My Story

I founded The Corley Company in 2010 to focus on providing support to CEOs and other organizational leaders. This was the direct result of my experience being a President & COO of a midsized company and a Board Chair. In those roles there were many times that I wished I had a trusted resource to give me advice, an experienced person to facilitate/lead critical projects when our team didn’t have the bandwidth, and someone who was interested in my professional growth and could challenge me. As a leader, as “the” leader, I learned that it can truly be “lonely at the top.” This is why I am building The Corley Company on my strengths, competencies, and areas of interest in order to grow and support organizational leaders.

So a little about me ...

After going through phases of wanting to be a dermatologist and a pro baseball player as a child, I became very interested in business and leadership during high school and throughout college. I didn’t realize it then, but business and leadership became passions of mine, and my dream was to run a company someday.

After college (Go Tennessee Vols) and graduate school (Go USF Bulls), I held various positions of increasing responsibility for a number of companies in Sarasota, FL, and Nashville, TN. When I was 37 years old, I had the opportunity to move back to Sarasota, FL, to become the Chief Financial Officer of a fast growing company. Six months later, I was named President, and I eventually became President & COO. Over the next 5 years, we (it was a team effort) grew revenues 142% to $47 million, integrated two acquisitions during a 6-month period doubling the size of the company, raised $14 million in private equity funds, obtained $12 million in debt financing and evaluated a number of investment offers. We implemented a scalable infrastructure which allowed us to handle this rapid growth. We were really having fun!

Beginning with the recession in 2008 and continuing until mid-2009, we focused on aligning expenses with the reduction in revenues (22% decrease in one year) we were experiencing. While having to cut expenses was not fun, the experience of having to do so taught us about effective leadership and management. (In short, it is much easier to be a leader/manager when revenues are growing rapidly. It is much more difficult to be a leader/manager when business is declining.)

Both experiences, growing rapidly and then shrinking quickly, taught me the importance of integrity, candor, communication, preparation, investing in talent and systems, leadership visibility, and having the right people in the right positions.

In 2009, I became an independent consultant. In 2010, I named my company “The Corley Company” because my grandfather had a company of the same name (completely different business). I thought it would be a special way to honor him and the family name.

Over these past 12+ years, I have worked with a number of leaders as an advisor, consultant and facilitator to move their organizations forward in a manner which reflects their interests, preserves the culture, and strengthens the leadership team. In short, closing the gap between strategy and execution.

A Brief Bio - Personal

I have served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, and I have been Board Chair for Manatee Glens Hospital (now part of Centerstone), Take Stock in Children Manatee (TSICM) and for my church. In addition, I have served as Treasurer at TSICM and of my church, and I have volunteered for many organizations. I am currently the President of the Sarasota UTK Alumni Chapter.

I live in Bradenton, FL, with my wife and two adult sons.

I value honesty, integrity and candor, and I try my best to honor these in each relationship (professional or personal) in which I enter.

- Michael