Twice in my long and varied career I stepped away from structured institutions to build unconventional business models. The first was Delphi Computers & Peripherals (1984-1999), early in the PC technology evolution that we all take for granted now. I learned a great deal from the experience, hired an amazing staff, won a number of awards, and grew Delphi to a multimillion dollar company.
I sold the company and became a banking senior leader at Washington Mutual for the next ten years (1999-2009), then decided to start another company at a more manageable scale, without inventory or employees, in the midst of the economic climate of 2008-2009.
This second time around I was clear-eyed about what one could do with a lean operation with “associates” from a wide variety of backgrounds. I named the company Annie Searle & Associates LLC and staked out its areas of focus from work I’d done in public-private partnership projects around risk management in those ten years at the bank. My first associate was Lauren Du Graf, and it was she and I who worked with First and Union to build the ASA website. Like most memorable logos or websites, it looked elegantly simple. It was designed for an executive or senior manager to quickly grasp how ASA might be of service to their company. It debuted the ASA Institute for Risk and Innovation, the arm of the company that was policy-related, that advocated and published research notes, white papers and, eventually, whole books.
Today is the 15th anniversary of the beta launch of the website, and tomorrow the anniversary of the ASA Launch Party. Coming out of the financial crisis, it was a steep gamble to start a company from scratch rather than join one of the Big Five advisory firms. But I had a pretty clear notion of what type of clients we could serve and of the growing role that operational risk management would come to play in the corporate world after all those bank failures.
ASA turned into less than a full time venture when I started teaching at the University of Washington, but has come round since I retired from teaching in June of 2023. I am focused primarily on three publishing projects, and further development of the institute. I hope to be writing here more frequently as time goes on — particularly as we go into the fall presidential elections.
So here’s my thanks to all the associates I’ve had along the way these past 15 years, with special thanks to Lauren and to Emily Hayes, ASA’s newsletter and Reflections on Risk series editor.