Map Data: Prague, Czech Republic
Google Earth, Google Maxar Technologies
It’s never easy when a client has a senior-most management change. Often any key hires and contractors associated with the ancien régime often find themselves in the cross hairs as new leadership seek to establish a preferred approach to business going forward. BYG Advantage has worked with dozens of clients over the years, and we’ve learned to keep a cool head in the face of senior-most transitions. And this served us well in our engagement with the unique biometric security solutions company, Threatmark.
Originally hailing from the Czech Republic, Threatmark built out a U.S. presence under newly hired U.S. management. Our mandate initially concerned Latin America, where we staffed sales and support professionals and quickly established a solid pipeline of FSI opportunities. With the departure of the CEO who’d hired our firm, we were told we’d need to wrap up our activity just before we were able to capitalize on a manifest harvest.
Rather than simply give up and move on, we patiently negotiated with the new management team on the one hand and tried to reassure our team in the field on the other to advance these opportunities during the wind-down period which our arrangement afforded. Nothing would have been easier than to drop-tools and collect whatever money was due, but instinct suggested that a bit more demonstrable momentum, could begin to sway things.
We were fortunate to have inherited a very practical and professional new management team, that took a sober look at the qualified opportunities we were engaged with and decided these did, indeed merit continued investment. We renegotiated a new, more focused assignment that will allow us to realize numerous direct deals with our team across Latin America. Very glad to have navigated this transition with Threatmark in Latin America where they have a fabulous opportunity disrupt the market with frictionless security.
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John Fargis is a senior executive with over twenty-five years of general management experience in the China market. He has run Asia for a range of US and European software companies. Google purchased three of these companies. John is the Co-founder and Principal for BYG Advantage, focused on market acceleration with international technology firms across APAC, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. John’s management experience includes bridging dozens of technology companies into new global market opportunities. Until recently he was also an adjunct professor at the Hult International Business School Shanghai campus where he taught courses on Emerging Markets, Leadership and Chinese History. He is an independent director on the NASDAQ listed technology company, Ispire. (ISPR) and a Board of Managers at the Oakwood Friends School.
John first went to China as a Henry Luce Scholar in 1993 when he worked in Shanghai. He was the first foreigner in the modern era, allowed permission to work in a Chinese reform school. Prior to this assignment he had worked for four years as a New York City, special education schoolteacher in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
John has a B.A. with Honors in Medieval Studies from Wesleyan University, a Masters of Special Education from Hunter College and a Masters of Law and Diplomacy with a focus on international business and Chinese history from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. After resideing for decades in China, John currently lives in New Paltz, New York, not far from where he grew up.