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COO Summit 2024

Babak Hodjat, Chief Technology Officer, AI, Cognizant Facilitator: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Acing AI - Real-World Success Stories And Strategies

Conferences

Impact Initiative 2024: Acing AI - Real-World Success Stories And Strategies

Captain Sandy Yawn, Founder and CEO, Captain Sandy, Inc Interviewer: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Sailing Forward In All Kinds Of Weather - Leadership Lessons From Below Deck’s Captain Sandy

Captain Sandy Yawn, Founder and CEO, Captain Sandy, Inc
Interviewer: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Leadership Lessons From Below Deck’s Captain Sandy

Tom Murray, President, Heidrick & Struggles, Bill Schaninger, Senior Partner, Modern Executive Solutions Moderator: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Stepping Up - What It Takes To Go From COO to CEO

Lindsay LoBue, Chief Operating Officer, Carlylem
David Nason, Senior Executive Vice President and COO, TIAA; President, TIAA Wealth Management,
Anand Selvakesari, Chief Operating Officer, Citi  Moderator: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit 

COO Summit 2024: Margin Marvels - How Finance COOs Are Turning Volatility Into Opportunity

Lindsay LoBue, Carlylem, David Nason, TIAA; TIAA Wealth Management,
Anand Selvakesari, Citi, Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune

Linda Findley, Former CEO, Board Director, Blue Apron; Ralph Lauren, Tierney Remick, Vice Chair and Co-leader, Board and CEO Services, Korn Ferry Moderator: Lila MacLellan, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: The COO Master Playbook For Working With A Board

Linda Findley, Former CEO, Board Director, Blue Apron; Ralph Lauren, Tierney Remick, Vice Chair and Co-leader, Board and CEO Services, Korn Ferry

Ashish Kothari, Founder and CEO, Happiness Squad

COO Summit 2024: Come On, Get Happy - Mental Wellness And The Competitive Edge

Friends. I'd like to invite us to just start a bit differently. We've been hearing lots of content. So let's just start with taking one minute and we're going to take five or six breaths together. So just plant your feet. I invite you to dim your eyes and just follow your breath, take a breath in and breathe out, take another breath in and breathe out. Take 23 more cycles of breath and then we start. Thank you. I'll connect back to the simple one minute of a mindful start and why I had to try that. But before we do, let me start you with three simple questions. Raise your hands. If this year's targets that you're being asked to deliver are higher than last year's, keep them up. If the conditions under which you're asked to deliver them are harder than last year, you can raise them even up if you want. Right? And finally think about if at the end of four years coming out of the pandemic with all the curveballs that you've been thrown, maybe you're feeling at the edge of all that's possible, maybe even a bit exhausted. Yeah, that's I have asked this question to 200 plus executives in the last 12 months. And I hear consistently the same, we are working harder than ever. We feel the need to continuously be on and we're trying desperately to keep things in control even in the face of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity going through the roof. Today. I want to offer you a different path, a path that allows you to truly take yourself and your organizations and be able to rise to the challenge of higher targets in the harder conditions, not by doing more, but by being more by truly discovering what I'm calling your fifth gear. And we do that through the science of flourishing because here's what we know over the last 20 years, we know that happier employees, we know happier individuals are more creative, they're more resilient, they are more adaptable, they live longer and are healthier. We also know that happier companies have two X higher stock market returns are 20% more profitable, are 12 to 30% more productive. Three X more creative and 65% lower attrition. That's the business case for flourishing. Now, this is not just numbers, these are realities because these companies who are achieving these levels of performance have truly learned something they have learned how to unleash that human magic that often lies untapped in organizations. You can read all about it in the best by transformation written by their former Ceo Hubert Joly a former mckenzie uh colleague. You see, I grew up in the world of operations. I led many of our largest transformations at mckenzie in operations. And I learned something during that time before I pivoted to the topic of human flourishing, I realized that we had a playbook that we have deployed over 50 plus years to drive scalable and sustainable transformations. We did it with lean millions of people, many blue collar upskilled in new ways of working new mindsets and new management systems that enable them. It enabled us to drive productivity up to 80% safety down to almost zero and quality down to almost minuscule levels, right? In terms of errors, what if he could apply that to human flourishing? Because our current approach, despite increased investments is not working 20%. Despite all the engagement, surveys that many of you probably run global engagement is stuck at 20% stress and anxiety are 40 to 60% they're not moving. So let's think a little bit about how do we actually apply what we know what we already know to this challenge. Number one, we need to truly take flourishing and put it at the heart of our strategies. Ge didn't take six Sigma as a productivity initiative. Six Sigma became the heart of how they transformed and disrupted industries. Toyota did the same with the Toyota production system. We have to stop treating well being as a side hustle as seminars, employee benefits and really put it at the heart of how we run operations, how we incentivize leaders and how we grow. Second, as operators, we love data. You know, we measure it continuously, we benchmark within units, we benchmark across units, we benchmark across companies. Why we are constantly looking for every basis point of improvement that we can from our physical investments. So why are we OK, measuring our human assets once a year, maybe every six months and then using one size fits all interventions, we're going to have everybody go through a meaning journey. Why if there's somebody who actually finds meaning and what they're doing, it's a waste of their time. So here's the insight I had the same losses that apply for machines, apply for people availability, losses for people show up in absenteeism and attrition in machines. They show up as unplanned, downtime, performance losses show up because only 20% of front line and managers are engaged and they find meaning at work stress results in lower productivity. How many of you spend 80% of your time in back to back meetings? Did you know back to back meetings, drive 40% higher risk of errors and result in 8 to 12% lower productivity because we are multitasking because we got to get work done. Psychological safety and trust is another driver. Keith talked a lot about this around how we are not collaborating enough. We might have high engagement scores but we all know those meetings where we keep talking about the same thing over and over again. And then quality losses show up in terms of poor errors that show up or quality decision biases because we don't have the right information, right? So the second big thing that I want to introduce for you is these five pillars similar to lean that we can apply to this data, data around losses that we measure. And those are purpose, energy, awareness, relationships, and life force. We call this a pearl model dream with me for a minute. Imagine if every employee at your organization showed up and they found work as a source of meaning and fulfillment, not just a way to earn a paycheck. Think about what becomes possible. Imagine if work wasn't a grind but left you with more energy. At the end of the day, it was because gratitude and compassion was weaved into how we work and we taught people how to have conflicts the right way rather than avoid them. Think about what becomes possible if we truly trained our leaders to navigate in complexity, only 20% of leaders today according to work at Harvard are at a stage of development that allows them to thrive in complexity for the rest of us. We can just survive. Imagine if the fabric of your organization was so psychologically safe and deep in trust that people were afraid, not afraid to give you their best ideas. Their most creative ideas and finally life force. Imagine if we could train our leaders to redesign their work in neuro friendly ways and truly make stress an ally that one minute breath is a powerful way. It's a moment when we are in back to back meetings, accumulating stress to give ourselves a recharge, just like we charge our phones somehow we feel we don't need to do that with our human bodies and our brains. So it's about choosing the right interventions with our teams just like we do with lean. So they can choose the right intervention for that team. And the last excellence performance is a mindset. We do that with lean, right? We don't have to tell people what to do. We help shape identities and they take action. We do Kaiser events once a month, if not every other week, when was the last time we ran a Kazan on our own ways of working using the data to come up with small experiments that we can try to improve our efficiency, our effectiveness and friends. This is what we are finding with this work as we use this model to deploy it. When we do this, we can truly make flourishing our competitive edge. And here's what we unlock 2 to 3.5% higher alpha year over year for our shareholders. We can use, truly use flourishing to grow the pie and not worry about splitting the pie and how much goes to employees versus shareholders. Thank you.

Daniel Swan, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company, Zach Thomann, Chief Operating Officer, Americas & APAC, GXO Logistics Moderator: Ruth Umoh, Next To Lead Editor, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Tips And Tricks For Retooling Resilient Supply Chains

Carol Juel, Chief Technology and Operating Officer, Synchrony, Eunice Lee, Chief Operating Officer, Scopely, Moderator: Lila MacLellan, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Why Rethinking Employee Engagement isn’t just for HR

Chrissy Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer, Enterprise Mobility Interviewer: Ruth Umoh, Next To Lead Editor, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Driving A Storied Rental Car Company To 21st Century Success

Well, Chris at enterprise, you refer to 2024 as the year of the operator. What do you mean by that? And why? 2024 in particular? Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and thank you to all of you in the audience. So um you know, it is Enterprise Mobility um as car rental, but we are so much more than that. We have truck rental fleet management. Importantly, we have 90,000 employees and in 90 territories and country. So the year of the operator is really, really important to us. And as we think about the year of the operator, it really comes down to four core areas that have made us successful for over 67 years and will take us into the future first customer experience. We have to make sure that we continue to provide excellent experiences for all of our customers employee development. We are the largest employer of college graduates in the country. And so we need to make sure that we're providing opportunities and development for our team. And then we are a growth company, we wanna continue to grow because if we're growing, we're providing great experiences, we're developing and promoting our people. And then lastly, fourth is a reasonable bottom line so that we can give back to all the communities that have made us so successful because we have 10,000 locations almost. And we wanna make sure that we're making an impact locally in developing those communities. And so the balance of that is really when we talk about the year of the operator and what that means, this is quite prescient. And we were talking about this in the green room earlier, you said you have about 90 different locations or, and, and, and, and 90,000 employees. Uh Right now there is a storm and last, last week, there was also another storm that was battering a number of these geographies. How do you think some of those, how do you think here from the? Yeah. So we have a lot of actually partners in the room and we're just talking to one of the insurance companies as we're figuring out, you know, where do our vehicles need to be? How can we best help our partners such as insurance companies, government agencies fema, they are on the ground, North Carolina, very hard, difficult place to get to. But what it comes down to is our decentralization and our local leadership that is where the rubber meets the road. That is where they're focused on operational um excellence and making sure that we have the right car in the right place for those people who are um unfortunately, in the situation that they find themselves in and then we start planning for the next um hurricane that is also circling right now. So it really comes down to our decentralization and our local management with the guidelines of operational excellence and that has worked very, very well for us. So, a huge shout out to Steve Brad, who is our general manager in North Carolina. I wanna pivot and talk about human capital because at enterprise, you all are deeply obsessed with promoted from within. What's the competitive advantage you see in there? Yeah, it definitely is a competitive advantage because you're learning the business from the ground up. And I started as an intern um during college, just like everybody else, I needed a job, I needed some money. So I was an intern and then became a full time management trainee in 2000. Um And so 95% of our management team has actually come through the management training program. And so promoting from within means we can take more time with our employees, we can take more time to develop them, give them the resources that they need to make sure they're developing their career with us. For the law hall, we view our employees as an investment. And then as I talked about earlier, we have our fleet management business, which is our original business. We have truck rental, we have commuting, we have car sharing, we have business rental sales, we have this huge sales organization. So once you go through that management training track, you can then hop over into these other business lines that you already know the fundamentals of the business. It's like getting your MB A on the job. It is a huge competitive advantage for us that we invest in our people. And I also want to note that you took part in inside management training program. Absolutely, man, I know how to wash a really good car. Um But that is not what it is about is about getting your MB A on the job. It is really fun because you are growing and developing your own business, your own team, you're in, you're responsible for your customer service, your PNL and driving the business because each location is its own business. They're running multi million dollar assets at that business. And so, you know, our people, you know, tend to be on the younger side in those locations, but we're really trying to develop them for the future and it's been very successful for us prior to your ascension to the corner office, you were an operations chief, you held the coo role. What learning did you take from that position that now translate to the corner office and how much of a learning curve is there and jumping from offers chief to the CEO, um I've had 17 different roles in our company and also worked internationally, which was very helpful. And so getting those different perspective is very, very important as you're working towards that C Suite Ceo role or even coo role. And so when I think about coo it's really important because we were decentralized and our, we do promote from within. And so making sure that we're taking the time to listen to our operators understand what they need and then how does that fit within our core principles? And so listening, surround yourself with a great team and then make sure that I'm asking a lot of questions and I'm inquisitive about the business because we will never stop learning. Because if we want to propel ourselves into the future, we may be doing different things in the future. But who we are to the core of our DNA will never change. Jumping to CEO in that transition. I think that took a lot of listening. A lot of listening. Um Timing is everything I became Ceo January 2020 how much was going on? I sort of fell apart. And so, yeah, and so timing is everything, but I cannot emphasize listening and over communicating whether it's in a time of crisis or transformation or evolution. As all of us are talking about here today and are thinking about for our businesses. So you're not gonna change the whole company in one day. It's, it's an evolution. So listen, surround yourself with great people and be open minded. It's, and so this is we're a family owned business. And so my dad always says who we are to the core of our DNA, our culture will never change. But what we will do be doing in the future might be different. And that's OK. That's really exciting. That's my job as CEO to make sure that we're leading into the future. But understanding the legacy and the past of where we came from and what makes us suc successful. I'm gonna ask you one more question, quick note for the audience. I am going to momentarily turn to you. So start thinking about questions. You'd like to ask Chrissy while she's here because you've now twice used this term decentralized structure. Break down what that means, why you pivot it to a decentralized structure and where you're seeing some benefits. Yeah, absolutely. The decentralized structure actually happened from my grandfather. We are based in Saint Louis, Missouri, but we have o operating groups in 90 countries and territories. And really when he started hiring great people. And so we opened up Kansas City next with Don Ross, who was a great leader for us. And we knew that we needed to be on the ground in our local environments and markets, making sure that we can make quick decisions for our customers and that we individually in each market is responsible for our customer service for developing our people so that we can grow the business because you cannot replace that individual knowledge and leadership of each market. Yes, we have a corporate office, but at the corporate office, we talk about those four operating principles of operational excellence. And so we are creating the playing field and so you create that playing field, but then you enable and you allow people and empower them to make decisions at the local level. And that has worked beautifully for us. It's a competitive advantage and it helps our people grow, get promoted and move through the system as well. Any questions from the audience, raise your hand and we'll have a mic runner come to you. Any questions over here, please. I appreciate you telling us a little bit about the decentralized structure that you guys have. So when you have a geographically segmented team, what are some tactics that you guys use to make sure that you're aligned? Yeah, absolutely. And I think over time and maybe through the pandemic, it, the communication got better and so using those tools and resources so that you can, we've actually never talked to our gen, our general managers are the ones who oversee all of our markets. And so we've actually never spoken to our general managers more than we have since COVID because of technology and zoom and teams and all of those things we talk a lot about. Don't be behind your desk, you need to be visible example. We're very large in Europe, our UK operation is the largest, we were in Germany and uh Spain and France. And so we make sure that we o are over there every several weeks, seeing the team going into our locations, checking in on our management team, going to see customers. And so being visible as a leader is very, very important in our organization. And then we've got FVPS over these regions that then are also very visible. So a majority of our job is is being on the road and being with our team and talking about operational excellence. So it can be challenging and it's hard because we're a big organization but our people, our 90,000 people are what power us in our culture. And so you can never spend enough time with your people and on the road in your locations. Very important. Great question. Uh I wanna talk about A I, how you leverage in A I and other and the mobility space and what opportunities do you see from an efficiency standpoint? So the mobility landscape is very dynamic right now, there is a whole bunch of technology coming in and the vehicle is being transformed. And A I is one of those things, I think like many of you in the room, we are looking at efficiencies and call centers and how we make sure our data house is in order and that is important. But when we think about A I, we also think about connected car creating better experiences for our customers. We talk about autonomous vehicle, we talk about electrification. And so we are a mobility company and so that vehicle becomes important to us. And then what is the technology and tools around that vehicle that we can provide better experiences? So we absolutely talk about um efficiencies. Um but really, we have to put the customer at the center of everything that we're doing when we're using new technology and tools. And it's a super exciting time for us. But we want to be very thoughtful about how we use new technology and how we embrace the customer and our employee. That employee experience is also very important. Let's zero in on the customer experience aspect and I'll personalize this because I told you I rented an enterprise vehicle. Thank you very much uh directly helping your bottom line. And I drove from New York City to Washington DC as I told you and it was a seamless experience. But I think one area where there was a bit of a waiter, a tad bit of friction was just at the counter waiting for someone to get the car. Do you see yourself getting rid of that human experience? I mean, I personally don't need that human interaction. Uh Could you digitize that? Well, you actually are probably a national customer. So we have National Alamos. So thank you very much, National Road Warrior. Use any car bypass the counter and go that is an amazing offering. So this is where technology and humans and our employees come together because you've got to have that amazing customer experience and you have to have that amazing employee experience. And then you bring that together in a marriage with technology. And it is very difficult with our wide base of customer, whether it's truck or fleet or National Alamo Road Wire to be all things to all people. And so we are thinking very hard about how we use our digital properties and how we remove friction from our process. And national is a great example of that. On the enterprise side, we are using our digital properties and technology to make sure that you can bypass the counter and go. And so there is check in just like you see online. It's a new feature for us so that you can check in bypass the counter and then our person will meet you at the car. Sometimes somebody is not a road warrior, they're infrequent. And so our person can step in and ask or answer questions about the technology in the car or if it is an electric vehicle that does that is there's a learning curve with that. So we want to make sure that there is enough employee interaction because that's our wow difference. Our 90,000 people are a differentiator. So that was a long answer. Sorry. No, no, it was great. I mean your grandfather founded Enterprise in 1957. It's not the world's largest vehicle rental company. You seem to be shying away from this myopic Brandon that's focused solely on rental cars. Um And so I'm curious, what's the catalyst behind this uh rebrand from enterprise holdings to enterprise mobility? Yeah, it has been an amazing, amazing journey and it's been one year since we reintroduced our brands as Enterprise Mobility and we love car rental. It is the powerhouse. However, my grandfather founded us in 1957 in the lower level of a Cadillac dealership as leasing and so long term leasing um three year leases and that business has actually been off the hook and fabulous for us. And so as we think about the future and enterprise Mobility, it better describes who we are and what we do because we have nine distinct business lines. We have 90,000 people and technology that helps our business partners. And so we are ingrained only 11%. We did a big study, only 11% of the population and consumer knows we do more than rental. And so there is a huge opportunity especially in the business to business space, to do more, to help solve more problems for our business partners. And so there's a real opportunity out there that we want to grab and we wanna, we wanna wow our customers and grow our business for our employees. And so that is the reintroduction of enterprise mobility and it will take time. It's a new brand, but we are in it as a multigenerational family business. We are in it for the long haul and we full circle operational excellence, enterprise mobility is about operational excellence, great customer experiences, employee development, grow the business because it enables those two things and then everything else will fall into place. And we give back to the communities that have been so awesome to us and why we've been so successful. Even the most important question for last, a lot of people rent enterprise vehicles uh for long road trips. So, uh, what is your go to Carpool karaoke song? 00, ok. That was a left field dua Lipa. Ok. So I like all do a Lia songs. She is in concert. I'm trying to figure out where I'm gonna meet her, but usually it's, um, the one, the Barbie song or just take a, take a pic, who cares? Do it. Now, you're going to sing and show us your vocal chops. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Only if my uh twin sister will do it with me. Well, thank you so much for an insightful conversation. This is fantastic. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Sheila Johnson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Salamander Collection 
Interviewer:  Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: How This Self-Made Entrepreneur Blazed Her Own Trail

Hi, everybody. And hello, Sheila. We should mention by the way that you are going to be off after this to get yet another award this time from the American Hotel Lodging Association, the Peggy Castel Award for all the work you've done in advancing women in the industry. So, congratulations. Thank you. So I'm sorry, I can't stay longer. I'd love to stay for the whole event. Well, we're enjoying your hotel. You know, one of the things I, well, let me just, I want to talk about the hotel because if you've noticed a lot of your own artwork is incorporated in with a lot of the art here, which I think is amazing. But let's start with, you know, the vision that you've had. We one thing we didn't mention you've also been a musician. You're a violinist in my life. What, what have you not done is probably one of the questions. But if you were to think about the vision that's driven you even to where you are now, what would you say it is in terms of the motivation? I don't know. My mother said it's always been there, but um I talk about the three acts in my life because as a violinist that was really a huge part of my life, the arts and they still are. As you can see, it's all part of this hotel. It's all built around artwork and what really motivates me. When I come in every day. I really fuss about everything that I look at from the, you know, the way the walls look. Um You know, next week we're gonna be starting a film festival. You were a producer, weren't you a producer? So I've done films. I did uh Lee Daniels the butler. Yeah, which did really well. And I've done a lot of documentary work. Don't put your money in that. But anyway, um no, but this whole town will be transformed with screens all over the place. We've got celebrities coming in from Isabella Rossellini to Steve mcqueen. It keeps going and going. And um so I like to bring the arts into my hotel business and I think that's what enriches the lives of so many of the guests that stay here. Can we talk about Central a little bit on the hotel business? What motivated you to make this pivot into this industry because this was not an easy thing to get off the ground at all. After selling black entertainment television, I know I was, I could have retired but I didn't want to but I couldn't see. Nobody wants to. No, and you shouldn't. But I just um realized I, I needed another act in my life and um that part of getting through black entertainment television and selling it, I was at a healing point in my life where I just needed to figure out who I was again and to get my voice heard in the world. And more than anything, I just wanted to recreate something that was going to touch, not only a community but many people. This community when I moved here was totally bankrupt. It was boarded up. There was just a couple of thriving shops. One was a gun shop with a confederate flag in it and I bought it and I presume you converted it to a wonderful market, which I just, I, I just couldn't stand it. So that was one of the things that I did. But then a broker came to me and we're sitting on 340 acres here and it belonged to the late Pamela Harriman in April Harman. So when I came up here, the light bulb went off, I said I need to build an economic engine that's gonna support this town. And I came up with the idea of building this resort and I thought that everyone was going to be so excited about it and wonderful. Well, let me tell you, I forgot I was south of the Mason Dixon line and all hell broke loose. Literally, what was it? That was the pain point that they didn't want you to, they didn't want this area changed. They thought that I was just gonna totally destroy this town and I would make my arguments. I said you all need money. They needed a new water, sewage treatment plant. They needed to bring businesses in here. Fast forward because I know we don't have a lot of time. This is now the wealthiest historic town in the state of Virginia. They get a lot of money from that and that's what keeps this place going. So the other thing that I wanted to do was also tackle the, um, issues of diversity was not only bringing a film festival here with diverse films and to talk about issues that we see on the screen and that they can actually come into this town. But also I started something and this was right when COVID hit, there were so many African American chefs that were losing their restaurants and their businesses all over the country. And um, a friend of mine, well, he wasn't a friend then a very young man, Kwame on a watchi. I had been eating at his restaurant called K Ken down on the wharf. That hotel threw him out of there as successful as this restaurant was, I read about it in the post. I called him immediately. As soon as I finished the article, I said, I want you to come work for me and I want you to be a part of the Salamander family. So fast forward, he has opened up the restaurant, uh, because I sit on the board of the Met He Lincoln Center Foundation then put him in the David Geffen Hall and he has that wonderful restaurant, Tatiana, which is the number one restaurant two years in a row in New York. So I bought the Mandarin in Washington DC and I said, Kwame, we're gonna do a restaurant here, so it has just opened and it's called Dogan. And I think we're gonna do an event there soon. You are. But where I was going with this is we do something called the family reunion where we bring 43 of the top chefs, 43 to 45. It keeps varying um from all over the country to really celebrate them and to bring awareness to the culinary interesting that is built on the shoulders of African Americans that have been coming into the, well, it's actually running on your TV. I was watching it on a loop last night as I was lying down. And, you know, we're at a moment right now where there's such a backlash against, you know, de I whatever and you do celebrate black culture. What advice do you have? Or, or how are you thinking about this moment in time that we're at right now? Well, this is very interesting because I don't wanna throw it in your face and I do it in a very artistic way where you start to see people of color that can also do the same things that everybody else can do. And it was just a matter of integrating and connecting the dots. It's really funny because um we also um run the culinary division of the Aspen Institute Aspen Meadow. So Salamander is part of that and I've done all the renovation. We got a restaurant in there now. But the thing about Aspen in the town, they have a years had done the food and wine that every time people have gone there, they said they don't see chefs of color. And I remember Carla Hall was telling me, she says, I'm not going back there anymore. It's just me and Kwamie are the only two that get invited back. So I went to Hunter who is CEO of food and wine. And I said, hunt, we got to do something about this. He goes, I don't know, what is the problem. I said, I'll show you in a very nice way. So what we did is we started the June 10th event. We brought it up the mountain and up to the Aspen Institute. The word got out and over 250 people, both black and white came up there to celebrate Juneteenth. So the second year we did the same thing and the clientele increased. Hunter got on the microphone. He goes, Sheila, I get it now. Well and good because we have these chefs of color now that are being integrated into Aspen food and wine. I just got back from Charleston, the most incredible food and wine event, not the one that you all have been reading about it. We started a new one which is much more diverse and it's just done in a spectacular way. Al Roker showed up with his uh daughter and um it was that I would be remiss, I know our time is running short, but you are a part owner in three sports teams, all of which have the word Washington in front of them. So look it up. But why? Because women don't get that opportunity. So this happens and I call this, don't burn your bridges because a Poland when he was alive, he and I were good friends and you'll read about this in the book. I don't wanna get the weeds about this, but the ex um was not very friendly to him and, you know, he never said anything. Yes. And so it was just a case where he never forgot it. He never made a big stink about it. But one day Abe Poland and Susan o'malley came to me and they said, we want you to be the face of the Washington Mystics. And I said, what do you mean be the face of? They said, and I knew what he was talking about. We would like you to buy the team. So I looked at the financials and I said, you're really losing a lot of money here. I said, this would not be a wise investment. I said, but I've got a better thing and I called Ted Leones idea. I called him and I said, Ted, I've just been, uh, offered the Washington mistakes, but I would like to go ownership into the Wizards and the NHL team, the capital. And I said, I'm gonna put enough money in there that I am a major partner in this. And so what has happened that has opened the door for other women to step forward and become owners, especially W NBA. Now, look at soccer, look at what's happening. Well, if anybody knows how to invest money and turn something from a losing proposition, which you say was this area into a winning one. It's you, Sheila. So I'm sure many more awards to come and frankly, it's a uh it's a big award to be here in your beautiful property and also to have your presence here. So please join me in. Thanking Sheila Johnson. Thank you and look forward. Thank you for being here.

Tom Nolan, Chief Executive Officer, Kendra Scott
Interviewer: Ruth Umoh, Next To Lead Editor, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Building a CEO-Founder relationship based on trust

Good morning, everyone and welcome Tom. You know, I wore my best jewels for you today. Appreciate it. So did I, all right, Tom, you were tapped to lead the eponymous Kendra Scott uh after a 22 year run by its founder. I first want to ask why you, why do you believe you are tapped? Uh What skills did you bring to help lead this company into its next evolution? Yeah. Um I've been at the company at that point, I think for six years as a member of the board and then an operating management leader there as well. And I think it really comes down to trust. I have uh in my career, I've only worked for founders and I've been a founder and I, I just have an understanding of the fact that as a dad, I think most founders look at a business as, as their kid, right? So giving custody to your kid really requires trust. And Kendra and I galvanized that over some really challenging things, you know, through the years of COVID and others. And I think it was rooted in trust. We'll circle back to that. The topic of trust uh founders as you know, tend to be the lifeblood of their organization uh in following in their footsteps is certainly a daunting task. How do you go about making your distinct mark on the company? Charting your territory? Go, I still pay it homage to your predecessor and end the history. Yeah, I mean, I don't ever think it's about me. I mean, I feel like the company doesn't work for me. I work for them. So I have a servant mentality and I think, I think that helps and ultimately we're serving Kendra. You know, she is the vision and the voice and the brand of the business. And I work for now two founders whose names are on the building between Ralph Lauren and her. And I think it's my job to just execute her vision as best as we can and have a great team that also shares that vision. You say you're servant leader, you're working to support Kendra, should that be your focus? Should it? Some would argue it should be the customer. Well, the customers, our boss, like we have uh three operating principles. The company number one is do what you say you're gonna do, you know, walk the talk. The second is the customers, our boss, she and he sent our paychecks. So every decision we make is kind of rooted in that. And I think Kendra's vision kind of sits up from a strategic perspective and then we're executing against what the customer wants and needs wherever they are. Give me up. For instance, how are you delineating the roles or? Well, maybe let's not say the roles. How do you, because it seems as though she's still a strong presence in the company. So again, how do you chart your vision forward while still working and making sure you're aligned with her? Yeah, thankfully for the company and all of our customers, I have no involvement in design. I don't think I, I do a very good job there, but she sets the vision in a direction from a brand perspective. She runs everything we do from a philanthropic perspective. It's one of our core pillars. Um And I believe that it's, it's my role to run the operations of the business. I know this is a audience of coo s and I think, you know, having great operational excellence in the business is really important. I look at that as, as kind of my job to be the head coach of that team, so to speak and then answer to the customer and execute Kendra's vision. And I think, you know, over the last 10 years between the board and, and operating in the business, we've just created such trust. We're, we're on the same page most of the time. Um We have a very kind of brother sister type of relationship, which is uh which is helpful from an emotional and an eeq perspective, which I think is really important. When have you disagreed? And how do you find alignment? Uh, I think on the important things we agree for the most part but when we disagree, you know, we're honest with each other about it. You know, I don't ever, you know, I think part of the job of anybody, you know, whether you're working alongside somebody or, or with somebody or for somebody being honest is really important. Um, so if I don't agree with something that she says, I, I tell her very directly and, and vice versa. And more importantly, we're just, we're listening to the customer, we're also listening to our employees. We have an amazing team. We've got almost 3000 employees now and every one of them is spectacular. So we're asking a lot of questions, you know, we don't ever act like we know everything, you know, we're asking questions, the customer asking questions to our employees. And I think when you, when you have a great data set, it gives you the information and get back to a feeling sometimes I think too often. Uh founder led businesses operate exclusively on feelings and it's important founders see white space in the market that a lot of us can't. But backing those things up, those feelings up with facts is really important as well. The company's mission really since its inception is to target the 87% of the population that makes under 100 K annually has that mission changed under your stewardship. Does it need to, to reach greater heights to reach new height? Yeah, I think, I think one of the things about our business is we have something for everybody. Uh, and what's unique about our business is my 16 year old daughter, my wife and my mom all love the business. So we have incredible diversity from a age perspective, as well as an economic perspective. And we sell products that range from $50 all the way up to almost 50,000. So, uh we've, we've zeroed in on, you know, the affordable luxury space if you will. But Kendra's from Kenosha Wisconsin. I think we have a mid midwestern sensibility about us. And the beauty is when we look at our business, whether it's in Texas or New York City or everywhere in between, it's the same kind of customer, it's a customer that has a cares about value. Uh They want nice things and they also want to do well in their community. This year, we'll do almost 30,000 events in 100 and 42 stores and almost every one of those events is, has a philanthropic edge to it and is helping in the local community. So we, we feel like a very local brand. You know, whether again you're in New York City or El Paso, Texas, what's really interesting. Well, I first want to touch on leadership transition and I wanna touch on that topic because there are a number obviously of coo s here where this is the coo summit. Uh And the coo role is often a step in stone to the corner office, a bit of a grooming ground if you will. And so when you uh were transitioning into the CEO role, often when transitions happen too quickly, it can be inexpedient, it can be disruptive, but also when they happen in too slowly, it can confuse team members who's really in charge. Um And it could at times hinder the new leader's ability to really make a strong first impression. So walk us how you went through that leadership transition. Yeah, I mean, every everything I've done in my career has been new to me. I mean, I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school. So going to going to college was new. Uh when I got to the publishing industry that was new and going to the apparel industry was new, the jewelry industry was new. Um I ask a lot of questions. I'm a curious person, I think and I don't act like I know everything going into each room and I think that that that was really important going in and, and leading by example, um you know, setting the mark, walking the talk, asking people questions and doing what we said. I mean, it's kind of very simple principles. I think too often people are climbing a ladder and they just wanna get to the top and if a CEO rolls at the top of it, they get to the top and they don't know what to do. Um, and I don't, I think that's ok, you know, being honest with not knowing what to do, I think CEO SS come from all different walks, you know, some come through the coo pipeline, others come through marketing, others come through sales at the end of the day, you're the head coach. I look at myself as the head coach uh of our team and I wanna make sure that we win and in order to win, we have to make sure that everybody has exact aligned principles and knows where we're going and what the outcome is gonna be. And then we hold people accountable and we celebrate success. I mean, it's, it's, to me, it's a pretty easy principle and we've had as a result, you know, 40 months in a row of double digit growth in the business, you know, leading through the last four years has not been easy. Uh So I'm, I'm proud of it and it, I don't think it has anything necessarily to do with me. I think it's because we put a great team around us and we've shine a light on great people and we allow them to be great and, you know, we celebrate the successes together. Yeah, you brought up an issues and comment that I want to explore a bit more. Uh it's quite prescient. Earlier last month, there was very spirited conversation uh in, you know, among the Silicon Valley set uh about founder mode versus manager mode, uh founder mode being that they are visionaries and they're scrappy, very hands on manager mode being more conventional CEO mode. Where do you fall on that debate? You know, I think somewhere in the middle is always the right answer to most things. I think that's a political answer. I like, I have four Children that I have to navigate and somewhere in the middle of the world where they're all saying is, is usually the right answer. Right? Look, I think a founder looks at things very emotionally, right? And a and a traditional operator looks at it very mechanically, right? And I think both of those ingredients are really important for success. So I think having an understanding of both knowing where emotion and feeling comes from, which every founder has in spades um and then validating with facts and knowing how to deliver results. And I think you do that through understanding passion and emotion and then execution. And I think a lot of companies fall down when they have great ideas, right? Founders have great ideas. And to me, when I was a founder, it was never about having great ideas, it was about, you know, accountability, right? And I think too often people don't have accountability. So if you're taking that emotion, seeing the white space that founders have an uncanny knack to be able to do backing with emotion and passion for why a customer is gonna want to walk into a door or go on to a website or go to a wholesale partner looking at it through the lens of a customer and then being able to execute. I think that that leads to success. So I think it comes from everywhere and sometimes it's founders and sometimes it's, it's people that are more operationally minded very quickly, you're quite bullish on physical stores. Uh At a time when a number of retailers, I say most retailers uh are recalibrating their brick and mortar investment. Why is that? It's all about experience, I think coming out of COVID, that's, that's been exponentially changed. Uh Somebody wants to walk into a store, I think and have a great experience. And for us, it's not about conversion. It's about connection. And I think that gets lost too much in retail. Retail is also expensive. It's gotten a lot more expensive. So you have to have an operational mindset from the sense of, you know, we, everything we think about is about free cash flow from a business perspective. And we find small, we find the the right places where we're gonna have a meaningful impact on the community. We do a lot of events and people walk out with a smile. Hopefully they walk out with a yellow bag and a great experience with our brand. But more importantly, it's about the experience and the connection we've made with our customers as our boss might have to check out the Kendra Scott in New York. Uh Thank you Tom for, for a really robust conversation. Thanks for.

Ganesh Ayyar, EVP and President, Intuitive Operations and Automation and Industry Solutions, Cognizant,
Interviewer: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune, Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Setting The Stage - How To Drive Operational Excellence

Ganesh Ir is the Executive vice president and president of intuitive operations. I love that. I've never heard intuitive operations for automation and industry solutions at Cognizant. Um You know, I want to actually start on a personal level because you were ceo of emphasis, which was a publicly listed company, you sold the majority stake to Blackstone, I believe, right? And so what made you decide to come to Cognizant in this role if you know, this is the unrehearsed part? I want to just a sense of who you are. Yeah. So, you know, I have spent in this industry about 100 and 53 quarters now, 153 quarters. That's right. Measuring and outside the industry, I have spent 100 quarters. So that gives you my age. Um I was with emphasis for eight years as the CEO we sold the majority stake to Blackstone in 2016 and 2017. I decided to get out. It was the single largest transaction done by any pe firm in a listed company in India. So uh I didn't have the economic need to work after that. Um So I thought I'll take it easy So I decided to take it easy for a year and a half and two reasons, I decided to get back. My wife was very clear that I shouldn't be sitting at home. And uh and the second thing, I was getting very bored and I couldn't, I was missing the roller coaster ride. So I looked up at the companies that I wanted to join and I must say I chose the company that I decided to join because I had borrowed part of their strategy in crafting the strategy of the previous company. What part of their strategy they always played at the intersection of industry and tech and that is the intersection which excited me. Always so fantastic. Brand decided to join the company five years ago. Um Never regretted that decision every day. I feel like a teenager with 18 year old with a 45 year experience being 18 and uh and the new world of A I is just amazing. Well, you know, what's interesting is I often have these conversations with CTO S CFO S, you know, in fact, that's a role that's often combined with coo. But what is it about the coo that makes it such a unique role to have at this juncture? You know, in many ways, it is the most ambiguous title uh in my view, no, two ceos do exactly the same thing. Um Some people call it, they take care of the plumbing of the company. In many ways, they are the architects and orchestrators of success pathways of the company. And now they need to be architects and an orchestrator of neural pathways of the company. And that is the exciting transformation ahead for all of us. And in my view, nobody has monopoly on good ideas. And that's why this session is my best ideas from other people. I'm not proud as it should be. Exactly. So coming together and, and discussing co opting collaborating and at an industry level, finding ways to succeed is the whole idea of this conference. Well, and also it's been a very internal role to your point. And there is this need for this more external role for C OS. I'm certainly seeing that one thing I'm curious about is how are the business models changing? Because you get into the rooms? We don't get to go. I mean, if you look at um with A I and other factors, do you see any shifts that you put on our radar? So, Diane, I learn a lot from our customers. Many of them are here as well. And one of the things which I learned from Bond digital client and these are the companies, you know, until 18 months ago, the famous two words were Digital Transformation. And now those two words are forgotten. And now it's a IA I and generative A I. So we do a lot of business with digital natives. They do two things very differently, which has influenced me personally. And the team that I represent one is they ride multiple S curves simultaneously. So they are not betting on just one big idea, continuous innovation, multiple S curves and the S curves are shorter. So it starts and ends, then the next curve starts. So when they partner with us, they are not looking for the traditional outsourcing. They are looking for acceleration and global scaling because they know that time window is short, they want to maximize return. So if you can bring the value of acceleration and global scaling, they want to partner. And I see that as an attribute which I could apply in my business together with my customers, multiple S curves, continuous innovation and partnering for acceleration and global scaling. So acceleration and global scale, but you mentioned digital natives, there are a lot of people here also watching who are not digital natives, they have legacy costs. They've got that innovator's dilemma frankly of, you know, wanting to invest knowing that they have to transform, but yet it's difficult and, and, and I think we're at this juncture right now where people aren't sure even where you get the best return on your investment for A I. Any thoughts on what are the challenges that you're seeing? See the um currently I think we are going through a phase where people are pausing and thinking how to apply A I. There was an initial euphoria, we saw everybody, I mean, tech industry, you can't accuse them of underselling. So um there was huge euphoria now. I think there is a pause. What I personally think the whole world of A I agents and everybody here representing their respective organization and in many ways keen to innovate along with uh like-minded companies will create a path which, which, which will have to be pragmatic. In fact, one of the things which I remember somebody said this to me to err is human to completely mess it up. You need A I I heard that. So, so to A I. Yeah, no. So actually the governance of A I is equally critical, right? And A I has to be relevant to the industry which you are playing because there are regulators, there are customers, there are shareholders, there are internal employees and then there is society at large. So multiple stakeholders need to be managed. So the intersection of industry and A I and innovating in that intersection is extremely important. The speed of innovation is going to be uh mind boggling. So how do you keep ahead at the same time? Retain the pragmatism of AC O. And that's the challenge for that. It is important that we make some cultural changes. So it's not just changing, acquiring a piece of technology, a continuous innovation model, riding multiple S curves, um rigorous governance before it is implemented and continuously refreshing it because ultimately um the differentiation in my personal view is not going to be A I because everybody would acquire A I and then it will become a level playing field. What would be the difference would be human intelligence and culture of the company. Because if you are able to mesh it together, success is going to be beautiful. And in this new world together, we will succeed alone, we may not succeed. So it's important to collaborate co opt and work together to make it happen. And that is the model with which I am approaching my, the, the future of my business, which is about what I'm just 2000 short of 100,000 people in my business. So um 98,000 people in total and like to hit 100,000 or do you expect to go down? I expect that every individual become more valuable and it won't be measured in terms of whether I hit 100,000 or 100 and 20,000, it would be whether each individual becomes more valuable. And how do I inject the learning and development of these individuals to make them more valuable and being in the path of relevance of people who are sitting here is going define my success in the future. And my philosophy is we will co innovate with our customers. I love that I cannot think of a better sort of marching orders to this group which I hope we will end up more valuable at the end of this. But uh I think that's a great way to kick off our summit. Thank you so much Ganesh. Please join me in. Thanking Ganesh Ir and again, thank you to Cognizance.

Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri, Partner and COO, TPG
Dave Wheeler, Chief Operating Officer, New Balance Athletics
Moderator: Phil Wahba, Senior Writer, Fortune

COO Summit 2024: All Eyes On The Coo - The Evolving Role In A Time Of Transformation

Why don't we just kick uh get right into it? The panel is called, this uh session is called All Eyes on the CEO the evolving role. How has the coo role changed since the peak of the COVID crisis? I don't wanna say it's over COVID is still running around but you know, we're, we're not at those peaks anymore. So for you, how do you see the profession and the role uh having changed? Yeah. Um Hi, everyone. Um Thanks for, for being with us. Um I think that um the last six years that I've been at TPG, not all of them in my coo role, I've hit on an enormous um level of transformation. Some of it has been COVID and things external and some of it has been our own growth. So I think nothing is the same. Um And I think that the COVID lessons, I think we have absorbed and incorporated and I think that they're here to stay. I think the most fundamental change is that everything happens at the same time. So during COVID, you had to solve COVID, but you were still operating a business. So to me that's, that's the new normal and I operated very differently according to, uh certain. How about, how about you? I think your role changes a lot. Um, certainly has changed a bit. Right. So, it's been a lot of turmoil, certainly since March of 2020. Um, and the two words that we really stick to is agility and speed, you know, being able to detect the issues sooner and the speed to then attack and mitigate those issues. Um And so that's been super important to us. We've doubled, almost tripled in business since then. So it's been a not only managing through geopolitical issues, but also scaling up at a significant rate um and innovating at the same time. So a lot of complexity happening all at the same time. Well, we're gonna come back to, to each of your experiences. Um But, you know, it's, it's uh I cover leadership at uh at Fortune and, you know, you see more and more coo announcements and CEO S who were coo s and for a long time, I think a lot of people would think of the coo role as well. OK, they're getting the stuff done, but, you know, um they're not very big picture oriented, but now what obviously a lot of CEO S have ended up in the corner office. So I'm just wondering, is the role um more strategic now for a company than it used to be or, or should we still sort of see it as it's tactical and it's, you know, the essential stuff getting done. Um And if so, uh how does, how is it blended into how the a company run strategically? I mean, I think that tactical is commercial. Um you know, if you wanna grow, you have to really be very deliberate. So I think that it's been a misnomer to assume that because there is an operational plan that you therefore are not being strategic. I think that that's a myth. I think all of you know that because you know, not like you go through your day and you say now I'm gonna be very operational and let me go to this other meeting and then turn it into strategy. Um It's a lot more dynamic than that. And I think also the, the functions that go under the coo vary for all of us. Um But those have also tended to expand. And so we're all closer to where the business strategy is being created and ID, and it just has to actually be able to be executed on. And I think that was a big disconnect before that when you have a separation of what the infrastructure needs to be and is beyond table stakes is actually what's gonna make you be the firm of five years. You know, I have a rule with my team that no one can come to a meeting with a decision or a solution that works for this year. It has to be something that grows with where we're going as a firm. And I think that that's the reality of our roles today that you're really creating the path for the next 5, 10 years. And how about a new balance when your CEO says, oh, we've got from 2 billion to 5 billion. So make more of it happen and you have to be the reality check or sounds so easy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, I think we keep it into two categories similar run the business, transform the business. And so, um you know, we fortunately back in 2019, created five key pillars of our strategy and everything flows from that. We haven't wavered much from there. And so we have key initiatives that spread out across the company. My job is to make sure operations has our fair share and that we're all in unison as we transform the company. Do you bicker with your CFO a lot? Um I would say we make a good business case. We don't always agree on the financing, but fortunately, in a growth environment, it's been a pretty good relationship. Um Well, just to uh to add to that question, how about the role in corporate culture? What is the role of the coo in a corporation? Yeah. Well, I, I have a very biased um answer to that because I actually came to TPG as the C HR O. But the other reason why I'm biased is because we produce nothing other than humans with great ideas and that our strategic partners. So for us, if the base is like where people need to wanna come and work for us as opposed to the many other great alternatives. And for us, culture is strategy, it is the equivalent of strategy. This is not just how people feel about working, but it's actually how we get things done and how we grow. And so for us, there's a lot of intersectionality, you know, you asked about the CFO I cannot get much done without having the partnership with my CFO um or of my general counsel by the time we're completely intertwined and no one can move very far without having a partner that is gonna support them and that is gonna see something that you're not seeing. So for us, um you know, we are also very entrepreneurial culture. And so to your question about like double, we've do more than doubling assets on their management and in people. And so given that the people are the center of what we do, it's very important that we're consistent and persistent about our culture. Likewise, I mean, we're privately owned. So a lot of family values um are important. So I'm kind of in the same box as a CEO and the head of hr I mean, my job is to role model and drive culture every single day because that's how we create that entrepreneurial kind of innovative spirit, super important to us and communicate that to everybody in the company constantly. Yeah, really role modeling is the most important. I think it's the most effective for us. And, and I make sure that all of my direct reports and everybody in the team really reflects that, you know, we have integrity, teamwork, total customer satisfaction, everybody gets that. And it's part of the role also to help people in other functions understand the complexity of the operation for sure. Yeah, because it sounds easy, right? You know, like uh double the number of new models you introduce more stores or, right? It, it, it can all sound rather easy. But um you talked about uh you know, coming over from ach ro role. So let's talk a little bit more about the unusual career trajectories that we're seeing. You were C hr O elsewhere, you know, for example, at, at Target, now they've had two coo s who had been the CFO before and, you know, I had my stereotypes, I'm like, how does somebody who's a CFO and is good at spreadsheets and saying no, you can't have that money um good at the technical aspects of coo of being a coo. So um I mean, I think that speaks to the evolving role, but tell me a little bit, let's start with you on, let's talk a little bit about C hr O which you have an idea of what that role is and how it prepares you for what you're doing now. Yeah, I mean, I have the benefit of having, um you know, been interested in doing things that I didn't know much about uh for a while. So I started as a lawyer as a corporate lawyer and then moved into um the human capital world leading into C hr O. So I have personally gotten used to quite frankly having to be a student of that next step. Um And I wish I could say I had planned it all along, but it was really because all the organizations I've been in have been organizations where they allow you to go and explore things. So I think as, as cultures also in our firms, I think it's really important to give exposure to people to areas beyond what they're doing currently because you don't know what that person may end up doing for you. Uh But I think that um those changes and those transitions also put you in a situation where you're gonna have people working for you that know more than you. And that's also incredibly helpful to have those experts and for you to learn and learn how to lead and guide without necessarily having to substitute their expert knowledge on things. Um And David question for you. So um obviously like a lot of consumer brands, uh and we can call you a retailer, you have your own stores as well. Um With COVID, you know, for a while, uh everything was really a mess and then we had the supply chain chaos last year. I mean, there's always something and then you narrowly avoided the port strike drama this week, right? Or last week. So, um for you, how has the role changed? Vis a vis what it might have been before COVID? Yeah, I think it's, um you know, the innovation part of it is um a critical element and that kind of falls I I have a collection of different functions. So it's like traditional supply chain from, you know, planning, sourcing, making delivery, but then also product development, which is very, very important for the effectiveness of my organization because we get to take the design from, you know, pie in the sky designs, really exciting stuff, but actually develop a product that we can manufacture. Um But the innovation portion of it has really escalated from an A I perspective um being able to develop a new er P and supply chain planning suite so that we can better do touchless planning and be more effective and be able to do scenarios where we can anticipate what might happen and therefore be ready with a playbook of Plan B, plan C. Um That isn't something that we did, let's say prior to COVID. Um because it was, let's say relatively stable back then, now we've seen so many different events occur and we just strengthened up on the innovation side of systems as well as overall processes so that we're more resilient and can respond to those issues as they come about. Because as you said, it happens every month, every year now in their big events. So we expect that going forward. Um I'm gonna continue going, but I want to open it up to the audience. We'll have somebody here who has a Mike. So please don't be shy. We're all to new, good group of peers here. So um I'm gonna ask another question, but uh raise your hand and Mike will come to you. Um So just quickly following up on those questions. So um I have to admit the first time I saw TPG, I was like the coo why does TPG need the coo you know, it's like their portfolio companies will each have AC O but obviously your role is different and, and the company just made, the firm just made uh an acquisition. So tell me a little bit about your, what's a typical day for you anyway? Yeah. Um So TPG is an, a firm. We're headquartered in San Francisco and Fort Worth and that's very important to the origin and the culture of the firm, very tech, um oriented, health care, oriented in our private equity business. We are now diversified in acquisition last year, Voice of Angela Gordon, um a credit business and the real estate business. Um And so this is really where this industry is going. So I because of my legal background as a corporate lawyer, I was very involved in the transaction with the D team. And I also lead the integration, which we believe will be a multiyear integration. And it's not just the operational part but actually the growth part. So I spend a lot of time on thinking about growth organically, which has been the majority of the growth of TPG. We have over 200 billion in assets under management. And up until this transaction, all of that was organic, uh which is actually pretty rare. Um and a pretty fast paced way of growing. Um I spend my time in three buckets. I do lead uh one of our investing strategies. So one of those new businesses, so I can identify with someone who comes with an idea. Uh It's a seeding and staking um strategy, then there's the growth part of it and then there's the every day. So on every day I spend my world, you know, kind of revolves around those three main areas and then the occasional thing that surprises you. Um And, and how to communicate about it. The crisis, sometimes, sometimes only a few times I've, I've come across actually, you know, I think that that's, you know, one thing that people don't talk as much about in terms of the role of the CEO O because you're involved in so much that you can probably see a crisis coming. Um You probably understand who you need to pull in, who you need to be the connector to make sure that everyone that needs to help has their marching orders and have the support that they need to act fast and one more follow up for David. So um for you, what's the, you guys are doing a lot? You're getting much bigger, you're going further into apparel, you're doing more DTC, more of your own stores. you also produce about 20% of what you sell stateside. So for you, what's the biggest operational challenge for the company operational challenge? I think now expanding is, is as challenging as shrinking. It's just more fun. I would say, you know, it's like, how do you make sure the product has the right quality that we stick with our ESG goals? Um So many different issues, right? Um So growth is a challenge. No question. I would say policy is also a big one for us trying to stay abreast of what's coming around the corner. Like you think about all the European policies that are coming at us. How do we make sure that we're compliant so that we can continue to sell and be a good corporate citizen? So policy is huge for us. So at the in February, I wrote a story based on research from Spencer Stewart. Um you know, we're a little, we like drama in the media and, and, and it was like they were finding that coo S had come back and supplanted CFO S for uh in terms of the other c speakers who end up uh in the corner office most often. And, you know, we had quite a few coo s in the last 12 months that who became the CEO S of the company Costco for one uh Netflix, um the one of uh the CCO one of the Boeing units also became a CEO somewhere. And so I'm just wondering, uh does this make sense to you? Um What's, what do CEO S have that others, don't, do you think? Good question. Do you want to take that one? Yeah, I was gonna say, um I'm pretty happy with my current role. I'll say that. So I'm not aspiring to become the next CEO if it happens, great, but certainly just knowing how product is made and having overall purview of that is um you know, something that not all executives have in, in the various C suite um roles. And um yeah, I just think it takes a certain uh a mindset and a personality to make it successful. And if you're successful as a coo you could be a successful CEO I'm, I'm not surprised because of the scope of the role. I think that the most important thing is not whether that's the new trend or not, but is the possibility. Uh And I think that it comes back to how each of us do uh our current job um and making sure that it can be that exposure to if that is what's best for the firm that at least people are positioned to do that. I think, importantly, thinking about the generation underneath us because it might not be us, but it could very well be someone who is training uh with us. And I think that that's the most important thing, right? You're a leadership uh focused person and we don't know where the next CEO could be, it might be right underneath us. And if we have that responsibility, that in fact, we're training that future leader, we should be as expensive as possible. Um I mean, it's worth noting too. Uh you know, that article just kind of looked at the last job they had. But when you look, take for example, the new CEO of Costco, he had been the chief merchant too. And I, so I think basically the takeaway is, is you, you need to get skills in all sorts of different areas. And then uh that, that runs you out as an executive. So speaking of skills, what does the CEO of today, uh what new skills does the CEO of today need uh that might not in the past have been uh cultivated as automatically or that are required. I, I think um being a quick listener um and gather information quickly and they're all kinds of way from A I to actually talking to people and not losing that balance. I think that the pace of growth and the pressure on CEO S to grow is generally so in their face that, um, they need to have a way to separate the noise from what they really need to focus on and execute pretty quickly. Yeah, I, I would totally agree with that. I think leading with hearts and minds sometimes gets lost in the mix because there's so much pressure, so much going on, you got to keep that front, front of mind. And I think also going to the geek side of things being a data geek, being an A I geek, not being afraid to roll up your sleeves and getting into the detail because the more, you know, um, the better your teams will dig in as well and make it happen and take some risk, you know, and I think risk taking is super important in today's tech world. No, I, I mean, absolutely. And, and I think, um, um, you know, we've seen a lot of companies get into trouble by not having what you can call left brain, right brain. You know, I think some, some brands in retail got too obsessed with uh operational efficiency and forgot about the core product and making people want it and then sometimes it, so it's, uh, it's gonna be interesting to see. You have to have a new balance. Sorry, you have to have a new balance. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Um, um, I was gonna make a joke about one of your competitors but I won't. Um, so we can stay friends. But, um, last question in these, in these uh, final seconds, how often do you see your CEO, does it? And does it ever feel like you're being called to the principal's office? I mean, we have constant communication, even if we're not in the same place, we travel a lot and we try to divide and conquer. But it's constant whether it's in person, phone, text messaging email. I mean, it is all the time. So you're on speed dial. Likewise, texting constant multiple times a week. In fact, our owner Jim Davis, he's the chairman that's weekly as well. So he's 80 plus years old. Super involved very much into the manufacturing innovation. How do we make more product locally? And so that keeps us busy. Ok. Well, stay busy. Busy is good. So, on that note, join me in. Thanking Andy Lou and David.

Sebastian Guth, Chief Operating Officer Global Pharmaceuticals and President, Bayer U.S.
Terra Terwilliger, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Google DeepMind
Moderator: Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune

COO Summit 2024: AI And The COO - Leading The Transformation To A Futuristic Workplace

Sebastian Guth, Chief Operating Officer Global Pharmaceuticals and President, Bayer U.S., Terra Terwilliger, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Google DeepMind, Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune

COO Summit 2024: AI And The Coo - Leading The Transformation To A Futuristic Workplace

Sebastian Guth, Chief Operating Officer Global Pharmaceuticals and President, Bayer U.S., Terra Terwilliger, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Google DeepMind

I've already spoken with a lot of you over breakfast. And I think the number one topic that came up was A I, which is why I'm very excited to be here with both of our panelists. But the number one thing I heard was people asking me how, what are the specific use cases? I need a case study for how other people use it so I can bring it back to my company. So Tara Sebastian, I want start by asking how are you each using A I both internally and externally and special? Let's start with you. Sure, you know, look for us A I would deploy very widely across the organization and we really deploy it in three different buckets. One is driving workflow efficiencies as probably many others in this room. And there's a couple of examples that come to my mind. Um um One I would highlight uh is uh medical coding. Uh So in our industry, when we run very large state scale clinical trials, uh we have to translate medical events that are often described in plain language into code. Um uh so that we can ultimately analyze the data. Uh and that's something we do quite extensively through the use of A I we've estimated in a, in a recent uh clinical study that, that has saved us about 100 and 70,000 hours of work. Um So it's very significant uh and, and drives efficiencies. Another example in that bucket of workflow efficiencies is regulatory submissions uh were mandated by the FDA and many other regulatory bodies around the world to submit very extensive documentation. Uh as we seek the approval of clinical um of products of medicines. Uh And we use generative A I to populate about 70 to 80% of those dossiers today. And if you translate that into efficiencies and savings, uh and ultimately acceleration is significant. The second bucket in which we use A I um is to advance patient care. Um So, um an example in that space is uh is mammograms. Uh Some of you may know that it's breast cancer Awareness Month. Uh And some of the audience may have gotten or may regularly get mammograms. Uh But what many individual people don't realize is is that it's in fact, not one image but hundreds of images that are being taken. Uh And we um provide software to radiologists that helps select the best image uh so that they can uh appropriately diagnose uh the patient and, and, and uh mammograms and breast cancer is one area we do this in other spaces as well. What's most exciting to me personally. As I think about A I though is the use of A I and technology in drug discovery. Uh because at the end, you know, we're in the business of bringing medicines to patients as quickly as we can. And I'd say that's a pretty challenging task. Um We spend about a billion and a half to 2 billion on each medicine that we bring to market. It takes us 12 to 15 years and we fail most of the time. Uh uh And, and, and technology can help us significantly accelerate uh that work. Um An example in that space uh for us is our partnership with a company called Recursion, uh A company in which we are an investor uh and a company that has arguably and likely the most advanced A I guided drug discovery platform in our industry. Um uh And we partner with them in them, bringing technology so deep expertise in technology, data sciences uh and, and use our uh library uh of uh of uh compounds uh to essentially identify and develop novel cancer therapeutics. And, and that just gives me chills because, hey, that's, that's the use of A I to drive real impact and ultimately develop medicines that otherwise would not see the light of day. Absolutely. And it touches everyone here too. Just like Google deep mind. Tell us what you're doing over there. I think probably everyone in this room is, is using the tech that you developed. So tell us about what you're doing. Thank you. So, Google deepmind is Google's Artificial Intelligence Unit. We create Gemini the foundational launch language model for Google as well as a host of other technologies uh which are while not in the lang large language model category are also being used for, for example, fundamental scientific discovery just as you described Sebastian. So we two are using internal and external uh the model in different ways internally. Uh legal is an example of where we have found great use for Gemini uh in our legal system, you can think of legal problems as having three different categories. There's retrieval of information, there's summarization and then there is reasoning and we are finding Gemini is valuable and across all of those categories, retrieval of information, of course, is finding the information that you know, you have somewhere, but you can't put your hand on it right there right at that moment. Uh summarization. And that's, that's really the basic I would say use case of simply retreating and finding that information. But it saves a remarkable amount of time. We're estimating that 40 to 50% of the request to our legal team could be handled simply by that kind of automation on summarization. Again, you're retrieving the information, but you're also pulling out what is most relevant. This is a more difficult problem particularly in the case of a legal context because you don't want to miss an item that might be important. So our team is increasingly using generative A I to to review for example, scientific papers and say what does need legal review in this case and what does not. Uh and then third reasoning as probably the most exciting category, legal problems as you know, are a good test case for gen A I because they are often unstructured, ambiguous and can have many different answers depending on jurisdiction, depending on business choices. So reasoning we think is the the next frontier here and the initial results are promising would not be complete without also adding to your point, Sebastian about scientific discovery. And this is an area. Our our mission at Google Deep Mind is to build A I responsibly responsibly to benefit humanity. And we are particularly proud of our work in scientific fields including alpha fold, which is the transformational protein folding technology. We created it. We won the international challenge of protein folding with the with this technology and in fact, released all of the 220 million plus proteins in the database for free for researchers to use in their own applications including drug discovery. Excellent. And I'm gonna come to the audience for questions in just a second. But I I have one for both of you. There's a lot of fear mongering when it comes to A I uh A I is gonna steal my job um both internally and externally. I feel like people are very, very scared to, to use it whether it's, it's bias. And again, people being scared about how it's gonna affect them. Um What would each of you say are the, is the biggest pitfall that you would advise C OS against when implementing A I into their business strategies to start with you? Sure. So first in our industry, I actually don't think that A I is going to steal jobs uh because hey, unpacking 3 billion years of evolution compressed in a cell is pretty damn difficult and that will continue to require also uh human capacity. Uh And, and the art of science uh which we're marrying up with technology. Uh big pitfalls, I mean, in our industry, we, we cannot and will not compromise patient safety. Uh So we're building a lot of redundancy into uh the way we work. I gave you the example of medical coding earlier. Uh And in that example, we use a four eye principle. So we in fact use technology, but then we still have humans double check that whatever data entry um we put into the system is accurate. Uh And that's only appropriate given that, that uh patient safety cannot be compromised. Um One piece of advice I would have from my own personal experience is that in large organizations and maybe that also resonates with some of the audience, there's at times a risk to use technology for technology's sake, you know, and in my mind, uh at the end of the day. Um It's a means to an end and the end in our case is to bring new medicines to the world at a much faster pace than otherwise than we would have otherwise been able to. And it's not about chasing shiny toys for the, for just for the sake of chasing them. What advice do you have? Yes, I would echo that in that A I is an unparalleled tool for fundamental scientific discovery. So how can we look beyond the immediate applications and think about how much there is yet to be discovered to solve fundamental human problems. Now that said, certainly we want to be mindful of how we're asking our people to use artificial intelligence internally because of those fears you just discussed to me the most important principle. There is co creation. So how can you with your team core? How the A I will be truly helpful to them in doing the job that they are already doing? They are the experts in doing that role. And I believe there's plenty of low hanging fruit. There is plenty of paperwork to be automated so that high skilled people can go do more high value tasks. Uh But that co creation piece is key. I'd say also making sure that, that you're valuing the time that people are putting in to learn how to use these systems and rewarding them for doing so in tech, we have a wonderful uh culture of dog fooding and using our own products internally. Uh And, and I would simply say that it's important to value the time people invest in that. And then third think forward about what this means for people's careers, both in reality and in perception, what new training might people need? How might this contribute to their training and learning in a way that's intrinsically valuable? I want to come back to training in a second. But does anyone in the audience have any questions here and, and raise your hand and we can run, run a mic around see one over there? Yeah, just in general. Um you talk about the growth of A I and the data, the need for data centers all over the place. What do you guys think about like power for the future and your needs power for the data centers. Uh Power for the data centers. Uh It's an important question. It's a question on many people's minds these days. Uh Again, we have to think about the fundamental scientific advances that are going to be possible with this technology. Uh We have, we actually at Google Deep mind work on novel power applications as well. So we have uh a piece on optimal power flow on how to increase efficiency in data centers to reduce the amount of power that is being consumed. We also uh we do work on fusion, nuclear fusion and how to optimize reactors. Uh And the, the fusion reaction inside of reactors. Again to get us closer to that place of renewable energy. Excellent. Thank you. Chair. Any other questions? He went over here and over here. Hi. Hi. So I work at an autonomous vehicle company, GEN A I based autonomous vehicle company and I found it really interesting with the release of chat GP T and the popularization of, of gen A I, there's been kind of an increased fear of, of A I and the potential impact it could have in society. I was wondering if you guys saw something similar and what that shift looked like between the A I conversation and gen A I conversation. Maybe I get us started, you know, in our industry. Um There's very few individuals that are ready to put their health into the, into the hands of machines. Uh and rightfully so, uh in my mind, uh so we've had a lot of conversations uh over the years more so in recent times to your point because it's suddenly in the public domain on, on, on how we use uh A I responsibly and how we ultimately a commend the work physicians and clinicians do, but don't necessarily aim to replace it. And that's a philosophy that keeps driving us because we continue to believe that uh that humans will for, for time to come play a very important role uh when it comes to advancing the health of those that we serve. And I would doubt. I think all of you play a role in that too. And how you deploy these technologies in the world in your workplace? Makes sense. I saw one over here. Thank you. Hi, thank you for the reminder on purpose driven A I, I think that was beautiful. So, thank you so much. So, my question to both of you is that what is the importance in your mind of learning about A I from other industries? And if that is important, how do you set your organizations up for being open to receiving ideas from other industries around us? Thank you. I believe this comes back to co creation again. So we want to build artificial intelligence with people, not just for people. So that intelligence comes into us from a variety of different routes and customers are a wonderful source of information. Uh We also work with outside organizations across a variety of uh represent constituencies, industries to try and understand what, what will create value for people. And I'd say at GDM, we are especially focused on the scientific community because again, we want to understand what will be of most value to scientists. How can we help them create the next fundamental breakthrough that will transform our futures and maybe just as a quick build, you know, in our industry, we learn quite extensively from others. Uh The promise of A I in the pharmaceuticals industry is massive, but we are for very good reasons. As an industry, probably progressing somewhat slower than others. Um You know, I, I sometimes described as jokingly as the race of the turtles. Um but that's a very conscious choice. Uh because I said before, you know, we're not going to compromise patient safety and the work we do has such a big impact on those that we serve, that we cannot take shortcuts and we probably, and possibly can't sort of experiment uh to the same extent other industries can. But that also gives us an opportunity which is to learn. Well, thank you for the incredible questions. Thank you, Sebastian and Tara for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Remaining nimble in a constantly changing world doesn't have to be daunting. Instead, COOs and CTOs can seize this opportunity to pivot and lean into operational solutions that leverage new technologies like AI and automation and unify disparate organizational structures and regulatory systems. Moreover, by utilizing customer experience and insights to drive decision-making, companies can proactively manage disruption. In this session, we'll meet two leaders who are successfully navigating this transformation.

COO Summit 2024: Thriving in complexity - A Framework for Success and Transformation in an Age of Disruption

Remaining nimble in a constantly changing world doesn't have to be daunting.

Thriving in complexity - A Framework for Success and Transformation in an Age of Disruption

All right. So I think by now we are all really familiar with what a coo does if you're not one, you know about one. But I wanna ask how many of you either are a Chief Transformation Officer or have one at your company show of hands. All right, we're about 5050. OK. Well, lucky for us. We have one here on stage and she used to formerly be a coo. So Raquel, can you tell us what are the differences between a Chief transformation officer and a coo? Yes. Um Happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Uh It is a transition or a transformation I should say um with the coo position, the work that you're doing with products with the CTO, we look to bring that same level of commercial innovation, collaboration, consumer insights, but with our programs. So bringing value, creating value creation, ensuring that you're getting top ro I doing the PARA O analysis, doing the work that's important for our employees, keeping us as a destination organization, but also making investments in the next generation of innovations. So the transformation, we have the entire corporate portfolio of innovations from digital to tech um to the infrastructure, to er P systems, you name it and it's driving in this space. And it certainly helps because we drove an important transformation in the supply chain during COVID. That kind of set the state to then move into creating the transformation strategy and roadmap for the company. Excellent. I want to come back to the supply chain but Sarah, I first want to come to you as someone who is truly just black backstage. I'm very personally invested in what, in what you're doing over there. So what is true transformation look like for you at Slack? And can you give me one specific example of how you've disrupted company operations in your very short time so far as coo Yeah, it's is a short time. I started in December but it has been rapid fire. And I think as coo s who get work done, I have to start with work itself. Work today is broken and we are leveraging gen A I to fix it. And you know, if you think about it, 41% of our teams are spending time doing really low value tasks. Even today, I was searching for a slide for the exact version that I wanted. And this kind of mix of data being in different apps silos between teams, you're actually losing really valuable enterprise information. So what we are tackling is how do you point gen A I at that really powerful enterprise data that you have across your organization. And we're doing it um with in our own team and also with several of our clients, we've launched over 100 A I powered agents. Think of it like a chief of staff for the activities that are critical to your business, sales, marketing, service, commerce, and we're pointing at A I at the structured and unstructured data, the apps and then it's actually taking action to build the capacity across your team. So sales agents, marketing agents, and we're using it ourselves. We've launched 100 A I powered tools and apps including agents. Over the last um year, it's already delivered 50,000 hours in savings for our sales and it services teams, which is where we started. And then several of our most innovative customers are already on a journey with us to Rivian um producing electric vehicles. They've actually put their assembly line robots into Slack's A I powered operating system. So the robots talk to the engineers and tell them when the supply chain um is down 72% improvement in their productivity in just this first phase is so really powerful work has broken. We're working with Jenny I to try and fix it. That's a great example. And what about it, L'oreal Raquel. What are you, what type of tech are you using? That's new and innovative. Yeah, so we're a beauty tech company. Um And so we're the number one beauty company in the world and part of that is really embracing ongoing transformation. It's a way of life. Um And so it's fueling our digital innovation, right, the work that we do to be connected to consumers and create a love mark with consumers, uh a known fact or a little known fact, our average product life cycle is less than two years, right? So you need to operate with a lot of speed. So you think about the different innovations, you know, you don't necessarily need that lipstick but you want it, right? Um And so or from a skin skin care perspective, so the pace and speed of change is super important. And then I'm happy to, to share hopefully many of you may have seen we were the keynote um this year at CE S really again, the combination of beauty and tech coming together uh where we launched three new innovations, one being with the l'oreal Professional, it's uh Air Light Pro and so it's the next generation hair drying system, but it uses one third less energy and it also leaves your hair much more enriched, it's not stripping. So, and that also brings to life, both technology but also our commitment to sustainability. So in everything that we're doing, we're measuring scope two and three really appreciating the impact of how consumers use our products and the impact that that's having on the environment. We also launched a digital makeup applicator for consumers who have movement disorders. And so, you know, the ability to still take pride in how you look. But if you don't have steady motion, that can be very difficult. So you should check it out. Uh It's amazing. It's with Land Land Comb, it's called hap A uh again, so it's a stabilizer and anyone can apply makeup. Um So those are, those are two examples. We also have a color sonic which is in home hair color, it's personalized, it does all the mixing in an applicator and it applies it directly to the roots. Some people in the audience understand the importance of I think you on stage for sure, right? But we can experiment. Uh so the opportunity for personalization tech, consumer digital, right? And I think that's the power when you're solving for multiple elements and you're having that connection to the consumer leveraging tech um but also for our employees, right? And, and the work that we're doing on programs and bringing to life employee centric innovations to make time for what matters most. So that's our tag line making time for that matters most and in in that is eliminating low value added tasks for sure. Now, before I turn it over to the audience for questions, I wanna come back to what you said about supply chain. Can you talk to me about how you innovated supply chains, either using this new tech or, or post pandemic? Yes. So um COVID was a very special time for supply chain. Uh Many people around the world got in touch with the term supply chain. So we disrupted the supply chain. It was because of the supply chain innovations focusing on ecom. We achieved our 10 year ambition in ecommerce in three months. Uh And we were able to grow to x the market during this incredibly disruptive period. Um Certainly the one that I've experienced in my 32 year career, I've never seen anything like it. So I always say from a supply chain perspective, we have to be 18 to 24 months ahead of the hopes and dreams of our commercial friends, right? Because we're moving systems, people solutions, uh steel. And so we were able to, to do that particularly with building some infrastructure, very important infrastructure um to support e-commerce, but also speed at scale, right? So being able to, to not only focus on our big brands that have big velocity and large velocities, but also the brands that weren't delighting consumers as they began to experiment and have personalized products. So there's a speed and a difference in your manufacturing strategy for that type of production and that velocity versus large scale like shampoos that we're all using day in day out. Absolutely. And I think we have time for one audience question. If anyone has one, raise your hand, we'll run it over to you. But if not, I have one for Sarah going once. All right, Sarah quickly, can you tell us where do you see the biggest growth opportunity at Flex? So I have to acknowledge that, you know, Slack's been delighting users the last 10 years, my team's remit is about building the next 10 year chapter and actually nodding to um Raquel's comment around disruption and getting ready for that change. There's a really common misconception that coo s are just focusing on optimizing what is and we really pride ourselves in setting the tone for the organization for what's coming next. So analyzing from data science to launching new products from incubating new ideas and then also getting a team set up so that whatever happens next, we're ready to pivot really quickly. Um So my team's been involved in all of the levers of the, the growth strategy at Slack. And I think the most exciting things coming next are the product innovations and how fast they're coming. We've talked about agents already that personal assistant for work. We've also launched um Slack A I which is embedded summaries. Um summarizing your enterprise information through search. If I just give an example in Q one, I deliver the Slack Growth strategy in Q two, I delivered a baby. Um So I tapped into this exact summary functionality to, to recap what has happened in my company while I was out and this is pretty critical could be just BT O. But we are using the innovation to empower our teams to create that capacity for our organization, but also to be ready to pivot really quickly when something that Newcom that we haven't seen yet on the horizon, I think this moment is super exciting for coo S and CTO S as we position supply chains and operations to become vectors of growth, right? We've always been about creating value creation, driving savings and productivity, but we're now front facing with the consumer, right? And providing a lot of those delight, delight factors and so making that transition or adding that to our toolbox, right? So it's productivity because that is a given always right, year over year. But how do you leverage the capabilities of the supply chain or the operation to drive growth for the company as the game changer? 100%? Well, thank you so much, Raquel. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you for leaving maternity leave to join us. We appreciate you both for being here. Thank you.

Danita Johnson says a decade’s worth of experience working in the WNBA instilled grit and a “day-to-day scrappiness” in her. Today, as the first Black president of a Major League Soccer club, she’s operationalizing her wealth of knowledge to guide D.C. United’s front office to greater heights. Hear Johnson speak about how not taking no for an answer enabled her to boldly take on leadership challenges—setting attendance records in the process.

COO Summit 2024: Game Changer - Talking Leadership with MLS's First Black President

Danita Johnson says a decade’s worth of experience working in the WNBA instilled grit and a “day-to-day scrappiness” in her.

Welcome, Zita. Thank you so much for joining us at the Fortune Coo Summit. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. All right, Juanita, as Kristen already alluded to you, spent years at the W NBA president and coo of the W NBA sparks. Uh You've also worked at the NBA. You've now made this pivot to soccer, uh kind of an unconventional path. Talk to me about the skills and learning you developed while in basketball and how it translates to your current role. Yeah, I think one of the things working in the W NBA and the NBA family, you're gonna get some of the best of the best business practices, um how you build your teams, uh the sharing of practices. Um those things from the foundational pieces in that league have made it what it's so great and what you see and as the NBA season is about to tip off and we're in the midst of W NBA playoffs. So when I think about the MLS and part of the transition is MLS was sitting in a very similar state of where W NBA was. Um when I joined MLS or at year 20 six, similar to where the W NBA is. They're like 28 now going on 30. So the business itself for the MLS sat in a very similar spot of where it needs transformation, where it needed change and growth opportunities specifically with World Cup coming in 2026. To your point. W NBA is seeing this huge surge of interest right now. When I think about soccer globally, it's quite popular within the US, Historically, it hasn't been as popular as other competing in sports when you joined DC United roughly four years ago. What were your focus areas? What were the pain points at the time? Yeah, I think part of the focus was re-establish the business as a whole. Um re-establish practices from a business that put us in the best class. Um We needed to when I came in. It was right after COVID. So during that standpoint needed to hire restructure from an internal standpoint. I think I put my coo hat back on and think about how do we operate, operationalize this business quickly, knowing what we have coming ahead in 26. So it was re establishing our partnerships, understanding structure from the inside, building a new team to go along with that to really drive the business forward and start to engage. Let's break this up into three chunks because when I see people with roles like yours, especially when they're coming in in the early days. And it's very nascent. I say, where on earth do you begin? So talking about the beginning, the middle and the end stage of operational eye in this process, I think one of the biggest things in the beginning is building trust. Um People don't really move for you or they don't really react in different ways unless they have a sense of trust. So I really live off of three CS. It's a simple form that I've learned over the years of going in and helping to transform businesses. Um consistency, commitment and communication. So in the first stage of that is consistent behavior by me as a leader, how I show up each day, how I work with my team each day, that consistency really helps to drive uh a mimic of behavior and trust between myself and the team. Um The communication is learning from them, the different communication styles building on their style versus my style. How do we mesh? How do we find on middle ground? Once we start to build that communication funnel, it's really then the commitment to the work. Right. So we've been consistent in how we work, we're communicating well, and we have a level of strong commitment to build the business and move it forward. So those are like the phases of like how we start to really go. And then from there, you have that first year to two years and you're looking at like the, the small problems. Right. Right. And you're strategizing for the longer term problems at the same time. And, and where do you get your big wins? And you? 3 to 5? I'm really? And that's kind of where I'm sitting with my club currently is. OK. We've been here, we've been in this, we've been in the rotation. How do we transform and go even to the next height? And so at this time, it's, do you have the right people? You know, we have those quick changes in the beginning now that you've had your team with you. It's re evaluation. Do we have the right people? Are we using the right strategy? And is it building towards a long term for us? And now I sit and get ready for the next five years. It's taking it to the next level, those big ideas implementation, making sure that the structure we built underneath is strong enough to support the change in which we want to create. You consider. We, we first of all say that you're very people first and I, I wanna know what that means in practice. You also say that you're a systems thinker as you think about efficiency. What does that look like in practice? Can you share any anecdote? What a people first is, is I need people to move with me, right? We can all stand here and say and understand our practices. But my people first is making sure I'm investing in their development, creating connection with them and helping them grow skills to be better at their business. And so examples in that is developing courses, bringing in speakers, creating access to conferences and events so that they're developing um personally. So that's my people first aspect and how I really try to dive into that um for the other areas. It's really about that next step of, I think you asked me about the um what was the next one you asked me? So the systems come in because as I develop the people, they need systems to work with it. So what are our processes that really help them actually be able to execute what I'm asking for? So I really try to look at different systems, whether it's the implementation of project management tools like a Sana um Tableau that's giving them data visualization so they can keep track of what's flowing for them. I think in our world, it's very interesting because we go B to B and B to C back and forth all the time between dealing with fans to dealing with brands. And so it's a combination of building a system around that of communication, what the platforms are and kind of creating a streamline for them there, you kind of touched on this. I want zero in a bit more just in terms of how you are leveraging tech platforms cr MS to enhance front office productivity and some of the results you've seen thus far. Yeah, I think for us, it becomes, we actually start to learn our consumer, right? That's the key. So for our, for our staff and your consumer, how would you decide uh determine your consumer? For DC United? If we have a couple of different, we have like 2 to 3 different types of consumers that we really look at. We look at somebody that is family oriented, we look at family that's gonna be like our primary, they take up a big bulk of our, our base. The next we have the entertainment seeker. So somebody that's just looking fun activities, things to do, hang out with their friends, whatever it may be, they're always looking for experiential aspects. And then we have our soccer enthusiasts, our purists, um our purists are the ones that really love the sport beginning to end, whether it's MLS. Um There's typically a differentiation in between those that watch like the European soccer leagues versus MLS. Um It's two different types but those soccer enthusiasts really do help. And so you able to leverage uh technology to be able to Yes. So then we can create actual dynamic experiences for them and how we communicate direct to their needs um through automation um through different platforms or email platforms and communications that really make sure that everything that we do is tailored to have that voice and tone of that consumer and the work that we do. Yeah. Uh perfect segue under your leadership, DC, United uh has seen or I should say it's hitting new attendance record. So, congrats on that. If you think about how you mint new stands, are you focused locally internationally? What's the thinking there? And it's also quite interesting because I'm a DMV native. So I know DC, uh, is, is quite diverse. Um, you know, a thriving black population, one that's quite affluent as well. So, just how do you think about minting new fans? Yeah, I think for us it's meeting them where they are. Um And I think for us in the US as well, it's many, when we talk about like, I'll talk specific to the African American audience, right? A lot of our African American audience doesn't necessarily experience soccer in the same way beyond maybe a 3 to 5 year when their kids are playing when they're very young. A lot of that has to do with the systems and the processes of how you elevate to a professional level and what that looks like. So, one of the things that we work on is a pathway to pro. So um people from diverse communities have a better understanding of actually how does the system work to play at the highest level because right now it's very clear when it comes to the NFL or the NBA, how you get there, how you make that money, how it, how it grows your career and NIL has added a whole new layer to that for so many folks in MLS and soccer, there's multiple layers, the opportunity to go play overseas, the opportunity to stay in the States and really educating on that, I think can actually help more play. And if we have more kids playing soccer at a high level, we're gonna develop our own stars in the US. When we develop our own stars in the US, the sport will continue to grow and have a higher propensity succeed in the US similar to what you're seeing overseas. Yeah, let's look to the future DC United ranks among the most valued MLS franchise with an estimated value of 775 million where the future growth lie. Where do you see opportunities to really optimize and, and streamline business processes as you move forward? Yeah, I think for us it's gonna be through technology. I know there's been a lot of conversation around that. I think creating operational efficient efficiency through technology. You know, our seasons are long things go back to back. It's really fast moving, the more that we can integrate that to know the consumer, to have touch points with the consumer that are very personalized, the more you will walk in here and be like, I feel like Tanita and Johnson and DC United are talking directly to me, then we're doing our job. Yeah. Well, as I said already, I'm a Maryland native. We don't have our own sports team. DC is our sister, sister city So I have a new sports team to support. Thank you so much Danita for this insightful conversation. Thank you.

Corey Lee, Chief Operating Officer, Capital One Commercial Banking

COO Summit 2024: Championing Change - The Coo As A Catalyst For Culture Shifts

How about everybody? Stand up for a second, stand up for a second? All right, you've been sitting down for a while. Give us a big stretch. I give you a round of applause. There you go. You can sit back down now. I really appreciate that. Um Hey, I, I really appreciate your time here today. Um Just want to talk about some of the work we've been doing at capital one. I only talk for five or six minutes and at the end, I've got AAA request for you. Um One of the things I like doing most in my job as a coo is, is going out to branches and call centers and meeting front line associates, associates that take care of our customers, we call them associates employees, uh that take care of our customers that solve their problems, day in and day out, they show up for our customers, they know our products, they know our services. Um They're real folks talking to real customers. Um They don't go to conferences for example. Uh but they are, they are real, real nice folks. Um But every now and then what I find, I find something super interesting. Every now and then I'd find an associate that didn't quite fit in 2018. I was in New York City. Um walked into a branch there and I met a lady named Kendra. Kendra was super nice lady, been working there for a while. But she asked me a question. She said something with regards to uh something, something like you know, hey, hey, help me understand why we get so many false, false positives on our debit card fraud policy with this specific type of transaction. And I was like, whoa, whoa oh yeah. II I actually don't know. I'm just here to shake hands. I'm just here to just get to know people. I, I don't know but I rallied, you know, as we do, I rallied a bit and, and I said, hey, send me an email with the question that you have and I'll get it to the right person. So that was fine. I was fine, but I kept talking to her and I, I got to know her a little bit more. You know, she'd been at the branch for years. She had done well um would love to do more but the applications that she submits don't actually go anywhere. She went, she went to college but but didn't quite finish. This is a story I heard all over the place at branches and in call centers and back office operation shops. And I had the, the question that I was, was on me? Was, is there something we can do for Kendra? Something I can do? And I tried on a person by person basis for, for, for years to try to find ways to, to break this log jam because I know intuitive customer focused people are the kind of folks that we need um even in our corporate jobs. Um But hey, I'm a co o like, like, like many of the folks here, right? This isn't, this isn't my focus, you know, I focus on automation. Uh I focus on streamlining process improvement. A I uh you know, natural language processing alone is going to be the end of many of these types of roles. Um She's gonna be in trouble, that branch is gonna close, it feels hopeless. But there was a solution in 2020 when we were all in the midst of our, our national reckoning and companies were open to asking the question, what else should we be doing? What else could we be doing to, to live our mission to live our values in a, in a really different kind of way. Uh I can be in a program called the Customer Facing Associate Mobility Program or C PM. What this was was a was by application, our front, our customer facing associates could apply to one of these corporate roles. They would get five weeks of training that we created in partnership with our hr learning and development teams. They got assigned to an 18 month on the job opportunity and they got a shot at really making a transition that is just so difficult to make and it was a huge success. Um We had to, to date 341 people including Kendra who have made that move across the lines, they're 90% successful as defined as performing at or above the level of the incumbents in those roles. It has been life changing. The associates that have participated. Absolutely. Life changing career trajectory changing. It has been eye opening for hiring managers who thought who, who didn't know the value of a pool of associates that knew the company knew the products, knew the services, highly diverse group of associates that are ready now ready to work. And it has been a boon for the culture of the company overall trying to demonstrate with proof points how we're gonna change banking for good. Uh I'm unbelievably proud of, of what the company did here. I am um really proud of, of, of my role in it and what we were able to do. But there's more, there really is more that can be done. A few 100 a few 100 associates are great, but we live in a really big world. There's so much to be done and why I wanted to come here today and talk about this with each of you was because the coo role is perfect. It is a perfect place to try to find ways to do different things at your company. Somebody earlier called it the center of the matrix. You know, uniquely positioned senior leaders who worked horizontally across, across the company. Understand the technology, understand the people elements, you know how to get things done. And I would challenge each of you, encourage each of you to take your unique positioning in your companies and try to find a way to get people from where we put them to where we need them and how to be a part of that in a really proactive way. I think it's, it, it works great for shareholders. I think it works, works great for customers and it is absolutely life changing for our associates. Thank you.

Leslie Motter, Chief Executive Officer, Make-A-Wish America
Jessica Orkin, Chief Executive Officer, SYPartners
Moderator: Lila MacLellan, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Closing The Say-Do Gap - Executing On Purpose

Um I have to say as a journalist, I have mixed feelings about this topic because this is our bread and butter finding the places where companies are not doing the thing that they say they're all about, right? They have a lofty purpose, but that's not what they're executing on. But I know this is a problem. We need to learn how to close it. So I just wonder if you can talk to me, Jessica a little bit about the, the say do gaps that you've seen out there in the wild when you with your clients and how they come about? Sure. Um So at the highest level, every single company in here, all of your leaders, all of you, you have a purpose, probably a purpose statement. Um You probably have cascaded that then into what is your strategy? What are your key priorities, etcetera. Um This is the work that Xy partners does uh with our clients all around the world. The heartbreak and the um disappearance of trust happens when that does not translate into the lived experience of all of your employees, of your customers. And so it's one thing to go out and say in big beautiful language. Um the change that you're seeking to create in the world, the impact that you're seeking to deliver. Um But if the day to day realities don't express that um you lose credibility and this is an economy that is run on trust and the weakening and erosion of trust is affecting all of our businesses for profit and not for profit. Uh And we work with both the how of connecting those two things is something that we can get into through this conversation. Great. Thank you. Um And Leslie, I know that you are in the nonprofit world right now, but you had for profit experience, especially at American Express. What in this room full of coo s what advice do you have from a company that's all about executing on purpose? What can they take away from the nonprofit world? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the purpose at where I am now make a wish is very clear. We are creating a life changing wishes for Children with critical illness that is very clear purpose and one that so many rally around whether it's our own employees, our partners, et cetera. And it is so critical. I think that the beauty is though we have the same capability, whether we're with a for profit or a nonprofit. As you mentioned, I spent 11 years with American Express previous to this role with make a wish and we absolutely had just as strong of a purpose about being the world's most respected service provider or service brand. And as part of that, we've tried to make sure that resonated with our employees. And that's really the key, whether it's for profit or nonprofit is having that employee engagement aspect of the brand. So I ran the largest service center at American Express at the time, we had about 3500 employees and it was making sure that every single employee felt that every day they came to work. It was about providing exceptional customer service, not just answering the phone. Great. Thank you. Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about like how the gap actually erupts if you've ever if you have a way of pinpointing that and if you have any examples from your own companies about gaps that you discovered and how you managed it sometimes strategy gets well ahead of the operational realities. So I think we've been talking about actually in some previous sessions about you're really working on two time scales, you're working in the far future in the transformation that you're trying to drive through your company. But then you're working the absolute day to day and the day to day is built on legacy systems. And so no matter how fast and how agile our companies can be, there is going to be a gap between those two. Um A lot of times, front line workers, baristas we've worked with Starbucks, um starting with Howard in 2008. Um, through to the present, you can have a disconnect between what the company both stands for its values, the strategy of where it's going. It's very bold vision and then actually being able to innovate and update the operational systems, the processes, the ways of working that cascade through the whole organization and touch both your front line employees and then your customers. Right? Ok. Yeah, it's interesting, you mentioned Starbucks because recently they hired a CEO who's going to commute by jet, not every day, but people are pretty upset about that because Starbucks is also talking about part of its purpose being green, right? Um In the audience, please, um be thinking about any questions you might have for our panelists. I'll come back to you in just a few minutes. Um Have you found any examples that make a witch where you had, you discovered a gap in your purpose and what, how you were executing and what have you done to really drive home purpose for your employees? I think, um we also have a very bold vision to reach every eligible child, which we're not doing currently. So in order to do that, I think one of the things that we've been really focused on the last few years is making sure we have engaged employees because it's so important to where we're going. And one of the I guess gaps, um I would say is that our internal culture did not match the power of our brand externally. I mean, you talk to anyone about make a wish and you get the, oh my gosh. And you get the, it's, it's about community and support and lifting each other up, etcetera. And so we've been very intentional the last couple of years about making sure our internal culture is raised to really match the power of our brand externally. And if we get there, we're gonna be unstoppable, having every employee feel that way about coming to work every day. And it's important, I mean, I hire technology folks, finance folks operations. So it's not necessarily, I mean, it's, it's a competitive skill set, whether they could go somewhere else and make more money. So making sure that they have that power of being connected to the ultimate mission of the organization. And then they feel that every day is so important. Do they have an opportunity to meet some of the, the people, the Children or the parents who are? That's a great question and that, and that's one of the things that we found. So, you know, as we have people working in it behind the scenes, they could feel very disconnected from the mission. And that is um one of the things I talk about about bringing the power of the brand externally internally is exactly that. So we now have things like mission moments where we start meetings with an actual make a wish that has occurred. So regardless of where you are in the organization, wherever you're sitting, because we're also remote as well. You feel connected to ultimately what your position is and how it's so impactful in the world. Great. Um Those, yeah, that sounds lovely. Actually, I wish we could have mission moments right here. Um Is there anybody in the audience who would like to ask a question? You can raise your hand and yes in the back, sir. Good morning. My name is Martin Vanneman. I'm joining you from New York City. Question to three of you and everybody. How are you on tiktok? Sorry, on Tik Tok. How are your thoughts on Tik Tok? Uh Interesting. Now, do you use Tik Tok as part of your strategy, either with your employees or with your customers? Not with our employees? And really for us, uh the Tik Tok is much more organic as Children are having wishes or waiting for wishes, etcetera where uh we really utilize both Insta and um and other channels much more from that perspective. But we're out there, we're pretty much everywhere with the reach that we have and especially with our demo demographic. We serve Children ages 2.5 to 18 and they are all over it. And then you think about the 20,000 volunteers we have across the US and all of the employees, et cetera. It's happening organically, but Insta is really where we're targeting more with our corporate partners like a Disney fanatics, et cetera. We don't, we're a very quiet brand, uh very quiet company. We work with many people and companies in this room, but you might not know it. Um because what we do is so kind of precious and needs to be quiet in terms of the transformation that we're doing. If what you're talking about is sometimes what's under that question is sometimes a disconnect um between what a company stands for and how it's showing up in the world. Um There also needs to be some communication with your employees about where and why there might be disconnect. So it's actually something to lean into versus to pretend it's not going on. Um Rena Moskowitz, who is the coo and CMO of Etsy and she speaks a lot about this. Um She was telling me that the combination of those two things, both being the chief operating officer, but then really being responsible for the communications. Um And the marketing of the organization is a shift she's seeing uh generally with the CEO role you're becoming in many ways, one of the primary ambassadors champions and communicators, um which is maybe a shift from the deep, deep technical expertise uh that was driving the coo role in the past. So, so interesting because I know there was a study out of Paris that found executives are, you know, have no problem sort of describing what a company's purpose is, but as you went lower and, you know, down into the ranks of the company, it was much harder, like 60% of employees can't explain what a company's purpose is, which is way too low. So, um I imagine also that during a time of crisis, it would be very easy for a coo to drop purpose or to not keep their eye on that aspect of a job of the job. How do you maintain it? Um when there's a lot of financial pressure. So I actually was the coo of make a wish prior to moving into the CEO position. And I held that role during quite a few um the pandemic being one of them, uh quite a few of, of um those crisis if you will. And I think it's actually more important than, than ever to make sure that you're making that link for all of your employees. Um We had to actually have some pretty major transformation during that time. Uh Previously, we had a couple of volunteers that went into the home of each child and helped discover their wish, et cetera. We really had to transform overnight because we were not able to do that anymore. And we still wanted to find creative ways to deliver these life changing wishes to Children when they it most. And so that really took the engagement of all of our stakeholders to think creatively about what we could do. So if we weren't really tying into the overall purpose, it would have been, it would have been a completely different, I think, experience. But we were able to transform both the way that we delivered wishes, virtually, wish discovery et cetera as well as the way. Um you know, many of our stars interacted with Children since they weren't having concerts, they could do video wishes, et cetera. So that transformation during that time and of crisis only beca came because we were tying back to the purpose and how do we still maintain what we're doing and what's so important to do during this time? That's great. One of those silver lining stories in the pandemic. Um And how do you track whether or not a gap is opening or whether or not you've maintained that closure between the say do gap. Um Jessica. Sure. So one of the things we do a lot of is um actually looking at the incentive systems of your organizations. Um So again, how do you tie the big picture purpose into strategy? Bold moves focus areas and then Kpis or metrics that ladder out from that. But there's a step deeper which is looking at how are your people actually incentivized? Are you valuing through actual performance reviews, career progression, mentorship compensation. Are you valuing in actuality, the things that you say you value up top? Um And again, legacy systems, sometimes you crash into legacy performance systems, operational models, et cetera? That were wired for a different time. And so you have to do the work of actually bringing those into alignment. And then to your point about communicating your purpose, understanding your purpose, identifying some of those really operational changes as an expression of purpose and then how it ties back up. So that might include compensation. Yeah, the company. Yeah. Yeah, we've done our own work on this at Syp. So um our purpose is to unlock collective potential to build more vital futures. The collective potential is really important. Um in your organizations, there's so much potential uh held by teams and larger groups, but it's stuck because of many, many issues, many reasons. We all know it and we crash into them. Um within SYP, we do all of our work by bringing different people together with different disciplines. So we have strategists and analysts and tech people, but we have designers, we have filmmakers, we have people from real anthropologists, right? And so what we were realizing was because the market values different skills and different roles differently. So somebody with an MB A, somebody who has a deep strategy background often gets paid more than, let's say a designer, we had that gap in our organization as well because we were looking out at what the market was telling us that did not align with our own values. And so we did a full compensation philosophy overhaul. We changed how we pay people and how we um communicate our values uh to everybody in the organization, how did people react just quickly? You know, it took a lot of communication because on the one hand, um some people really felt seen for the first time. Um and it was a very practical example um of putting your purpose into action. Um But for other people, because they're so used to how the market rewards you, right? It took a little bit of time to get their head around it. And so again, consistent communications, the drumbeat of why we do what we do is so critical. Thank you so much. This is some great practical tips. It's really lovely to have you both. Thank you and thank you for the question.

COO Summit 2024

COO Summit 2024: Acing AI - Real-World Success Stories And Strategies

Latest video

Babak Hodjat, Chief Technology Officer, AI, Cognizant Facilitator: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Coins2Day; Co-chair, Coins2Day COO Summit

Videos (18 videos)

COO Summit 2024: Acing AI - Real-World Success Stories And Strategies

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COO Summit 2024: The COO Master Playbook For Working With A Board

COO Summit 2024: Come On, Get Happy - Mental Wellness And The Competitive Edge

COO Summit 2024: Tips And Tricks For Retooling Resilient Supply Chains

COO Summit 2024: Why Rethinking Employee Engagement isn’t just for HR

COO Summit 2024: Driving A Storied Rental Car Company To 21st Century Success

COO Summit 2024: How This Self-Made Entrepreneur Blazed Her Own Trail

COO Summit 2024: Building a CEO-Founder relationship based on trust

COO Summit 2024: Setting The Stage - How To Drive Operational Excellence

COO Summit 2024: All Eyes On The Coo - The Evolving Role In A Time Of Transformation

COO Summit 2024: AI And The COO - Leading The Transformation To A Futuristic Workplace

COO Summit 2024: Thriving in complexity - A Framework for Success and Transformation in an Age of Disruption

COO Summit 2024: Game Changer - Talking Leadership with MLS's First Black President

COO Summit 2024: Championing Change - The Coo As A Catalyst For Culture Shifts

COO Summit 2024: Closing The Say-Do Gap - Executing On Purpose