New Horizons Computer Learning Centers Anaheim, CA CEO – Kevin Landry March 12 th and 13 th By: Ryan Cox

New Horizons in a Nutshell New Horizons has over 300 locations in 80 different countries around the world. Kevin Landry, CEO, runs five offices in Southern California, with their headquarters being in Anaheim, CA. The other four locations are San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Inland Empire. New Horizons is an IT training company that allows companies to send their employees here to improve their basic Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc skills. They also offer more intensive training within the departments of Cisco, CompTIA, Citrix, etc. The company has been expanding ever since it started in the 1980’s, and since Kevin Landry took over in Southern California six years ago, they have been more successful than ever. The company’s projected sales target for 2012 is approximately 13 to 14 million dollars, which is an excellent amount of revenue for a “small business.”

Day 1- Monday, March 12 th Located in the same parking lot as the Anaheim Angel Stadium

Walking into New Horizons, I really didn’t know what to expect and how the experience was going to benefit me. Right away, I met with Kevin Landry, CEO, and felt welcomed into the company. He took me on a tour of his 19,000 square foot facility and went through basic day to day operations. He had meetings all day starting at 7am going all the way through 5pm, so I was in for a long day but couldn’t wait to learn as much as possible. The first meeting I attended was the sales meeting. All of the top sales people in the company met and Walter Yenkosky presented a PowerPoint to review last months sales numbers. Most of the people in there didn’t expect Mr. Landry to be there and by the end of the meeting, they understood what was needed to be done to improve their numbers from last month.

Following the sales meeting, we went straight to the next meeting which was with all of the head of departments for New Horizons. The meeting consisted of: Rebecca Bergstrom – Director of Marketing Laura Noid – Director of Human Resources Sybil Earl – VP of Operations Anna Nursalim – Chief Financial Officer Kevin Landry – Chief Executive Officer In this meeting, they had a round table discussion on what was happening in their departments. Mr. Landry would chime in when he had an idea or something to tell them and they would write down everything he said. They also talked about how a recent member of their team decided to pursue another job and who they wanted to promote to the new Operations Manager. All of them agreed on Mr. Landry’s choice. The communication between the head of departments at New Horizons seems excellent and all of them really take into account what their coworkers have to say. I was curious why Mr. Landry choose all women as heads of the company, and when I asked him, his simple response was, “Ryan, I had no intention of it being that way, but they all are the hardest workers in the company and perform each and everyday to the highest standards.”

Lunch came around and I headed over to get some food and take in everything I had learned in this experience. I learned more in the first half day of this job shadow than I ever expected to learn. Being a CEO is a very stressful, time consuming task, but it has its benefits. You are the last decision in all of your company’s big choices and it really is up to you to make the right ones. You are the vision of the company and you need to know as the CEO where you and your company are going to be in the next five years. The next half day consisted of a couple interviews for teaching positions at New Horizons, a job promotion for the Operations Manager of the company and eventually the day ended with MONDAY MOJO. This happens on the second Monday of every month, and they use elluminate software to connect all of their employees to the Anaheim office to discuss the successes and improvements they needed from the prior month. I really enjoyed listening to everyone's input at Monday mojo and think it is an excellent way to get all of your employees on the same page. Break Room

Day 2 – Tuesday March 13 th

When I got to the office for my second day of the job shadow, I got right into Mr. Landry’s car and we headed to the San Bernardino office to meet with two potential clients. After the hour drive, we arrived at New Horizons, San Bernardino, and I met Ravi Bhatra. He is an AE-2 which means he has sold $25,000 of services for three consecutive months as an AE-1 and promoted himself to the next level. He told me a little bit about what he does and we went right into a client meeting. Ravi excelled tremendously at letting his client know that New Horizons is the place they should bring their employees to get training and I could tell the woman was very intrigued. Mr. Landry stepped into this conversation when he felt he needed to and used his skills to convince her even more that New Horizons is the best at what they do, and you will be more than satisfied with the company. I was very impressed the way Mr. Landry and Mr. Bhatra used their selling experience to reassure this potential client and learned a lot about how to make your customer feel welcomed and comfortable.

Following that client meeting, I was able to meet with a couple other employees at the San Bernardino office, one being Darwin Arias. Mr. Arias job at New Horizons is a salesman that focuses on individuals rather than companies. He tries to reach out to unemployed individuals who could use some basic computer training to help them obtain a job. He seemed very comfortable with his job and knew the ins and outs of how to succeed in that business field. Next, before we headed back to Anaheim for the end of the day, we headed to Chino to meet with a college out there to see if New Horizons could start doing business with them. I was told before we went into this meeting that colleges, especially this one, are tough to get business with because they are very stern on what they want and do not do much negotiating. By the end of the meeting, however, I felt that Mr. Landry took over the meeting and used his experience to make them want to start using New Horizon’s programs at their college. Classroom

This experience was more than I ever expected and I am very thankful that I was able to job shadow Mr. Landry and start to understand how a CEO runs a company. Over the two days I shadowed him, I learned a wealth of knowledge that will help me when I enter the business world. He has a great grasp on business and how to run a company successfully, and his employees were very respectful towards myself and all of the others working there as well. You can only learn so much in the classroom about how to run a successful company. Actually experiencing the “real work world” is the best way to understand what you are getting yourself into. I hope when I graduate I can work my way up to running my own company as successfully as Mr. Landry is doing with New Horizons.

Future Aspirations From this job shadow experience, I really have sealed what I want to do with my career. Becoming a CEO is something that I will work my way towards in my lifetime, but if Mr. Landry taught me one thing over those two days it was that nothing comes easy in life. You have to give your 110% effort at everything if you want to be successful and never give up or say something is to hard. I had goals of becoming a Chief Financial Officer, but after this experience and having long conversations with Kevin Landry about it, I really want to focus on the management aspect of a business. I appreciate the opportunity to job shadow Kevin Landry of New Horizons and recommend this to any student who wants to know what the real world of business really is about. A CEO does run a company and makes all of the tough decisions to try and make the company as successful as possible, but what really makes a great CEO is the vision that they have. What you can envision in the next five to ten years for your company is something all CEO’s should be seeking, and Mr. Landry does that well.