Growth
Ride the lightning
How John Varel uses three basic tenets to keep FusionStorm on track for growth
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Northern California | February 2009
Page 1 of 4
John Varel has started and grown 12 companies during his
career. It hasn’t always been easy, and sometimes, he really had
to fight his way to find growth. His most recent company is no
exception. As founder, chairman and CEO of FusionStorm, a
technology solutions provider, he successfully grew the company
to $120 million in revenue in just five years. When the company
took a hit and dropped to $12 million, he could have just given
up. Venture capitalists and board members walked away, recommending he file for bankruptcy. Instead, he took the business
back to nearly $500 million in revenue during the last six years,
and despite the tough economy, Varel says that more growth is
still attainable.
“You have to weather the pain,” he says. “If you want to be a
leader, you really have got to do anything and everything that
you’d ask one of your people to do, and do it in the worst of
times.”
He says that there are basic tenets essential for growth that
apply in all economic conditions — communication, collaboration and empowerment.
“We have to communicate more effectively,” Varel says. “We
have to collaborate across groups and teams and practices.
Then we have to remember that even though we all seem to
think we can be all-knowing, we have to let the individual
teams be empowered and let them make mistakes and move
on and learn from them.”
