Ex-Planet Dog chief, three others form business consulting firm
Photos Courtesy Quad Group
Quad Group is a new family business-focused consulting group. Partners (from left) are Anne Hussey, Colleen McCracken, Elizabeth Fagan and Maureen Costello Wedge.
Colleen McCracken, the former president and CEO of Planet Dog, has teamed up with three other Maine business women to launch Quad Group, a consultancy focused on family-owned businesses.
The others are Maureen Costello Wedge, a human resources expert and former fourth-generation family owner and operator of the Sun Media Group; Anne Hussey of Hussey Seating Co. in North Berwick; and Elizabeth Fagan, director of marketing at technology-based payment and reward systems provider ZipLine and former marketing director at Planet Dog. Before Planet Dog, McCracken was CEO of Thos. Moser in Auburn.
Speaking to Mainebiz on Wednesday, McCracken said the four were business acquaintances who had first connected through the Institute for Family-Owned Business, a non-profit based in Portland. In December they began talking about starting a consultancy and putting together a business plan for Quad Group.
“We know family business because we come from family business,” she said. “That gives us a different perspective from other practitioners.”
Quad Group aims to offer a wide array of services from conflict resolution and branding to succession planning and charitable giving, and McCracken said they are in communication with a couple of potential clients already who have reached out to them.
“We’d like to sit down with a lot of the family businesses and explain how we can help them and solve the problems they have,” she said.
McCracken added that while the initial focus will be on Maine businesses, Quad Group is open to helping enterprises across the country, adding, “We love the fact that family businesses are the cornerstone of our economy.”
In a separate interview, Fagan said she was drawn to the group’s multidisciplinary approach to doing business.
‘In so many facets of my life I’ve seen the siloed approach — 'How are we going to market this?'” she said. “So much work has to go in before you even get to that aspect. It’s so nice to see an approach where every single element is connected and we all see every piece.”
She also said that she’s learned a lot already about family businesses from her new business partners as she shares her marketing expertise with them.
“It’s been very exciting learning and teaching,” she said.
McCracken said that while the four are all working out of their homes for now, they get together often and may consider getting an office later.
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