CEO Turnaround Tales:
NEVER LET A CRISIS
GO TO WASTE
Stay agile with our leading-industry insights from our veteran CxO's
00:58:06
CEO Turnaround Tales: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
The mark of a great CEO is in the ability to see opportunities, measure risk and reward, and make bold decisions.
However, knowing what to do when facing a large-scale crisis can be daunting, even for the most experienced business leaders.
This webinar addresses that paradigm and provides insight into how to find opportunities within a crisis. Hear from leading CEOs who forged bold new directions in the middle of a business calamity and were able to not only leverage seemingly insurmountable challenges but also emerged with a more successful and profitable operation.
Panelists
Andrew Clarke - A seasoned executive within the retail arena assumed the CEO role at Francesca’s (700+ national location retailer) one month before the Covid-19 global lockdown. He navigated through the uncertainty and created a 90-day turnaround plan to steer the company through the worst global economic downturn in decades. Find out how he leveraged opportunities that would have frightened others in unknown territory.
Pat Turpin - An investment banker and previous executive at Costco recognized a unique opportunity within a struggling rice cake factory. Both hemorrhaging money and struggling with operations, he was able to see through the issues and recognize a huge opportunity within the manufacturing and health-conscious snack space by repurposing the company’s existing assets and creating a global brand known as “Popchips”. Find out how he orchestrated this rebranding and rapidly turned the company from an unknown player to a global brand sensation.
CEO of Francesca's
Andrew Clarke
Experience: President at Kmart, CPO Pimkie, Justice, President Loft by Ann Taylor, Investor and Advisory Board Glowe
CPG Board Member and Advisor
Pat Turpin
Experience: President and Co-Founder of Popchips, Inc., VP Costco, Investment banker at DLJ
Pandoblox Executive Partner
Henry Park
Experience: Finance, M&A, 20 yrs IT industry
How do you manage culture during a crisis?
Speaker: Andrew Clarke
For Andrew Clarke, culture emanates from the top, especially during such crises when people look towards the leadership for answers and guidance. A calm and collected leadership motivates the rest of the team to be focused and keep them doing their work on a day-to-day basis. Leadership should be transparent in letting the team know of the important decisions to be made in order to gain critical support as the organization embarks on a new path.
Building for the future in growth mode
Speaker: Andrew Clarke
Andrew Clarke shares that while their company is in growth mode, they’ve been unable to invest in the technology and infrastructure needed to attain such growth. He is grateful for the roadmap and tailored support Pandoblox provided to help them build the capabilities to get started in their growth trajectory.
Video Clips
How do you know when to change culture and how do you change culture?
Speaker: Henry Park, Pat Turpin
Pat Turpin recommends checking Patrick Leoncini’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” where there is a test that helps one determine if an organization has a culture problem. He also says that it is important that an organization determines what its culture is and it shall serve as its “North Star” as it works its way through its strategy. This culture can take into a variety of forms depending on the organization but it has to be authentic.
Crisis gives you greater permission to make changes
Speaker: Pat Turpin
Sometimes the changes business leaders would like to implement within their organizations are seen as too drastic to implement. But as Pat Turpin shares, business leaders get an opportunity to implement changes without pushback whenever a crisis occurs. He tells the story of a Canadian company that took advantage of the situation caused by the pandemic to implement a creative workaround on their cost structure, alongside other changes that helped the company achieve stronger margin structures.
The pandemic forced us to try something, anything…
Speaker: Andrew Clarke
Andrew Clarke shares that the pandemic forced them in the company to “try something, anything” as a means to survive through the pandemic. And while there were some things they tried that did not work out, there were some things that managed to resonate and eventually became the foundation of what the business is today, a different from what it was before but is nevertheless thriving.
The power of team and culture
Speaker: Pat Turpin
Pat Turpin shares that an organization’s team and culture can either accelerate or impede its growth trajectory, with organizations that put a high priority on their culture tend to adapt to change and ramp much faster than others. Pat draws from his own experience on how his company managed to survive and thrive during the pandemic through a radical and innovative shift in the way they worked.
Effective use of technology to collaborate and real time use of data
Speaker: Andrew Clarke
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