Banking & Finance

A company of leaders

By Abby Cymerman

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Rick Dennen
President and CEO, Oak Street Funding

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Rick Dennen answers his own phone, types his own letters and sets his own calendar — and he expects his employees to do the same.

“Everybody in the company is involved in the leadership,” says the co-owner, founder, president and CEO of Oak Street Funding. “Everybody in this company contributes to the bottom line of this business.”

Declining to hire administrative staff is one way that Dennen, who founded the company in 2003, keeps overhead at a minimum at the commercial finance company serving the insurance industry. Today, the business has 36 employees and posted 2007 revenue of $15 million.

Smart Business spoke with Dennen about how he hires his staff members and fosters their leadership skills.

Q. What is the key to growing a successful company?

The key is hiring good, ethical, talented people and giving them all the resources that they need. That includes technology and proper training to accomplish their job in the best way they can.

Q. How do you find the best people?

Our most successful employees have come from referrals — from other employees and from colleagues. If they’re good, we’ll find a place for them.

If you could find somebody through your own referral network, they seem to have a higher success rate. People can put a lot of different things on resumes, and it’s tough to validate that.

We try to have many people interviewing candidates. I try to at least walk in and introduce myself, if I know a candidate is in, and be a part of all that.

Q. How does having other employees interview candidates help you find the best people?

It’s important so they get a different perspective. I don’t want them hearing just my perspective on the culture. I might be a little bit biased, being the founder. I want other people’s perspective and honest feedback on what the job entails and what the dayto-day is like.

We undersell versus oversell. I don’t candy-coat what their job is going to be or how hard it’s going to be. I take the opposite approach; I tell them that it’s going to be more difficult so when they come in, they’re happy. If a company over-sells, they immediately have a dissatisfied employee.