New Horizons Computer Learning Centers
Anaheim, CA
CEO – Kevin Landry
March 12th and 13th
By: Ryan Cox
New Horizons in a Nutshell
• New Horizons has over 300 locations in 80 different countries around the world.
• Kevin Landry, CEO, runs five offices in Southern California, with their
headquarters being in Anaheim, CA.
• The other four locations are San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the
Inland Empire.
• New Horizons is an IT training company that allows companies to send their
employees here to improve their basic Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
Access, etc skills. They also offer more intensive training within the departments
of Cisco, CompTIA, Citrix, etc.
• The company has been expanding ever since it started in the 1980’s, and since
Kevin Landry took over in Southern California six years ago, they have been
more successful than ever.
• The company’s projected sales target for 2012 is approximately 13 to 14 million
dollars, which is an excellent amount of revenue for a “small business.”
th
Day 1- Monday, March 12
Located in the same parking lot
as the Anaheim Angel Stadium
Walking into New Horizons, I really
didn’t know what to expect and how
the experience was going to benefit
me. Right away, I met with Kevin
Landry, CEO, and felt welcomed
into the company. He took me on a
tour of his 19,000 square foot
facility and went through basic day
to day operations. He had meetings
all day starting at 7am going all the
way through 5pm, so I was in for a
long day but couldn’t wait to learn
as much as possible. The first
meeting I attended was the sales
meeting. All of the top sales people
in the company met and Walter
Yenkosky presented a PowerPoint to
review last months sales numbers.
Most of the people in there didn’t
expect Mr. Landry to be there and by
the end of the meeting, they
understood what was needed to be
done to improve their numbers from
last month.
Following the sales meeting, we went straight
to the next meeting which was with all of the
head of departments for New Horizons. The
meeting consisted of:
Rebecca Bergstrom – Director of Marketing
Laura Noid – Director of Human Resources
Sybil Earl – VP of Operations
Anna Nursalim – Chief Financial Officer
Kevin Landry – Chief Executive Officer
In this meeting, they had a round table
discussion on what was happening in their
departments. Mr. Landry would chime in when
he had an idea or something to tell them and
they would write down everything he said.
They also talked about how a recent member of
their team decided to pursue another job and
who they wanted to promote to the new
Operations Manager. All of them agreed on Mr.
Landry’s choice. The communication between
the head of departments at New Horizons
seems excellent and all of them really take into
account what their coworkers have to say. I
was curious why Mr. Landry choose all women
as heads of the company, and when I asked
him, his simple response was, “Ryan, I had no
intention of it being that way, but they all are
the hardest workers in the company and
perform each and everyday to the highest
standards.”
Lunch came around and I headed over to
get some food and take in everything I had
learned in this experience. I learned more
in the first half day of this job shadow
than I ever expected to learn. Being a
CEO is a very stressful, time consuming
task, but it has its benefits. You are the last
decision in all of your company’s big
choices and it really is up to you to make
the right ones. You are the vision of the
company and you need to know as the
CEO where you and your company are
going to be in the next five years. The
next half day consisted of a couple
interviews for teaching positions at New
Horizons, a job promotion for the
Operations Manager of the company and
eventually the day ended with MONDAY
MOJO. This happens on the second
Monday of every month, and they use
elluminate software to connect all of their
employees to the Anaheim office to
discuss the successes and improvements
they needed from the prior month. I really
enjoyed listening to everyone's input at
Monday mojo and think it is an excellent
way to get all of your employees on the
same page.
Break Room
Day 2 – Tuesday March 13th
When I got to the office for my second
day of the job shadow, I got right into Mr.
Landry’s car and we headed to the San
Bernardino office to meet with two
potential clients. After the hour drive, we
arrived at New Horizons, San Bernardino,
and I met Ravi Bhatra. He is an AE-2
which means he has sold $25,000 of
services for three consecutive months as
an AE-1 and promoted himself to the next
level. He told me a little bit about what he
does and we went right into a client
meeting. Ravi excelled tremendously at
letting his client know that New Horizons
is the place they should bring their
employees to get training and I could tell
the woman was very intrigued. Mr.
Landry stepped into this conversation
when he felt he needed to and used his
skills to convince her even more that New
Horizons is the best at what they do, and
you will be more than satisfied with the
company. I was very impressed the way
Mr. Landry and Mr. Bhatra used their
selling experience to reassure this
potential client and learned a lot about
how to make your customer feel
welcomed and comfortable.
Following that client meeting, I was
able to meet with a couple other
employees at the San Bernardino
office, one being Darwin Arias. Mr.
Arias job at New Horizons is a
salesman that focuses on individuals
rather than companies. He tries to
reach out to unemployed individuals
who could use some basic computer
training to help them obtain a job.
He seemed very comfortable with
his job and knew the ins and outs of
how to succeed in that business
field. Next, before we headed back
to Anaheim for the end of the day,
we headed to Chino to meet with a
college out there to see if New
Horizons could start doing business
with them. I was told before we
went into this meeting that colleges,
especially this one, are tough to get
business with because they are very
stern on what they want and do not
do much negotiating. By the end of
the meeting, however, I felt that Mr.
Landry took over the meeting and
used his experience to make them
want to start using New Horizon’s
programs at their college.
Classroom
This experience was more than I ever expected and I am very
thankful that I was able to job shadow Mr. Landry and start to
understand how a CEO runs a company. Over the two days I
shadowed him, I learned a wealth of knowledge that will help me
when I enter the business world. He has a great grasp on business
and how to run a company successfully, and his employees were
very respectful towards myself and all of the others working there
as well. You can only learn so much in the classroom about how
to run a successful company. Actually experiencing the “real
work world” is the best way to understand what you are getting
yourself into. I hope when I graduate I can work my way up to
running my own company as successfully as Mr. Landry is doing
with New Horizons.
Future Aspirations
From this job shadow experience, I really have sealed what I want to do
with my career. Becoming a CEO is something that I will work my way
towards in my lifetime, but if Mr. Landry taught me one thing over those
two days it was that nothing comes easy in life. You have to give your 110%
effort at everything if you want to be successful and never give up or say
something is to hard. I had goals of becoming a Chief Financial Officer, but
after this experience and having long conversations with Kevin Landry
about it, I really want to focus on the management aspect of a business. I
appreciate the opportunity to job shadow Kevin Landry of New Horizons
and recommend this to any student who wants to know what the real world
of business really is about. A CEO does run a company and makes all of the
tough decisions to try and make the company as successful as possible, but
what really makes a great CEO is the vision that they have. What you can
envision in the next five to ten years for your company is something all
CEO’s should be seeking, and Mr. Landry does that well.