ON A RAINY GRAY MORNING IN DECEMBER, I found CEO Ned Eames early at work in his corner office. However, the view from his window doesn't look down to a sprawling city below. Nor does this determined—yet low-key—social entrepreneur take meetings dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit. Rather, Ned Eames runs his thriving enterprise, Tenacity, from the second floor of a two-story building on Western Avenue, located in a solidly blue-collar stretch of Brighton, Massachusetts.
Although Ned put several years under his belt in the hyperactive management consulting world in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City, he's spent the last decade in the nonprofit sector, fusing two of his great passions—tennis and serving others—into a successful social-service venture that celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2009.
I asked Ned to cycle back to the real origins of Tenacity, which today has become a vital component of Boston's school year and summer landscape. But not to the business plan—rather to what led him to launch a community outreach organization. Sitting together in his office, we took some time to get beneath the marketing fliers and inspiring photos that cover Tenacity's walls.
