Catching Up With Jeff Day
Last Updated August 1, 2019
As a student in Michigan State University’s Online Master of Science in Management, Strategy and Leadership program, Jeff Day had a unique opportunity for the immediate “real-time implementation” of his leadership coursework.
“It was right in the middle of the MSL program” that Day moved into the CEO position at BlueWater Technologies, a Michigan-based company providing meeting and event technology, audio visual integration, and experiential marketing. He would go on to serve as CEO for four years.
With a resume that already included roles with several influential tech companies, Day has continued to grow his thought-leadership flame as a board member of AVIXA, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association. “I’ll be the chair of that board in 2020,” he says.
Now, this bold Spartan leader and Michigan native is blazing a new trail with his own company, North of 10 Advisors. The company name is an homage to heading north of US-10 into the wilds of northern Michigan. To Day, it’s “a reminder of not only beautiful land but the mindset that accompanies heading north—better than better experiences are possible in business and in life.”
With North of 10 Advisors, Day is intentional about emphasizing the role of advisor over a consultant. “A consultant is a hands-on coach, and an advisor, in my mind, plays a fine line between coach and mentor,” explains Day. “There’s not a real focus on mentorship in the corporate space and there’s definitely not enough mentors in the start-up world. If there were, fewer would fail.”
We first spoke with Day in 2015 when he was a recent graduate in the inaugural class of the MS in Management, Strategy and Leadership program. We recently had the opportunity to catch up with this alum and hear how his MSU experience continues to support his success as a leader and growth as an entrepreneur.
Q. Where has your professional journey taken you since completing your degree?
I was CEO for a little over four years and really had the opportunity to put my MSU experience to the test. It was a fantastic experience, and one of the reasons I started down this path initially was this whole idea of wanting to put into practice leadership skills at a higher level.
Then, I arrived at a point that it was time to experience my next adventure. I have effectively turned my full-time business into much of the strategy, planning and execution approaches I studied and am able to put in place. I launched my own company, and I am consulting with some of the leading AV technology companies. I’m deeply engaged in strategic planning, business fundamentals mentorship, and growth initiatives. It has been an amazing process.
Q. What led you to start your own company?
A variety of things. Any leader who gets comfortable in what they’re doing and looking to push the envelope in new opportunities may come to a point in a time when they realize they may want to build something themselves, rather than pick up where someone else has built, or they want to leverage their skills more broadly. I think I found myself in a little bit of both camps. I felt like I’ve always wanted to, in practice, be an entrepreneur and be truly independent. So being in business for myself has created that opportunity. I’m working with small startups all the way through to large, established organizations, doing everything from strategic planning, messaging, business fundamentals to a wide range of unique projects. Most importantly, I’ve been sharing and learning along the way. The opportunity has been so exciting and fulfilling!
Q. How do you find yourself applying your MSU degree knowledge as an entrepreneur and advisor?
An advisor is going to suggest some ideas to you, but at the end of the day, the advisor should help coach and mentor you down a successful path. I don’t have all the answers. When I started off in the MSU MSL program the curriculum was a good road map for the kinds of things to touch on, like strategic negotiation and strategic planning, ethics in leadership—all great topical areas of leadership—but they don’t mean anything if you’re not able to put them into practice. So, as I move forward, I leverage much of what I learned in the MSU curriculum as tools and methods.
When you’re mentoring people, you just don’t mentor the job, you really mentor a style and an approach to leadership, and some of that comes from the things I studied, some of it comes from the relationship with classmates—the classmates in my cohort were prime examples of a leadership community and how we leveraged each other’s strengths in our discussion or lectures or, in some cases, our assigned projects. In strategic planning, Dr. Gooding introduced us to the principle of red ocean/blue ocean strategy and that has become a brick in my wall of strategy topics.
Q. What aspects of your MSU experience continue to resonate with you?
If I look at the aspects of the program that still resonate with me today, [as classmates] we inherently went into each other’s businesses, so one person might be from the military, one person might be in a human resources role, another person might be leading an industry association, another person might be in a for-profit corporate enterprise, but the point of entrepreneurship is that you have to be prepared to wear many different hats, so strategy and strategic thinking at the end of the day isn’t so much about your confidence in a particular domain; it’s really about your ability to apply those skills across multiple domains.
Q. Do you keep in touch with any of your professors or classmates?
Loosely, but what’s funny is I got a call from a prospective student who found me on LinkedIn, had watched a video, and wanted to know if I’d be willing to take a few questions. I was elated and thrilled by the invitation, and was able to give my perspective, and one of my complaints was that we all just haven’t kept in good enough contact!
The program director, Glenn Hodges, I was able to host him at my office twice because I wanted to hear his opinion on things and recommendations on further education ideas. I got some really good advice—probably saved me a ton of time and money! In that regards, being able to reach out is great. We had a great conversation, and I felt like I was able to invite him into my world.
Q. How has being an MSU Broad College of Business alum provided you with new connections and networking opportunities?
Tons! I was invited to attend a Michigan State mixer in Detroit with Dr. Gupta [Dean of the Eli Broad College of Business] and fellow alumni and it was great! I have found myself connecting with Spartans on a variety of levels in some great ways. I find Michigan State alumni all over extremely willing to interact and more curious about the Master’s in Management, Strategy and Leadership over the MBA. In fact, I told that prospective student the reason I chose the MSL program as opposed to the MBA was because I was one of those people who felt like I already had deep business experience. I really wanted to focus on the leadership and strategy aspect and work with people that were passionate about moving in the same direction.
Q. In expanding on that, what initially attracted you to the MSL program?
For the next level of things I wanted to do, I knew I needed the street cred of a degree, an advanced degree, so I’d be able to say this is where I did my master’s beyond undergrad. I always knew that was important. What made me uneasy about doing that was the time commitment and the GMAT and the whole process of going back to B-school.
An important part of it was the cred of an advanced degree from an accredited institution with global recognition—that was very important. The program very uniquely filled that gap and provided that opportunity for me. Now that I did it, I look back and say, “Wow! That was like handcrafted, unique for me.”
What made my experience so great was that I had a small cohort of such highly qualified, high-caliber people. And many times, I felt like my resume didn’t stack up to theirs, so I was benefiting from their wisdom and experience in a significant way.
Moving forward, the prestige of the Michigan State name and being associated with a program that was inaugural, has given me a lot of opportunity to reference it. And it’s become a major program, a top leadership program in the country. Amazing!
Q. How has your MSU degree set you up for continued success and future growth?
In terms of my future growth, the path that I’m on is constantly leveraging the experiences of life into the next thing that I do, so the further away from the program I get the more I’m reminded of the value I got from it. I think the question I have is do I want to participate in something else moving forward, do I want to go back and get more advanced training? I haven’t made those decisions yet. I participate in a lot of leadership symposiums and events, so I’m super open to the possibility and idea.
