Eugene Lasky - Career Chronicle

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This page is a replacement for LinkedIn — but with more room to be honest about what I’ve learned and how I think. I’m not looking for a job. The work I do now is work I choose, often pro bono, and it draws on everything below. This is less a résumé than a record of how I got here.

Technical Foundation (1988-1991)

Moore Products Company (now part of Siemens)

I started in industrial automation at MPCo. This role let me go deeper into computing, which had captured my interest as an undergrad — I was one of the few students at the time (~1985) who owned a PC and learned to make custom hardware modifications to improve performance. Working at MPCo was a natural extension of that curiosity.With a Chemical Engineering degree, I spent these years designing and implementing digital process control systems for major chemical and pharmaceutical companies — DuPont, BASF, and Johnson & Johnson (McNeil) among them. While my degree provided the engineering fundamentals, what really drew me in was applying computing power to solve complex automation challenges.This foundation taught me more than technical skills. It built habits I still rely on — thinking in systems, valuing precision, and the conviction that complex problems often have elegant solutions hiding inside them.

Business Education (1991-1993)

Columbia MBA

Recognizing that my interests extended beyond engineering, I pursued an MBA at Columbia full-time. This wasn’t about adding credentials — it was about bridging the gap between technical problem-solving and business strategy. For someone trained to find definitive answers, learning to navigate ambiguity and make decisions with incomplete information was both uncomfortable and essential.

Financial Services (1993-1995)

AIG Commercial Warranty (Electronic Equipment Maintenance Insurance)

My transition from engineering started at AIG, where I joined an accelerated management training program and upon completion was assigned P&L responsibility for a $35 million Commercial Warranty unit. Our team underwrote maintenance coverage for high-value medical equipment — CAT scanners, MRIs, and the like — work that required both technical understanding and the ability to price risk on complex machines where downtime was expensive.Across sales, underwriting, claims, compliance, and systems, this role was my first real exposure to running a business end to end — and my first taste of what P&L responsibility actually feels like.

Strategy & Implementation Consulting (1995-1997)

New York Consulting Partners

New York Consulting Partners, a boutique firm founded by ex-McKinsey partners, became my intensive education in strategy and implementation. The founders had spotted a gap in the market: traditional firms excelled at recommendations, but clients often struggled with execution. The firm’s philosophy was to see recommendations through to results, not deliver a fancy presentation and walk away. That approach resonated with my engineering instinct: diagnose the problem, then help fix it.

Key Engagements

Pepperidge Farm (part of Campbell's): Our team analyzed production processes across multiple facilities, identifying and institutionalizing best practices that collectively delivered $8 million in annual savings through reduced ingredient waste. One example that captures the approach: the Cinnamon Raisin Bread line was producing 18oz loaves to meet a 16oz target — a 12.5% overage born from a well-intentioned fear of underweight products. The real problem wasn’t the process; it was the mental model. We reframed it as a statistical optimization problem and built a decision-support tool that let production supervisors input real-world data — target weight, mean, standard deviation from the checkweigher — and see exactly where to set their targets. It shifted their thinking from “never go under” to “here’s how to confidently hit the target without violating FDA rules or consumer trust.” That kind of reframing, replicated across facilities and product lines, is where the real savings came from.Arrow Electronics: Our team developed an inventory management system that freed up $4 million in working capital while improving service levels. The underlying challenge was a classic tension between carrying costs and stockout risk. By quantifying the costs on both sides, we could find the right balance rather than defaulting to “just carry more.”Amoco (now part of BP): Our strategic assessment of Amoco’s lubricants division ultimately contributed to its sale to Chevron. That engagement was an early lesson in knowing what to keep and what to let go.These two years packed an enormous amount of learning into a short window: analytical rigor, implementation discipline, and the ability to quickly understand and solve complex business problems across unfamiliar industries.

Internal Consulting & Operations (1997-2007)

Wolters Kluwer: From HQ to Field Offices

Joining Wolters Kluwer, a $5 billion global information services company, I began by creating an internal consulting group as Director of Business Planning for CT Corporation — the flagship business providing registered agent and compliance services that law firms and corporations rely on for critical legal support. Our team guided the implementation of Six Sigma across the organization, performed M&A due diligence, tested new technologies, and developed sales quota and financial models. This role taught me how to get things done inside a large corporation and how to build credibility through quick wins and measurable results.In 2000, I transitioned to operational leadership as VP of Operations for CT Lien Solutions, the unit providing time-sensitive UCC filing and lien search services that banks and law firms needed to complete secured transactions. Our team led a transformation focused on workflow redesign and process automation.By this time, after several bumpy attempts, I had internalized the essential difference between employee commitment and employee compliance. We invested heavily in understanding what our people needed to thrive — conducting regular anonymous surveys and acting on what we heard. The results reflected the team’s effort:
• Team productivity improved by 150% over five years through workflow redesign and automation
• Established a new industry standard with 99% same-day delivery
• Built a culture of continuous improvement that sustained these gains long-term.This experience reinforced that operational excellence isn’t about rigidly adhering to process to maximize output. It’s about giving teams the autonomy to try things, with a core belief that progress comes from learning from setbacks, not just avoiding them. CT Lien Solutions became known within Wolters Kluwer for having the highest employee engagement scores — a place where people genuinely wanted to work.

P&L Leadership (2007-2013)

Wolters Kluwer: General Manager, CT Lien Solutions

What began as a $12 million business grew into a $117 million market leader — a transformation driven by a team that genuinely believed in what we were building. After taking on CT Corporation’s UCC operations as well, our strategy centered on three things: making it radically easier for customers to do business with us through digital self-service, integrating eight acquisitions without losing the culture that made us effective, and treating employee engagement as a leading indicator rather than an afterthought.Net Promoter Score climbed 25 points — not because we chased the metric, but because committed people tend to take better care of customers.Of everything in my career, this role taught me the most about leadership: balancing growth with profitability, managing diverse stakeholder interests, and building teams that could execute ambitious visions while remaining grounded.

Global Transformation (2013-2015)

Wolters Kluwer: VP of Global Service Delivery, Corporate Legal Services

For my final corporate role, I led the newly created Fulfillment Center of Excellence for Corporate Legal Services — charged with transforming operations globally across three business units: CT Lien Solutions, CT Corporation, and CT Corsearch (trademark and brand protection services). With teams across the USA, Europe, India, and the Philippines, our organization managed a $100+ million expense base while driving standardization and scale.This was my first truly global role, and it confirmed something I'd suspected: the principles of good leadership — clear communication, respect for local expertise, and focus on outcomes — are universal. Most importantly, I saw firsthand that employee commitment transcends geography: when people understand how their work contributes to something larger and feel valued for their contributions, excellence follows regardless of location.

Independent Practice (2015-Present)

After 25 years in corporate life, the completion of that global transformation felt like a natural place to step away. I began prioritizing work that involved a more direct application of problem-solving skills — choosing engagements rather than inheriting them.These have ranged from paid work — like designing and prototyping a platform for managing mass tort and medical lien cases — to pro-bono consulting for nonprofits and small businesses navigating operational challenges. This blend of compensated and volunteer work has been fulfilling — useful and still teaching me things. Throughout, the same core principle applies: sustainable excellence comes from people who are committed, not merely compliant.

Mission-Driven Work

Malvern Health (2024-Present): Working with my friend Geoff Botak connected me with true healthcare heroes — the clinicians and administrators who serve thousands struggling with substance abuse and related mental health issues. My personal mission became to “help the helpers”: supporting these frontline professionals and senior leadership with operational expertise to enhance their ability to reduce suffering and deliver care.All Sober (2024-Present): Through that same connection, I serve as Operational Excellence Advisor to AllSober.com, a startup building a technology platform for addiction treatment. The goal is to help clinicians deliver integrated care for substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders — something the current system does poorly. My role spans strategy, operations, and culture: helping build software that supports the way good treatment actually works. The underlying belief is simple — technology can scale a lot of things, but lasting recovery still depends on compassionate people who understand that recovery is a lifetime journey.

Other Pursuits

Investment Management: A significant focus since 2015 has been developing expertise in investment management. My approach is grounded in the principles laid out by Benjamin Graham, Philip Fisher, Peter Lynch, and Warren Buffett — that price and value are different things, that patience is a competitive advantage, and that understanding a business matters more than following a crowd.The learning curve included plenty of mistakes, most of them traceable to a “Mr. Market” mentality I should have recognized sooner. Knowing the principles and consistently applying them turned out to be very different things — and the results only followed once I closed that gap. This more seasoned approach has delivered strong long-term results, and I’ve found satisfaction in helping others build financial literacy and security through principled investing.Chesapeake Seafood (Sold 2017): Co-owning and operating this venture at a local farmers market provided direct customer interaction, immediate feedback, and the satisfaction of providing quality products to the community.Semi-Professional Poker: My experience as a semi-professional poker player honed skills in real-time risk assessment, pattern recognition under uncertainty, and emotional discipline — skills that translate directly to investment decisions and high-stakes business situations.

Community Engagement

My volunteer work has included mentoring small business owners through SCORE, supporting college readiness for inner-city students through Philadelphia Futures (now Heights Philadelphia), volunteering at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, and mentoring youth through Big Brothers Big Sisters.These experiences have been personally enriching — offering perspective, purpose, and connection beyond the business world — always with the intention of providing something useful in return.Outside of work, I stay curious — reading widely with the MontCo Library Saturday Book Club, and spending time with moral philosophy, critical thinking, and the study of how people (including me) make decisions poorly.

Education & Professional Development

Degrees

Lafayette College (Easton, PA) — BS, Chemical Engineering, 1988Columbia Business School (New York, NY) — MBA, Finance/Management, 1993

Executive Education

Ongoing executive education at the University of Michigan, Motorola University, Northwestern/Kellogg, and MIT Sloan — spanning operational excellence (Six Sigma), digital strategy, and data science (1999–2013).

Recent Certifications

Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate — Coursera - 2023Cisco Python Essentials 1 & 2 — 2023PCAP™ – Certified Associate Python Programmer (Python Institute) — 2023ASAM Multidimensional Assessment (Module 1) — 2024 via Malvern HealthASAM From Assessment to Service Planning (Module 2) — 2024 via Malvern Health