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Taking Solera Holdings from $540M to $1 Billion — One Year Ahead of Plan

Taking Solera Holdings from $540M to $1 Billion — One Year Ahead of Plan

Location: San Diego, California · Dallas, Texas · USA


Type: Strategic Growth · Executive Team Building · HQ Relocation · M&A Execution


The Company

After a sabbatical from Cott Corporation, Mr. Gonzalez joined serial entrepreneur Tony Aquila's company, Solera Holdings (NYSE: SLH) — then generating $540M in revenue and still paying down the private equity firms that had backed its founding. The Company was headquartered in San Diego, an attraction for Mr. Gonzalez, who had nearly attended UC San Diego for a PhD in Mathematical Physics.


The 90-Day Onboarding

Mr. Gonzalez negotiated a 90-day onboarding period with Tony — no operating decisions, pure observation and learning. It lasted less than a week. At the end of his first week, as the sun set over the Pacific from Tony's San Diego office, the two began the strategic discussion that became Solera's full five-year plan: reaching $1.0 billion in revenue through 50% organic growth and 50% growth through acquisitions. The faster the acquisition target was reached, the easier the organic target would follow. Notably, the CFO wasn't part of that first conversation — and was skeptical of the plan's viability when briefed the next day. Coming from banking and well regarded by investors and analysts, his skepticism didn't sit well with Tony.


The CFO Transition

Within the same week, Tony told Mr. Gonzalez the CFO needed to be replaced to execute the strategy — a costly move given the CFO's rich contract, and a risky one given that the chosen successor, the Company's Controller, was a Swiss executive who had never served as CFO or worked in the US. To manage the market reaction, Mr. Gonzalez brought in Hill and Knowlton, a global PR firm he had used at PepsiCo. Their team met the group in San Diego and, over Labor Day weekend, drafted the external communication strategy. The result: a 5% stock price increase instead of the typical decline that follows this kind of unexpected move — earning Mr. Gonzalez instant credibility with Tony and General Counsel, and setting the tone for his relationship with the new CFO, Renato Giger.


The Build-Out

Solera was a small organization — Mr. Gonzalez had just 3 HR people in North America and 2 in Europe. The existing VP of HR for NA, long loyal to Tony, worked in the same building, which created some ambiguity about who employees should turn to for support — a relationship Mr. Gonzalez managed carefully, made easier by her graciousness. The bigger challenge was ensuring Tony's success in California's difficult labor environment, made harder when the state hit Tony with an unexpectedly large tax bill tied to his prior-year compensation, adding urgency to an earlier conversation about relocating the Company out of California.


Mr. Gonzalez took this on as his second major project, scouting states without income tax and narrowing the choice to Florida or Texas. He and Tony came close to choosing Boca Raton, Florida — where Mr. Gonzalez's family lived and which was three hours closer to Solera's large European operations — but Tony's children wouldn't leave California, making Texas the better option, especially with generous incentives from the state, county, and the city of South Lake, just 12 minutes from DFW Airport with easy access to Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The move happened within Mr. Gonzalez's first six months, and he built the relocation policy to support the San Diego and Zurich teams, oversaw the new office build-out, and — at the Board's request — purchased a home in Las Colinas, 20 minutes from the office and 10 from the airport.


The next challenge was building an executive team capable of managing five years of accelerated growth. Mr. Gonzalez and the CEO created the Office of the CEO, bringing in seven high-potential executives who were developed through rotating assignments and eventually took over large parts of the organization as it scaled. Eventually, operations were split in two: the CFO took the US and select international markets, while Mr. Gonzalez took operating responsibility for the rest of Solera outside the US — dual COO roles that freed Tony to focus on Wall Street and the aggressive M&A agenda called for in the five-year plan.


The Outcome

Solera reached $1 billion in revenue by the end of calendar year 2014 — one year ahead of the strategic plan. Tony later executed a public-to-private transaction and served as Chairman for approximately a year.