40 years of DAI

In his role as COO, empowered by Barclay to
“herd cats” and pull the operating groups together,
Boomgard realized that centrifugal forces
remained strong. The geographical spread of
projects, each one dealing with different clients
and local stakeholders, fostered a sense that
“our business is different, so we do things our
way.” Boomgard, adopting common parlance,
referred to these airtight group structures as
“silos,” and he was committed to breaking them
down. The group VPs, Betsy Marcotte included,
were skeptical, unconvinced that standardized
rules and processes would add any value to
their projects. But at some point in her discussions
with Boomgard, Marcotte either offered or
was “voluntold” to come up with an alternative.
“I was responsible for figuring out the solution
to the problem that I really didn’t want to
acknowledge we had,” she recalled.
By this time, Barclay, confident that the succession
plan would come to fruition in 2008, had
begun thinking about what he could do to improve
the practice of development in the field as
a whole. He began planning an initiative called
the Development Practitioners Forum to speed
up the circulation of knowledge and information
for development professionals worldwide, determined
that they—no more than DAI—should
not have to reinvent the wheel. At its September
2008 meeting, the Board appointed Boomgard
as DAI’s new CEO, effective January 1, 2009.
Gunning announced this to the company’s staff
a few days later. The handoff was smooth and
uneventful, as Barclay moved over to launch
the Forum and Boomgard took on a job for
which he was very well prepared. “Thanks to
Tony Barclay’s stewardship,” Boomgard said,
“DAI enters this transition at the very top of its
game.” Determined to take the company to a
new level, however, he had already begun to
implement Marcotte’s reorganization plan.
The idea was simple: break down the strong
groups into a much smaller set of practice areas
that were, of necessity, dependent upon common
project management, business development,
and financial expertise provided by the
company. At the operational heart of the new
structure were about a dozen “managing directors”
representing the practice areas and the
international offices. Routinely interfacing with
their teams were staff under the direction of
Robert Dressen, Zan Northrip, Kevin Haggerty,
On January 1, 2009,
Jim Boomgard
became CEO.
97