Kevin Poole is the CEO of Newport LLC, a national business advisory firm specializing in helping middle-market companies accelerate growth, improve profitability, and prepare for successful exits. Before joining Newport, he spent nearly two decades at General Electric during the Jack Welch era, holding senior roles, and later led a $100 million consulting practice at Capgemini. Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Miami and an MBA in finance and marketing from Columbia Business School. He now leverages his deep operational and consulting experience to guide business owners through growth, succession, and M&A planning.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:38] Kevin Poole shares his first leadership experience managing a team of lifeguards as a teenager
- [4:21] How living abroad in London as a teen shaped Kevin’s worldview and independence
- [7:47] What it was like working at GE during the Jack Welch era
- [9:38] The value of operating discipline and leadership development at GE
- [17:22] Why Kevin shifted from advising Fortune 500s to working with founder-led companies
- [20:05] The challenge of advising entrepreneurial owners vs. corporate managers
- [25:14] Case study: Helping a trucking company prepare for generational transition
- [30:58] How Newport handles situations when Gen 2 isn’t fit to take over
- [39:07] The impact of AI on mid-market consulting and how Newport integrates it
In this episode…
How can leaders scale a business they’ve never scaled before, especially in a market filled with complexity and change? And what happens when the next generation is poised to inherit but may not be ready to lead?
Kevin Poole, a seasoned executive with an illustrious career at General Electric under Jack Welch, shares how strategic leadership, operating discipline, and emotional intelligence drive sustainable growth in middle-market businesses. Kevin offers a framework for mentoring Gen 2 leaders, building succession plans, and managing founder expectations, all while adapting to the fast-paced shift toward AI and efficiency. Through case studies and personal stories, Kevin explains how he’s helped owners unlock business value, reduce “scar tissue,” and prepare their companies for long-term success.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Kevin Poole, CEO of Newport LLC, about scaling middle-market businesses. Kevin discusses operating discipline, family business transitions, aligning Gen 1 and Gen 2 goals, and how AI tools like ChatGPT are transforming both strategy and hiring. Through this engaging conversation, John and Kevin provide a wealth of knowledge and practical wisdom for business leaders looking to elevate their companies to new heights.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
Quotable Moments:
- “You have to sell to the heart, not the brain, when working with founder-led businesses.”
- “Operating discipline is about executing a plan with rigor, even when adjustments are needed.”
- “We use our collective scar tissue to help owners sleep better at night.”
- “Jack Welch expected leaders to spend 50% of their time on people, and that stuck with me.”
- “You can’t just do it like GE did; it has to be scaled to fit the business in front of you.”
Action Steps:
- Develop operating discipline: Set up consistent planning and review cycles, even if you’re a small team. Execution requires structure, not just strategy.
- Prepare for leadership transitions early: Whether selling or passing to Gen 2, grooming successors takes time. Don’t wait until you’re burned out to start.
- Tailor your communication style: Authenticity is key. Learn what works best for you—whether one-on-one or one-to-many—and avoid copying others’ styles.
- Leverage advisory experience smartly: Bring in seasoned advisors who know “what good looks like” but who can translate that into a right-sized approach for your company.
- Integrate AI into operations: Use tools like ChatGPT for tasks such as drafting job descriptions or strategic brainstorming. They save time and increase efficiency.
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:00
All right. Today we’re talking about how middle market companies in today’s economy can grow strategically. And my guest today has an amazing background. He spent 20 years working directly under Jack Welch at GE and all the other leaders there. And I’ll tell you more about him in a second. So just stay tuned.
John Corcoran: 00:20
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:37
Hey, everyone, John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, every week we have interesting smart founders and entrepreneurs and CEOs from all kinds of companies. And if you look at our archives, we’ve got Netflix and Grubhub and Redfin, Gusto, Kinko’s, Activision Blizzard, lots of great episodes for you. So check out the archives. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses to give to and connect with their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping companies to run their podcasts and content marketing. You’re the easy button for a company to launch and run their podcasts. We do three things strategy, accountability, and full execution, and even invented what some are calling the Wix B2B podcasting our platform Podcast Co-Pilot. So if you want to learn more about what we do, you can go to our website, Rise25.com or email us at [email protected].
All right. My guest here today is Kevin Poole. He is the CEO of Newport LLC. It’s a national business advisory firm based right here in the San Francisco Bay area where I’m based as well. Kevin brings over three decades of leadership experience across consulting, technology and executive management. As I alluded to earlier, early in his career, he spent nearly 20 years at General Electric during the Jack Welch era, and he served in various senior operating roles, managed the $80 million unit, and he then joined Capgemini, which was formerly Ernst and Young Consulting, where he was a vice president there, and managed about $100 million consulting practice in the Western US. He’s also had a lot of volunteer experience as well.
And Kevin, I’m so delighted to have you here today, and I love to start with my guests, not with the impressive accolades and things they’ve accomplished during their career. But I like to go back a lot further before that. And you were a lifeguard at a country club and you managed a team of lifeguards. How old were you doing that when you were doing this, and did this come naturally to you, or was that a skill that you had to learn on the job?
Kevin Poole: 02:38
Well, I guess there’s, you know, kind of two parts to it in terms of being able to swim well and rescue people. That came to me naturally because I’d been a swimmer ever since I was eight years old. But the fact that I was a supervisor of about a dozen other lifeguards, basically trying to manage unruly teenagers as a teenager For myself. That took some learning, that took some doing. And I think I’ll have to say that that first leadership role I had at a very early age kind of got me interested in the concepts of leadership, managing others. And that’s something that I’ve been interested in working on applying and improving on throughout my entire career.
John Corcoran: 03:17
You seem like a steady, even keel, good demeanor kind of person. Do you think someone saw that in you, or is it like Kevin here? I can’t deal with these half dozen lifeguards. Will you just take care of that problem for me? Like, how did you end up in this position of managing other lifeguards at a young age?
Kevin Poole: 03:37
Yeah, I think at the time I was a reasonably responsible individual for a 16 year old. I think the senior management at the country club that I worked at recognized that. I think the fact that I knew my craft just in terms of water rescue skills, I think was another positive thing and the fact that I had good relationships with most of the folks that I was going to be supervising. I think all of those things led up to the club management deciding to appoint me as the supervisor.
John Corcoran: 04:08
Yeah. You also had this formative experience when you were growing up. Your family actually transferred to London, and you spent the first three years of high school in London. What was that experience like?
Kevin Poole: 04:21
Well, that was phenomenal. I mean, it was a truly formative experience for me that stuck with me my entire career. And I think more than anything, it kind of expanded my worldview. Living in another country, it helped me develop a sense of independence, a sense of confidence. Because when I was a student there, I had an opportunity to travel quite a bit, either through school, organized trips, or during the summers. I would put together my own trips on my own. And when I think back on some of the trips I made at the time, I don’t know that I would have let my own child make those trips.
So, for instance, one one summer, the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, when I was all of 14 years old, I traveled by myself from London to Sweden, took the ferry across the North Sea, train across Sweden, and spent a summer living with some friends of the family, working at a company in Sweden for that summer. And in the following year, the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I made a trip to New York. I bought a 30 day Greyhound bus pass and spent 30 days as a 15 year old traveling across the US, visiting friends and family, navigating the bus routes by myself and when I think about it.
John Corcoran: 05:35
Your parents, like, just kind of like laissez faire about you. Like, just like you just like this.
Kevin Poole: 05:39
Well, you know, here again, I think I had demonstrated up to that point a sense of responsibility, a sense of maturity that it was unlikely I was going to get into, into too much trouble, kind of knew how to take care of myself, had gone on, you know, quite a few school related trips came back alive. So my folks felt, well, you know, we’ll maybe roll the dice a little bit, but the summer before the trip to Sweden led them to believe that it was probably up for this 30 day trip by myself as a 14 year old. And just kind of a quick funny story on that trip to Sweden, as I was trying to leave the country, an immigration officer stopped me. They saw this young child, 14 years old, traveling with a US passport by himself, and I think he thought I was a runaway. So he pulled me out of the immigration line, called home to my mom and said, Mrs. Poole, we have your son here. And he’s claiming to be, you know, planning on spending the summer living in Sweden with some friends. Is this true? And she said, yeah, it is true. You let him go and stop bothering me. So the next summer when I was traveling around the US by myself, she actually wrote out a note for me to take with me that said to whom it may concern, this is our son Kevin, traveling with our permission around the US. If you need to call me to get verification, here’s my number. But I’d rather you don’t bother me.
John Corcoran: 06:54
And did you have to bust out the note anywhere?
Kevin Poole: 06:57
I only have one occasion. I was getting on a Greyhound bus, I think going from Chicago to Salt Lake City and the bus driver was looking at me a little suspect. So between the passport and the note, he let me on.
John Corcoran: 07:10
So there’s definitely something about you that leads people to give you responsibility and allow you to manage your own affairs. I guess from the stories you’ve told so far. And you go and you get your MBA from Columbia, and then you end up going to GE and you work under Jack Welch, who is just this iconic business leader. Tell me what that experience was like from start to finish. Like what was the first, you know, iteration of it, you know, going to work there.
Kevin Poole: 07:47
Yeah. So you’re right. This was GE back during the Jack Welch era when GE was still a component of the Dow. It’s, you know, sad to see kind of what’s happened to the company since then. But during the 20 years I was there, it was kind of the cat’s meow when it came to business leadership and recognition for all the great tools, techniques, best practices that GE developed. And I had the benefit of learning those things during that time when Jack Welch was leading the organization. I had the opportunity to meet him on multiple occasions, present to him on multiple occasions. And what I would say is, as long as you had your facts straight, you had done your homework. You weren’t trying to B.S. him. You were fine. But I did see instances where folks hadn’t done their homework or were trying to BS him and that didn’t. That didn’t end so well.
John Corcoran: 08:36
All right, I got to hear these stories. So is there one that you remember in particular where someone came in and tried to wing it and ended up getting grilled by him?
Kevin Poole: 08:44
Yeah, there was one where there was a group of regional managers. This was, I think, at a Chicago related event, and there was a group of GE managers presenting to him from their various business units. and one of the managers came in and just clearly, clearly tried to wing it. And it was only, you know, 2 or 3 questions when Jack decided that he really didn’t have the time of day to listen to that poorly prepared individual. So basically, you know, sent him home packing from the event right there in front of his peers.
John Corcoran: 09:14
Fired or just like, go home.
Kevin Poole: 09:16
Well, just just go home and, you know, go back and do your homework and, you know, come see me again when you have your facts straight.
John Corcoran: 09:21
Man, that must have been a wake up call for that person.
Kevin Poole: 09:24
Well, you know, it kind of kind of sent a signal to the rest of the managers presenting to him. And fortunately, I had already presented prior to that individual. So I did not have to kind of worry about my presentation. You know, after having seen that.
John Corcoran: 09:38
What do you think of that as a management strategy?
Kevin Poole: 09:42
Well, you know, it certainly got folks’ attention. And what I would say is that during that era, that was probably the approach that a lot of organizations Adopted, right? Kind of. Kind of top down, command and control. Not sure it would work entirely today, but I think, you know, there was something to be said for setting a high bar, expecting people to be prepared, expecting people to have their facts straight. I know, you know, one thing that I learned from my days at GE was that Welsh expected all the new leaders in the organization to be spending about 50% of their time on personnel and employee related matters, so attracting, retaining, developing and letting go when necessary individuals in their organization.
So I think more than more than anything else, what I learned during my 20 years at GE was really kind of building on that initial leadership experience I had working as a lifeguard when I was all of 16 years old, and developing that in a more professional setting and really learning the dark arts of leadership. During that time at GE and that I think has served me well during my time at E, Capgemini and more recently during my time at Newport, and certainly in working with the clients that I work with and helping them grow and develop their own leadership teams.
John Corcoran: 11:13
So other than spending 50% of your time as a leader within GE on people matters? What are some other examples where, you know, you’ve said that you saw what good looks like at GE. You know, really good practice. What are some other examples where you, you know, saw what a really good well-managed company was like. Can you give us some examples?
Kevin Poole: 11:37
Sure. I think the other concept that I learned during my GE days was the notion of operating discipline. You know, the ability to lay out a plan, whether it’s a multi-year strategic plan or a shorter term operating plan, and then to develop the details around that plan, rally your organization around that vision, and then execute that plan with discipline, whether that’s weekly reviews, monthly reviews, what have you detailed project plans? You know, the ability to stick with the plan and execute that plan as developed. Of course, making mid-course corrections as necessary. But just that whole notion of operating discipline and using appropriate tools around that, whether it might be Six Sigma or some of the other tools like workout that GE was known for, you know, back during the 80s, 90s and early 2000.
John Corcoran: 12:30
Yeah. And any other anecdotes about being around Jack Welch.
Kevin Poole: 12:38
You know what I, what I would say is that he was an incredibly charismatic individual. He had the ability to really kind of light up a room through his charisma. He had an ability to engage with people on a personal level. He had the ability to engage with people on a one to many level. So one of the things that I’ve tried to focus on as a leader in terms of developing my own skills and in coaching people who’ve worked for me or clients that I’ve worked with, is to is to really try and develop their communication skills and communication style in a way that works both 1 to 1, one to many, but most importantly, is authentic and comfortable for them. Because if you try and do something that’s not comfortable, it’s going to come across as inauthentic. If you try.
John Corcoran: 13:26
To be Jack Welch, you try to be Jack Welch, and you don’t have his natural charisma, then it’s going to come out kind of awkward.
Kevin Poole: 13:33
Exactly, exactly.
John Corcoran: 13:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What an amazing opportunity. So you go on from there to Capgemini, where you’re running the equivalent of what would be a, you know, a large company, a $100 million consulting practice. I’m a bit fascinated by Consulting of that size. So talk a little bit about, you know, why you decided to make that switch after 20 years at GE.
Kevin Poole: 14:01
Yeah. So great question. You know, when I was at GE, that was still a point in time where companies tended to move people around a lot, you know, both between divisions and geographically. And my wife and I were kind of settled out here in the Bay area. We had a young family and the thought of moving again just wasn’t that exciting. And GE at the time was very much a kind of a midwest East Coast company. Not a lot of opportunities, upward opportunities at GE here on the West Coast. And that’s where I started kind of looking around for what’s next. And I hit on consulting as a field where as long as you live close to an airport, you can have lots of opportunities within an organization. Knew I wanted to go somewhere big.
And that’s why I made the switch into big five consulting at Ernst and Young. Very, very different field in that in consulting you’re working with lots of different situations, lots of different clients. And I found that really exciting. You just learn a lot because you go through a lot of cycles. You see a lot of different businesses, you see a lot of different industries. You learn how to spot patterns, you learn how to connect dots. You learn how to come up to speed quickly on different clients’ situations. You learn how to be a, you know, good analyst, good critical thinker. So there were additional sets of skills that I developed during my dozen years at Big Five consulting that I could kind of layer onto my core leadership and management abilities that I developed during my GE days, and it was just a fascinating experience for me, seeing all those different client situations. Working with large companies. I had a bit of a specialty in technology, so I did a lot, a lot of work with Microsoft, HP, Dell, Cisco. So getting to see what these other large, well-run companies look like and getting a chance to kind of help them improve on their capabilities was just a fascinating experience.
John Corcoran: 16:02
Yeah. Was it? Was that challenging to have a young family and to, you know, work in a demanding role like that?
Kevin Poole: 16:12
You know, I have to say, I missed more of the first 12 years of our daughter’s life than I would ever care to admit. You know, I kind of got used to the physical toll of the travel, but being away from my family was tough. Fortunately, my wife’s job at the time had a bit of flexibility, so we were able to manage things schedule wise. We had a phenomenal nanny that kind of helped everything hold everything together, but in the end, it really it really was kind of the travel that you were alluding to. That caused me, after a dozen years at EY and Capgemini and Big five consulting, to kind of start fishing around for what’s next. Yeah. And that’s when I ended up leaving that big five consulting world.