The leadership of a medium-to-large-size firm always says the business will soldier on and continue to grow just as it did before if it loses a key member (think founder or CEO) of its team. Following through on those statements is not easily done. Gongos is getting the job done.
The Auburn Hills-based market research firm lost its founder, John Gongos, suddenly to an illness a little more than a year ago. The company notched more than 20 straight years of steady growth on his watch, and it has continued to do that since. Gongos just booked its 23rd straight year of strong growth in 2013, spiking its revenue by 12 percent. Camille Nicita, president & CEO of
Gongos, credits the team John Gongos assembled around him when he built the company.
"He relied heavily on the people around him," Nicita says. "He wasn't the end-all-be-all type of person."
Gongos has also grown its staff by 15 percent over the last year. It has hired 19 people since January of 2013 and now employs 125 full-time staffers and one intern.
"We're really hiring across the board because we're growing so rapidly," Nicita says. "Our goal as a company is not to be big, but to be great."
Nicita oversaw the combining of Gongos Research and O2 Integrated into the singular Gongos brand last year. The company is now working to move from solely market research to what Nicita and her team are coining the "decision intelligence space" that leverages traditional market research and data analytics that come from both Gongos overall research and from each customer.
This evolution is part of what makes Gongos a "living and breathing" thing that bases most of its ability on the combined vision of its workforce.
"We're trying to hire people who believe in the vision of this company as much as we do," Nicita says.
Source: Camille Nicita, president & CEO of Gongos
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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