"I ran into the unpretentious offices of Thiel Audio on Nandino Boulevard, stomping and shaking the rain from my jacket, only to realize I'd walked into the middle of a staff meeting being held in the foyer of the office. Courteous and friendly, Kathy Gornik, the company's president, ushered me to a conference room containing a small kitchen, perhaps a hundred awards covering one wall, and speakers of different sizes scattered about the floor, and said she'd be back in a minute. I was very conscious of time, since it had taken days to find a half-hour in which to meet for this interview.
Gornik intrigued me: an introvert in the business of sales, selling top-of-the-line, high-end, award-winning audio products in a competitive, international market. She described herself as "a horribly serious person... a conservative and civil libertarian who loves (her) freedom." Gornik operates in the world of consumer electronics, where finding another female CEO in the room is next to impossible and industry colleagues include Bill Gates of Microsoft, the CEOs of Bose Corporation, Pioneer, Sanyo and more. "On the manufacturing side, it's definitely a man's world out there, very competitive ... research-based and quite treacherous for women," she said. "In the beginning, I was regarded as a curiosity, and that's exactly what got me the appointments I needed!"
On the purchasing side, however, Gornik said, nearly 80 percent of buyers are women and companies do considerable research and analysis to better understand what women want when purchasing electronics.
Her serious nature and thorough knowledge of Thiel (pronounced "teal") audio products and benefits has paid off. Thiel has pushed the performance envelope for loudspeakers, won dozens of "Product of the Year" Awards and received the Consumer Electronic Association's "Design and Engineering Award" 22 times. As president of Thiel Audio Products and co-owner with engineer Jim Thiel, Gornik is the only woman to have served on the dynamic Consumer Electronic Association's international Board, as well as having been the only female president in the organization's history. In an industry with more than $150 billion in sales, she is definitely serious about business. How did she get started?
"I was living in Maryland in the mid-'70s and I got a call from one of the Thiel brothers, whom I'd known at the University of Dayton, asking if I'd be interested in getting involved in their high-end audio business. It came at a good time for me, so I signed on. My job was to generate revenues. I didn't even have a business card, but I had to get cash flow going for the company. Period. Business 101: sell something! I was young enough and dumb enough to think I could do it, so I made it up as I went along."
"I had to set up a distribution system for our products," Gornik continued. "Obviously, you can have great products, but if you have no way of selling them.... Anyway, they sent me two speakers and I proceeded to do the research I needed to do. You've really got to be savvy about your speakers if you're going to convince people to spend as much as 10 times more than the next guy's."
Gornik sold 2,000 speakers in her first year and decided to move back to Kentucky to get more involved in the company. "I had zero budget and my job was to develop a marketing plan," she said with a laugh. She knew that getting critical reviews of high-end products was the way to go, and what was required was getting people to listen to the speakers. "That put us on the map," she said. "Once they heard the speakers, they raved about them, which got us lots of attention."
Today, Gornik doesn't do any direct sales; she has employees for that function. But she still plays an important role in public relations, communicating the vision and keeping sales on track. There are few routine days. "I love that about the business," she said. "The days that have the most routine are e-mail and phone-calling days. We do a lot of strategic planning here, and everyday we have a brief, 10-minute strategic huddle (which was what this writer had walked into) where we talk about where the heartburn is, where we're stuck and what to do about it. We report to each other."
Now that she's no longer chair of the international association, Gornik spends more time in Kentucky. However, in 2006, in addition to several dozen domestic trips, she had business travels to the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Spain and China.
When asked about challenges she's faced, she doesn't hesitate: "Knowing my own limitations. Where am I helping the company, where am I in the way?" And where does she get in the way of the company's growth? After some thought, Gornik said, "I think I haven't seized enough opportunities. I've had to make a big effort to alter my thinking about what we can do, to get outside the box as they say, and the results have been phenomenal. We've just scored a big contract in original equipment manufacturing, something I would never have thought about. Knowing oneself is the hardest challenge, I find. Where am I narrow? Where am I an impediment?" She referred to a good friend, who just gave up his role as president of his own company, giving it to the number-two person, because he felt he was holding his company back. "It's great owning your own company; you get to put president on your business card and all that," Gornik said. "But the question is, are you the right person for that role?"
Another challenge she struggles with: "I'm basically an introverted person and I have to fight my own personality. I have to ... think differently, confront the fears associated with that ... Small companies so clearly represent the people behind the company; that's the good news and the bad news."
It's clear to me she's very thoughtful about these issues.
Lessons learned? "Eighty percent of success is showing up, and there's rarely a time when courtesy should not prevail. There are rare times when anger is appropriate. It's a discipline to go against the gravitational pull of reacting and being angry when things go awry; it's a discipline of kindness. These are hard-won and difficult lessons. I know I'm not always able to practice them, but I'm a better person for having tried."
She admitted that she's had many mentors, saying, "I'm always learning from other people. One specific person who made a big difference in my life, though, was Jerry Kalov, who was a true statesman in this business. He was the first person to suggest I run for CEA chair, and I thought, 'Who, me?' It would never have occurred to me if he hadn't suggested it. He helped elevate me both internally and externally. He was wise and fair and humble; he championed me in the association, and he still whispers in my ear, even though he passed away two years ago. I want to be the person he saw me to be."
We spoke about mentoring and the difficulty some women have with finding a mentor, particularly when they work in male-dominated fields. "Mentoring requires a great deal of openness and truth-telling, and it's up to the woman to control the relationship so that it stays career-focused. It can be tough." When asked what advice she would give to women going into the electronics field, she said, "...you better know your stuff and be clear about your goals."
As passionate as Gornik is about the audio business and her role in it, she's equally passionate when it comes to public policy issues. She chairs the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions (www.bipps.org), an independent research and educational institution that proposes free-market solutions to public policy issues. She believes in small government, controlled spending, and privatized services above all. Gornik abhors the fact that government is seldom held accountable, as businesses are, and asserts that there needs to be more openness in how local, state and federal budgets are spent.
In her infrequent spare time, Kathy reads economics and philosophy. She loves theories of governance and law and how they relate to everyday life. She studies the writings of the Founding Fathers; listens to audio tapes on history and past presidents; enjoys classical music and rock and roll; seldom watches television; and, rather than winding down at a fashionable resort, she chooses to rough it by camping out. I wanted to know more, but already an hour had passed.
For my final questions, I asked Gornik whether she had any resolutions for the New Year. She responded, "More solitude! I love silence. It restores me."
A woman in the audio business, searching for the sound of silence. Intriguing!
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