Robby Peay is a 34-year-old former attorney.
And on Tuesday, Peay will become CEO of Bizport, a local document services and logistics company where only a handful of his employees are younger than he.
Now he’s out to prove that age is nothing but a number and to show why his predecessor saw enough in him back in 2008 to bring Peay under his wing and groom him as the next in line.
He takes over a firm that brings in more than $7 million in revenue annually and has more than 55 employees and offices in Richmond, Roanoke and Hampton Roads. He’s replacing Craig Bram, Bizport’s founder and longtime leader, who is moving on to become CEO of Synalloy, a publicly traded metals manufacturer in South Carolina.
Peay’s path toward the top of Bizport began with an economics degree at Hampden-Sydney, where he also played baseball. Then he went on to a short stint with the State Corporation Commission before tackling a JD and MBA at the University of Richmond. From there he served as a clerk to a justice on the state Supreme Court and did a couple of years at some of Richmond’s biggest law firms, such as Williams Mullen and McGuireWoods.
But about three years ago, the desire to be on the other side of the deal table lured him to the world of small business, and he hasn’t looked back.
BizSense recently caught up with Peay to discuss his career path and his thoughts on becoming a young CEO. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Richmond BizSense: Why did you decide to make the switch from the legal world to a small business?
Robby Peay: I always deep down knew I wanted to do something a little different and work for myself. I was looking at the people doing the deals, thinking, ‘gosh, I wanted to be the person doing the deals.’ This was in 2008, when things were really starting to slow down. I met Craig Bram in the summer of 2008, and over the course of five or six different lunches he said ‘why don’t you come work for Bizport, make an investment in the company and start your business career.’
RBS: You’re pretty young for a CEO. Does that present any challenges, especially when many of your employees are likely much older than you?
RP: When I go in meetings with a sales person or calling on a customer, I definitely get a little bit of a second glance when I say I’m the COO. A lot of times I’m talking to someone much older than I am. But when you start talking and show them you’re a serious person, that age becomes less of a factor. We probably have only a handful of employees that I am older than. One of our senior manages is 63 years old. He’s been in the printing business for 40 years. So he clearly knows more about the printing industry than I ever will. So I was definitely worried about that coming in. When you show people you care about what you are doing and you care about them and keeping their job in a difficult period, that’s how you lead. You set goals and make yourself accountable and make others accountable.
RBS: What’s the biggest difference between the world of big law firms and being in a small or medium-size business?
RP: At big law firms, you go to work every day in one of the most beautiful offices in Richmond. There are granite floors and everything’s polished and perfect. You just think, ‘look at this building we’re in,’ and you just think, ‘we must have a printing press for money down in the basement; look at these billable rates.’ But you don’t realize how fragile business is for everybody — big company or small company. Coming to a smaller business, I have control and know about everything that goes on.
RBS: You’re taking over for the founder of the company. What kind of pressure does that put on you? Are there big shoes to fill?
RP: Very big shoes to fill. [Bram] has been a very successful businessman for about 25 years in the Richmond area. He ran Wright Robinson. He was meeting with successful guys who were a lot older than him and knocked their socks off.
He’s a great mentor. He’ll continue to be someone on lean on heavily as I transition to CEO.
RBS: How has the recession affected Bizport?
RP: We rely on businesses being busy and sending work out to us. So 2009 was a difficult year for us. We fared better than most of our competitors. Revenue was up marginally. But profit was up about 350 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. We were very profitable in 2010. And we expect 2011 to be better.
RBS: The company has made seven acquisitions since September 2002. Will that streak continue? What areas might you target?
RP: Our goal this year is to do one or two acquisitions. My charge is to grow the business both organically and by acquisitions. We’re pretty wide open as far as geography. It certainly could be Richmond. It could be Hampton Roads. We’ve looked at a business in Alabama. We’ve looked at a business in Raleigh. You have to go where the deals are. As the economy has improved, people are more interested in doing deals than they were a year ago.
RBS: When you’re not leading the company, what do you do for fun?
RP: I spend time with my wife and two children. We enjoy going to the river in the summertime and vacation down South Carolina every year. Thanks to my dad, I’ve played golf since I was about 12. I keep my baseball juices going and play softball; though it’s more of a beer-drinking league. I play in a basketball league out in Hanover once a week. I do a fare amount of waterfowl hunting on Saturday mornings. The great thing about hunting is it starts at about 4 in the morning and you can be back home by the time your wife and kids roll out of bed.
Robby Peay is a 34-year-old former attorney.
And on Tuesday, Peay will become CEO of Bizport, a local document services and logistics company where only a handful of his employees are younger than he.
Now he’s out to prove that age is nothing but a number and to show why his predecessor saw enough in him back in 2008 to bring Peay under his wing and groom him as the next in line.
He takes over a firm that brings in more than $7 million in revenue annually and has more than 55 employees and offices in Richmond, Roanoke and Hampton Roads. He’s replacing Craig Bram, Bizport’s founder and longtime leader, who is moving on to become CEO of Synalloy, a publicly traded metals manufacturer in South Carolina.
Peay’s path toward the top of Bizport began with an economics degree at Hampden-Sydney, where he also played baseball. Then he went on to a short stint with the State Corporation Commission before tackling a JD and MBA at the University of Richmond. From there he served as a clerk to a justice on the state Supreme Court and did a couple of years at some of Richmond’s biggest law firms, such as Williams Mullen and McGuireWoods.
But about three years ago, the desire to be on the other side of the deal table lured him to the world of small business, and he hasn’t looked back.
BizSense recently caught up with Peay to discuss his career path and his thoughts on becoming a young CEO. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Richmond BizSense: Why did you decide to make the switch from the legal world to a small business?
Robby Peay: I always deep down knew I wanted to do something a little different and work for myself. I was looking at the people doing the deals, thinking, ‘gosh, I wanted to be the person doing the deals.’ This was in 2008, when things were really starting to slow down. I met Craig Bram in the summer of 2008, and over the course of five or six different lunches he said ‘why don’t you come work for Bizport, make an investment in the company and start your business career.’
RBS: You’re pretty young for a CEO. Does that present any challenges, especially when many of your employees are likely much older than you?
RP: When I go in meetings with a sales person or calling on a customer, I definitely get a little bit of a second glance when I say I’m the COO. A lot of times I’m talking to someone much older than I am. But when you start talking and show them you’re a serious person, that age becomes less of a factor. We probably have only a handful of employees that I am older than. One of our senior manages is 63 years old. He’s been in the printing business for 40 years. So he clearly knows more about the printing industry than I ever will. So I was definitely worried about that coming in. When you show people you care about what you are doing and you care about them and keeping their job in a difficult period, that’s how you lead. You set goals and make yourself accountable and make others accountable.
RBS: What’s the biggest difference between the world of big law firms and being in a small or medium-size business?
RP: At big law firms, you go to work every day in one of the most beautiful offices in Richmond. There are granite floors and everything’s polished and perfect. You just think, ‘look at this building we’re in,’ and you just think, ‘we must have a printing press for money down in the basement; look at these billable rates.’ But you don’t realize how fragile business is for everybody — big company or small company. Coming to a smaller business, I have control and know about everything that goes on.
RBS: You’re taking over for the founder of the company. What kind of pressure does that put on you? Are there big shoes to fill?
RP: Very big shoes to fill. [Bram] has been a very successful businessman for about 25 years in the Richmond area. He ran Wright Robinson. He was meeting with successful guys who were a lot older than him and knocked their socks off.
He’s a great mentor. He’ll continue to be someone on lean on heavily as I transition to CEO.
RBS: How has the recession affected Bizport?
RP: We rely on businesses being busy and sending work out to us. So 2009 was a difficult year for us. We fared better than most of our competitors. Revenue was up marginally. But profit was up about 350 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. We were very profitable in 2010. And we expect 2011 to be better.
RBS: The company has made seven acquisitions since September 2002. Will that streak continue? What areas might you target?
RP: Our goal this year is to do one or two acquisitions. My charge is to grow the business both organically and by acquisitions. We’re pretty wide open as far as geography. It certainly could be Richmond. It could be Hampton Roads. We’ve looked at a business in Alabama. We’ve looked at a business in Raleigh. You have to go where the deals are. As the economy has improved, people are more interested in doing deals than they were a year ago.
RBS: When you’re not leading the company, what do you do for fun?
RP: I spend time with my wife and two children. We enjoy going to the river in the summertime and vacation down South Carolina every year. Thanks to my dad, I’ve played golf since I was about 12. I keep my baseball juices going and play softball; though it’s more of a beer-drinking league. I play in a basketball league out in Hanover once a week. I do a fare amount of waterfowl hunting on Saturday mornings. The great thing about hunting is it starts at about 4 in the morning and you can be back home by the time your wife and kids roll out of bed.