Len Pagon Jr. founded Brulant Inc., then
called NewMedia, as a 23-year-old in
the spare bedroom of his house back in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, he went
through different company transformations but also propelled the company
through rapid growth, being named to the
Inc. 500 list three times. But sometimes
good things don’t last, and by the end of
2000, the dot-com bubble had burst.
Pagon made a tough decision to restructure his company in order to survive, so he
sold off three branches of the business and
had to make layoffs. By the end of 2000, a
merger had been planned, but by March
2002, things had fallen through and the
merger was abandoned. About half of his
employees, including the CEO Pagon
hired, left to join the company it was supposed to have merged with.
Pagon bought back controlling interest in
the company, and in doing so, he inherited
a company with an upside-down balance sheet, negative equity and no cash. He took
charge of the 26 employees that were left.
He hired an entirely new senior management staff and started over.
The information technology services
market was also changing, so he decided
it was time to take the company in a different direction. He positioned it beyond
a consulting firm that primarily implemented e-business solutions to a full-service strategy, information technology,
and digital business consulting and integration firm to serve global clients. At
this time the company was renamed to
its current Brulant Inc., and it was this
repositioning that fueled Brulant’s
explosive growth during the last few
years, culminating in more than 100 percent growth in 2006.
Pagon, president and CEO of Brulant,
defines a great company as one that is
doing something different, that has built
a different brand, that has deep technology expertise and has a core of talented
employees. These attributes have helped
him reposition the company and will
continue to help it succeed in the future.
HOW TO REACH: Brulant Inc., www.brulant.com or (216) 896-8900
