Executive by Day, Artist by Night by Patricia Crisafulli

Downtime

Lessons in Taking It Easy

Executive by Day, Artist by Night By Patricia Crisafulli

rtists have long been known for having day jobs to Asupport themselves: James Joyce pushed a pen as a bank clerk when he wasn’t writing Ulysses; Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison once edited textbooks. But there are others who purposefully bridge both worlds: executives who are also artists. Rather than dabbling in either pursuit, they blur the lines between art and entrepreneurship at a time when companies need innovation that’s more than a buzzword.

Watch our artist-executives in action at kornferryinstitute.com

59 Downtime Korn Ferry Briefings The Voice of Leadership

e opens the door to his gray stone house wearing black on black, looking as aver- age as anyone. But when Jimmy Cham- Hberlin leads you down a spiral staircase to a room filled with framed golden records and CDs, you know this is no ordinary guy—he’s the founding drummer of the alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins, which rode the grunge-rock wave in the 1990s and 2000s to international fame. Famous for his bombastic style, Chamberlin has played with Smashing Pumpkins for more than 25 years, and today still practices an hour or two a day on the eight-drum, 10-cymbal set he keeps in his home office. But he’s also known for being an active entrepreneur and investor in Chicago’s tech scene. He was the founding CEO of the digital media agency LiveOne, which focuses on live streaming media, and is currently the CEO of BlueJ, a small consulting firm that blends enter- tainment, social media and branding in its work with select corporate clients. Rock and tech may seem like an odd combina- tion, but it’s a perfect harmony for Chamberlin. When asked how he defines himself today—as an artist or an entrepreneur—Chamberlin, now 53, replies, “Tell me the difference.” From his early days with Smashing Pumpkins, Chamberlin says he embraced the business aspects of music performance. He managed the band’s tours, “a margin business, like any other.” But the real epiphany came from watching technology’s greater inroads into music, which sparked Chamberlin’s “huge curiosity” in tech and led him to become an active tech investor. What fascinated him was the parallel between technology and creative pursuits such as songwriting; Jimmy in either, it isn’t just the content, but more about the emotional response it triggers. “For me, that’s where it started getting interesting and stopped Chamberlin being about [art or tech], and started being about both,” Chamberlin says.

What I know to be true... “Technology isn't just about the content, but more about the emotional response it triggers.” —Jimmy Chamberlin, rock musician and technology entrepreneur

60 Mario Alberico is title doesn’t quite suggest “artist.” Although Alberico’s artistic pursuits made him But Mario Alberico, a retired managing different, he says he always sought to bring out partner at the global giant Accenture, creativity in others. “I took it for granted that they, Hhas had his work featured in shows in too, could be creative—maybe it was a way of talk- Chicago and New York. We find him in his third- ing or a way of behaving,” he says. That attitude floor studio in suburban Chicago, sketching over allowed him to instigate exploratory conversations layers of paint on a large canvas. “Innovation that pushed people’s ideas about what was possible. is the essence of great art,” he says. “It’s taking As a conceptual artist, Alberico says that, for something, redoing it and showing it back to the him, it’s always about the ideas. “That’s the way world in a way that’s usable.” I approach things. In business, I always had great Ironically, that’s the same approach Alberico people around me who could help execute my took within Accenture’s financial services ideas. That’s very much like what’s happening in practice. An art history major at the University modern art today.” of Illinois, Alberico hid his lack of a business degree early in his career, but finally came out as

an artist with his clients. “Whether it was being What I know to be true... “Innovation is taking something, redoing it and showing authentic or being interesting, it made all the dif- it back to the world in a way that's usable.” ference in the world,” he recalls. “It changed our —Mario Alberico, artist and former consultant working relationship—especially in the case of Portraits: Pat Commins one of our biggest clients.”