Investing in Yourself

"My aspiration was to create a new business model,"{ he explains. "I wasn't sure if I should do it—or how I was going to do it. But I was approaching a period of transition, and so I came with the objective to go from A to Z."

Now co-founder and CEO of Coltala Holdings, a Dallas-Fort Worth based private equity firm structured as a holding company, Manning reached that goal through OPM—and, at the same time, transformed in ways he didn't expect.

"I've been totally influenced and formed by what I learned at OPM and the relationships I made in the program," he says, noting that the participants in his program came from 40 different countries. "When you talk to someone who's running a business in a country that has 22 percent inflation or is in the middle of a war, it really broadens and changes your perspective."

Manning intends to hold on to those relationships for a lifetime. "I know we are going to stay super connected," he says. "We've already had discussions about how we're going to be very intentional about it. We'll keep the fires burning."

He acknowledges that OPM is a significant investment, but he's quick to point out that it has "a huge return." He says, "What we're doing here is preparing ourselves to take our companies to that next level. If we don't invest in ourselves and build our capabilities, we get stuck. And that's when companies get sold—you hit the ceiling, growth slows, or things start to go sideways. So self-development and raising that bar are critical."