A letter from PIE’s CEO Andi Baldwin
Clients, Colleagues, Partners, and Friends –
This year marks PIE’s 25th anniversary, providing a great opportunity for reflection, celebration, and visioning for the future.
In 2001, PIE was founded by Harry Wallace in Bozeman, MT. After a long career leading business development at Arthur Andersen, Harry retired to Bozeman—where he could fly fish on the weekends while keeping his professional services practices and beliefs alive in the form of a new company: PIE. PIE was built on the core belief that trusted relationships must be at the center of any growth strategy in professional services.
Twenty-five years later, the company looks and feels much different (We have real office buildings! Benefits! Budgets! CRM!), but the core belief is the same: PIE exists today to help our clients and our members build trusted, meaningful connections.
Throughout this summer, we look forward to sharing a series of stories with you focused on what matters most to PIE: people. PIE’s clients and colleagues are the heartbeat of this organization, and we are excited to share experiences from the past 25 years as we prepare for the 25 years ahead. I invite you to view PIE’s growing timeline as we release stories over the summer.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to our clients—those who have been with us for decades, and those who are new friends we’ve had the opportunity to begin serving more recently. We are honored that you continue to choose PIE to be your partner in growth.
We could not do this work without an exceptional team of colleagues—thank you to all my PIE ‘Packmates’ for making this work so meaningful and so joyful! As the third CEO of PIE, I’ve had big shoes to fill: Harry’s vision brought the company to life, and Tom McMakin’s 15 years of leadership grew PIE into the firm we are today. I feel grateful and humbled to be at the helm alongside such a powerful, creative, and kind team of people as we build for the future.
The past 25 years have seen a great evolution in our business. We went from facilitating teleconference roundtable meetings (yes, on the phone—remember that?!) on behalf of a few clients, to becoming a core growth and client engagement partner to dozens of firms across the globe. We have listened to what our clients need, and we have expanded the way we work to better meet those needs—through trainings, workshops, advisory boards, content development, and deeper business development execution partnership.
We’ve written three books about growth in professional services (How Clients Buy, Never Say Sell, and The Growth Engine), interviewing hundreds of professionals across the industry to pull together best practices to share with the world.
And we’ve done all of this work from our beautiful headquarters in Bozeman, MT. Last year, we hosted our first Growth Engine Summit here in the Rocky Mountains, bringing together marketing and growth leaders from across the country for meaningful conversation, idea sharing, and relationship building. We’re excited for our second annual summit this year and for the many gatherings in the years ahead.
As the world becomes more automated, we are doubling down on our belief that human connection is the true difference-maker in building a services business. While the next 25 years are sure to bring further evolution in who we serve, how we serve them, the geographies in which they sit, and the ways we operate, I am confident that our focus and our values will remain steadfast. We will continue to put people and relationships first. And our team will continue to show up for clients with the hunger, helpfulness, and human approach that got us to where we are today.
Thank you for being part of PIE’s journey, and we look forward to all the new friends we’ll make in the 25 years ahead!
With gratitude, Andi