Larry Taylor
Two
words best describe Larry Taylor and his 30-year business career: entrepreneur
and catalyst. An INC. Magazine "Entrepreneur of the Year" in
Houston, Taylor has founded several successful businesses including an
advertising agency and a management consulting firm.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1973, Taylor moved to Houston and built a reputation for making things happen. At age 27, he became a managing partner of one of Houston's largest locally owned ad agencies. Two years later he successfully negotiated its merger with Young & Rubicam, then the largest agency in the world. He then joined Y&R's Chicago office where he worked on new product development with Miller Brewing Company.
He returned to Houston in 1981 to start Taylor Inc., a marketing communications consultancy. In 1983 he merged his firm to create Taylor Brown & Barnhill, an ad agency he headed until its merger in 1999 to Fogarty & Klein in Houston (at that time the agency was called Taylor Speier Group). During his marketing career, he worked with such clients as Miller Brewing Company, Pizza Hut, Kroger, Gallo Wines, Houston Lighting & Power, Ralston Purina, Kroger Company and Conoco Oil.
In 1992 Taylor formed Taylor Consulting to provide organizational alignment, change management and CEO coaching services to clients such as Shell Oil, Texas Children's Hospital, Warner Cable, Neiman-Marcus, Herman Miller and Texas Monthly . In 1998 he closed his practice to start a sales training and leadership development company for Capstar Radio Broadcasting, an IPO that subsequently was merged into AMFM Inc. and then Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio stations in the U.S.
Taylor has written two successful books that outline his business and marketing approach: Be An Orange and Soft Side Engineering. He has used these books as the basis for an international speaking career that has taken him to Latin America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Canada and all across the United States.
Taylor has also made a major impact in his community. He was one of three founders and served as chairman of Houston Proud, a grassroots organization that is credited with helping Houston's economic turn-around in the late 1980's. When President George Bush hosted the G-7 nations to an economic summit in Houston, Taylor was called upon to develop the Houston's Hot initiative to communicate Houston's resurgence to the world media. As a member of the museum's board and executive committee, Taylor introduced the Houston Museum of Natural Science's IMAX Theatre, now one of the most successful IMAX's in the world.
In 1988 Taylor served as chairman of the Gulf Coast March of Dimes and engineered a re-structuring that resulted in the Houston chapter being a national role model for non-profits. He has also served on the board of the American Heart Association of Houston and was knighted by the Houston Multiple Sclerosis Society for his contributions to Houston.
Taylor is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, an international group of highly successful business leaders under fifty years of age. He has been a guest speaker at more than a dozen YPO chapters throughout the world.
Taylor resides in the Piney Point Village area of Houston with his wife, Laura, and their two young boys, Dean and Barrett.