Global CEO Excellence 2017

CEO MONTHLY / GLOBAL CEO EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2017 13 Mr. Delaney has leveraged his experience gained locally and abroad to help revolutionize the state’s outsourcing landscape. Under his progressive, flexible, and innovative leadership, The Hawaii Group companies, HiAccounting, HiEmployment, HiHealthcare, and formerly HiHR, have all skyrocketed to the top of Hawaii’s outsourcing marketplace, all repeatedly garnering accolades and awards for their business performance, customer service, and high levels of employee satisfaction. Delaney outlines his approach to working with any client or employee to ensure that they always get the very most out of the interaction. “With every new interaction, professionally or personally, my approach is to try to be a great listener right from the start. The more I am able to listen and establish a clear understanding of the perspective, challenges, and opportunities that clients face, the more effectively I am able to evolve respectful and informed insight. With that insight, we are able to appropriately suggest services and solutions that help our clients improve their businesses’ efficiency (and profitability) and relieve the back office work which will allow the client to focus on their core business.” Over the past 23 years Delaney held executive positions for various local, national and international businesses. He has 20 years of experience with business process outsourcing and was involved with the sale of ProService Hawaii to a group of mainland investors in 2005. Fast forward 11 years, Delaney sold the first subsidiary of HiGroup, HiHR (HR outsourcing) to ProService Hawaii in 2016. Prior to his role at HiGroup, Matt was the Development Manager for the Royal Lahaina Development Group, LLC, spearheading the three-hundred and eightymillion- dollar master plan for the new mixed-used Kaanapali resort consisting of a new 333-room hotel tower and 126 new luxury Residential Villas, along with new restaurants, spa, gym, general store, parking structure, lobby, water features and all new infrastructure. Additionally, Mr. Delaney served as CEO/ President of Marc Resorts, overseeing operation of 22 properties, 1,000 employees, and managing acquisitions and development in Hawaii and internationally for parent company Sunterra. Prior to his CEO role, Matt was part of Sunterra’s acquisition and development team - responsible for multiple resort and company acquisitions around the world, as well as forming a wholly owned Japanese subsidiary (Sunterra Japan). He was also instrumental in forming the DaVinci real estate fund in Tokyo, Japan, which has invested over $2 billion in commercial office and mixed-use buildings. Prior to joining Marc/ Sunterra, Delaney was a Senior Consultant and CPA for E&Y Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group. Delaney has served as the Chairman of Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association, on the Board of Trustees at Queen Emma Land Company, and on the Board of Advisors at Hawaii Pacific University Travel Industry Management. Mr. Delaney also served on the board of directors for Special Olympics Hawaii as well serving as a member of the Finance and Admissions & Membership Committees at Outrigger Canoe Club. He holds a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) License from State of California and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He received two degrees: a Bachelors of Science in Accounting, and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship from University of Southern California. Drawing on this vast industry experience, Delaney has a strong overview of the market, and is keen to share his views on recent developments. “Personally, with regards to the industry as a whole, I firmly believe that business process outsourcing (BPO) will continue to grow at incredibly high rates for the next decade. Regardless of what type of service: staffing, recruiting, HR, payroll, accounting, taxes, consulting, information technology, business processes, advisory work, etc., these are all functions that can be outsourced or “partnered” with others to help businesses grow, run more efficiently and provide value added services. Offloading these responsibilities to a third party ultimately relieves business owners’ anxiety and overhead and allows them to focus on their core business. As unemployment grows or shrinks in various parts of the country, the staffing and recruiting services complement each other well.” “With regards to accounting, tax, advisory and other financial services, the future of Tax Reform will only make it more effective for clients to partner up with a great partner to help them navigate through all of the anticipated tax law changes, which will affect every single business in a wide variety of ways. It is essential that clients plan ahead for these tax law changes in order to best guide their business through this evolving situation.” “In addition, I also firmly believe that we need to keep as many jobs local and in the communities we are working in. It is one thing for a client to outsource a function, it is another thing for the outsourcing to be off-shored to a foreign country. It is my belief that we need to employ our own citizens and people in the communities we live rather than employing staff in other countries merely to reduce expenses to earn a higher profit. Long term it is critical to have real relationships with your clients, and I believe these bonds will help business partnerships survive challenges due to shifts in the global economic or political landscape.” Overall, Delaney is a big believer in constantly learning and gaining new skills, and his advice to anyone looking to emulate his success is to always seek out new opportunities, as he proudly explains in his concluding comments. “My advice to anyone looking to succeed in business is to work as hard as you can while you are young before you begin a family and have additional responsibilities to care for. They should volunteer in the community you live in and give back. They should not ask for the business on your first encounter. Build a relationship and the business will come later down the road once you are a trusted person. Ultimately, you want to ask for more responsibility, so that you can learn as much as possible, absorbing every bit of insight and inspiration.