Ross Freedman's resume is impressive, regardless of where you begin: entrepreneur, prize winner, and co-founder of Rightpoint - an award-winning digital experience company. Rightpoint employs over 800 people in the United States and overseas. He is also a member of the Weiner Center for Entrepreneurship’s Board of Advisors at the University of Wisconsin School of Business.
Ross and co-founder, Brad Schneider started Righpoint in 2007. Ross and Brad were two college friends who dreamed of creating a technology consultancy business. In the 15 years since its inception, the company grew to 800 employees globally and works with some of the largest brands in the world.
Rightpoint expanded nationally in 2015 as a result of a $55 million investment from a New York-based private equity group. From 2016 to 2019, Rightpoint acquired four firms as part of this expansion. Digital marketing, mobile digital products, and CRM are all competencies of the acquired firms. Rightpoint was named one of the top Customer Experience Strategy businesses in the world by Forrester in 2020.
However, when the pandemic struck in 2020, the firm was forced to transition from office to home-based virtual operations. This was a big shift for the company which had previously been more focused on in-person work before the pandemic.
“At Rightpoint, we believe that even prior to the pandemic, there was a shift happening in the way people interact with, and connect with their colleagues,” says Freedman.
For Ross, the COVID pandemic has accelerated the need for remote and hybrid work.
“Our primary focus from March 2020 through the end of 2021 was to ensure we continued to nurture our company culture - even if we could not be together in the office like we had been previously” Ross added.
“I have always believed that companies have a choice about their culture: They can allow it to be defined by unspoken actions or they can proactively shape their culture in order to succeed. As we bring our people back together post-COVID, we have a real opportunity to proactively design the culture we want for our future.”
However, as our different teams and geographies come back to the workplace, there will be a number of challenges ahead. Some teams may prefer a hybrid approach where some people continue to work from home while others are fully in the office; these teams will have to discuss how to create equity and engagement for all team members.
In the end, Rightpoint will ensure the decisions we make about how we work will support our overall vision and company culture.
Mica Smith
Head Journalist
https://www.afp.com
