Jorge Titinger Podcast Transcript
Jorge Titinger joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Jorge Titinger. Jorge Titinger is the Founder and CEO of Titinger Consulting, a boutique consulting firm focused on strategy development, the cultural aspects of mergers and acquisitions, corporate transformations, and leadership coaching.
He’s also the award-winning coauthor with Pedro Espinosa of the book, Differences That Make a Difference. Mr. Titinger has over 30 years of experience in the high-tech industry and has held numerous executive and board positions in the semiconductor equipment and computer industries. He is a sought-after public speaker and advisor.
His clients range from multibillion-dollar companies to startups. He is very involved in the startup community, both in the US and Peru. He is a mentor with Endeavor and an LP and several venture funds.
Brian Thomas: Well, good afternoon, Jorge. Welcome to the show!
Jorge Titinger: Thank you very much. Happy to be here and to be able to share with the audience.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. We’re excited that you jumped on this afternoon. And let’s just jump right into the questions where, hey, we’ve got quite a few questions here for you. And we’re just excited to hear your story and get it out to the world. So, you’ve got quite the career in technology operations. You are a senior executive, a chairman.
Now you’re the founder and CEO of Titinger Consulting. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
Jorge Titinger: Sure. So, you know, I think there really is not a secret, but there are certain things that have been very impactful in my career that I think are important for anybody to have a great career.
And the first one is. To focus on continuing to learn always, you know, I throughout my career, like to declare myself a beginner and be open to new learnings, new ideas, et cetera. You have to work hard. I mean, I think that maybe goes without saying, but you also. Need to work smart and that sometimes is a little harder to do.
I had the luck to play sports at a very, very competitive level. And one of the lessons learned from the world of sports is that it’s all about performance, right? So I knew that if I wanted to be a starter, I had to work hard both on my game and my conditioning, et cetera, et cetera. And that translated into my work ethic when I was working and growing in my career, the third area is to be courageous and jump on certain opportunities.
I’ve seen so many talented people who. Opportunities to do something that was risky, and they never wanted to take the risk. So, you know, there’s that saying, I know without risk, there’s no reward. I believe in that. And maybe 1 of the most important ones is network network. You know, the, the value of the network is enormous and your ability.
To get things done. If you have a strong network is enormous as well. So, I always say, focus on building a network and that will help you tremendously. And when you do, you need to pay it forward and also pay it back. You know, it’s a reciprocal thing to be on a network. And what really inspires me and is to see others do well and see others thrive and succeed, and this is why I do what I do today with my consulting work and.
You know, I coach CEOs and I serve on boards and all of that is and I’ve built an opportunity to actually contribute my experience and my knowledge to other people and have them. Do great.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Thank you. And I really do appreciate that. And I like your story. Of course, you had a great analogy and something that was very relatable for our audience but being in high performance sport at that professional level.
Absolutely equates to what we do in our business and how successful we are. So thank you. And Jorge, what role do you believe innovation plays in the success of a business, and maybe you can provide examples of innovative strategies that have yield yielded positive results. Yeah,
Jorge Titinger: no, I, you know, it’s, it’s interesting.
My, my whole career was in tech, right? So, in my industry. It’s an industry that you either innovate or you get left behind. Right. And I’m not kidding when I say in several of the companies that I was in, or I ran, if we did not obsolete ourselves every 18 months, we were out of the business. Right? So, innovation has been hugely important in my business.
And I see it in all businesses. Right? And even in something that people might think is very simple, let’s say. Right. A grocery store, you know, if they’re not implementing some of the innovative ways to market themselves or to keep track of their products or you know, how they charge, et cetera. They’re probably going to be left behind.
And I do want to make a distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovation and maybe give examples of those 2, right? So sustaining innovation is something that, you know, builds upon. What’s already there, and maybe in small increments, and you’re probably a great example is all the iPhone products.
Right? I still think I’m on my iPhone 11. I’m ashamed to say, but, you know, they’re up to iPhone 15 now, and they’re all just a little bit better. Right? And but they draw. The more users, they draw you know, bigger audience that are buying the products. And all of them have a few more features that are better than the past ones.
And disruptive innovation. I think the best example that I can come up with is Uber, right? And there’s several like that. Airbnb is another one where they took concepts that already existed, right? And in the case of Uber, for example, taxis already existed. But you had to go stand in the street haul one down, you know, you had, it was always an issue when it came time to pay, et cetera.
And they took that concept they paired it with a fully automated front end and back end to order it, to pay, to leave feedback, to book it, et cetera. And we had our, you know, our revolution in a business model innovation because the concept of taking somebody from point A to point B was very old.
So those are, I think, two good examples of. Quite successful innovation, but different types. And I think, you know, most companies focus on sustaining innovation and get lots of benefits for that. But those that really create new opportunities tend to be disruptive.
Brian Thomas: Thank you, and I appreciate you sharing the examples for our audience today.
That’s just amazing. You know, we can sit here and talk about innovation all day long. Believe me, but I love the fact that you are. Jumping into this field and helping companies out with some of that innovation. So. Jorge, can you share some insights on the most effective strategies for building a high-performance team culture in today’s dynamic business environment?
Jorge Titinger: Sure. You know, and I love the fact that we’re going to talk about culture. I think I’m a big fan of Peter Drucker’s quote, you know, that said culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I truly believe that. And, you know, the times when I’ve been most successful in my career is when. I was either a part of or developed a culture of success and a culture of high performance.
And what I’m going to say is culture starts at the top. And it needs to be something that is truly important and embraced by the leadership of the company. Otherwise, it doesn’t tend to be sticky. And some of the key things that are important to have a great high-performance culture is. You know, there has to be a vision and a mission, you know, what is the North Star for that company and making sure that everybody is fully aligned with that.
I also believe that having stretch objectives. It’s critical, right? If you are driving to mediocre performance, you’re probably going to end up being a mediocre company and a mediocre culture. And to have stretch objectives, you must have a culture of accountability and commitment and measurable goals, right?
It’s you know, I hope I don’t offend anybody when I use this quote, but you know, And God, we trust everybody else bring data, right? And if you’re not measuring something, chances that gets done are very slim. And I believe there really needs to be an alignment of the structure of incentives to produce the right behaviors in the company that lead you to accountability, commitment, and great results.
And when I say that, I mean, both successes and failures need to have consequences. And consequences, most of the time gets thought of as a negative word, but there need to be consequences for success as well. You know, how do you really reward the teams that are doing quite well, right? And not just peanut butter rewards across the whole organization.
But back to, to my main point is it needs to be led by the top. It needs to be led by example.
Brian Thomas: Jorge. And I appreciate that. You did focus a little bit on. Really the important aspect that you and I both have been leaders in large organizations for many years and absolutely culture will eat strategy for breakfast.
I’ve seen it time and time again and you’re absolutely right lead from the top-down lead by example and make sure that everybody’s on the same page when it comes to that north star vision. So thank you. And Jorge, last question of the day, we are a technology podcast and publication. I’m a techie. We would just like to ask everybody if you’re leveraging any of that new and emerging tech in your business.
And if you’re not, that’s okay. Maybe there’s a cool tool or app you found useful. You might share with us.
Jorge Titinger: Sure. So, you know, I’ll talk a little bit about during my career as an operating executive in tech, you know, we really, again, had to adopt innovation and innovation didn’t just come from us, right? But from, you know, the MRP and ERP systems that we were using, we were very early to adopt the notion of DevOps and scrums when we’re doing software development and not wait like it used to be in the old day where you waited, you know, 2 years to see if a major project worked or not.
So, all of that agility, we always were early adopters and it helped us tremendously. Today that I’m work mostly as a consultant and an advisor, I do use analytical tools to, you know, when I’m working with companies to help me accelerate time to results for them. And, you know, a lot of what I do personally is.
Collect data, analyze it, and then present it in a way that is very actionable for the companies that I’m working with. And I am probably like most people in the world right now. I’m I’ve started to use GPT. As a tool that helps me create content and, you know, I find it to be really useful in that, in that regard.
And of course, you know, I’m very mindful of the potential pitfalls that AI has, and I’m trying to make sure that I use it ethically, but I’m also starting to use Canva for all things visual, you know, I have. My logos, my presentations, et cetera, on Canva. It’s newer for me, but I find it to be tremendously helpful.
So those would be two tools that I recommend people start playing with and exploring.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And you’re, you’re right there since chat GPT’s release late last year things have just gone crazy and now there’s, yeah, there’s, there’s integrations. Obviously, there’s these APIs. In fact, Canva has that now too.
So, you’ve shared. Really two of the most popular, I’d say one of the two of the most popular platforms being discussed today. And those are absolutely game changers, especially for those in a consulting business, or, or if you’re a small, you know, mom and pop shop you’re it’s really, it levels the playing field with the big guys out there.
So, I appreciate you sharing that and Jorge, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Jorge Titinger: Thank you, Brian. I really enjoyed it as well. Take care.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Jorge Titinger Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
