Ben Blankenship

ACUO Business Coaching & Advising (ACUO, llc)
Durham, North Carolina, USA

 

About
My Practice:
I support my client partners in three ways:
1) as a Scaling Up business coach to executives and their leadership teams.
2) as a fractional, interim CXO, working with executive leadership to ensure the right people are on the bus and in the right seats.
3) with special projects work.
Often, the three work in combination. My goal is to bring focus, alignment, and commitment to teams to achieve significant results. One of my favorite quotes is, "If chaos is the fuel for creativity, then order is the promise of productivity." Simply, I help my client partners harness their creativity, get organized, and convert their vision into strategic, accountable, and measurable performance.

I have coached and advised a wide range of client partners with focuses on private equity, food service, luxury corporate jet service, national farming and warehousing, online learning systems, financial services, property management, custom home building, land protection, and more. Annual revenues range from $5 million to over $1 billion. Combined with my past roles as CEO, CFO, and COO, I believe that my diverse experiences benefit all client partners. Additionally, I have a strong network of collaborators and vendors ready to assist as needs change.

My Values:
> Practice kind candor & vulnerability: Encouraging each other to be open and honest as well as share and receive authentic feedback to grow in unimaginable ways and be the best versions of ourselves.
> Build and promote healthy relationships: Creating and maintaining connections with others that are characterized by mutual respect, trust, open communication, and support.
> Stay curious: Attracting, inspiring, and embracing curiosity to welcome surprise and delight, experience new creativity and perspectives, and actively participate in a deeper sense of humanity.
> Act with intention: Carefully considering the most important things and making deliberate and purposeful choices.

My Design (according to the assessment gods):
DiSC = Dc | Working Genius = DG | Kolbe = 8752 | Culture Index = Architect

 

Coaching Regions
Canada - Atlantic Region
US - Northeast
US - Southeast


Industry of Expertise
Accounting/Finance
Administrative/Clerical
Coaching/Business Consulting
Customer Support
Food Services/Hospitality
Human Resources/Training/Dev.
Manufacturing/Production/Operations
Retail
Other

I highly recommend Ben from our work together at INVGR Hospitality.
As CEO, Ben helps me with 1:1 and team coaching, strategy, planning and execution for weekly, quarterly, annual and long term goals. Ben also helped us implement the Scaling Up methodology and Align dashboard/reporting environment to track and respond to our team goals.
Ben not only brings leadership, operations, and business coaching experience, he also has a deep understanding of the restaurant industry which helps tremendously being the primary focus of our services.
Given his knowledge, patience, and insight to people and how to make effective teams, Ben is some one we will continue using for the long-term in this and future businesses.
J. RANDY MURPHY CEO, INVGR Hospitality

I engaged Ben to help us evaluate some potential business transactions my company was contemplating. While my senior team and I felt comfortable from a big picture viewpoint of evaluating the companies and transactions, we quickly realized that to evaluate them properly required far more detailed analytical review and research than our team had the time or recent experience to perform. ...As a contracted CFO/Consultant, Ben represented my company professionally and with an extreme amount of skill to enable us to complete our review and formulate insightful recommendations for me and our management team to guide us in our evaluation of the potential transactions. I enjoyed working with Ben for his insight, deep business knowledge (operational and financial) and thoughtfulness to manage this complex project as a adjunct member of our team. It is wonderful to have found Ben and his resources for our business to use in the future. (November 2022)
JEFF VOJTA CEO & Founder, Stockton Graham & Co.


Contact Ben