Sean Magennis on The Power of Collectives

Sean Magennis is the CEO of Capital 54, where he contributes 30 years of experience to entrepreneurs and growing professional service businesses, domestically and all throughout the world. He helps them with growth strategies, turnarounds, acquisitions, and financing. Sean supports the Capital 54 portfolio company CEOs, the investment resourcing, screening, and due diligence. He also is involved with all of their growth and exit processes. Prior to Capital 54, Sean led a global and diverse team, serving over 30,000 CEOs in 138 countries with combined annual revenues of 9 trillion US dollars. He was the president and COO of Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Prior to that, Sean began his business career in management at Dow Chemicals. He ran a professional services firm for 14 years focused on organizational development, consulting, people assessment, and executive search which grew to encompass operations in Canada, the US, and Mexico, where he and his team served several thousand clients. He has experience with real estate platforms, electricity infrastructure development, and financial services. Sean is also the past global president of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). Today, he is still an active YPO member. In this episode, we discuss Sean’s roots in South Africa (6:16), the role of religion in his upbringing (8:49), his evolution in thinking about spirituality and religion over time, as well as his thoughts on racism and Apartheid (9:45), the intersection of being a team player and also an individual (17:17), how he thinks about challenging and supporting people as a mentor (21:01), why he values entrepreneurship (24:30), the skills that make a good entrepreneur (25:09), his mentoring process (26:19), how he uses his experiences to ask great questions (28:53), the keys to a great partnership (31:21), EO and YPO (33:40), where his curiosity came from (38:20), more on curiosity (42:53), the importance of gatherings (47:39), why he has always been part of the service industry (50:51), how he makes sure he’s doing well (54:58), what has driven the first chapters of his business career (59:22), Capital 54 (1:02:24), the difference between a chief of staff and an executive assistant (1:07:36), attention to detail (1:12:17), Make sure to check out Sean on LinkedIn as well! Thank you so much to Sean for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian