Each day, Joanne Ducker Ulnick encourages her team at Ducker Worldwide LLC to live the five core values that her father, William Ducker, established when he started the company 50 years ago. The only difference is that she has added a sixth value added to that list: “Ducker’s team members are our key asset which we support, develop and grow.”
With as strong a focus on her people as she has on her clients, Ulnick has continued her father’s legacy of being a pioneer in the business-to-business market research industry. Yet as CEO and managing partner of strategic consulting and research firm, she hasn’t always had an easy road.
Ulnick led the company through challenges including a major loss of senior management, an international expansion strategy, the loss of her father — and the company’s leader — and the most recent challenge of a worldwide economic recession. Although many of Ducker’s clients had budgets reduced as much as 90 percent, Ulnick and her team made it their goal to help clients navigate the economic storm by providing them with strategic insights and advice, whether they could pay for it or not. She also maintained a focus on building a culture of mutual support and loyalty to keep her people engaged and motivated.
By investing in clients as partners and demonstrating perseverance and resolve to her team, Ulnick ensured Ducker didn’t lose a single client in this time, and the average client relationship is 15 years.
In 2009, Ulnick saw an opportunity to further expand Ducker’s service offerings, leveraging the firm’s core competencies to become involved in mergers and acquisitions planning. With the new service lines in place, Ducker Worldwide projects annual revenue increases of more than 25 percent over the next five years.
How to reach: Ducker Worldwide LLC, (248) 644-0086 or www.ducker.com
