At Lat40 Ventures, “it’s all about growth,” said company President Ken Boyle.

But whether that growth comes from a small Greater Des Moines business interested in new product development or a large international corporation considering outsourcing potential, the business consultancy’s commitment is to help create, operate and transform companies that want to grow profitably.

“What we’re trying to convey is the idea of doing things differently, doing things fast and trying to grow,” Boyle said.

Lat40 Ventures – which derives its name from Iowa’s approximate southernmost latitude – officially launched Nov. 15 as a subsidiary of LWBJ Global Consulting L.L.C., a newly formed business unit of West Des Moines-based LWBJ L.L.P.

Boyle, an Atlanta native, inadvertently made his way into a career in e-commerce, first at Delta Air Lines Inc., where, in the mid-1990s, he led the company’s e-commerce division and its push into online ticket sales. Despite initial worries about security, online ticket sales have become a $1 billion operation for the airline.

He later joined iXL Enterprises Inc., an Internet consultancy, and helped take the company public before being recruited to Iowa and Maytag Corp., first as vice president of strategic initiatives and later as vice president of diversified businesses. During his five years with the Newton-based appliance manufacturer, he led the development of several “fun, cool products that were outside Maytag’s core product line,” as well as several e-commerce initiatives.

Boyle has his name attached to patents on eight Maytag products and oversaw the development of several e-commerce efforts, including Maytag Click Delivery, a “cart-to-cart” system that allows consumers to shop for an appliance at maytag.com and then move their “cart” to the Web site of a local appliance dealer.

“It was cool because we were hedging our bets on a lot of different technologies and what might work and what would become a true hit, whether it was through cost savings, efficiencies or driving new revenues,” he said.

Boyle left Maytag in 2004, faced with a reduced ability to aggressively market new products and fierce competition for research and development dollars. He spent a year at Fisher Scientific Products before founding Lat40 Ventures, the product of a business plan he wrote while working toward an M.B.A. at the University of Iowa (he received that degree in May). The plan was for a business accelerator that would help start-up, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies go after new products intended to trigger growth, similar to his efforts at Delta and Maytag.

His passion for the company mirrors the passion he had for e-business: “It’s about creating a new thing and seeing ideas transform into new revenue and profits.”   Boyle partnered with Craig Ibsen, another former Maytag executive, who has more than 20 years of experience in international business management, development and marketing. Ibsen founded London-based Appliancezone, where he raised more than $10 million in venture capital, and worked for and led businesses for Maytag and Electrolux in China and India.

Lat40 applies three focal points – acceleration, innovation and transformation – to offer its clients venture incubation, product innovation and development, and business transformation.

To achieve business transformation, Boyle and Ibsen use their global network to implement such strategies as business process outsourcing and supplier relationship management. Boyle believes their level of experience on the international scene allows Lat40 Ventures to achieve those outcomes and gives the company a leg up on its competitors locally and statewide.

“I don’t see any others that have that sort of international experience and know-how and even contacts in India and China to be able to really transform a business,” Boyle said, adding that Lat40 is strengthened by its ability to leverage LWBJ’s global relationships and international tax and financial expertise.

Lat40 often uses a “network partnership wheel” approach with its clients. First, it places the client company or division in the center of the wheel, surrounded by seven elements of the business world: marketing, supply chain, manufacturing, client, development, finance and business process outsourcing. Then it identifies partners within each segment that could manage those processes more effectively and at a cost savings.

“Whatever the team or the company in the middle can’t do, outsource that to partners,” Boyle advises. “Just make sure that (the partners) buy into the same idea and the whole notion of what that partner in the middle is trying to get done.”

In venture incubation, Boyle and Ibsen also pull from their business experience to work with clients to develop and implement, for example, opportunity assessment and business and marketing strategies. They are able to tap into their global venture capital network as well as LWBJ’s experience with private equity to provide their clients with access to seed and venture capital.

“What’s interesting is if we run across a start-up company we might want to invest in ourselves, we can go out and find money for that client, because we do have quite a venture capital network,” Boyle said. “If we get very excited about an idea or a certain start-up client, we’re flexible enough here with the partnership where we would work for equity in that company.”

Product innovation and development includes services such as concept generation and testing, branding and project management. Lat40 works with its clients using the IdeaExpress methodology to evaluate the business and growth strategies it could employ.

“We want to make sure that we fully understand the capabilities of that business before we can even help them develop any strategy or any direction or what kind of partner might help them grow,” Boyle said.

Lat40 is currently working with a handful of clients, ranging from a manufacturer to a service company, but all of which are focused on growth and increased profitability. One is a local start-up company and another is an international company that is considering building its headquarters in Greater Des Moines. One client, Des Moines-based Radical Cycle Co. L.L.C., is working with Lat40 on a mass customization strategy that would take the company national.

“The link is that they’re all trying to do more with less and to trying to grow,” Boyle said of the company’s clients. He would eventually like to have about two dozen clients so as to keep their work personal and customized.

But the business has already taken off faster than he imagined, and he plans to further develop the company’s internal staff in order to support more Iowa companies. Beyond that, the hope is to take the company regional or national.

“It could really go far,” Boyle said.

Cutline: Ken Boyle and Craig Ibsen have taken what they learned during their years of work with large national and international companies to create Lat40 Ventures, a business consultancy focused on growth strategies.