Female CEO Spotlight: Fulcrum’s Jami Oster

Many of the top Communications brands are utilizing a “secret sauce” company out of Washington state that is giving them a definitive CapEx and OpEx competitive advantage through cutting edge Asset Lifecycle Management.  The leader behind this company is Jami Oster, who is the CEO driving organic continuity of operations and rhythm of business through the potentially perilous 2020.  Groomed from within the company for this role, she is only the second CEO of the company’s two decades of existence – successfully taking the baton from Seattle technology visionary Brent Bauer and sprinting with it.

At a high level, Jami knows that a successful CEO models and repeats the same process over and over; Listen, Synthesize, and Communicate.  At a lower implementation level she has a systemic foundational approach that supports her ability to listen, synthesize, and communicate.  Her foundational 3 that she never compromises on are centered around customers, employees, and products (offerings):

1. The customer is the one true north.
2. Hire the best.
3. Never, ever stop improving (products and services).

Customers:  Fulcrum’s one true North, their “CenterPoint” if you will, is the customer.  Brent started it as a customer-centric company in 1998, it’s Jami’s focus today, and it will Jami’s focus forever – with customers driving the overall roadmap.   Her obsession with delighting the customer has had tremendous, game changing impacts for them through the years.  Fulcrum has saved some big brand names tens of millions of dollars in CapEx and OpEx expenses… annually.  In doing so, Jami’s goal isn’t to just delight the customer; she wants to create Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations superheroes.  She knows first-hand what Fulcrum’s Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) powered by the collective employee brain power can bring to the table.  One of her customers was on the cover of a major Communications Magazine because of their success with Fulcrum’s flagship product “CATS” – an example of her literally making a super hero (publicly). 

Employees (& Partners):  Her company is full of a diverse, international cast of stars.  There are data nerds, coding ninjas, musicians, athletes, artists, and much, much more.. all with unique forms of genius to bring to the Fulcrum table.  Jami is cultivating a culture of empowerment, teamwork, positivity, and carefully protected work-life balance.  She’s more than aware of the value of institutional knowledge, and works hard to develop and retain the best – including the priceless employee number one from 1998, Isles Wallace.  She also implemented a flexible hiring strategy that seeks to find talent throughout the USA, rather than just Washington.  This wide view of hiring has brought on a number of new superstars, which were previously not available in the pool.   She also nurtures a strong network of partners with future-tech mobile computing hardware and barcode label solutions – ensuring they fit like a glove in Fulcrum’s comprehensive solution of software, hardware, and services. 

Products (& Services):  Whether it’s field data collection solutions, data reconciliation, or an enterprise system integration library, Jami doesn’t want it to be good, she wants it to be industry leading.  With regards to ergonomics, you want a field worker to perform asset scans with the least amount of attempts required, in the most effective and customized way.  For data reconciliation, you don’t want good data, you want perfect data.  For enterprise system integration, you don’t want a good set, you want to be able to seamlessly connect any major system on earth to the perfect data it’s hungry for.  Jami deploys intense UX scrutiny to all elements of the product suite, making sure it’s not just powerful, but slick and professional as well.

CEOs wanting to make their superheroes in their own industry should take note of Jami’s true north, and her overall strategy.  www.Fulcrum.net