Kitty Lagareta, one of Hawaii's top businesswomen, outlined the career she developed after her children were grown and advised BYU-Hawaii students in the March 7 Entrepreneurship Lecture Series to develop early credibility, learn from mistakes and follow business plan timelines and budgets.
Lagareta's résumé now shows a long list of accomplishments and executive positions, including Chairman and CEO of Communications Pacific — Hawaii's largest marketing communications firm, and chair of the statewide University of Hawaii Board of Regents; but she explained all of this came as a result of initially working with the fledgling nonprofit Hawaii Ronald McDonald House organization because of her own son's illness.
"I ended up being a family board member. I didn't know how fortunate that whole experience was for me," she said. "Sometimes you discover you're learning a lot along the way. Those years were some of the most valuable growth years I had in my life."
"I was also able to work with some of the top business executives and leaders in Honolulu," she added, noting her nonprofit work led to a position with a public relations firm. "I actually was one of their oldest account executives at 32 in 1986. I loved the profession and helping people with their communications, working with businesses and helping them solve the marketing side of their problems."
On her 40th birthday in 1994 Lagareta said she "felt like I wanted to do something else and felt like I was ready for a challenge. One day I woke up and quit my job. That's a sign of an entrepreneur, when you believe you can make everything work."
She and a friend started up what would become Hawaii's largest Internet service provider (ISP) at the time, "until RoadRunner came along. That was a lot of fun, but we probably would have had to shut it down if we hadn't found a buyer at the right moment. The company was growing so fast we could hardly keep up with it."
She went to work for Hill & Knowlton, a national public relations firm which initially started in Hawaii as Communications Pacific, with the understanding that "I could buy the company in two years. That was an interesting experience. It was a company that needed a lot of work."
"To me, that was opportunity knocking," Lagareta continued, pointing out the company's annual revenues had been as high as $4.3 million, "but was about $1 million when I took it over."
"It seems now that we moved pretty quickly, but at the time it seemed like we were slogging through mud. Today we have 70 employees and $7.3 million in annual revenues. One of the ways we've grown is to expand our customer base," she said, listing their internet business, advertising agency and other operations.
Asked what role her husband played in her career, Lagareta replied her first husband quot;wasn't very interested in my career, and the marriage didn't last." Then, after being a single mom for six years, she remarried about 14 years ago, with her second husband "amazingly supportive of everything that I do." For example, she has mortgaged the house a couple of times to finance her business ventures. "That kind of confidence is important."
Turning to a question about "creating a buzz for new ventures," Lagareta said, "I have always taken the approach that you need to be out where the business takes place. I would say that 95% of our business comes from word of mouth."
"I tend to hire people who have been active in the community. They tend to know people. That's the reality of where an awful lot of business comes from in Hawaii. It's certainly true of professional business, which often comes through personal relationships."
She also suggested doing a lot of research and analysis on the "best ways to reach customers. There's still so many companies that don't realize their greatest competition is coming from the internet. So many people look for information online, and are approached on line. There are so many ways of reaching your audience than there were before."
Asked if women have different challenges than men in business, Lagareta acknowledge that "the years when I was a single mom were the toughest for me," but she was very involved in her children's lives. "Being there for them was the right priority at that time. I had to accept that was my personal choice and not be as aggressive about my career as I could be. I just accepted there would be a time." Later, she found she did a lot of work from 9-12 at night. "I didn't get a lot of sleep during those years."
Once her kids were out of the house, Lagareta added, "I put all the extra time into my business." "When you're a woman starting out, and don't have a lot of track record,it's tough," she also said of getting financing. For example, she told of a friend who started a furniture business, "that's now very successful. She does business all over the world, but in the beginning she couldn't get financing. She had to sell her car. That's how being a woman in business is sometimes."
Asked what motivates her, Lagareta replied, "When I was a single mom, I just wanted to help my kids and get them through college. A lot of my passion for wanting to succeed came from that."
When they didn't need her financially anymore, she continued, "I thought Iwould hit a wall, but now I find I have a lot of fun doing what I do, helping organizations in the community. I'm probably more ambitious than ever now."