Susie Gharib hosts Fortune 500 CEOs and business leaders from around the globe, and explores the ins and outs of their companies as well as their approaches to leadership

On Leading

Glenn Fogel says despite recession worries and financial crises, there’s “pent-up demand” for travel 

Booking CEO: Travel will be last expense cut in a downturn

Leadership

Glenn. So great to see you to talk about what's going on in the travel business. And you recently reported revenues at your company booking holdings that revenue surged 56% in the past year. Everywhere you look, travel is booming. What's going on. Yeah, I know we are very pleased with those numbers. $17 billion of revenue. A real uh something that we, we, we didn't know when the pandemic was going to end. But certainly it seems that we are beyond the pandemic era and people had a long time where they wanted to travel but they couldn't travel. And then once people felt it was safe to travel, once government stopped their restrictions, everybody wanted to travel at once and almost, but there are some areas not quite as fast, Asia, a little bit slower, but it's coming back to now. Do you see travel continuing to boom. One of the things I would say is look, we've been through a lot recently. Well, one thing that we've all learned is that things can change very rapidly right now. We're very positive on travel. We talked about it in our earnings call a few weeks ago we talked how well January was and how optimistic we were. Now just recently, we see financial crisis in the US with some banks having some issues, we see a bank in Europe having a problem. And people have been saying maybe there's a recession on the horizon. What's really puzzling is that every day we're hearing news and bad news about a recession, inflation and about stock prices falling. Why are consumers still booking trips paying high prices for airline tickets or for hotels? It looks like a disconnect, doesn't it though, Suzie? The reason I think really is that pent up demand for so long? So many people wanted to travel so bad and they couldn't and they have a lot of traveling still to do. Maybe they won't do something else but they'll do their travel. What about China? It's going to open up for business. What could this mean for, for your company? Do you see more people booking trips to China? Look, we'd like to recover. We'd like to get some of that business back. Nobody's really sure how fast that's going to happen though. It's going to come back. Absolutely. And I think it's going to come back slower than a lot of people have been expecting. Tell us a little bit about connected travel booking is best known for booking hotels. But now you've gone beyond that, booking flights, arranging airport transfers, arranging for sightseeing experiences. How are customers responding to this? Service. Well, we call this our connected trip and we're building it out because we know how frustrating it can be for a consumer when you're traveling, having to deal with lots of different vendors. And if something goes wrong, having to make multiple calls, we know that's not the best way to travel. We know tying it all together into one seamless, frictionless way. That would make life much easier. That's why we're building out this connected trip. But to be perfectly honest, we're still very early on it. Well, you're sort of acting like a travel agent. But how is your service different than dealing with a, a traditional travel agent and having a connected trip? I want to have all the personalization and all the great relationship that I had with that old style human travel agent. But I want technology to make it even better in terms of what the best prices are, we should be able to come up with what the best price are. So I want all the part of the beautiful part of that human being by one done through technology and that's what we're working towards. You're also now offering bookings for homes and apartments when people are traveling. But when people think about renting a home or apartment, they think airbnb. So what does it take to beat the powerful and successful business of Airbnb? You know, it, it, it's kind of funny because um what you just said is so true of everybody in America. Now, we are an extremely global company. A lot of people don't know that, but, you know, we had over 300 offices around the world. We operate almost every country in the world in terms of where we can put somebody. If somebody in Europe is looking for a home or an apartment or a villa, they'll say booking dot com in the US. You're right. They'll probably say airbnb or well, more and more people are beginning to think of booking dot com as we continue to build up our inventory in the U. Si Am very confident that given the strength we have in that sector, this is what we call alternative accommodations, given the strength we have that in other parts of the world. There is no reason we shouldn't have as competitive and offering in the US as we do everywhere else. And I am very, very uh conscious of how important it is to have. Every single accommodation is available to a consumer, Glenn. You talk a lot about the importance of travel's role in climate change. You've been a strong advocate of protecting the environment and you also say that travel is a force of good because it connects people and cultures. But how do you reconcile the fact that airlines are big polluters and that undermines the impact of travel as a force for good. What do you say to that? And we understand that the industry does have a problem in terms of emissions and not being as sustainable as it should be. And we know that the suppliers, the airlines hotels are working that way, we're doing our part too. So in examples of flights on kayak, for example, there's actually a meter, you could do a way to find out how much in terms of emissions does the flight you're thinking of taking actually emit and that way you can choose flights that have less emissions. That's a great way for consumers to help out. But another way is our, what we call our travel sustainability badge with our accommodation partners. Over 400,000 partners are part of this and what they're doing is they do things in their business to make it more sustainable. And we then on our site will show that these properties are doing their part to be more sustainable for consumers who want to choose to go sustainably, they'll see those hotels or homes or whichever type of accommodation and they'll choose those and that will help incentivize other properties to be more sustainable. Well, you've written many op ed articles urging the travel industry to decarbonise. I'm just wondering to what extent are you getting through to business leaders, travel companies, even travelers. Are they doing enough? Well, absolutely. Everybody I think in the industry recognizes that there is a problem. Some people are doing more efforts than others. That's true. But when I talk to the CEO S of the major airlines, they are trying to do it when I talk to the CEO S of the major hotel chains, they're doing their part too. What's interesting is the consumer, consumers talk about how much they want to travel sustainably. I'm not seeing them using their wallets yet to prove that that is really true.

CEO Chuck Robbins says clear communication is one reason Cisco has topped the list three years in a row. The company aims for honesty and transparency even when it comes to delivering tough news, like recent layoffs.

Why Fortune ranks Cisco as the best place to work despite layoffs

Photograph by Christopher Lane for Fortune

CEO Chuck Robbins says clear communication is one reason Cisco has topped the list three years in a row. 

Fortune ranks Cisco as the best place to work 

Chuck Robbins is CEO of one of the largest tech companies in America, Cisco Systems. The company is also a great place to work. According to Cisco's employees who responded to a fortune survey, Cisco is ranked number one on Fortune's annual list of the 100 best companies to work for. This is the third year in a row. The companies come out on top. What's Cisco's secret to keeping employees happy. Robin says the key is honest communication and we, we talked to our employees about any of the issues that they want to talk about. And I think it's really important today because I think employees want to work for uh human beings. They don't want to work for executives. But I think the biggest reason is that we have great people and they love coming to work because they get to work with their peers who they have so much respect for Robin sat down with fortune to talk about why Cisco is so popular with the company's 83,000 employees. Even though the tech giant recently laid off 4800 workers most recently here in our area, Lenovo and Cisco announcing people are losing their job. HP said it would cut as many as 6000 jobs over the next three years. Joining names like Amazon and Cisco who also plan layoffs. Chuck I have to ask you this though. I know the survey for the best companies to work for a list was given to your employees last summer. And then since then, Cisco laid off 5% of its workforce and people are still processing that news. Can you say why you think Cisco is the best place to work? Every company is going to have to make tough decisions. Every company is gonna have to make. And there's a lot of companies making the same decision right now. Ours is for ours was for reasons of reallocation to growth opportunities. Many of the others are simply cost reductions. And so I think it's how you do it and look, nobody likes it. I don't like it. It's the worst thing we ever have to do, but when we do have to do it, you have to do it the best way possible. Will we see more layoffs? Do you think more companies are going to announce a second round of layoffs? Like we heard from meta, the Facebook parent that they recently announced that they're going to do a second round. 10,000 more people. Well, that's one of the things that we try to avoid is because you don't want to do that if you can avoid it now it's not always avoidable and certainly there are enough dynamics in the world right now that the future is somewhat unpredictable. Uh So it's very difficult to say what's gonna happen. Uh We don't have any plans to do that. Uh And, uh, but again, the world is, is really, there's a lot going on. Yeah, a lot is going on. I mean, what is this a meltdown moment? I don't think so. I think that look, there was, there was a huge demand surge for a lot of the companies and they hired quite significantly and I think now as they adapt to demand signals, they're seeing they're having to adapt. Uh again, we, we did, we had more balance through the cycles. And so uh I think that there's a few things that, that I think can make this different. Number one, the pandemic exhibited the power of the technology in ways we've never seen it before. No one believed that we would maintain productivity, have people working, have them being effective. And the technology actually held up at a scale that it wasn't never built for. And so I think what that leads us to is that government leaders around the world CEO S, they all now have a whole different perspective on the power of technology, the strategic value of technology. And I think they're embracing using technology and aspects of the business that they wouldn't have otherwise. And there's also an understanding that if if I don't invest as a leader and my competitor does, then I'm going to be left behind very quickly. Um I think the other thing is that the CEO S of today and a lot of the executives of today, if you think about our careers, we cut our teeth through times of pretty much cause a crisis. If you go back starting in the dot com days, all the way through financial crisis and then into some of the things we've dealt with in the last 56 years, pandemics wars. I mean, so we're, we're operating in an environment where we expect the next one. We don't know what it is, but we know what's going to come. And I think if we all just decided to, let's just stop spending till things become normal again. Things, this is normal. I think this is what we think anyway, given what we've had to deal with over the last five or six years. Well, you're right, you've been through a lot of crises. In fact, uh, you've been through layoffs before the first time, was shortly after you joined Cisco more than, you know, 20 years ago. And I understand that, uh, it was the first for Cisco to have those layoffs and most of the people at the company had no idea of how to do a layoff and you all had to go through training. What did you learn from that experience that helped you get through the recent layoffs at Cisco. It was very hard. Uh back then, you know, you having those conversations with a human being sitting in on the other side of the desk from you or in a, in a, in a conference room. Very difficult, hardest thing. Uh One of the hardest things that you have to do, um which led us to just say, ok, if we are going to have occasions where we have to do this, then let's figure out how we can do it in the best possible way. And I think we, we placed a couple of 1000 people that would have otherwise left the company and we found jobs for them internally through the process that we had. So how did you go about in your thinking process of how to make this as easy as possible for the people who were laid off? Well, we do have uh uh a team of folks that, that lead our people organization that are very innovative and I think a lot of that probably has something to do with why we've been number 13 years in a row here. And so that team is just very thoughtful about how we go about it, thoughtful about the programs, thoughtful about what, what, what can we do to have the least impact on our employees as we possibly can? Was it generous money that you offer the people laid off or something? Is it something I think I think it's more the, the, it's the process and it's the, it's the honesty and it's the proactive effort to find them other roles inside the company. Because if you just, if you move 2000 people out that actually have the skills that you need in the other places and it's actually more expensive to go hire other people and bring them in. So it actually makes sense for us as well. So, I think that's the biggest, biggest thing. What did you say to the people that were laid off? What did you say to them? We were just honest about why we had to do it. It's, it's never easy. But I think that in general, the feedback was uh while it's never anything anybody wants to go through, we did get people saying that you, you're doing it probably as well as you possibly could. Well, despite all the turmoil that's going on in the tech industry, you're actually very optimistic about the future. And you said recently that Cisco is at the beginning of a massive growth environment and you're so confident that you raised Cisco's outlook for 2023 help us understand what's going on. Well, I would, I would attribute that to three things. The first is that roughly probably 90% of our customers have five key initiatives that they're all focused on that. We play a super critical role in cyber security, multi cloud architectures, hybrid work applications. Uh rearchitect and sustainability. And we have a big important role to play and all that and our technology helps them do that. The second is we transition our business model to more of a recurring model. So now 44% of our revenue is coming from recurring uh sources like software subscriptions. And so we have that available and we'll continue to renew those over the next year. And the third is the, the component challenges that we've had in the supply chain have begun to ease in many areas which is allowing us to shift more of the backlog that we built up from this great demand that we had over the last couple of years. So I'd say in a nutshell, those are the three things that give us some optimism. We always talk about the power of technology and everybody's interested in it. But these days, we see many companies not just in tech that are holding off of making big plans, big investments, they kind of a wait and see mode. So what makes Cisco different our customers? They still understand the strategic value of the technology investments that they need to make. So it's, it's, I don't think it's not just us, but I think that the reduction in spending and technology, most of our customers say that will be the last thing they do. The last thing they cut. I know there are a lot of things that are going on that you're excited about at Cisco. But what are one or two opportunities you're most excited about? Well, cyber security, obviously a threat landscape is, is huge geopolitical tensions. We're adding massive connectivity in the world. So helping our customers protect themselves and the scale at which we do it is is massive. The second one is uh actually sustainability. I think that at the, at the center of all the sustainability efforts that our customers have, it's around connecting industrial systems. It's about putting in new systems that reduce their uh electrical and energy consumption. So that's another one that we're super excited about and then hybrid work. You, you spent some time in our New York office and how we built this as a great example of how, how do we embrace hybrid work and make this place a great place for our employees to come, Cisco also has $20 billion of a cash cushion. What are you gonna do with that? Well, first of all, we try to take care of our shareholders so we service our dividend, continue to grow it on an annual basis. Second area is we'll continue to do strategic acquisitions and uh you know, the market is probably getting to a place where some of that makes a lot more sense than it did two years ago. Well, it seems like one of the places that you're investing in, uh are these new offices that you referred to a couple of times in our conversation. We're here in this huge newly designed space in New York City, lots of collaboration areas, high tech devices, people might be surprised that you're spending money on this, given that you're not forcing your employees to come into the office. So why are you doing this? Well, I I used the phrase once that said, let's make the office a magnet instead of a mandate. And so we're really trying to create spaces and environments that employees want to come and spend time in that they feel safe, that they feel like they can collaborate with their peers and they feel are modern. So we're, we're modernizing fewer offices and helping our employees come together more effectively. So is this part of your growth plan too sure if our employees are happy, they're more productive, what's different about these offices than everywhere else in Cisco? They're incredibly smart offices. We, we actually know where people are spending their time. We know how many people are in the office. We know the air quality. Uh we can do simple things like we have our conference rooms connected to the H B AC system so that if a, if a room is empty for two hours, the cooling goes off and then 15 minutes before the next meeting, it'll crank back up again. Just a lot of a lot of the integration is just, is really well thought out. How do employees feel about this? What's been the reaction are they showing up in the office? They are showing up here. This is one of our, our most frequented offices by our employees. So we're really there. The calls in effect is not lost. And I think that, uh we're, we're, we're gonna do this in lots of other. So do you want people to come into the office? Uh, you know, there's this whole debate going on about working in the office or working from home. And some people believe that the more you collaborate with your coworkers, that you'll be a more successful competitive business, it it, it varies by group within the company. So when I say we want to make it a magnet, not a mandate in some area, some areas we have said, hey, you need, we need to have these groups in together three days a week. Engineering is one where our leadership and engineering feel like it's valuable for them to be together. Uh But in general, I think if you create an environment, people want to be in, in our business, others have different reasons for how they want to go about it. This is just the approach that seems to work for us. Chuck, let's talk a little bit about leadership. How have you changed as a leader since you became CEO in 2015? I probably realize how frequently you have to communicate uh and how openly and honestly, we're going to have to communicate with our employees and that's much different. I mean, we, we've always been honest, but the, the notion of the topics that we're willing to actually talk to our employees about has changed significantly, I think that's probably the biggest difference and the number of things in the world that CEO are expected to speak on uh has changed very dramatically. How do you feel about that? I was joking with my board recently, I said whenever we get to a point that we're doing succession, the questions, we're going to have the candidates answer today versus the questions I answered seven years ago are dramatically different. I mean, given what's going on in the world, it's just a completely different mindset. What would you say is the most important question for new CEO S I think really understanding their comfort with, dealing with geopolitical dynamics. I spend way more time on issues in Washington and other places than I ever dreamed I would. So it's a lot of these intangible things that are completely unrelated to the technology strategy of the company which you also have to be able to understand. So it's going to take a very diverse skill. You've been CEO for eight years, that's a long run for most CEO S who run a Fortune 500 company. And as you know, a part of a great leadership is having a great succession plan and you brought that up a little bit in our conversation right now. You're young, you're energetic. So don't take this the wrong way. But what's your timeline for naming the next Ceo of uh Cisco? Well, first of all, thank you for calling me young and energetic. I don't get that very often, but uh uh there is no timeline. I mean, I've obviously talked to our board about it, but I'm having a great time. I, I love what I do. I love leading these teams. I love the impact that this company has on a global basis, love the impact we have in our communities. And as long as I'm passionate about it and the board wants me here, I'm going to be here as you look back on your Cisco years. Um What have you done? You're most proud of. What's your biggest accomplishment? Probably what we're talking about here, creating an environment where our employees actually provide the feedback to you and your organization with great places to work that actually lead us to be number one. That, that makes me very proud, makes me very proud.

The key to retaining talent, says Charles Lowrey, is not more pay but “purpose”

Prudential CEO Tells How Leading with Purpose Transformed the Rock

Prudential CEO on leading with purpose

Charlie. Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to see you. Let's begin by talking about leaving with purpose because when you became the new Ceo of Prudential five years ago, you were focused on the company's purpose. How do you define purpose? And why is it so important? I love talking about purpose and our purpose is to make lives better by solving the financial challenges of a changing world. It is the reason we exist. It's the reason we do everything. That's the reason why so many of our employees work with us. And it is, it is our reason for being when you took charge, you set about to change prudential and transform the company, what did you want prudential to be? And how did purpose fit into your vision? So what we said very simply was that we wanted prudential to be a higher growth, less market sensitive and more nimble company so that we could earn our existence for the next 150 years as we've been for the past 150 years. But we have to earn that the competition was different. Our customers are changing. And so we wanted to have a strategy that made sense as we go forward for the next 150 years. Well, I understand that Prudential has changed dramatically in the past five years. The words people use to describe your company today are agile innovative technology oriented risk taker. I mean, that's not what we expect to hear from a company that's in the retirement and insurance business. Tell us more about how that all came about for a number of reasons. One, if you look at the context in which we operate, our competitive environment was changing rapidly, but more importantly, our consumers were changing. They want things when, where and how they want. And in order to provide our consumers and clients with the products and services they need, we had to change in order to serve the demographic. And it's interesting that most of these changes were done during COVID. Why did you do all of that at such a difficult and uncertain time? I mean, Prudential wasn't in trouble. It's highly ranked Fortune 500 company even back then. It's known as the Rockets Solid. It's dependable. Why did you feel an urgency to reinvent the company during COVID? Well, necessity is the mother of invention and we had to, no one thought that we would be able to go remote 50,000 people in 40 countries in 48 hours. And yet we did it. And that was a proof point for our employees that they could do more and they could do it faster. That's the first point. Second point is customers needed us during the pandemic. They were scared, they wanted to know the balances of their checking accounts or their, their investment accounts. We needed to be able to supply that quickly to them in an automated passion. We had to invent things on the fly that conserve the customers. So it was the pandemic served as an accelerant for so many of the things we needed to do. What was the reaction of your employees? Did they understand what you were doing and that these changes had to be done right now. Yes, they did because they were on the front lines. They saw that we had to serve our customers and they were actually excited. They were excited that they could do things faster and they could accomplish things. They saw the results of what they were doing on our customers and the benefits that we were able to provide our customers as a result of the changes we were making. Despite all the change and the positive stuff that you were doing, we saw during COVID that many employees left their companies, including at Prudential, went on to other companies as you watched this revolving door. What did you learn of seeing people jump from job to job? What did you learn about that? We learned two things, the importance of culture and the importance of purpose. People could jump from job to job. You're absolutely right. It became frictionless to do so because you were at home and you were a box on a, you were box on the screen and it was easy to do that. So what retains people, what retains people is that they feel meaning in what they do and they feel meaningful in helping the company. And if they do that, there's a far more likely chance that they will stay with you as opposed to just go somewhere else from everything that you learned. What in this new world of work? What do you think is the key thing that you can attract and retain employees? Is it more pay? Is it a flexible work schedule? What have you zeroed in on? It's not pay. So if, if I hire you and it's just because I'm paying you more, that's a transaction, that's nothing more than a transaction. There is no economic transaction, there's no no real relationship there. What creates the relationship of the employee to the company is purpose and culture. They need to believe that what they work they do is important and it's meaningful and it's meaningful to the company and that it relates to the purpose for which we exist. Another issue that's weighing on business leaders these days is recession. We all see the headlines every day is the economy going to go into recession. And if so how long, what's your thinking on this? I think we're seeing a tremendous wrestling match today between a stubbornly strong economy. On the one hand, frankly, one that has surprised many people. And on the other hand, a determined fed that is looking to lower inflation over time. Our belief is that we are in a very constructive economy right now. If you look globally, you see, uh you see that Europe is doing better than we thought China is doing better than we thought we've obviously hit peak inflation and that's coming down and that the economy in the U S is very strong. So we think we're going to have A sluggish outcome here eventually, but we won't necessarily go into recession. This is very important, especially for prudential because you manage more than $1 trillion dollars of clients money. How is all this fuzziness impacting the decision that you're making for your investment portfolio? So we invest for the long term for our clients. Our clients come to us for a variety of reasons. We manage assets across many different asset classes and each client has uh its own investment criteria. And we managed to those criteria, you mentioned the fed a moment ago. I mean, the fact that they're indicating that they're going to continue raising interest rates to combat inflation and they're going to stay high. That's actually a good thing for your investment portfolios, is that right? Absolutely. So higher interest rates is better for insurance company and lower interest rates, which we've been fighting for the past few years. Charlie. Let's talk about you and your path to the CEO job at Prudential. It's interesting that you started out in architecture. You went out to graduate school, you studied architecture, you taught architecture and then you even open your own architecture firm. Why did you like it so much? I loved architecture. I still love architecture, married to an architect. And so it's still a huge part of our life. I loved it because it involved art, involved science. It involved creating the built environment for people. It's just, it's a fantastic profession. So why did you change? Why did you change? What were you picturing in your new career path? Serendipity has a lot to do with, I think careers and my career is anything but, but linear. So I went back to business school because I thought I needed business experience, having run my own firm and being honestly fairly naive about running your own firm when you just straight out of graduate school. Uh and then went into business for a little while after business school thinking I'd always go back to architecture but never quite made it. So after 13 years in investment banking, prudential, who had been a client for 10 years called and said, would you like to be considered for a job at prudential? And I moved to prudential? Never would. I thought in my younger days that I'd be in business when I grew older and that you would become the ceo of a Fortune 500 company. Not in my wildest. Well, I understand that you like talking to employees at Prudential and you like to advise them and help them with their career choices. How much do you share your own personal story about going into architecture and then uh working your way into business? And is there any one piece of valuable advice that you'd like to leave with them? Yes. So I do share my story as an example of careers not being linear because I think many people think, gosh, I'm here. I want to travel on a single path and that as you well know that that doesn't happen very often. So if I give them a piece of advice, uh it's, it's twofold again, one careers won't be linear, linear. But second of all, follow your passion, follow what you really love because if you do that, you'll succeed. Well, you know, these COVID years has changed a lot of things including uh leadership. How has it changed your job as CEO? I mean, what are you doing more of and what are you doing? Less of you put on your suit and you came to work in your suit with your armor and you didn't really talk about home and business was business. The pandemic taught us a great deal about ourselves and about sharing ourselves and our vulnerabilities. So now my leadership style has changed in that one still has to be a strong leader, the CEO, but you also have to be an empathetic leader. You have to understand more about people and where they're coming from and what their situation is so that they can be as effective as employees as they can be. But also care for their own home life. And what is the reaction, tremendous change and a much deeper relationship and commitment by virtue of understanding again, other people's lives in a completely different nature than we had before following up on where we started our conversation. Tell us how leaving with purpose shape your leadership as CEO it shapes it in a number of ways, but beyond everything else, I'm the guardian of that purpose. I spend much of my days thinking about how purpose is infused in our strategy. I ask a lot of why questions. So in meetings, I'll ask, why is this product or this service helping our purpose? And if it's not, we'll throw it out maybe a good idea, but it's not consistent with our purpose of expanding access to more customers over time. And when you think about expanding access, that is a very big part of our purpose. And it's a very big part of my passion for what we do and why we do it is to expand access to more people so that they can have financial security over time.

Dan Amos shares his wisdom on A.I., ESG, why he’s lasted in the CEO job for 33 years, and one thing people don’t know about the Aflac duck.

Aflac CEO Talks Up A.I.: “It’s the next wave. We like it. We’re impressed”

Aflac CEO On A.I.: “It’s the next wave."

Dan. So good to see you again to talk about Aflac, you know, it's remarkable that you've been running the company for 33 years and you've had a great track record all along the way of introducing new services for your customers and staying up to date. And I understand now now that you're using more technology in your business, ai artificial intelligence, tell us how is ai impacting your business today? Well, I think things are changing faster today than ever. For example, we have just this is futuristic, but there's this company that we've invested in that will take a photograph of you and with that they can tell your health hard to believe hadn't been all worked out. But it looks like the future. We can process business much faster uh to the degree that we used to take two weeks to process the claim. We have the ability in certain cases to process it in that. So it changes every day. And so I think you have to invest in the future. Well, it's interesting that you talk about all the change in the industry because when you started at aflac, you started out in the field, you're a salesman and you were going door to door selling insurance and of course, so much as since then how do these new technologies, not just Ai but also things like social media, help your aflac agents to do more marketing or to bring in new customers. We've had the aflac duck for 23 years. And I can remember when we first did the aflac Duck commercial, we didn't have a flight dot com. So just go back that many years and we really didn't know what to do. And so now with different ways we can send people different directions, we can send you, if you see the commercial to recruit you, we can send you to handle the claim, we can send you to buy our stock. We we've got the ability to move you throughout the system to anything that might uh be a benefit to you are of interest to you as a consumer. And I know insurance companies like Affleck also like to get those younger customers gen Z's and millennials and you have to reach them digitally. Not in person necessarily right to the contrary. They don't want to be reached in person a lot of times. So, absolutely, that's the case and how we get to them and they don't cut on the tv set every day and watch it. So how we get to them is hard. That's why it's wonderful to have a good brand. If they know your name already, you can go to the internet, you can go to social media and they, you don't have to explain who they are because they know the Aflac duck. Well, I've been told that you live by three principles of risk management and you rely on these principles for many of your key decisions here. They are. Don't risk a lot for a little, don't risk more than you can afford and always consider the odds. How has a flex investments in Ai so far measured up against these principles, I would say from an Ai perspective, we it is a good decision on our part. And what I always say is I like evolution, not revolution. So a consistent pattern of investing in ai like we do with our investments to look for things that are gonna be changing. You've got to do that. If you just sit back, you'll miss everything, we weigh what the benefit is and what the potential is into the future. But you have to be moving to a i in some shape form or fashion. And each company will have to decide what that is. And can you see doing more investments in ai looking ahead. Oh yeah, no question. Yeah, I can see and not only that, I think everybody will be doing. I imagine if you were in the internet, he said, oh I don't need the internet and you know, a lot of companies probably thought that when they first came out and now look today. So absolutely, it's it's the next way how big it's gonna be, what it's gonna be. None of us know, but we do know that we like it, we're impressed with it. And so I think we're going to see more of it. Let's switch gears and talk a little bit about the economy and its impact on your customers, You've been concerned about this and you've said that inflation is terrible for the average consumer. We've seen that it's been true for food prices and gas prices. But what about for insurance benefits? One of the last things people drop is their insurance because uh it would be terrible at a time of need. We know statistically That about 57% of the consumers in America don't have $1,000 in cash that they can get hold of. So that would be for any reason whatsoever. So If you're buying insurance and you're paying for it weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever it is, the odds are that you will need it during these inflationary periods of time. I saw that we're running about 6%. Now inflation, it was as high as 10. It's been lower, but it's running about six. And so it's it's it's a, it's a real challenge. So if inflation stays high and interest rates continue to go up, what can Affleck do, do you have pricing power? Can you raise prices? We can, we've never had rate increases on our basic supplemental health insurance products once you buy, we've we've been able to hold our our prices at the same rate. So how much of a headwind is this for your business? I've been through the cycles And they affect us, they affect the customer and they affect uh in every way. But we've been able to to make it by having as little of increases as we could have. Uh we've worked through those processes and we just have to take it on. But generally there, that cycle does break. We, you know, we're hoping that it will be in 2023, but we'll have to watch it and see dan. As we said at the beginning of our conversation, you've been running a flak for more than three decades. You're one of the longest serving Ceo on the Fortune 500 Affleck is also ranked on our fortune list of the 100 best companies to work for 20 years. Now. What's the secret to your success remembering that a company is made up of people and taking care of the people is important, taking care of the customers which are people. But as much as we talk about technology, it's still a people business. And so I think that is vitally important and to be forthright and let people know where they stand and what they need to do to achieve the objectives. Um makes a real difference. Well, Ceo, 10 years these days are shorter than ever. I mean, what can other Ceo learn from what you've been doing at Affleck all these years and especially your leadership. I would say that I'm very focused. I don't try to do too many things. I say, okay, we're gonna come out with a new product. I don't let people pull me different directions. I stay on the product or if it's technology, we stay on the technology. But every, but I always call it a shotgun approach versus a rifle approach. I like to be the rifle approach that stays on it and not try to hit 10 things. I want to do one well and then I'll move to the next one. So I think that's one of the things I would say make a difference of your leadership is that you have been a big believer in corporate social responsibility. What we all call today? S g long before other people saw the importance of it. Why was so obvious to you? And it's still such a controversial topic these days. I've always said pride of something makes a difference and I'm very proud of being socially responsible and that we've chosen something to do now. I think it's a good business decision. We've got a brand that's important. And especially with the younger generation, it's more than just dollars. It's more of what are they doing? And I think it helps us in recruiting. So I get smarter people that come to work. I think that helps it. And I think if I asked somebody on the street have you brother by this policy from company X or if you'd rather buy it from Aflac and by the way, Aflac helps Children with cancer And have done all of these things. Most people are gonna go with the Aflac for that reason. So I think it's a good business decision. You have also made a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion. Something that everybody's talking about these days. The numbers are very good. Almost 50% of a flax employees are female or people of color. More than 60% of the board members that Affleck are female or people of color. What more do you want to do and then how are you going to get there? I think it's our responsibility to make sure that everyone is treated equal. You know, one of the things that everybody kids me about is I have a saying that at my meeting that I have my staff meeting that I don't need to know what 60 year old plus white men are thinking, I'm one, what I want to know is what the young person of color, what the middle aged female, whatever the combination is, that happens. What are they thinking? And that's a good business decision. It's not just, it's the right thing to do. Yes, but it's also a good business decision. And I feel like it's one of the things that made me successful. So we can't end our conversation without talking about the aflac duck. We tried to get him to come here in the studio, It didn't work out, but you know, it's a household name, it's a pop icon. Tell us something about the aflac duck that we just don't know. Probably you don't know that over 70% of our business comes from Japan and Aflac. The name through the Aflac Duck has about 95% name recognition in Japan. Because of that, in the us, the duck has much higher or stronger voice. They have to be calm and quieter in Japan, but it is a slam dunk in Japan and what it's done.

Sean Kerins says his “foot is on the gas” when it comes to hiring tech talent.

Arrow Electronics' new CEO says supply chain is doing better, but still not back to normal

Arrow Electronics' CEO: Supply chain better, but not normal

Sean thank you so much for joining us to talk about arrow electronics. You know, most people probably don't know about the critical role that your company plays if they're looking to buy a car, like an electric vehicle or a smartphone or some high tech home appliance? Tell our viewers exactly what does Well Susie, we're a global technology distributor and that means we help some of the biggest names in technology get their products to market. And that could be everything from semiconductors to data center computers, to cyber security appliances, to software and cloud solutions, You name it. And you know, we like to say an arrow that if a device takes an electronic charge, there's a good chance that we probably played a role in designing it, building it and certainly selling it well last year there was a big shortage of chips, semiconductor chips and we all know that there were long wait times if you were looking to buy any kind of electronic device. What about now is that chip supply crunch over? There's been progress for sure. Are all the issues fully resolved? No. And the way we know that is we see, you know, lead times for all the semiconductor technology that we helped sell are still twice their pre pandemic average. And that means that, you know, if you just bought a car a few weeks ago or if you're still waiting on something you ordered for home automation. I think we got a little ways to go before supply and demand fully normalizes and those lead times can become more predictable. What are you hearing from your other customers? Besides the consumers, you sell components to big companies like Microsoft or IBM Panasonic, what are they telling you? So they're seeing a couple of things. One in fact in places they're still working their way through inventory that built up over the past couple of years while they waited for that, that famous golden screw. And they're also telling us that they're now starting to re evaluate their own supply chain processes, that they get better visibility to semi semiconductor supply going forward. And despite all of that, your company just reported very strong sales. In fact you told investors they were the strongest financial results of any year in the history of the company. So can you keep up that pace or can you do better in 2023, given everything you've told us, I think there's enough uncertainty out there to uh to tell us that, you know, looking much beyond 90 days is going to be a bit of a challenge. Having said that we still believe in the big mega trends over the long term and you know, we want to come out of this year, even if it's more challenging in a position to really hit the ground running in 2024 beyond. So we're gonna stay invested in our our growth priorities as best we can. So what if the U. S. Economy goes into recession, what does that do for your plans? Well, you know, I think this is a time where the phrase uh cautiously optimistic is very appropriate obviously if a recession were to occur more deeply, you know, we're certainly well prepared. I think the big question is you know, are we in for a moderate decline over a reasonable period of time or are we in for something sharper and longer lasting? And there's still I think a number of variables to play out including you know, the question around you know, when does the chinese economy get back up on its feet? Well whatever happens with the economy and the business environment, I understand that you are laser focused on hiring, tell us why what is your thinking on that? Well look, we think beyond this year we think the you know the big technology megatrends are all lining up in our favor. You know, we talk about the electrification of everything, you know, E. V. In the automotive industry is a great example. We talk about, you know, the automation that we're now seeing embraced in the medical device and healthcare industry. We think that's a great future market for us as well. So I think the job of any Ceo and his or her team uh in a more challenging year is to make sure they emerge even stronger uh than when they came into the year. And so we know exactly where we think growth will come from long term and for us that means more sales capacity, that means more engineers. And that means more people to be able to help our big customers and suppliers manage their supply chains. And I really don't want to take the foot off the gas when it comes to those disciplines uh for our prospects down the road. Well, are you finding it easier for Arrow to find top talent given that there are so many talented tech people looking for jobs right now? I wouldn't call it easy. Um and I would say attrition is still higher than it's been historically across the industry. So we've developed a pretty good motion around, you know, constantly looking to replace people that may have left at the same time looking for new talent to fill uh new roles that we're investing in. I think our our HR team does a really good job sourcing from all kinds of places. And um you know, I'd say we're keeping up pretty, respectively, you've also made it a priority to hire and promote more women in leadership positions. You've said we need to do better. How's that going so far? You know, Suzy, I've always believed that, you know, we're going to be most effective when we look like the world around us and so we're making progress, you know, building a more diverse uh workforce, not just in the individual contributor ranks, but also at the top of the house. I'm really proud to say that we now have four women on our executive committee, but don't get me wrong, there's still a lot more for us to do. Well sean, let's talk a little bit about you, you became Ceo of arrow just last summer and this is the first time that you've been Ceo, what's the most important leadership lesson that you've learned so far as you're running a huge fortune 500 company? You know, I'd say two things. The first is learning is paramount as a ceo. You now encounter things that maybe you never did before in your career. So you've got to be willing to probe and learn, uh, each and every day. The second is you've also got to learn how to let go and rely increasingly on others to get the right things done for your company. And I would say I'm making progress with both, but it is a journey. Well you said many times that you learned a lot about team building and leadership from playing basketball at Syracuse University, you are the captain, you were the star player. And what would you say that college sports taught you about leadership? You know, I think sports is a great proxy for what you'll find in the professional and working world. Uh, you just don't happen to know it at the time, but you know, being part of a team means you're part of something bigger than just you. Uh, and there's a lot of reward in that. But great teamwork comes with lots of trust and lots of sacrifice and that's a lesson that stood with me over time. I think the other things you learned from competitive support, competitive athletics at a young age is this idea of overcoming adversity when things don't go well, this idea of persistence and work ethic because you know, you don't get good overnight, you get good over time. Um and that's true of companies and leadership as well. Uh you know, you've got to continue to work on the skill sets that will make you better. Well, your coach at Syracuse University was the legendary Jim Boeheim. What's the best advice you got from him about leadership when it comes to coach Boeheim? He was the one that taught me that as a leader. It's all about the examples you set and the deeds you do not the words you speak. And that's a lot about, it says a lot about how I think about leadership now as the Ceo of Arrow electronics. Well let's talk about that because in the corporate world, the job description for Ceo has changed so much over the past couple of years. The expectations um from customers from employees and from even the public has really increased. So knowing all of that, how would you describe the way that you want to leave Arrow electronics? You know, I think listening is more important than speaking, I think being accessible uh to your leaders and their employees in the right ways at the right times, uh, means a lot to them. I think being able to show them that you'll never ask the organization to do something that you're not willing to take on yourself. And being someone who, everyone understands, uh, will ensure the company always does. The right thing goes a long way to, you know, our character and our values going forward. And I will, you know, remain committed to those thoughts.

Jeff Jones shares his advice for "main street" tax payers.

Tax tips from H&R Block CEO

Jeff. So great to see you again to talk about H and R. Block. You know, people know your company and they think of it as the place to go to at tax time. But actually H and R. Block has been going through a big transformation. How would you describe the business today? Oh my gosh! Well, first of all we're achieving a level of results that we haven't in decades. So the company has incredible momentum right now. And if I just take a step back, I mean it's really been a few things. Number one is a complete cultural transfusion and just thinking about all the things we need to do different. We've also restored growth to our core business. And then importantly we've diversified to move into financial products and small business services. So when you put all that together, there's no question a new H. And R Block has emerged. So it sounds like you're trying to change the perception of H. And R. Block that it's more than a seasonal tax business for main street America. So what are some of the things that your customers can do today that they couldn't do a few years ago? Well they can get tax prep in entirely new ways they can do banking through our product called spruce. Small business owners can do taxes and bookkeeping and payroll. So the company is completely modernized and we're doing way more than taxes and it sounds like this transformation is paying off your earnings are so strong. Your stock in 2022 was up 55%. What's next? I mean what more do you want to do to keep up this momentum? Well I think the most important thing for us to remember is transformation is never over. So the best companies are always thinking about what's next. And for us that continues to be this blending of great human expertise with artificial intelligence, machine learning and technology and adding more services as we say, serve more customers more ways. Do you have like artificial intelligence capabilities and machine learning now or is this something that you're going to be adding on? Those capabilities are fully embedded into our tax business Today it helps our tax professionals offer better advice. It makes the process more personalized and faster. So those capabilities are alive and well today block your business is so crowded with so many fintech companies that have a lot of new technology, a digital capabilities. How do you compete with them? And then how do you compete with a company like intuit that like H and R. Block services, small businesses and is well known for its popular products like Quickbooks and TurboTax. That's right. I mean one of the things I've learned Susie in my career is that technology a lot of times gets the credit and the fanfare. But at the end of the day we are in a relationship business and we are fundamentally grounded in human relationships. And so We've had 80,000 tax professionals who have been with us on average for 10 years and so they come to work every day to serve their clients. Technology helps that, but it's a human relationship. Well you have also a big real estate footprint, thousands of H and R. Block offices all around the country. Do they work for or against you? Because right now people are used to doing business remotely and also doing business over zoom. They work as a choice. And so the customer today can get fully virtual remote capabilities and never go to an office if they choose to go to an office, we have them around the country, But from a financial perspective they are all leased locations and so they don't weigh on our balance sheet like-owned real estate might for other companies. It gives us a lot of great flexibility. Well, we've got to talk about tax day April 18 this year. G give our viewers some advice on what are some of the most important things that they should be doing right now? Well, so tax tips are inherently so personal. But if I just think about broad advice we give to customers. First of all, this is the first year post pandemic. We expect that there could be a lot of surprises for people. Tax refunds being lower stimulus payments have have expired and so we tell people file early, do not expect last year's result and give yourself time to plan in case you get a surprise outcome. Where do taxpayers go wrong? I mean what are the most common mistakes that you see year after year that people make? I'm always surprised how many people still file a paper return. There are about 8% of all tax filers that mail paper to the i. r. s. You should never do that. You can e. File, I'm surprised how many people when they have a life change don't change their W. Four. They get to make a choice. Do you want more in your paycheck or more in your refund? That's all in your control. What about refunds? The I. R. S. Is way behind. In fact years behind in processing refunds. What do people have to do to get their money? So it's important understand that for most americans. That's not true. Those are very special cases where the I. R. S. Is still behind. So if you're a main street american today and you know you have a refund coming. The most important thing you can do is to file early to get in the queue because they process those first in first out. We also offer products a block like spruce where when you deposit your refund on the spruce you can get it up to five days early. So there are things you can do to get your money faster. One thing that's worrying many people this year is recession. What's your read on the economy and the business environment recession or not. I think that we are in a recession. I think we're seeing the customer struggle. We're seeing inflation rates be where they are, but I don't have any indication that this is going to be a long protracted recession. Well, what are you telling your customers, what should they be doing? Especially the small businesses and individuals who are strapped for cash as you just mentioned, what should they be doing to prepare for a tough year ahead? I know this will sound like a selfish answer, but we advise them so much to get expert help. When you're a small business owner, you don't have to do it all. Yourself. Focus on running your business and rely on somebody else to help you think through your financials in your tax planning strategy and what are you doing at H and R block to prepare yourself? We think about cost management to make sure that we're well positioned in case things turn further south. But again, When I sit here today thinking about early 20, we're very well positioned. We're growing. Again, we generate a lot of free cash flow. We deploy capital well, and so um, you know, I like where we are with some uncertain times. Let's talk a little bit about you, Jeff, there was a revolving door of Ceo at your company before you became the boss five years ago and you told me that boldness and speed have been the key to your success at transforming H and R. Block. What do you mean by that? What are you doing differently as a leader? The key to success in today's world is speed. And so we learned that that was a fear of decision making, A fear of risk and failure. And so focusing on culture, teaching people how to assess risk, Teaching people how to make decisions have really been key to us going faster and that speed is turning into results. I know there were a lot of skeptics when you came in as Ceo, here's another Ceo coming in and saying we're going to make a lot of changes. What did you have to do again? Thinking as a leader to win over your employees and to get them motivated. I think one of the things we did at the beginning was a very simple idea that I just called, what are we going to cherish and what are we going to change? I knew that things would have to be different because the results needed to be different. But I think it can be so easy to say everything before you was broken. I'm the new person. It's all going to be different moving forward. And what I tried to recognize was there are great things about block. We needed to cherish the focus on relationships on professional service on the customer centric city. But I also knew that we had to be more experimental. We had to take more risk. We had to go faster. And so that early message about cherish and change really set the cultural tone that today is alive and well and again, really helping us drive great results. So I understand that you've agreed to continue in the ceo job for another five years. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want people to be saying about H. And R. Block five years from now? This journey is not done. And I think as a leader, it's one of the most important things is to celebrate all we've accomplished and be incredibly restless about what lies ahead. We'll never finish transformation. And so for me, when I leave here at some point in the future, I want people to absolutely understand that block is back. It's better than ever. And it's a big bold company that you never imagined.

Dan Houston has saving advice for individuals, employers, and policymakers

Principal Financial CEO on how to grow enough money to retire

Principal CEO on how to grow enough money to retire

great to see you again. This must be a difficult time for your customers at Principal financial. First there was the pandemic and all the disruptions that came with that and now we have all the volatility in the financial markets that's impacting many people's investment portfolios. What are the main concerns you hear the most from your clients these days? Well, the first thing I would say is a lot of our, a lot of our customers, our retirement plan customers and they tend not to get nervous, they tend not to make changes. So that's sort of my going in bed. But I would tell you one of our biggest challenges with employers is attracting retaining talent and employee benefits is a great way to do that. What's number one on their mind is labor more importantly, and I think more specifically to your question individuals, they're sticking to it, they're sticking to their plan. And that's one of things we encourage people to do is to have a plan and to know that there's going to be volatility and in those choppy waters know that you have to dollar cost average into the marketplace. So we're seeing very, very few people moving out of the market or moving the money market, these tend to be very long term investments because in large part we're more managing retirement plan dollars that won't even be used for another 20 or 30 years. Well, one concern that we hear a lot these days that people are worried about their, if they're gonna have enough money to retire or are they going to outlive their retirement savings. And that's why we're seeing many people not retiring and continuing to work when people raised About their long term financial health, what are your financial advisors in you tell them to do? Yeah. The first thing is you need to take full advantage of any sort of employer workplace savings opportunity, right? Because there's a couple of reasons many times employers make profiteering contributions, they make matching contributions. But over the course of your and I working careers, you've got to save about 15% between the employer and your employee over the lifetime career of your salary to replace 85% of your post retirement, your pre retirement income. And so when you think about it in that context, and the average deferral today being about 7.5 to 8% plus an employer match of another two or three were still underfunding our retirement plans by about a third. And this is why I know that you have been very concerned over the years that we've known each other about the issue of Financial security and that's why you created and just recently launched the global financial inclusion index. Tell us what does it measure? And what were the key findings. What it measured was through 42 different countries. Adequacy of the system and allowing a person to have financial well being retirement and how inclusive is it? It was measured across three spectrums, what the government does, what broad based financial services does, and lastly, what the employer does, number one on the list, top to bottom Singapore, number two, the good old United States. But the bottom line is we know that the top 15 had something in common and those things were that they had sort of equal weightings around government, broad based financial services and employer models in place to allow people to achieve financial success in retirement. Well, even though the United States came in at the in second place, in that ranking, the overall inclusion still fell short in a number of categories. And you point them out in your report, people who work full time, have more access to financial support than people working part time. And then of course, the so called gig workers, even less women are more excluded than men. Blacks and Hispanics have a harder time to find financial products, have access to them and financial support. What do you think needs to be done to correct these disparities? There's a number of things we can do. We all need to recognize individual individual retirement accounts are accessible to all their ubiquitous. You can get it from the principal financial group or any number of organizations. It's the payroll deduction through employers. That makes this so powerful. And I would tell you, I think you'll continuously products emerge which encourage gig workers, individual workers to voluntarily contribute to an ira and I think when you sort of peel it back susie and try to understand what's at the core, cause in many of these instances they just don't have the discretionary income to safer retire. That gets us into a debate about financial literacy, not in high school, but in elementary school. To start these kids off on the right path principle is very focused in the middle schools and high schools on this topic of financial literacy. And yes, it does take a long time, but you have to start somewhere in order to do that. This is a huge problem to solve. I mean, what do you think it's take to develop better financial help across the american population, especially when you're talking about basic things like just financial literacy, it does start there, it is financial literacy. So you get there one or two ways you can get there through a voluntary methodology of education around literacy, leveraging, employer leveraging, the platforms, the ecosystem that we know of today in the US or you can shift to a government retirement schemes. Most countries including the U. S. Are not in a financial position to do that, This is a really serious issue and we have to set people up for success, and the best way to do that is when they're very young just entering the workforce. You have also said that it takes leadership. I spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill advocating on the part of workers and small to medium sized employers and you know, I will tell you that there's very little reluctance. There is a strong desire around government to to do the right thing and to do everything we can to improve coverage and adequacy for american workers and it is as we all know, a system built on the private and public sector and we have to keep building on that. Well. Principal Financial has been around for more than 100 and 40 years and over all those years, it's been helping people uh, satisfy their financial needs. How would you say that what you're doing today is different than your predecessor? Do you know? It's not, I think it's just like it was in the beginning 100 and 43 years ago our our founder Edward Temple stood up a company on the basis of there must be a better way at the time policies, financial products and protection policies were not reliable and some dishonesty. And so the idea of shifting it and selling our products and services through banks and through financial services companies that had stronger reputations that continues on today. We still, when we think about products and services, there must be a better way. And so generation after generation, decade after decade, what we're trying to do is to create cost, affordable, simple solutions that help self solve problems, life insurance, disability, lifetime income and retirement. It's not a secret that the demand for those products is very high and principle just as fortunate to be 143 years and uh, you know, evolving ourselves to making sure that we stay ahead of the curve and making sure that our customers benefit from all of these years of experience.

Cynt Marshall tells her leadership story as the first Black female CEO of an NBA basketball team and why Mark Cuban hired her.

How Cynthia Marshall eliminated the Dallas Mavericks’ toxic culture in 100 days

How Cynt Marshall eliminated the Mavericks’ toxic culture

since I'm so happy to meet you and to introduce you to our viewers. Four years ago you became the first black woman to hold the Ceo job for any NBA team. You were hired to run the Dallas Mavericks and it was none other than Mark Cuban who recruited you himself to fix the team's toxic culture. You didn't know Mark, you knew very little about basketball. Why did you take the job? I took it because I just felt that I was uniquely qualified to help him out. He needed a culture change and that was the mandate transformed the culture. He needed a focus on diversity equity and inclusion. And two women stopped me after I met with him for almost an hour and just pleaded with me to take the job. And so I at first said I did it for the sisterhood. But actually I did it for the sisterhood and a brotherhood. Let me back up a little bit. Why did Mark Cuban come to you, You didn't know him, he didn't really know you correctly, but someone gave him my name. And so we think we know we I think it was somebody pretty high up at A T. And T. Because I had actually left the effort at A T and T to get a T. And T on fortune's 100 best places to work list when the scandal hit my name came up as somebody who they told Mark, we think this person can help you. She's still in Dallas. We don't know if she's moved yet. We think she started her own company. But give her a call. We think she's the person who can help you out. And I got that call and you did help him out. And what a job you took out because the Dallas math, I had a long terrible record on sexual harassment, domestic violence and a whole bunch of other workplace misconduct issues. But you clean things up and in 90 days, how did you do that? We put together a 100 day plan that had about 200 initiatives. Uh, four distinct pieces. The first part was about uh modeling zero tolerance. So setting up the infrastructure uh, for zero tolerance things will happen, but we won't tolerate it. Uh, so we focused on compliance. Speak up culture, all that. Uh, then our second piece was the Mavs women's agenda. We have a playbook to elevate empower and educate women. I didn't have any women in permanent leaders positions when I joined the Dallas Mavericks. So clearly we had to do something about that very quickly. And then we had cultural transformation initiatives. That's our diversity equity and inclusion agenda around our customers, our reputation uh community philanthropy suppliers, all that. And then just basic operational effectiveness, performance reviews, market based compensation, all that. So we have these 200 initiatives that everybody rallied around, I diversified my leadership team within those 100 days. So we're now 50% women, 50% people of color at my executive leadership team table, which I think had a lot to do with just setting the right tone and we all rallied around it and we executed on it. You make it sound seamless and you know, very straightforward. But when I'm thinking of a basketball team with all of these egos, There must have been so many people who were resisting this whole program. I mean, how did you break through? Actually we, most of the people wanted change. Most of the people wanted a great place to work. I had one on one meetings with every single employee and I got to know them. And then I also got to know the people who needed to leave. I mean, some of the leaders needed to, uh, they needed to be walked to the door. I did have someone who told his team not to embrace the 100 day plan Because I would be gone in 90 days because it was just a pr stunt and I didn't know basketball and all that. Uh, and so we, we had to deal with that. That person is no longer with the mass. Uh, and then his team started to embrace. They wanted to embrace it, which is what I, you know, that's how I heard about it. They wanted a change. These people deserved a great place to work. You had a very successful career. You're 37 years at a T and T where you were chief diversity officer. So you probably knew everything. There was about leadership. But is there any way that this experience with the Dallas Mavericks stretched you as a leader and as a coach? Well, it actually did because I didn't know the business of basketball. I was a big basketball fan, but I didn't know the business of basketball that was different for me to be in an environment where I just I didn't know the subject matter at all and had to lead the people and and just rely on their expertise. But it showed me that I really good that I could trust people, I could trust their expertise. I didn't have to know at all, which I was used to, you know, knowing the subject matter and and it just showed me what great people we really do have. Your story is all the more amazing because you had a tough childhood, you had an abusive and violent father, you grew up in the housing projects of California, but you managed to somehow break away from all that. You got a college scholarship to Berkeley first job was a T and T. We know what happened there and climbing the corporate ladder. You write in your book, the chosen that you spent your life beating the odds. But it sounds like it was so much more than that, who mentored you, Who inspired you, my mother, my my totally inspired me and I tell people because of my mother, I actually think I had a good childhood. I had some bad things that happened, obviously some bad things that happened in my childhood, but my mother, she went to great extremes to make sure that we got a good education to make sure that we were involved in activities to make sure that we got a good foundation uh in scripture. I always joke about my mother putting two books in my hand and early age, a math book in one hand and a bible in the other and told me to keep my head in these two books and I would make it out and I guess that was out of poverty. Uh so I just credit my mother was giving me a really, really good foundation and keeping me very focused and giving me these four words to live by dream focus, pray and act what did it take for you to feel confident and comfortable with who you were in your whole background as you entered into this new phase of your career when I started, you know working at first of course I had situations where I had bosses to tell me to you know, take off my red shoes, take off my braids. I had braids when I first started working for a T and T and I had a boss told me to take them down because it was too ethnic and and it was she was well intentioned, she wanted me to look a certain part like other people looked and all that. But it finally got to a point, you know, like 1920 years in my career where I just I said I had to be me. It's too exhausting being someone else. And fortunately I had bosses, I had people like a Randall Stephenson and Ed Whittaker, I had people in my life of chuck smith, these mentors of mine, mostly men who made it ok for me to be me. How do you use this your life story as you mentor young men and women today, I share all of its authenticity is very big for me. That's one of my personal val, it's one of our values at the map. So our hashtag is do you uh so if I'm going to tell somebody they need to be themselves, is too exhausting being somebody else. Your employer wants, you, you have to bring your best self to work. I have to give them my best self. And I have to model that, and I try to model that by letting people know who I am when they first meet me. So if you have to summarize it, what type of leadership does it take to transform a culture? Oh, I love that question. I call it all in leadership. Leading with intent, leading with insight. Leading with inclusion and leading with inspiration. And so I do this speech called leading with heart and I talk about all of those areas and how you have to be very intentional about changing the culture. You have to have a plan. You have to be insightful about the difference between diversity and inclusion and equity and equality, insightful about who really is in your workplace and how do you serve them? You have to be very inclusive, not just focus on diversity but inclusion, making sure that you set up a culture where people really feel as if they belong, where you're really teaching people the rules and what to do uh in the environment, and then just being very inspirational, knowing what inspires you, and then bringing that into the workplace to keep the folks inspired to do better.

Robert Reffkin talks about how he can turn losses to profits at the real estate brokerage firm he founded and how civil rights leader Vernon Jordan inspired his career.

Compass CEO: “2023 will be the last year of the housing correction”

Robert Reffkin talks about how he can turn losses to profits at the real estate brokerage firm he founded & how civil rights leader Vernon Jordan inspired him.

Compass CEO: 2023 will be last year of housing correction

so great to meet you robert to talk about compass. You know, you've gotten a lot of attention for starting a real estate brokerage company from scratch and making it the go to brokerage for buyers and sellers from new york city to Los Angeles. You made news a year ago when you took compass public on the new york stock exchange and You earned evaluation of $7 billion 12 months have been tough the next 18 months. I fear that they can be tougher. What changed what happened? The real estate market in 2021 was a record year for agents in the overall industry. But policymakers started raising rates to bring down inflation. And what that did to mortgage rates is it brought us from an all time historical low in January to 20 year high in less than nine months, which really put the brakes on the real estate market. Alright, so on on that point, what's your turnaround plan? The turnaround plan is very clear. Uh it is bringing down our expenses along with the market, but our strategy is the same. We're still focused on hiring the best agents, 18% of the top 1000 agents of country or a compass. The company sells or leases the home on average, once a minute, we sell twice the, the average per agent and we have 30,000 agents in the country. And we, we as a company are building the best platform of tools, services and programs to help them grow their business and best serve their clients? The big question is, when are you an eternal profits? Yeah. So we made a commitment to our investors where we said on the last call that we're committed to being free casual positive next year, 2023, we feel very good about the progress in the path. And we're actually assuming the market is going to be worse than the average Of the analysts out there because we want to have a buffer just in case it's worse than people expect. It's clear that there were things that you had no control over policy makers, you know, raising interest rates, the inflation issues. But compass has just celebrated its ten-year anniversary and through that whole 10 years, you never turned a profit. Why is that? And so as a private company raised $1.5 billion dollars and all of those investors, they invested in the company with a mandate to focus on growth, in expanding the company over profit. That was the time of that period over the last year, the market really shifted to focus on profit overgrowth. And we're shifting with that market. Uh, and we're bringing down our expenses accordingly with the real estate market and we're pausing expansion so that we can create profit without having to expand and invest again and again again in new markets. One of the things that differentiated companies from a lot of other real estate firms is that you created this tech software platform, Do you think you got your money's worth? You spent almost a billion dollars to develop that. Would you have done that differently at Compass? We created the first con to close platform where a real estate agent can go from first contact, putting their client into a crm all the way through the buy and sell side process to their transaction management. Getting paid. There's no other place other than Compass where that can be done. We're very proud of that investment and you can see that the agents that use the platform the most grow their business and stay. Encompass the most. But do you think you got your money's worth for that $1 billion development. My mom has been an agent the majority of my life, she's an agent today at compass and I saw her move from firm to firm to firm, always hoping she would get the support and tools that she could realize her dreams as an entrepreneur build her business and best serve her clients. And so I created compass with the sole desire of how can we be best in the world and making agents better and agents are using over 700 tools in this country every single day. But no industry should have to use all these different tools, average 11 tools. We built it all in one place to make it easier for them to do their job. I understand that you gave an upbeat speech recently to thousands of your real estate agents in Atlanta and your message was personal emotional and you encourage them to embrace one of your entrepreneurial principles bounced back with passion and you guys standing ovation. Well, how do you bounce back? Well, I think there's mindset and actions on mindset, you have to know that there's opportunity everywhere around you and so regardless of the challenge, what's the good news and so, okay, it's a really difficult real estate market. Well, the good news is 18% of the top 1000 agents of country or a compass and historically the best agents always getting market share in a downturn. That's great. That's the good news. I give plenty of examples like that. Um, and as it comes to the actual company and our actions, like I said before, we're going to bring down our expense base, The real estate market will bounce back and is we keep our expense base at a moderate level. That will create a lot of opportunity for profit in the years to come. Well, let's talk a little bit about the housing market and pivot away from just compass. How long do you expect this housing correction to last? I think Next year, 20, will be the last year of the housing correction and I think we'll even see a rebound towards the end of next year. There's still buyers that are out there. They've just been sitting on the sidelines a little bit because there's just record volatility and mortgage rates and a lot of volatility in the stock market Robert. Let's talk a little bit about you. Some of the words you use to describe yourself, hardworking, perseverance, optimistic. Those characteristics have not only propelled compass, but also you in amazing ways compass broke into the Fortune 500 this year you're the first black founder on the list ever to make the list. And there are only six black Ceo on the Fortune 500 you're one of them. What did it take for you to achieve so much? And at such a young age we have eight compass on first principles. The first one is dream big. And so I think I've always been a big dreamer. I'm from Berkeley California. I moved to new york because it's the city of dreams where anything can happen. Uh and I remember when I was an intern during my first summer, I went to Columbia University and I saw who was the Ceo of American Express and he was one of the first black Ceos that was in the Fortune 500. And just seeing him in that role made me think I could accomplish more. Uh, it made me feel like more was possible. And so I think I've tried to do my best to dream big and stay positive uh and have a lot of role models like him who helped pave the way for me. Well growing up, you were raised by your mother and you say that she inspired and encouraged you. What was the most important lesson that you learned from her and how has that guided you? My mom is an entrepreneur, she's a real estate agent today, she's been an agent my entire life. The first half is a life insurance agent, the second half is a real estate agent. And so I think the best lesson I got from her is that no matter how many times you fail, you just got to get back up and I just saw through her that failure isn't a hard thing, it just makes you better and you just, and if you can keep trying and trying again, you'll eventually succeed. You worked in many places before you started your own business, Mckinsey Goldman Sachs Lazard and even when I worked at the White House and you say that you had many mentors along the way, you were always asking for their advice. One of those mentors was vernon Jordan who's famous for advising so many american presidents and he also was an investment banker at Lazard, which is one of the firms that you were working at, I'm sure you learned a lot from him, but what would you say is the best leadership advice that he ever gave you, it wasn't just the advice, it was the confidence. I think at that age when I was in my early twenties, I had this thing in my mind of, you know, I can't do this, I can't do that. And for one reason or another. And then I saw this six ft six powerful black leader who was on more fortune 500 boards than anyone in the history of the United States. And it became clear to me I can do whatever I want. Yeah. He walked in Martha King and came from the segregated south to advising Bill Clinton and working in the White House. Uh, and if he can do that, I can realize my dreams and he interests me to the White House fellows program. He told me to apply like his good friend Colin Powell. And that really changed the trajectory of my life.

Mark Costa sees other CEOs “very serious about climate change” and taking “aggressive actions to reduce their carbon footprint.”

Eastman CEO says sustainability is a “huge innovation opportunity”

Eastman CEO: sustainability is “huge innovation opportunity”

mark. It's great to see you two talk about Eastman company and all the things that's doing with climate change issues. It's interesting that the Eastman story goes back more than 100 years. You are actually part of Kodak. Tell us about the company's business back then and what it's doing now. Well, Eastman does have a really long history over 100 years and we're incredibly proud of it. We started making polymer for films and processing chemicals and over time dramatically diversified a wide range of products off of these core technology platforms where we're world leaders today, we make a variety of sustainable materials that touch everyday life, whether it's in appliances or electronics or cars or homes or additives and coatings or personal care. We're a very diverse company, but all centered on sustainability as our core. Well, you are a big believer in solving the plastic waste crisis and you're using what's called molecular recycling technology and I'm not sure I have this alright. But basically you're taking waste plastics, you're recycling them and you're turning them into a form of new plastics that can be reused. Tell us a little bit more how that works. We're really excited about our technology, which complements what happens today, which is mechanical recycling, where they just take clean bottles, wash them, chop them up and melt them, but they have limitations, you know, our quality on degradation. So we step in with our technology where we can use chemistry to unzip polymer back to building blocks purified and make the virgin polymer all over again. We can do it at a lower carbon footprint. So we're improving the climate and improving plastic waste and susie. It's really important when you think about this because a lot of people say just banned plastic sounds good. But the challenges plastics incredibly energy efficient. So if you want to switch to glass, that's four times the energy than a plastic bottle or two times for aluminum. So what we're doing is essential to really build a future for climate and plastic waste. And it's not just plastic bottles that you're doing. I understand it's all kinds of things, carpeting, building materials, shrink wrap, your recycling all that hard to recycle stuff. Right. Exactly. So mechanical recycling can only really use very clean feedstock because they're just washing it. When we unzip it, we can use all of what you said, the textiles carpet, fiber, you know, all kinds of packaging that's dirty. Uh and and give that all an infinite life. And what's important is what we do is like aluminum recycling. It's infinite. We can do it forever, even improving the quality, mechanical recycling that degrades over time. So, it's a perfect partnership that we try and create with them. So how would you describe the progress and contributions that Eastman has made so far? I'm incredibly proud of our team. How we've dealt with chaos that we're all going through from pandemics supply chain crisis and really developing our sustainable platforms or circular platform in particular. We now have three projects that we're developing. We have one that we completing in King's sport, one that we announced early this year with President Macron, that will be the largest billion dollar investment in France. Now a third one base loaded by France by Pepsi, that will be building somewhere here in the U. S. And when you put that together, it's $2 billion investment, $450 million of it. But it's a significant event that's change that will change the company and really prove to the world Circular economy recycling is scalable and can solve these problems. Probably you've been collaborating with the United Nations climate group was called Cop 27, it held summit recently. Is it making meaningful progress? I think it is. I think what was encouraging about the last meeting, even though there's been some criticism of it is I think they started to have some practical conversation, you know, the challenges of this are huge around climate that involves countries companies, consumers. But it also got a wake up call with the Ukraine war and the crisis they're now facing the energy to say this is a little more complicated making the transition and things like natural gas need to be part of that transition for a long period of time. But it's a complicated conversation that requires, you know, really understand the tradeoffs and the time it's going to take. How would you rate what Ceo and businesses are doing when it comes to climate action? I think we see great alignment with the brands that we work with, the peers in our industry, where everyone is very serious about climate and taking aggressive actions to improve their carbon footprint. I also think the circular economy and what we're doing there is a great example of collaboration. The brands are essential that uh and it really helps them not just get waste out of the environment, but dramatically lower their carbon footprint. So you see people like Pepsi Base holding our third plant, Procter and Gamble LVMH Loreal, Black and Decker, a wide range of customers that are signing up committing to these very aggressive sustainability goals. So we see great engagement and I think that's what's going to take to build this future. It's interesting that the former Ceo of Unilever recently told fortune that climate is no longer a peripheral issue, it's the absolute core of sharp business strategy. How do you respond to that? And how do you think most businesses feel about it? Do they agree or not just yet? I think most businesses agree. I know we do right at the center of our history is being innovation driven, but now it has this extreme, extreme sort of sustainability lens put on everything we do. You know, my team, I told them when I became Ceo innovate or die, um that's how you survive in this industry and now it's even more existential than that. I think those who center on sustainable materials and sustainable practices are going to exist and grow and thrive in the future. And frankly those who don't won't be around anymore. So I think we view it as core our moral purpose in our center of how we think about growth and success and value creation. Well, Mark you have and advocating a strategy of sustainable innovation over the past nine years, pretty much since you became Ceo and you said it's more than a business purpose. It's a moral purpose. Tell us what you mean by that, What is your thinking? I think that at the core of any successful company, you have to have a moral compass that engages and excites everyone every day for why they show up. They don't show up because shareholder value of the stock price is exciting, they show up because they want to make sure they're making an impact on the world. And I think where we're at and how we focused on really driving on the sustainability trends, especially in today's world, allows everyone to feel highly engaged. Now, enhancing the quality of life and material way is our mantra. It's our moral purpose. But underneath of that is improving the quality of products, improving our impact on the environment. And I'll tell you it's it's a great way to attract talent, get them excited and retain them. What motivated you to take Eastman in this direction? Well, for me, I saw the world evolving very quickly in the last decade, especially the last four years around how we impact the environment and still need to really improve the quality for many people around the world and how to do that is a huge opportunity. Most people in our industry think of it as a threat to their business, we viewed it as a huge innovation opportunity, you know, our industry frankly hasn't had that much innovation in the last couple of decades and this creates an entirely new innovation curve where we can come up with sustained material sustainable additives and make a huge impact on the world. Well, I understand that your leadership on this is also rubbing off on that your two sons are now considering to having careers that have to do with climate change. So how do you feel about that? I feel great. I mean I've always been an adventure sport addict and my kids have followed too, so we do a lot of mountain biking skiing, a lot of different water sports and they love that, but in that environment, whether you're in the mountains or the oceans, you can see the impact we're having on the environment and they certainly like to point it out and say, dad, you run a materials company, what are you doing to make the world a better place? And they've got very excited about. I can't tell you how many projects I've done with them, uh an entrepreneur classes and economics classes about products that they want to launch that will be more sustainable. So it's become a family business at this stage. Well, that's fantastic. Well, your leadership has been transformative and in fact, Eastman ranks unfortunate change the world list. These are companies that are making meaningful changes for the world. So when the day comes that you leave Eastman, what do you want people to describe as your leadership? I think right now we're at an incredible time in our industry, a time of challenge to innovate and solve huge environmental challenges and still improve everyone's quality of life. And I think the leadership I've been able to provide to build a company centered on that, to be innovation driven to focus on sustainable materials and really solve these challenges. It's a huge legacy and a game changing event for our industry and in the Foundation, I hope I've built a company, an employee base that is engaged, excited, diverse and inclusive, that's really able around the world to implement this strategy and really differentiate us from many in our industry.

Bill McDermott says that despite the slow economy he expects sales to nearly double in three years

ServiceNow CEO says a recession will not stop businesses from buying his tech solutions

ServiceNow CEO says a recession won't stop company's growth

Bill. So great to see you again and to talk about things that are going on at service now. Your company has been in business for almost 20 years and it's not exactly a household name for many of our viewers. You call service now, a leading digital workflow company, what does that mean? Can you simplify it for us? So much of corporate life is complex. We like to think of service now as a workflow automation platform company and we radically simplify the way business is conducted for enterprises all over the world from the way they give experiences to their employees and customers to the way that they manage digital transformation were the company that's at the front and center of that process. So what's the business problem that you solve for your service now customers, customers today as you know, susie, they need immediate value. Um they're under a lot of pressure. We all know the environment that they're operating in uh from you know, high inflation to tightening monetary policy to dislocated supply chains and even wars in europe. So they have to really invest in things that will give them an immediate return. And the magic of service now is we can invent procurement management systems, reorient supply chains literally give a vault where they can go, one place to get all their security needs met and we can do all of this on a single platform and the return on invested capital is stunning. I had one large manufacturer tell me that they're gonna take a billion in costs out of their procedures on service now and we had them up and running on the solution in less than 90 days it's pretty stunning. Well that seems to be resonating with your customers because there's been a lot of demand for your products. And when you look at your latest financial report we see double digit growth and revenues double digit growth in earnings, 98% of your customers renewed their software subscriptions. I mean that's all pretty amazing. And you raised the outlook for the rest of this year. Can you keep up this pace of growth? Given all of the troubling predictions that we hear about the economy? Well we're counting on it and you know we actually increased our subscription revenue forecast for the balance of the year. And the reason is with all the challenges in the global economy and you're absolutely right. Suzy. They are very serious and each day you read another tough headline around the macro but that's the very reason why the customers need service now. They need to do more with less. So in many cases they'll have less employees but the work didn't go away so you have to automate so you can get more productivity out of each asset that you have in the company. That type of thinking really resonated during the pandemic. Many businesses saw the value of digitizing and automating their processes and actually they accelerated their investments. But today with all this recession talk I just wonder when you meet with C. E. O. S or their chief technology officers, do you find that it's harder to make the same case for them to invest more given that interest rates are high and inflation is at a 41 year high and the forecast for a recession, it doesn't take more work on your part to convince them to invest. Now we had to reorient our whole company for ready to run business solutions that are tailored to industries and various personas like the C. I. O. Of the ceo that you mentioned And we have to have things come out of the box and go live in less than 90 days. So customers get immediate value from our systems and that's really our great differentiator because you're absolutely right. I call this era the era of great re prioritization. We went from uh kind of operating systems, databases and applications now. Two platforms and customers are gonna be super thoughtful about the platforms they bet on and any platform they bet on, it has to deliver results. That's why they like ours so much. Well you talk a lot about your expansion plans and you've been predicting for a while now That sales at service now will hit $16 billion 2026, which is only three years from now. That's also more than double where the revenues are right now. Do you have to do something different to hit those numbers? We're right on track and in fact this year, you know, we reiterated our guidance and actually raised our guidance for the full year. So we need to keep innovating. Um keep taking great care of our customers. All our numbers are driven through organic innovation. And the reason for that is we really believe that business simplification is the art form that we bring to the enterprise that no other company has been able to match. We're gonna keep it simple, keep executing our strategy, keep taking care of our customers and keep building the best team in the business. You know, Bill, you have a remarkable track record as a leader, your many years of Xerox at S. A. P. And also at service. Now tell us what defines your leadership. Why have you been so successful leading so many big businesses? Well, I've always believed that the true measure of a leader is not what you take from this world, it's what you give it. And I think that the bigger the organization, the more visible, in a certain sense you are and if enough people care because they know you care, you can move mountains. And I believe we've always had a dream big mentality and we've always tried to make make sure people were uh first and and always inspired to love the work that they are doing and understand the connection between the work they are doing and the problems they are solving for the customers that pay our salary and our highest calling is to make sure that they're super satisfied. But I've always understood that you can't make them super satisfied unless you have a highly inspired, knowledgeable, determined, resilient workforce that wants to win.

Roger Hochschild says A.I. “makes life easier” for his credit card business, customer service, fraud detection, marketing, and lending.

Discover Financial CEO says A.I. has been “really transformational”

Discover CEO says A.I. has been “really transformational”

roger we've seen artificial intelligence innovating and disrupting the way that we live and work and your company discover. Financial has a huge credit card business discover and diner's club and a digital bank. How are you using AI in your business? So credit card companies have been at the forefront of data and analytics since the nineties and you think about our business, everything is based on models, whether it's credit underwriting marketing, trying to identify fraudulent transactions. So AI represents a huge advancement in the ability to model and predict consumer behavior. So we're using AI broadly across virtually every aspect of our business and you have a lot of customer care call centers all around the country. How is AI impacted that part of your business? So AI is helping with chat and some of our functions that used to have to go to a call. And what that means is the calls that come to our representatives are actually the most challenging ones, the ones that people can't handle via chat. We also use AI for speech recognition so that we can route calls to the best representatives for that type of call. But also that so that we can help the representatives with the answers they need in any given situation when it comes to the customer service aspect, when somebody has to call into customer service. Studies show that most people would speaking to a real person rather than a bot, How does AI help you sort through that. So what we found is people are actually perfectly happy completing simple transactions may be making a payment with a bot enabled, you know, Ai representatives, but we also make it very easy to just hit zero and get to a live representative and we're using AI to route your call to the representative best able to answer, you know, why we think you're calling, you've been using artificial intelligence aI for the past five years in your business. How would you describe the impact of using AI over that time frame compared to the years when you didn't have a I you know, it's really been transformational because it makes every model better. So whether it's in fraud, being able to let more good transactions through, but catch more bad one, whether it's in credit where we can do a better job with underwriting and mine assignment, whether it's in marketing, where we can personalize offers just to you, all of those are areas where we're seeing huge benefits from AI. Well for all of the powerful things that Ai can accomplish, is there a downside? I think if it's used right there, isn't, it really just makes life easier. Um certainly in a highly regulated industry like ours, you've got to be very careful, especially if you're using AI to make lending decisions to make sure that you have no bias in that. But we've got some some really brilliant folks around predicting and explaining AI so that you can use it even in the most challenging lending situations, so roger when it comes to Ai youth and investment to AI Technology, what's next for, discover what more do you want to do with AI? So just more and more, you know, part of it is bringing in more people into our data and analytics area. We just launched a new program in downtown Chicago, you know, continuing to migrate our data to the cloud and finding more and more areas where we can bring the predictive power of AI to create business value for us and a better experience for our customers.

Dave Kimbell says a partnership with Target and a more diverse offering are driving sales momentum.

Ulta Beauty CEO “optimistic” about holiday sales despite turbulent economy

Ulta CEO “optimistic” about holiday sales despite economy

dave so great to meet you and to talk about Ulta beauty and you know, we've seen that your company has strong business results on black friday. And then again on cyber monday to kick off the holiday shopping season. Well now we are in peak season. How's business going right now? You're right. We're right in the midst of the holiday season, our biggest time of the year. And as we shared on our recent earnings call, we're feeling really good about the momentum that we see as we enter into this holiday season. Conf consumers have always treated holidays as a time to both gift and glam. And the beauty category plays an important role in that gifting for sure, for loved ones. And we're seeing strong adoption and engagement across our portfolio and then glamping in this year, more than ever as people are out and about and enjoying holiday parties and other events with friends and family. So we're encouraged by the results. We have a lot of ground still to cover but optimistic about the consumer engagement that we're seeing. We all know that the holidays are the most important time for retailers, including for all to but it's also a time right now, that's for cautious spending. I mean, what's your take on consumer attitudes about spending money on whether it's a beauty or fragrances when it comes to presence. No doubt that this is a disrupted time consumers are dealing with a lot as we come out of the pandemic and then face face high level and inflation and other pressures in the world around us. But what we know about beauty is it's resilient and it's important to our consumers lives. It's an emotional category that makes it one that is able to navigate disruption. And we're seeing that now and we feel both through the holiday and as we look in 2023 the core beauty category will continue to be healthy. Tell us about the partnership between alta and Target. You've opened nearly 350 alta shops and shops stores inside of Target. How's business going with this concept? Well, Target has, it's been an exceptional partner and what we built is really differentiated. It isn't just taking an all time, put it in a target. It's creating a customized, unique, differentiated experience that allows the target shopper and the older beauty of targeting consumer to discover products in ways that they never have before. It's off to a great start. We're about a year into it. We're expanding more next year. Uh and our guests are really responding well, so we're excited about it and feel like it's a great way to further disk And evolve the beauty category and and deliver a great experience for our guests. What has surprised you about this partnership? Well, it is really powerful. Target has 30 million people that walked through a target every single week. And so gave us a great opportunity to reach a whole new audience, but also at the same time serve our existing guest in in an in a new and incremental way and so far, what we're seeing is they're really responding face, They're shopping across every category. They're discovering new products to add to their baskets and and so far we're really pleased with how it's working together. Well, it sounds like your strategies are working when it comes to the financial results at all to the company reported just recently, double-digit sales and earnings. And you told investors that you're expecting to increase revenues as much as 8% by the end of this year. Does that momentum carry over into the new year? Well, we're very optimistic about the long-term future of of all the beauty and as we look into 2023 there is for sure, a high level of uncertainty but we're really confident in our business model and the experience that we deliver every day and the power of of our team and so what we shared is we do believe there's going to be growth ahead of us. We believe it will moderate somewhat from the from the strong growth we saw this year, but we we believe will will settle into what we identified a little while ago as our long term growth algorithm of 3 to 5%. I'm sure you see all the forecasts about a recession for next year. How could a recession impact these plans that you're talking about your growth trajectory. I've been working in this category for a long time and I guess I could say there's more uncertainty as we look into 2023 than any year that I've experienced just given everything that the consumer has been facing these last couple of years. But what we do know is the category is entering into 2023 and a position of strength. There's a deeper connection between beauty and wellness and self care that we think serves well. And we see consumers typically see beauty as important to their emotional wellness as well as just an affordable luxury. So yes, we're watching, we're thinking carefully about how to best manage through an uncertain environment, but we optimism that the category will be able to navigate it. Well, Dave your predecessor mary Dillon recruited you eight years ago to be Delta's Chief marketing Officer. And then you moved on to be chief merchandizing officer and then you were promoted to president. And together you two transformed alta into this powerful growth company. Well now you're the ceo what are your plans to put your stamp on the company? I will say I learned so much from mary in her time here and my career working with mary and at at multiple different places And and so what that ultimately comes down to me is this idea of leading with heart leading with care and compassion and then surrounding that with a clear focus on delivering for our guest, strong teamwork, bold action and so as I look forward and think about the stamp that I want to put on our company, It's continuing strong leadership. But having our team reflect on alta as just a great place to work and one that they feel valued, respected and excited to come to work every day and I feel like I can keep doing that our business results will deliver. You've also made diversity and inclusion a top priority at all. So I understand that you've increased spending for Black led beauty brands, latin brands and supporting entrepreneurs of color. What are your goals? I'd start by saying That inclusivity is important for every every company I would argue. But it's particularly important in the beauty category because beauty is fundamentally about self expression about how each individual chooses to bring themselves to life to the world around them. And if you think through that lens that means it has to be inherently inclusive because every individual is unique and how and how they choose to express themselves. We make commitments this year, spending $50 million dollars across the four key pillars. One is just amplifying uh diverse voices, underrepresented voices through all of our marketing and communication efforts. And we've done a lot of that too is our assortment. We've doubled more than double the number of black owned brands. We're bringing in latin X founder asian american founders to make sure our assortment is representative of the of our consumers. Third is the experience that we deliver in stores, so we've invested more in training our associates to sure they're ready and fourth is our team and make sure that our team represents the world around us. And I'm pleased that our company is over 47% people of color. So we have a really good, really good foundation of diversity and it's about expressing that to the world and that's that's our mission and our vision. And you also brought in Tracy, Ellis, the actress and entrepreneur as altars diversity and inclusion advisor. What did she say? And what did she do? And what did it accomplish? Well, she's been a great partner. She has a brand with us pattern that's been an exceptional partner on that. But then as as a lead uh partner for us in our D and I efforts, she was there to really just help help us think bigger and bolder and to be disruptive to bring a different voice in as a brand founder and certainly an influencer in so many ways. So she's really been there to challenge us, but more importantly to partner with us. And I just, I'm so grateful to have her her voice and her experience on our side and uh, and really have had a great experience with her. So how would you describe how diversity and inclusion looks like in alta, after a year of making all of these moves are marketing or communication through what we call our muse program has has come to light in new and exciting ways, both in store and outside of stores and our team. Our team is reflective, even more reflective of the world around them and the focus on the training and the top of mind connection that that we have in making sure that we're delivering experience that's reflective of our values I know is showing up. I see it every time I'm in our stores and so I'm really proud of what we're doing, but I know there's more work to do and and I personally lead this effort and I'm focused on making sure that we drive this well into our future.

Says Jennifer Rumsey: “I’m the right person for the job.”

 Cummins's first female CEO is leading the way to net zero

Jen thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on your new job. It's been three months now since you became ceo of comments and you're also the first woman to leave this 100 year old company. And even though cummins has been around for many, many years, it may not be a familiar name to many of our viewers. So tell us exactly what does cummins do. We got our start and diesel engines uh, and providing diesel engines. I like to describe what cummins does as serving some of the world's most demanding and economically vital applications. While our roots are in diesel, we provide a range of power solutions today that are powering many applications. We all rely on for our day to day life, whether it's trucks that are moving goods across the country to serve all of us. It's busses that are taking our kids to school or many of us around cities, construction and agriculture equipment or power generation. Many of us rely on comments and the power solutions that cummins provides to serve our everyday well. Ever since you became Ceo, you've been very clear on your goals. You want to steer comments towards cleaner alternatives to those diesel engines you were talking about and you want to reduce carbon emissions at all of your operations and facilities by the year 2050 you call the plan Destination Zero. Tell us how you plan to get there. It's an exciting and challenging time. Climate change is a real issue and cummins believes that we play an important role in addressing the challenge and growing our business as we do it. Destination zero is our strategy to Dick carbonized our industry. Um and we believe that to do that we need to start today by reducing CO two of engine based solutions. While in parallel we're accelerating and advancing solutions like battery electric and fuel cell electric powertrains that can get us all the way to zero. So how do you rate the company's progress so far? Are you on track to hit that goal of zero? Yeah. The work that we're doing right now towards our destination and zero strategy. We're investing a range of solutions that we think will be required in. And you see that and many of the announcements that we're talking about today are fuel agnostic platforms. Our investment in battery electric solutions, fuel cell solutions. Those will all be key to meeting that destination zero strategy and our goal of getting to zero. And we have a long history of doing this susie. In the last 20 years, our innovation not only has grown our businesses resulted in more than a 90% reduction in criteria pollutants from the diesel engine and we've been improving CO two for our customers through fuel efficiency improve in particular in the last 10 years with our first environmental sustainability plan. So I'm quite confident in the work that we have ahead for us tell us about this new hydrogen combustion engine that Cummins is developing and maybe some of the other products that you're working on to advance your decarbonization plan. One of the key innovations that we've announced this year is what we call a fuel agnostic platform. Our customers want to de carbonized and they're running a business. So the cost of these solutions is important. And and by introducing this fuel agnostic engine platform that can move from diesel to other fuels like renewable natural gas or hydrogen engines, they can begin to decarbonization their their fleet, their equipment in a way that makes the most cost sense to them as well. I understand that you were a huge a quarter of the climate change bill that was signed into law not long ago. How will that help you and comments to innovate all of these new technologies that you're talking about and also to reach your climate goals in week one as Ceo, I did have the opportunity to participate in an event with President biden uh speaking in support of the climate change provisions in the inflation reduction act. And we think that there's some key provisions here that will start to drive adoption of these new technologies. So tax credits for customers that are purchasing these low and zero carbon technologies that frankly are just too expensive today otherwise for them to start to adopt and to create that certainty for us that we can launch those and start to scale manufacturing of those solutions And then on the infrastructure side as well, tax credits and incentives to build out a charging infrastructure and a hydrogen infrastructure is critical. Well let's pivot and talk a little bit about the economy because that may impact a lot of these big plans that you have for comments. You've been optimistic about the outlook, you reported strong financial results recently, record earnings and revenues and you told investors that you expect this trend to continue through the end of this year. But to what extent are you concerned about the slowing economy not only here in the U. S. But around the globe that could disrupt your growth plans? Certainly these economic indicators with higher inflation and and and interest rates growing up are concerning the underlying demand is still very solid for us right now because customers have a lot of pent up demand. They've been using this equipment really hard for the last 18 months and two years and have not been able to replace equipment at the rate that they would want to. So we continue to see strong orders in U. S. Trucking, we have a strong backlog and our power generation business. Um and we're watching these indicators for potential softening as we go into next year but right now that that outlook remains uh solid. What are you doing to prepare for a possible recession every week? We hear about new predictions. A recent KPMG poll of ce Found that 91% of them believe a recession will hit the US economy in the next 12 months if they're right. What are you doing now to prepare for that? We are always thinking about what are the actions that we need to take to to scale back to reduce overtime to prioritize our investments to use downturns as as opportunities to strengthen the efficiency and effectiveness of our company. Um and we'll be prepared to do that as needed. All right, so let's talk a little bit more about you. You made news when you were ranked on Fortune's latest list of the most powerful women in business and you also have the distinction of being one of the few women running a Fortune 500 company who has a background in technology and engineering. You've got your degree from M. I. T. How has your engineering background and your many leadership roles? That comments really prepared you to lead the company? Yeah, well certainly I'm very honored and proud to be the first woman ceo at comments. But what makes me feel really good susie is that I'm the ceo that comments for this time because I'm the right person for the job and that background in engineering as well as business experience really positions me well as the company navigates this decarbonization change and what that means for our industry uh, and for our own business. Um and so you know that that focus that I've had in my career of really leveraging my technical experience, passion for building strong teams and then delivering results makes me really excited about what's ahead for comments. You told investors when you became a Ceo, that your predecessor Tom Linebarger was one of the most significant influences in your career and when it comes to leadership, in fact you described him as your coach, is there anyone special leadership lesson he taught you? And that has guided you Tom has been an amazing leader for comments. He's invested a lot in my own development. The big impact that he's had on me is helping me see what I could become, the reality is for women. Uh, sometimes they don't believe they can do certain things because when you look around, you don't see others that look like you and it can question if you belong. And I'm very fortunate to come um from a one a home, we had a strong role model in my mother for work ethic and determination and I had to really influential people in my career, coming tom being one of them and jOHn Waller, former Ceo or Chief Technical Officer. The other that helped me see my potential and invested in me to reach it. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about investing in diverse talent and really, um paying that forward to others because there's so much talent out there, if we can unlock it, we can really do great things well. Exactly. And you know, and now it's really your turn to do just that because you can bring along a whole new generation of female leaders, especially ones who like you have a scientific background, What are you doing in this regard to bring along women at comments and what leadership lessons are you teaching them just by being in this role. It it has motivated women and cummins. I know many of them have talked to me and and I have always appreciated the opportunity to, to mentor and coach and to give advice to other women inside the company and also outside the company. For example example, last week we celebrated international day of the girl and come and focus on women in stem. We brought a number of high school youth from our community into one of our plants and I spent time talking to them about the opportunities in stem because it's also about creating a pipeline of talent. We need more diverse talent that pursue stem education and careers and then we need to invest and help them achieve their potential um once they arrive

Steve Cahillane says the three-way split is from "a position of strength."

Kellogg's CEO: Now is the right time to break up the company

steve so great to see you again to talk about Kellogg and the big announcement that you made that you're splitting the company into three independent public companies, why did you decide to do this? You know this is the right time for us to take the next step in our transformational journey. And it started with the Pringles acquisition which made us a much more snacking oriented company and we see the best possible future for us as a global snacking company spinning off the north american serial business. So they can be singularly focused on how to win north in north american cereal. And then the plant based business set up to dedicate themselves solely to the plant based opportunity. So it's about focus and it's about setting these companies up to be more successful. What about the timing? Why did you decide to do this now? Was there some change in the marketplace that made you feel like we've got to do this now? Well we wanted to do this from a position of strength and the last time you and I talked, we were in the beginning of our turnaround journey and we have successfully turned the business around where we're growing our top line uh in a very meaningful way. So doing this from a position of strength sets us up for the next generation of growth. So the three new food businesses are global snacking which you just mentioned that's Pringles and pop tarts, North american cereal corn flakes, Froot loops of special K and the plant based food operations known by the Morningstar farms brand, what would you say these three companies are going to look like And let's say 34 years from now, If you think about global snacking company, think about one of the fastest growing, most international snacking companies out there. That's what that looks like. Think about north american cereal companies, think about a very high market share in a very stable business with iconic brands and you think about Plant Co, thinking about the Pioneer in a brand new space in a very fast growing environment. So three terrific businesses and all very different. Do you think that they will continue as stand alone companies or will they be bought up sold? I mean they are attractive acquisition targets. My expectation is they will remain independent. The global snacking business is a very large business that will become probably an acquirer in its own right. The global or the excuse me, the north american cereal company the same, that could be an acquirer of other similar brands and the plant business that could be acquired even before we spin it off, we're looking at other strategic alternatives for that. At the same time, we're contemplating spinning it off, you're going to be heading up the snacking business, You'll be ceo of that business is an $11 billion company. What are you picturing there in terms of the merger acquisitions will be, how much bigger will it get? It will get substantially bigger. We've got huge opportunities to take pop tarts cheez it and some of our other brands outside the United States, they should be global brands and they will be global brands. We also will become an acquirer of other snacking businesses over time. And so it's definitely an organic opportunity, but also an opportunity to grow through acquisition is clearly part of the strategy. Well, the big question, a lot of people are asking what happens to the Kellogg's name? I mean it's been around for 116 years, It's iconic. The most important thing to remember is the Kellogg name will continue to adorn cereal boxes and other food items around the world in perpetuity, that does not change the names of the companies will need to change obviously because there'll be three come, whereas before they were one and we're going through that process of deciding what those names are, as we speak. I understand that you've been getting suggestions from your employees, can you share any of the ideas that they've been giving to you? Well, I don't want to share necessarily some of the ideas, but I can tell you that they are absolutely inspiring. We've got an incredibly creative group of employees and the one thing that they've said is they want to be able to feel Mr Kellogg's name in the three companies and that's Part of our goal, make sure that Mr Kellogg and his legacy are felt through the names of these three companies, let's turn to talking about the economy and how the consumers feel about it as you know everyone is complaining about their expensive grocery bills. What's your take on household budgets and how people feel about spending so much more money on their food. Well, there's no question that we've not we've not seen inflation like this for many decades and we see it continuing into 2023. There's no question about that. And at the same time we see household budgets under more strain than they've been because the fiscal stimulus is obviously you know, run its course and so 2023 I think will be a challenging year. We see some positives in the back half of 2023 Kellogg has said that its charge retailers 14% more for its food items. And You've actually been very transparent about price increases and you said that it's going to continue to go up. Can you tell us for how much longer and how much higher? Well I think into 2023 for sure. And I think in the close to the double digits, maybe the low teens is what we're seeing in 2023 before it starts to abate. We haven't passed along all of our input cost inflation because we're still driving productivity because keeping our products and our brands affordable for households is our number one priority. Well are you surprised that because many consumers have been okay about paying higher prices for their favorite snacks and cereals so far so far? Yeah we we've been pleasantly surprised as I said we're working as hard as we can not to raise prices to the extent that we're seeing cost inflation happen. But right now you know the resilience of the consumer has been one of the surprising things but for us you know, we're also a fairly recession resistant type of product. You know people need to eat obviously and they want to turn to brands that they trust brands that they love. But we are mindful that the household budgets are under a tremendous amount of strain steve. I want to talk to you a little bit about leadership. You've been Ceo of Kellogg for five years now. What was it like for you to announce this historic split? It was big news. It was tremendous news. It was the biggest news in our company's history really since Mr Kellogg started the company. So It's it's something that none of us took lightly to be sure. And I said it's one of the most difficult decisions I've made. It wasn't a hard decision necessarily and that may seem like semantics but it was the right decision for the business which made it, you know, not a hard decision but it was difficult because when you're changing something that's 116 years old. It's not it's not necessarily something as I said you take lightly but you know our our reaction from our employees was resoundingly positive. So what do you think you need to do as the leader to successfully lead through all of this? What do you need to do to mode and inspire your employees? So they follow your lead. We have to keep painting a very bright picture of what the future can look like. We have to keep reminding people that we're doing this from a position of strength. We decided to do this. This was not something that was done to us and so therefore keeping people inspired about creating a better tomorrow for our company for themselves, for our future is what will inspire you know us to keep, you know keep going forward together. You know steve, you've been dealing with a lot of tough things, there was a pandemic record, high inflation supply chain bottlenecks, lots of shortages. What would you say has been the biggest lead come from all those experiences for you? I'd say one of the biggest lessons has been the importance of agility and and I mean that in terms of really being able to move fast when you have a big company like ours, people like to talk about agility, but when you have a pandemic, it's never happened before. You have to tear up your business plan that took six months to create and redo it in a matter of days, you have a war in europe and all of a sudden we lost the fastest growing business in our european portfolio. In one day we had to tear up the business plan and literally rewrite it in days. And companies our size, you know, they're just not known for doing that. So building that muscle to be able to actually act like a company that is a fraction of our size was so incredibly important and we were able to do it.

Jim Fitterling says Dow’s diverse, innovative workforce is both motivated by and driving ESG success.

Dow CEO on what it takes to hit Net Zero

Jim thank you so much for joining us to talk about your company down incorporated. You've been recognized for your leadership on sustainability and for all the progress you've made on diversity inclusion. And I'd like to get your thoughts on both of them. Let's start with sustainability. You have set a goal of net zero by 2050. How would you describe your progress so far? Well, we made a 15% reduction in our scope. One and two emissions from 2005 to 2020 at the time that we grew the business 20% and we've got a target for another 15% by 2030. And we're well on our way, we're investing a little over a billion dollars a year and we're going through all of our core assets and making new investments to have lower C. 02 footprints. Taking sites completely to zero scope one and two emissions. And it's a range of technologies, hydrogen and carbon capture in the near term. As far as small modular nuclear reactors in the long term. Well, it sounds like you've made really a lot of progress, you know, we hear from so many fortune 500 companies that are setting targets and goals for 2050. But what will it realistically take to hit zero? That's 27 years away. What have you learned in this whole process? We have to have a very disciplined consistent investment in capital. It's all for us. We're an energy intensive industry. So it's all about capital and new technologies and behind our 2050 goal our projects at every site. So I can show you the curve and show you the projects that lead to those reductions. Um, so that I feel comfortable with. I think we will get there. We're working hard on scope three emissions scope three requires us to go upstream. Our raw material suppliers are logistics providers. Those are the biggest buckets of scope, three emissions and the good news is all of them have measurements and targets. I mean 90, of them have data and 80% of them have set a target. So we're I feel encouraged by that. I think we're gonna make real progress. We're gonna need good policies to support it. And in the United States on top of what we just did with the inflation reduction act to support those technologies. We need to get to a price on carbon not not attacks but a price on carbon that incentivizes that investment to go faster. So you find this inflation reduction act that was just passed recently. The so called climate change act is going to help you to get to net definitely I mean it will continue to grow the amount of alternative energy power that's out there both in the short term with wind and solar in the long term with advanced nuclear small modular reactors. Um it will also help build the hydrogen and carbon capture hubs that we need. It will build the fuel for those small modular reactors that we need to make that happen. And we have some sites in the United States where one small modular reactor could take the entire site to net zero. So I think they're they're really spot on. Well, half your businesses and plastics which depend on fossil fuels. So right there, that's a challenge for you at how do you balance the need to grow your business and make profits for dow and at the same time, do the right thing so that you have a positive impact on the environment. Sure. I think you have to look at two things on plastics. They've grown substantially because they're very sustainable product. So if you look at their carbon footprint versus paper, glass, aluminum, uh, any other metal, they're the lowest. And that's why they've grown so fast. They're lightweight. They're easy to transport. Now. We have to work on recyclable itty, which is both an an industry challenge as well as the government challenge on being able to collect more and recycle more. The good news is consumers want it. We make products today that have as much as 70% post consumer recycled material in them. And consumer goods forum across the board have targets of 30% post consumer recycled material by 2030. So there's demand there for recycled plastics, I think it will continue to grow. So I understand that you have a new program at doubts called transform the way to collect and recycle plastics? Like you've just been talking about? Do you think that this will solve the problem and get you pretty much there or are you going to have to come up with other technologies? I think we'll have to continue to do more. We set the first target at a million metric tons per year. We called it to stop the waste target. And that idea at the time was, you know, we need to take care of our fair share of the waste that's in the environment. We're very close to being able to meet that target. There's a lot of work that goes on in food packaging, on design. Being able to design it for recycle. There are some very great food packages out there that are very complex structures today that are hard to recycle. So one of our goals internally is that 100% of everything we sell packaging customer has the ability to be recycled. You've said that to get breakthroughs on these big issues, you need talent, diverse talent and you've done a lot to diversify the workforce. What's the most important thing? If you had a single one thing, what's the most important thing you did to get the changes that you wanted, having the goals and having the commitment to achieve these sustainability goals as a fantastic hiring tool, young people coming out of college or coming from any walk of life into our business really are motivated by the purpose that that gives the company and then when they come in they've got to go to work on those projects. They've got to be able to see, I'm working on something and I have the data to show that I'm making an impact. Secondarily, we've got to create the right environment to invite people into our company. This is a very male dominated and white male dominated industry for years. So creating a more inclusive environment, which is the main job of leaders, is Set the strategy, set the goals, create the right environment and then get out of people's way and let them do their work well. The numbers show the data show that you are making progress on this. 30% of the leadership team is women and us ethnic minorities, 70% of the Dow's independent directors on your board are women or minorities. And Dow has achieved gender pay equity, which is fantastic. How do you feel about your track record and what more do you want to do? I feel good where there's more work to do. We need better representation at all levels of the company. We need more women in manufacturing. And a goal of mine is most of us that went into the industry got an opportunity that became great for our families. You know, it allowed us to make a living, but not just that, you know, pass down wealth to the next generation. We're trying to do that for parts of the population that have never had that opportunity And if we can do that, I think that's gonna be a big contribution towards closing social inequities and having a more sustainable, not just workforce, but a more sustainable community gym you've been working at for 38 years, you started straight out of college to work for the company and it was a very different company back then culturally. How would you describe the impact of having a diverse workforce today compared to back then? And also what kind of impact does it have on the business? Yeah, it's been a big transformation that was always a very international company. We used to joke join Dallas see the world. Um and today some of that is still true, but we didn't reflect the communities that we were in and we didn't necessarily reflect our customers and the people we matched up with. And I would say today we're closer much closer to being able to do that. The basic premise behind it is happy, happy employees, happy customers. And we want the environment to be one where we have an easy time hiring, we give people a chance for advancement, which is good not only for them, but for their families. Uh we create a better environment in the community. We live our values and that translates into the market share at the customers, We get more business with certain customers and it translates into financial value. Our employees are as happy as they've ever been and satisfaction surveys with their experience And um our customer experience levels are as high as they've ever been. And our attrition rate in the last two years through the pandemic is 4%. So I think we've got the right recipe. We just need to continue to make progress on these, these metrics. So I understand dow is celebrating its 125th anniversary and for four of those years you've been the Ceo. So you're part of that history. When people look back at your chapter in the history, what do you want them to describe as your legacy to do? You know when I came in, I said to the board when I was in the process of interviewing for Ceo, we put together an ambition which was to be the most innovative customer centric, inclusive and sustainable material science company in the world. So I wanted to be best in class in all four of those areas and the best investment in the material space. And I think we're well on track to do that. I'd like to be able to look back and say we delivered that goal

Michel Doukeris says beer is "very resilient" and "affordable."

No Recession Worries for AB InBev CEO

Michelle thank you so much for joining us to talk about Anheuser Busch inbev you are now running the largest beer company in the world. It's been about a year now since you became Ceo of the company. And very early on in your new job, you announced a new global purpose. We dream big to create a future with more cheers. I got to say this doesn't sound like the typical corporate statement of purpose. What's your message? What do you want to get across to people? It doesn't sound very corporate but sounds a B. I because we are known by dreaming big and it's incredible to think that the future more cheers is really correlated to our culture to our industry and brings a lot of what we do every day, each and every employee uh and cuts across all segments that we tackle is not only about beer because the future of more cheers is more inclusive, is more equitable, is where nature that we work with uh is in good, healthy and is in good pace and we really like the idea of bringing this as the North star to the entire company. And my first thing as Ceo, Well in your 1st 100 days as Ceo, you visited many of your operations all around the world. You talked to hundreds of your employees. What did you learn from those conversations, couple of common themes they came across. One is people really like our culture, the company that we are and the products that we represent. People love beer. People love the dynamic environment in which we have as a company. Uh there was this view that our purpose, we had the purpose before that helped us for a long time but was updated so people really want to have something that was more inspiring and easy to share with everybody. There was uh a need to refrain a little bit of the objectives and the way forward in the company called this like reimagining what a beer company can be and we put in place new purpose, new strategy, a very clear idea of moving from buying companies and inorganic strategy to a more organic strategy growing brands, growing businesses and so far we are in the execution mode now happy in the execution mode. Well as you say, you're much more into growing brands building the company as opposed to buying other companies and the success of a your company is to come up with products that are very popular with the public. What is the newest product that you're coming out with that you think is gonna be the next big hit in the United States. One product that we have and people love is very new is in a way Michelob Ultra as a franchise is well known by people but you have for example, Michelob Ultra pure Gold, which is an organic version of Nicola Balter and it's growing very fast. People love it. This is a really difficult time to be growing your business, your new ceo you've got lots of ideas, the US economy, the global economy is all very weak right now dealing with inflation and a lot of other financial issues. What does it take to succeed in these difficult times? People talk a lot about these things that's in a tenure of a ceo you should see right, Which is an economic crisis, cycle of growth, a recession, a social disruption in the first year. We check all the boxes so you need to have your long term plans. You need to have clarity on what you want to achieve but a lot of flexibility to adapt to the circumstances. And I think that people are realizing some are not, but today the cycles are much faster. You need to adapt much faster. You no longer have time to learn everything you need to learn as much as you can and then act if the experts are right, we're going to see a recession worldwide in 2023. Well, how are you preparing? How are you saying to be flexible in the face of a real recession? So number one, controlling what you can control. Number two, I think that we are fortunate to be in a category that's very resilient and the reason why beer is so resilient is in a way is affordable as a category. So when people don't travel, they still needing friends and drinking beer and we have products that go from premium products to more affordable products so we can appeal to everyone. Well speaking of prices, you have raised prices on many of your beer and other beverage brands and It seems to be consumers are still buying it. Do you think that that you can sustain that demand going into the new year into 2023 prices of beer are leg inflation so far because of what I said, consumption remains solid. Beer is growing globally is gaining what it called sheriff throat uh and has to do with what we said beer is very resilient. Beer is present in several different occasions globally. Has been premium izing as an affordable luxury. So it's very easy for you to trade up in beer from the mainstream to the previous segment because a matter of cents not thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars and we keep looking at our revenue strategy in a way that we can keep the category healthy and we can keep interacting for consumers because we want them to be with us for the longer run. You sound pretty optimistic at a time when so many business leaders are worried about all of the uncertainties. Is there any concerns that you have? What's on the top of your worry list. So the fact that I look not concerned and look optimistic, it doesn't mean that I'm not concerned. We think that I can see managing control but I think at the same time the background that I have where I grew up, the places that I live in, they give me some visibility on all these impacts from inflation, supply chain disruptions, social instability, economic differences in geopolitical tensions. And I think that uh I kind of try to understand all of that, but keep my focus on our strategy on our execution in motivate and engage our partners and our team in optimistic way because I think that time and at the end of the day, I'm very optimistic about where we are going to. And of course on the way there is always some turbulence. Well, Michelle, let's talk a little bit about you. You grew up in brazil, your mother, Brazilian, your father greek and you've lived all around the world in europe china latin America the US just about everywhere. How has that influenced your thinking as a ceo I had the privilege of living in many different places. Grew up on a family that was multicultural in itself and because you live in different places, you learn different cultures, different business methods. Uh you can read fastest sometimes what happens around you and you continue to have contacts across the globe which in a company that's truly globally like us, we have a very dire reverse footprint. This ends up being a big help for you when you need to read things fast and build your plans and be able to adapt for different circumstances. You spend most of your career at a b. M 26 years and you've worked in almost every possible country that the company does business, at what point did you look at yourself and I'd like to be the ceo short answer. I think it was never I always focused on doing my job, learning from people and creating value to the company and to the stakeholders that we have and happened that I had the opportunity to go everywhere and I ended up on this great opportunity to be leading the company, which I consider to be a privilege. You interact with so many american ceo. I'm just wondering how is the way you lead different than your american counterparts? It's difficult to say because leadership is something that is very different place to place people to people. If I would say that there is like one difference maybe on my approach is that I tend to look at things from a more global standpoint and more empathetic to the differences that exist. And this is being helpful to me because when you get to know people the way that they think usually you can bond faster, you can act faster and you can find mutual understanding much faster

Former Ford President Joe Hinrichs must navigate CSX through a Congressional labor deal to avoid a strike.

CSX turns to a car guy to fix problems at the giant railroad

joe. So great to meet you to talk about C. S. X. And your new job. You know, you've taken charge at a crucial time. And I say this because you're in the middle of these negotiations with 12 unions to get an agreement a new labor contract. And this has been dragging on for a long time. How are things going since you joined and when do you think you're going to have a deal? We're optimistic that we'll get through this. So the next several weeks we have a few more votes to come in. Seven of the unions have already ratified the agreement. A few haven't. So we'll have to work through that. But what we're really focused on finding a solution and engaging all parties, including the government in this case because the Presidential Emergency Board to find that solution, I'm engaged in listening to the challenges that agreement was reached before I got here. Really just looking to where we can move from here and find resolution. Well, I understand that the first thing you did when you became Ceo, you arranged a special meeting to talk to union leaders. What did you say to them? And what impact do you think that conversation will have on getting a labor deal. I flew up to meet with our two largest union partners in person and what I said really was I'm here to I'm here to help. I don't have any of the history here and really challenge them to think about it. We're not we're not happy with the current state. Then we can't keep doing the same thing we're doing over and over again. So let's talk about what we can do to find new solutions. Let's try new things and let's be open to new ideas. And that's really what I wanted to know is that we're here to help. We're here to challenge ourselves to think about new ideas and to be part of the solution going forward. You worked for many years at Ford Motor in many leadership positions and you had good relation with the U. A. W. The United Auto workers. To what extent is that labor background resonate with the railroad unions. They did their own background research. And so your reputation reputation precedes you, right? So they spent some time checking on me. But importantly, they won't understand where your value system is. Do you truly value the employees who are represented by unions as part of the team, as part of the value of the company? And I do. And I think they realize that see that from our experience in the auto industry and then what we brought to rail. Well, besides meeting with those unions, you've also been on a so called listening tour. You've been traveling around the country. You've been meeting with csx employees. What did you learn from those conversations really. First of all, there's so much pride in our employees and the and the real history and their families, money, their multigenerational, they love the work they do that they kind of they kind of come to love it, but there's opportunities to make it better for them and some of the work life challenges we have with scheduling and some other issues. I've just really been showing up unannounced, listening to what they have to say, introducing myself, learning more about what they do and how they do it, you know, pulling pins on the hump yard and doing things like that. But really just getting to know them, them getting to know me and then seeing themes of where we can go, help solve problems. Well, speaking of solving problems here, you are at csX, what's on your agenda? What's the first thing that you really want to do? The first thing is to work on our employee experience with around this one CsX initiative around building a culture of one team, all of us feeling valued and appreciated working together to serve our customers. Really focused on that because the challenge we have culturally is getting enough people to work in our organization and stay as part of the team out in the field and then people working together to serve our customers better. If we can get better employee engagement, leading to more capacity and better customer service, it'll serve solve a lot of problems in the rail industry. What about supply chain issues Because when people these days think about the railroads, they think of all those disruptions and delays that we had all through the last couple of years. What are you doing to fix those problems first and foremost, we need to get our capacity up and our service levels up where we can be dependable to our supply or to our customers and get our employee levels up to be able to provide that, you know, rail has such a big advantage over truck. Environmentally, it's much better. 45 times more fuel efficient. We, we provide our own infrastructure on the rails, whereas taxpayers pay for the roads and all the congestion is out there and importantly were lower cost. So there's a lot of reasons why rail makes sense for the economy and can help the economy. We need to be able to csx to provide the capacity and the service that allows our customers to use us more. And that starts with our employees, gain the right numbers and getting them to have a great experience. How close are you now to solving those disruptions and those constraints in supply chain. We're getting a lot closer the last couple of months, our service levels come up dramatically. Our performances come up dramatically and our manpower levels to come up with about 300 or so below where we want to be right now, but we're getting close, we'll be there by year end, where we want to be and then into the first quarter, that will help us a lot and then ultimately it's about how the network flows. We can get the manpower levels up and have better operating performance, more capacity will allow the system to flow better, which ultimately will serve the entire supply chain. You're talking a lot about manpower and I hear that you've been having difficulty attracting talent, hiring lots more people, What do you have to do to get the people that you need to make some adjustments to our pay scale? We used to come in at 80% now are people coming 100%. We've been really focused on the areas where we need talent to be able to really recruit them and train them. Really just talk to them about the experience we can create for them to really enjoy working on the railroad and all it entails. They're good paying jobs, good benefits and really a great company like CSX is a fun place to work. What about being a railroad? I mean, uh, it's not really new economy in some ways. Is that an obstacle for you to attract top talent? It's something that we, we do have to overcome because there's a view that, that we don't have the same kind of levels of new technology and some other places have trains are actually, I found this in the new job training, people love trains, people taking pictures of our trains, people sending me notes all the time. There's something about a lot of passion about the railroad industry and about trains themselves. What we need to do is provide some more technology solutions and create some visibility to that. But importantly, just be focused on creating the best experience we can for our employees. So they love what they do. Many companies, especially in the logistics area, have been investing in whether it's artificial intelligence, machine learning the list is long. Where are you in introducing new tax? Yeah, there's several things we're doing. We're trying new locomotive technologies for the, for the propulsion system, whether it's hybrid electric or electric or hydrogen. We're also using drones to do the um, inspections of the rail lines and the rail yards for, for the quality and for the and for the dimensions and everything like that. Good examples because the weather can be a bit of a challenge to do that. And we're really challenging ourselves on the software side to, to use algorithms and machine learning to think about what can we do better for the plan itself because the complexity of the network is such that how you developed a plan about where the trains go and how they move and who goes where is really a big challenge and using software and algorithms to make that better is a big opportunity joe you came to the ceo job as a so called outsider and you worked as we said for many years at ford motor, but we know that the railroad industries, they veer more to having an insider to run other companies in what ways does this being an outsider work for or against you for all the changes that you wanted to. I think the greatest opportunity is having a customer mindset. I was a customer of rail, we were a customer forward for decades and so I get to see how it's like to be on the other side of this and a big opportunity to serve customers better for CsX and the rail industry, a customer perspective is important. Then there is the opportunity to ask a lot of fresh new questions like why do we do that? Why does it have to be that way? It's an opportunity really for everyone to have to rethink things and just don't accept the status quo. So I'm really excited about what that brings. The challenge of course is make sure we have people that know the rail industry keeps it running every day efficiently and safely. And I'm proud to say we have a really great team that helped me do that on your first call for CfX, you told investors and this was just recently that if we can get people working better together solving problems, we can have a better railroad and better performance. So you're now the company's top leader. What's the single most important leadership thing that you have to do to make this all happen? I think the most important thing you can do as leaders, be focused on serving others and helping those others do their job well and understanding what role they play in the company. We all have a role to play on the team and we have our different roles to play. For me, it's about focusing the energy on serving the employees, who create the value by doing the work every day and having the energy focused that way as opposed to up. And if we can create that servant leadership mindset throughout the whole entire organization, we can create a whole different one csx culture that really is focused on the employees that serve the customer.

Fran Horowitz says of her six years as CEO "we've come a long way from when I first walked in the door."

Abercrombie CEO on retailer’s turnaround: "We did it. We’re back."

Abercrombie CEO on retailer’s turnaround: "We did it."

Fran, so good to see you again and to talk about all the changes going on at Abercrombie, you transformed the company, the brands, the image, how would you describe how Abercrombie is today, it has been an amazing, amazing journey, you know, I've been in this industry for 35 plus years and I have to say the last eight years have been truly the most rewarding, incredible. I walked in in 2014 to 2 brands to iconic global brands that were really in decline and we have done exactly what you said, we have gotten that brand health back, we have a very engaged consumer base, our associates are really thriving and we, we did it, you know, no one thought particularly with Abercrombie brand that it was possible and our favorite thing to say right now is we're back. One of the things that you did was to rebuild the brands, you separated out Abercrombie and Fitch Hollister and Gilly Hicks, why was it so important for you to do that as a lifelong merchant, You know when I interviewed for the original position of running Hollister, I went to the mall and I saw that essentially the brands have become one, the product was all the same, Just a different price point and what we had to really decide was is there room for both brands to live independently or do we merge it together and make one brand and through all of the research that we did in the customer insights we learned that there really was an affinity for both brands independently. So we positioned Hollister as the global teen brand and we grew up Abercrombie to really focus on this young millennial, this mid 25 mid twenties consumer and we got the response that we were hoping for and it's worked. What was the key thing that you had to do to make that happen? We had to really get close to the customer, you know, the previous management really focused on telling the consumer what they wanted and our big pivot was really making sure that we listened to the consumer and understood what they were looking for. So to become the iconic global team, we had to get close to that gen Z consumer, really understand what he and she were looking for. But the biggest unlock was an Abercrombie adult and what we figured out was that the 96 hour weekend that that consumer looks forward to every weekend, whether that's a weekend away with their friends for a wedding of that short party showers, whatever it may be or even a staycation dressing them for those 96 hours was the key unlock. They needed to have clothing for each and every one of the events that took place over 96 hours and that went from everything from Susie from Y PB, our latest franchise of your personal best which is an active wear through jeans and t shirts through getting dressed up to our BBg, our best dressed guest collection. So we really thought about 96 hours and created a collection that would support each of those activities. You also closed many stores, you remodel existing stores, you tone down that sexy, cool kids image of Abercrombie. Tell us a little bit more about how you reinvent a 130 year old iconic retailer, What's the secret sauce? You're right, that was a very big key component to our um to our journey. We like to say at Abercrombie today, it's about belonging in the past, was about fitting in and there's a very big difference to those two things. So previously it was about making sure that the consumer did what we wanted them to do today. We focus on what the consumer wants and that's about belonging. So we have really been able to make a very inclusive and diverse. Associate based, consumer based product based, we've extended our sizes are fit, we've done so many things to really evolve the brand and move it forward. And the consumer has responded incredibly well. You've also made a big push into digitizing your business? What have you learned about how shoppers want to shop? I mean now that they don't have a requirement to wear masks everywhere, do they like going more into the physical stores? Do they like doing um shopping online? I mean, which brings in the most business. We made it a tremendous hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments. Prior to Covid and we were really leaning into our digital business, which is about a third of our business by the time we got through Covid, it's almost half of our business. It's really amazing, but very different by brand, the house, the consumer is still very social goes to the mall, loves to use that as their weekend, fun with their friends, the Abercrombie consumer who's this very busy young millennial spends their time doing something called Poppins, which is purchased online, pick up in store and they come in, they pick up their purchase, they make their returns, they use the store as much more as an opportunity as a um, a place to try on exchange, return quick and quick out and the house or consumer really uses it for social gathering. Terrific. I mean you've done amazing stuff. So what's left on your, the brands are healthy and they're moving forward. I'm so excited about our future. We had an investor day back in june and we shared our long range plan with the investor community. We have our sights in 25 on, you know, four billion plus and an 8% even margin. And we talked about our long term goals about being a global omni channel retailer. So I'm super excited about where we are and where we're going, you mentioned a moment ago you had your investor day, one of the things that you said at that gathering was that we expect macro headwinds to persist. Tell us a little bit more about your take on the economy. What worries you right now today? What I can tell you is, it's interesting to see what's happening with the consumer. He and she are actually fairly bifurcated. So Abercrombie brand had a terrific you to that consumer seems to be less touched by the challenges that are happening in in the world today. Um, yet the policy consumer, that teen consumer, that family, the demographic of that consumer, is definitely finding it much tougher. There's a lot of competition for the wallet, whether that's um gas prices or food prices and clothing. So we experienced for back to school, a much more judicious consumer, you know, really had to make choices this year. So it sounds like from what you're saying this holiday season could be a pivotal test on consumer spending. What's your strategy to make sure that Abercrombie gets a big slice of the consumers holiday shopping dollars? So our strategies have to have the right product at the right time, at the right price for our consumer. We are looking forward actually to the fourth quarter, you know, relative to last year's where we were really challenging an inventory perspective, not sure if everybody remembers, but we do a lot of production in Vietnam and Vietnam was closed at this time last year because of Covid. And then we had a big challenge getting our product here on a timely basis. In fact, a lot of it came after the holidays this year, we changed our straw strategy and we brought our inventory in early and we feel that we are ready and prepared to compete. Do you feel that you still need to offer promotions or cut prices? Listen, we made a lot of progress during Covid and we were able to really reduce our promotional activity and our goal is as we go into every single quarter is to continue on that strategy, we will obviously manage the business as it comes and we'll see how the consumers reacting. But we go in with a plan and a strategy to hold our markdowns and and promote as needed. I want to go back to something that you said or being, you know, a conversation about how good you feel about the turnaround that you created at Abercrombie. I mean you are coming up on your six year anniversary as a ceo, I mean what are you most proud of? Very simply, I'm most most proud of my team and the culture that I've created, we have created a culture where we took a talent that we had at Abercrombie and grew them and fostered them and we brought in a lot of new talent and we have blended Suzy this old team and this new team and put together one of the most winning teams in retail. It's not an easy thing to do. Um and we have a culture that really promotes inclusivity and diversity and influence and autonomy and accountability. I mean, we've come a we've come a long way from where I was when I first walked in the door. You're part of an elite group of female ceos who are running a big enterprise. What advice do you have for a young woman who has the ambition that wants to be a Ceo one day? What's the best advice on how to get there? Well, what I say to my team all the time is please make sure that you view me as a leader, not by gender. It's very important that everyone gets viewed by the experience that they bring in the success that they bring. So whether that's male or female at the same time, I do know that I am a role model and my advice is simply walk into that room, whoever is in that room and hold your head up high, be confident in what you're delivering and just go for it.

Jeff Harmening says General Mills had to raise prices for popular brands like Cheerios, but consumers are still buying because "food at home is a really good value".

General Mills CEOs says "consumers are feeling the pinch"

Jeff Harmening says General Mills had to raise prices, but consumers are still buying because "food at home is a really good value".

Jeff. So good to see you again to talk about general mills and let's begin by talking about food prices, everybody is complaining about their grocery bills and the latest reports do confirm that prices are high up 13% over the past 12 months. So far, people are still buying your cheerios and Pillsbury baking goods, snacks and a lot more from General Mills. Tell us why consumers are still buying General Mills products and food products at home because they represent a great value. And even though the costs have gone up because inflation has gone up about 14 to 15% for us. Um This year consumers are shifting their habits two at home eating from away from home eating and the reason they're making that shift of food at home is that it really costs a lot less than eating out. And so when economic times get difficult as consumers are feeling the pinch right now and they really are feeling the pinch. What we saw during the great recession about a decade ago was that the same habit Of consumers shifting their spending from away from home and eating at home eating. It took place in the Great Recession as well, because food at home is a really good value, but you have raised prices right? We have increased prices because our costs have gone up by 14-15%. And so we've raised prices, we've raised prices less than our costs have gone up because we've had productivity gains and and we know that consumers are feeling pinched right now. And so the first thing we always try to do is become more efficient ourselves, but when we see record inflation, which we are right now in our cost, um the prices, the prices do go up, but it's still, even then it's still a great value for consumers to eat food at home and specifically general mills brands than it is eating out well as you're looking for value, you know, a lot of people are talking about this so called shrink inflation where the package is smaller of, let's say cheerios, but the price is the same. What do you say to that? You know, shrink inflation gets a lot of media headlines, but it's not something we spend a tremendous amount of time with for us, the you know, when people talk about string inflation at the end of the context, we're trying to trick consumers somehow and that's absolutely not the case, consumers are very smart and so when, when we want to make sure that we offer them real value. So for example, um you know when people are living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes they want a smaller box of cereal, if if they can only afford that. Other times they may have three teenagers at home, they need a big box for the price per hour. They may shop at different locations, they may shop with coupons. And so it's really incumbent upon us to add to add value in the best way we can and consumers define for themselves what makes value for their family and that's different from household to household. You recently told investors that you expect strong revenues and earnings going into 2023 and the chances are that inflation will contain to rise. So I'm guessing that you are going to continue raising crisis by, how much can you quantify? We did say that we're going to see inflation throughout this throughout our fiscal year was started in May, but we also told investors that most of the pricing that we would need to accomplish what we needed to this year was already in the marketplace or announced retailers. And so it's not necessarily true that prices will keep going up from here. It really depends on the landscape itself. But you know, as I mentioned, we've seen 14 to 15% in inflation and our prices have gone up, but even then, not as much as inflation has gone up well, you know, as you know, there are many forecasts that were either in a recession in the US or there's a risk of a recession over the next 12 months, you've been through many of the These down cycles in your, in your career. How do you see this one playing out right. I've been, I've been in the food business for more than 28 years now and you know, a couple of things I will tell you first is that whether we're in a technical recession or not. You know, consumers are feeling stretched and I think that's going to continue. One of the things I can also tell you is that no matter what one of the lessons of the last few years, if you don't know exactly what's around the corner. But for general mills we've been able to pivot quickly, whether it's a pandemic or George Floyd's murder or whether it's war in Ukraine, we've been able to pivot quickly and I'm confident as a company will continue to do that no matter what the economic cycle ahead of us, can you still grow general Mills even in a slowing economy? You know, we we can and we were we were even growing general mills before the pandemic yet. But one of the things I'm most proud of is over the last few years we've become a better company and none of it had to do with the pandemic or inflation or or covid what, what it really had to do with is we've we've made significant changes over the course of the last few years we've changed our portfolio, We've had a blue buffalo pet food. We we have divested things like you play in europe and dough in europe and hamburger helper here in the U. S. We have changed our organizational structure to become a lot more lean and we've invested in data and technology and and investments in consumer marketing, they're going to help us go forward. So we're we're highly confident that an environment, post covid post war, post recession General Mills will be a stronger company that was coming in is because we've made a lot of significant changes along the way. Well, Jeff you've come up with some very innovative and successful strategies in dealing with these things that you're talking about, soaring prices for ingredients. The scarcity of ingredients tell our view how you reformulated the recipes of one of your very popular snacks to Tina's Pizza Roll. It was a very successful change that you made. It has been successful and Latinos, Pizza Rolls, one of General Mills, $9 billion brands. And and we've kept it on store shelves because we feel like we owe that to consumers. But it hasn't been easy. In fact, there are a couple of ingredients we haven't been able to get for Latinos and as a result we reformulated pizza rolls and pizza about 25 times over the last year. Just in an effort to keep it on shelf. But also make sure we maintain the quality of those products that consumers are expecting. And I'm happy to say that even given all those changes, the business continues to grow. In fact, we're going to invest about $100 million in our manufacturing facility in Ohio to to expand the capacity of that business. But it's a great testimony to the, to the engagement and working skills people of general Mills and our consumers have benefited as a result. What are some of the lessons that you learned from that whole experience and all of the reinvention. One of the things we we've really learned is that the engagement of our employees is key because it takes a team of people coming together to make things like that happen, diversifying our supply change is becoming increasingly important and just the ability and willingness to pivot. We've been a great company for 100 and 55 years, but before the pandemic, probably no one considered us to be very fast. Now. We're both fast and I still think we're pretty good company after 100 and 55 years and we've learned the value have been able to change quickly. So what do you think has been behind the success of General Mills over all of these years? I think we've been successful because we've been willing to change, Not because we've resisted it and that's important for a company that has been around since 1866. We've changed our portfolio, added brands like blue buffalo and divested businesses like you play. We've changed our organizational structure become faster. We have invested in data and technology, but also consumer marketing to make our brands more and more relevant. And those things are important because we talked about all the changes that have happened pandemics and wars and social unrest and now, you know inflation, we've been successful through all that and we think we'll be successful after that, not because we resisted change, but on the opposite, we've actually leaned into change. And those are the kind of things that kind of spanned the arc of time and make a company successful no matter what the current situation they find themselves in.

Stan Erck's goal is for people to say about Novavax "they’re the best vaccine company".

Novavax CEO on why his Covid vaccine is "demonstrably better" than Pfizer and Moderna

Novavax CEO on why his Covid vaccine is better than others

Stan Erck's goal is for people to say about Novavax "they’re the best vaccine company"

stan thank you so much for joining us to talk about your company Novavax and your new covid vaccine. It was only a few months ago that you came out with the fourth vaccine in the U. S. So now you're competing against the fighter vaccine Moderna and johnson and Johnson tell us why would someone turn to the new Novavax vaccine compared to the established ones that have already been on the market for some time. We have some characteristics of our vaccine that make it more attractive. It's it's a very stable vaccine. It's it's it can be used at refrigerated temperatures. You don't have to go through the minus 20 or minus 70 degrees freezing. That makes it easier to use. I think that people recognize that this is a vaccine, a type of vaccine using a protein injected into the arm that that they've gotten all their lives with different vaccines, childhood vaccines and hepatitis vaccines. So so uh it's there's a comfort level and then there's data that suggests that our vaccine may last longer have have greater durability and and give you a breadth of protection as the virus changes over time and you get oh macron be a five and you get the next generation of of virus. It's hopeful that our vaccine is broad enough to protect against all of those. So how would you describe demand for the nova vax vaccine when you launched it a couple of months ago. Orders were weak. And your stock tumbles. What about now? Well you're talking about us. We've we've been in the global market for some time for instance in Korea and Japan were getting in Australia. We're getting a lot of acceptance of the vaccine has been available for a lot longer in the U. S. It's taken longer to get approvals. And so we're just only recently in the market. And so our expectation is that with data that we will be able to increase demand increased market share over the coming not only coming year but years with our vaccine. Well what's your strategy to compete with fighter and more derna? They've been selling millions of vaccines and boosters. And even now for kids, how do you compete with that? Every week? We get new sets of data that shows that that I I think allows me to predict that that our vaccine will be demonstrably better, more differentiated than the current vaccines. You know, it's taking you a little longer to get your vaccine out compared to Pfizer and Moderna. Do you think that even though Novavax has a good product, it's just too late. No, it's not too late. We're unfortunately we're stuck with Covid for a long time. And like flu, Covid is going to be bringing up new surprises to us from year to year. And I think that the vaccine that shows its most effective against these new variants is the one that ultimately will win. And I think that's our vaccine. Well, you mentioned a moment ago that your vaccine is protein based and it's what most people are used to receiving when they get vaccines. Has this made a difference in getting people who have been hesitant to get vaccinated to feel more comfortable using nova vax. Yeah. I think our vaccine would appeal to people who are vaccine hesitant because they don't understand vaccines very well. People were hesitant for because they don't understand the newest technology might just say good. I've been waiting for this and I'll use it. Well, have you gotten any feedback that your vaccine is getting to people who have been holding off from getting vaccinated by your competitors? Yes. We get a lot of feedback if you look at my if you look at my end basket in boxing my computer every day. I get lots of feedback from people who have said explained why they haven't gotten vaccinated for the past year or two. And now they're anxiously going to the pharmacy to get ours. And most people did don't know much about Novavax until Covid. It was a small struggling biotech company. But once the U. S. Government awarded your company more than $1.5 billion to develop a Covid vaccine, you were in the spotlight. You had already been Ceo for 10 years of the company but now suddenly the world was watching you, What was that like for you? We were actually too busy to pay much attention to that. Truthfully. And we went from I think it was january 12th when the gene sequence of covid became known. And we put all of our efforts? We took them off flu and put them on Covid. And truly, the team has been working seven days a week for the last 2.5 years. And there isn't a day that we don't have some meeting including Sundays and we started to face a phase three trial in the US on christmas day, Year before last. And so it's part of our life right now and will be for some time. Well when you started working a serious way on the COVID vaccine, the company had only 150 people. It didn't even have manufacturing capacity but still you were able to transform it into a global vaccine developer. What did it take for you to ramp up operations? A lot of energy. A lot of perseverance. We had early on some data in non human primates that showed that our vaccine worked really, really well and that those data usually translate well into humans and everybody in the scientific community recognize that. So we had lots of people who we had gained credibility and we were able to convince people to open up manufacturing capacity. Unfortunately that takes time. I mean usually it takes many years. We did it in many months. But but nevertheless it still takes time and we've gone from, as you say around 150 people in the U. S. And europe 2.5 years ago. And now we have over 2000 people and several manufacturing sites. How would you describe what you did as ceo to lead the project and to lead the team? I don't think there's anything magical. I think it's it's it's it's relatively easy when you've got, when you've been able to hire a good group of people and your mission is so so clear and and your technology and the tools you have are so unique. The people in the company that have joined the company in the past three years and have been working with it are all equally motivated because as I say, the mission is not just Covid, it's also Covid and flu and other vaccines. I don't have to do anything special to to motivate these people. They're self motivated. So what's next for Novavax? How do you want people describing the company 345 years from now? Nobody's ever built an independent vaccine company in the last 50 years or more. And I think that's exactly what Novavax is headed toward. Um and in five or 10 years I think I think everybody's going to know when they think vaccines they're going to think about Novavax because they're the best vaccine company

Ed Bastian says "consumers are flush with cash" and "our planes are full."

Delta CEO on US Economy and Travel: "I'm a bull on this"

it's so great to see you again and to hear about what's going on at Delta Airlines. The message you've been putting out to investors in the public is Delta is back. Tell us what's changed. Delta is not only back. Delta is better than than ever before. I'd say one of the most important things that we've changed. Suzy is the focus on wellness. So the cleanliness of our, of our product and our service is far better. Far better than ever before. We learned a lot about the pandemic and the vulnerabilities. We had a lot of new people. We had 20,000 people that retired during the pandemic. They decided they wanted to move on or save jobs for younger people. So we have 25,000 new people just in the last year and a half that have come into the company. So it brings a lot of new diversity. It's more, uh, it's younger. Uh, maybe a little bit more modern. We, we had a lot of new airports. Laguardia opened up this year. L. A. X. Has opened up this year. The two biggest markets in our country. The two finest airports would dare say we've got new technology. We've got new planes. So there's a lot of new that's come that we took advantage during the pandemic pandemic. We, we didn't sit still and wait for people to come back. We figured this was our moment to move. And we did you have said that you see no signs of a slowdown and that you expect these final months of this year to end. Strong is the recovery and travel steeper than what you expected. It's come back faster than we expected. We were anticipating that it may take up to next summer, 23 back two years ago. It's come back faster and I think what's happened is as soon as consumers felt confident that they wanted to go, they just wanted a good places, it doesn't matter where they were going to, matter how much they're paying. They just need to get out of their homes because they have people to see experiences to engage in in opportunities that they didn't want to lose and have taken away from them. Well, the other thing that we've noticed is that air fares have gone up. I mean, to what extent would you describe your ability to raise fares and not getting any pushback from consumers? Because thanksgiving flights now, the ticket fares are kind of high and the same for christmas lights. Well, it's not that we've been trying to raise fares. I mean, of course fares have to be as stand the level that demand is so strong. It's pushing the fares up because we, if, if we try to somehow bring our fare levels back to the 2019 levels, we'd be out of inventory for the next six months and you can't do that for consumers. So it's really a true supply and demand. It's an auction every day that happens on the, on our flights because we have limited availability. Second thing is fuel prices. Fuel prices are up 50% above where they were 2019. So part of that is normal. So our goal is by the summer of next year will be 100% back. So that means we're going to add about 15% more flights between now and the summer. That will help take some of the pressure off the fares for right now though. How do you factor in some of the financial issues that a lot of people are struggling with? You mentioned fuel prices? Well, consumers are dealing with high food prices and fuel. I mean, what are you doing that? You don't get a consumer belt tightening that would impact Delta's business. But what we've seen is consumers during the pandemic, we're not spending on airfares, they were not spending on service, the service economy, they were buying stuff, you know, everybody knows all those packages that would arrive every day in the boxes at the doorstep. They were buying things and stuff. Consumers now are not are not buying as much from the traditional retail channel or maybe amazon, but they are investing the same amount of money so they're funding their travel. They're not necessary increasing the spending, but they're moving back to a more traditional normalized level of service. And I think our consumers are just fine candidly, um, they're not seeing a kind of a pinch with respect to where they want to spend their travel, uh their money on travel, But of course we watch it like everybody does, but for the next several months we don't see any, any cracks in that business travel strong. I don't, I don't think business travels necessarily ever going to be back to what it was. I think it's gonna be different. I think that probably 70-80% will be similar and by the way, that's kind of where we're at, we're about 80% recovered in terms of overall investment on business travel. But what we've also seen is that there's a whole new ways in which people travel, people aren't in the office, you know, monday through friday 9 to 5 anymore and these new tools zoom and other video conferences are actually giving people the ability to take their office with them when they travel. So they're turning it into long weekends, working for different places. People are commuting actually from the mountains into their office where they only have to be maybe a few times a month. It's a whole new type of travel. So When we look at travel broadly, you know, it's, I'm not as focused on, is it businesses, it corporate, is it leisure? Is it hybrid? All I know is our plans at all. So you see this momentum continuing into 2023. No question. This is unique primarily because businesses, I have never, they, you know, they haven't gotten back to their 100% level of volume of travel. so they saved a lot of money on travel over the last few years. This is not something going into a potential recession where businesses could say, okay, we're gonna, because it's the easiest thing to cut this discretionary say, okay, we're not gonna, they need to be out with their customers, they need to be out with their colleagues, they need to be out looking for more sales and what I tell every ceo that I see because we're all traveling, we're all very busy right now, is that if you're not traveling, someone else's traveling to see your customers, so you better get back out and so everyone I know from that standpoint, so I think this would be a different type of recession, it was actually saving on travel is not gonna do much of anything is gonna hurt the business. I think I see people and businesses pushing people to get out to generate the sales and the activity and the initiatives, which is very different than anything we've seen in the past. I'd like to hear your take on recession that just about everybody is predicting is going to be coming right around the corner, you've been through many recessions. How do you see this one playing out? I think there will be some industries that will be challenged. I mean we also, what happened to real estate during the pandemic crazy. I think you're going to see with mortgage rates rising and other things, I think you're going to see real estate coming down. I think you're going to see consumer pulling back when they start realizing how much they're mortgage bills. You know a lot of a lot of business individuals by the way are fixed rates So they're not gonna see necessarily the full effect of it and they're going to be insulated a bit from that. But I think you also see some businesses gaining strength. I mean for us candidly our biggest cost that we've incurred during the pandemic is what's happening to fuel. Fuel prices are up 50% since 2019. If there is a recession it's likely that fuel prices are going to come down because they will be that will be a benefit to the to the travel economy. So I think this is gonna be a little different susie. I don't know by the way, I don't know anybody that's forecasting a long prolonged difficult recession. Most people are saying okay we may have won it may last a year, maybe 18 months. But fundamentally the economy in the U. S. Is pretty strong and the need to keep moving. The travel sector is pretty high. Let me follow up on this short versus long recession because we're getting predictions all over the map from economic experts and from ceo like yourself something it'll be short and quick and gone and other things that go on for years. I see nothing that indicates it's going to be long drawn out. I think consumers are flush with cash. I think businesses, depending on your sector, you may have, you know, a prolonged effect our business. I don't see it happening. I see people wanting to continue to travel. One thing about travel is once you start traveling again, like, wow, I really missed it. You know, we, we took it for granted pre pandemic, people aren't taking it for granted the same way. And so there's, and by the way, there's still a whole group of customers that haven't even yet been out to start traveling because they did see that the crazy summer that the airlines had, as we're trying to get everything back up and they said, well, we're just gonna sit this summer out. But they're going now this fall, they're going next spring and they're already booking their plan. So I'm, I'm a bull on this. A more immediate issue for Delta right now is contract negotiations with the airlines pilots are asking for more pay and they voted to authorize a potential strike. If the union can't reach a deal where do things stand? We'll get a deal with them. There's no risk of the strike. There were in mediated negotiations. Currently with our pilots are pilots already are the best paid in the industry and they should be because they're the best pilots in the industry. And we pride ourselves on that. We're talking about how high is high. And so the next contract they will continue to be the best paid pilots in the industry. Um, there are many, many phases to go before a mediator or a presidential emergency board could ever even release them legally to strike. So there's, there's no risk of that happening. So you're not preparing in anyway, just in case there's no, just in case we're going to get a deal done if they want to get a deal done, we want to get a deal done. There's a lot of rhetoric out there. But usually when there's, when there's smoke, there's fire, when there's rhetoric, that means something's happening. You sound very upbeat looking at next year at this time. What will you be saying about 20, and how the year played out, we're doing well. We're having record revenues even though we're only flying 85% of our capability. So as we continue to grow into next year and I think the demand is still going to be pretty strong. I think next year is going to shape up to be a very good year for the airline. It's gonna help us with respect to overall cost and productivity. But also given that the customers that we have a lot of customers, a lot of loyal customers that can't get on our flights are either full, they find it too pricey, they want to be with us. And they're saying, what can you do? The thing we can do is grow and that's what we're gonna do by summer the last time you and I talk it was about a year ago and we still didn't have vaccines. I mean people were just beginning to get them. You were dealing with a lot of health and safety issues are still a lot of disruptions. It wasn't as good as how you're talking about things today as you look back on that time, what would you say is the biggest, most important leadership lesson that you learned through all that to stay optimistic. Um, you know, I never lost doubt. We were going to get through this. It's easy to doubt what it's gonna look like, but I never doubted that we'd come out the other side and we would take the learnings as we went to improve the business. I think there's humility. You know, it's not just bullish optimism. We all learned that, you know, there's, there's something about the world in the environment and world order that, you know, is bigger than you that's always going around about you and our industry. We, we, uh, you know, we've been through challenges before, whether it's 9 11 or recessions or other issues. None of us had ever seen anything like this where you went from best year ever. We had in 2019, 30 days later, 5% of revenues and what do you do. And by the way, no idea when they were going to return. So it's humbling and we got to retain that humility and that appreciation for what we've been through with each other to build an even better airline on the other side of it. You know, in a crisis, people always look to the Ceo to have all the answers and to say how things are going to be in the future and you know, the covid pandemic, There were so many unknowns and many of the C. E. O. S I've talked to so that you just had to learn to get comfortable to say, I don't know, I don't have the answer. How was it for you as Ceos were paid to have answers were paid and people, you tell people you don't know. And by the way, there's a way to say, I don't know right. I mean, there's a way to say, I don't know and just spark more anxiety or tell people where you're at and let them know how you're thinking about this and pull followership along And that's what I tried to do. So you've been through a lot these last couple of years. What leadership insight did you get from this whole pandemic experience and how is it shaping the way you're leading Delta now? It's changed, it's changed our entire team has changed our business model. Folk focus on wellness focus on how focused on taking care of each other is never more important than ever were people business with an airline. But we're fundamentally, our people and our people are our best assets and they're doing a better job. Taking care of them, thinking about their emotional needs and their financial needs, as well as their their physical needs through this period of time is going to allow our business to come through this better than ever.

Julie Sweet says "experiment' with metaverse because "you don’t want to miss the wave".  Sustainability is "good business". Best leadership advice: "be a learner."

Accenture CEO's 3 musts for businesses success: Metaverse, Sustainability, and Leadership

Julie Sweet says "experiment' with metaverse; sustainability is "good business;" best leadership advice: "be a learner."

Accenture CEO's 3 musts for businesses success

julie. So great to see you and talk about all the things that you're doing over at accenture and you said that this is the time for change and reinvention and as always it has to deal with leadership characteristics. So tell us what are the characteristics of people who are the change makers and then often do become the great leaders. Well Susie, one of the first things I did when I became Ceo a few years ago was to outline what we call our leadership essentials and just a couple that I would highlight that I think are really important. One is to lead with excellence. Confidence and humility, humility is the important word because leaders who are humble our learners and they build great teams and that's what you need to be able to thrive in a time of change. The other piece that I would say is we have a leadership essential that says the courage to change and the ability to bring people along with you and that's equally important. If you have a great vision and you're not able to bring people along to communicate to be a real advocate, then you're not gonna be able to bring your organization along. Well I understand that center added 200,000 people during the pandemic years. And so that brings accenture to 720,000 employees. That's just a remarkable number. Many of Those new hires may become your leaders of the future. How did you identify the people that would have the leadership characteristics that you were just talking about. Well first of all we look at skills and so when we're hiring it's not about pedigree but about skills and that's allowed us, for example in the US to have over 20% of our hiring last year be apprenticeships, amazing talent and who knows hopefully one of them will someday lead accenture. The second piece is around learning. So we look for people who have what we call learning agility and we do it pretty simply we ask a question that says what have you learned recently, it doesn't matter if it's about you learned how to make paella right? The fact is are you a learner and that is a very very good indicator of who will be a strong leader at accenture. You've been talking a lot about important forces of change that are going to happen over the next decade. And it's a fascinating list. I just want to talk to you about a few of them. One of them at the top of your list is the metaverse. Uh That is the uh the most important change you say that C. E. O. S need to gear up for for the next decade. Tell us why we believe the metaverse change the change of the metaverse is actually more profound than digital and that is because of the ways that will change the way the way you operate your business, but also you interact every day. So three big areas. The first is it will become just another channel to buy things and it will also become a new kind of products. You're already seeing this in virtual trading cards for example, you're seeing companies look at in the avatars that you build in the metaverse, how can we sell clothing for those avatars? So a new channel and a new product category. It's also a new employee experience. We are on boarding 100 and 50,000 people into accenture's own metaverse called the End floor, we think it's the largest enterprise metaverse uh in the world today. And then finally it's in the industrial space, so it's in manufacturing and being able to create digital twins. It's also in things like oil and gas and being able to connect you know, rigs in the middle of the sea to back home to training to preventive maintenance, where people are going in and out of the physical and virtual worlds. So you're getting positive feedback from Ceo that I want to learn about metaverse absolutely! A few years ago, when people would talk to me about Blockchain, which is one of the underlying technology at the time, I would say not everybody should experiment, Our advice is different today, we think the metaverse with all of its underlying technologies is such a profound change that you don't want to miss the wave and you need to at least be experimenting, You also advocate the importance of sustainability, You're a big believer in that you say every business must be a sustainable business and we know that many companies have already set decarbonization goals, What more do they need to do? It's interesting, there's a new trend that yes, you set decarbonization goals which are long term goals and now they're setting micro goals, we've said by 2025 we will be net zero, we set by 20 at the end of 2023 that will have 100% renewable electricity. Why? Because that's a micro goal that we know that we can accomplish that will have a positive impact and we can't get to net zero by 2023 but we can get to 100% renewable electricity. And so I think you're gonna start to see companies moving from these long term goals to also adding micro goals, being able to communicate those and also being held accountable to achieve more milestones along the way. But are you also seeing some resistance on sustainable goals? I mean, I'm sure you've been hearing about the pushback that many C. E. O. S are saying, look, you know, I really can't afford to be devoting money and time to these environmental goals, for example, in the time where there could be a recession, there's all the, you know, turmoil in the financial markets and they're worried about their own companies. What do you say to those ceo actually, sustainability is good business and we're not really hearing that pushback instead. It's about how do I move from commitment to action because it does matter in the war for talent? It matters with the consumer, it matters with the regulators. So sustainability is really seen as good business in the early days of the pandemic, people were afraid exactly of that push back and the opposite happened in the same way. What are you thoughts about recession? Can a recession interrupt all of the change in innovation that you're talking about? We're actually seeing the uncertainty around the economy be a catalyst for change. So there are C. E. O. S. You're saying let's not waste this crisis, let's push forward. And when you think about innovation, there is big I innovation, like we talked about earlier but there's also little I innovation which is continuous improvement and it's using new technologies to drive greater product for example, it's using data to find new sources of revenue. And most of the ceos were talking about talking to today are saying let's use this uncertainty to try to push our organization to move faster. Let's wrap up by talking about women and leadership julie. You are one of only 46 women C. E. O. S running a Fortune 500 company and Fortune recently ranked you number two on its lid list of the most powerful women in business and we know that certainly it was not a straight line to the top for you or for all those other women. So just wondering what's the best advice that you can give to women today who aspire to run a big business or to start their own company. That will be a powerful force in business? What's your best advice be a learner? You know, I went from being the general counsel to the ceo of accenture. I went from not knowing anything about technology to leading a technology company and at the core. The reason I'm able to do that is that I am a learner. So in your early in the career, set a learning agenda as you become a leader, make sure you're learning agenda is also set for your team. What do you see as the future? Are you served on many boards? You talk to a lot of C E. O. S. Who are your clients? Do you see these business leaders encouraging and grooming women to be leaders or at least in the C suite diversity has become a business priority because it does drive innovation. And so I'm incredibly optimistic as I look around the world that we are continuing down a path where it's not about gender, the type of diversity but about getting the best leader. Uh and diversity just becomes a part of everyday business. And what about your job as CEO These past three years? You have said that the job of CEO has changed dramatically since the pandemic? I think it's surprising that with all your new responsibilities as Ceo you've taken on outside leadership, I understand you're very involved in helping displaced Ukrainians people from Afghanistan, your co leading an organization called Welcome dot Us. Why is this important to you? As XN, I'm actually co leading the Welcome that US Business council with the CEO of google. And it's very simple. We feel a responsibility to our communities and to provide opportunities, including in a tight labor market to the people that we are welcoming to this country. It's been incredibly gratifying to see how both communities and businesses are prioritizing uh serving this need.

Michelle Gass says even with the support of the troubled retailer's board "I feel an urgency every single day" to perform. She adds, "Our strategy and the green shoots are working."

Kohl's CEO on activist investors, inflation and other challenges

Michelle Gass says even with the support of the troubled retailer's board "I feel an urgency every single day" to perform.

Kohl's CEO on activist investors, inflation & challenges

Michelle Gass says even with the support of the troubled retailer's board "I feel an urgency every single day"

Michelle welcome and so good to see you to talk about cole's, you've been making a lot of changes. Unfortunately, your stock is not showing it down something like 50% so far this year and you've been getting a lot of pressure from a variety of activist investors. The good news is your company's board has unanimously endorsed you and they support you. So my question is, what's next? What is the most critical move you have to make at this point? The most critical move that we need to make is focused on the, which is exactly what we're doing. I mean, the team is heads down. We're navigating the current challenges, but we're also continuing to invest in the future. You mentioned the board endorsing and supporting their, supporting the management team. They're supporting the strategy and we're all in, you know, coles is resilient. We've navigated challenges like this before. This is in the short term, but in the long term I have great confidence and conviction that will come out the other side of the current challenges. We're facing the economy where the consumer is. But I look at our strategy and the green shoots and they're working has a board giving you a timetable saying this is the time you have the deadline to get the job done. And do you feel an urgency to perform? Absolutely. I feel an urgency every single day. We're making adjustments as we speak. Um, but you know, as I was saying, you know, the strategy Sephora, the new brands. We see the underlying green shoots of that working. We have this big head one right now, which is the consumer pullback and the pressure that the customer is facing. But you know, we'll get through this. So what do you think you need to do to show investors and your employees and customers that you have a strategy that works? I am fully expecting that over time. We will see these strategies played out. We started the year expecting, you know, bigger results candidly. But um we serve middle income consumers and they've been hard hit. And so we did see that pull back. We're going to grow this business. I have full conviction. I mean, we're like I said, we're transforming. We have brand new categories. Um, Sephora is a game changing partnership. Well, let's talk about that because I know you're banking a lot on this partnership with Sephora, you've already added 600 of these full sized cosmetic stores inside of kohl's. You're planning 250 more Sephora's next year. But can you afford to continue doing that given everything that you've just been talking about? Absolutely, Sephora is our future and a game changer for us. This is a very big deal for us and it hasn't really yet shown up in our results to date because we're just building them out. I think really importantly, susie, these stores, there are future. They manifest the future strategy and they're significantly outperforming the non Sephora doors. My conviction on the future of this company is very strong. It we just need all these strategies to take hold that were in the early days. So what about the rest of, of coals? I mean, what else are you doing to drive growth to get customers into your store? We are truly modernizing the coals customer and we were not your, we're not your grandmother's cold or your mother's calls anymore. You know, I have a big passion for innovation and thinking out of the box and thinking about new ways to bring customers in. So we introduced this amazon partnership a couple years ago, people are like, where did that come from? We're inviting a competitor in. Um but what we saw was a win win. We get traffic by customers, bringing in their returns into coles they got from amazon. And as you might imagine, there's lots of returns that come through amazon just because they're so big, they get a seamless experience. But that's driving traffic and it's bringing in a younger customer and what we're seeing. Suzy is a halo impact. So about half of our customers who are buying Sephora are buying other things in the store, which is really powerful and their repeat rate is coming up. One of the big ideas we had a couple of years ago, which was really to stand for the active business. We worked with the three powerhouse brands, Nike Adidas under armor that also brings in a younger customer casualization denim, I mean, we can lead across all these areas. So it's a combination of all these things that will really give us this separation and ultimately pivot from being a department store to really winning in the active and casual lifestyle. Well, I wanted to ask you about that because you told investors recently that kohl's is pivoting from a department store to a focused life concept. What do you mean by that? We want to be the place that you are going for your casual and active lifestyle because that's clear space for us. Nobody really owns that for the family. You can visit holes every day, get all your essentials, your jeans, your T shirts, your activewear. And it opens up category opportunities like beauty and that makes so much sense. Right? That's an essential Prada replenish herbal products. So those things coming together and it's the coming together of our products and brands and also the environment that we serve them in. Is this connected to also your strategy to open 100 smaller stores and also in smaller markets. What's the thinking behind that? Coal serves? America 80% of americans live within 15 miles of the coals. We no longer need The big 90,000 square foot store because of the digital component. Um, but we have, we believe cracked the code on how to do a smaller store. And um, we've been experimenting and uh, you know, now we're ready to ramp this up. So I'm very excited about that opportunity. You've been talking a lot about digital and coming into the stores. What do your customers favor stores or online? Our most loyal customers shop across both channels. And I think that's the beauty of being a true omni channel retailer and finding ways to bring those experiences together uh to win an omni channel, you have to be great at both. You have to offer ease and convenience while also Innovation Discovery and the customer is in charge. So you have to be there however they want to shop. I want to get your take on the economy and the american consumer, the ceo of Jpmorgan Jamie Diamond, who runs the biggest bank in the country. Said that quote, a very very very serious mix of headwinds is coming our way and he's predicting the U. S. Economy will tip into a recession. He gives a date 6 to 9 months middle of next year. Do you agree with that recession forecast? Is that what you're seeing from your customers? You know, we are seeing a lot of pressure on our customers. Um and it came on fast for us. Like I said, we started the year with much higher expectations because we have these great initiatives, great initiatives, they're still in play and they're still working and we're still investing in the good news is close, is a very healthy company to keep the long term going, but in the short term we are seeing a pullback. We've reset expectations with our investors. Um To say okay, you know this is at least for the balance of the year, how we see it. And we've adjusted our plans to candidly make sure that we can be more focused even more focused on value. We are a value retailer. But how do we amplify that? So as they are making choices coles comes top of the list. So if your customers are looking for value, they're looking for bargains. What is your thinking on this upcoming holiday season? What are you gonna do to make sure that they come to the cold stores? Are you gonna be offering special promotions? Are you gonna be cutting prices? What are you going to do? We're gonna be loud and proud about our value. Uh We're going to focus on our private brands which are phenomenal value. But at the same time Susie, it's really important to bring in newness because people still at holiday time, it's a really special time. They want to find that special gift. So they'll be able to discover that it cold but also at a great value. You have a lot of balls that you're juggling in the air and you know from a lot of the C. E. O. S. Who I interview they say the job of being Ceo has changed so much since the pandemic and how they lead, how they meet leadership expectations whether from their employees or customers, their investors, the public. What's been your experience, How has your job changed since the pandemic? Any one thing that we've navigated again the pandemic or supply chain wage pressure inflation. Um, in our case, you know, some activist activity, any one of those is quite challenging and you do them all simultaneous. For me, it's really honed. On the one hand, the strength, conviction, resilience, and courage. On the other hand, um, being an empathetic, present, understanding leader. And it's the combination of both of those things. You know, people want to follow, especially in times of uncertainty. Someone is clear and we know where the hell is going, but at the same time They want someone who can be, you know, meeting them where they are and understanding their issues and be empathetic to their situation. So it's you got to have both. There are many women who are gonna be watching this interview and I'm sure they admire your leadership and your 30 years in the retail industry, not just at Kohl's, but you spent many years at Starbucks. What is the best leadership advice that you can share with them be your true self. And as we're talking about women leadership, I have a 23 year old daughter and um, you know, I think now it's finally the time we don't have to fit in a stereotype, you know, the traditional leader, you know, leading from the ivory that's no longer. And I think the attributes of female leadership is really appropriate for this next chapter in business and for leadership. So it's listening. It's being empathetic and being, but really being yourself and not being locked into a mold of what others expect for you.

CEO Joyce Mullen’s description of her female team: "collaborative", "empathetic" and "driven."

Insight Enterprise gets its first female CEO—and the C-Suite is all female too 

CEO Joyce Mullen’s description of her female team: "collaborative", "empathetic" and "driven"

Insight Enterprise first female CEO; C-Suite is all female

Insight Enterprise gets its first female CEO—and the C-Suite is all female too

joy thank you so much for joining us to talk about your new role at insight enterprises. You took over as Ceo at the beginning of the year and you are the first woman to lead this Fortune 500 technology company for starters tell our viewers what insight actually does and why so many businesses come to you to answer all their tech questions, insights mission is very simple. We deliver the very best technology solutions, a combination of hardware, software and solutions and services that deliver the business outcomes that that our customers are most interested in. Usually those are things like how do I get more efficient or how do I improve my customer satisfaction or how do I build new revenue models for my company or how do I reduce my risk. These are the problems our clients are trying to solve every single day and technology can help solve all of those problems. Well as you know during the pandemic. So many companies told stories about how they accelerated their digital transformation by three years by five years because they had to with remote work companies needed to have a technology upgrade and the same thing for customers who are doing more and more online. But what about now? Our business is still as eager to make big investments in technology. We don't see any business is slowing down in terms of their interest in modernizing their environments from a technology point of view. They are certainly very concerned about security risks so that usually means they have to make sure they have the latest and greatest technology. Most of them are trying to figure out how to respond to their customers more quickly. That usually means they need a more agile technology infrastructure. That usually means they're thinking about things like cloud and using their data in a modern way using artificial intelligence automating processes because labor is so expensive and in such short supply. So we don't see the demand slowing down. What you wrote an op ed article recently in the title is The secret to winning amid volatility. Make bold digital moves. What's the point that you're making there? What's the message? I'm going to use a quote from my grandmother, she said when the times get tough, the tough get going and our customers are pretty ambitious about their goals and objectives. And they're saying this is the time to actually decide to invest in automation. This is the time to invest in a more robust online experience. So their customers can get what they need when they want it. So we have seen enormous success on the part of our customers when they are making bold moves and kind of bucking the economic trend. The alternative is to get really, really conservative and and stop making progress, but you know, their competitors are not gonna wait. So they can't either. Well, in that op ed piece that we were talking about bold moves, you cited IBM as an example of a company that made a dramatic change in a dramatic decision and came out with some good results. Can you tell us about that? Well sure, IBM basically said I need to separate my business so I can optimize both of them right into Kendrell and IBM and that's what they're doing. That required a whole bunch of technology support. Can you imagine how integrated those systems have been over so many years at IBM? That was a big move and we've seen other companies do the same before you came to Inside Joyce, you worked at Dell Technologies for more than 20 years. How has that experience been helping you now that you're at insight? Well, first of all, Dell was a terrific opportunity for me. I had I think 11 or 12, maybe 13 jobs at Dell, all different functions. So that functional experience is certainly quite helpful as a Ceo where you gotta kind of know a little bit about everything. And then second I had some terrific opportunities to learn from some of the best Michael. Dell is a great innovator. He is a great leader and so emulating many of those traits and helping helping us drive more innovation and insight is gonna service as well as well. Joyce, I want to talk to you a little bit about leadership as we mentioned earlier, you're the company's first female Ceo but you're not the only woman in the C suite insights. Chief financial Officers, A woman. Uh so is the C I o the head of human resources, the global controller and the president of the european operations. They're all women. And in fact I think our viewers will be interested in the 60% of insight. Senior leadership are women. So this is our obviously intentional but it's also very unusual. How has this all female team influenced the leadership tone and style at your company. First of all I can't take credit for this because this has been part of insight for a very long time. My predecessor ken lamb nick was very very clear on the need to make sure we have a diverse leadership team. And so uh today though in terms of answering your specific question around how does it influence our our style and our approach we focus on making sure that we collaborate incredibly well. We have I think demonstrated a level of empathy which has become so important over the last couple of years given the difficulties that so many of our teammates have have been going through, we are pretty darn humble and we use a lot of, we bring a lot of minds together to make decisions. We always say 1000 minds are better than one. We don't bring 1000 together but we do bring four or five or six and we get to a best decision and that delivers the results. We're looking for well you have a tremendous opportunity now as Ceo to groom the next generation of leaders. What kinds of things are you doing now to inspire women and men at insight uh, to be good leaders great leaders. We bring every single director and above through a West Point strategy and leadership training session offsite. That's a very, very good program that helps build business skills and leadership skills. I think something that's quite unique is a board program for women. We just introduced, this is an 18-month program that helps our women leaders get ready to serve on boards. We are big believers in the fact that if we can get many of our leaders on a board of directors at a different public company or private company, there are tremendous um skills and insights that they build in that kind of environment. So that's why we're making that investment there. We have a teammate resource groups who are very focused on making sure that we're building the right kinds of development programs and also the right kinds of recruiting programs to attract latino populations, african american populations, veterans etcetera. So those are all really key to our success. Joyce. You've said that you've had many mentors in your career and many great bosses. Can you single out one Of them who gave you some terrific leadership advice what it was and how it's guided you. I would say as a young brand new plant manager at Cummins engine company. I had an older plant manager been a plant manager 50 years, a man of few words and I asked him for some advice and his advice was a little bit cryptic. He said paint the bathrooms. And it took me a while to realize what he meant was demonstrate to the people on your team, the people in the plant that they are very important and demonstrate that by putting your money where your mouth is, make investments in their environment, they go, they go to the restroom a couple of times a day, make sure that it's not broken and cracked, make sure that they know that you care about their well being because that will serve you well and it sure has.

Lynn Martin says a pipeline of companies is ready to go public when market volatility subsides

NYSE President: IPO Outlook Is "Incredibly Strong"

Flynn thank you so much for joining us to talk about the financial markets and your new job as president of the new york stock exchange and I'm sure people ask you this all the time, when is this bear market gonna come to an end? When are we going to see the stock market rallying again? What do you say to them? How do you answer that question? I think the most important thing that we could be doing at the new york stock exchange is convening people convening people to discuss the economy to discuss what's going on. Markets staying close to our issuers staying open, ensuring that trades happen as efficient way as possible, that buyers and sellers are both able to express the opinion as transparently and as efficiently as possible. Well you see a lot of data you get a tremendous amount of market information and you talk to the C. E. O. S who are running the 2400 companies that are listed on the big board Listening to and reading all that data. Do you have any indications of how next year might look when it comes to the financial markets? I wish I had an indication of how next year was gonna look but unfortunately I don't right now I'm spending as much time as possible with our community of 2400 list. The company's combined market cap of those companies is actually over $30 trillion globally. So right now it's most important to stay as close to our ceo than ever. And you know what we're talking about a variety of issues. We're talking about things such as E. S. G. And how to continue to evolve in environmental, social and governance, uh impactful way as possible. Why are you picking up on that? I know there's been some pushback on, you know, some companies are saying their shareholders don't want them to be investing in and concentrating on environmental issues, governance issues when they really should be just making sure they get a good return for their shareholders. Obviously the primary objective for the ceo of our 2400 Companies is to maximize shareholder return. But importantly, they have seen the value that diversity brings to delivering on that shareholder value. It's why of our 2400 listed companies combined market cap of $30 trillion globally. If 100% have at least one female director, 95% of two or more female directors on their boards and 90% have 20% or more female directors on their board. They all see the value. The diversity of thought diversity of leadership can bring to the operating of a company. Let's circle back to what's going on in the markets these days. What's your take on individual investors and how they're handling these big sell off. The main thing that I like to tell the individual investor is it's really important for you to do your homework when you're investing in a company invest for the long term and have a balanced portfolio, have a diversified portfolio if you look at today, for example, that could mean having a variety of fixed income securities where yields are quite good. Um And you get the tax advantages coupled with your equities position. But even with all that research um the factors that move the markets these days are very technical, very complex and dominated by what people call robot trading. So it would seem that individuals just don't have the understanding that the professional market players do but they're at a disadvantage no matter how much research do I tend to disagree. I think the wealth managers have done a really good job in educating the individual investor and providing them with tools at their fingertips to do the analytics and the homework behind a company before they actually invest in the company. Let's talk about the I. P. O. Market because we've just not seen much IPO's these days. What can you tell us about the outlook for I. P. O. S. I think the outlook for I. P. O. S. Is incredibly strong. Uh Inter terms of the pipeline that we've continued to build. The public market currency has never been stronger. We have conversations with companies that are private that are looking to tap into the public markets either from a capital acquisition standpoint. Um From from a strategic M. And a perspective to reward their employees to diversify their shareholder base. So the public market capital has never been stronger. What you're seeing right now is timing. It's all related to timing the volatility in the markets is causing those companies who want to go public to take a step back and really decide what the right time for them to go into the market is. It's not until you start to see some of the volatility in the major indices start to abate that you're gonna start to see companies, more companies go public. Well how does the pipeline look? I mean do you get indications that there's a line up of companies that are ready ready to go public as soon as the timing there? Absolutely is we have a strong pipeline that we're ready to take public as soon as they're ready to go. But when investors look at the companies that went public a year ago, they've been some of the worst performing stocks this year. Do you think that that will scare off at least the individual investor from getting into the I. P. O. Market which used to be such an exciting investment to make? Well I think it will cause the individual investor to do a bit more homework before they make the investment in a company on their I. P. O. Day after they have gone public. You're still optimistic. I'm very, let's talk a little bit about leadership. It's been almost a year since you became president of the N. Y. S. C. And it's been a bit bumpy start. I'm just wondering how did the dramatic market selloff that have been going on this past year um shape the way you had to lead the big board from day one. So on day one I thought coming into the role that I would probably have a bit more of an active I. P. O. Market than I was facing. I think I was in the job a couple of weeks. The volatility really started you know mid january when you start to see those 1200 point swings in the dow. That that caused everyone to take a little bit of a breather. Um but importantly I had to focus on really important things like system capacity and efficiencies and ensuring our systems stayed open. And if I look at our performance over the last 10 months we've had all of our peak messaging days. The most incoming order messages, most buys sells trades happened on the N. Y. S. C. During this period were processing half a trillion messages across our platform every day. That it is an amazing number. It's more than 20% up off of the pandemic highs. So the amount of messaging that is in our system really spoke to the technologist in me to ensure that we are offering the most efficient experience for the liquidity that wants to be matched. A lot of people might not know that your background is pure technology, Your data scientist programmer. When you were a student, you studied computer science statistics, your first job was at IBM. So you have this tremendous amount of tech expertise? How critical is that for the way that you have to lead the NYC right now? I think every company has a technology story to tell and every company that is innovating is doing so with technology. Given that I've been so focused on technology throughout my career, not just at N. Y. S. C. Um, I find it to be a very exciting opportunity, but this is the first time that you're in charge of running a huge enterprise. Did you get any leadership advice before you started at the NYC? Well actually the group that I lead just prior had slightly more people than the N. Y S. C. So I'm used to leading very large teams and I'm used to leading teams through periods of transition. It's been a little bit of baptism by fire throughout my career where I've been parachuted into situations that are in the midst of a transition. Didn't happen to be a market transition like we're going through now. But it gave me the expertise. I'm sure many women look at you in awe and wonder that what do I need to do to lead an iconic organization like the NYC or a Fortune 500 company. What's your best advice? The advice I would give is don't be afraid to raise your hand for a tough challenge. Don't be afraid to say yes. Don't be afraid to seize the moment. Don't be afraid to make a bold step. Is that what you did? There are a variety of times throughout my career when I had been offered jobs, when I where I didn't think I was the ideal person and at first I didn't say yes for at least one or two of them. But then as time went on, yes gets much easier. And it's a piece of advice I always give to young females. Someone's offering you that opportunity because they believe in you. They believe you are the right person for that job. So just say yes because you are the right person for that job.

Roger Hochschild says "the strong job market" is the "safety net for the economy"

Discover Financial's CEO on Recession: "Short" followed by "Robust Economic Growth"

Discover CEO: "Short" Recession, Then Robust Growth

roger, thank you so much for joining us. Let's talk about the economy and consumer spending. You have a great perspective on this because you collect a lot of information from your credit card, customers discover and diner's club and you run a big bank discover financial that focuses on consumers. So here's what people want to know are is the U. S. Economy already in a recession? And if it is, how bad is it going to be? So in terms of what we see with our customers, they're actually doing very well. Sales are growing. Delinquencies are well below historic levels. So, you know, a recession is really a a technical term, I would say, based on what we see with our base. No, and my, I am one of those who hope for a soft landing, um you know, I think the Fed will keep raising rates until inflation is under control. But the underlying strength of the job market will see support most consumers. And again, my hope is something short and then a return to economic growth. But there are some troubling signs that we're already seeing. Maybe not to discover, But many people are living paycheck to paycheck. They're relying on their credit cards to pay their day to day expenses like food and gas? What about the consumer trends that you're seeing? So without a doubt, many households are struggling and my hope is that with the rapid decline in gas prices that will help them. We we operate mainly in the prime segment and they're the employment market is robust. So we're seeing good growth in sales. Were seeing payment rates on credit cards that are higher than historic levels. We're seeing strong demand for our savings products. So again, based on our customer base, they're doing well in this economy. Do you see that changing? You said you don't see a recession right now? But what about six months from now? What about a year from now? I think there will be a further slowdown because the Fed has been very clear they're going to raise rates until inflation comes under control. They'll do whatever it takes. And that really means a slowing of the economy. But again, my my hope is it will be sort of the soft landing scenario and will recover and move back to robust economic growth. I don't know if this is the case at discover, but a lot of credit cards companies are saying that new account openings have been surging. How concerned are you that consumers will fall behind on paying their their bills and are going to rack up debt. So for us we take a very conservative approach to credit and to our underwriting. It's always been a hallmark of discover and we do that in good times and in bad. So right now we actually have been tightening our credit standards at the margin and yet are still seeing very significant growth in new accounts for us. I think it's about having a differentiated product and a better customer experience. Well, it doesn't help that for those who are taking on more debt, that interest rates are going up and going higher and that means that it's gonna take a lot more money to pay off that debt, right? Yeah. You know, most, most credit card products do have a variable rate. Um but but given the overall payment, the interest rates rates we've seen increased, you know, you've got to keep in mind they're coming off record low levels. So again, are really starting to approach more normal levels. And we're still seeing payment rates for trans actors as as well as those carrying a balance stay above historic norms roger. You've been working in financial services for most of your career. So you've lived through many good business cycles and bad ones. How do you see this one playing up? This is I think probably the hardest cycle to predict. And I think part of that is we're still seeing real distortions in the economy that trace back to the covid pandemic. And so you look at consumer demand for travel right? Even with very elevated um hotel prices, airfares, you saw a surge in consumer travel. And I think that was just the pent up demand that will start to cut back. You're seeing distortions around purchases of hard goods because a lot of people made major purchases, Redid their backyards when they were at home for the pandemic. That slowed down at the same time, a lot of retailers are getting caught with inventory. So you have those distortions. I would say though, our most important driver is the job market and there you are seeing continued strength. I think the job market has the ability to absorb many more people and that will provide an underlying safety net for the economy overall seem pretty optimistic about the outlook. But wondering that what's the most important thing you still need to do as ceo to lead your company and lead your employees if business really slows down. So we we try and take a long term view. And I think to to where you start your question, I've seen many cycles. You know, I don't worry about a recession because I know one will come and for us it's not that different whether it comes in three months, six months a year. We try and just be conservative. We don't hire too many people. We don't change our credit criteria and that lets us support our employees and our customers when times get more challenging. Let's talk about another way that you're leaving a discover. You recently opened a call center in an under invested community on the south side of Chicago in Chatham. And on opening day you said that the center is quote transforming us and opened our eyes to new ideas and possibilities. What did you mean by that? I couldn't be more excited about our center and Chatham and what it's doing for discover, you know, a lot of companies talk about diversity equity and inclusion. Um but then it it isn't a core part of their business. And so for us, we looked at the systemic bias that has been there in corporate site selection and we said we're gonna do business differently. Were you going to bring jobs to an under invested community? And Chatham is a vibrant black community on the south side of Chicago. Um over 90% of the employees come within several miles of the facility and they're transforming the culture of discovery. They're bringing new ideas, new ways of working. We've had employees from all over the company go there to help with the training and to build out and we're applying those lessons learned from the Chatham center all across the organization. So are you surprised by the success of your Chatham center? You know, I was optimistic, but I must confess. I am surprised. You know, we take customer service very seriously here discover. Um we are the only major bank with 100% us based customer service. But the fact that our Chatham site is already the top performing across all of our coal centers with significantly lower trip faster speed to proficiency for new agents and company leading customer satisfaction scores. You know, I knew we'd be successful with enough effort, but I should have, I should have had more confidence in, you know, when you bring opportunity to people who have been denied that chance. just the magic that can occur, you mentioned a moment ago about the importance of diversity and inclusion and you know, so many people are looking to businesses to and business leaders to see step up and do the right thing. When it comes to diversity and inclusion from your Chatham experience, what are your takeaway leadership lessons? So for us, I think it's really just a question of just just do it, commit, bring jobs to these communities because only large companies can bring jobs at scale will create at least 1000 positions. But the halo effect for the community. When I was down there, I met a woman who runs a nail salon across the street. She's hugely excited to have all of our employees be customers. I talked to one of our first hires, he was saying he can be a better father because he doesn't have an hour and a half commute. He can take his daughter to daycare in the mornings. And so the opportunities that so many of us take for granted we can bring to these communities and again, to the incredibly talented people that live there

George Kurian says companies that hold out on AI are missing the opportunity for business success

NetApp CEO: The Promise of AI is "Much More Real Today"

George, you're a big believer in AI and of course artificial intelligence generates a lot of growth at your company net app. We've seen that there are some companies that are quick adopters of Ai, others are skeptics and are holding back. How do you read? Who's who? I think first of all, what we've seen over the last few years is That a series of technology advancements have made the promise of industrialized Ai become much more real today than it was 20 years ago. The leaders are using AI to propel their business forward. They've made the use of AI a corporate business priority and have moved it from the remit of sciences and data engineers in the back office to actually enabling front office capabilities, serving your customers better detecting fraud in real time, driving your supply chain forecasting to be way more accurate than it used to be in the past. And I think that is sort of perhaps the mindset of leadership is the biggest difference that I see between the leaders and the ladders and what about the mindset of those who are waiting and observing but not participating with all the hype about AI, is there still an advantage to being cautious? Every industry has the opportunity to use AI tools in specific use cases. And so one of the challenges of waiting forever is that you may be missing opportunities to apply aI not as a broad based corporate transformational prerogatives, but at least to progress, a specific function in its capabilities and its well you sound very enthusiastic about this technology and I'm sure that there have been occasions where you've turned some of your customers from skeptics into believers of what is it that you've been able to say or do to convince them to embrace Ai. I think the most important things that we help them understand is that there are very specific use cases where the Ai tools are mature and where there are many customer examples of peers of our of our customers who are being successful with AI. So that removes the basic skepticism, that is the technology ready. And then it becomes a lot about how do you as a leader and how do you as a customer set up for success? Well, as you know, cost is also an important consideration. How do you make a case about spending money on a I we have found that the return on marketing investment when with an Ai led propensity model is seven times better than a generic marketing investment that we make. So that really solves the RI for itself. So how do you see A I technology evolving over let's say the next five years, what are we going to be able to do with Ai that we're not doing now and I think the but the technological foundations to make AI much more widely applicable and available there today, I think it's you know, for a larger business, it is moving a i from the experiment to large scale production, which is really the responsibility of leadership. But I also think one of the real big opportunities over the next few years is to make a I get democratized so that the tools that are available to the largest corporations are now available to businesses around the world. That's a phenomenal opportunity ahead.

Lore's mobile food trucks cook recipes from top chefs and deliver to your doorstep "piping hot"

Entrepreneur Marc Lore's Yummy New Start-up: "Wonder"

Mark, thank you so much for joining us to talk about your latest venture. Wonder tell our viewers about this new food delivery service that you just started. Great. Well first off you said, you said food delivery. It certainly resembles food delivery, but we're actually doing is we're created a group of 21 and counting restaurant chains in every cuisine. And these restaurant chains don't exist in the physical sense. They only exist on a mobile platform and this mobile truck will come in front of your house, cook the food and bring it to you to a piping hot. We've got some of the best chefs in the world on the platform, bobby flay, Jose Andreas, nancy, Silverton Marcus Samuelsson, marc Murphy, Jonathan waxman, incredible uh lineup of chefs and this is not like for a party, this is every day, every meal dinner, everything from a high end steakhouse down to burgers and pizza and everything in between. It sounds like a complicated process because you have your wonder chef cooking inside of these mobile trucks and then delivering the food hot to someone's doorstep. There's no open flame. It's a high speed convection oven basically. And all the heavy lifting is done in the central commissary where we sue the steak and we create food kits um and then we bring them onto the truck and then they're fired very quickly so we can turn around an entire meal for your family in 10-15 minutes outside your door. So why is this a good business proposition? It sounds complicated. It's very complicated, but I love complicated business and I think that's where the opportunity lies. I think it's very difficult for others to do. It raised a lot of capital. We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building, you know, investing the culinary engineering and food science to make this possible. Um, and in the beginning we didn't know if it was possible, could you cook a steak as good as you'd get in a great bobby flay steak house in 10 minutes outside your door and delivered piping hot. And we proved we can how much research, development and money went into four years and hundreds of millions of dollars just in the food engineering and food science aspect of, and we're constantly evolving and learning every day, we're able to cook now four pizzas, uh that look and taste like wood fired pizza in about four minutes. We have a path to get it down under three minutes. So we're constantly trying to find ways to engineer the food so we can cook great food faster with someone who's very, very light training. So, um, I wanted to see for myself, I went in, took a day of training on a particular restaurant, was fred's burgers, cheesesteaks and went out on the road and was able to produce cheese, steaks and burgers and fries and the whole menu after a day of training, I'm curious about how you got interested in all this because you've been the founder of many e commerce companies. Jet dot com that you ultimately sold to walmart diapers dot com that you sold to amazon and you wrote an op ed article recently and you said that of all the ventures that you've been involved in wonder quote has truly inspired me. Why is that? Yeah, I was truly inspired by the mission to bring great food um, to people that don't have access to it from a business standpoint. I was just tired of getting soggy fries and not be able to order like fish or steak or anything from restaurant delivery. And we solved that, I think millennials and gen z, the generation is putting a higher price on convenience. They're willing to pay to get food delivered, but right until, until wonder weren't able to get it hot, really high quality every time. Well right now, wonder is available in the suburbs in new york and New Jersey. And, but you've raised, you said a moment ago, uh, mo more than a billion dollars to expand the business. What do you want? Wonder to be? We're currently next month will be serving 400,000 households and about 75 towns. The big vision is that we become the go to solution anytime anyone wants to eat a meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. The mission is to make great food more accessible. We believe there's lots of places right now that could have access two great food that don't. Um, and we want to bring our ovens and our kids and our technology to those those areas. What feedback have you been getting from your customers? Great feedback. You know people are surprised by the quality of the food and how hot it is when they get it. So what happens if the economy slows down? What if food inflation prices just to get to be too high for your customers? How will your business be impacted? Yeah I mean it's growing so fast. I mean if its imp it will be a blip we won't really won't really feel it. We're also moving into meal. Kids ready to cook, ready to heat meals and things that are much lower price point. So we'll have every meal occasion covered here in the very near future. So I'm not worried. You know Mark uh so many people dream of starting your own company and they look at your success with awe. Um If you had to pinpoint one thing, what's the secret to your success? This one thing is three letters V. C. P. Vision. Capital people. Those are the three ingredients of success. You have to have a crystal clear vision. You know exactly where you wanna go. Most people, they have a vague idea of the vision but crystal clear exactly what paint a picture for what you want the business to look like. 10 years into the future. Have a capital plan, understand how much money you need to raise to get there and a plan. How many rounds is it gonna take, how much you're gonna raise? How much are you gonna raise the next time? What do you need to prove with each round of financing? So mapping that out early is really important. And then finally P. And V. C. Ps people, you have to have a clear mission a set of values and build a culture that is able to attract the very best people in the world and then once they're in a culture that gets the very best that they've got to give if you've got the best people and they're motivated to give you the best they've got. You've got a clear vision access to capital. That's how the magic happens.

Jeff Sloan says this $125 trillion market is "an enormous opportunity for us"

Global Payments CEO: Digitization of B2B  payments is the new normal 

Global Payments CEO: New normal is B2B payments digitization

Jeff. So good to see you again to talk about global payments. You know, for the past few years you've been talking up the importance of digital payments and surprisingly consumers have adopted these very comfortably whether talking about mobile payments, QR codes, contact with payments and your company has enabled that technology. Now you're saying the next big growth area is B two B. Business to business digital transactions. Why is this the next big growth spurt? I think the next stage of evolution is to attack, that's actually a $125 trillion market annually globally and much like the consumer business many decades ago. Most people don't know that half the volume today in business to business, which is businesses paying other businesses is actually done today by check and most of the rest of it is done via a ch is relatively low digital and card penetration into the B two B segment. Yet the growth is fantastic. Why have businesses been so slow to automate and digitize? It's hard to believe that they're making payments in paper checks. It's one of those things that's a mystery to everybody. But what I would say is much like cash and check in the consumer economy, I think um that recent experience has taught us that the more comfortable people are with technology and using digital means of payment, the more efficient they can be both on paying out or paying their own bills as well as I'm paying in and getting their own invoices paid. And what's the big expense that here is it speed, is it cost savings for businesses. The first thing I'd say susie is you can actually be much more efficient paying things digitally. So for example, you can get paid more quickly. You don't need as much staff dedicated to payables management as you do in the in the analog world. The second thing is the extent that you use virtual cards. So cards as a means of actually getting your payables paid. Those are funds good meaning that once the transaction is authorized, you know, you're gonna get paid and you're not worried about the check being lost in the mail or the check bouncing. And the last thing I'd say is we're all trained as on the consumer side when we get an invoice, the email via pdf to pay it. So instead of snail mail and dropping your bills on the inside of B two B and when you get paid until somebody does or does not get the mail, you can actually get paid digitally electronically. Which is obviously a lot more efficient than it is via snail mail. What does this mean for your business? Global payments, How transformative it will be to be is one of the largest markets that were chasing in 100 $25 trillion of value. If you compare it to our Corbett, the consumer market, it's four times the size. So it's an enormous opportunity for us if you're asking me where we are in 5 to 10 years, I think that we have to be one of the largest players in the world in B. Two B. Now, the other big trend that you have been talking about is buy now pay later payment options or what people call B. N. P. L. I mean this is an installment plan. They've been around for years. So why is this new digital version so popular? I call it lay away when I was actually in grade school. This is how I bought my first bowling ball by putting a dollar away every week for a year until christmas. So it has been around for a long time. Having said that though, what I think is different from a consumer point of view is the amount of technology that's gone into product development to allow you to shop when you're on the website when you're at the point of purchase and after you're purchasing is really innovative. But at the end of the day, if you take a step back, it's really no different than installment lending. And what we're doing a global payments is powering financial neo banks, Fintech startups to provide the same kind of customer service that our people are used to. The more traditional bank card environment. I'm sure you've seen the reports showing that delinquencies are up for these be NPL payments and higher than what they are for credit cards. To what extent could the credit problems of the customers become a problem for global payments. What's important for us is that we only do B. M. P. L. And services like that in a regulated response. So the way we're approaching the NPL Suzy is we're doing it through financial institutions which are already regulated. Have know your customer have a male responsibilities and that gives us a lot of comfort that we're using global payments, name and brand in an appropriate way. So you're not getting involved in checking the credit worthiness of the borrowers. We don't take any balance sheet risk in B. M. P. L. Or otherwise. Let's talk a little bit now about the economy and the business environment. You have a special perspective money flows in the economy. So from what you're seeing, do you see a recession coming? Well we certainly don't, in my opinion have won today. There's two reasons I believe that the first is in our volume. So what we announced a couple of weeks ago is that through july and august of 2022 our volumes are right in line with our expectations are very consistent with the data that you've seen from these Mastercard. So so far we haven't seen it. The second thing I would say is I've been on a bit of a world tour as I've gone back out to many of our markets um in in europe in particular but also here in north America and for those of you in new york but also around the world. The hotels are packed, the airlines are packed, the restaurants are packed. You can see it, you don't need me to tell you that things are good. I think that will persist susie at least through the end of the third quarter. It's harder to see with a crystal ball where we are in the fourth quarter and the first part of next year. But sitting here today we feel really good about the strength of our business through the end of the quarter. Well holiday shopping is sometimes a good indicator of the the the economy when you're looking at the outlook for holiday shopping, what's your take on that? I would say right now as I think you've heard from large financial institutions throughout North America, the consumers in a very healthy place from a savings point of view. The consumers in a very healthy place from a spending point of view and I think the pent up demand in terms of travel and you're hearing this from the airlines in terms of people booking tickets today for the holiday season is very good. So sitting here today we don't want no reason to expect that things are any different to the holiday season than they are today. To what extent are some of these retailers coming to you to help them add more technology solutions so that they can save money and be more efficient. Are you seeing that happening? One thing I would say more recently about the advent of digitization, our businesses, consumers don't see a distinction between shopping on their phone, shopping in a physical store stores, shopping online shopping at the at the market and like so as a result they've come to expect an incredibly high level of service. One thing that gives really confident, but I look at the next 69 or 12 months is our rate of bookings and our new sales and our sale of new technologies especially in digitization is proceeding at a record pace As a result, I feel really good about where we are and where our customers are. Sounds like things are going really well for global payments but looking ahead beyond the holidays, what's your outlook for 2023? You've been reporting strong financial results all year. Do you see that momentum continuing into the new year? Well, we have record Results at the end of 21. We wreck results for each of the first two quarters. In 22 we're forecasting more of the same for the third quarter and the year. I expect that to continue into 23. So I'm very optimistic longer term about where the company is and where it's heading our new sales numbers are fantastic. Our existing revenue targets and our current financials are exceptional. So I feel good about where we are good about where we are. That doesn't mean that there will be a straight line path upwards in everything that we're doing. But I do feel really good about the health of the business.

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