Greg Provenzano’s first experience in Corporate America left him with a sour aftertaste. Fresh out of high school, he took a job at a snack food company in Detroit, where he diligently worked his way up to middle management.
Then he hit a ceiling.
It wasn’t long before Provenzano, now president and one of four founders of ACN Inc., learned that his ladder was too short to reach the executive deck.
“I realized there were only a select few who were making substantial income and living a decent life,” Provenzano says.
This first impression of corporate structure turned him off of pursuing a career in a top-down, pyramid-shaped business structure.
It also sparked the idea for ACN. Provenzano and fellow founders Robert Stevanovski, and Anthony Cupisz and Michael Cupisz opted for a business-unusual approach to selling services — a network model usually associated with catalog kitsch. Now, ACN Inc., based in Farmington, is the world’s largest direct-selling company. It achieved annual revenue in excess of $500 million by offering everyday services such as telecommunications, energy and Internet access.
“We are just the opposite of a corporate structure,” Provenzano says.
But being different isn’t always easy, especially when the founding partners must still play in the corporate sandbox. If ACN was going to capitalize on the home-based business boom and tap into sales opportunities in emerging technology markets, it needed a strong infrastructure to support a network of independent representatives.
It also needed the right people — not necessarily the usual corporate suspects — to drive the company’s success.
