An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Profit is really an outcome of purpose and performance, and culture shows up in results when you’re doing the right things the right way.
The most successful modern CEOs are rewriting the rules of leadership. They’re not only building profitable companies but building purposeful brands with personal voices behind them. These leaders understand that in today’s world, people invest in people. Their stories, values, and visibility fuel loyalty, attract opportunities, and drive business growth far beyond traditional metrics. In this interview series, we’re sitting down with leaders who’ve learned to balance purpose, profit, and personal brand — and who are using their influence to shape the future of business leadership.
As part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Dinneen.
Josh Dinneen, Chief Executive Officer of Blue Mantis, is a seasoned leader dedicated to driving the company’s organic and M&A-fueled growth and continuously fostering innovation throughout the organization and its growing client base. Formerly President of Blue Mantis, he spearheads efforts to deepen client engagement and sustainability by delivering the optimal experience that produces measurable and positive business outcomes, while also leading corporate development in mergers and acquisitions, strategy formulation, investments, and innovation initiatives. His commitment to service extends from his time in the U.S. Marine Corps to his active contributions on Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards, as well as his substantial philanthropic and charitable support.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we begin, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share your backstory and what led you to become the leader you are today?
There really isn’t a traditional path to leadership, and mine certainly wasn’t one. I grew up in a farming community, and that teaches you a lot early on about work ethic, accountability, and the idea that it takes a village. When you pair that with athletics and Marine Corps experience, those were really the building blocks for me as a leader. A lot of the things that matter most to me now, discipline, resilience, accountability, and the ability to lead under pressure were being built long before I ever thought of myself that way.
Getting into tech wasn’t some grand plan either. I was encouraged early in my career to take a sales role that was outside my comfort zone, and it ended up shaping a lot of how I lead today. I grew into consultative selling, value selling, and really outcome-based thinking, and along the way I recognized how often operational inefficiency gets in the way of success.
Looking back, people probably saw leadership in me before I saw it in myself, whether that was in sports, the military, or business, and even now I still view leadership as a journey and something you have to keep investing in.
What’s the “why” that drives your work? How has your personal sense of purpose evolved as your business has grown?
For me, the “why” is finding meaning through teams. I’ve always been team first by nature, and the military probably says it best with mission, team, self. That mindset has stayed with me, and it still shapes how I lead. At Blue Mantis, our goal is to deliver real value to customers, and we do that by building strong teams and a real culture of teaming. We’re a customer centered organization, and in a lot of ways we’re an extension of our customers’ culture, so that team first, customer first mindset matters.
As the business has grown, the purpose has evolved because growth brings new ceilings to break through, new challenges, and more complexity. Change management becomes much more front and center when you’re scaling, but you cannot lose sight of what made you successful in the first place. For us, that’s culture, teaming, and a continuous improvement mindset.
Let’s now move to the core of our discussion. This series is about balancing purpose, profit, and personal branding. Can you help explain why each of those three matters, and why they can sometimes pull against each other? If possible, share a real example from your experience.
All three matter, and when they’re aligned the right way, they really do reinforce each other. Purpose drives culture and direction. Profit gives you the ability to invest, grow, innovate, and build something sustainable. Personal brand builds trust and credibility. For me, profit is really an outcome of purpose and performance, and culture shows up in results when you’re doing the right things the right way.
Where these things start to get tested is when short term challenges begin to change your long term focus. That’s where leaders can get pulled off track. You have to know your short game, your mid range game, and your long game, and stay clear on which one you’re playing.
A good example for Blue Mantis was being very intentional about who we wanted Blue Mantis to become. We did not want to lose sight of being a cyber first IT services company, and that message mattered because it reflected the culture we were building, the market we were serving, and the direction we were taking the business.
Many CEOs focus heavily on strategy and profitability but hesitate to invest in their personal brand. What do you think about that? What have you seen work best?
Personal brand gets misunderstood. A lot of people hear that phrase and assume it means self promotion, and that’s not how I view it. If you’re the CEO, whether you like it or not, you’re the face and voice of the company, and that comes with responsibility. The key is making sure it never becomes about you, because no one person is bigger than the organization, including the CEO.
What works best is clear, consistent, authentic communication around what you believe in, where the company is going, and how you’re creating value. My role is to provide clarity and confidence to our employees, our investors, our customers, and the market, and the best leaders I’ve seen do that without marketing themselves. They communicate clearly, they stay aligned to the mission, and they make sure the message reinforces the company, not their ego.
What are some misconceptions you’ve encountered about personal branding in the C-suite, and how do you challenge those narratives?
The biggest misconception is that personal branding is just self promotion. There’s a lot of look at me content out there, and that’s probably why some leaders are skeptical of the whole idea. But that’s not what strong leadership visibility should be. It should be about clarity around what you stand for, how you think, and how you lead.
I always try to put the company ahead of myself, because the most effective CEO voice is one that represents the organization, not just the individual. The way I challenge that narrative is by focusing on substance, real perspective, real lessons, and thoughtful insight, because people respond to that a lot more than hype.
What’s one specific way your visibility as a leader, through interviews, speaking, or social media, has directly impacted your organization’s success? Walk us through what happened. How did you know it worked, what changed in measurable terms?
A very real example is how consistently we talked about Blue Mantis as a cyber first IT services company. When my company was acquired in 2018 and I came into the firm, the business was viewed much more through a traditional VAR lens. At that point, more than 85 percent of our revenue came from resale, and we knew the opportunity was much bigger than that. We were very intentional about the message, but we also knew we had to have credibility behind it.
That visibility mattered because it created clarity, both inside the company and out in the market, around who we were becoming. But the message only worked because it was backed by execution. We did not just say it, we built the business around it. Today, we’ve continued to grow the resale business every year, but it’s now less than 30 percent of our overall revenue mix. That’s a pretty significant shift, and it shows the business evolved the way we intended.
Balancing profit and purpose is easier said than done. What practices or principles guide your decision-making when those two goals seem to conflict?
For me, it comes down to one principle, long term value creation over short term gain. That’s not always easy, especially in tech where the pace of change is fast and the pressure to react is constant, but one of the questions we ask is pretty simple: does this decision make us stronger as a company over time? If you solve one short term problem and create three more, you haven’t really helped the business.
That’s why having a North Star matters, why annual MBOs matter, and why clarity, accountability, and discipline matter. We work hard to make sure goals are cascaded clearly throughout the business, because if you do discipline well enough, it tempers emotion, and emotion is usually what gets leaders in trouble when short term pressure starts showing up.
Can you share a story about how aligning your personal values with your company’s mission created a breakthrough in performance or growth?
When I came into the business, there was a lot of history, a lot of good people, and a lot of opportunity, but the company was also fragmented, siloed, and not as operationally efficient as it needed to be. In businesses like that, it can be hard for people to see the forest through the trees, and when that happens, it becomes even more important to get aligned around what matters most.
One of my core beliefs is that team and culture are the most important things, so that became a major focus. We had to model it, we had to stay consistent, and we had to put the mechanics behind it, whether that was comp plans, bonus structures, MBOs, or the broader alignment to strategy.
There was friction at times, which is normal, but I stayed steady because I believed in what we were building. Over time, that cultural alignment unlocked real momentum, built confidence in the strategy, and once people started to see the wins, winning became contagious.
In your view, what separates a leader who simply “runs a company” from one who builds a movement around their message?
Leaders who build momentum are clear, consistent, and conviction driven. They stay steady, they define a point of view, and they bring people with them. Running a company is about managing operations, but building a movement is about building belief, and for me that belief becomes culture.
Hustle, operational efficiency, and tactics can get you so far. If you really want to move an organization, people have to believe in where you’re going and why it matters. That’s the difference between managing a business and building something people want to be part of.
How do you integrate storytelling into your leadership, both internally with your team and externally with your audience or clients?
I subscribe to storytelling because it gives a sense of genuineness, and people connect to that. My team jokes that I get on my soapbox, but what I’m really trying to do is connect the point I’m making to a real experience, whether that’s something from business, something that happened that day, or even something from time with my kids, because when people can see where the thinking comes from, it makes the message more real.
Data informs decisions, but stories drive action. That’s true internally with teams, and it’s just as true externally with customers, because people remember what feels authentic and they respond when the message connects to something real.
Can you share a time when taking a public stand or sharing your story authentically strengthened your credibility or influence?
For me, it’s less about taking some big public stand and more about being clear and authentic about who I am, how I lead, and what kind of company we’re building. One example would be how openly and consistently we talked about Blue Mantis becoming a cyber first IT services company. That mattered because it was not just messaging. It reflected a real point of view about the market, about our customers, and about where we wanted to take the business.
What strengthened credibility was that the message matched the execution. We weren’t just saying something because it sounded good. We were aligning the business to it, and over time the results showed up in the way the company evolved. For me, that’s what builds influence. It’s clarity backed by substance.
What are your “Top 5 principles for balancing purpose, profit, and personal visibility?”
1. Clarity Over Complexity
We operate in a complex world, so part of the job is simplifying it. A good example for us was getting very clear about being a cyber first IT services company, because that gave both the team and the market a much better line of sight into where we were going.
2. Consistency Builds Trust
If the message keeps changing, people start to lose confidence in the direction. I come back to the same priorities regularly in all hands meetings and team conversations, because people need to hear things repeatedly before they really stick.
3. Lead With Outcomes
Customers do not need more technology for the sake of technology. They need outcomes. That’s how we approach client conversations, and it’s how we try to make decisions internally too.
4. Invest In People
In a services business, people are the differentiator. That’s why we’ve invested in development through Blue Mantis University and leadership training, because when people see a path to grow, performance and culture both get stronger.
5. Play The Long Game
It’s easy to get distracted, especially in tech. AI is a good example of that right now. It matters, but you still have to stay grounded in your core business and make sure you’re not chasing hype at the expense of long term value.
If there’s one action readers can take this week, it’s to define your top three priorities, make sure your team can repeat them back to you and pressure test whether your time and decisions actually line up with them.
Finally, if you could summarize your leadership philosophy in one sentence, what would it be — and why?
Build great teams, stay clear on what matters, and execute with discipline and focus, because when culture, clarity, and accountability are aligned, results follow.
How can our readers continue to follow you or your company online?
The best place to follow us is through our company LinkedIn page, where we share updates on the business, thought leadership, and perspective on where the market is going.
Thank you for sharing these insights!
About The Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
The New CEO Playbook: Josh Dinneen of Blue Mantis On Balancing Purpose, Profit, and Personal Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.