Beacon Hill Jumps 10 Spots on BBJ’s Pacesetters List, Named No. 2 Elite

As reported last month, Beacon Hill was recognized for the eighth year running as one of the region’s fastest-growing private companies by the Boston Business Journal. Beacon Hill, along with 69 other area companies, was honored at the BBJ’s annual Pacesetters event, which took place April 25, 2013, at Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

At the event it was revealed that Beacon Hill came in 10th overall, up 10 spots from last year’s ranking of 20th. Additionally, Beacon Hill was named No. 2 Elite Company for its vigorous growth while also operating one of the region’s larger companies with annual revenues exceeding $50 million and a three-year growth rate of over 200 percent. Both recognitions were noted in a special BBJ supplement focusing on the region’s privately-held companies with the fastest growth spurts.

The article titled “Growth built on the long view” featured Beacon Hill CEO Andrew Wang. In the article, Wang explained how long before Beacon Hill crossed the $100 million annual sales threshold, the company had built the internal capacity to handle that level of business. And now that recent growth has pushed it past that level, the company is actively building the foundation to handle an even bigger number.

“We have always been ahead of it," said Wang. "When we were doing five to $10 million a year, we had a $25 million infrastructure. When we had a line of sight at $25 million, we went out and built a $50 million infrastructure. Now that the $100 million barrier is behind us, by the end of this year, we intend to have the basic infrastructure to accommodate a $1 billion company."

The article went on to note that Beacon Hill recorded 2012 sales of $156 million, up from $107 million the year before and $67 million in 2012.

"Our big thing in starting the company was that we knew there were going to be economic cycles," Wang said. "We felt if we want to take a macro view why not invest when everyone else was going the other way. That was the premise of the company from the outset, to build infrastructure and then gain market share."

Also quoted in the article was Managing Director of Beacon Hill Technologies Jeff McLaren. "There was just a long-term vision and long-term decision-making," he said. "I've seen decisions since [joining the company in 2005] that have trickled down through the organization, decisions clearly made from the perspective of what is best for the team and the company over the long term. That has kept us well-positioned and allowed us to make good investments and moves no matter what the conditions of the market are."

McLaren went on to say, “The company’s philosophy is to keep growing to create career opportunities for the people here. We just have a commitment to being really fundamentally sound. We've been successful largely because of that commitment to the basics of developing deep expertise in the staffing areas and local markets where we work."

Wang added, "One of the things we've been very careful about is not forcing growth. We allow the people within the organization to be the engine of the growth."

The BBJ has been recognizing the area’s fastest growing companies for several years. To make the BBJ’s list of Pacesetters a company had to report annual growth of at least 73 percent from 2009 through 2012, with a starting baseline of $1 million.