You’d probably think Tom Vadnais’ search for successors means that he’s ready to retire and usher in his replacement. Right?
Wrong. It’s just always been one of his priorities to propel employees up their career paths. In fact, it was one of the earliest tasks he tackled when he became CEO at ValueClick Inc. in May 2007.
“One of the first things I do in any company is learn who are the top performers in that business,” he says. “I try to develop them so they’ll be ready to take my job when I move to something else.”
Vadnais joined ValueClick when it acquired Mediaplex, where he was president and CEO, in October 2001. He stayed on as the general manager of the subsidiary. He later took a similar role to integrate another acquisition into the online marketing company — but not before promoting one of his employees to replace him. When he moved on from that division, he bumped another employee into that lead role, as well.
But if his commitment to internal promotion ended there, the successful chain of replacements would fizzle out. Instead, by cascading his philosophy down to his managers, Vadnais makes his focus on employee development part of the culture at ValueClick. It creates an environment where employees are driven to set goals and motivated to constantly improve.
Some leaders might take that as a threat. Some would look cautiously over their shoulder, anxious about someone sneaking up on their title.
“You just can’t worry about that,” Vadnais says. “If you’re worried about that, you’re too insecure to do the job well.”
Instead, he focuses on honing his employees’ leadership skills to make ValueClick better and position it to keep getting better in the future.
“Everybody knows pretty well that the way I function is promotion from within,” he says. “It’s our job to be developing people so they’re ready for these jobs.”
