Name: Mark Donatelli

Title: Managing Partner

Organisation: Cimply

Mark is a three-time founder and former senior business executive with a broad and varied career spanning 25 years and multiple industries. He has provided companies worldwide with vision, leadership, and authoritative knowledge to successfully navigate the complexities of today’s data, technology, and analytics landscape. With diverse roles ranging from Military Intelligence and IT leadership to Management Consulting, Business Development and Product Management, Mark has earned substantial operating experience on matters related to the planning, design and implementation of effective and responsible data-driven transformation and business growth strategies across greater Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Mark is currently the co-founder and Managing Partner at Cimply, a management consultancy and advertising agency founded in 2022. Mark lives near Akron, Ohio with his wife and two teenage children.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Mark's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

There are many words for it, like transparency, candor, or honesty as examples, but ultimately, I like to believe that I am straightforward and upfront, to further demonstrate that my actions, decisions, and recommendations are truly in their best interest. An author I enjoy has referred to this as “intent counts more than technique” - meaning that if your intent is to help people succeed that ultimately comes through and people see it.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Vision in many ways is what I’d call the “broadest potential outcome” - the leader’s vision may be very clear and contain a lot of details, but in reality it’s not focused or concentrated enough in the most important areas thus challenging the execution. Mission is a bit of a sharpened view of one or more of the intent based outcomes you may pursue as a means to implement or try to bring to life the Vision. A Mission will often range between this still lofty but sharpened version of the Vision, or a Mission could be extremely specific with targeted objectives. My company may have a Vision that sounds like “to build a carbon free future for generations to come” and the accompanying Mission may say “We will develop carbon-neutral electricity generation capabilities and sustainable business practices that blah blah…” The idea here is that the mission and vision are used in a number of ways ranging from contextualizing these into OKRs and KPIs at the individual business unit level, but also, as a means to characterize the company to shareholders, investors, and potential business partners.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

I think the best way for leaders to empower those under their charge is to provide clear direction related to alignment of the mission and vision along with boundaries, but then ultimately letting those individuals operate mostly autonomously within the framework provided. This empowers them to make decisions they can see.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

I’ve had a very long career, so there are a number of people who have had a very positive influence on me, at different stages of my career. Early on in the military, I learned the importance of the “hard right over the easy wrong” which was essentially sharpening my character to make the proper decision for the mission, regardless of how it might personally impact me or others. Later, as a senior executive in a global advertising agency, I learned that at some point you become more and more responsible for your own future outcomes and you must have your own mission and vision to fulfill within the context of your employment or professional situation.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

I didn’t maintaining focus can be difficult for many less so for others, but for me maintaining focus has to do with aligning and planning activities that directly support the outcomes we are trying to achieve. I like to phrase this as “plan the work and work the plan”.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

I obviously have a long-term outcome in mind and things directionally must align to that, but in terms of months or quarters of the year they tend to be milestone driven outcomes, things that need to be done with a deadline in mind - and then from a weekly and daily basis, it’s again just about having standard recurring meetings and agendas with the company staff and clients And leaving ample time for unplanned things, deep work, and time to unplug and reflect.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

I think it comes down to acknowledging that there are a lot of jobs to do, and it’s a matter of stack ranking those jobs based on how critical they are to be completed and acknowledging whether or not you are the best person for that particular task. Each person in the company should be focused on what is the best and most effective contributions they can make with the time they are allotted. Some argue you should delegate the things that you are best at so that you can supervise effectively while also learning something new, a different school of thought is to focus on what you do best and delegate things to other experts.