As the CEO and Co-Founder of Diamond Assets, Diamond McKenna has transformed the landscape of technology lifecycle management. Her forward-thinking approach and dedication to sustainable practices have positioned Diamond Assets as a leader in the responsible reuse and management of Apple devices for schools and businesses, creating significant value for institutions nationwide.
John Shegerian: Do you have a suggestion for a Rockstar Impact Podcast guest? Go to ImpactPodcast.com and just click, be a guest, to recommend someone today. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cyber security focused hardware destruction company, in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit ERIdirect.com. This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.
John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m so honored to have with us today, Diamond McKenna. She’s the CEO of Diamond Assets. Thank you for being on the show today, Diamond.
Diamond McKenna: Thank you so much, John, for having me.
John: Hey, before we get talking about your very cool journey at Diamond Assets, I’d love you to share a little bit about your own personal journey. Where did you grow up, Diamond? And how did you get on this entrepreneurial, very fascinating forward-thinking journey that you’re on?
Diamond: I think if you go back in time to like the high school version of myself and you asked anyone if they would envision me sitting here being a CEO and a business, they would absolutely say no. I was definitely on a path of sports and athletics and thought I would be a physical trainer or a big coach someday. And then I went to college and that kind of blew up. I got my hands in a lot of different things and I still didn’t know what I was going to do after college graduation. I just worked. It was post housing crisis, so things were starting to come back, but just get a job, that was my goal. I met my now husband a few years into that, and he had been involved in the electronic recycling industry, and came to me when we were dating and said, we should start this business, I have this idea. I said, are you crazy? We’re broke, we’re so broke, so no. He got a job at Apple, and it was like, you should be so happy, you’re so lucky. You got one of the coolest jobs in the world at one of the coolest companies. Six months later, it was not for him. It was definitely built in a box. I was working from home before working from home was a thing. I said, you know what? What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? Let’s try to start this business. It really didn’t exist. From that moment on, we became entrepreneurs in a world that I never expected that I would land in.
John: What year was that approximately?
Diamond: 2014.
John: So you and your husband started this venture together?
Diamond: I think we started the company before we were married. And in that same year, we started a company, got married, was going to expect our first child into the next year and bought a house. So we were like the jump in, do everything at once, kind of crazy and chaotic. I think, has been a good success for us. We can manage chaos really well. I think that’s helped us stay where we’re at and get to where we’re at today.
John: So you start the journey, did you just bootstrap it with your own capital? Did you go to mom and dad or other relatives, or did you go to outside investors? How did you start the whole thing?
Diamond: It was surreal. So we never had to put together a business plan. So I have a lot of friends that’ll come to me, or students, local people, and say, help me write this business plan. Honestly, I’ve never written one. We started out of our garage. We created a business model that I think didn’t exist. We used capital from the devices that we were purchasing from education, selling those devices, using that capital and pay back the school districts that we were buying from, which was brilliant. Cause then we didn’t really need a lot of upfront investment and it was happening out of our house. We were being as big as we could with as small amount of resources as possible and kind of a fake it till you make it mentality. And then we met really good people along the way that really helped us. So the first time we needed a building, I called a million people here in Janesville, Wisconsin, and they were like, no, we’re not going to lease to you. I found another entrepreneur happened to have his name on a sign. He told me the building was taken at that time, but he had something else for me without asking me another question about what we were doing after I gave him the brief introduction, he helped us move from one building to the next. I mean, it was part of our girls strategy all the way until we landed in the building that we are now. We’ve been here since 2018. It was nice to have somebody that just believed in us. There was never a question of if we could do it. He just wanted to know how we could help us do it.
John: Go back to your why did you and your husband choose the technology? What was your husband’s inspiration for that? What was your inspiration for that? How did that all come together? Why this? Because you’re a husband’s and wife starting businesses is legendary in the United States with lots of great success stories. Why this sector again? What made you focus exactly on sustainable tech?
Diamond: Absolutely. So my husband, he spent some time in electronic recycling in that components world. I got to see a lot of things get broken down that had a lot of value and that was coming out of the iPad boom. So Apple was really getting into the school districts and Apple is expensive. That’s not a shock to anyone they were back then and they still are today. But schools were not used to having to then read, buy, reinvest into another asset that was so expensive and they didn’t have the funding to do it. My husband was seeing that people were turning things in and electronic recyclers were either parting them out or selling them, but charging the schools to recycle them where schools were sitting them in closets because they didn’t know what to do with them. They knew they were worth something, but they didn’t know where to take them, or they were giving them away to students, which I don’t know, a single graduating senior that wants a five-year-old MacBook. And so that’s kind of where it bloomed, was how can we take an industry that’s growing in a sector that needs more help than anyone and create a solution that invests dollars back into the schools, back into the students, helps them in their path forward of what technology is going to look like when they’re in college or when they’re into their next phase of their business life. So that’s kind of where we started. My husband loved the tech sector side and I have a passion about schools. I had a lot of influence growing up in school and I am from when pen and paper existed and you weren’t allowed to have a cell phone. So I knew a lot was evolving and changing and I thought that would be my angle into it was the people side, the student side and how I can help them invest into their futures.
John: Right, and like you said, you checked a lot of boxes. You were also a job creator as an entrepreneur. You’re also keeping these electronics out of landfills. So you’re doing good by the environment. You were helping the students get great technologies to be educated and you were starting a nice business that you and your husband get to work together and actually pay your bills. So you really hit a lot of boxes when launching a company in this sector.
Diamond: Yes, it was a lot of grit. You know, we were up against some really big people in the ITAD space. There was only one company kind of doing this out of California. And, you know, we started in the Midwest, right? Midwest Nice is a real thing. We started with those school districts that we kind of had connections with and improved what we could do. I really believe what you say and say what you do. That’s where we started. And that’s where we stay today in a world where there’s a lot of bad actors. We try really hard to stay ahead of that and also continue to grow with the industry. So. Speaking of the ESG space of it, we grew into the enterprise side, and we try to work with enterprise companies to both gain value back for their use to technology, but also starting to follow that EU model. You know, the EU sets the stage for what we will eventually do. And ESG is still kind of new and scary in the United States. Being a partner that can help stay ahead of the trends with what’s happening in our neighboring countries, to be able to bring that to them and a very easy way to integrate into their ESG policies allows us to be a really good partner, not just a vendor.
John: That’s a great point. For our listeners and viewers, also I’m on your website now, Diamond, to find Diamond and her colleagues at Diamond Assets. You can go to diamondassets.com on the cover page of your website, which is really gorgeous. It says Lifecycle through Upcycle. Explain to our viewers and listeners what that means.
Diamond: So, your devices, especially when you’re utilizing Apple equipment, has a lot of value. In order to recoup that value, you have to upcycle it. So we take your used device that might have hit a landfill or might have hit the neighbor kid for a short amount of time before it gets recycled. We take that and we make sure all the data is destroyed, that it looks as nice as it possibly can, that the operating system is functional and we take that and we make it to be readily available back into the secondary market so that your refurbished device continues to drive life cycle through aging technology but into the hands of people that might not have been able to afford that new technology that you’re investing into.
John: Understood, so that’s what the upcycling is really called?
Diamond: Yes.
John: It’s a version of recycling?
Diamond: Correct. It’s the version that allows a device to maintain its life cycle longer than its first use case.
John: Makes so much sense. But we’ll go back to ESG. As you said, Europe’s been ahead of us, as have some countries in Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, on sustainability. My theory, Diamond, I might be right, I might be wrong, I might be just silly, is that those countries there were forced because of size. Think about how small England is or France is, relatively speaking, geographically to the United States. So because of their size in Germany as well, they had to be sustainable generations ago. So they’ve got the jump on us when it comes to sustainability and ESG. And as you say, ESG and sustainability are still somewhat new trends here. Whereas we were the big bad America, we can just go have a go and throw society. We can dig another landfill if we wanted to and just throw things out. We weren’t thinking about generationally speaking, reusing things and recycling things. So. How is it now that sustainability, ESG, circular economy trends are really here to stay, they seem? How has that fueled your business and what does the outlook like for diamond assets because these trends now have not only grown in the United States, but are really continuing to pick up velocity?
Diamond: I think there is some, I don’t want to talk politics by any means, but there’s some political drive behind it, especially when you’re influenced by Europe.
John: Sure.
Diamond: I don’t think anyone would argue finding ESG policies that work for business and work for education and work for people within the United States is a bad thing. I think it’s finding what pieces we can chop off first that make it an easier transition to that ESG world. Everyone has technology and everyone has some sort of recycling that they’re doing today. That ties into what with what we do. If we can teach people that they can start hitting ESG metrics, if you want to start working towards being carbon neutral, you want to gain emissions efficiencies and you want to be able to showcase that to your investors or as part of your portfolio. This is a very easy way to step into that and be able to create a path and a sustainable plan for other aspects of your company.
John: That’s right. That’s a great point. Like you said, sometimes the most obvious things are overlooked. And here you have people running companies very focused on hitting ESG or net zero goals or circular economy goals. Meanwhile, while they’re doing all that and worrying about their own scope one, scope two, scope three issues, their electronics are not going in the right direction, going to great and responsible recyclers like you. Therefore they’re missing big opportunities right under their nose. I think, you know, in the United States, a lot of people follow the big giants, but the big giants do a lot of the smaller business than trust. For them, it’s not necessarily about value. When you’re looking at billions and billions of dollars, recycling your assets hits to your bottom line in a very different way than it might hit to my neighbor’s bottom line in the warehouse next door to me. So for them, it really is about chasing that ESG modeling because it doesn’t have as much of a financial impact, but they could choose to reinvest that into their company. They can put it into foundations or into local programs for children. We see a lot of that happening. So I think it’s important for people to realize that it doesn’t have to just be about money or it doesn’t have to be just about reinvestment back into your business. It can be about a lot more than that, but having a trusted partner where you can take your devices and ensure that your data is secure. It’s not being sold, it’s not being stored, it’s not being sent somewhere, it shouldn’t. That it is safe to partner with somebody like Diamond Assets and get that stuff out of your warehouses and definitely out of the landfill.
John: Is then one of your major jobs at what you do, Diamond, personally, is education, educating enterprises, corporations, organizations, school districts on this great opportunity that they have right underneath their own feet and right in their own hands?
Diamond: Absolutely. Every industry has a little bit different of a story to tell and a different personality that you’re talking to. I think that’s key is realizing that when you’re going to our market, that you’re delivering what they need to hear based on what they do. It’s not a one shop fits all message in any of these sectors. Making sure that as people change roles, that it can be educated into the industry or into their business even deeper than that just first level tech director or a tech analyst or the procurement person that you really start to spread that message throughout the organization so that it impacts the entire organization.
John: Understood. Diamond, you are a big player in the ITAD space in the United States, but you’re not known as a real competitor to other ITAD companies, you’re more as a partner. Can you explain your business model of collaboration in the ITAD industry instead of just strict competitiveness?
Diamond: Absolutely. I think when we first came in and we were such a little person in this industry, a little business, we were afraid of the big ITAD giants. We did look at them like competition because they had their foot in the door and a lot of places. Over the last couple of years, we’ve, you know, changed faces and changed what we’ve done here, added different things to what we do. I decided that we no longer could look at ITAD as if it was the big brother. Instead, we need to look at him as if they’re our friends. That’s what we’ve really started to do. So ITAD is everywhere. They help businesses all over the country, all over the world for that matter. Some of the places here in the United States, they’ll reach as far. They’re really good at all the stuff. And one thing we’re not good at is all the stuff. So we’re really, really good at Apple. And Apple gets really, really hard and harder and harder and harder every time they update their security settings, which everyone’s battling with in business right now as you’re buying the new Apple technology, but on the back end, it’s just as difficult, if not more difficult than when you’re launching these new platforms into your businesses. So while we spend all of our resources and time and making sure we stay ahead of that curve, it’s a lot of dedication and ITAD does all of this other stuff. So what we started to see is that as Apple got harder to do, ITAD companies stopped doing as much Apple and they became more of a parts and components of what Apple is. We knew that we could then be a value stream for them. Let us handle, let us partner with you and take care of those devices that take a lot of time and a lot of experience and expertise. Let us handle those and we can give you value back. So you can give value back to your client. And that way we continue that ecosystem of sustainability rather than looking at it and saying, it’s gotten too tough, we just recycle it. We’re going to break it down into parts and components.
John: Understood, and does that business model continue to serve you well?
Diamond: Yes, I believe the more partners the better. I have met a lot of people through collaboration and it’s really pushed us into other avenues. We started doing MDM integrations with some of the largest mobile management companies for Apple product, which introduced us to more people. Collaboration is key in what we do. It keeps good actors working together and it forces bad actors to find another place to go if we’re all at the right people are working together.
John: You know, in the waste and recycling industry, Diamond, it’s not known for a diverse or equitable amount of woman leadership. You are the unique woman leader in the ITAD space in the United States. Talk a little bit about who and how you got inspired to be a business leader, who continues to inspire you. and to be a business leader and some of the better lessons you’ve learned along the way.
Diamond: Absolutely. I’ve definitely been at my fair share of ITAD type conferences and realized that there’s not a vast majority of women in the room. That’s no surprise. But I think I’m lucky in the sense that I grew up the youngest of two brothers. I grew up friends with all the guys, going to college never scared me. I was friends with guys and girls. So I never really looked at myself as being in a minority of any area that I’ve ever been in. And when we started Diamond Assets, there was a lot of gentlemen we started it with. Now there’s probably more females in my office, into my leadership than there are males. But none of it came from intentionality. It’s about bringing the right people to the table and continuing to bring people along with you to the table so they can learn. Ideally that creates diversity in itself because the right people doesn’t matter based on gender or ethnicity. It’s just exposure and making sure that I don’t forget that I made it here and I still have a lot to learn. And there’s people that want to make that step but they’re afraid. Whether it’s a new intern that we have or a recent graduate or somebody that’s worked in some other industry, especially when they’re not like everyone else in the room. It’s really important to bring them along and let their ideas be bold and make sure they’re active in what the conversations are, they’re not passive.
John: If I was to say to you, whose podcasts or books do you read to continue to re-inspire yourself in terms of business leadership and more specifically even woman business leadership?
Diamond: I feel like a lot of women will default to, and so I’m going to be that defaulter as well. When we first started Diamond Assets, we were on that top list, businesses that grow year over year, personal owned businesses. We went to this conference and Brene Brown was speaking and I never had read a leadership book or a business book at that point and I never heard anyone speak and it was remarkable. We have differing opinions across multiple topics. Some things we really agree on and some things I don’t, but she’s very challenging in her approach. Depending on what your message that you’re looking for, she almost has a tailored message from a podcast or a book or some interview she’s done. That’s definitely been somebody that I have repushed back out there into different hands, whether it’s a male or female, to kind of give them insight in what helped me get to where I’m at. I’m also a really big believer in EOS. So Geno Wickman was a big inspiration to me and the world that he created. It’s similar to the Carnegie’s and all of those types of business models in the world. But when you don’t go to business school and you’re trying to create a business and create flow and operations in a world that you’re learning as you go, it gave me a really good foundation. They keep bringing books to the table that make you think about leadership and collaboration a lot differently. So between Brene Brown and Geno Wickman, his partner is Paul. I think it’s definitely given me a good foundation.
John: That’s a fascinating balance. Talk a little bit about also the high wire act and the delicate balance of having a partner in marriage, but then also the same partner in business. How does that work? Some people describe it to me as being the best possible scenarios and also the worst possible scenarios when it goes bad. So how does it work for you and your husband?
Diamond: I think it’s been a journey. You spend a lot of time together and we’re very opposite. I think that’s what really definitely helped in the beginning. I am an operations driven person through and through. I never knew that about myself, but prior to being the CEO, I was the COO and I loved it. I loved building things, making efficiencies and growing stuff. And my husband was a great salesman. He’s probably one of the best salespeople I’ve ever met in my life. He’s, everyone likes him. He’s just really good. He has a great demeanor about him and he’s likeable and he’s Midwest nice. You want to work with him. So I think the two of us together kind of created that full of what a business needed. I could work and grow with the people that needed my style and he could work with the salespeople and that part of our organization to grow that style, because that was definitely not my strength. He decided after like six or seven years into it, that he wanted to break and he wanted to do something different. So he exited. And then about six months later, I stepped into the role as CEO. And that I think actually was the harder part of the transition because my life changed and his life changed, but for two completely different reasons. For the first time, we weren’t working side by side since we got married. So it was a challenge while we did it because we’re opposite and people have different ways of doing things, but we also could be really honest with each other and know at the end of the day that what’s most important is that we’re both going home to the same house and we got to come to some level of agreement and cooperation and you know being able to share that message with the teams that are here that even when difficult conversations arise you can get through them and keep building the business.
John: Does he still do his own thing and you now are running Diamond Assets yourself?
Diamond: Yes, just recently I think he’s gotten a little more interested I think our business has changed a lot and I think he’s excited about that. Enterprise wasn’t a big piece of what we were doing a handful of years ago and MDM integrations and these partnerships, a lot has changed since he exited. So I think he’s interested. So he’s coming along kind of like in a more of a consultant, like let me touch in with you and what you guys are doing with our team, which is great because he brings a lot of value. At the same time, he can still work on all those things that he’s doing outside of Diamond Assets. So it’s a little bit of best of both worlds, I think for him and probably for me.
John: So Diamond, it’s a new year. It’s a new administration. What’s your thoughts? What’s your goals for Diamond Assets in 25 and beyond? Are you excited and bullish on what 25 and the future looks like for Diamond Assets?
Diamond: People joke about being recession resistant. I think that’s one area that we’ve talked a lot about over the last decade is, Technology cannot go away, but the people that we help and support our partners out there in the education space and in the enterprise space will always need technology. They’ll always need, whether it’s at the peak of the best economic year you can possibly have or at the lowest part of a recession that’s scary, you’ve got to manage technology. So we’re here through that entire process. And I think the more people that we can educate, the better off we are. So I’m very excited about 2025. It’s a big year for partnerships. It’s basically what I spend all of my days on is talking to new people and new organizations and how we can work with them and support them into way farther down the road. So it is a new administration. I think there’s some hold on people are waiting to hire people or what risks we’re going to look like. No one likes for any of those things to happen, but that’s the world that we live in. As long as we can be there to support our clients as, as they make decisions, if they need supplemental technology, if they need to scale back on some spending and they need refurbished product instead of making that leap to brand new product, especially if they don’t know the stability of the future. So I’m excited. I think administration’s changing changes things at a very global level, but in our day to day, we just keep moving and keep supporting regardless of what the minutia is happening around us.
John: Well, Diamond, my money’s on you. I know you’re going to continue to succeed and I’m so grateful for your time today. For our listeners and viewers who want to find Diamond and her great company, please go to www.diamondassets.com. She’s Diamond McKenna. She’s the CEO of Diamond Assets. Diamond, thanks again for being with us today. You’re always welcome back on the Impact Podcast. And thank you again for all that you’re doing to make the world a better place.
Diamond: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. Have a great rest of your day.
John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit Letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cyber security focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit ERIdirect.com.