Cary Matthews, Opal Partners Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 449)
Cary Matthews, Managing Partner of Opal Partners Group, joined host John Ray to discuss his work as a fractional Chief Operating Officer. Cary shared details on the role of a fractional COO, how he amplifies and improves the operations of his clients, leadership in navigating change, exit planning, success stories, and much more.
North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.
Opal Partners Group
Opal Partners Group, LLC (OPG) is a Fractional COO and operations consulting firm.
It was founded by Cary Matthews built on his experience leading all aspects of operations in small businesses for more than twenty years.
Our services are structured based on your unique needs. We help most clients using Advisory Services, Projects, and Interim Leadership.
The goal of your operations should be to extract value from every resource you invest in the organization. Our operations assessment helps you determine where you can make improvements.
Our assessment is completed with the leadership team and OPG. During the assessment, we will apply the Operations Hierarchy to all seven essential functions common to every business:
- Leadership
- Revenue generation
- Production
- Information Technology
- Finance
- Human Resource
- Business Preparedness
Cary Matthews, Managing Partner, Opal Partners Group
Prior to starting OPG, Cary was COO and EVP of Operations for several small businesses in the greater Atlanta area.
In those roles, he led the project management, support services, accounting, human resources, engineering, and logistics departments.
Some of the improvements he achieved include reducing time to invoice customers by 80%, improving cash flow, increasing gross profit by 10% while absorbing a 30% increase in sales, shortening training curriculum development time, and reducing training delivery costs by 30%.
Cary earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, both from Auburn University.
Activities include serving as a member of the MBA Advisory Board for Anderson University, board member and treasurer for Vision USA, and a member of Vistage International.
He has taken professional development classes at MIT and Georgia Tech.
Questions and Topics in this Interview:
- For those who aren’t familiar with fractional executives, give us an overview of what you do.
- What does a typical client engagement look like?
- What is one of the most significant or common issues your clients are dealing with now?
- What’s been your experience in dealing with implementing changes in small businesses?
- What else are you seeing businesses struggle with or issues they must face in the future?
- How do managers and business owners move to results-based management?
- How do these things affect the average employee of a small business from their perspective?
North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.
Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.
Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.
