Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • October 19, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal CLA 5 C-SUITE AWARDS 2020 Adams builds top workplace at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices By Liese Klein A s a young mother selling and then buying her first house, Candace Adams couldn't believe how difficult the process was. In that experience, she saw an opportunity. "It was very, very stressful," Adams said. "I remember saying to myself that this is a hard thing to do but I'd love to get involved in it because I think I could make a difference in people's lives and really help them." Now CEO and president of Berk- shire Hathaway HomeServices in New England and New York, Adams has taken the lessons she learned both as a customer and real estate entrepre- neur to her role leading New Eng- land's largest real estate company. Only two years after that difficult first homebuying experience, Adams formed her own real estate firm with a partner and set about building a company that would allow parents to maintain a healthy work-life balance. She hired fellow parents of young chil- dren and set up on-site child care to support family life in the workplace. "It was a really cool time, to be able to allow women to work and main- tain that balance," Adams said. The family-friendly policies helped the company to grow and thrive; it was eventually bought by Prudential, where Adams rose up the executive ranks. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway acquired Prudential's real estate unit in 2012, and Adams was named CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties soon afterward. She also now leads the company's divi- sions in Westchester and New York City. Throughout her rise, Adams has retained her commitment to family- friendly policies and making the selling and buying experience easier for clients. As the boss of 150 employees and 1,800 agents across the region, Ad- ams focuses on empowering her staff. "I let them maintain as much au- tonomy as employees as they want and need," she said. "I trust them and let them do what they do best." That trust extends to the radical shifts in the work environment and work-life balance that have been needed during the COVID-19 pan- demic. Luckily, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices had invested in the training and software platforms needed for remote work by the end of 2019, just before the pandemic hit. "We had positioned ourselves as a very digital, technologically ad- vanced company," Adams said. "We executed immediately on all of those platforms, making sure we were there to support our agents and bringing that to our clients. We did it seamlessly — we didn't miss a beat." Now the company is dealing with a rarity in these difficult times — a surge in business. "Crazy busy" is how Adams describes regional real estate right now, as New York City sees a pandemic-driven exodus. Due to tight inventory, agents in Connecticut and Westchester are especially busy as homes outside of the city attract multiple offers. Meanwhile, other clients are seeking second homes on the shoreline or snapping up Big Apple bargains. Along with the company's pandem- ic response, Adams is especially proud of recent recognition of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices' nurturing work environment. The company has been named the state's top workplace in several recent surveys. Flaks makes Hartford HealthCare central player in CT's COVID-19 response By Liese Klein A cting decisively in a crisis is nothing new to Jeff Flaks, CEO of Hartford HealthCare. As a young hospital administrator in New York City, he helped mobilize re- sources during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 — his hospital was the one closest to the Twin Towers. "I learned a tremendous amount about the centrality of a hospital and a health system in a tragedy of epic proportions," Flaks said. "Those lessons were invaluable to me." So when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Connecticut, Flaks was ready to take the lead. "There are some very common elements in terms of the need for hospitals to rise to that occasion to support our communities," he said. First, Hartford HealthCare ramped up its preparedness at its seven hospitals and other facilities as early as January, well before the first reported cases in the state. When the first COVID patients ar- rived in early March, Flaks and his team took the lead in keeping resi- dents informed with daily briefings on the pandemic. "From the very beginning, my perspective from a leadership stand- point was that we were going to lead with complete transparency," he said. The system also set up a compre- hensive COVID-19 testing program, reaching out to the community to test widely and free of charge. Hartford HealthCare's testing data was subse- quently incorporated into a model by MIT that correctly predicted that the state would reach its initial pandemic peak in April and May. Another promise Flaks made early on was to provide the best pandem- ic response regardless of cost. "We would not allow the financial implications of the pandemic to drive our decision-making," he said. Hartford HealthCare was well- positioned to absorb some of the esti- mated hundreds of millions in lost revenue caused by the pandemic due to its healthy financial position, Flaks said. He has also dedicated resources in recent years to expanding access to health care in the Hartford region, opening a new facility in downtown Hartford in August. "I'm very pleased that we're mak- ing such an investment in our urban center," Flaks said. Tech-forward efforts like the collaboration with MIT have also been a hallmark of Flaks' leadership, which includes a medical technol- ogy accelerator program that has led to the location of 10 startups in the city. "I have a very strong personal perspective of health care as an economic driver," Flaks said. "We can leverage the strengths of Hart- ford HealthCare to create more jobs, more prosperity in the region." For now, when people ask him when things will return to normal after the pandemic, Flaks has a ready answer. "We are going to be better than normal," Flaks said, citing increased access to care thanks to telemedi- cine and innovations like a 24-hour mental-health hotline. "There are many improvements that we made in terms of innovations that occurred during the pandemic," he added. "It's all for the betterment of people that we serve."

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