Name: Inside the daily routine of Build-A-Bear’s CEO who led a multi-million dollar turnaround
Uploaded: 2025-01-10
Duration: 7 min 27 s
Description: Sharon Price John credits her daily routine for her enduring enthusiasm for the toy retailer, and gave Fortune an exclusive look at her day, which kicks off before sunrise.

Sharon Price John credits her daily routine for her enduring enthusiasm for the toy retailer, and gave Fortune an exclusive look at her day, which kicks off before sunrise. 

Inside the daily routine of Build-A-Bear’s CEO who led a multi-million dollar turnaround

Sharon Price John joined the company in 2013.

Features

Build-A-Bear's CEO gave Fortune an exclusive look at her day, which kicks off before sunrise. 

Inside the daily routine of Build-A-Bear’s CEO 

The best thing about Build A Bear, in my opinion, is that every day is completely different. When you step into a CEO role, you're automatically over all the functional areas, many of which you may not have ever worked in before. There's always a learning curve there, and I think it's really important to be intellectually curious and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. Hi, I'm Sharon Price John, the president and CEO of Build. Workshop. I'm 60 years old and this is a day in the life series. I wake up around 6 a.m. and even though my phone is right beside me, I try not to look at it up on that first moment. I try to get in a good mood and think about what's great about the day, not be overwhelmed with what's next on the calendar or what emails came in overnight. Just take. 5 minutes or 10 minutes and be appreciative of everything about that day already. I'm a coffee addict. I drink 2 or 3 cups a day, but that's the first thing that I do before I do anything. And then while I'm having that first couple of cups of coffee, I do check all my emails. I don't always eat breakfast. I, I eat when I'm hungry, but if I do eat, it's usually going to be granola and. Fruit, maybe a bagel and cream cheese. Usually I walk about 1 mile in the mornings. Often I'm listening to a podcast or maybe I'm meditating depending on what's going on, but then I come back, get ready, go into the office. I live in Saint Louis, which is where Bild A Bear was founded back in 1997. We have moved the headquarters since it was originally created, um, from the. The outer edges of the city to downtown St. Louis. We have a 4 story building there where we also have a build a bear in the main floor that people come to, and that's always a lot of fun just to be able to go downstairs and remember why you do what you do every day. But it's a very short commute for me. It's probably less than 15 minutes on most days and I drive in from my home in an area called the Central West End, which is a really Old and special area of St. Louis, we're adjacent to a beautiful park called Forest Park. It's the largest municipal park in the United States actually. In just a matter of moments. You are in downtown St. Louis. I see the arch, usually the sun's coming up over the arch most mornings when I'm driving in, and then once you get back out just a few miles, I have that park very close to my home and. Can get away from it all really quickly. If I am in town, I am walking every week in Forest Park, often multiple times per week. I will go in when the first meeting starts, so that could be anywhere from 8 to 9 o'clock generally. Our meetings last usually an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, and there are definitely days that are completely back to back. No lunch. You have to squeeze in a bathroom break. It's nonstop. They might be from in person to combination of in person and on our our team's meetings sometimes they're just completely a teams meeting. They can be anywhere in the world and then once a week we have something. Called our bear Quarters meeting, which is in person and everyone comes in and I'm often speaking on the stage during that just giving people updates really it's informal but it's an important part of what we do. I will often bring my own lunch because I like to eat healthy food and we have a great canteen, but as my husband would say, I'm I'm kind of a picky eater. I eat when I have a break and I eat when I'm hungry. I'm notorious for forgetting to eat, which I know sounds crazy to some people and might not even sound healthy, but trust me, I'm healthy. You're asking me how I structure my afternoons. I don't. I have. admin extraordinaire who understands most of the time what I need, what are the important meetings, what are not, what are the what are some of the external needs that we have, what can get pushed off. It's absolutely critical in my opinion for someone in my role or a sea level role where there are so many people and things tugging on your time and your Attention to have that intelligent thoughtful filter so we look over my schedule usually Monday mornings and Friday nights or Friday evenings and sometimes Thursday evenings to walk through the next few weeks of what's going on, particularly as it relates to travel. I try to pack my travel full so I like to know when I'm going where so I can make sure I'm making them. Best possible use of that travel time. I try to leave Fridays a little bit open so I can collect my thoughts for the day or or the week rather. What time do you normally stop working in the office? In the traditional sense, probably around 6, 6:30, but a CEO in a town like Saint Louis, and I'm probably anywhere, um, you have a lot of responsibility. Perhaps we have people in from out of town. Um, whether it's a board meeting or there is someone from one of our partners, it's occasionally important for me to come in and shake hands with those individuals and sometimes have dinner depending on what's going on, so I have a job to do in those circumstances. Now I'm also a mom of three kids, and they're now older. They're 25, 22, and 19. so it's a much different environment now than it was when they were much younger. There's always things going on, but then we work hard to have that down time and, and I think that it's, uh, it's important to put your family first, but you know, the, the build a bear is also a part of my family. So this is turning out to be a sad thematic. I don't cook dinner. Because I'm not that good at cooking, but my husband is. In fact, uh, he's a very good cook. We actually own restaurants and a hard cider company and he generally has some food ready for us. When the weather's good, we eat outside, we have a kind of a, a really nice back patio and it's just great to be outside and. And enjoy sometimes so even with a glass of wine in the evening and, and whatever he's put together for us. Sometimes there might be some things that I'll need to circle back on that I didn't get to um after dinner. I do, you know, some personal work or I'll think about what I want to wear in the morning and try to like map out and make sure I know I really. I'm understanding what my next day is going to look like. Sometimes I have to, um, you know, think about the whole day, like if I have an event that next day, like what I'm going to wear, what I'm going to take, so I can transition and I go to bed a little bit early, you know, 9, 10-ish. I'm, I'm probably down by 10 o'clock.