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Diane Mastrull: Haddonfield-based Conigent thrives with good works

The eyes simply couldn't ignore Ameet Shah's toes. They were just so unexpected in the all-business, nothing-out-of-place office of Anthony DiFabio, chief executive officer of Robins' Nest Inc., a Glassboro nonprofit organization that helps troubled children and their families in South Jersey.

Conigent's Ameet Shah (second from right) and his wife, Shannon, (seated on bottom step) join employees, friends, and relatives at a Habitat for Humanity site.
Conigent's Ameet Shah (second from right) and his wife, Shannon, (seated on bottom step) join employees, friends, and relatives at a Habitat for Humanity site.Read more

The eyes simply couldn't ignore Ameet Shah's toes.

They were just so unexpected in the all-business, nothing-out-of-place office of Anthony DiFabio, chief executive officer of Robins' Nest Inc., a Glassboro nonprofit organization that helps troubled children and their families in South Jersey.

And they were so obvious. Shah was wearing flip-flops - odd attire for a company executive such as himself, and yet his year-round footwear choice unless a client objects. DiFabio wasn't objecting - he was too busy raving about the services Robins' Nest is getting from Conigent, the Haddonfield-based technology-consulting company Shah formed in 2007.

"It's a new frontier for us," DiFabio said of the Google apps-based communication and collaboration system Conigent is introducing for the agency's 225 therapists, clinicians, nurses, and other staff. Free.

That's right, free. Add a philanthropic-laced business bent to the list of Shah's peculiarities, which lately includes a 10-day juice diet he hopes will help improve not only his physical health but his mental acuity.

With the adoption of the so-called 1-1-1 charitable model in January as part of Conigent's "DNA," Shah has committed to giving away 1 percent of the company's profit, 1 percent of its services, and 1 percent of employee individual time each year. That last one means employees are encouraged to take an additional four days' paid time off beyond their traditional vacation allotment "to do something meaningful."

"Frankly, if the only thing we focused on was making money and profitability, I'd be bored," Shah said.

Two other factors motivate the benevolent component of Conigent's business plan: Shah's daughter, Meena, 4, and son, Max, 2.

"I want to be a good role model for them," said Shah, 38, who traces his entrepreneurial spirit to his teen years in Elizabethtown, Pa., when he persuaded the owner of the pizza shop where he worked to adopt daily start-up and shut-down procedures.

"I've always had this affinity toward business process," he said with a shrug.

His idea to start a company devoted to it came after several years in that line of work as an independent consultant in Florida and Colorado. The latter, not the former, surprisingly enough, is where he picked up his passion for flip-flops, inspired by the casual wardrobe of a manager at a Denver technology company.

Conigent's launch the same year the Great Recession struck proved fortunate. The rough economic climate was forcing companies to reevaluate business operations and, in cases where capital allowed, make technological changes to enable performance improvements.

Since its first year, Conigent's annual revenue has grown from $300,000 to an expected $3.5 million this year. Its staff, now at 20, has doubled in the last three or four months.

Conigent's responsiveness and willingness "to do what it takes to get the job done" has sustained a nearly five-year relationship with Oldcastle, a $13 billion international manufacturer and distributor of building products, said Paul Maggiano, vice president of sales-force automation at Oldcastle's North American headquarters in Atlanta.

But because giving back to the community is a priority at Oldcastle, Conigent's charitable side "helps them from the standpoint of fitting in with the people we have," Maggiano said.

Laughing, he recalled a Monday last month when a few Conigent employees arrived at his offices sore after a 62-mile weekend American Cancer Society fund-raising bike ride from the Ben Franklin Bridge to Buena, N.J.

Any employee who opts out of community service will not be fired, Shah said, though to date no one has tried.

Not even on a Friday last month, when outdoor temperatures exceeded 100 degrees, and the task at hand was to build a house in Cinnaminson for Habitat for Humanity of Burlington County.

It was "one of my many life goals that I just never got around to fulfilling, that is until now," Denise Petti, 38, Conigent's director of operations, wrote in a blog post about the experience, in which eight employees participated, along with six friends or relatives.

Lucille Wurtz was wielding a hammer at the Habitat for Humanity site just two weeks after being hired as director of Conigent's customer relationship management division, which helps clients design software systems to better manage their businesses.

That the job would involve charitable work only made it more attractive, said Wurtz, 47, of Haddonfield.

"At the end of the day, we need to feel a sense of purpose," she said.

Her boss, Shah, was evidently feeling such purpose in Cinnaminson, helping to install floorboards on the second story of the house, that "he never came down the whole time I was there," said Habitat's resource-development manager, Rebecca McGrath. "I didn't even get to shake his hand."

Shah's philanthropic commitment is even more valued in these uncertain economic times, when corporate charitable giving is generally down, McGrath said. She also lauded his decision to leave the flip-flops home the day of the construction.

"We do require closed-toe shoes on a work site," McGrath said.

Diane Mastrull:

Ameet Shah explains his motivation for incorporating philanthropy into his tech-consulting company's business plan. Go to

www.philly.com/conigentEndText