IAM254- Strategic Advisor Invests in Solutions to Climate Change by Converging Technology and Energy

Walter L. Schindler, PhD, JD has 38 years of legal experience as an attorney specializing in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings of securities, including 19 years at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, where he was a Partner for 12 years, including serving as the managing partner of the Orange County Office. He is the Founder of SAIL Capital Partners LLC, an early US pioneer in sustainable investment. Dr. Schindler is now focused on his latest venture, Transformation LLC – a strategic advisory firm that focuses on the convergence of technology and energy across the entire spectrum of energy and power from oil and gas to solar and wind.

• CEO Hack: Book; The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
• CEO Nugget: Be careful in hiring people so you create an effective team
• CEO Defined: Precisiveness and action

Website: https://walterschindler.com/

https://www.transformationholdings.com/

https://www.sailcapital.com/

Twitter: @walterschindler
@TransformHold

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:26

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Walter Schindler of walterschindler.com. Walter, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Walter L. Schindler 0:36

Thank you, Gresham.

Gresham Harkless 0:37

No problem and I wanted to read a little bit more about Walter so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Dr. Walter Schindler is a Ph.D. and a JD has 38 years of legal experience as an attorney specializing in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings of securities, including 19 years at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, where he was a Partner for 12 years, including serving as the managing partner of the Orange County Office. He is the Founder of SAIL Capital Partners LLC, an early US pioneer in sustainable investment.

Dr. Schindler is now focused on his latest venture, Transformation LLC – a strategic advisory firm that focuses on the convergence of technology and energy across the entire spectrum of energy and power from oil and gas to solar and wind. Dr. Walter, are you ready to be to the I AM CEO community?

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Walter L. Schindler 1:27

Yes, I am. Thank you. Gresham.

Gresham Harkless 1:29

No problem. Thank you. And the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Walter L. Schindler 1:36

I became concerned very early. As a result of my friendship with Ralph Cicerone, who was then chancellor of the University of California Irvine, I became concerned about climate change. And the reason is Ralph was on the team that won the Nobel Prize for discovering the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, resulting from unrestricted use of chlorofluorocarbons, mainly, and like hairspray and deodorant.

So as a result of that, Ralph, and I became friends, I helped him plan what is now called University Research Park. And in the course of spending time with Ralph, he shared with me all of the scientific proof for climate change. He showed me some 80 Something slides that ultimately became his lecture at the Princeton Environmental Institute.

And I saw them very early, I saw all of the scientific proof for the increase in co2. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, I saw the proof of the increasing amount of global warming that was taking place, particularly in the oceans are the Arctic. So I decided that I would switch from practicing law to investing in solutions to climate change, and pollution.

And I did some research on pollution and discovered how much pollution is in the air we breathe every day, even on a clear day. There are some 30 Plus carcinogens in the air that are invisible, and that result from industrialization.

So as a result of all this, I started investing in solutions, and I felt I was doing something important for the future of the world, then I decided that even though I was having an impact, I could have a greater impact if I moved over to transformation, which would focus on larger companies, companies the size of fluor, Bachtel, IBM, and focus on persuading them to improve their environmental input and acting as a strategic adviser to these large companies on how to do that. So that's what I've been doing for the last couple of years.

Gresham Harkless 3:58

Awesome, awesome, awesome, man. And, and you might have already touched on this, but I usually ask for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you or for your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Walter L. Schindler 4:08

Well, first of all, I have a very capable Chief of Staff, Victoria Brodsky, who's sitting here with me, and she helps me actually implement and put into action, a lot of things that would just remain ideas. So it's very important in your organization, to have doers who actually do things. So that's part of the secret sauce. The second part of the secret sauce is what I call the art of listening.

I find that if all I ever did was just sort of talk at people and tell them about the problems. I find that very few people today actually listen to what you're saying because their minds are so overwhelmed with mobile device information, laptops, and everything. So in order to get people to focus, I found that first, you have to live come to them and ask them, What is it about the world situation today that bothers you, you know, and then let them talk a little bit and see where their minds are at and then find a way to show a relationship between their concerns and solutions to the concerns.

So I think that the art of listening is becoming a lost art. And I think that's part of it. Then the third and last sort of part is that I've gone out of my way to give speeches at places where influential people might be and to alert them to the situation. So nobody pays me to do that. But I've spoken a fair amount at Yale University's School of Management, I've talked about solutions to climate change then, as a guest of the British royal family in London, and talked about sustainability and water, and how we can achieve that.

And so I go out of my way, this June, I'll be speaking in Geneva at Summit being called by several influential people. So I go out of my way to try to reach influential people about the situation, the problem, and the solution. And I do that, in part because I myself was just born into a very normal family, where my parents were government employees. And so I had to rise to a point where I really appreciate how important it is when you have the ear of influential people.

Gresham Harkless 6:35

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love that kind of three aspects, you know, having a strong team and having, you know, great people in place, and are able to actually, you know, get things done.

And then also like, kind of you touched on like a lot of times, you know, people aren't aware of what's going on, because they're so stuck in the kind of like the day to day, but to be able to, for one grain, get awareness by, you know, connecting with influential people and being able to let them know about what's going on so that they're aware. But also the ability to be able to communicate to a person and understand exactly what might be their pain points and show how this might affect and does affect them on a day-to-day basis is how you start to get more awareness and it starts to become something that a lot of people are aware of.

Walter L. Schindler 7:14

That's exactly right. A lot. A lot of people don't realize that even in places like Dallas, where everybody thinks the air is clean, the actual level of pollution in the air, and Dallas is about 44 times what is tolerable by a healthy human being. So you have a lot of people in even in what we think are Clean Cities, a lot of these people all of a sudden one day they come down with cancer, emphysema, and they think it's genetic. And it's really not it's environmentally caused.

Gresham Harkless 7:47

Absolutely, absolutely. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient.

Walter L. Schindler 7:59

Well, I have to say that the greatest wisdom I've ever received from anyone in terms of being an effective CEO is from a little book by Peter Drucker called The Effective Executive. And you can buy that book on Amazon for 10 bucks. And it's only 100 pages, but it's filled with wisdom about how to be an effective executive or CEO. And the essence of wisdom is to start every day, by focusing on your top priorities.

From a strategic point of view, all of us have urgencies that we respond to, we have to return a book, we have to pay somebody a loan, and we always have these little urgencies in our life. But what Peter Drucker teaches us is that we have to get up in the morning and think long-term about what are the three things we can do today, that will have the largest effect long-term on what we want to accomplish. So from a strategic planning point of view, we rank our priorities at the beginning of every day.

So I start every day, thinking about what are the one or two or three things I can do that are going to change the result five years from now, it's a great book, and I highly recommend Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive.

Gresham Harkless 9:32

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And that definitely is something that's you know, insanely important, you know, to make sure that you are you know, not getting lost in the weeds, so to speak, but you're working on those three things that help really to drive home that mission, whatever everyone's mission might be. So I appreciate you for sharing that.

And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Walter L. Schindler 9:58

Well, that That's a great question. I think that right now, the main lesson I learned in the last 20 years, is to be very careful in hiring people create a team that functions as a team and that you can't evaluate people in isolation just on the basis of their resumes, you have to see is this person, a team player? Is this person gonna contribute to teamwork?

If I had to redo some of the mistakes, it would all be around hiring people that individually had great resumes, but together as a team didn't work well. And so those, that would be the thing, I would caution, a younger version of me is to always think about not only the qualifications of a person but how do they function as a team. For example, Victoria is a great team player, we work well as a team. And so that counts for more than half the battle.

Gresham Harkless 11:06

Yeah, absolutely. Because our they say success is a team sport. So you have to, you know, you have SAR individuals that don't necessarily help you and help the mission of the organization move forward. But to be able to have people that understand and are able to be a part of the team know how to communicate, do all those kinds of soft skills, sometimes that definitely can help move the needle forward. And I love that CEO nugget.

Walter L. Schindler 11:27

Well, thank you, you can see it in action. In the New Orleans Saints. The Orleans football team is, of course, an incredible example of great leadership, and Drew Brees. But every time they interviewed Drew Brees, he talks about his team. Every time they interview the team, they talk about each other. The New Orleans Saints is a good example of effective teamwork. And it shows you that you can have both a great team and a great leader. So I very much look to them as a model of the kind of teamwork that should be in every organization.

Gresham Harkless 12:06

Yeah, it's funny that you said that because I was actually gonna say that often, it's hard to win. Sometimes when you just have a one-star performer unless you have somebody like Wilt Chamberlain, who can score 100 points, they can sometimes get away with it. But still, you know, you need a good team in order to be successful, whether it be like you mentioned in sports, or is in you know, business is really in life, for that matter. So thank you for reminding me. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Walter I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Walter L. Schindler 12:39

Well, number one, is the word executive. And being the chief executive means you're the top executive, the executive is related to the word execute. And that means execution has two components, decisiveness and action. And I think a great CEO is someone who makes decisions, and then puts those decisions into Action Week, CEOs spend an endless amount of time having meetings and revisiting their decisions and having panel discussions, memos, and everything, and they never do anything.

And one of the things I find that makes, I think the essence really, of being a CEO, is that you're not just a leader that people follow, of course, you have to be a leader, but you have to actually make decisions and execute on them. And you have to risk being wrong.

Gresham Harkless 13:41

Absolutely.

Walter L. Schindler 13:42

A lot of people have trouble with that these days.

Gresham Harkless 13:45

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times, you know, that's part of the risk of, you know, being the quote-unquote, CEO is making those decisions. And, you know, you have to understand that, you know, when they're right, you know, you can be celebrated and the team can be celebrated when you're right when you're wrong. Sometimes you take the brunt of it, and you kind of have to understand that but the action does, you know, mounts all of that. So I love that definition.

And Dr. Walter, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out what I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then of course, how they can find out about you and all the awesome things that you are doing.

Walter L. Schindler 14:17

Well, thank you. We have a business website at transformationholdings.com. That's the current business website. My personal website is walterschindler.com. And my advisor on technology said I needed a personal website just because my bio is unusual and a lot of people have trouble understanding what I do unless I just sort of make it plain and public. So I've just been trying to become transparent and then the venture firm I finally have a website at sailcapital.com

I'm proud to say that we won more international awards than any other firm focused on sustainable investment. We were in it too early in some respects, but we've become recognized as a pioneer. I'm grateful for that. And I really appreciate the opportunity to have your audience and participate live. That's exciting. So I appreciate that.

Gresham Harkless 15:28

No problem. I appreciate you. And I appreciate, you know, not just for the time that you took today, but also, you know, again, you dedicate your time and your energy and your life to, you know, helping to make the world a better place. Some people say they're doing it, but actually having people do it obviously moves the needle forward. So I appreciate you and we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes as well too. So I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Walter L. Schindler 15:49

You too. Have a great day. Thank you.

Outro 15:52

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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