara Conger: 00:06:15

And I was very fortunate when I was leading Tandem HR, my partner was really our head of HR. 'cause think about all the moving parts when you're working for a private equity backed firm.

Tara Conger: 00:06:25

The decisions you need to make and the staffing changes you need to make.

Tara Conger: 00:06:28

And so I had a really great relationship and a close relationship with her, but it was all about getting the right people, getting the team set.

Tara Conger: 00:06:35

And that evolves over time, right?

Tara Conger: 00:06:37

You start out as you need leaders that are more generalists in the beginning of the hold, and then you morph into specialists.

Tara Conger: 00:06:44

So you know, having that right HR partner I think is crucial.

Tara Conger: 00:06:47

And then the culture, to me, the fun part of business.

Tara Conger: 00:06:50

Is the people and the culture and what you build and the day to day.

Tara Conger: 00:06:55

And you have to have fun along the way while you're doing it.

Tara Conger: 00:06:58

And you have to make it fun, right?

Tara Conger: 00:07:00

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:07:00

And people have to be engaged.

Tara Conger: 00:07:01

'cause it can be a grind.

Tara Conger: 00:07:03

It's a grind.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:04

Yeah.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:04

You're asking a lot of people not to have a little bit of fun or to be enjoy where they work.

Tara Conger: 00:07:10

Absolutely.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:10

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:07:10

Absolutely.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:10

I mean, that's the ultimate strategy, right?

Anderson Williams: 00:07:12

You want to keep your talent, keep your best people around, right?

Anderson Williams: 00:07:14

That is that culture piece.

Tara Conger: 00:07:16

Right?

Tara Conger: 00:07:16

And culture is, to me, easy and the calm.

Tara Conger: 00:07:19

When the seas are calm and everything's great, but culture really matters when the storms come, honestly.

Tara Conger: 00:07:25

And how do you prepare and how do you react and you know, are you resilient?

Tara Conger: 00:07:29

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:07:29

And because I think that's crucial.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:30

And you joined.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:31

Tandem HR in a COO role, right?

Tara Conger: 00:07:34

Yeah, so I was a president of the former company.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:37

Okay.

Tara Conger: 00:07:37

But yes, when I first joined Tandem, we were the first add-on acquisition, and I joined as the COO.

Tara Conger: 00:07:42

And then about six months into the hold, I became president and then CEO.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:47

Talk about that transition.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:49

So you've played the HR lead role, you've played the operations lead role, and then the chief executive role.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:56

Any reflections on how those are different?

Anderson Williams: 00:07:59

How they work best together?

Tara Conger: 00:08:01

Yeah, they are very different roles and I think then the HR role, I was always also thinking about operations and finance.

Tara Conger: 00:08:09

Which is somewhat unique 'cause most HR people just think about the people.

Tara Conger: 00:08:13

But I was always thinking about the impact to the business of those changes or what might happen if we made certain decisions.

Tara Conger: 00:08:21

And I think that's why then I morphed into more of a operations leader, president role.

Tara Conger: 00:08:26

I would say from my HR leader, their lens was the people focus.

Tara Conger: 00:08:31

And I think so much of it is change management, working for a private equity backed company.

Tara Conger: 00:08:35

If you don't want change, do not sign up for it.

Tara Conger: 00:08:39

I mean, because.

Anderson Williams: 00:08:40

Hey man, let's roll that back and play it again.

Tara Conger: 00:08:44

I know it's, I mean.

Tara Conger: 00:08:46

So true because it can be emotional whiplash, right?

Tara Conger: 00:08:49

One day you're super excited because you made an acquisition, and the next day you have to, you know, make some staffing changes that aren't fun and you just have to be mentally prepared and ready for that.

Tara Conger: 00:08:59

So again, I was fortunate that my HR leader had dealt with a lot of change management and how to bring people along and make them feel comfortable because I said resilience is key and it's how do people react to it and are they adaptable and are they gonna be okay with that change?

Tara Conger: 00:09:14

So mentally preparing people.

Tara Conger: 00:09:16

So I was very, you know, fortunate to have that.

Tara Conger: 00:09:19

I think when I was in an HR leader, I also was pretty fortunate to have some great president, CEOs, and owners of companies that really, they did care about the culture.

Tara Conger: 00:09:28

It wasn't necessarily all bottom line.

Tara Conger: 00:09:31

They knew that if you treated the people right, that the dollars would follow a lot of times.

Tara Conger: 00:09:36

So I think I have been very fortunate in my career to work for some really great people.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:41

You know, you've talked a lot about culture.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:43

How do you maintain culture?

Anderson Williams: 00:09:46

When you have the intensity and pressure and change of being a private equity backed microcap company.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:54

How do you think about protecting, building, sustaining culture in that kind of environment?

Tara Conger: 00:10:00

So I think a high trust team is crucial.

Tara Conger: 00:10:02

The second thing is clarity of expectations.

Tara Conger: 00:10:05

I think sometimes when there isn't clarity on what those expectations are, I mean, I love data and we can have all the data and metrics in the world, and that's one of the things I love about Shore's data.

Tara Conger: 00:10:14

They love data, and I'm thankfully, I love data too.

Tara Conger: 00:10:18

But setting expectations very clearly for people.

Tara Conger: 00:10:22

So for my direct reports.

Tara Conger: 00:10:23

I would have, it's called the WHO method.

Tara Conger: 00:10:25

And I would use scorecards.

Tara Conger: 00:10:26

Every single role had one.

Tara Conger: 00:10:28

And it was like, what is the mission of this role?

Tara Conger: 00:10:31

And then what defines success for this role?

Tara Conger: 00:10:34

And even when I was hiring people, I would give that to them and say, okay, tell me how you're gonna accomplish this.

Tara Conger: 00:10:39

And so it was very clearly defined, and I think that was super important.

Tara Conger: 00:10:43

But culture's all about communication, right?

Tara Conger: 00:10:46

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Tara Conger: 00:10:47

If I have to have the same conversation three times with one, I direct reports, they're not the right person.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:52

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:10:52

And those decisions can be hard, but you have to make those changes.

Tara Conger: 00:10:55

So if you're not communicating and setting time aside for a person, how do you have that?

Tara Conger: 00:11:01

You just don't have that communication.

Tara Conger: 00:11:02

So another thing I would do, there's a few things I had, sometimes weekly check-ins or for sure biweekly check-ins.

Tara Conger: 00:11:07

But I would have a quarterly check-in with each of my direct reports.

Tara Conger: 00:11:10

The same 10 questions, like what are you most proud of that you accomplished last quarter?

Tara Conger: 00:11:14

What were some of the challenges?

Tara Conger: 00:11:15

It was really real raw conversations.

Tara Conger: 00:11:18

That you have to have so, so much of it.

Tara Conger: 00:11:20

Sometimes I think leaders just think and assume, oh, my direct reports know what they're doing and kind of just not wipe their hands a little bit of it, but it really is truly about communication, setting those expectations, having clear check-ins because then they're engaged.

Tara Conger: 00:11:34

And lemme tell you if your team's engaged.

Tara Conger: 00:11:36

Their team's engaged.

Tara Conger: 00:11:38

And I think that's where culture matters, because if you have a leader that isn't engaged, if they're not meeting their KPIs and they're not engaged, they're not typically the right person in that role.

Tara Conger: 00:11:47

So we had fun along the way and we celebrated all the wins, but we also talked about the misses often.

Tara Conger: 00:11:54

I mean, we talked about on the board meetings too, right?

Tara Conger: 00:11:58

You're gonna have to,

Anderson Williams: 00:11:58

there's that.

Tara Conger: 00:12:00

I know,.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:01

But I think what's interesting, I mean, in this environment you always want to have those practices, I'm sure in any company, but when things are changing as rapidly as they are here, you can't rely on someone having been hired in a role or having a job description because it all evolves so quickly.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:17

And our aspirations and opportunities for people to grow into new roles has to evolve as rapidly as the business does.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:25

And so that kind of frequent touch point, that kind of discipline to a core set of questions, that kind of revisiting performance in the context of today's expectations, not just last year's expectations.

Tara Conger: 00:12:36

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:36

Like that's seems like the only way you could keep up with the pace of change in the business.

Tara Conger: 00:12:40

Absolutely.

Tara Conger: 00:12:41

And one of the things that I loved about Shore.

Tara Conger: 00:12:44

I'll bring this full circle, is the strategic planning process because it is about focus.

Tara Conger: 00:12:49

'Cause you can clearly very quickly, instead of focusing on three to five things have 30 things.

Tara Conger: 00:12:55

So what I loved about Shore was this annual strategic planning process because everyone was aligned.

Tara Conger: 00:13:00

And what we would do then is break those into our quarterly goals and then into monthly goals.

Tara Conger: 00:13:04

But we would break them down into objectives and key results.

Tara Conger: 00:13:07

What did each person need to accomplish to be able to meet those goals?

Tara Conger: 00:13:12

And they cascaded throughout the organization and we tracked those.

Tara Conger: 00:13:16

So again, because it's constantly changing.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:19

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:13:19

You have this plan, but it might change from quarter to quarter.

Tara Conger: 00:13:23

So, you know, being on top of the communication and, and we did a really great job 'cause we would do biweekly town halls with everyone.

Tara Conger: 00:13:31

And it was a half an hour.

Tara Conger: 00:13:32

It was a non-negotiable.

Tara Conger: 00:13:34

Everybody attended.

Tara Conger: 00:13:34

It was.

Tara Conger: 00:13:35

30 minutes because we wanted people to be aligned and rowing in the same direction and to hear the same message.

Tara Conger: 00:13:40

And we had employees all over the country.

Tara Conger: 00:13:42

So it was a good way for everyone to hear the message all at once.

Tara Conger: 00:13:46

But if something changed or shifted, you know, you knew you could talk about that in the next two week call.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:51

Talk a little bit about the role and why it seemed like a good move for you to step into the executive partner role with Shore.

Tara Conger: 00:13:59

So, because I had such a great experience with Shore when we exited the business.

Tara Conger: 00:14:03

I stayed on and helped with integration for about four or five months.

Tara Conger: 00:14:07

And then I'm super passionate about HR in general, so I was asked to join two HR AI advisory boards, which I love.

Tara Conger: 00:14:14

And I was doing some consulting.

Tara Conger: 00:14:15

I still am, and you know, Justin approached me and said, Hey, would you be an executive partner for Shore?

Tara Conger: 00:14:20

And I thought about it and I love it because I can talk about the experience.

Tara Conger: 00:14:23

So I've sat in many seller potential seller meetings and I can talk about it because I've been there, right?

Tara Conger: 00:14:29

And I think sometimes that's super helpful.

Tara Conger: 00:14:31

It's not just someone from Shore saying something.

Tara Conger: 00:14:34

I can talk about real life experiences sitting at that table, which has brought I think, a lot of credibility to that seller potentially.

Tara Conger: 00:14:41

I also love collecting great people and introducing them to Shore, whether it's a board member or an Operating Partner, or a potential add-on acquisition and helping out with investor calls.

Tara Conger: 00:14:51

And so it has been very broad.

Tara Conger: 00:14:53

There's a few people I mentor because again, I've been in their shoes, right?

Tara Conger: 00:14:57

It's their first foray into private equity, what to expect, you know, things to mentally think through, what to prepare for, and I really enjoy that part of it as well.

Tara Conger: 00:15:06

And then helping with new industry verticals that Shore's trying to get into some of the stuff that I'm passionate about.

Tara Conger: 00:15:11

So there's a lot, but I love it.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:14

You wrote a blog that I saw on LinkedIn that included 10 insights about leading private equity backed companies and how it's different than a private company.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:23

And in your summary, you wrote, and I'm just gonna read from my notes here, be ready for change, embrace accountability, and focus on impact.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:31

If you perverse stability over speed or long-term relationship building over rapid execution, PE may not be the right fit.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:39

But if you're energized by constant challenge, high expectations, and a focus on results, it's a career defining experience.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:46

Will you just elaborate more on what compelled you to put your thoughts down?

Anderson Williams: 00:15:50

It was very well received.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:52

Lots of people responded to it and just where that came from and why that felt like an important thing to describe and define.

Tara Conger: 00:15:58

Absolutely.

Tara Conger: 00:15:59

I was walking with my husband and the dog in the morning and I got this idea.

Tara Conger: 00:16:02

I was like, I should really share the experience because there are many people I feel like that are out there that are either going to go through it or maybe are thinking, you know, should I join private equity?

Tara Conger: 00:16:13

Should we sell?

Tara Conger: 00:16:13

But then it happened about a week later, a YPO member, they sold to private equity and they said, I had no idea, Tara.

Tara Conger: 00:16:21

They called me 'cause they knew, and they said, I had no idea how.

Tara Conger: 00:16:24

Different it was going to be.

Tara Conger: 00:16:25

And so that's kind of what spurred me to say, Hey, I should really write down my thoughts on the difference.

Tara Conger: 00:16:32

Because there's gonna be people maybe that read that and think, okay, yes, raise my hand, I wanna do that.

Tara Conger: 00:16:38

And there's gonna be people that are like, no, that's probably not for me.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:41

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:16:41

And I've had many of those conversations.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:43

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:16:43

Right?

Tara Conger: 00:16:43

Because it is not for everybody.

Tara Conger: 00:16:45

It is not for the faint of heart.

Tara Conger: 00:16:46

And again, not in a bad way, but.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:48

Yeah, it's almost like managing expectations or setting expectations so that you make the right choice.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:53

It's not that one choice is inherently better than the other, but it's going in eyes wide open with what you're sort of saying yes to.

Tara Conger: 00:17:00

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:17:00

Correct.

Tara Conger: 00:17:01

I mean, I feel somewhat fortunate that, again, we sold to private equity in Shore because the company I was running, it was great.

Tara Conger: 00:17:07

It was family owned, but we didn't move fast.

Tara Conger: 00:17:09

I like to move fast and I don't mind change.

Tara Conger: 00:17:14

So it was a really good fit for my career progression is how I would put it.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:18

I think it is a question of match, and I think that a lot of times in different sectors, people think that it's a sign of success to take on a capital partner, not if that's not what your goals of your business were, or for your family or otherwise.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:34

There is no single path to success.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:36

It is this idea of making the right decision.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:38

And oh, by the way, from the investor side, we want you to come in eyes wide open because it's not good for us to have you wake up the week later and go, wait a second.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:47

I didn't know what I was getting into.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:48

That's, it's just not good for anybody.

Tara Conger: 00:17:50

I think there's a statistic out there.

Tara Conger: 00:17:52

I think Justin says right, 80% of our first time CEOs for Shore, but what I love about that is Shore has done such a great job of building resources to help, whether it's the first time CEO or these executive leadership teams, we were blessed.

Tara Conger: 00:18:06

I think I used Shore for literally everything.

Tara Conger: 00:18:09

I mean, and not in a bad way, but every Center of Excellence, IT, Marketing, Sales, Continuous Improvement, Talent Acquisition, we used everything we could.

Tara Conger: 00:18:18

And I think there's some CEOs out there that don't because it would show weakness on their part.

Tara Conger: 00:18:23

Whereas I think Justin and the firm has done a really great job of building out these resources to make their portfolio companies better.

Tara Conger: 00:18:30

That definitely sets Shore apart from other private equity firms out there.

Tara Conger: 00:18:34

And again, I feel like we were very fortunate to have all of Shore's resources because when you are a maybe first time CEO, you don't know and you can talk to someone maybe that's been there, done that.

Tara Conger: 00:18:45

So I think what sets Shore apart is the resources to help all the other portfolio companies.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:49

Yeah, and I think Shore has always prided itself on being founder friendly.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:54

It's been recognized as founder friendly and takes the word partner very seriously.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:59

When we partner with a company and clearly data matters, performance matters.

Anderson Williams: 00:19:04

I'm curious if you had any experiences where it was sort of above and beyond where that relationship with Shore was clearly not about the data or clearly not just about business performance, but maybe it was something more meaningful to you.

Tara Conger: 00:19:16

There are many examples, honestly, I could probably give you, but one in particular that stands out to me.

Tara Conger: 00:19:22

So, Ryan Kelly was my chair and I was traveling for work for M&A meeting, I think it was in North Carolina.

Tara Conger: 00:19:28

My husband had just left that morning for work and we had a babysitter for my daughter at home.

Tara Conger: 00:19:33

So, I'm coming, flying back as he left and the babysitter's at home and I'm in flight and my flight from Chicago to Madison gets canceled and it's the last flight of the night and I was like, what am I gonna do?

Tara Conger: 00:19:43

There was no rental cars and I'm panicking because I'm like, I need to get home.

Tara Conger: 00:19:48

The babysitter can't stay there.

Tara Conger: 00:19:49

And I texted Ryan Kelly.

Tara Conger: 00:19:51

I was like, Hey, is there anything thoughts you have?

Tara Conger: 00:19:53

Or, what can I do?

Tara Conger: 00:19:55

Ryan was so great.

Tara Conger: 00:19:56

Ryan sent a car to pick me up at the airport and drive me two and a half hours back to Madison so I could get to Cassidy that night.

Tara Conger: 00:20:03

At that time, she was eight years old.

Tara Conger: 00:20:04

I'm like going above and beyond.

Tara Conger: 00:20:06

Those are the moments that matter.

Tara Conger: 00:20:08

I mean, I just thinking about it, it makes me emotional a little bit because I was a working mom, right?

Tara Conger: 00:20:12

I am a working mom, and there's situations where it's so much more than just the business when, you know, times of need or when something like that happened to be able to help out so that I could get home to my family.

Tara Conger: 00:20:23

That one I'll never forget.

Tara Conger: 00:20:24

And then it makes you wanna do more for Shore and for the business and motivates you even more to give your best offer for an outcome.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:33

I love hearing that and I think that my experience, even as a team member within Shore, and you're seeing as an executive partner role, that that's pervasive and that was part of the founder's intent.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:43

It was part of their relationship with each other, and it's something that they expect to be a part of the culture here.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:48

And so, uh, all of those stories are really meaningful.

Tara Conger: 00:20:51

Unfortunately, sometimes people have a bad connotation when they hear PE or private equity and they think it's just numbers and data and bottom line and sure, right.

Tara Conger: 00:20:59

There's high expectations and you have to perform, but it is also more than that, and you don't hear enough about probably the good and the human elements in those stories.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:07

I think that's one of the things that I've really enjoyed and you were hitting on before about really being in the microcap space and being in a space where we're partnering with founder led companies or family owned companies.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:18

These are companies that were built because someone had a passion for an industry or someone was building something to put their kids through college, or their community had a need or whatever, and they were successful.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:29

And so most of the time the people we're partnered with never dreamed of any kind of big financial outcome.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:35

They got to a point where they wanted to do more, have a bigger impact, and a financial partner became an answer.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:40

That's a very different thing than financial engineering or stripping down companies to get super.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:46

It's almost the opposite of what most people think about private equity.

Tara Conger: 00:21:49

Absolutely, and I think that's, again, where Shore does it right.

Tara Conger: 00:21:52

I wasn't sure honestly when we came in.

Tara Conger: 00:21:55

I was thinking, oh boy, you know, they're gonna get rid of our people, right?

Tara Conger: 00:21:58

And try to cut costs.

Tara Conger: 00:22:00

And it is so the opposite of that, they wanted to keep the talent.

Tara Conger: 00:22:04

That's what they were paying for, was the talent.

Tara Conger: 00:22:06

And Shore is a growth company.

Tara Conger: 00:22:08

They want all of their portfolio companies to grow.

Tara Conger: 00:22:10

So it is not about cutting talent, it's about growing and giving the resources that are needed to be able to be successful in the microcap space.

Tara Conger: 00:22:19

And I think that's one of the challenges of the microcap space, is you need to grow.

Tara Conger: 00:22:24

But you also need to make sure the foundation is right and good.

Tara Conger: 00:22:28

I remember what, after we did our second acquisition, I thought, okay, we really need to get some of this foundation set and in place because yes, we needed to grow, but we also needed to get the foundation set to make sure we didn't have client attrition.

Tara Conger: 00:22:42

And so you always have that constant battle between growth and operations to make sure you're doing it well, but you're also needing to grow.

Tara Conger: 00:22:50

So that's probably one of the biggest challenges.

Tara Conger: 00:22:52

The micro crop space.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:53

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:53

When you think about those challenges, when you think about your varying roles, what do you see as your biggest professional challenge that you've faced and overcome, and how did you overcome it?

Tara Conger: 00:23:04

I think I learned a couple things.

Tara Conger: 00:23:07

You know, some of the best advice people gave me along the way is it's not about effort, it's about impact.

Tara Conger: 00:23:13

And I think that's one of the things I struggle with in the beginning, honestly, of the change into private equity.

Tara Conger: 00:23:19

I was working a ton of hours and I probably wasn't my best self.

Tara Conger: 00:23:23

And I realized, you know, I really need to delegate some of these things that I probably didn't need to do.

Tara Conger: 00:23:28

And again, because it was focusing on the impact instead of the effort.

Tara Conger: 00:23:32

And I think that really helped me in my role, but helped the company overall.

Tara Conger: 00:23:38

But that took a little bit, honestly, to learn 'cause you wanna make things better, but you can't do it all.

Tara Conger: 00:23:43

Otherwise you're gonna burn out.

Tara Conger: 00:23:44

So again, making sure you have the right team.

Tara Conger: 00:23:47

And then another piece of advice someone gave me, it was quite a few years ago, was my brain is always on and it is always working and I love to strategize and just in business in general, say I am almost at the finish line.

Tara Conger: 00:23:58

Well, he would say, your employees are still maybe at the starting line or just running the race and you have to bring them along.

Tara Conger: 00:24:06

And that was some early career advice I got that it was really good for me to hear because defining the why, explaining it so that they wanted to run the race with you, not behind you.

Tara Conger: 00:24:18

And so.

Tara Conger: 00:24:19

I learned that earlier on in my career and that was very helpful for me.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:22

It's like giving people the opportunity to run with you.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:25

Right.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:25

If they don't know you're running a marathon, then they don't know how to pace themselves.

Tara Conger: 00:24:29

Correct.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:29

Or if they don't know which direction the marathon is, they don't know when they hit a crossroads, which choice to make, right?

Tara Conger: 00:24:34

Absolutely.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:35

You give them the best opportunity to make the decision that's in your best interests, right?

Anderson Williams: 00:24:39

I and my, the shift that I end up talking to people a lot about through Shore University and otherwise is this needs to get done.

Anderson Williams: 00:24:45

Do I need to be the one who does it?

Anderson Williams: 00:24:47

And if the more you can say, this needs to get done and somebody else needs to do it, the more you're leading through others and the more you're scalable, the more your business is scalable and so forth.

Tara Conger: 00:24:56

And that's why, again, I love having our annual goals and quarterly goals.

Tara Conger: 00:24:59

Like you have champions and owners of those, right?

Tara Conger: 00:25:02

So you can delegate and make sure, again, people know what they're supposed to be doing and when.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:07

What have you done that you're most proud of?

Tara Conger: 00:25:10

I think it's Tandem for sure.

Tara Conger: 00:25:11

Joining Tandem HR being backed by Shore Capital.

Tara Conger: 00:25:14

Everything we went through at tandem to create an amazing company and then to have a successful exit.

Tara Conger: 00:25:22

I remember the closing call.

Tara Conger: 00:25:23

I was actually the 4th of July and I was in a tent,

Tara Conger: 00:25:29

but I remember hanging up and the tears just, yeah, I was so happy and I was very excited.

Tara Conger: 00:25:33

All that hard work, like I just started crying.

Tara Conger: 00:25:36

I mean, I had been through that before, obviously, but you know, it's the culmination of all the work and time and energy and the talent and the people that helped you get there, and yeah, that would be it.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:46

You mentioned before that roughly 80% of Shore CEOs are first time CEOs.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:53

I'm curious, from your experience, what are a couple of key pieces of advice you would offer a first time CEO helping launch a Shore platform?

Tara Conger: 00:26:02

Yeah, utilize resources.

Tara Conger: 00:26:05

I mean, don't be afraid to utilize the resources.

Tara Conger: 00:26:07

Pick up the phone and call people, right?

Tara Conger: 00:26:10

You wanna talk to people maybe that have been there, done that, and have the war wounds so that you don't make maybe those same mistakes.

Tara Conger: 00:26:16

And I think having those conversations is having a sounding board.

Tara Conger: 00:26:20

'Cause there are times where it's difficult situations and maybe you don't wanna talk to your Lead Independent Director or your board chair about it.

Tara Conger: 00:26:27

So I have a group, a core group of CEOs that I talk to when you have difficult situations.

Tara Conger: 00:26:33

So having support or mentorship I think is really important, but I'd also say take care of yourself, right?

Tara Conger: 00:26:40

I mean, it can be a grind.

Tara Conger: 00:26:42

It absolutely can be a grind, and that's not a bad thing.

Tara Conger: 00:26:45

But taking care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, to get through kind of those hard days and hard times.

Tara Conger: 00:26:51

I think resilience is key 'cause you're gonna get knocked down.

Tara Conger: 00:26:54

Things are going great.

Tara Conger: 00:26:55

Maybe you have a bad board meeting, maybe you lose a really big client.

Tara Conger: 00:27:00

Maybe you have a failed process where that acquisition didn't go through.

Tara Conger: 00:27:04

You're gonna have good days and you're gonna have bad days.

Tara Conger: 00:27:06

But it's how you react to that and how do you come back And you have to not only keep yourself motivated, your team and all the employees.

Tara Conger: 00:27:13

And you know, one thing I also learned along the way is making those difficult decisions.

Tara Conger: 00:27:18

They're not easy, but I always thought, you know what?

Tara Conger: 00:27:20

You have to do what's best for 200 lives and not one life.

Tara Conger: 00:27:25

And if you have that always in the back of your mind, I think you're gonna make the right decision.

Anderson Williams: 00:27:29

What haven't I asked you that I should have asked you about your career, your growth, your experience, anything that we haven't hit on that you would like to get on the record?

Tara Conger: 00:27:40

Maybe one thing is, you know, why do I do what I do?

Anderson Williams: 00:27:43

Yeah.

Tara Conger: 00:27:43

So I was traveling for M&A, I was on this national board, quarterly board meetings.

Tara Conger: 00:27:47

I was traveling for that.

Tara Conger: 00:27:48

Running the business in Chicago, also in Madison.

Tara Conger: 00:27:50

I split my time so it could be tiring.

Tara Conger: 00:27:52

Right?

Tara Conger: 00:27:53

And Josh and I, we have a daughter who was eight at that time.

Tara Conger: 00:27:56

And I remember I came home and I had had a hard day and I walked through the door and she came right up.

Tara Conger: 00:28:01

She's like, mommy, you're on a magazine cover.

Tara Conger: 00:28:03

I mean, honestly, she like comes running up to me at the biggest smile on her face and I thought, you know what?

Tara Conger: 00:28:09

This is why I do what I do.

Tara Conger: 00:28:10

Not because I was on a magazine cover.

Tara Conger: 00:28:12

Um, but she said, mommy, I am so proud of you.

Tara Conger: 00:28:15

I wanna be a boss lady like you someday.

Tara Conger: 00:28:19

And um, she had heard me many times because my office was upstairs and her Lego set was outside my door.

Tara Conger: 00:28:25

So she would hear me have difficult conversations sometimes, or great conversations or leading meetings.

Tara Conger: 00:28:31

So I thought it was so cute 'cause she gets it and she's like, I wanna be a boss lady like you someday.

Tara Conger: 00:28:35

And I thought, you know, that is why I do what I do to be a great example and a great mother for my daughter.

Tara Conger: 00:28:41

When life comes down to it, it is about your work, but it's about your family and the legacy you leave.

Tara Conger: 00:28:46

And so instilling and modeling for her, working hard, being empathetic, building great relationships, building great teams, and having successful outcomes.

Tara Conger: 00:28:55

So for me to be able to do that at such a young age for her, I hope that that's very impactful for her as she grows up.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:10

If you enjoyed this episode, check out our other Microcap Moments episodes at www.shocp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:20

Here you will also find our Bigger.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:22

Stronger.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:22

Faster.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:23

and Everyday Heroes series, each highlighting the people and stories that make investing in the lower middle market unique.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:29

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners with story and narration by Anderson Williams.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:34

Recording by Austin Johnson.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:36

Editing by Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:38

Sound design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:42

Special thanks to Tara Conger.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:44

This podcast is a Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:47

None of the content herein is investment advice and offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security.

Anderson Williams: 00:29:55

See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.