Bio – Steve Fairbanks
Steve Fairbanks is a seasoned executive with over 18 years of experience serving at the CEO/President/Board of Directors level. He has successfully taken over and worked numerous engineered product manufacturing businesses out of distressed situations in both Private Equity and Fortune 500 settings.
Fairbanks started his career as an engineer, and grew through market/product management and engineering leadership roles. His efforts contributed to industry changing new products viewed as either “state-of-the-art” or “disruptive technology”. He further gained experience in the operations and finance areas as he progressed to his President/CEO positions.
His turnaround successes, the tools and techniques used to achieve them, and his understanding of the dynamics in smaller companies, led to multiple guest lecture invitations to MBA and EMBA schools. Post-lecture demand from these executives/students for a hard copy documentation of this well-received information led to the new book “Performance-Based Strategy: Tools and Techniques for Successful Decisions”. Here Fairbanks shares his strategic planning process and practical approaches developed over the years – specifically aimed for use in these unique time and resource constrained organizations.
Fairbanks graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and an MBA from Baldwin Wallace University. He earned his Professional Engineer’s License, has been awarded eight United States patents, is a trained Six-Sigma Black Belt and has been additionally recognized with “Distinguished Alumni” and “Executive of the Year” awards. A practicing Servant Leader, he has also been involved with and certified as a facilitator with the “Lead Like Jesus” organization, and is passionate about leadership development concurrent with his turnaround efforts.
Fairbanks is currently CEO of SIXFAIR Ventures, LLC, where he is now focusing his efforts on helping other small business leaders replicate his success.