Cheryl Y. Biron helps frozen food, building materials and consumer goods make their way across the country every day, and she does it without leaving her home office. Biron runs One Horn Transportation, a transportation brokerage firm that acts as middle person — Biron pointedly does not say “middleman” — between companies looking to ship goods and the truckers who deliver the merchandise.
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Q&A: Brett Diamond, CEO of Hudson Fiber Network
Brett Diamond says he was in the right place at the right time. The Long Island native and his business partner, Keith Muller, decided to start a telecommunications business in New Jersey just as high-frequency trading — lightning fast, computerized trading dependent on high-speed data lines — was taking off in the Garden State. Now the company boasts an international network, with an infrastructure consisting of its own fiber-optic cables in New Jersey and lines leased from carriers around the world.
But the success of the Paramus-based Hudson Fiber Network can be traced back to more than luck.
Q&A: Jay Shapiro, CEO, AppMakr
Jay Shapiro runs a global business out of his Glen Rock home. AppMakr is a do-it-yourself app company with some 60 freelance employees based on six continents, all of whom work together through various online tools. Shapiro is a native of Toronto, and he co-founded his business, which was originally named Infinite Monkeys, prior to merging with a major rival in 2013, with an old high school friend who now works out of Canada as the company’s chief technology officer.
But Shapiro, a lifelong entrepreneur, didn’t always head up a mobile workforce: his last company, the Singapore-based marketing firm Blue, had traditional brick-and-mortar offices. He recently shared his thoughts on the virtues of working virtually and explained his surprising ascent in the business world, including how a survival job with “The Phantom of the Opera” changed his life.
Q&A: Cathy Engelbert, new CEO of Deloitte
Cathy Engelbert made history this month by becoming the first woman CEO of one the nation’s largest consulting and accounting firms. Engelbert joined Deloitte in 1986, but she says her leadership training began long before that, as a Collingswood kid growing up with seven siblings.
As Engelbert begins her tenure overseeing the work of nearly 70,000 employees from her office in Parsippany, she took some time to reflect on past triumphs, one regret and her vision for the future.
Q. You’re the first female CEO of a Big Four consulting and accounting firm. Do you feel that distinction brings with it additional pressure, beyond what other CEOs — those who aren’t breaking glass ceilings — feel?
It’s actually a real positive. I can’t tell you how overwhelmed on the positive side I’ve been by the support, the letters from young men and women around the country, in universities, in our workforce, outside of our workforce.
Q & A: Mitch Rothschild, outgoing CEO of Vitals
Excerpt:
Mitch Rothschild is a veteran entrepreneur who believes his latest venture, Vitals, is well on its way to becoming a household name. …Earlier this month, Rothschild stepped down as Vitals’ CEO. He recently took time to explain his move and share insights into life as the leader of a growing business. (Edited for clarity and length.)
Q. You founded some half a dozen companies before Vitals. What drives you to keep starting new businesses?
We’re all born to do something and have certain skills…
Two N.J, pharma companies leading search for Ebola vaccine
Biopharmaceutical companies generate billions in economic activity for New Jersey, but don’t expect their latest, most high-profile venture — tackling the Ebola epidemic — to add much to their bottom line.
Industry leaders say they have a greater goal in mind.
“The real purpose is not to make money or not lose money. The real purpose is to respond to the public health need,” said Dr. Mark Feinberg, chief public health and science officer for vaccines at Merck & Co. in Kenilworth.
Temporary employees on the rise; Northeast Jersey seeing greater spike
Lenny Joseph has worked for three Bergen County-based employers in the past eight months. His work for the first two were short-term assignments, but the 34-year-old former auditor sees a future at his latest gig.
“I am currently up for a permanent placement fairly soon in management … if it all works out,” he said.
Joseph is a temporary worker, known more commonly as a “temp.” He is one of many you’ll find at businesses across the Garden State, where the market for full-time employment hasn’t recovered since the Great Recession, but the demand for temps is climbing to new heights.
Home care staffing crunch in New Jersey
For Lubna Ismail, president of a Cliffside Park home health aide business, time is crucial. If she can’t set up potential recruits with a client right away, they might sign on with someone else.
“When you’re ready to hire, sometimes they’ve already taken a position with another agency,” said Ismail, a Leonia resident who has been running a Right at Home franchise for three years. “It’s like, who can get to them first?”
Home health aides work with the elderly and the disabled, assisting them with basic tasks like bathing and dressing and performing limited clinical duties, including checking vital signs. In New Jersey and across the country, an aging population means that home health aides are in greater demand than ever.
Businesses, colleges look for win-win in partnerships
When professionals in suits and ties descend on college campuses, it’s often for career fairs or other recruiting events. For the nattily dressed John DiGiovanni, the idea of sizing up fresh talent wasn’t far from his mind — but the Wayne native, a salesman for the global clothier Tom James, had a more immediate reason for coming to William Paterson University on a recent sunny autumn day…
Alice Gomstyn 