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Right-brained working in a left-brained world
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
Andra Watkins gets things done, even if she has to use the left side of her brain.
As a child, the 38-year-old founder and president of Positus Consulting LLC, a business consulting company, dreamed of becoming a Broadway star. In fact, most of the things she still enjoys—reading, travel, music and theater—are mostly creative activities.
“I was always very right-brained and creative,” Watkins said.
Her family, however, was not enthused when she announced she wanted a career in the arts.
On the threshold of college, Watkins decided to take her parents’ advice and choose a more practical career.
“I went and picked accounting, one of the most left-brained things on earth,” Watkins said. “I thought it would give me a good overview of all types of business and business functions. My mother is a bookkeeper, so she thought that would be a good choice for me and I think it was.”
After graduating magna cum laude from Francis Marion College, Watkins went to work as a certified public accountant. She worked for John W. Molony on James Island and later for the firm of Moore, Beauston & Woodham, where she was a tax manager.
“I did well, but I wasn’t fulfilled,” Watkins said. “ I had always struggled with public accounting because it didn’t fit me. I‘m too right-brained. I didn’t enjoy a lot of the things I was doing. In public accounting, one of the ways you make your money is turning volumes of clients. You can’t take time with every client like you probably should. I had clients in my office all the time who were struggling with things like human resources and being overwhelmed with making strategic decisions. I’d never run a business and I didn’t really have the background to help them.”
Watkins said she was thinking of a career change when Molony, her first employer, recommended Watkins to an attorney who needed someone to manage his law firm.
Watkins took the position at the firm then known as Barnwell, Whaley, Patterson & Helms. She later took a similar position at Pratt-Thomas, Epting and Walker, now known as Pratt-Thomas & Walker.
“That was the best job that prepared me for what I’m doing now,” Watkins said. “I made a lot of decisions that a COO or a CFO would make. I got into human resources, marketing and property management. It was a whole hodgepodge of things that allowed me to use both sides of my head.”
Watkins had turned the administrative position into a more high-profile, professional role and eventually felt she had done as much as she could do in her position.
“I had always wanted to work for myself and I finally had all the experience I felt like I needed to do what I’m doing now,” she said.
She launched Positus Consulting in 2004 and got enough work in the first year to make leaving the law firm worthwhile.
“I never had that downturn or hit like people usually take when they leave jobs and then aren’t making enough money,” Watkins said. “I’ve been very blessed and I don’t take that for granted.”
Grandee Ray, president of Grand Ideas Inc. a promotional products and marketing company, credits Watkins with helping her expand her business.
Ray came to Watkins in February 2004 with a desire to grow her three-year-old company.
“I talked with her for a little more than an hour and blabbed all my issues, about how I was working harder and not smarter,” Ray said.
Watkins told Ray she should hire a business manager, which she did.
Aside from running her own company, Watkins is active in the community, volunteering her time on two boards of directors.
She is the service project chairman for the East Cooper Breakfast Rotary Club and is also on the board of directors for the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston.
Watkins said she believes her board commitments are significant and she should probably not take on much more.
“I should focus my energies on the things I commit to do and follow through,” Watkins said. “I try to choose things that I really care about.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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