Fintech South 2024: Kyle Tothill with Collective Insights

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. And so excited to be talking to our next guest, Kyle Tothill, with Collective Insights. Welcome.

Kyle Tothill: Hey, thanks. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, for the folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Collective Insights? How you serving folks? Sure.

Kyle Tothill: So Collective Insights is a global enterprise management and technology consulting company. We focus on business transformation initiatives as well as technology modernization initiatives. We’re headquartered out of Atlanta, Georgia, and we serve companies all over the globe.

Lee Kantor: And then so what’s the backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Kyle Tothill: Oh, man, that’s a six beer story. But we can we can talk about it a little bit. I’ve been an entrepreneur since 1999, and I formed a company out of the ashes of a dotcom blow up called Novacon, called Clearpoint Consulting, and we helped build high performance sales and technology teams for for fast growing companies and, uh, over multiple, multiple years of evolution. I met with some folks and we started a bigger company called E higher, which did the same thing on a much larger scale. And out of that organization, we built a couple companies. One of those companies was Collective Insights, which is a management consulting company like we talked about, and that was a natural fit for what we were doing. And over the those years, you know, 15 years or so of e hire, we continued to build and grow that management consulting company, and now it’s our leading brand and the organization where I spend most of my operating time.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client fit for collective insights?

Kyle Tothill: So our ideal client profile really focuses on global enterprise leaders and technology leaders that are driving big transformational change, whether that’s implementing a scaled new technology or ERP system or going through kind of a culture change or shift or, you know, implementing scaled projects, you know, that that affect the entire organization.

Lee Kantor: And why is the Fintech South Conference important to you and your company?

Kyle Tothill: Well, I think, first of all, a lot of our customers are here. Certainly the global financial institutions and some of the faster growing, you know, fintech organizations are in that client profile that we have and some of them of our customers. So outside of, you know, being where your customers are being engaged, you know, we are a community first organization. And so what does that mean? Well, we’re headquartered here in Atlanta, and we’re proud Georgians. And Georgia is, you know, fastly becoming a global innovation hub. And certainly, you know, from a fintech perspective, you know, what’s one of our biggest pillars that we have? In addition to that, I serve as the, you know, board chair for the Technology Association of Georgia. So I have some dignitary duties that I have to do here today, and I love it. Very excited about this community and what it’s become, especially over the last 25 years. And I’m very, very excited about this particular ecosystem over the next 25.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit of context for folks who maybe aren’t in the Atlanta area, but have heard about the Atlanta, uh, technology ecosystem? How is it, you know, kind of explain kind of what makes it special and how it’s different than maybe other tech ecosystems around the country.

Kyle Tothill: Uh, first of all, Atlanta is a very diverse, um, ecosystem, and I mean diverse in terms of business diversity. So we have a lot of the global enterprise organizations that are headquartered here in Atlanta. So very I think almost every single fortune 500 company, you know, around the, around the globe has a presence in this, you know, in this marketplace. So that’s not true for a lot of other marketplaces. But, you know, outside of like the technical reasons, you know, I think it’s different because of the people of Georgia and our unique hospitality and our desire to grow and punch above our weight and want to and aspire to be something bigger than ourselves. This community is, um, dedicated to that. And you hear that at the governor’s office, at the legislature, at the at the mayor’s office, for sure. You hear that with organizations like the Metro Chamber, you know, tag especially. And I think that’s unique. You know, when I travel the country, you know, there’s not really a ton of organizations like Tag and there’s not a lot of ecosystems that are as connected, you know, as, as this community in Georgia.

Kyle Tothill: And you hear this all the time. People say it, people laugh about it. Atlanta is a big, small pond. So it’s a it’s a community that thrives off of personal relationships. And I think that’s I think that’s unique to to the South, and I think that’s specifically unique to Atlanta. We’ve been driving and pushing this marketplace since the 1840s. If you didn’t know that the word, the town name, Atlanta actually comes from a marketing ploy that the Metro Chamber did. This is news, you know, back in the 1840s, we named it Atlanta to make it more appealing to people to move their companies here and move to Atlanta before the Civil War. And they called it Atlanta because it was short for Atlantic. And so they wanted to make the the kind of the marketing ploy that we were close to the ocean, which is probably not true, especially by horse and carriage. But, hey, you know, never let the truth get in the way of a good sales pitch.

Lee Kantor: But there wasn’t a good internet back then. That’s right.

Kyle Tothill: So the net, the net net of everything is, is that I think the people and the commitment to the community is what makes this special outside of the fact that we have this wonderful asset, you know, that continues to drive economic development for us, which is our airport. You know, you can get to 80% of the population in the United States within two hours, which is what Ambassador Young and Maynard Jackson and Ivan Allen really hailed. You know, in terms of attracting organizations to move their headquarters here, which, you know, we have 2000 or 3000 German companies that are here. So if you think about, you know, what makes us special, it’s our our want to, I think really drives it for us.

Lee Kantor: And I think the way I mean, you mentioned the airport, we have the port as well and we have the like you said, the diversity of industries. There are so many industries here. So that if one of them is struggling, someone else is probably not struggling. So with our downturns really aren’t as pronounced as maybe some other markets. Yeah. And then we I think we do a good job of playing nice. You know the government plays nice with the corporations and then they respect the startups. And everybody is kind of very collaborative. I think that’s 100% true.

Kyle Tothill: And it can be better. But you know, this year at the Georgia Technology Summit, we did something that doesn’t happen that often. We had the the red state governor and the blue state mayor, you know, on stage together, collaborating, talking about things that they care about that that are really apolitical, which is, you know, innovation is going to drive a lot of the economic development. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on. And that’s the beautiful part about this community. And you just mentioned it. So I don’t want to belabor it, but we’re aligned. And that’s been true for a long time.

Lee Kantor: And business friendly tracks a lot of folks to the the town. I mean, the growth in the population has been crazy probably since you’ve been here. Yeah, I think.

Kyle Tothill: Anybody that’s been in Atlanta longer than ten years recognizes the dynamic growth that we’ve had. And it’s a it’s a special it’s a special place. We’re bringing organizations to to do business here. And it’s because of the people and because of the talent that we have here. And of course, the cost of living, which, you know, was going to pare out at some point. But it’s a special place. If you think about Georgia, I think for the ninth year in a row or eighth, I think it’s nine years has been the best place to do business in the United States. It’s the best state to do business in. So if you figure that we’re in the capital of the best state in the United States and the United States is the best economy in the world, where does that put you? Do the math. You don’t have to think too hard to think about how fortunate people are to be living here right now. It’s not always perfect, as everybody knows, and we have other issues, but from a business perspective, we’re in a pretty good spot.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about collective insights, where should they go?

Kyle Tothill: Well, they can always connect with me on LinkedIn. And I’m very, you know, open to that as well. As, you know, we have our website which is Collective insights.com. But certainly if you want to know more about it connect with me. Let’s talk about it.

Lee Kantor: And then tag if they want to know about tag. There’s a lot of ways to connect with tag online as well.

Kyle Tothill: We have a lot of tentacles out there in multiple directions. We have our Tag education 501 C3 nonprofit, which does a lot in workforce development. So if you’re an up and comer or you’re looking to advance your career. You know, you can learn about our apprenticeship program. You can learn about our Tech Connect, which is a which is a platform to help entrepreneurs connect with investors. We have access to venture capital groups like Venture Atlanta. So there’s a lot of angles to play if you’re, you know, focused in a specific industry or a specific function, whether that’s sales or marketing or finance or you’re into cloud computing or information security. We have a society for you. We have a place for you to come build your community, you know, and your network, you know, in a in a specialized area. And we’ve learned and one of the great things about Tag is we are great connectors of people. You know, I’d probably bolt that back onto your question. A couple of years ago, we were a very connected, connected ecosystem, and it pays a lot of dividends, you know, for technologists to build and invest in, you know, in their relationship, network and tag.

Lee Kantor: Being around 25 years is a testament to that.

Kyle Tothill: Yeah. I think the, you know, we have a I said this in the board meeting not too long ago. It’s amazing. I think if you think about all of the original founders, which really was a coalition of the willing of a handful of associations coming together to put, you know, an association and govern and manage it and build it what they envisioned. You know, for 2025, I’m pretty happy that that we’re living up to that. And I think that they’d be very proud of us. And some of them are. And what I get really excited about is where we’re going. Right. So we’re a top five technology state today, 25 years from now, a global hub of innovation recognized, you know, by all the attributes that, you know, that kind of are the hallmarks of that.

Lee Kantor: Well, Kyle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work. We appreciate you.

Kyle Tothill: Thank you very much. Happy to do it. Love it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.