Jim Leader, President & CEO, Third Millennium Associates, Inc., Lake Forest MBA Class of 1996
Residents of 30 municipalities in the Chicago area have Jim Leader to thank for their utility bills. And even though they don’t know it, he’s also probably responsible for keeping their city taxes down.
Leader is president and CEO of Third Millennium Associates, Inc., a company that privatizes billing operations for cities and towns. It’s part of an ingenious management system that saves taxpayers money while increasing the speed and efficiency of local government.
Defining his business as "revenue enhancement consulting for municipalities," he sends out utility bills, vehicle sticker applications, parking ticket bills, and business license notices for cities like Schaumburg, Evanston, Wheaton – 30 cities in all.
"I teach them how to privatize their operations. They transmit the information to me via modem. I take all billing operations off premises. Then I work with banks and the post office to save money. The cities receive their money more quickly, reduce personnel costs, and increase cash flow," he explains.
Leader’s highly successful enterprise came about as the result of a business plan he and his class team developed in 1995 while he was working on his MBA at The Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
Prior to attending LFGSM, Jim had spent his entire career at one company. "I had joined a company in 1966," he says, "and I worked on the marketing side of that company for 28 years. For a while, everything worked out very well. Six of us took it from under $5 million to $329 million. Then sales started going down and it became clear I had to start all over again."
"Being so specialized throughout my career," says Leader, "I knew I had to go back to school if I was going into business for myself. I wanted an MBA degree. To me it was a piece of my life that was missing."
"I hadn’t been in school for so long, plus I was 55 years old then," he continues. "I had heard about LFGSM, and decided to roll the dice and give it a try."
The gamble paid off. Three years and 10 months later, in 1996, Leader received his MBA with high honors as a Hotchkiss Scholar.
It wasn’t always easy, he says now. "When I took the GMAT, everyone said, ‘Excuse me, sir’ – they all thought I was an old professor. How I got through that test I don’t know. I realized I had to learn everything. I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer."
He took his courses one at a time. "I wasn’t the smartest person there, but I think I worked harder than the rest."
"My patient instructors nourished me, which is a tribute to the school. I almost gave it up at one point. I was taking a course in statistics, and I just couldn’t get it. The Associate Dean was very encouraging. 'Come on up to LFGSM at night, or on Saturday,’ he said. 'I’ll work with you.’ He did, and all of a sudden, the light came on. It was a wonderful experience for me."
During his third year of study, Leader started his business, based on a conversation he’d had with a casual acquaintance. "I met somebody who worked for the City of Wheaton. We just bantered together. I came up with some ideas, and he really liked them. Then I presented him with a whole plan, and he became my first client."
As it turned out, the whole plan was a joint effort that came out of a marketing class Leader was taking at LFGSM. One of the assignments was to develop a marketing plan as a team. "At LFGSM," says Leader, "I had six really smart people to help me – plus an instructor with a Ph.D. – and we developed a marketing plan that worked."
Four years later, Leader’s successful company is strictly client-focused, and he believes it pays off in the long term. "Even if my clients are at fault, I stand behind them and move forward with the project. Sometimes it costs me money, but it’s been worth it, because my reputation is so important to my business."
The other reason for the success of Third Millennium is Leader’s strict attention to costs and his creative deployment of financial resources. "We use $425,000 machines to prepare the bills," says Leader. "No one municipality could afford equipment that expensive. But by banding together, the cost is spread across a very broad base, and the most sophisticated methods can be used. None of these clients alone is huge, but collectively they achieve a critical mass that really works."
An affable, unpretentious man, Leader has never been tolerant of formality, waste, or conventionality. When he started his own company, he worked alone as "a virtual corporation," contracting everything as needed, from accountants to a secretary. "It gave me total flexibility," he says now. " I think if the Ford Motor Company were starting out today, they would contract everything out too."
Leader’s mind keeps working and reworking the fundamentals, and things are always changing at Third Millennium. He has hired several full time staff members and expanded his offices by moving to a new location after his analysis showed that it was cheaper to buy office space than rent it. He’s exploring a number of specific growth strategies for his current business. "And I have four or five more ideas in mind," he says.
"You always need to take a fresh look at things," he says. "That’s the sort of calculation we learned to make at LFGSM."
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