The adage is, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
Over the last five years, Monica Marchese has found out just how true that is.
Last week, Marchese celebrated the fwive-year mark for her consulting company. Like many entrepreneurs, her business venture was largely an accident, borne out of a corporate career that passed her by.
With only one client to start, Hartford-based Marchese Consulting, LLC, was created in October 2002.
On Oct. 11 of this year, Marchese held a five-year anniversary party at Max Downtown with 50 guests from some of her 30 clients.
“It’s a big deal to make it to the five-year mark with your own practice,” she said. “It takes a lot.”
Focusing on the municipal, small business and non-profit sectors, Marchese Consulting offers services to assist with searches, management and executive coaching and has recently expanded into the corporate sector with, ironically enough, ING as a client.
For decades, Marchese was a human resources executive for corporations such as Shawmut, Bank of Boston, Aetna’s financial services division and, finally, ING. Her final corporate job was with ING and, by the end of 2001, the company made the decision to move the senior leadership positions to Atlanta.
Instead of marching to Atlanta to continue her career, her position was officially eliminated. The timing, so soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, made it difficult for Marchese to find another position .
“I would not categorize myself as a top HR executive, but the next tier doing a managerial kind of role,” she said. “The market at time, in early 2002, was terrible. For four or five months there, it was a pretty dry spell. That’s where the story gets interesting.”
Growing Contacts
It was almost a decade earlier that Marchese had met Oz Griebel, while working at the Bank of Boston. Griebel had since become head of the Metro Hartford Alliance and, prior to Marchese being laid off, had approached her to do some pro bono consulting work for the Alliance.
As 2002 dragged on, and her search for a full-time position revealed few opportunities, Marchese made the life-changing decision to strike out on her own.
The growth of her business in such a short period of time has been nothing short of remarkable. From 2005 to 2006, Marchese estimated her business increased 115 percent. In the last year, she said the bottom line has jumped 75 percent.
There is no secret to her success, she said, just the development of relationships throughout her professional career.
“The most important thing I have done is established long-term relationships through my career,” said Marchese.
She also credited her standing with the Metro Hartford Alliance as a strategic partner, a $7,000 per year investment that connects her with almost 100 other companies that are similar partners.
“Every opportunity with someone is a sales and marketing opportunity,” said Marchese.
“If I were to rate this to my corporate experience on a scale of one to te n, this is a 15,” she said. “Corporate provided me with the knowledge, wherewithal and skills to do this, but I love it so much more.”
With two subcontractors on board to help with clients and the possibility of a third, Marchese said her most immediate goal is to simply maintain clients.
“I’m 57 years old, I’m not in the market to take on employees,” she said. “I want to just continue doing what I’m doing and keep that resilience and tenacity to keep going forward.”
