Semperis is having a moment. Or several years worth of moments. The Hoboken-based cybersecurity company recently closed a $200 million funding round and posted revenue growth of an astounding 2,800% over the last three years. That was good enough to be ranked among the fastest growing U.S. cybersecurity providers by Deloitte for three straight years.
But revenue growth is only part of the Semperis story. Company executives take corporate citizenship seriously, baking in the notion that they should be a force for good in the world. “As cybersecurity leaders, we are all on the front lines of a new war—one that has virtually no boundaries and does not play by any rules,” is how Semperis describes that approach. “We believe that cyber resilience is the convergence of information security and business continuity.”
In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Semperis CEO Mickey Bresman explains how being a force for good works in practice. And he discusses the company’s business and the current cyber threat environment.
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How’s your supply chain? During the pandemic and in its immediate aftermath, the media were filled stories about the difficulties U.S. businesses were having getting the goods they needed. NJBIZ was no exception. Now that COVID-19 is no longer ravaging the economy, now is a good time to check in on whether supply chains have recovered.
So this edition of NJBIZ Conversations features a discussion with Francis Walsh, the CEO of Lyndhurst-based NRS, a trucking and logistics company. NRS works in some of the industries most severely affected by the pandemic, including medical supplies, food and beverage and retail. Walsh describes what it was like running a logistics provider during the pandemic, the problems that remain with supply chains and what it will take to get back fully to normal.
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By now, most business owners and executives understand the threat that cyber criminals pose. Hackers and other bad actors can and do wreak havoc on unsuspecting companies, stealing personal information and holding crucial data for ransom. But understanding the threat is not sufficient to effectively counter it.
Among the many companies offering help in that regard is Livingston-based TechWerxe, led by CEO Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt. TechWerxe styles its services as fire prevention rather than firefighting. Its approach “emphasizes discovering and solving potential issues before they become problems.” A solid approach.
In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Lakhani-Bhatt – a former NJBIZ Best 50 Women in Business honoree – describes how she left the banking industry for the IT world, what the latest threat environment looks like, and what businesses should be doing to keep their technology and data safe.
To watch the interview, click on the image below.
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In December, three studies – one from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform and another from the American Tort Reform Foundation – painted a grim picture of New Jersey’s courts from the perspective of businesses. Taken together, the reports suggest that the state’s civil justice system imposes some of the highest costs on business in the nation.
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One of the U.S. Chamber studies found that the costs and compensation paid in the U.S. tort system totaled $443 billion – or $3,621 per household – in 2020. The Garden State ranked as the fourth most expensive tort system, with an average cost of $5,059 per household. Another report warned that the size and frequency of large jury verdicts — so-called nuclear verdicts worth $10 million or more — are increasing and New Jersey ranked eighth on the list of highest nuclear verdicts in the nation. Finally, ATRF’s annual Judicial Hellhole report placed New Jersey on its Hellhole Watch List due to conditions in all three branches of government that could lead to litigation abuse.
So how bad is it out there? In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, New Jersey Civil Justice Institute President Anthony Anastasio describes what is happening in the state’s courts, how businesses are affected and potential reforms. The NJCJI is a pro-business legal advocacy organization.
Anyone who has had medical tests performed likely knows about Quest Diagnostics. The Secaucus-based company is perhaps the most prominent testing company in the world. Quest claims to serve one-third of U.S. adults each year, works with half of the nation’s physicians and hospitals, and employs a medical and scientific staff of more than 650 M.D.s and Ph.Ds. All of which produced revenue of nearly $11 billion in 2021, according to the company.
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During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Quest played a crucial role in the effort to get ahead of the virus. Before vaccines and improved therapeutics, testing was really the only tool public health officials had to fight the outbreak — it was vital to identify where the virus was spreading and how quickly so that non-pharmaceutical intervention could at least slow the wildfire that threatened to consume New Jersey and other areas of the country. Remember “flatten the curve“?
For this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Wendi Mader – Quest’s vice president of the commercial employer channel – talks about what it was like to play that role and discusses how she and her staff continue to help businesses identify and mitigate health risks faced by their employees.
Markets in New Jersey, and across the country, are in a state of more intense flux than usual as the calendar turns to a new year. Inflation remains a challenge, along with the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame it. And the concomitant higher interest rates are reverberating throughout the economy. For those reasons and others, 2023 is likely to be a watershed year for businesses of all types.
To get a sense of what’s ahead over the next 12 months and into the presidential election year of 2024, NJBIZ recently spoke with Chris Sugden, managing partner of Princeton-based growth equity firm Edison Partners. The firm’s portfolio companies are located outside Silicon Valley in 18 states. It has made more than 201 investments and 214 exits.
Sugden talked about where the economy and markets are now and what factors will drive them in the medium and short term. He also discussed some of the industries Edison focuses on, such as fintech and health care IT.
To watch the interview, click on the image below.
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With 2022 now in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to get a read on what’s likely ahead for the next 12 months. To that end, NJBIZ recently spoke with Christopher Maher, the CEO of OceanFirst Bank and the current chair of the New Jersey Bankers Association.
Maher talked about what economic challenges businesses will likely face in 2023 and some of the important markets that will drive the economy.
What follows is an abridged version of that conversation. The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available at njbiz.com/njbizconversations.
NJBIZ: From what you’re seeing, your experience, are businesses and individuals, consumers borrowing, investing, spending at levels that are conducive to growth, in the short- to medium term?
Christopher Maher: If we think about where we are today in the fourth quarter things are probably maybe even a little bit stronger than folks would have thought just a few months ago. So, I would say, conditions are stable, meaning that we’ve seen a slowdown in certain areas where we needed to see things slow down a little bit. Some of the construction trades. Some of the logistics work and things like that. … Our customers continue to be busy. They still have backlogs, but not the same backlogs they might have had six months ago.
Generally, the supply chain concerns are easing, but not everywhere. I mean, there’s still some significant bottlenecks. Housing is slow but moving. The inventories remain tight. … Prices are up year over year, not as much as they were earlier in the year, so I think we’re seeing a moderation, but in general a reasonably strong fourth quarter. …
New Jersey is posting some of the best jobs numbers ever recorded. So, there’s a lot of strength in the economy that I think may be underappreciated if you’re watching the wider news.
Q: You touched on a number of things I wanted to drill down on a little bit. But before we get to the individual markets again, I’m just curious about some of the headwinds. We’ve talked about this before, inflation being the main one. You mentioned the supply chain disruptions have started to ease off a little bit, which should be reducing some of the pressure. But just this morning, we’ve got a producer price index that went up a little bit more than most folks were expecting. How concerned should business owners be about inflation? How concerned are you? What do you think is the outlook at this point?
A: I think we’re seeing definite signs that certain components of inflation are easing. So, for example, if you look at the price of goods … furniture, household goods. Those prices are coming down. The availability is getting better.
But we’re still seeing persistent inflation in services. Think about hospitality. People that want to go out to a restaurant or take a trip … overall the inflation number is still higher than we’d like to see and I think we have to be reasonable about our expectations for how that’s going to change over the next year. Inflation is not something that is going to — we’re not going to wake up one morning and see that it dropped back down to 2%. This is a gradual change. The [interest] rate moves so far are having an impact.
So, I think we just have to let this play out, and most of the folks I talk with believe that you may not really see significant decreases in inflation until the second half of next year.
Q: Well, that brings us then to interest rates. The Federal Reserve has made some comments that — or Fed officials have made some comments suggesting that the rate of increases might slow down a little bit. But on the other hand, the big jobs number suggested that that might be premature. How have calculations changed as interest rates are going up, and how will they change, do you think, going forward as the Fed continues down this path?
A: We’re in a blackout window right now around the Fed, and because of my service with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, I won’t kind of comment on monetary policy. But I’m happy to talk about employment, because I think employment is something we’re all watching. It remains stronger than people might have thought at this stage and I actually view that as is a positive. That may sound strange. We do need inflation to moderate, but we don’t want to have an outcome, especially in 2023, where you have what I would call a jobs recession.
So, you know a recession. That is a slowing of the economy, and it kind of brings inflation under control. I think that that’s a very positive thing. If there is a way to do that without fundamentally hurting the jobs number, I think we’re going to be in much better shape.
OceanFirst Bank CEO Chris Maher speaks with NJBIZ Editor Jeff Kanige on Dec. 9, 2022.
Q: Well, you anticipated the next question, which was about the possibility of a recession. Again, you can’t talk about monetary policy, but just in general, what are you hearing from folks? Are they worried? Your clients, your customers — are they concerned about the possibility of a major slowdown next year?
A: There is a sense of concern. There is an apprehension about what conditions will be, and I think the uncertainty is the thing that’s making it most difficult; understanding when … might actually see more significant impacts
The degree of the recession – you know recessions are, and I don’t want to minimize them because they cause pain throughout the economy – but they happen. They’re part of the business cycle. Most of our clients, although they may be a little apprehensive, it’s not getting in the way of them making important decisions for their business. So it’s not getting in the way of them hiring thus far, making large capital decisions. … We’ve come to appreciate the quality of the workforce we have. I know I do here at the bank and whether conditions are optimal or not optimal, if you’ve got good employees, you want to hang on to them. And if you’re looking for talent, it could take you three, six, nine months – in some cases a year – to find great talent, so think our clients are saying, [it] might be a little softer next year, but I’m not going to jump the gun. I’m not going to resort to laying people off if I don’t have to. It’s hard enough to find people. Why would I? Why would I separate them from my company?
Q: Well, that’s an interesting point, because we’ve been hearing so much about hiring — how difficult it was particularly over the past, say year or so. On the other hand, you see tech companies laying people off at a fairly quick clip. It’s interesting that you’re hearing that businesses might be a little reluctant to try to do that now, because you’re going to have to staff up again when the economy picks up. Is that the dynamic that you’re seeing?
A: Yes, no question. I mean, when you think about our Main Street businesses, these could be small manufacturers or logistics companies, it takes them so long to find a qualified, warehouse worker, driver or engineer. But if you [make] that effort to find one, you certainly don’t want to lose them. And then we’re seeing – and we’ve seen this in our own workforce – turnover become a higher number for many businesses over the course of the last 18 months. That’s tapering off. Now, I think people are realizing that yes, they may have a little bit of an economic opportunity to get a slightly higher wage somewhere else. But when you’re going into a potential recession, do you want to start a new job with an employer where you don’t have a history, you don’t have those connections, the friends, the kind of the work relationships that contribute a lot to the way we work every day? So, we’re seeing a decrease in turnover. I think other employers are as well.
I view that as a healthy thing, having a little better bond between our employers and their employees.
Q: Now, I want to talk a little bit about some specific markets. First housing — you had said that you thought that had slowed down a little bit. The market had been extraordinarily strong, particularly along the shore, during the pandemic and immediately after. Is it a case where the market just couldn’t sustain that level of growth? Or was there some other dynamic that’s slowing down sales and/or keeping the rate of increase lower?
A: I think what’s happened here is obviously mortgage rates went up. Housing affordability has become a real issue that caused those that create housing, our construction companies, to voluntarily pull back a little bit and to go more slowly. They’re a little apprehensive about getting deep into large projects going into the next couple of years. But it’s interesting, that doesn’t mean it stopped. We still see some terrific projects coming. We were just looking at one last week [that] is probably going to be delivered in two years. That builder is looking at it, saying he’s perfectly comfortable going into the ground now understanding it’s going to take a couple of years. By that point we should be well past this economy.
I would also point out that New Jersey is a little different than many parts of the country. We’re part of this northeast megalopolis where it’s very hard to build new housing units. There are zoning laws. There are local municipalities involved. So we don’t tend to over build in good times and that means that typically even in recessionary times, our housing values hold better than they might in states like Florida or Arizona or Texas, where you have literally hundreds of thousands of new units flooding into the market. We don’t tend to see those kinds of shifts in New Jersey.
Q: OK. An interesting point, although I’m guessing that keeps rents high. That keeps resale prices high as well.
A: That’s the bad side to it. So when you look at resale prices – I think in October they were still 6% over last year – if you look at the affordability of apartments, these are real concerns … and another side of this where, if you’re not able to meet the demand for housing, it creates an unhealthy situation around affordability. And we often talk about affordability, and forgetting the interest rates, just the affordability of the house, the land, the lots, the approvals, the trades, the contractors, the lumber, the appliances. So affordability has a lot of dynamics, and it’s something we need to work on here in New Jersey.
Q: That’s what I was thinking, for a first-time buyer, it’s been very difficult over the past couple of years for those folks.
A: When you look at the median home value in our state approaching $500,000, that first-time home buyer, the person who wants to establish a home and start to build equity for their family, it is a really, really tough time. And I think statewide, it would be worth spending a lot of time talking about the policies that are causing that. Because affordable housing is a necessary element of a working community.
Q: And then what about commercial real estate? You mentioned logistics, which had been a driver of that. I think you said you saw a little bit of softening in that market. How soft is it getting?
A: I think it’s more of a plateau. It had been a pretty good clip for a number of years, and there are two things that are happening. The first is, you have a couple of the largest national users of warehouse space – Amazon and Walmart – pulling back; so that’s a big deal.
ICMYI
NJBIZ unveils 2022 Leaders in Real Estate, Construction and Design honorees. Click here to read more.
But you also find – and many of our customers are in this situation – they need more space than they would have needed, pre-COVID. They’re keeping larger inventories. They’re keeping secondary and tertiary supplies of things. They want to have more finished goods so they can respond a little bit more easily to demand. They don’t want to wait for something coming from China. So, yes there’s been a little bit of a pullback in demand. I think you’ll see fewer mega projects if you will. But so far, the existing inventory is well-tenanted. The rents are holding up, so I don’t think we’re going to see a dramatic change.
I’d also point out, and I’m not sure everyone appreciates this, that the port in Newark and the work we did around it — that has been a phenomenal advantage to our state. So now for the first time in 22 years it regained the No. 2 and then the No. 1 spot nationally in terms of handling cargo coming from Asia. So, we now have the busiest port in the United States, and that’s a good thing for the economy in New Jersey.
Q: I was just actually talking to someone the other day about the fact that the number of jobs connected to the port is immense. It’s a huge driver of the economy in the region.
A: Absolutely. And any of those projects — it’s easy to complain when it takes years and years to dredge the harbor and raise the bridges and go through all that. But the ability to take the Panamax cargo ships that come through the Panama Canal is a real differentiator for the for the New York metro region. … When you think about going from the No. 3 port to the No. 1 port just in the last three months — and we’re accelerating. So that’s a really good thing.
“Fire is the test of gold,” Seneca wrote, “adversity, of strong men.” Max Gomez is a living embodiment of the Roman philosopher’s observation.
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Gomez is the founder and owner of Amp’d Fitness in Brielle, a business he started in January 2021, when going to the gym was still a fraught exercise. If that were the only adversity he faced, his story would be interesting enough.
But Gomez’s story begins about a decade before when a terrible motocross accident resulted in the amputation of his right leg. But that did not stop him from pursuing his lifelong dream of owning a gym. Now, he’s thinking about the future, expanding his business and adding new clients.
In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Gomez tells the story of his accident and how he turned that adversity into a successful business.
As a business leader, are you ready for what’s coming next year? Do you know how to manage through a downturn? Can you deal adequately with economic and financial uncertainty?
If the answer to any of those questions is “no,” then you might want to speak with Jason Dukes. A certified executive life coach and CEO of Captain’s Chair Coaching in Montclair, Dukes says he can help you thrive in a difficult environment.
According to the company, Dukes “creates high quality, custom, one-on-one coaching programs for leaders in Real Estate, Motorsports, Technology, and Sports and Entertainment.” And in this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Dukes describes how he can help business owners and corporate executives navigate what has become a continuously tumultuous period of our history.
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It’s beginning to look a lot like National Tree time in New Jersey and around the country. National Tree is a wholesaler and importer of Christmas trees and holiday decorations based in Cranford. And the holiday season is the company‘s busiest time of year.
After two pandemic years, 2022 could mark a return to family gatherings and celebrations. If so, National Tree is ready to provide the centerpieces for those get-togethers.
In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, company CEO Chris Butler describes how National Tree stood up during the pandemic and what he expects this year.
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The planned widening of the New Jersey Turnpike leading to the Holland Tunnel is viewed as necessary by many transportation experts, but the project has drawn opposition from environmentalists and local officials. Those opponents received some new ammunition recently.
Recent estimates now put the cost of the project at $10.6 billion – more than twice the original estimate of $4.7 billion. The revelation sparked a new round of criticism.
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But the project does have high-profile supporters. Gov. Phil Murphy has expressed such support. And the New Jersey Turnpike Authority itself remains committed to the work. Then there are the folks who will actually do the work.
Greg Lalevee, the business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825 – and a 2022 NJBIZ Commercial Real Estate Power 50 honoree – has publicly called out the opponents as short-sighted. “One look at traffic coming out of the pandemic tells you all you need to know,” Lalevee wrote in an op-ed for NorthJersey.com. “That’s why the Murphy administration is right to ignore project opponents and move forward with its plans to improve and expand the New Jersey Turnpike in the direction of the Holland Tunnel.”
In this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Lalevee expanded on his argument in favor of the turnpike widening and discussed the progress being made on other infrastructure projects around the state.
The economy and business climate in New Jersey – and across the country – are in a state of flux. One way to get a read on what’s going on during uncertain times is to ask a banker. Preferably, a regional banker.
For this edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Joseph Yewaisis serves that role. Yewaisis is the chairman, president and CEO of Union County Savings Bank, based in Elizabeth. The bank boasts $1.9 billion in total assets with four branches in Union County. It was founded in 1883 to serve the communities of Union County and remains committed to doing so.
In the interview, Yewaisis talks about where the Federal Reserve might be headed on interest rates, what a soft landing might look like in New Jersey and how much he enjoys working in Elizabeth.
To watch the conversation, click on the image below.
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NJBIZ Conversations is now available as a podcast, as well as a video. Subscribe to NJBIZ Conversations on Apple or Google Podcasts. Find direct links here: njbiz.podbean.com
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