Lauren Lee | January 2, 2025 - Atlanta, GA

Brandon Tavenner has been a GA Tech success story from day one.  

Tavenner started his tenure as a student assistant at the College of Design in 2011, and soon became one of the first Grants Administrators—all while being a part time chemical engineering student. 

He found that he loved finding solutions to business and financial issues more than he loved making chemical solutions, and continued at the College of Design after he graduated from GA Tech in 2016. 

“I’m a fixer, right? That’s how I excel. I call upon my network to get things done,” says Tavenner. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And if the situation calls for it? I’m more than happy to be the squeaky wheel.”

Tavenner is a change agent, and CIDI is in a season of change. “We found what worked ten, twenty years ago, and we’ve stuck with that ever since,” Tavenner continues. “But we’ve never strategized about growth. USG tasked us with growing and sustaining our offerings. There have been attempts to strategize and grow in the past, and we’re close to the biggest we’ve ever been. But growth needs to be driven by strategy.”

And the strategy he will deploy? It was inspired by a GA Tech student assistant—a neat full circle moment for Tavenner. 

A student assistant was tasked with exploring one of the CIDI service units in its entirety—the clients, the market, the whole SWOT analysis. And now, each unit needs the same treatment so that leadership has the right information to drive the right growth strategy. 

“Historically, we’ve let each unit sell themselves, but it’s not natural for most of them to do so. They’re subject matter experts at what they do—some of the best in the country. We need to leverage their expertise in the best possible manner, so they can concentrate on the things they do so well,” says Tavenner. 

Tavenner will be responsible for shared services at CIDI, such as finance, IT, and marketing. But at the end of the day, Tavenner says, we are all in the business of customer support. “A successful day for me is not being noticed. When things go right, no one knows you’re there.”

Maybe just for today, folks will know that he’s here. When asked what message he would like the world to know about CIDI, Tavenner said:

“No one in the world does everything we do as well as we do it.”