Business Risk: Heather D. Blease on Managing Risk for SaviLinx

Fast growth requires a complex relationship with risk. In this video interview with SaviLinx founder Heather D. Blease, she discusses how she approaches risk in building SaviLinx. This is the first in a series of interviews about SaviLinx and business. 

You recently had a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new 43,000 square foot facility in Mississippi. It’s huge. That is a huge amount of risk to undertake for a company. How do you approach managing risk?

Well, it’s a good question. As a CEO running a business, I am fairly risk-averse. Even though it may seem like it’s a huge step for us to occupy a new 43,000 square foot facility, we took on a tremendous amount of time and effort modeling what it would look like financially.

We had the business lined up before we rented the facility. It does come down to the financials and being able to project the costs accurately. All the expenses and the revenues that are coming in.

And then, all the little decisions along the way help potentially mitigate risky situations. Like, okay, we have a big client coming in. What if they don’t renew their contract and we’re out their business? So we set up one-year lease options. Fortunately we were able to do that.

But you know, there are a tremendous amount of little tiny decisions that impact what could be seen as a risky or a less risky approach. From the outside, it looks like a huge decision.

But we would not be doing this if we didn’t think that we could make money. That’s why we’re in business. Ultimately, those financial models drive those decisions in managing risk and ensuring that we can deliver what we commit to.