The finalists for WashingtonExec’s 2023 Pinnacle Awards were announced Sept. 25, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person Nov. 16.
Next is Business Development Executive of the Year finalist in the Private Company category for companies with an annual revenue greater than $250M James Yates, who is vice president of business development & strategy at CAES. Here, he shares what made him successful in his current role and career turning points.
What has made you successful in your current role?
Being able to utilize a long career in technical sales, marketing, business development and strategy across multiple A&D markets, provided me a solid baseline to increase growth initiatives into new markets successfully with a different set of advanced technologies. Having a winning mindset, common process and skillful execution remain the cornerstone of positioning, winning and satisfying customers for solid year-over-year growth, regardless of product, service or market.
What was a turning point or inflection point in your career?
Having over a decade of mission experience in experimental flight test for aircraft and weapons set me up to be successful as a technical marketing/business development manager for many years in an area that I had deep mission expertise. Supplementing my market and technical knowledge over time with capture training, competitive intelligence gathering and other business development classes helped me to continue to grow.
The real inflection and breakthrough performance came later in my career as I organized our division to train in and implement a customer intimacy tool called Focus $elling. This yearlong course (12+ books & 10 3-day offsites) contained our entire division leadership team along with Sr. BD, PM and ENG personnel and transformed us from three years of competitive losses to five years of sustained >15% CAGR at high margins and continues to this day. A real culture shift and transformation.