Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Week thirty eight. Working from home still for
Speaker 1: so many I was back at the office, And this
Speaker 1: week we've got a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: we reveal the Bloomberg Fifty List. Now, covid are reckoning
Speaker 1: on race and a U S election made compiling the
Speaker 1: fourth annual Bloomberg Fifty easier in some ways as many
Speaker 1: people are doing notable things, but harder and others because again,
Speaker 1: many people were doing notable things, so many people standing
Speaker 1: out in this remarkable and very challenging year. With that
Speaker 1: in mind, coming up this hour, we'll find out how
Speaker 1: that list of fifty was compiled, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: take you to our virtual reveal celebration of these individuals
Speaker 1: held this week at Bloomberg headquarters in New York City,
Speaker 1: and that included a conversation with an alum of last
Speaker 1: year's B fifty list, Chipotle Mexican Grill chairman and CEO
Speaker 1: Brian Nicol, plus Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund,
Speaker 1: Christalina Giava, a champion of relief during the pandemic. We
Speaker 1: begin though this hour with how the Bloomberg fifty comes together.
Speaker 1: For that, we had to check in with the editor
Speaker 1: in charge of pulling together the B fifty list, Brett Beagan. Basically,
Speaker 1: what happens is in the summer, so somewhere early on
Speaker 1: in the second well, I guess in the spring. It'd
Speaker 1: say early on in the second quarter. I started sending
Speaker 1: annoying emails out to a lot of reporters, hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of reporters basically around the world, saying, you know
Speaker 1: who in your area of coverage is really standing out,
Speaker 1: and do we think that that person or that group
Speaker 1: is going to be standing outcome December. It's it's sort
Speaker 1: of a hard calculation in a normal year. Then throw
Speaker 1: COVID and an election and everything else on top of it.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, it's a miracle. We got to Carol,
Speaker 1: you did get to fifty, and it's an amazing list.
Speaker 1: I think it's really representative of the type of year
Speaker 1: we had. Um talked to us about the categories, Right,
Speaker 1: you have business, you have politics. You do break it down, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we break it down into five categories. So we have business,
Speaker 1: as you said, politics, entertainment, finance, and then science and
Speaker 1: technology we kind of uh lump together into one category
Speaker 1: that was a big one this year. And there's one
Speaker 1: name that no doubt about it. I bet from the
Speaker 1: get go you're like, yeah, he's going to be on
Speaker 1: this list. You know who I'm talking about. I think
Speaker 1: you're talking about Dr Fauci. I'm not if I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are certain people every year that are sort of
Speaker 1: no brainers for this list, and uh he seemed like
Speaker 1: one of them. And um, you know in any given year,
Speaker 1: there's always like one or two people who you think,
Speaker 1: oh they'll they'll definitely wind up on the list. But
Speaker 1: this year we were pretty certain about that. Um, so,
Speaker 1: yeah he's on the list. He talked to us. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's fifty entries and we do so longer
Speaker 1: in the magazine, do longer profile features on ten of them.
Speaker 1: He was one of them. Um, he spoke with our
Speaker 1: Michelle Fake Cortes. Um, she was our internal one of
Speaker 1: our internal go to voice constantly on COVID. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, and um he talked to her. Uh we
Speaker 1: tried to so in a normal year. Also, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of these interviews, maybe in early November, and
Speaker 1: we kind of have a nice easy landing when it
Speaker 1: comes to our deadlines. But because of the election this
Speaker 1: year as well on top of COVID, we Um wanted
Speaker 1: these interviews to be as fresh as possible. So she
Speaker 1: talked to him really recently. Um, politics, let's go there.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a year? Uh so crazy? Um, we
Speaker 1: do have a president elect. Um, but we still have
Speaker 1: a president at least as of this recording, who's still
Speaker 1: fighting at the election outcome? Politics, How did you guys
Speaker 1: approach it in terms of who you thought were some
Speaker 1: of the standout voices and had to be on this list. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we take a pretty expansive view of what
Speaker 1: we consider politics. So we have everyone from actually the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice on this list, John Roberts, who in the
Speaker 1: session that ended in July was in the majority of
Speaker 1: the time, which is the most he's ever been in
Speaker 1: the majority. Surprising, right, yes, surprise ing. Obviously things are
Speaker 1: about to change with Amy Coney Barrett's arrival. Um. We
Speaker 1: also looked to the founders of Black Lives Matter. We
Speaker 1: actually interviewed all three of them. Rebecca Greenfield. UM talked
Speaker 1: to the three of them for UM their take on,
Speaker 1: you know, a year in which we saw upwards depending
Speaker 1: on the estimate, of twenty six million people taking part
Speaker 1: in Black Lives Matter protests. So we talked to them
Speaker 1: and uh. We also did an interview with and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going to do my best with His name is
Speaker 1: vit Lana skana Skaya. I've been I've been working on
Speaker 1: that one, Carol. So she is the opposition leader who
Speaker 1: is currently in Lithuania fighting against Lukashanko in Belarus, and
Speaker 1: she's got a fascinating story. Basically was um, you know,
Speaker 1: stay at home mom and her husband was sort of
Speaker 1: running and then lo and behold that's uh. She finds
Speaker 1: herself basically having to sub in for him and saying, okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll do it, and then more and more people
Speaker 1: start coming to her rallies. Upwards of sixty people come
Speaker 1: to hear her speak, and now she is the principal
Speaker 1: opposition figure in Belarus. So that UM really politics. We
Speaker 1: go all over for that and some great contributions also
Speaker 1: from the Mid East and from Africa. This year really
Speaker 1: was a political year like no other, not just in
Speaker 1: the US, but globally um business. I'm going to highlight
Speaker 1: one because we talked about him and his company so
Speaker 1: much on air John Foley of Peloton like it was
Speaker 1: one of the stay at home work from home winners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually just want on you to see
Speaker 1: how long it might take to get a bike in
Speaker 1: there now upwards of four I think they were saying
Speaker 1: four to eight weeks for bikes. So they've had some
Speaker 1: you know, supply chain issues. But he's a great example
Speaker 1: of a business that on you know, maybe on March one,
Speaker 1: they're they're doing well, they're happy with how things are going,
Speaker 1: and by April one, it's like whoa, you know, what's
Speaker 1: happened here? And how do we how do we profit
Speaker 1: from this? And how do we not only look to
Speaker 1: the current moment, but what do we do when this
Speaker 1: you know, not going would hopefully end soon and people
Speaker 1: can return to their normal lives, Like how do we
Speaker 1: continue that growth? So the story of Peloton this year
Speaker 1: is is pretty fascinating. It's funny in a year where
Speaker 1: we couldn't see a lot of sports, they're more more
Speaker 1: people from sports on this list than ever before. And
Speaker 1: that's because yeah, this is kind of world. But that's
Speaker 1: because in this absence, basically a lot of them decided
Speaker 1: to become really proactive to either help with COVID or
Speaker 1: the fight for racial justice. That was Features editor and
Speaker 1: the editor in charge of pulling together the B fifty list,
Speaker 1: Brett Beak, and check out the cover story on B
Speaker 1: fifty all the write ups on each member of the
Speaker 1: list in this week's issue of the magazine. It's online,
Speaker 1: on news stands and on the Bloomberg Coming Up shares
Speaker 1: the Chipotle Mexican grill Man. They are up around four
Speaker 1: hundred since he was named CEO. We will check in
Speaker 1: with the Chipotle CEO, Brian Nicol as we continue our
Speaker 1: special coverage of the B fifty that's next to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Pierrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. This week, it's all about
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg fifty, the people who were shaping in the
Speaker 1: most unexpected ways, from real estate to banking, manufacturing to entertainment, retail,
Speaker 1: to finance, politics to media. And to celebrate the list
Speaker 1: this year, we tapped an a lum of last year's
Speaker 1: B fifty list who continued to make a mark on
Speaker 1: his companies in this difficult year. We're talking about Brian Nicol,
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. If anyone knows
Speaker 1: about how to bounce back from crisis, multiple crises, in fact,
Speaker 1: that's this CEO we started with, going back to when
Speaker 1: he took over. The very first step was where our
Speaker 1: customers you know, uh, what are their thoughts, feelings, trust,
Speaker 1: level of engagement, you know, um belief systems. So you know,
Speaker 1: step one for me was understanding that and then also
Speaker 1: the other piece two was understanding where employees were. You know,
Speaker 1: our company, our experience is really driven by our employees,
Speaker 1: so did they feel like they were on their front foot,
Speaker 1: that they feel like they're on their back foot because
Speaker 1: if their experiences, you know, one of defensive, I think
Speaker 1: our customer feels that it's a defensive experience as well.
Speaker 1: So we really spent a lot of time, frankly in
Speaker 1: the first couple of months diving into understanding both of
Speaker 1: those things, and frankly, that's what's driven our strategies UM
Speaker 1: from day one. Well, and it's interesting, what what did
Speaker 1: you maybe learn about those first two years in the
Speaker 1: company and dealing with that and then getting to the
Speaker 1: current crisis. And again the customer right was worried. Your
Speaker 1: employees were worried as well. Yeah. Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: look when we went back, you know, if you rewind
Speaker 1: the tapes here a couple of years ago, what consumers
Speaker 1: were saying to us, our customers were saying to us is,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys need to get back to talk
Speaker 1: what makes your special. Um, you know, remind me why
Speaker 1: I feel good about eating at Chipotle. And you know
Speaker 1: the answer was they felt good about eating chipol because
Speaker 1: it's real culinary, it's ingredients with integrity. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we take a different approach to how we prepare and
Speaker 1: cook our food. Um. And so that was really what
Speaker 1: enabled strategy number one, which is around being more visible
Speaker 1: and you know, frankly more loved. And you know, we
Speaker 1: really set down that mission of just talking about what
Speaker 1: makes Chipole unique. The other thing that we knew we
Speaker 1: had to do was dial up our culture of safety
Speaker 1: and wellness. And you know, our employees they viewed the
Speaker 1: practices as more of an initiative, not an ongoing culture.
Speaker 1: And you know, in my opinion, it's like, look, we
Speaker 1: can only have employees working if they're healthy. So it
Speaker 1: sounds harsh, but we had to install a zero tolerance
Speaker 1: policy on this where if you don't do the wellness
Speaker 1: check and you're not honest on your wellness check, you
Speaker 1: will lose your job. Um, Like, we've got no tolerance
Speaker 1: for that. And so that was a tough you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of mounts because I got a lot of
Speaker 1: emails from people saying, like, I can't believe lost my
Speaker 1: job because I didn't do wellness checks. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was like, look, this is our culture. If you
Speaker 1: want to be a part of our company, that's what
Speaker 1: we do. And also, if you're not truthful, we've got
Speaker 1: two problems. One, we're a company of high integrity and too,
Speaker 1: you know, you're putting our company at risk when you're
Speaker 1: not truthful whether or not you have symptoms. You know,
Speaker 1: by the way, we have a program where you get
Speaker 1: paid sickly, so there's no incentive, you know, to not
Speaker 1: tell us the truth. So, you know, doing things like
Speaker 1: that that materially changed the culture. And unfortunately sometimes it
Speaker 1: takes a couple of stories being retold about we're really
Speaker 1: meaning business on this zero tolerance approach to the wellness
Speaker 1: and food safety as well as then you know, reminding
Speaker 1: our consumers why they loved Chipotle was at the forefront
Speaker 1: of what were really instituted day one, and that just
Speaker 1: got us back to running great restaurants again. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like, look, if we know we have healthy
Speaker 1: employee is we know we're practicing the right protocols, we
Speaker 1: can focus on making delicious guacamole, terrific chicken, you know,
Speaker 1: the rice correctly, and every detail matters in our business. So,
Speaker 1: you know, this was a crazy year, disruptive, it was
Speaker 1: an upsetting you as you well know you guys, you
Speaker 1: do your very purpose driven. I mean it's really in
Speaker 1: the DNA of your company. How have you as an
Speaker 1: organization and as a company kind of demonstrated that. Yeah, Look,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'm really proud of how our
Speaker 1: company has done that. Um. I think we've been tested
Speaker 1: numerous times and whether or not we were going to
Speaker 1: be true to our values and our purpose. Um and
Speaker 1: I think we've stepped up and done that in every way.
Speaker 1: You know. So, whether it was when the pandemic hit, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a lot of employees that were
Speaker 1: worried they're gonna lose their job and then when they realize,
Speaker 1: you know what, we've got a really healthy balance sheet. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: we are an essential business. We're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: continue to operate now, only you're not losing your job.
Speaker 1: We're gonna, you know, because I know other people in
Speaker 1: your family probably have been impacted. We're going to increase
Speaker 1: wages for temporary and we honored first quarter bonuses because look,
Speaker 1: January and February, the guys were doing an unbelievable job.
Speaker 1: March hit and it wiped out would have been their bonus,
Speaker 1: and that just wasn't the right thing to do. And
Speaker 1: you know, fortunately we were in a position to do it,
Speaker 1: so we did it. And uh, you know, it was
Speaker 1: those types of examples that you know, I think we
Speaker 1: stepped up with our values and making those decisions consistent
Speaker 1: with our values time and time again. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen our Round Up for
Speaker 1: Real Change program that we've instituted as well, but you know,
Speaker 1: we did that because we wanted to participate aid on
Speaker 1: a bigger level on these various causes that are important,
Speaker 1: from historically black colleges all the way to the farm
Speaker 1: Link program that we're doing right now, what I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you more specifically about some of the
Speaker 1: investments you guys did in your people that have benefited
Speaker 1: the organization. And also you were is thing on digital
Speaker 1: when you hit the ground when you took over the
Speaker 1: CEO spot. But you really, you know, ampted it up
Speaker 1: big time in terms of what was going on in
Speaker 1: the pandemic and reaching your customer. Talked to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. Yeah, you know, Uh, look, one
Speaker 1: of the things that was fortunate is we made one
Speaker 1: of the early decisions to go very aggressive into digital access.
Speaker 1: And that actually came out of that consumer study I
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, which is a lot of our younger
Speaker 1: consumers were saying, he's I love Chipole, but why can't
Speaker 1: I have more access um specifically digital access. And so
Speaker 1: we went full tilt on putting in that digital experience.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, luckily we finished implementing all of
Speaker 1: that in December of nineteen and then you know, March
Speaker 1: of twenty happens, and you know, our digital business went
Speaker 1: from like five percent of sales to about twenty percent
Speaker 1: of sales around January February. Than covid. Yeah, then Covid
Speaker 1: hit became eighty percent of our business, any percent of
Speaker 1: our business, and now it is about fifty of our business. UM,
Speaker 1: So you know it's a it's going to be a
Speaker 1: two and a half billion dollar business this year, UM,
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Um. You just didn you just
Speaker 1: open your first digital store to completely digital We did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did in Highland Falls, New York. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to say that's off to a really good
Speaker 1: start too. So you know, there's definitely demand. And the
Speaker 1: thing I love about that Highland Falls store is if
Speaker 1: we didn't have a digital only restaurant, we probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: be in that trade area. So many brands understanding that
Speaker 1: customers and their communities demanding more of them going forward.
Speaker 1: That's Brian Nicol, chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. She is
Speaker 1: the first international monetary fund. She from an emerging market.
Speaker 1: We have done in in a couple of months, so
Speaker 1: much and so fuss that we really don't have dressed
Speaker 1: will hear from the I m F Managing Director Krystelina
Speaker 1: Gorgieva managing through the crisis. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. It's
Speaker 1: a special issue and a special week at Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: as we highlighted the Bloomberg fifty, the people who were
Speaker 1: shaping this year in the most unexpected ways from all
Speaker 1: walks of life, and a big one on that list
Speaker 1: the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Krystallina Gorgieva.
Speaker 1: She's a Bulgarian economist with a doctorate from the country's
Speaker 1: Karl Marks Higher Institute of Economics. Since the coronavirus pandemic began,
Speaker 1: the i m F has increased lending to member nations
Speaker 1: by fifty percent to two hundred seventy billion dollars. Through grants,
Speaker 1: the fund has helped twenty nine of the poorest member
Speaker 1: nations cover their I m F loan payments, and Georgieva
Speaker 1: is raising money from rich nations for more relief. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week editor Joe Webber sat down with the i
Speaker 1: m F chief for more and I contended that I
Speaker 1: came through this year feeling very proud of the staff
Speaker 1: of the UH. We have done in in a couple
Speaker 1: of months, so much and so fast that we really
Speaker 1: don't have precedent in our history. We have provided financial
Speaker 1: support to eighty three countries. But most importantly, we moved
Speaker 1: out of the traditional or talk orthodoxy on what we're
Speaker 1: supposed to say, which is when you're in trouble, tighten up. UM.
Speaker 1: My best line probably during this crisis is two policy
Speaker 1: makers spent, keep the receipts, but spent. And I don't
Speaker 1: think there are many cases in the history of the
Speaker 1: fund when the managing director would be appearing two countries
Speaker 1: to spend more. Uh. The year, of course, is finishing
Speaker 1: with the brighter light. Vaccines are coming. But I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that one is not going to be a
Speaker 1: simple and easy year either. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Let's look ahead. What are you most concerned about as
Speaker 1: you look ahead? You mentioned the vaccine there's some hope there,
Speaker 1: but what are the areas of that looks like you know,
Speaker 1: any potential problems that you want the world to be
Speaker 1: aware of. But the the most important policy issue next
Speaker 1: year is going to be vaccines. Vaccines policy would be
Speaker 1: at at the heart of economic policy. I worry about
Speaker 1: two things. The first one is that we get carried
Speaker 1: away vaccines are not imagic one. You do not have
Speaker 1: them to waigh all the impact of the pandemic. They
Speaker 1: will be scarring and we will have to manage through
Speaker 1: a not the simplest of years. There will be structural shift.
Speaker 1: We are saying to policymakers. Do not withdraw support prematurely,
Speaker 1: but eventually there has to be withdrawal of this support.
Speaker 1: And the risk of doing it either too fast or
Speaker 1: without thinking of how you cushion the transition for firms
Speaker 1: and workers is absolutely there. My second worry that we
Speaker 1: will miss an opportunity for transformation. One can be a
Speaker 1: fantastic year for the future of the world. On two counts.
Speaker 1: Climate action, we can boost public investments to accelerate a
Speaker 1: transition to the new climity economy, generate jobs, accelerate private investments,
Speaker 1: and do two things at the same time, deal with
Speaker 1: the COVID crisis and prevent the other crisis from hitting.
Speaker 1: The second is even more important, and it is dealing
Speaker 1: with inequalities after pandemic. In the past, we have seen
Speaker 1: that in evidence inequality goes up the risk of inequalities
Speaker 1: within countries like a tale of two cities, as Deckens
Speaker 1: wrote it, and inequalities across countries is very high, and
Speaker 1: policy makers ought to zero on that. I would be
Speaker 1: very frank to alert people that there is some space
Speaker 1: for more progressive taxation and certainly more space for creatively
Speaker 1: using public money to help people to help them selves.
Speaker 1: We work very closely with US. US is our largest shareholder,
Speaker 1: and we are particularly close to our membership at the
Speaker 1: time of crisis. That's Crystallina Gorgieva, Managing Director of the
Speaker 1: International Monetary Fund. This year, Gorgeva has hired two female
Speaker 1: department heads to replace men, raising the women share to
Speaker 1: forty eight of twenty. The i m F has also
Speaker 1: started a YouTube channel with videos on topics such as
Speaker 1: how to compile macro economic statistics, improve central bank law,
Speaker 1: and use fintech to contribute to financial inclusion. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week. Our coverage at the Bloomberg fifty
Speaker 1: continues with the ones to watch. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with cairol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Our coverage of the Bloomberg fifty continues, and when we
Speaker 1: pull together this year's list, we also take a look
Speaker 1: back at some notable lums of past b fifty lists
Speaker 1: that included former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacy Abrams. She
Speaker 1: definitely stood out for lenning up people to go out
Speaker 1: and vote in this year's presidential election. Also Jose Andress,
Speaker 1: founder of World Central Kitchen making sure people got fed
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, also fed chief J Powell and Cathy Woods,
Speaker 1: CEO of Our Investment Again. Check out the magazine for
Speaker 1: more on the reasons why. We also like to give
Speaker 1: your heads up on some people we know you'll want
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on this coming year. It's what
Speaker 1: we call the ones to watch. Bloomberg fifty editor Brett
Speaker 1: Began is back with fashion designer Tia Audiola, writer and
Speaker 1: publisher of Notes on the Crisis, Nathan Tankus, and chef
Speaker 1: and author Kwamie on You watch a See if you could?
Speaker 1: Will start with you just walk us through what the
Speaker 1: pandemic has been like. Oh god, um, it started off
Speaker 1: pretty rough for me personally. I'm just going to be honest. Um.
Speaker 1: I I left New York right at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. So in March I went to Nigeria thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what's going on. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back to my family for like two weeks
Speaker 1: come back to New York, but then I got stuck
Speaker 1: there and they closed the airport indefinitely. And you know,
Speaker 1: my brand is based here, my studios here, my team's here,
Speaker 1: and so I sort of solved for the first two weeks.
Speaker 1: And my mom was kind of like, you're a designer,
Speaker 1: like designed something for the pandemic. And so I started
Speaker 1: looking back at like my umpasion history references and like
Speaker 1: what face masks were looking like during that time period,
Speaker 1: and I sort of just started coming up with some
Speaker 1: face mask ideas and like put them out on social media. Um,
Speaker 1: and people reacted really well to them. They sort of
Speaker 1: went viral, and just sort of figured out other ways
Speaker 1: to be of help and of use during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So I had a ton of contests where I had
Speaker 1: my audience tag family members who are nurses, doctors and
Speaker 1: sent them, um face masks, professional medical face masks that
Speaker 1: work kind of looked kind of cool that they would
Speaker 1: like want to wear for twenty four hours. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say my main thing during the pandemic has
Speaker 1: been working on face masks and just like long term plans,
Speaker 1: long term collaborations going with the flow great. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Kwamie. Tell us what you've been up to
Speaker 1: in the last nine months and accomplishments that you'd love
Speaker 1: to highlight as well. I've been trying to stay saying
Speaker 1: for the last nine months. You know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to sell the managers in the house. You know,
Speaker 1: we got to two people here from Nigeria, so that's
Speaker 1: always nice, you know what I mean? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Um, but I think you know, I'll use
Speaker 1: the buzzword pivot. We've all had to pivot in this time.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's our mentality. We were pivoting, um, what
Speaker 1: we are willing to sacrifice for our happiness, you know,
Speaker 1: how we're pivoting in that regard. And then obviously you
Speaker 1: know we're on Bloomberg, so our business, how are we're
Speaker 1: pivoting within that? So for me, it mainly started in
Speaker 1: that order. It was like my mindset, you know, I
Speaker 1: had to understand that this wasn't going anywhere, and I
Speaker 1: can either sit back and let and and go on
Speaker 1: a ride, or or I can jump into the driver's seat.
Speaker 1: So I drove into the driver's seat, you know, I
Speaker 1: left my restaurant. It didn't really make sense to operate
Speaker 1: a restaurant in this time frame. You know, I'll be
Speaker 1: back with a vengeance when we can have a full
Speaker 1: dining room inside and outside. Um. I started doing a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on social media and getting brand partnerships,
Speaker 1: and then I started turning towards media in general. You know,
Speaker 1: I have the movie that's in the work, So that
Speaker 1: got me in the rooms of a lot of production companies.
Speaker 1: So I started pitching them ideas for TV shows, you know,
Speaker 1: digital series, unscripted, scripted. I started are doing research on
Speaker 1: how to write. I started taking acting classes. So UM,
Speaker 1: I mean I was able to really thrive during this
Speaker 1: time because I just I just didn't stop and I
Speaker 1: kept trying to do things. I understood that we had
Speaker 1: a lot of time and opportunity in space, and we
Speaker 1: were also able to omit things that weren't bringing us joy.
Speaker 1: Um that we're kind of arduous and um taking away
Speaker 1: from who we really were. And there's no better time
Speaker 1: than today that I've realized, especially during this pandemic, to
Speaker 1: do exactly what you want to do in life. It's great.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Nathan, take us through what you'ven up to. Yeah, So, UM,
Speaker 1: my experience of the pandemic has been kind of strange
Speaker 1: because I think, in some ways uniquely strange because it's
Speaker 1: been frankly career making for me, UM in that, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the early March, let's say, like March eighth, March nine,
Speaker 1: I started realizing what was happening, started paying attention more
Speaker 1: to what was going on the crisis US. You know,
Speaker 1: I work on academic policy in general, but don't necessarily, UM,
Speaker 1: work on the week to week. And but you know,
Speaker 1: there's certain things that happened that made me sit stand
Speaker 1: up and take notice of what was going on a
Speaker 1: little bit before everyone else was catching up. And I
Speaker 1: realized that this was, you know, gonna be a gigantic
Speaker 1: crisis UM, and that we you know, early on, I
Speaker 1: think a little bit before other people started calling it
Speaker 1: a depression. UM, I thought of it as a depression.
Speaker 1: That I realized there weren't really people who were writing
Speaker 1: about it, UM, you know, very very rapidly, especially you know,
Speaker 1: the panoply of new programs that we were getting, the
Speaker 1: Cares Act, but also UM, the Federal Reserves, crisis facilities,
Speaker 1: and I saw an opportunity to just write about that
Speaker 1: UM all the time. You know that first month I
Speaker 1: wrote um uh twenty two pieces within a month, I
Speaker 1: was was publishing a piece basically every weekday. And UM,
Speaker 1: that was able. You know, that was an opportunity to
Speaker 1: really make my make my career and get a lot
Speaker 1: of attention for a lot of knowledge that is, you know,
Speaker 1: most useful in a crisis, but kind of sometimes can
Speaker 1: lay dormant um during in other periods. And so I
Speaker 1: was able to build my own newsletter, um which is uh,
Speaker 1: very very successful, and get a following, including a policy
Speaker 1: following including you know, people within within the U. S
Speaker 1: Government and within the US the next US government. So
Speaker 1: much I just want to ask you, you know, you
Speaker 1: all work in very different fields internally. I've been referring
Speaker 1: to this as the fashion, finance and food panel, right,
Speaker 1: and you all work in in very different fields. But
Speaker 1: the thing that you have in common is that you're
Speaker 1: all young, um, and that you're facing this pandemic really
Speaker 1: at the at the beginning of your careers, or let's say,
Speaker 1: in the first quarter of your careers. And I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: do you think that that has made this harder? We're easier,
Speaker 1: um than if you were certainly more advanced in your
Speaker 1: in your careers, um quam me if if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll start with you on this one. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think youth is relative and it's a mindset. So
Speaker 1: I think that there are people that are you know,
Speaker 1: just starting out when they're at forty or fifty, um.
Speaker 1: And there are people like me that I started when
Speaker 1: I was five years old. So in terms of my
Speaker 1: professional um uh history and length of time, I think
Speaker 1: that I have a lot of experience, you know, I
Speaker 1: have some some more experience than people that are better
Speaker 1: older than me and in different facets. And I think
Speaker 1: once you understand, especially within every craft but cooking, that
Speaker 1: you know nothing um than that kind of like broadens
Speaker 1: your mind to soaking so many different things. You know.
Speaker 1: I've been a personal chef, I've been a chef on
Speaker 1: the boat, I've opened a restaurant, I've written a book.
Speaker 1: I'm just finished writing another book. So like, once this
Speaker 1: thing hit, it was like, Okay, well I can no
Speaker 1: longer cook for people anymore? How can I? You my
Speaker 1: other assets? And I think as as a business, you
Speaker 1: need to look at always diversifying your streams of income
Speaker 1: and just diversifying who you are as a person, so
Speaker 1: that if something hits where I can no longer serve
Speaker 1: people directly, then do I switch to a ghost kitchen?
Speaker 1: Do I do things online? Do I do classes? So
Speaker 1: I do more writing? Why don't I try to sign
Speaker 1: a book deal with him this time? And that's that's
Speaker 1: really where I came from. So I don't really look
Speaker 1: at my youth is something that that deters me or
Speaker 1: or gives me an advantage? I would say my professional
Speaker 1: um uh prowess is something that that I use to
Speaker 1: my advantage more than um, more than others, Nathan, So
Speaker 1: take us through. You know, obviously you said that the
Speaker 1: pandemic really afforded you an opportunity to launch your your business.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think that that was easier or
Speaker 1: harder given your age? Um? I mean I think that
Speaker 1: certain senses was easier. I'm in a more flexibility. You know,
Speaker 1: if I had been in a conventional job, UM, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to put everything aside. And you know,
Speaker 1: at least the beginnings a week writing and thinking and
Speaker 1: reading about the crisis. Um, So it was definitely an
Speaker 1: advantage in that sense, um, and definitely uh, the motivation,
Speaker 1: the drive to do it I'm not. You know, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for anyone older, but I'm not. UM,
Speaker 1: not necessarily something that someone forty five or fifty would
Speaker 1: have done, even if they had the career flexibility to
Speaker 1: do it. UM. Yeah, So I mean that's how that's
Speaker 1: how I kind of think about it. Nathan, How did
Speaker 1: you think? I'm just curious, how did you say? When
Speaker 1: was the moment where you said I have a voice
Speaker 1: on this and I think I'm someone that other people
Speaker 1: with a lot of advanced degrees should be listening to. Um.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, it's sort of it that's quite
Speaker 1: a sort of like moment to to to reach, but
Speaker 1: on the other hand, obviously been successful at it. When
Speaker 1: did you is that? Hey, I guess I'm the say here.
Speaker 1: I think. UM, I think it was really just that
Speaker 1: no one else was writing about it. UM, I was
Speaker 1: I was being encouraged, you know. I I you know,
Speaker 1: my big moment has been this year, but I've already
Speaker 1: kind of built a lot of large network. UM. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of friends, including Bloomberg journalists friends. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, Joe Wisenthal was extremely supportive of me, uh
Speaker 1: and my career and basically tweeted out every piece I
Speaker 1: wrote for the first month. That's Bloomberg fifty. Editor Brett
Speaker 1: began with fashion designer Tia Audiola, writer and publisher of
Speaker 1: Notes on the Crisis, Nathan Tankus, and chef and author
Speaker 1: Kwamie on You watch a that wraps up the first
Speaker 1: time of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, our
Speaker 1: special coverage of the Bloomberg fifty from Bloomberg Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Master. Morehead in our next hour, including highlights from
Speaker 1: my panel at the B fifty Virtual Reveal and all
Speaker 1: star lineup of CEOs and senior leaders talking about customer
Speaker 1: centricity and running a business where the customer comes first.
Speaker 1: On that panel, the CEO of Chewy Audion and GSK Healthcare,
Speaker 1: the president of Nordstrom and Phila North America, the head
Speaker 1: of global operations at Group On, and salesforces chief Growth Evangelists. Plus,
Speaker 1: we check in with the director of the Most Watch
Speaker 1: documentary and ESPN History. We're talking about the last dance
Speaker 1: that's coming up on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Master. Coming up in the second hour of
Speaker 1: the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, we continue coverage
Speaker 1: of the Bloomberg Fifty, this week's cover story and special issue.
Speaker 1: The list compiled with the input from Bloomberg journalists and
Speaker 1: analysts to name the people shaping in the most unexpected ways.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that, coming up in just a moment,
Speaker 1: we've got an all star lineup of CEOs and senior
Speaker 1: leaders talking about customers during the health crisis and how
Speaker 1: to put their changing needs and demands first. And let's
Speaker 1: get to that panel. In this segment, we hear from
Speaker 1: Jennifer Esterbrook, President of PHILA North America, Brian McNamara, g
Speaker 1: s K Consumer Healthcare CEO, and Summit Seeing Chewy CEO
Speaker 1: and director. I'm going to start with Brian at g
Speaker 1: s K Healthcare because health health care wellness never mattered
Speaker 1: as much as it did today. Brian, what are you
Speaker 1: seeing from your customers or what did you learn from
Speaker 1: your customers during this crisis? Yeah? And and and you're right, um,
Speaker 1: you know we're in the consumer healthcare business, so um,
Speaker 1: the trends and the impact of COVID nineteen on consumers
Speaker 1: and how they think about health and wellness has been
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. And you know, when we looked at the
Speaker 1: world pre COVID UH, something like sevent of the world's
Speaker 1: population UM was interested in more proactively managing their health.
Speaker 1: But that's been completely turbocharged. UM. You know, the the
Speaker 1: idea of going into this health crisis healthier and and
Speaker 1: having a much better chance of coming out the other end.
Speaker 1: I think it's something that's really been imprinted in the
Speaker 1: consumer psyche now. So we're seeing a big shift to
Speaker 1: this idea of consumers really proactively managing their health, if
Speaker 1: that's around immunity products or vitamins, minerals and supplements to
Speaker 1: help manage their their their balance and their intake of nutrients,
Speaker 1: to how they're actually operating beyond the categories that we
Speaker 1: work in UM, you know, of how their own managing
Speaker 1: their own health and their weight. UM. So it's been
Speaker 1: a really significant shift. All right. So we just heard
Speaker 1: from Brian Summit, come on in on this. Because the
Speaker 1: other thing that I noticed during the pandemic as I
Speaker 1: walked my dog every night on really quiet, dark streets,
Speaker 1: but there were chewy boxes at the curb everywhere. The
Speaker 1: customer cared about their pets you know, we've I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a time when we saw customers really lean
Speaker 1: in with engagement because it's a time off, it's a
Speaker 1: time of solitude in some way, and it's a time
Speaker 1: when relationships matter even more. And when everybody was in
Speaker 1: their own houses, unable to travel. I think pets kind
Speaker 1: of sort of brought us together and that actually formulated,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, the central team of one of
Speaker 1: our campaigns that we ended up launching across Zoom, gathering
Speaker 1: people across North America, bringing them together from different kind
Speaker 1: of ethnicities and origins and race and diversity to be
Speaker 1: able to just you know, formulate a bond or bring
Speaker 1: forward a bond that was formed on the relationships the
Speaker 1: fact that they had pets, and so, you know, one
Speaker 1: we really saw that too. What we saw is we're
Speaker 1: a young company. We're ten years this year and we've grown,
Speaker 1: uh you know, at the end of this year to
Speaker 1: be close to seven billion dollars in revenue. Twenty people.
Speaker 1: But these people are team members, have never actually worked remotely,
Speaker 1: and so one of our greatest challenge was how do
Speaker 1: you take a workforce that's not enabled to you know,
Speaker 1: who was in office one day and then the global
Speaker 1: pandemic shows up and you have to take a let's
Speaker 1: say a customer service task force that is all North
Speaker 1: America seven and overnight migrate them to work from home.
Speaker 1: So we've you know, we've had those kind of sort
Speaker 1: of internal challenges that we've navigated, keeping health and safety
Speaker 1: of team members up front, as well as figuring out
Speaker 1: business continuity while providing customers and experience that has been uh,
Speaker 1: you know, completely continuous or completely coherent. And one of
Speaker 1: the best parts of of the pandemic for us has been,
Speaker 1: or at least a testament to our brand has been
Speaker 1: wherever we took a bit of a pause to understand
Speaker 1: expectations and reset our experience so that we could be
Speaker 1: at par or better than we normally are, our loyal
Speaker 1: customers jumped in to the rescue of the brand. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, you could see this on social media
Speaker 1: going on where when our service levels degraded at the
Speaker 1: peak of the pandemic, let's say delivery um and new
Speaker 1: customers were jumping in going you know, we are hearing
Speaker 1: enough from the company, loyal customers, the older cotesel jump
Speaker 1: in and saying, hey, this company has always been kind
Speaker 1: of pro customer and customer centricity of the core. So
Speaker 1: you know, why don't we kind of give the company
Speaker 1: a break? And that was just awesome to see. I
Speaker 1: can go on and on, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: ramble you. Well, I'm gonna well, I'm gonna jump around.
Speaker 1: I want to bring it some of the kind of
Speaker 1: the other retail brands. Jennifer, come on, and what happened
Speaker 1: to FeelA and I feel a customer during the crisis. Well, interestingly,
Speaker 1: we have two levels of customer. We have our selling customer,
Speaker 1: that's the retailers because we're mostly a wholesale business, and
Speaker 1: then we have a We had actually pivoted at the
Speaker 1: end of last year and said we've got to start
Speaker 1: building our directed consumer. So on the cell inside, we
Speaker 1: had a lot of retailers um canceled orders, asked for
Speaker 1: payment extensions, uh, and so we worked with them. We
Speaker 1: wanted to know in March, you didn't know if people
Speaker 1: were going to survive, if the world was going to survive.
Speaker 1: We have never as you said, there isn't any place book,
Speaker 1: and so we did. Even though we're a much smaller
Speaker 1: company than many of our part retailer partners, we did
Speaker 1: everything we could to support the big ones and the
Speaker 1: small ones, payment extensions, whatever they needed, if they wanted
Speaker 1: to cancel orders, if they wanted to push them out,
Speaker 1: and it was the spirit of we knew that if
Speaker 1: the retailers went into bankruptcy we wouldn't survive. That would
Speaker 1: also be the end of us because you need people,
Speaker 1: We need them to sell our product. So we really
Speaker 1: felt like part of our mission was um to do
Speaker 1: what we needed to do and work with them and
Speaker 1: not And there were, you know, brands, some of our larger,
Speaker 1: largest competitors that said, no way, you're not extending, you're
Speaker 1: not canceling, you're not doing anything. They didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: they just didn't work with the customers. So that was
Speaker 1: one way that we helped our retailers. And then in
Speaker 1: terms of the consumer, it it was we had a
Speaker 1: little bit of luck because um, we pivoted at the
Speaker 1: exact right time. That comment, that last comment from Jennifer Estabrook,
Speaker 1: president of Phila North America. Coming up, our panel continues.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with GARYL. Masser from Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: continue our special coverage of the Bloomberg fifty and my
Speaker 1: panel where we talked with a bunch of CEOs and
Speaker 1: presidents and leaders of companies where they were talking about
Speaker 1: customer centricity. In this excerpt here from Pete Nordstrom, President,
Speaker 1: chief Brand Officer at Nordstrom, Peter vander Doyce, he is
Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of Audion, Barbara Visce, Senior
Speaker 1: vice President, head of Global Operations Group On and Jennifer Estabrook,
Speaker 1: President of Phila North America. What we started to do.
Speaker 1: First of all, we we uh. We had planned a
Speaker 1: lot of experiential events. Everything was canceled, including the first
Speaker 1: professional sporting event that was canceled was the BNP Parrybot Open,
Speaker 1: which we sponsor. So and everyone is in a panic.
Speaker 1: So he said, you know what, We're going to use
Speaker 1: our tennis athletes to convey this message of stay home.
Speaker 1: And the athletes from were from all over the world.
Speaker 1: So we pivoted to help people, to engage them, to
Speaker 1: amuse them and humor them. And then from a product standpoint,
Speaker 1: we quickly pivoted to get because just as as the
Speaker 1: pandemic was hitting here, our sourcing operations were reopening in China,
Speaker 1: and so we were able to quickly pivot and provide
Speaker 1: the comfort cozy products that people wanted at home. And
Speaker 1: and because we were building our online business, we were
Speaker 1: able to see from the data what people were searching
Speaker 1: for and what they wanted. And so you know, through
Speaker 1: throughout this we've tried to engage them, keep them calm,
Speaker 1: keep them, do public service announcements, stay home. This summer
Speaker 1: we did a campaign to wear a mask um and
Speaker 1: so uh it's and it has helped raise the profile
Speaker 1: all doing some good in the world. And I think
Speaker 1: all of our even the retailers we had one a
Speaker 1: couple of ones that filed in bankruptcy during the period,
Speaker 1: but everybody when it was over said thank you so
Speaker 1: much for working with us and keeping us going. I
Speaker 1: feel like community collaboration, digitization was a big couple of
Speaker 1: the themes. Um Panni from Nordstrom come on in because
Speaker 1: the retail world really it was just you know, SmackDown,
Speaker 1: shut down. It was really hard. I know your digital sales,
Speaker 1: I think we're up like thirty seven from last year
Speaker 1: and your most recent update. Um to Wall Street, what
Speaker 1: happened to your customer initially gosh, all this stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm hearing for everyone else in the panel, it's all
Speaker 1: super familiar. We're all in the same boat here. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just there was so much uncertainty that um,
Speaker 1: I think that was probably the main thing and always
Speaker 1: all do it was all uncertain and so we we
Speaker 1: found ourselves really in the first time having an existential
Speaker 1: threat our business. And we've been on a hundred nineteen
Speaker 1: years and I I mean personally, I've never really been
Speaker 1: involved in managing for cash flow and liquidity and all
Speaker 1: that stuff that sounds kind of obvious and business, but
Speaker 1: it's just not the position we've been in. So you know,
Speaker 1: internally we had to really think about those things. But
Speaker 1: that the thread that was going to pull us through.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure everyone in the panel would say the
Speaker 1: same thing as the relationships you have your customers and
Speaker 1: that all the things you can do, whatever touchpoints you
Speaker 1: have to engender trust and confidence. And luckily we've we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of loyal customers and we were able
Speaker 1: to pivot and find new ways how to serve them.
Speaker 1: Luckily we are we have a big digital business, and
Speaker 1: so that was pretty natural that that happened. Pretty easily,
Speaker 1: but you know it was. It was so disruptive and
Speaker 1: it continues to be UM and there's a lots we
Speaker 1: learned from that, and I guess the silver lining of
Speaker 1: all of it it definitely forces I think to the
Speaker 1: team you talked about the beginning, it's like, if you
Speaker 1: don't have customer centricity in terms of the way that
Speaker 1: you're viewing this, you're really going to be in trouble.
Speaker 1: And I think it kind of helped us redouble our
Speaker 1: efforts about putting the focus in the right place. Peter
Speaker 1: from Adan, come on in UM, you too saw some
Speaker 1: customer behavior changes result of the pandemic, and your customers
Speaker 1: are other businesses Uber Tiffany McDonald's group on Spotify, Microsoft.
Speaker 1: What did you hear from them? First? It was we
Speaker 1: were in this situation as we have officers around the world.
Speaker 1: We had the Shanghai office was hit by the pandemic
Speaker 1: much earlier, but also got out of it much earlier.
Speaker 1: So our first question was what do merchants actually expect
Speaker 1: from us? So for merchants, we helped them with the payments,
Speaker 1: we helped them with everything around their consumer to make
Speaker 1: sure that that they can compete on knowing everything about
Speaker 1: their customer and the data around it will making the
Speaker 1: payment really And what we found out in China because
Speaker 1: we already learned our lessons there, that merchants were thanking
Speaker 1: us for being very proactive during the approach because we
Speaker 1: also felt a little bit like, hey, we are doing
Speaker 1: relatively well a lot of online volumes or we see
Speaker 1: more volume coming in. But we reached out to all
Speaker 1: our merchants through acount Management and um, you see that
Speaker 1: during a crisis that is really appreciated. There can be
Speaker 1: the merchant that says, look, I have other things on
Speaker 1: my mind. But what we found out there are merchants
Speaker 1: which are doing a lot of refunds and then our
Speaker 1: pricing was never intended for merchancy which Unforcity and to
Speaker 1: refund ninety or percent of their sales of the last month.
Speaker 1: So that stuff we came into a lot of merchants
Speaker 1: were selling much more online or didn't have we're thinking
Speaker 1: about an online president, didn't have it. So we were
Speaker 1: developing new products with them to be able to get
Speaker 1: to pay through an email so that their customers could
Speaker 1: still shot with them. So it was a very the
Speaker 1: intense intense time and still is with projects being canceled,
Speaker 1: but also certainly new projects being started, because what we
Speaker 1: typically see saw in retail is that we had merchants
Speaker 1: where they're online volume totally compensated for their stores. So
Speaker 1: first you of course had to dip consumers could not
Speaker 1: come into store, but if they also had an online presence,
Speaker 1: you sew a full compensation of that in the online world.
Speaker 1: And then when the stores opened, you saw a lot
Speaker 1: of that volume coming back through shore. But actually the
Speaker 1: total was more than so some of the volume in
Speaker 1: new patterns was actually sticking. And that's what we still
Speaker 1: see that the total for those merchancies still more than
Speaker 1: where they were before the pandemic. UM, Barbara, I want
Speaker 1: to bring you into this. You see a lot of
Speaker 1: group on UM and you've been going through your own restructuring,
Speaker 1: but you've got B two B and BTC customers. You
Speaker 1: work with a lot of small businesses. We have talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the hit that small businesses have had,
Speaker 1: certainly with the shutdown of the economy. So what have
Speaker 1: you seen kind of from that two sided marketplace that
Speaker 1: you've got. UM. Yeah, the main difference with the other
Speaker 1: panelists is, like we really have like a two side
Speaker 1: of the marketplace and obviously UM or core businesses being
Speaker 1: local and local merchants being hit very hard this year. UM.
Speaker 1: So very similar to what other panelists have been talking about,
Speaker 1: which is really just listening to what their needs were.
Speaker 1: So our businesses are like health and beauty restaurants, we
Speaker 1: talked about this and UM and also everything around leisure,
Speaker 1: UM and activities obviously hits their hearts. So what I
Speaker 1: would say is like one, UM, the agility just moving
Speaker 1: very fast and and changing based on their needs to UM.
Speaker 1: Similar to what Peter was saying, is just helping them
Speaker 1: with tools, helping them manage capacity with the new restrictions.
Speaker 1: So we give them like some booking tool so that
Speaker 1: they can manage the capacity that has been reduced UM
Speaker 1: given the sanitary restrictions. That last comment from Barbara Vice,
Speaker 1: senior vice president ahead of Global Operation in Group on
Speaker 1: coming up our panel continues. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: It's all about the Bloomberg fifty. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We're back with more of our special coverage at the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg fifty. Bring you highlights from a panel I hosted
Speaker 1: at the event. In this segment, we hear from Pete Nordstrom, President,
Speaker 1: chief brand Officer at Nordstrom and Summit Singh Chewy CEO
Speaker 1: and director. You know, one of my one of my
Speaker 1: personal greatest learnings when I joined Chewi uh was, you know,
Speaker 1: I've I'm a I was born and brought up in
Speaker 1: a in a cost constrained environment, and I when I
Speaker 1: came to Chewi, I really knew how to drive efficiency
Speaker 1: in a business and customer centric city was always in
Speaker 1: the back of the mind. But what I saw it
Speaker 1: Chewy actually blew me away. I sat down my first
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, I sat down with my customer service
Speaker 1: teams and I spent some time there and customers always,
Speaker 1: by the way, still directly reports to me. And here's
Speaker 1: the reason for that. What I found was that we
Speaker 1: didn't recognize customer service as a cost center at all.
Speaker 1: And that was first of all, there was a bit
Speaker 1: sort of bit contraintutive to me, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think there's something here. Let me listen a little
Speaker 1: bit harder. And what I found was that when we said, hey,
Speaker 1: customer service is an engagement mechanism for us or a
Speaker 1: revenue generation center. I started listening even harder, and we're
Speaker 1: all data driven leaders, and so went back and sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, went back and brought some data. And what
Speaker 1: we can say, wha data is the level of investment
Speaker 1: that we put behind our customer service, the social media
Speaker 1: teams that we run within our customer service, our policies
Speaker 1: that we communicate via the experiences that we build, or
Speaker 1: the pure investments that we make invel in delivering a
Speaker 1: high touch, personalized service that is almost unheard of in
Speaker 1: today's world. What what's an example of that? Even today,
Speaker 1: at the scale that we're operating at, we don't have
Speaker 1: any automated voicelines. We have even beings picking the phone.
Speaker 1: Customer service agents aren't subjected to any metrics like average
Speaker 1: handle time or productivity. They essentially are encouraged to interact
Speaker 1: with the customer in a happy, friendly manner and take
Speaker 1: care and solve the problem regardless of how long it takes.
Speaker 1: And what that's done for us is we can show
Speaker 1: why a data that the cohort of customers that interacts
Speaker 1: with our customer service has greater lifetime value and greater
Speaker 1: retention versus the customers who haven't been exposed yet to
Speaker 1: our friendly, personalized or high touch customer service. So you know,
Speaker 1: from our standpoint, investing in experience building and customer service
Speaker 1: in some way is a way to generating profits. So
Speaker 1: the two are actually not separate or not counter or
Speaker 1: competitive with each other at all in my opinion. Peter
Speaker 1: and Nordstrom, you want to come in on this because
Speaker 1: I think about you know, I think for such a
Speaker 1: long time Nordstrom has been really thought of as that
Speaker 1: customer centric experience, and I'm just curious, how do you
Speaker 1: measure it, How do make sure you're doing the right
Speaker 1: things in terms of what your customer really wants? Well,
Speaker 1: I like that question about if it's a competing agenda,
Speaker 1: whether you're doing stuff for customers or shared I think
Speaker 1: that's great. And actually one of things we talked about
Speaker 1: recently was that when you do things that solve problems
Speaker 1: for customers and makes them feel good, it's in the
Speaker 1: best interests of shareholders. So I think that that's important.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, look at we're a public company,
Speaker 1: and we know we're accountable for those results. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, you also and a lot of people have
Speaker 1: talked about, I hear, how to engage your people and
Speaker 1: your teams to you know, really be the face of
Speaker 1: the brand. And you're not going to win the hearts
Speaker 1: and minds with your team by getting behind this big
Speaker 1: rally and cry. I'm sureholder value or you know, economic
Speaker 1: profit or I mean, it's not that those things are
Speaker 1: wrong and and they're fine principles, but you've got to
Speaker 1: find things that can galvanize people on a mission that
Speaker 1: everyone can buy into and play a role. And for us,
Speaker 1: you know, to keep the customer stuff front and center.
Speaker 1: You know, I think if you're a good business, if
Speaker 1: it's good for customers, you've got to figure out how
Speaker 1: you can make after you figure out what's great for customers. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's just been core to our DNA
Speaker 1: that that we stick to that. I mean, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a reactive part of what we do and having to
Speaker 1: respond with customers want, but we we want to try
Speaker 1: to lead to and it just try to anticipate some
Speaker 1: of those things as well. Um and I you know,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that helps us do
Speaker 1: that is, you know, how competitive the marketplace is. There's
Speaker 1: so many great companies out there really doing innovative and
Speaker 1: interesting things that I think that helps keep us moving
Speaker 1: forward in acting ways this in the best interest of customers, diversity, inclusion.
Speaker 1: How has that changed the conversation at Nordstrom because of
Speaker 1: this year, Well, I think Brian mentioned it earlier. It's UM.
Speaker 1: It's been really eye opening. I think to go there
Speaker 1: and to be vulnerable and to open yourself to feedback.
Speaker 1: You know, we're all in the customer business and I
Speaker 1: think you know, really naturally inclined to be attuned to
Speaker 1: what's going on with customers, and it's such you know,
Speaker 1: an inclusive environment. It's the you know, the best environment
Speaker 1: to have you're trying to draw a lot of customers.
Speaker 1: But it's just was made so clear of how I
Speaker 1: guess how much more there was behind this UM and
Speaker 1: if you're not open to really hear it and understand
Speaker 1: from everybody, then you wouldn't know. And it created an
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to have a lot of great feedback.
Speaker 1: Uh that I think it's going to serve us really well.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's certainly the right thing to do
Speaker 1: in terms of how you treat employees and customers. That
Speaker 1: last comment from Pete Nordstrom, President and Chief brand Officer
Speaker 1: at Nordstrom. What an amazing lineup of leaders and CEOs
Speaker 1: and talking about the changing customer landscape, how they were
Speaker 1: impacted by the pandemic, and how these companies are innovating
Speaker 1: going forward, straight ahead. On Bloomberg Business Week, it is
Speaker 1: the most watch documentary ever at esp in. That's what
Speaker 1: you get when you follow one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: athletes in history. We hear from the director of The
Speaker 1: Last Dance. That's next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. We're gonna
Speaker 1: wrap up this week with more from our coverage of
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg fifty. It was one of the most talked
Speaker 1: about series of the year, and no it isn't Tiger King,
Speaker 1: but you could find it on Netflix after its debut
Speaker 1: on ESPN. We're talking about The Last Dance. We all
Speaker 1: needed content during the pandemic, and many found it in
Speaker 1: the ten part series that became the most watch documentary
Speaker 1: in ESPN history. The Last Dance won the Primetime Emmy
Speaker 1: Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series at the seventies
Speaker 1: second Primetime Emmy Awards. It was directed by seven time
Speaker 1: Emmy winning director and producer Jason Hair. I caught up
Speaker 1: with Jason at our B fifty virtual reveal to talk
Speaker 1: about directing that documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago
Speaker 1: Bulls championship season. I said yes before they finished the
Speaker 1: sentence when they asked me I would be interested in
Speaker 1: the project. I grew up in in the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: so so uh, Michael Jordan's career in the Bulls Dynasty
Speaker 1: parallels my trajectory as a sports fan and as a
Speaker 1: pop cultural fanatic. Um. I was eight years old when
Speaker 1: he came into the league, and that was eighty four,
Speaker 1: and I was a senior in college in when this
Speaker 1: season was filmed. The last dance season was filmed, So
Speaker 1: that kind of took me through my childhood. So for
Speaker 1: them to even mention that name or this subject, it
Speaker 1: was an easy yes. But wasn't easy was that it
Speaker 1: took them two years to get to the starting line
Speaker 1: in a business sense, because you had four major entities,
Speaker 1: but multibillion dollar entities in Jump twenty three, which is
Speaker 1: Michael's company, the NBA, ESPN, and Netflix to all get
Speaker 1: to the same table and to agree logistically, creatively, financially
Speaker 1: that they were going to collaborate on something like this.
Speaker 1: It took two full years. Actually did a full length
Speaker 1: documentary while they were negotiating this UH, and then I
Speaker 1: came back in the time and worked out So we
Speaker 1: started on in January of two thousand eighteen officially, and
Speaker 1: we finished it up while you were watching it. Well,
Speaker 1: so tell me about I think when you described to
Speaker 1: me getting these four behemoths together, you know, Netflix, ESPN,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's company, and then the NBA, that it was
Speaker 1: like turning an oil tanker. What were what were you
Speaker 1: privy to in terms of the negotiations, because first of all,
Speaker 1: I mean they were I guess maybe once or twice,
Speaker 1: all at the same table, but a lot of it
Speaker 1: was done virtually. Well that was afterwards the negotiations. I'm
Speaker 1: not privy to it all because, like I said, I
Speaker 1: was working on a different project. And when they finally
Speaker 1: had their ducks in a row and everything was figured
Speaker 1: out logistically and and the budget was figured out and
Speaker 1: we could go and start to shoot. UM. It's a
Speaker 1: challenge always to to to answer to one UH distributor,
Speaker 1: be that a network or a production company have you.
Speaker 1: This was four distributors and the biggest distributors you could
Speaker 1: possibly imagine, all coming into the same into the same
Speaker 1: virtual room. Like we're talking right now. I am a
Speaker 1: face to face person, and I always wanted I don't
Speaker 1: like fifteen voices on a phone, really like three voices
Speaker 1: on the phone. So I was always endeavoring to get
Speaker 1: people to the same table so that we could all
Speaker 1: sit there and sketch things out literally on a pad
Speaker 1: on an overhead, or or show slides or things like that.
Speaker 1: We only had two times in the entire making of
Speaker 1: this dock when we got all of the parties involved
Speaker 1: into one room um to hash out exactly what our
Speaker 1: likes and dislikes were about other people's visions at the table.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and in this case, it actually there's there's the DNA
Speaker 1: of each of those four entities is in the finished product,
Speaker 1: right And because you can definitely see it what happened,
Speaker 1: because it was originally supposed to air right in the summer,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden with COVID and everybody kind
Speaker 1: of just you know, dying for comment. You know, looking
Speaker 1: for content. You guys sped up the release date. What
Speaker 1: was that like, Yeah, we knew. Um. I think March
Speaker 1: eleventh was what's called the Rudy Gobert game. That's when
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert tested positive and they canceled on site just
Speaker 1: before tip off the Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder game.
Speaker 1: And after that, that's the last time I saw my
Speaker 1: staff was the day after that, because very quickly the
Speaker 1: lockdown went back to New York, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: because this is supposed to eric in junction with the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. June second is when it was supposed to air,
Speaker 1: So I was thinking, Okay, the NBA Finals are now
Speaker 1: not gonna happen until at least in our minds, it
Speaker 1: was like they're gonna delay and maybe a month, because
Speaker 1: I think at that point none of us had really
Speaker 1: any idea how how severe this was, and I was thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: we have an extra month to do this, and then
Speaker 1: as the days passed by that weekend, I realized, oh no,
Speaker 1: they're going to want to move this up almost two months.
Speaker 1: So we ended up settling on April nine as our
Speaker 1: premier date, so we were literally finishing uh Episode six
Speaker 1: seven eight nine and ten as episodes one and two
Speaker 1: were airing on April nineteen, So it was, Um, normally
Speaker 1: you have some time to shoot and then edit and
Speaker 1: then relax, and then you do a bit of promotion
Speaker 1: that you can watch it at home with your families.
Speaker 1: We're watching on one screen and editing another episode for
Speaker 1: next week on another. Yeah, no relaxing here. So all right,
Speaker 1: and everybody's waiting to talk to us about the interviews.
Speaker 1: My understanding is I think you told me you did
Speaker 1: hundred and five interviews, a hundred and six shoots. Um,
Speaker 1: tell us about those interviews. They were with some pretty
Speaker 1: amazing people. Yeah, it was, Um, we had an embarrassment
Speaker 1: of riches. I mean, it's a testament first of all,
Speaker 1: to to to Michael actually diving in and committing to
Speaker 1: this and his team committing to this. That these people
Speaker 1: who were featured in the stock a lot of them
Speaker 1: to get these kind of phone calls all the time
Speaker 1: to be a part of a story like this, or
Speaker 1: to tell the Michael Jordan's story of the story of
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties basketball, and so many times that oftentimes
Speaker 1: they don't even pick up the phone. So, Um, Michael
Speaker 1: and his team drafted a letter and said, Jason and
Speaker 1: his team are going to be calling you. Michael is
Speaker 1: participating in this one. Essentially, this is the real thing.
Speaker 1: We're actually doing this now. Well then that greased the
Speaker 1: wheels for myself and my team to be able to
Speaker 1: call people. And we had already been vetted because Michael
Speaker 1: had already notified all of the parties. We gave them
Speaker 1: a lists about a hundred and fifty people that we
Speaker 1: might be contacting, and then they reached out to those
Speaker 1: one fifties. So, you know, I mean to sit down
Speaker 1: and experience talking to these people. I wouldn't even know
Speaker 1: where to begin if you said, who's the most interesting
Speaker 1: interview you conducted? Because it goes all the way from
Speaker 1: Barack Obama and President Clinton to Michael himself and his interview,
Speaker 1: you know, dwarfed any expectations that I had or hopes
Speaker 1: that I had. It was it was exceeded those expectations
Speaker 1: all the way down to Steve Kerr's mom, who was
Speaker 1: one of the most impressive people that I've ever met,
Speaker 1: and Michael's mom herself as well. So we had a
Speaker 1: hundred and we interviewed a hunt and five people. There
Speaker 1: are hund six shoots, as you said, and there are
Speaker 1: very few of any duds in that entire bunch. Well,
Speaker 1: I did ask you when we spoke um yesterday. I said, so,
Speaker 1: which interview stuck out? And you said, Okay, the boring
Speaker 1: answer is Michael. But it really was the most incredible interview.
Speaker 1: You spoke with him three times. Yeah, we spoke with
Speaker 1: him um in January two eighteen, and then in two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. We spoke of him in May and December.
Speaker 1: He was only contracted for two interviews for his involvement
Speaker 1: in this, and we quickly real eyes that the interviews
Speaker 1: were going so well. They took longer than I thought
Speaker 1: they would, and by the time the second interview ended,
Speaker 1: we only had material for six or seven episodes. I
Speaker 1: still hadn't gotten to episodes eight, nine and ten in
Speaker 1: our storyline. So he and his team were gracious enough
Speaker 1: to grant us a few more hours for me to
Speaker 1: sit there and bug him with questions. But he came
Speaker 1: in that day and it was very very clear. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what Michael to expect. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: he was going to get up after a half hour
Speaker 1: and say that's all I'm giving you, I know, if
Speaker 1: he was going to be offended by the questions or
Speaker 1: if he was going to try and direct me in
Speaker 1: some places, it was it was, uh, it was suspenseful,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Well, Jason tell me about because
Speaker 1: I asked you specifically, because I was, you know, going
Speaker 1: through some of the clips and stuff, and there's that
Speaker 1: one where he's like in the white outfit in the
Speaker 1: white background, he's got a drink next to him and
Speaker 1: it's got a cigar. You said that when you walked in,
Speaker 1: you knew it was going to be a different kind
Speaker 1: of interview. Yeah. Yeah, I'm used to seeing me. At
Speaker 1: that point, we had done two years of research be
Speaker 1: fo we role cameras on that interview, so I had
Speaker 1: seen just about every Michael Jordan interview that had ever
Speaker 1: been conducted. And what I really wanted to do with
Speaker 1: his interview and some of the other main characters would
Speaker 1: make this seem a little bit more relaxed in a
Speaker 1: home setting. Oftentimes it was their home. Phil Jackson was
Speaker 1: his backyard um to get to the real person rather
Speaker 1: than the icon that we're used to seeing the pregame
Speaker 1: or post game in a in a scrum of media
Speaker 1: so for Michael to sit down in that chair and
Speaker 1: kind of kick his legs out and be really relaxed.
Speaker 1: He had just played golf that day, He had a cigar,
Speaker 1: he had a drink next to him. It was clear
Speaker 1: that this was going to be almost kind of a
Speaker 1: window into what it's like to hang out with Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan rather than this this, uh, you know, rigid interview
Speaker 1: that he normally does for for other for other events.
Speaker 1: So tell me. You did ask him to why he
Speaker 1: wanted to do this documentary? Now what did he say? Well,
Speaker 1: originally I asked the first time I met him was
Speaker 1: two years before we shot, and I asked him, why
Speaker 1: do you want to do this? And he said, I own?
Speaker 1: And I said why not? And he said, because when
Speaker 1: people see this footage, it's very raw, it's very revealing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think that they're going to
Speaker 1: have the context to understand why I was acting that
Speaker 1: way sometimes towards my teammates, towards my opponents. I mean,
Speaker 1: as as anyone watched the series knows, he can be
Speaker 1: a vicious guy and a ruthless competitor. So I tried
Speaker 1: to impress upon him in that first brief meeting, that
Speaker 1: you're gonna have ten hours of context to provide these viewers.
Speaker 1: This is actually the time where you can silence all
Speaker 1: of the critics that you think you have in regards
Speaker 1: to these topics and others. So by the time he
Speaker 1: got there two years later, I think it was twenty
Speaker 1: minutes into that first interview, I asked him about arriving
Speaker 1: in Chicago as a rookie, and I said that one
Speaker 1: writer uh called that eighty four Bulls team the traveling
Speaker 1: Chicago Bulls Cocaine circus, and Michael threw his head back
Speaker 1: and laughed. I had never heard that laugh come out
Speaker 1: of him and the research I've done or in the
Speaker 1: time that I had spent with him in person, so
Speaker 1: that would have been enough for him to validate that
Speaker 1: statement just with his laughter. He's very adept at at
Speaker 1: dodging a question like that. Not only did he not
Speaker 1: dodge it, he laughed and validated it and then went
Speaker 1: on to give us an anecdote about his time there
Speaker 1: as a kid, coming straight from Chapel Hill and witnessing
Speaker 1: all of these things. So we knew very early on
Speaker 1: that he was both feed in on this. Some of
Speaker 1: the episodes for the Last Dance broke viewership ratings for ESPN,
Speaker 1: becoming the most watch ESPN documentary ever. Got to say
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun to talk with director
Speaker 1: Jason Hair, seven time Emmy winning director and producer. And
Speaker 1: that wraps up. The weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio are special Bloomberg fifty issue. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. I'm Carol Masster. Be sure to
Speaker 1: tune in daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You can also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: conversations download them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us
Speaker 1: on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News, and be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra podcasts. It's
Speaker 1: our Business Week talks this week featured in the magazine,
Speaker 1: We take you to one of this year's successful I
Speaker 1: p O S, which is up around two since its
Speaker 1: debut on the New York Stock Exchange in September. It's
Speaker 1: the company that has patented a synthetic version of the
Speaker 1: active ingredient in so called magic mushrooms for use in
Speaker 1: treatment resistant depression. We talked with Compass Pathways chairman, CEO
Speaker 1: and co founder George Goldsmith Bloomberg Business Week. It's available
Speaker 1: on newsstands, now online and of course on the Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Have a safe weekend everyone, This is Bloomberg