We recently connected with Don Cimorelli and have shared our conversation below.

Don, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

Early on in my first position at IBM, I learned the importance of asking myself the following question when preparing to move on to my next position. The simple, but powerful question is: What is different about the role I previously held than when I first assumed it? The gist of the question is that if nothing is different when you leave a role compared to when you assumed the role, then you did not do your job. We should not assume roles and do everything exactly the same on the last day as the first day. What end results were improved? What processes were redesigned to be more efficient and effective? How are the individuals and the full team better prepared for the future? How do customers react to services delivered today than previously.

By viewing my paid or volunteer roles with this mindset, at the onset I approach everything with a passion to make things better internally and externally.

Additionally, my work experiences while in college and after graduate school taught me to grasp that organizational success is largely determined by the people in the organization, and there is a Talent or Membership Life Cycle that must be artfully managed to create success through people.

The bottomline is that if you consider all that I said here, at any point in time, every person should strive to have 3-5 powerful stories to tell about how they personally made a difference in either a work or non-work setting.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Let me begin by explaining how I got into my profession and career of 35 years. However, I will focus my commentary on how I took the learning from my 35 years of working and then applied it to lead a highly active and rewarding life as a retiree, and make a profound impact through my volunteer leadership. Quite honestly, I think a lot of successful professionals struggle with making the retirement decision because they are unable to envision how to remain just as active and viable after the traditional paycheck ends.

I was an undergraduate finance major at the University of Delaware who thought that I would go to law school after getting my business degree. For 3 summers, I was employed as the Program Manager of a Summer Youth Employment Program while also working as a Resident Advisor during the school year. These roles exposed me to many aspects of Human Resources, and I made a shift to pursue my Masters of Business Administration at Syracuse University and work as an Assistant Residence Hall Director and Employee Relations intern at General Electric. It became crystal clear that my passion was to pursue a career in Human Resources. I spent 18 years at IBM in traditional HR roles and then upon being acquired by Fidelity Investments, I spent 15 years in the HR & Benefits Outsourcing business; followed by 2 years of HR Consulting.

Advances in service delivery technology had a huge impact on my career. In the latter part of my IBM career and then throughout my time at Fidelity Investements, all of my positions focused on creating superior experiences for employees and customers through investments in shared service centers, call centers, web platforms and applications for standard and mobile devices, However, all of these investments and dramatic technology changes first required transforming existing business processes to be much more efficient and effective,

I’m still doing all of this today as the President of a local Sons & Daughters of Italy Lodge within the National Order Sons & Daughters of Italy. All of my career knowledge is enabling me to facilitate similar profound changes for our volunteer group which focuses on preserving, celebrating, and cultivating our Italian American Heritage while also supporting the community at large through charitable endeavors.

I have introduced the Membership Life Cycle and we are generating higher year to year growth in membership and renewal rates than ever before. We have revamped all service delivery platforms (such as financial, communications, membership, event registration) to make everything easier for our members and volunteers. Relying on my industry expertise in diversity, I strive for our volunteer group to make everyone feel welcome. Our individual and household memberships include people of all ages from their 20s to 90+, and while most members are of Italian American background, we have quite a few members who are not of Italian American ethnicity but enjoy celebrating Italian culture.

I have always led by a simple motto. If an organization is not better off when you leave a particular job, company, or volunteer group, then you never led the organization. Maintaining status quo is not leadership. I am most proud of the enhancements that I influenced in all roles by partnering closely with my work or volunteer colleagues. I also believe that it is critical that I support others to become their “better self”. I think most who have partnered with me would validate that I am dedicated to raising up both organizations and their members.

I also believe that my whole story requires mentioning my commitment to my family and health & fitness. Similar to how I viewed my professional career, I believe that the world may be different because of how my wife and I were important in the lives of our daughters. Additionally, I am a huge fan of high intensity interval training at OrangeTheory Fitness. I have been doing it for nearly 10 years and taken close to 1900 classes. The better fit I am, then the better fit I am to support my family, career, and volunteer interests.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My entire 35 year career and 4 years of retirement to date have been a pivot. Nearly all of my job changes at IBM and Fidelity Investments, and my post career HR Consulting and volunteer roles came about because I was approached to consider a change.

There were numerous times when I thought “I really do not think that I desire this change or the timing of this geographic relocation”, but I would pivot and immerse myself in the new territory. Guess what? I found what I could enjoy in every pivot, and I added more skills to my toolkit to prepare me for for the next pivot.

There was no shortage of pivot with about 5 IBM geographic relocations, and about 5 different jobs at Fidelity requiring extensive business travel. Being an IBM Executive whose operation was sold to Fidelity Investments was perhaps the biggest pivot of all. Executives who are sold from one company to another firm are at great risk of not surviving the new culture. Every pivot was an opportunity to thrive and I figured out how to do that by delivering business results and being a solid “people person” of integrity and caring about all who I partnered with. The same was true when I pivoted to be an HR Consultant for Qualcomm for about 18 months, and then quickly pivoting in several different roles within the Triangle Sons & Daughters of Italy organization.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe that my reputation in both my career and volunteer work has been built on a few fundamentals. First, I get things done with both timeliness and accuracy, and an eye towards improvement over the status quo. I’ve had enough managers tell me that they don’t worry about by execution. Secondly, I operate with a high degree of personal integrity and people trust me. Third, I approach the world around me with care and concern. I am sincerely interested in raising up both the people within an organization and the entity itself. This last point is especially important to create longevity for the organization.

Contact Info:

• Website: trianglesonsofitaly.org
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/doncimorelli