Take Big Risks: Interview with Desmond Wheatley, CEO of Beam Global

I recently went one on one with Desmond Wheatley. Desmond is the CEO, President and Chairman of Beam Global, a clean technology leader in sustainable charging infrastructure. Desmond led the successful uplisting to Nasdaq in April 2019, and previously founded, funded and operated four profitable start-up companies.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth? 

Desmond: Running Beam Global, a clean technology company providing renewable charging infrastructure solutions for EV charging, energy security, and disaster preparedness, is in many ways the perfect nexus of everything I have ever done professionally and everything I believe in philosophically. I’ve been involved in a number of diverse businesses – shipbuilding, energy infrastructure, telecommunications, security and finance. Although I’ve journeyed down many different career paths, I’ve always felt my purpose was the same: identify problems, find opportunities, innovate, put teams together, put capital to work and, at the end of the day, help solve the increasing challenges this world is facing. 

I was fortunate that I got to a point in my life where I had a lot of choices when it came to my career. But I wanted something impactful – something that was not just about making money. Something I could be involved in which would enable me to look at my young children and say, “I had a good day today, and the company had a good day, and that means that this state, this country and this planet had a good day.” That way of thinking brought me to Beam in 2010. 

I’ve done things in the past that I’m not proud of, where I didn’t feel that I was making a positive or meaningful difference. I made choices that seemed right at the time, but in the end, left me feeling that I could be doing more. I’ll never have another day like that. 

Today, at Beam we invent and manufacture products that are designed to preserve this blue planet while allowing humans to profitably, securely and comfortably go about their daily lives. Our products generate, store and dispense electricity using nothing but renewable sources. We focus on transportation and we are revolutionizing the fueling habit.

So, while there is no one story that, on its own, brought me here, all my stories have led me to this point where I lead a company that works to protect and improve this planet whilst solving problems for our customers and creating wealth for our employees and investors. 

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

Desmond: If you believe in your company’s goals, mission and products, make investments in the future you want to see – even if there is a challenging road to get there. For example, I chose to invest in a factory where we currently use only about 5% of its full capacity. That decision led to pushback from people who do not yet believe in our growth trajectory. 

However, I see my job as investing in the future and the promise of what the future holds. So, I’ve put the company in a position to scale up and grow quickly because I feel certain that the demand will come – I believe it. We are confident there will be a rapid, increasing demand for our products and we are ready to meet that demand. We are a scalable machine and purposely built that way. 

A common problem I’ve seen in business is that people have a great idea and a great product but then when others want what you can offer, that demand can’t be met. The consumer is an impatient animal. Leaders need to position their company to be ready to go as soon as the need, or the want, for your product or service is there. 

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams? 

Desmond: You can train employees on any skillset needed to complete the tasks in front of them, but you can’t train the underlying character traits which allow people to achieve something greater and accomplish their goals. It starts by creating a workforce collectively striving to achieve a shared vision. You need to build a purpose-driven team. 

People who are just there for a paycheck – sure they might perform. But if you get people who are there because they believe in the larger goal of your organization, believe in what you are doing and understand the greater impact your business has on the world, well then, they will be the ones that will find ways to improve your organization. It’s been shown that employees who feel that their work is making a real impact are more productive and innovative, driving an enterprise’s bottom line. Highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable.

From that point, your job as a leader becomes fostering that sense of purpose. The best way to do this: take concrete, substantive steps to cultivate authentic purpose across the workforce. That starts with abandoning a top-down, authoritarian management style, obsessed solely with profit. Employees’ positive attitudes toward their work, their colleagues, and the company at large are vitally important contributors to success and as a result, quarterly earnings. One leads to the other, but reversing those priorities is, in my opinion, very counterproductive. What makes your team tick? How can you make them feel that they are making a difference? What would enable them to do their best work? Understanding them as people, not cells on a spreadsheet, is paramount. 

Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them? 

Desmond: Technology is indeed marching forward at a rapid pace, but the physics do not change. 

Look at electric vehicle charging solutions, the business Beam Global is in. The technology in the vehicles, the charging systems and the services behind these technologies will swiftly evolve over the next few years. What will not change is the source of energy behind this technology. We’ve made ourselves immune to the less fundamental changes in technology by focusing on the core inputs upon which all the gadgetry depends. We are nimble enough to improve the way we focus on the production of clean energy – better energy storage, improvements in solar or wind generation but we stay focused on fundamentals because we know that all the new tech solutions will still require power and increasingly clean power. Businesses that want to have a viable long-term future, will need to find ways to do the same. 

Another benefit of focusing on the fundamentals is that it gives you an opportunity to keep a pulse on the market, your competitors and your partners. This allows you to quickly pivot when needed while also granting the flexibility to pick and choose the right investments for your company. 

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Desmond: Courage in your convictions and the courage and willingness to execute on them. But you can’t do it alone so you must bring others along with you, Encourage them to stretch, never ask them for anything that you would not be willing to provide yourself and maintain morale. That sense of purpose we talked about earlier helps to foster a positive sense of morale that, as a leader, you manifest. From your day-to-day interactions to the critical business decisions you make, your ability to maintain morale is as important as charting company profits. Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach but, in fact, an army marches on morale. Hungry people will do incredible things with good morale while those who are satiated but have bad morale will accomplish nothing meaningful. 

When I have conversations with my peers in management, understanding morale is part of every conversation because we know every choice we make influences company sentiment. I hold all-hands-on-deck meetings with staff to galvanize them and set the tone and to remind them why we all joined Beam Global - of our greater purpose. 

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders? 

Desmond: Take Big Risks: Lead yourself into harm’s way by taking big swings and big risks. You cannot know what you are capable of until you push your boundaries beyond your comfort zone. Each time one exposes oneself to the tougher challenges, one becomes better equipped to deal with them in the future. Then when you find that you can cope in those situations, you can lead others there too. I have always sought out the risky and dangerous things. Not for their own sake but because I felt that there was some real value to be created by taking the risk or chancing the danger. I choose goals that have a truly worthy outcome, and then I accept the risk and danger as an unavoidable price that must be paid for the benefits generated. 

Doubt The Experts: Beware of those that call themselves “experts”. I get called an expert at times, but it is a term I shy away from. Experts usually know how things were, and they often know how things are, but they rarely ever know how things will be. Experts don’t and can’t predict the future. 

This is why I don’t read business books. Instead of listening to the so-called “sages” or “thought leaders”, I look to great historical leaders and explorers. People who have experienced great hardship and challenges and achieved great things. These people give you a technicolor and compressed opportunity to view life in an exaggerated way. When you view things in an extreme way you can translate that to our much less dramatic lives. When you do that, you can gain the perspective to make tough decisions confidently. 

Surround Yourself with People Who Share Similar Goals: Going to sea as a young man taught me that one must be able to rely upon completely, fellow crewmates. Each of us was responsible for the others and often in life-or-death situations. While my work today does not have that same physical danger, the underlying bond should be the same. Bring people on board that believe and invest in the vision you want for your company. 

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing and branding?

Desmond: When I joined Beam in 2010, there was no marketing strategy for the company and quite honestly it took us some time before we put marketing efforts on our radar. We made our cornerstone product, the EV ARC™, believing in the widespread impact it would have but without empirical proof. We took it out into the world, showed it to people and sold it to them. We were able to get in front of some high-profile customers like Google because of the sheer excellence of the product and that helped us build the foundation and reputation of our brand. It’s only been in the past year and a half that we started formally marketing our products, and these efforts have generated great interest and attention from both government and enterprise. I don’t believe that marketing alone builds a fundamentally great business. You have to have a fantastic product. Marketing helps people experience it. 

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Desmond: I have received a great deal of good advice but I prefer to leave you with what I tell my children, my employees and anyone else who will listen…

Leave everyone, everything and everywhere just a little bit better than you found it. It’s as simple as that.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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