Every year, companies all over Chicago get pumped to see if and where they fall in Crain’s Chicago Business Best Place to Work list. Once again, this year, Avionos is proud to share that we have been named on the Crain’s 2019 Best Places to Work in Chicago list for the second year in a row. With our 100 percent year-over-year growth, fantastic client results, newly added top talent, and all the other exciting activity going on at Avionos, we are honored to be recognized by Crain’s, but equally importantly by employees – the Avionos A-team.
Our team is everything. We’ve sat down with one of our founders and principals, Gibson Smith, on just what this ranking really means.
Q: “So Gibson, as a founder and principal of Avionos, why does ranking on Crain’s list in just our 4th and 5th years make you proud?”
A: Crain’s is such a well-respected part of the business community of Chicago. It’s exciting to be on the list among our peers and partners in the space. It’s a testament to our employees that we’re achieving the lofty goals we set year after year. It’s hard to build a successful company that not only delivers great work for our clients, but we feel the model we are building centers on our employees passion and excitement which allows us to be recognized in the community. Obviously leadership feels the company will be wildly successful. It’s even better that our employees believe that and strive to make it happen.
Q: “How is Avionos’ culture a testament to what you wanted to build here?”
A: Well, the culture at Avionos is clear. It’s built on opportunity. Impact. Collaboration. Respect. Transparency. We have the perks that employees want, but I think our culture is driven from a deep passion to truly achieve career success and transformation. I want each employee to have a vision for their own long game and to be able to see their path forward. We build long term alliances with our employees. We want them to come in here and drive the culture with the thought process in mind: “Is this where I go to work? Or is it where I go to drive my career.”
Q: “What does it mean to be building a company that makes employees happy in consulting, B2B, and in Chicago?”
A: We know that this is a highly competitive market in consulting and b2b technology. From day one, the goal of Avionos has always been to create a differentiated company.
We’ve been in the Chicago market for a long time. We know a lot of what makes companies successful and unsuccessful. Having been able to learn from all of our experiences, both good and bad, we’ve been able to create a company like Avionos that not only provides great services to our clients, but also creates great opportunities for our employees. Chicago is a great city to be in the Services space and we are 100% committed to carrying on the legacy that we’ve had in the past.
We’re constantly striving to reiterate that we feel we can provide great opportunities for our employees, not only for their careers, but for them to be a part of a very impactful organization. We understand employees want to be happy and engaged in the work they do.
Q: What would you like to say to current employees?
A: Thank you. Thank you for your contributions. But also thank you for your taking action shaping this organization. We don’t have all the answers as leaders. We certainly don’t want to direct the company without employee input and ideas. Some ideas will happen faster than others, but nothing falls on deaf ears. Keep making us alert, aware, and accountable for instituting change and growth.
Q: “Last but not least, what would you tell prospective candidates about the ranking?”
A: I’ve been blessed to work for fantastic ownership for the last 13 years of my career. I have seen, have been the recipient of, and have been an advocate for driving career opportunity. This is an extremely unique environment in terms of not commoditizing your skillset but really aligning to what it is you want to do and why you might not be getting that opportunity where you are now. We come from global consultancies and understand the great things that come with that but also some of the constraints. From day one, we wanted to build a value proposition that puts employees first. Our end goal is the be the on the top of Crain’s list.
If you like what you just read, don’t hesitate to take a look at our current job openings here!
