Ahead of the game: Wiese named to Spears Business Hall of Fame

Friday, August 23, 2024

Media Contact: Hallie Hart | Communications Coordinator | 405-744-1050 | hallie.hart@okstate.edu

Editor's note: The Spears School of Business is releasing a series of feature stories to celebrate the 2024 Spears Business Hall of Fame inductees and Outstanding Young Alumni. Previous profiles highlighted Vickie Carr,  Eddy Ditzler  and Ken Eastman. Check back each week for a new profile leading up to the Oct. 4 ceremony.

Carl Wiese aspired to continue what one of his brothers started at Oklahoma State University.

The late Jon Wiese, a Riata Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice, had spoken with great joy about giving back to the business school that launched the four Wiese brothers’ careers.

“In talking to him, he was so energized by what he was doing,” Carl Wiese said. “I said to myself, ‘Well, at some point in time, maybe I’ll be able to do that.’”

For youngest brother Carl, time was exactly the issue. The 1983 OSU marketing graduate’s fast-paced career in sales and technology consumed much of his schedule. But after traveling the world and most recently living in Dallas, Wiese decided to do what had worked many times for him.

Pivot.

In this case, a literal change of direction brought him 219 miles north. Wiese relocated to Edmond, less than an hour’s drive to Stillwater via Interstate 35, and retired this year. Instead of bringing his expertise to tech companies, Wiese now has multiple leadership avenues within the Spears School of Business: the Dean’s Council, the Center for Sales and Service Excellence and the Eastin Center for Career Readiness.

When Wiese mentors business students through the Eastin Center, he assures them it’s OK to go in a new direction. This isn’t just a motivational line he feeds to young dreamers. After growing up in small-town Chandler, Oklahoma, Wiese built a successful career around that advice, leading to his induction this fall into the Spears School of Business Hall of Fame. Because he wasn’t afraid to evolve with a constantly morphing industry, he helped to not only boost tech companies that flourished, but also revive those that struggled.

“Gone are the days that you’re going to have a tech company be successful for 40 or 50 years,” Wiese said. “It’s a complete rarity. If they do, they’re probably focused in a different area than what their original focus was.”

For a prime example, look at BlackBerry. The company markets itself with a snappy tagline on its website: “Intelligent Security. Everywhere.” There’s no mention of the once-coveted keyboard phones that preceded the iPhone boom, and Wiese is partly to thank for that.

As BlackBerry’s President of Global Sales and Services from 2015-19, Wiese played a critical role in reconceptualizing a floundering brand’s identity. BlackBerry had poked fun at the iPhone, Wiese said, but the sleek, trendy gadget turned BlackBerry phones into fossils.

“The bottom line is they missed a major inflection in the market,” Wiese said. “They were in a very challenging financial position, so what we had to decide is, ‘What could that company be?’”

Knowing any attempt to catch Apple would be futile, Wiese nudged BlackBerry in a different direction, focusing on cybersecurity. This is the niche BlackBerry occupies today.

“To me, it’s really about being aware,” Wiese said. “What are your assets, and what’s possible?”

With his sensible approach, Wiese tailored strategies to individual situations. At Poly, his final stop before retirement, the company sought to better position itself by forming a partnership. This led to HP acquiring Poly in 2022, so Wiese provided guidance during the merger as Poly’s Executive Vice President and Global Head of Sales.

At Cisco, where Wiese took on his favorite projects as Senior Vice President of Advanced Technologies, the outlook was quite different. Wiese and his colleagues built four Cisco start-ups into billion-dollar markets.

“That was like a rocket ship,” Wiese said. “There was no turning around. It was just like, ‘Go.’ That was incredible teamwork with an incredible company that supported me as we defined the strategy and executed the plans.”

While working for the digital communications mammoth, Wiese also had a brief stint as an author, something he had never dreamed he would do. At the insistence of Cisco colleague Ron Ricci, they co-wrote “The Collaboration Imperative: Executive Strategies for Unlocking Your Organization’s True Potential” in 2011. The book, which Wiese described as a “marketing tool” for Cisco, jumps out as a rare red item in his home office full of orange memorabilia.

The publication is also a reminder of Wiese’s sharp insight into tech trends. Long before Zoom turned into a household name, his book forecast the rise of videoconferencing in the workplace.

In an unsteady but exciting career field, Wiese showed his business skills at their peak. He fused technological knowledge with sales acumen, thriving in roles he had once dismissed.

Wiese admits he didn’t picture himself as a salesman in college. He mentioned the “slick” stereotype many people associated with the industry.

But when he had a run-down set of wheels as a fresh OSU graduate, the promise of a company car made him think twice about sales. Soon, Wiese set aside his prejudgments, realizing he actually liked the job.

He put his OSU business degree to work, following the family tradition. Four Wiese brothers — Jon, Jay, Paul and Carl — all graduated from what today is the Spears School of Business. Carl Wiese sees how their small-town upbringing, thanks to parents Harry and Maxine, actually prepared them for the hustle and bustle of the big business world.

“My mom and dad were just tremendous parents, not only in terms of integrity and discipline and hard work,” Wiese said, “but my mom and dad always just told us, ‘You can do anything you want to do.’”

OSU also proved to be highly influential.

Through every pivot, Wiese’s love for the Cowboys anchored him. He twice donned an orange tie while ringing the shiny brass bell at the New York Stock Exchange. In the United Arab Emirates, Wiese bonded with a local businessman who also studied at OSU and, upon realizing their common thread, cordially led Wiese from one meeting to the next.

In Edmond, Wiese’s home office looks like an OSU athletics souvenir shop or maybe a miniature museum. A framed Barry Sanders jersey shares a wall with a Justin Blackmon jersey. A football displays Brandon Weeden’s autograph, and those are only a few of Wiese’s collectibles.

“Some would say I have a little too much orange in this office,” Wiese said. "But never enough for me.”

Somewhere, Wiese has an NCAA men’s basketball tournament T-shirt dappled with ink. When the Wieses lived in New Jersey and watched the Cowboys competing in nearby tournament games, legendary coach Eddie Sutton made sure every member of his team signed the garment for Wiese’s then-adolescent son, Brett. The oversized shirt swallowed the kid, but he sported it proudly.

For Wiese, that heartfelt memory encapsulates the OSU experience.

“People at OSU, generally, are the most humble people that I know,” Wiese said. “Some incredibly successful people that I’ve met there, and they’re as humble as the day is long. You would never know who they are or what they are worth. That’s not important to them.”

With examples from the late Sutton and other respected OSU figures, Wiese is giving back to the university in his own ways.

He helped found the Spears Business Center for Sales and Service Excellence alongside his friend Dr. Tom Brown, the School of Marketing and International Business department head who also graduated from Chandler High School. As an Eastin Center mentor, Wiese has delighted in success stories such as that of Harrison Redden, a recent OSU graduate who switched career paths with Wiese’s guidance and won awards for his work with Sewell Automotive Companies. Additionally, Wiese serves on the OSU Foundation Board of Governors.

He finally understands the fulfillment his brother Jon was talking about.

In 2006, Jon was enshrined into the Spears Business Hall of Fame. Now, Carl enters the Hall while remembering his brother who passed away 11 years ago.

Carl Wiese will be inducted into the Spears Hall of Fame on Oct. 4 at the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center. Wiese might not make an extravagant display of the honor, but he takes note of it.

“I have never been one for big publication and promotion,” Wiese said. “To me, it’s all about, ‘Work hard, stay humble, treat people with respect and keep score.’ Keep score means you’ve got to win, but I don’t put that first.

“If you do the first three, you’ve got a great chance to win. Keeping score is where I brought sports into business, and that’s one reason I love sales.”