Janet Reid was trained as a chemist and started her career at Procter & Gamble doing fundamental research on food. Through a mentoring program, she was asked to join a marketing team and eventually became one of P&G's upwardly mobile brand managers. Like many entrepreneurs, she saw a need and had the courage and confidence to take the leap to create business to fill it. The company she formed 27 years ago was J.B. Reid and Associates, a marketing and management consulting firm. That firm is now called Global Lead and has grown to become an international consulting agency focusing on managment issues of diversity, inclusion and cross-cultural expertise.
Global Lead has tripled the number of its associates over the last 10 years to about 80, capitalizing on the growth of overseas markets and seizing the opportunity to train businesspeople in the diversity of other cultures they need to work in. "The growth of our company is because of the growth of the global economy," Reid says. "Cultural dexterity is a concept we own." Global Lead consultants have worked in 22 countries on six continents, advising more than 75 major corporations, including Fortune 500 companies, and training more than 250,000 people annually in diversity and inclusion, leadership, executive coaching, team building and organizational effectiveness. Its latest growth came with the May acquisition of Simmons Associates, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based inclusion firm with offices in Europe.
Global Lead works to bridge different country cultures and religious differences within countries, developing strategies to increase diversity and inclusion within companies and helping firms understand global consumers. It also offers training, either face-to-face, interactive or a combination, and publishes books, white papers and other materials.