Laurence Tutt
Chief Operating Officer
GBS Enterprises
29 Years in the Industry
Black Leaders In Consumer Tech Award Winner 2021
Tell us about your career so far.
My career as a Chief Operating Officer (COO) has been an inspiring journey. I have learned a lot over the past 20+ years. Through my time in the military, I learned how to be a great leader. After becoming a COO, I learned how to be a more effective and efficient leader.
As COO, I lean on my experience and knowledge to manage strategically. I keep the company’s high-level strategy front-and-center while understanding the details of day-to-day execution to ensure what needs to happen does indeed happen. Handling those details is no small matter.
Describe your current role.
• Set and execute all operational, growth, strategic goals for the company
• Direct, manage and mentor all department leaders
• Collaborate with the CEO in setting and driving organizational vision, operational strategy, and hiring needs
• Translate strategy into actionable goals for performance and growth helping to implement organization-wide goal setting, performance management, and annual operating planning
• Oversee company operations and employee productivity, building a highly inclusive culture ensuring team members thrive and organizational outcomes are met
• Monitor performance with tracking and establish corrective measures as needed, and prepare detailed reports, both current and forecasting
• Analyze internal operations and identify areas of process enhancement
• Maintain and build trusted relationships with key customers, clients, partners and stakeholders
• Create a culture for success across the organization(s).
When it comes to diversity and inclusion, how is the CE industry doing both historically, and also in the past year?
From my point of view, the CE space still has a bit of work to do in this area.
What could the CE industry do to improve on diversity and inclusion?
Give more minorities a seat at the table. Ask for their opinions.
What accomplishment are you most proud of?
• Serving our country for 13 years
Working at a small company for 26 years
• Starting as a Systems Administrator and becoming the company’s COO.
• Growing the company from $40 million to $550 million then selling it for $1.4 billion
• Designing and implementing a World Class Facility
• My community work (mentoring)
• AAU coach
• Placing over 180 young men into college
• Serving yearly at the Food Bank.
• Giving Back!
• The list goes on and on
What technology are you most interested in at the moment?
• CTI, IVR, Cloud, AWS, Cyber.
Any additional thoughts you’d like to share?
Thank you for considering me for this award. It’s an honor.
