Entrepreneur Interview
My background
My names are Hillary McKinnon, the owner of the Suntra investment bank. I was born in Chicago, the United States of America in 1970. My parents were mark McKinnon and Mary Anthony McKinnon, two uneducated peasant farmers. I have two brothers and a sister, whom I cherish so much for we have grown together in the same house. Firstly, let me point out that my childhood started well until one my father was forced to sell part of his land to pay the part of the pending loan, at the time I was only eight years old. I didn’t clearly understand what was going on but my mother seemed sad and unhappy. At one time I overheard curse the bank claiming that it took advantage of their innocence and illiteracy. To me,
At the same time, the loan was meant for my elder brother’s school fees; I felt so challenged and wondered why we couldn’t have been rich. In addition, I realized that no matter I was of little assistance to my family at the time though deep inside me I felt determined to get my family from this situation as fast as possible. The whole experience of my family losing part of our source of livelihood and the fact that our education was jeopardized made me feel determined to work hard at school though the future seemed scattered and bound by many uncertainties.
That a kid who never featured anywhere in a class of forty students became the surprise of many by attaining a top position and even my parents couldn’t believe it. From then my academic performance changed abruptly, later I joined the high school after achieving good marks in my final exam. In high school, I consequently proved to be the best and this got me sponsorship in one of the best colleges available in Chicago. My sponsorship came at the right time because by the time my family could not afford to pay for fees for the three of us.
Though my elder brother was through with his schooling he immediately moved in with his girlfriend becoming of little help to the family. To me, my family problems seemed a source of my motivation to work hard in school though on many occasions I felt motivated internally. In addition, I perceived myself as a burden to my family and I was determined to work my way out.
At the age of 12, I had inspirations to earn my own money through rearing pigs, though it proved burdensome to my parents as I used it most of the time at school. Therefore, with time I was forced to sell them at a younger age at a loss but I never gave up my inspirations to be a business person rather I perceived my inability to achieve my youth dreams as wrong business that was not appropriate at the time. To myself, the whole experience was desirable and gave me an overview of the time and dedication that businesses require to understand.
Currently, I am the chairman of Suntra investment bank that assists potential investors to realize their dreams by guiding them in their investments plans and endeavors. This business belongs to the banking industry though it concentrates on investments guidelines and not the usual banking services that banks provide. I started the business in 1992, just after working for two years after completing my campus learning. By the time, I had not earned enough and I relied on my uncles and aunties to boost me financially though it was not easy to make them believe that my idea will work and they feared going into bad debts.
All the same, they became my source of motivation as many of them had successive businesses and I appreciated their endless advice which became beneficial to me as a young business person. However, what motivated me mainly is my family and childhood desire to invest in a business that would assist others in their investments plans. This was chiefly because I believed that with good advice my parents would have invested in profitable projects and may we would have lived a good life.
As a business person has learned a lot, for instance have realized that customer is always right and have all through embraced my customers and insisted on the same to the company’s staff. Secondly, have learned that to succeed in business you have to treasure people by having a good heart towards others no matter their background as of tomorrow we do not know who could be our partners. Thirdly, have realized things change with time, therefore as a business person you need to be always keen and focused so that you do not lose your footing when it comes to innovation and technology.
In addition, there is so much value attached to a business culture that you adopt such as the employee’s appearance in terms of clothing and language used in the office. One thing has noticed is that different people belong to different beliefs and cultural background. This implies that whatever works for most of us, may not be right for all of us. Therefore, the business should implement ethically acceptable values and norms to promote social interactions and for effective communication crucial for business success. At the same time, I try to reduce the differences that exist between the executive leaders and the subordinate staff in many corporations such that it becomes difficult to incorporate the ideas of all employees into decision-making.
Our inspiration and motivations
My future inspirations include becoming a successful business person recognized internationally who will have ventured into other businesses like exporting industry. Over the years have realized that the benefits of international trade exceed the difficulties, therefore as a business person, I feel determined to expand this business to the international front and continue with the business mission of serving our worldwide customers.
However, before expanding the business to the international grounds I intend to exhaust the locally available market to obtain a strong foundation locally so that when the right time comes the business will be competent enough to face its international competitors in terms of servicing offering as well as capital base necessary for exploiting all available business opportunities. The reason why I insist on expanding the business capital base before expanding it internationally is because of the existence of multinationals and banking corporations that require an enormous foundation in order to counteract their competition.
In addition, I aspire to start my foundation that will assist the unlucky among us like orphans, aids victims, and all others depending on my abilities to at least make them achieve their dreams too. I believe disability is not inability and sometimes life puts us in a fix and at that time we require someone to boost us to achieve our dreams. I would aspire to start a foundation that besides offering financial support, would still assist the needy in making crucial decisions in their lives in order to achieve their dreams.
In matters of decision making have learned that to be successful in business there is a need to involve each and every stakeholder, though some may argue it is time wastage to me I see it differently. You know by involving everyone you are making them appreciated and to relate with the business like theirs. Although, we try to get everyone’s opinion concerning all matters or issues major decisions are left to the senior management who have to consider the opinion of all others.
In addition, our business culture dictates that though we may be diversified in terms of our origin and way of life, however, everyone is important and treasured. doing this, we try to bring our staff and customers no matter our differences, and we have to make this world a better place for everyone. In addition, we try to make our decisions after gathering all the necessary information that would assist us to make well-informed decisions to avoid making wrong decisions that would lead to financial losses or poor performance giving our competitors an advantage over our business. Therefore, gathering necessary data that assists in making successive decisions is very crucial to us and that’s why we treasure our staff members and other stakeholders to feed the business with the necessary information for decision making.
Business structure
The business is structured as follows: the ten boards of directors with me being the chairman of the board and Marcus Hanks being the vice-chairman. The other eight directors are taken from different sectors of the banking industry as per the provision of the banking act. The business executive comprises one CEO, three managers each managing his/ her own branch of the business as we have three branches. The CEO acts as an overseer of the managers and other staff from the headquarters office. Then we have the assistant managers under each manager and finally, we have the other employees.
As you can see the business structure is not detailed because we are still young and some executives perform more than role. The business comprises three branches in three different locations but within Chicago. We have currently employed at least 120 staff members including casual laborers.
The business products and services
The business offers various services including offering guidelines to potential investors concerning the best projects to undertake given the number of funds they have. More so, we buy and sell stocks for our customers as we are registered with the city’s stock exchange, this saves our customers from going out there to find the potential buyer or seller of their stocks or obtaining the initial public offer(IPO) stocks.
In addition, we assist our customers to make the right decisions concerning the right investments to make when faced with more than one investment decision to make and they do not have enough funds to undertake both. We perform this by using our evaluation techniques to know the right investment that fits each customer depending on their funds and how fast they would like to obtain interests or their money back.
Though the industry is highly competitive, however, we have an advantage over our competitors that originates from the fact we are specialists in the field of investing therefore we happen to have all the required information that the customers require. This assists us in serving our customers better compared to our competitors who perform a wide range of business activities and happen to lose focus along the way.
For instance, many banks offer banking and loan services as well as investment assistance this makes most of them become biased when they grant a customer a loan as they insist on the right investment for the customer in terms of how they can obtain their money back without considering the right investment that fit the customer. This makes many customers feel unappreciated as at the end of the day it was all about getting what this makes wanted but not assisting these needy customers. In addition, our main competencies are our well-trained and informed employees that serve our customers with integrity and dignity using the little time possible. At the same time, technology-wise we utilize the current facilities available in the market this makes our work easier and faster to perform.
The business does not have a specific group that we target because I believe that investment is a crucial issue in our lives and everyone can invest no matter how little you earn. We deal with everyone including students who save part of their pocket money to invest. Therefore, we are open-minded and we exist to assist our customers hence we don’t have a specific market. In addition, we believe that to be successful in life you need to save and invest in the right investment and everyone one of us can work and save part of their income. The problem arises in that many s spend beyond what we earn and leave nothing to invest.
Therefore, investment remains a crucial issue in our lives and we owe it to our success and anyone can invest hence we are not biased when it comes to our customers. However, we are limited by our location as the business is not international rather locally based, hence we don’t serve many customers as we aspire.
Through hard work, our sensitivity to our customers, and the business result-oriented approach have earned us success in a field where competition is stiff and sometimes unhealthy. In addition, I believe that our staff members have done a lot to achieve the results that earned us a good name and fat profit. At the same time, we adore our customers who allow us to serve them and with their co-operation, we have achieved a lot in this business. Without our customers, I believe we won’t have experienced our success
Finally, to every good story, there must be a sad or bad paragraph or line. In terms of achieving our objectives, the business was to have expanded to other cities in a period of eight years, however 17 years down the line we have managed to open a few branches within the city. In addition, we have not attracted as many customers compared to our capabilities hence plans are underway to ensure that we achieve all our objectives with little time possible.
Therefore, our failure to achieve our all objectives does not mean we do not serve appropriately or we are unable to achieve our goals in the future. Furthermore, this can not be classified as a failure because our results are incredible and our achievements great. However, this can be attributed to our continued concentration on customer service as we treasure and respect our customers hence we have not been able to achieve all our objectives or goals. The reason behind concentrating on customer service is to obtain a home ground advantage over our competitors and build a strong foundation that will be our driving force to the achievement of our goals and aspirations.
Our location is our limitation as we have not exhausted our potential in other countries, therefore I can say the business has failed in that but not so much as would my attitude towards the business. The good thing is that our results reveal that we are growing and that’s what we and even our customers rely on to judge ourselves and others. As I conclude, let me say that I enjoy having started this kind of business to assist others so that they do not wrong decisions of misusing their money as they do not have projects to invest in or those who make wrong decisions when investing leading them to lose their money.
So far, am proud of the business performance and have not to doubt that we are moving in the right direction, and with time the sky will be our only limit. In addition, let me take this opportunity to acknowledge all our customers and stakeholders to appreciate their assistance that has enabled us to move so far and achieve credible results that earned us recognition in this competitive banking industry. Finally, let me say we are open to assist everyone who feels a desire to prosper by investing the little money they save. All that I can tell people out there, our potential lies with us and with the daily decisions that we make. Our business ensures that people make the right decisions in life.