Luke Goldberg, Clover Imaging Group (CIG)
In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, which captured six Academy Awards including Best Picture, the protagonist is an intellectually-challenged but kind-hearted individual who goes through life at the whim of a feather on a breeze. Life, for Gump, is not so much a series of choices, but rather events that happen to him and guide his path in many unlikely directions. His lone quest is really just to find and keep his true love, Jenny.
Hollywood may have the proclivity of making extraordinary things happen to even less-than-ordinary people, but for the majority of us, we’re on our own to navigate our future and, ostensibly, our path to success. Luke Goldberg, the executive vice president, sales and marketing for Clover Imaging Group (CIG), wasn’t about to wait for life’s events to dictate his journey.
“Some education that I have undertaken teaches you to differentiate the things that happen to you in life or business from the story we create about it,” Goldberg explained. “We all create elaborate stories that aren’t grounded in what actually happened that we drag through life with us, like so much baggage, that keep us from realizing our potential.
“If we can differentiate and separate ‘what happened’ from the story, it’s a liberating experience,” he added. “Imagine if every ‘failure’ isn’t really a failure, it’s just something that happened that didn’t go your way.”
Goldberg’s philosophy on life alone merits his inclusion as a 2017 ENX Magazine Difference Maker, but the pursuit of his passion (which he shared with Gump) has guided his 26-year career of success, even if he hasn’t met as many U.S. presidents.
Goldberg got an early start on his professional career, doing telesales throughout high school and college. Upon graduating, he took a position with a company (Future Graphics) owned by a family friend. The intent was to work for one year before entering law school. Perhaps that first employer’s name was an indicator of things to come.
In his stints with four different employers, Goldberg found each firm offered a tremendous value proposition that empowered him to make a difference for the businesses they served. “At Clover, I have been given tremendous resources to help develop innovative and powerful tools, services and solutions that enable us to transcend the traditional supplier/customer relationship,” he said.
Education is a key component in the value proposition Goldberg seeks to deliver. “I have always tried to look at the macro view of the industry and bring what are sometimes esoteric trends down to earth, creating real world solutions. Sometimes that entails taking risks, which means you cannot be afraid of failure.
“I have been fortunate enough to work for forward thinking companies that have given me the freedom to be creative. Most of all, I am a true believer; I am passionate about our business and in helping our customers succeed, I believe that passion comes through and can be contagious.”
It’s been an exciting time for CIG. In 2016, Clover rebranded and reinvented itself beyond the traditional tier one and big box channels to a supplier of consumables, parts and services to the global mid-market. The rebrand brought Clover’s collective imaging brands, solutions and services under one sales and marketing umbrella.
“It’s hard to imagine a coming out party for the leading player in the game but for many in the mid-market, Clover was a bit of a mystery,” Goldberg said. “Since then, we are omnipresent in the mid- market and are continually bolstering our services, solutions and product portfolio in a continued effort to drive the channel forward.”
Spreading the CIG gospel is a key to Goldberg’s objectives in the short term, but as a cog in an ISO-certified company, continuous improvement is a must. “I don’t see any future state where we stand back and say ‘we have reached the mountaintop, we can rest now.’ We will never be complacent and literally every day our teams are looking for new products, services and solutions that will allow us to truly partner as never before.”
Away from the office and metaphoric mountaintops (though he loves to backpack), Goldberg enjoys spending time with his children (two young, one adult). When he’s not skiing or traveling, Goldberg can be found enjoying fine food, wine, whiskey and music.
