Page 26 - BENTLEY SYSTEMS PR REPORT - MARCH 2024

In some other fields, acquisitions are done for synergies, which means you don't need
all the people. In the case of infrastructure and engineering software, we need all the
talent we can find, and we have a very good record of keeping it. The founders are
generally generalists and rainmakers who have sold, have done their own business
development, and have made a payroll. It is just a great formula for someone who can
be successful in our company. The bulk of our senior management have come from
such acquisitions.

Another thing Bentley Systems has done is assimilate the team immediately rather than
keeping the company intact as a separate team. The salespeople go into the sales
group and marketing people into the marketing group, and the developers move to the
developer group. They also have people who work to help assimilate the new team into
the company.

Bentley could be very persuasive in influencing people to join the company. Before
joining his brothers, he started a company selling financial analysis tools in the UK,
which had grown to 18 people after three years. They sold the firm to a larger company,
which grew the team to a hundred people in three months. Bentley left after three years
to work with his brothers, but his co-founder became Sungard's CEO and had 10,000
people working for him:

So, I say to the principals of firms, we might acquire you, and you will have a bigger
opportunity in a bigger firm, and you might be my successor. Now, we know only as of
today that my successor will be Nicolas, but most of the other people who report to him
came to us through acquisitions.

He also learned that developing consensus and trust about acquiring new talent was
important. Bentley explained:

We at Bentley Systems won't hire from our accounts. They might look around and say,
‘Greg, there are lots of people at Bentley Systems who did come from our accounts.’
Well, if one of our people wants to hire somebody from an account, they have, because
that does happen. But, it won't be without the consent from the account. Someone has
to show a letter that the account has consented to allow that person to be hired. We
have pretty good arguments.

We say, ‘We didn't go looking for that person. That person responded to an opportunity;
they're probably going to leave you anyway. Wouldn't you like it better if they went to
your software supplier so we would fully understand what you need? By the way, often,
we make the person available to you in turn to help.’ That's just an example of needing
to establish ground rules that are long-term oriented. And that has worked for us at
Bentley Systems.

Words shape relationships

https://diginomica.com/legacy-built-40-years-trust-learnings-greg-bentley-he-steps-down-ceo-
bentley-systems