Ambitious but overworked team, complacent and disorganized CEO - Anonymous employee Business Development Institute Employee Review

It’s been almost a year since BDI paused our business and 8 months since we relaunched the business. I’m proud that everyone on our current team, all former BDI teammates that helped restart BDI in August of 2022, are still here, thriving with zero turnover. You can see the positive recent reviews from our current team in Glassdoor. I'm also proud of the events we have been producing. Our smaller team has done an amazing job producing over 30 events since October 2022. Employees, clients, and our event attendees are all happy. It's so great to be fully back to in-person events. As an in-person events agency that was founded in 2001, COVID had a major impact. We immediately lost our product – the in-person event and were forced to produce virtual events. While we were able to produce over 200 virtual events to survive, our revenues declined for two years in a row after growing for 6 straight years prior to COVID. Despite a very hard business environment and declining revenues, we did not lay off any employees during 2020 and 2021, unlike many other event-related businesses. It's also worth noting that in the current economic environment where many companies are laying off employees, BDI has not and we are planning to start hiring later this year or in 2024. Despite your comments, we invested in our employees including hiring a mindful meditation leader to conduct regular sessions. We often had virtual employee game events as well as other employee wellness-focused initiatives. We resumed our BDI Beach day where we brought all employees together face to face, at a significant expense, while the company’s revenues were shrinking. Over the years, we had amazing employee appreciation events that most enjoyed. COVID also forced us to work remotely vs. working together in our office in downtown Manhattan. This was not an easy adjustment; one that was very new to all of us at the time. Hiring people without meeting them face-to-face is challenging. Working with them remotely in a highly collaborative field such as event marketing and production, is very hard to do. We tried our best, had successes and learned from our failures. I agree there are valid criticisms of my performance. I learned a lot, the hard way, and I accept responsibility for everything that happened. I don’t understand your criticism about me taking a once-per-year family vacation. PTO was unlimited for all employees and we supported all team members getting much needed down time. Many team members embraced and valued this benefit that helped support a healthy work life balance. I’m working very hard to apply lessons learned and carry them forward with our current team. For example, I have joined a CEO group and hired a coach so I not only agree with your feedback that I would benefit from outside counsel, I’ve taken action and it’s helping me be the best leader I can be. For the record we have been paying back events that we owed to clients while taking on new business. That was one of the primary motivations for me to restart BDI – to make good with our clients and to rehire as many employees as possible. There were no lawsuits and the great majority of our clients have been very supportive. I wish all of my former employees the best of health, happiness and success. I am truly grateful for everyone who worked at BDI. We accomplished great things together. Careers were made. A business was built. Lasting relationships were formed. While posting anonymous reviews like this are certainly within your rights, I extend a genuine invitation to speak with me directly about your feedback, what happened, what I learned, and how we can all move forward in a positive supportive way. Steve