The Follow-up File: Appeal grows for local CEO roundtables

Name: Bob Dumouchel Job: Chief executive

Business: Systems & Marketing Solutions

What he said then: When The Tribune interviewed Bob Dumouchel in June, he was expanding the CEO roundtable program he spearheaded on the Central Coast.

With about 10 members each, the roundtables offer company leaders long-term relationships with noncompetitive peers for advice, perspective and empathy on professional problems or issues.

“CEOs spend all of their lives surrounded by people who are on their payroll,” Dumouchel said at the time. “The roundtables are one of the rare instances where they get brutally honest feedback.”

With two groups in San Luis Obispo and a third in Santa Maria, he was launching a fourth in San Luis Obispo.

With the sponsorship of his previous employer, Your People Professionals, Dumouchel modeled the local program, which started in 2005, on one in Milwaukee.

What he says now: The 43 roundtable members are meeting regularly in their groups, Dumouchel said.

Members now receive a monthly newsletter and a list of available speakers.

Dumouchel has enough requests to form a new roundtable in the South County.

“I would like to see the pro-gram grow, and it’s tapped out on its resources at this point,” said Dumouchel. “I’m hoping if we can figure out how to support it, I could launch another in the next several months.”

Administering each roundtable, which meets for about

1/2 hours each month, requires about four hours a month of Dumouchel’s time.

Your People Professionals primarily has covered the expansion to this point, but he’s looking for new sponsors for future roundtables.

“I’d like to see it have more support across the community,” he said, adding that the group is free to members.

Putting a group together is like a puzzle, he said. It takes time to have enough requests from individuals of comparable-sized companies

in different industries to compose a productive roundtable.

Members create agendas for monthly discussions, but they can be derailed by immediate needs—such as when a whole meeting focused on swapping acquisition experiences after one member’s company was bought out.

Said Dumouchel: “Sometimes those are the best meetings.”

Anyone interested in getting involved can contact Dumouchel at bob@smsrd.com or 481-0118. —Raven Railey