The Talent Illusion of Hiring Stars vs Building Systems w/ Alex Klein and Tom Rodenhauser

View Show Notes

In the fourth installment of our series with Kennedy Intelligence, Brent is joined again by Alex Klein and Tom Rodenhauser to explore one of the most persistent myths in the professional services industry: the belief that hiring a few “star” performers will unlock growth. Together, they unpack why overreliance on rainmakers can be a dangerous blind spot, the cultural risks of high-profile hires, and the critical importance of building scalable systems and developing talent from within.

Key topics covered in this episode:

How overreliance on rainmakers limits growth and adds risk
Using clear value propositions, processes, and coaching to scale beyond star talent
Why big-firm hires often fail without cultural alignment
Building principal-level talent to free partners for business development
Success stories of promoting leaders from within over external hires

Our listeners receive exclusive preferred rates on Kennedy's market research, strategic advisory, performance improvement benchmarking and M&A services that are tailored to leaders of professional services firms. Just reference Kantata and you will receive preferred pricing on any of their assets or services. Go to https://www.kennedyintel.com/ to learn more.

Banoo Behboodi

Vice President, Success Engineering

Banoo Behboodi is a 20+ year software and services leader with extensive experience executing change initiatives with oversight of Customer Success, Professional Services and Delivery and Consulting functions. Banoo’s earlier experiences with AT&T Mobility, Coca-Cola Company and Ernst & Young leading key transformational and compliance projects, provided the foundation needed to be an effective leader and a change agent with a customer first mindset. Banoo is passionate about driving continuous improvement through sharing best practices and empowering resources through technology and analytics to optimize performance and job satisfaction while driving business outcomes.

Brent Trimble

Vice President, Value Engineering

Brent brings more than 15+ year’s of leadership experience in Management Consulting, Strategic Delivery, Marketing services and product development firms to his technology role at Kantata. As the VP of Value Engineering and the Managing Director of Marketing Service & Agency Vertical, he specializes in identifying process improvement potential, business optimization and key health metrics for alignment and orientation.

With deep business understanding through an operator lens - Brent works with Kantata partner firms to refine intrinsic and extrinsic value drivers - giving firm principals the focus required for adoption, mobilization, value realization and ultimately - success.

Prior to joining Kantata, Brent was a client of the platform and held positions at Interpublic Group, Accenture, WPP, and independent marketing consulting firms.