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Speaker 1: I'm with Lucas and this is black Tach, Green Money.
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Speaker 2: Derek Lewis is a strategic.
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Speaker 1: Thought leader and transformational executive and was the first ever president of Multicultural Business and Equity Development at PepsiCo North America. Passionate about building inclusive ecosystems and accelerating economic opportunity, he led major initiatives like Pepsi's dig In and the Black Restaurant Accelerated to help black and Hispanic communities nationwide. A veteran over thirty years at PepsiCo, he rose through the ranks from a sales trainee to the C suite, all while driving equity and impact that scale. He works to ensure Black entrepreneurs, professionals, and communities cannot only survive, but drive. He also has a new book out, Survive in Advance, lested on living a life without compromise, which is available wherever you get yours. So I'm very interested in, first of like, your corporate origin story, at least at PepsiCo. You know, you started as a sales trainee there, and I hear so many beautiful stories of people who started as an intern, started in you know the you know, as somebody just mentoring me, and then I ended up in one of the top seats, and I wonder how that happens. How do you start as an entry level person and end up you know, president in this way.
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Speaker 3: Look, I was incredibly blessed to have a great career at PepsiCo, first of all, getting recruited off campus Hampton University or on campus at Hampton University, and then be able to start in Baltimore, Maryland and essentially really get a great understanding of the business. So I appreciate starting at the very lowest level so you can really get a feel for how things work and operate.
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Speaker 2: And then at the same time I was.
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Speaker 3: Allowed to sort of be myself and charted my own course in terms of my progression and.
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Speaker 2: My development things like that, and so I just kind of took off.
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Speaker 3: I mean, the business is very fast paced, is very intense, very dynamic. The company was the same way, and so it was it was just this environment of pace and pace, and so there were those that made it and if you you know, certainly made it survive, you accelerated, and there were those that didn't make it then obviously chose to go, you know, work in other.
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Speaker 2: Businesses, other industries, et cetera. So it it had early on an up or out feel. It did.
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Speaker 3: Be honest with you, I think we had some labeling of that inside. I'm not sure that's always the case or what was the case throughout my entire career.
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Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I know it was the case about my entire career.
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Speaker 3: But early on you can't get a feel that there was a lot of encouragement to you know, want to get promoted, want to move up, want to accelerate, and so that that created really high performance expectations that quite frankly, just stuck with me throughout my entire career. So the bar never ever lowered. The bar, if anything, kept moving up higher and higher and higher. As I took on each assignment, I was able to challenge myself. I was actually being able to be my hardest critic at the same time. So therefore there wasn't a challenge that I wasn't able to sort of mentally emotionally take on and try to do my best to beat my best and deliver you know, solid outcomes.
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Speaker 1: You know, I imagine I've not sat an. The corporate role is high level, as yours was, but I imagine this is not like rocket science. But it's what does it take then, like if it doesn't, if it's not you know, brain surgery or getting you know, a ship spaceship off to the moon. What is it that separates people from who find success at the highest levels to those that don't.
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Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 3: I talked about the three rs a lot, Results, relationships, and reputation. I think singularly those pillars in my mind, as I've gone through all my corporate experiences, I would use those three pillars as the keys to the success. And there's a lot of double clicking that you can do on those things, but I think those are the pillars, right. If you're really, really good at all three, you're going to achieve the hospital success. If anyone of those are off, it may slow you down and stall you. If you're only good at one of the three, you're not gonna have a good.
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Speaker 2: Very short career. Solely in our company and maybe others as well, I would imagine. But I think there's this.
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Speaker 3: Notion of I look at having one having conviction for what business you're in, Like the business is a tough business. You absolutely have to want to be there. You have to want to be there, you have to embrace the challenges of the business. You have to embrace the pressure of getting performance. You have to embrace the resiliency and determine all the things that come with that industry in that hyper competitive environment.
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Speaker 2: You have to bring that too. You have to bring a sense of ownership, you know, you you have to own what happens.
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Speaker 3: You can't you know, shift blame or deflect, you know, on others, things that may not happen, things that might not play out of things you have misses, you have to own those just as much you own the wins. You have to own the misses too, and the lessons that you have to learn and bounce back from, you know. So I learned this sort of fail fast mentality because you're gonna have failures along the way.
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Speaker 2: You're not gonna You're not a bat a thousand and everything that you do.
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Speaker 3: But I think failing fast was solely an important lesson for many of us who were coming through going up through the system. So I look at conviction, I look at ownership, I look at action orientation. You have to have a bias for action. You cannot sit back and wait for something to have. You have to go create. You have to go create sort of that magic, that energy, that competitiveness out in your air, your space, your function, whatever business you're involved with, as a heavy degree of action orientation, finding solutions. So as challenges come up, you can't sit back again and just sort of explain, you know, I've got all these challenges going on.
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Speaker 2: You've got to while you do that, You've got to go find.
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Speaker 3: Solutions and create a brilliant atmosphere of action. I look at also being very consistent in what you do. You don't want to sort of in my mind Bob and weave or be you know, herky jerky in your philosophy and your attitude and your mindset.
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Speaker 2: You show up one day, you're coming in on top of the world.
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Speaker 3: The next day you're down. Your energy levels are low. So you want to be a very consistent performer. I think when you show up for work every day, not only for yourself, but also for the people around you.
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Speaker 2: This might be people that you're leading, might be.
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Speaker 3: People that you're working for, might be peers, and you got to show up for the customers because they want to see the energy and commitment from you as well. And also I look at hustle Man, you've got to move fast, you know, so fast paced. World's a fast paced business you're in. And I look at the people that have a lot of conviction for what they do.
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Speaker 2: I look at a lot of people.
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Speaker 3: That own their career, they own the decisions, they own the whole thing through and through, people who have a bias for action, people who are very consistent people to hustle.
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Speaker 2: I think that is a really good.
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Speaker 3: Success formula for people to achieve the highest level possible, and then you start transitioning to this delivers results, build war class relationships, and then develop a great strong reputation, which really is your brand. Putting those three together, I think creates a lot of longevity and sustainability and your efforts to be the highest level you want to achieve or be just be the best version of yourself, whether you're moving to the top or not.
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Speaker 1: You know, there's this quote I found from you where you said, I still draw on the things I learned my very first week on the job, Like, talk to me about some of those things that were foundational to you experience.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, again, go back to that sort of conviction model and conviction ownership, action consistently and hustle. I was going out in the route, and I find that, you know, I really have to own. I have to own making sure all the products were priced properly. I have to own to make sure all the products put in the right flow, have to make sure all the equipment is stocked properly, have to make sure the back rooms are clean up, to make sure I'm throwing out my try, you know. And there were things along the way in the first couple weeks that I was missing on. I didn't necessarily price everything right, I didn't throw all my trash away. And I found that all these comments and criticisms. Things were coming from all over. They were coming from store managers, they would come from backroom personnel, they were coming from customers, they were coming.
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Speaker 2: From you know, grocery supervisors.
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Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, like it felt like the world sometimes is collapsing on you when you weren't doing parts of your job. So I recognize in is that attention to detail matters, you know, And then all those other attributes I talked about as well, And so that was a continue that was almost a microcosmo what my whole career is going to buy. You're going to have people stakeholders who are involved at that time.
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Speaker 2: These are people around the store.
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Speaker 3: But as you grow and as you exponentially grow in the company, it's now a big customer, you know, it's now a bigger geography. It's now thousands of people, tens of thousands of people that are your responsible for and right so the stakes just get.
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Speaker 2: Higher and higher.
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Speaker 3: But that early snapshot on around you know, attention to detail, all the understanding, all your stakeholders you were involved in your journey with you have to be focused on.
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Speaker 2: You have to deliver for them as well.
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Speaker 3: It's not about just what you do and your time and your experience. You also have to make sure the experience people around you that support you also are they're enjoying that and it's complementary to what you bring to the table.
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Speaker 2: So I learned early that you know it's going to.
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Speaker 3: Take while you have to bring a lot of the effort and energy to at night, a lot of what happens around you.
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Speaker 2: It's just more about It's more than about you.
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Speaker 3: It's about it's about a team, a team environment, whether inside of the company or outside of the company, and your ability to see that and build that camaraderie and build those relationships early, understand the value of those and how they contribute to you having the highest level of success. I thought was great for me to get at an early stage because then I was able to replicate that again. Stakes get higher, constituents get higher, they're bigger titles around, involved in scenarios now. But I didn't really look at that as because of the bigger stage. I didn't didn't make me more nervous to create more anxiety. It just drew me back to, Hey, this is no different than when you were in the store. You have people that are important new the success puzzle here. You've got to make sure you're bringing all these people along for the ride. But you have to be the catalyst for what happens in this in this in this environment.
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Speaker 2: This is your house.
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Speaker 3: These people here living with you, supporting you, making this house grow. But you've got to be the catalyst for change, for growth, for vision and bringing these and leading these people to success with you.
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Speaker 1: You know, you've managed multiple billion dollar operations there at Pepsi Co. And I wonder what is different about how a company that big thinks about growth and scale that small business owners' startups can learn from.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think it all starts with your strategic plan and where you're headed. And so the company was always you know, looking forward. So while we were you know, into the details, into the moments, into the day, the week, the periods as we call them, the quarters, there was still obviously a lot of sight to the future and the roadmaps being built out in these different phases, you know, and these are these are you know three years out, five years out, seven years out, ten years out, So very strategic.
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Speaker 2: Roadmap of where you want to be down the road.
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Speaker 3: And how do you sort of start building the bridges of where you are today and to where you want to get to? Uh, what investments required from a brand building standpoint to draw the consumer demand, drove consumer demand? What investments are required to drive operational excellence that's obviously through your supply chain and your sales organization, you know, what investments require to help build you know, call it the best place to work, having the strongest talent, the best athletes, I would call recruiting, developing, accelerating people's careers, you know. And then also then you have a community aspect. How do you ensure that you have a operate with purpose? And so if that agenda is is sound across those pillars and that framework on a strategic roadmap all the way down into what's in the immediate UH and operating planning cycles, it's going to be a business that you know will be built to be successful and you're going to have to pivot and tweak it. Everything doesn't go perfectly, so you have contingencies and things like that that you think about. So a company that basically stays ahead, always looking at newer trends, trying to understand and react to where the consumer is going, not just where the consumer.
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Speaker 2: Is today, I think is also important for smaller businesses to take on.
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Speaker 3: So you got to have one eye on what's going on now, and you got to have one eye on what's going to happen later and be prepared for that and invest in that so you were able to harvest the growth that comes out. If not, you can get left behind and you're playing catch up and you become a distant number three, four or five, six player or whatever in the space. And now your growth cycle, your growth outlook is really shrunk because you've missed out and didn't do the proper due buildings on planning.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you make me think of this experience I had when I worked in corporate America, just for a very short time. I wasn't suited for it, but I was working in the corporate America for this short time and I was recruited by this company as an executive fellow. So I was following the CEO around for a period of time, and I was going to those board meetings in etc. So I would get a chance to meet the board and the directors in the CEA and sometimes they would invite me out get to know me. And when I went to my role, I was still developing those relationships with the board when I was a fellow, And I remember the person who I got sent to work under was like, hey, you got to chill on the board, you know, relationships. And I remember thinking because I had also heard this same person talk about another individual who was remarkable but nobody knew who they were. And I'm like, well, if you're not building the relationships, then what you're talking about with that guy over there that would happen to me. And so I wonder what your take is on how to My two love language words are ambition and initiative. So I wonder how you can find that balance between doing good work in your role but still developing the relationships to advocate for yourself.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it's critical.
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Speaker 3: I think again that fits very nicely into my results, relationship reputation framework.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: So, once you establish a performance, you know sort of mantra that you can get the numbers because performance matters, and doing it the right way, doing it consistently, all that matters. That's like to mean, the first entry into the next conversation in the next room, and then all of a sudden, Now, really it is about the sort of construct of how.
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Speaker 2: Well you collaborate.
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Speaker 3: What's your trust level like with people as you go out and engage. Are you a win win person or you a win lose person? Right there, there's a way to navigate relationships. Are you just good at managing up? Are you good at just managing down? Can you manage across?
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Speaker 2: Right?
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Speaker 3: And so, really treating relationships as the real foundation of this house was super important me and others who I think saw the highest level of success because you do have to know people, people have to know you, and you've really got to establish the real strong fundamentals. Again on trust, collaboration, teamwork, effort, you know, win win. Those type of things have to be in play for you to navigate yourself. And then I call reputation is your brand. You know, people have to know who you are. They have to see you from a character perspective, they have to see you from the image perspective.
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Speaker 2: You know, how do you show up, how do you communicate? How do you look?
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Speaker 3: You know, those things all matter quite frankly, and you get judged on those things all the time, and so you can't you take a day off and somebody's seeing you for the very first time on an off day. That could set you back many many many, you know, could set you.
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Speaker 2: Back many cycles on that.
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Speaker 3: So I really tried to preach everybody every day you wake up, you've got a body of work to do.
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Speaker 2: To execute your job. You need to deliver in that.
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Speaker 3: You need to wake up every day and think about how do you continue to you know, build established, build strength, and reinforce trust, collaboration, communication, amongst the broader peer set that you have again above you, below you, beside you, that's inside the companies outside of the company. Are always nurturing relationships when you can, and then your brand. You know, are you showing up to here's your best rods yourself? You know, that's whether again, the way you look when you show up, the way you communicating to people, that's the way you put out material, the way you write emails, your slides. You're always, you know, portraying a brand. You always betraying an image and a reputation you want to have on the high end of the rain. So it's complimentary to everything else that you do. And then that lift, quite frankly, just put you in spaces that are going to create massive separations between you and many others in your organization. Right, So you have to do both. It's not the it's not the ore, it's the it's the and that you're talking about.
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Speaker 2: So you have to do both.
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Speaker 3: You can't sort of say I'm gonna play it safe and just keep my head down and do everything right and hope I get noticed that's the way to play it, or just play this game where I'm just gonna spend time a lot of people and have all this high exposure but have nothing to talk about or nothing tangible with.
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Speaker 2: That, no substance with it. That's not going to get you very far either.
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Speaker 3: It may feel better because you know people and you get to hang around people and get to go to some cool places, but at the end of the day, you're going to get exposed that you're not delivering anything, so you're gonna lose on that in as well.
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Speaker 2: So to me, it's you have to put both together.
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Speaker 3: And I think the framework I talk about is very useful for me and others, and it's a certainly other ways to approach it as well, But it is definitely about the end, not the ore.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: What inspires you to take on this big days cheesesteaks as a franchise owner.
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Speaker 3: You know what, I can't find Philadelphia cheese steaks here in Orlando, so I decided to buy, you know, buy a brand myself. But I grew up loving cheese steaks when I was a kid and living in DC. It was always a treat. I didn't get it eat to eat them often because you know, it was definitely a more expensive treat in the family.
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Speaker 2: We went out to eat when we had them. They were really really good.
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Speaker 3: When I started putting money in my pocket, you know, cutting grass and doing shores and things like that, I would weekly go get cheese steaks on the weekend, and so it's always became a really important brand of food category for me as a child.
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Speaker 2: And therefore that never left me, you know.
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Speaker 3: And so when I graduate from college, I go up to Philly to see my friends, We go to Atlantic City, we go, you know, hang out, go to an Eagles game or something next day, and I always had to stop through and pick up cheese steaks on South Street or other places in town. So it's been a brand of food that has stuck with me for many, many years. I moved around a lot, and I missed that category a lot. When I moved out West, I basically never didn't have a cheese steak for like ten years, maybe unless I came back to town for some reason, but I can't even think of when I had one in the ten years.
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Speaker 2: And so I've always had this craving.
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Speaker 3: I got to meet, obviously, Derek Hayes when my doing my Pepsy relationship, and supported his business when he really started to get his balance, you know, took him under my wing, took him out to HPCUS, took him on HPCU tours, did a lot of investment in his brand and helped give him a lyft.
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Speaker 2: So and I was to help navigate through kind of coming through COVID.
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Speaker 3: After COVID obviously, now he has been very, very successful. He and I always spoke about one day, you know, when I wasn't in the business anymore and he decided to franchise, you know, considered me for a store that that was one store. He made me sign from more to one store to get it. But I'm excited about it. It's a unique brand of food, a very tasty, mouthwatering brand of food that you just can't get in any sort of scale in this market. I know consumers love regional food brands, so it's an opportunity to create some fund, some excitement. And for those who are in the Northeast. Is a ton of Northeasterners that live down here, as you know, it'll be an opportunity for them to engage and something they may have experienced, you know, back when they were home, or something they crave on a routine basis.
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Speaker 2: At the end of the day, we want to be here for that. I'm going to I can need to cheese that now.
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Speaker 3: If I want to three hundred and sixty five days of a year, that's what's most important to me.
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Speaker 2: So we're gonna have some fun and launching business.
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Speaker 3: I get to add some jobs, create some new excitement for people in town. So it's the whole business proposition, you know, spend time investing back in the community. And so I look at this as an end in proposition while we're gonna have fun doing the work.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: You know, many executives struggle or just hesitate to get into entrepreneurship, Like, how have you navigated that? And how have you made? Imagine a change of mindset, you know, how you think about attacking you know, business cases. What would you what advice would you give those people who are considering it.
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Speaker 2: I mean, look, I would say your corporate experiences prepare you for this.
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Speaker 3: You know, I have a again a very strong brand building acumen. I have a very strong operational acumen. I have very strong talent management acumen. I have strong community relationship acumen. I have strong partnerships acumen. So everything that I learned in my thirty five years is very transferable. Actually, I think it's set me up in many way ways to be even more successful being an entrepreneur.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: I got to work with a lot of entrepreneurs.
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Speaker 3: I got to learn from a lot of people who were in their own businesses while I was in the corporate space, right, So in my mind, a lot of those skills are transferable.
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Speaker 2: I think with anything, you have to take some risk with this.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: This is you know, certainly it does have associated risk with it, But I look at as more of an opportunity area, kind of like I did throughout my entire career. I don't look at what could go wrong. I look at what all could go right. So I think a lot of it is just mindset. But I think from a skill package, I think most corporate executives are built to do this and do it, especially if they pick their passions and places they really really care about and lean into. I think, you know, they're going to find themselves to be set up for success. Would encourage more people to take a look at hopefully, you know, people can learn from what I'm doing.
00:20:04
Speaker 2: Take a page of my book.
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Speaker 3: Now, there are some definitely some learning curve things that I'm going through in terms of you know, things like construction and real estate and you know, equipment. Now, there's some early learnings that I'm gonna have so as I go through the next phase of expansion, I'm gonna be much more well equipped at setting myself up to be more efficient.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: In that model. But yeah, there's some early learning curve things.
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Speaker 3: That that you know I'm gonna I'm gonna do better at next time. There are things I'm hitting the ground with immediately that are all a benefit and attributed to my corporate career. So you know, there's a give and take there, and I look at obviously every data goes by learning experience to get better and better.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: But I can't wait to get open.
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Speaker 3: I'm getting open here in about six weeks inside my brick and mortar stores. I'm already opened inside the arenas. The arenas have done very very well. I'm really proud of what we'll be able to do inside both the Kia Center and Camping World Stadium just a short period of time.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: But now it's time for brick and mortar and.
00:20:59
Speaker 3: Obviously create more access to the community on a three on a sixty five day basis. So I'm looking forward to that, you know, opportunity to do that in a couple of weeks, and we're opening two stores.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: That's just the way it landed.
00:21:09
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily plan it to be that way, but based on the real estate selection and where these locations are. I'm really pumped up about where they are and the communities they operate are going to be in, and I'm excited to get both of them off the ground as soon as possible. Yeah.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: You know, typically when you buy into a franchise, you're buying in operation and then you get to, you know, work out that playbook, right, And it sounds like you got in early enough and potentially you're helping design the playbook, And I wonder what was the thinking behind that? First of all, you can correct me if that's not true, but first of all, like, I wonder, what is the thinking behind doing that versus you know, you're going to start Derek's you know, Chiefe States or Derek's you know whatever.
00:21:51
Speaker 3: Well, look I've got I'm proven. You know, it's proven that I know how to scale big brands. I've been doing that my whole life, right, So you give me a good brand I know how to and that's that's kind of how I looked at this. So I wanted to make sure, you know, certain the things that I did in my career were transferable to what I do in my next chapter.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, starting my on brand.
00:22:09
Speaker 3: You know, I saw the challenges of starting new brands inside the big company.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: I saw how much money was required.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: There's certainly a higher failure rate than most probably can imagine, you know. And that's not a slide on any R and D or anybody for that match, just it's just hard, Like the business is hard to push new products through, and it takes a it takes a lot of resources to hit, to hit really home runs or hit you know, I don't even call it doubles and triples in the business. So I wanted to make sure that when I did this one, I was doing something that they had a lot of growth in front of it. And again, this category is not as developed in this market, so it's a lot of I call it big white space opportunity. Two, it's a great brand in terms of a taste profile and quality profile, so I give it really hot marks there. And so when you look at that and then sort of my understanding of the marketplace and you put all those factors together, it creates a really nice picture of opportunity for for.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: The business and what we can go do.
00:23:05
Speaker 3: And so I love those type of opportunities where I can look at scaling up and you know, really having a great opportunity to create a great.
00:23:13
Speaker 2: Run and being new. So yeah, you're right, we're kind of reshaping.
00:23:17
Speaker 3: We're enhancing the playbook as it goes along because he's a obviously gonna be looking to stretch more and more geographies. Obviously, being the first franchise e creates a really good template that we can now disseminate and use as a bit of a model going forward.
00:23:31
Speaker 2: Not that this won't be twiggable as well.
00:23:33
Speaker 3: There's gonna be other learnings that we're gonna have, at least in terms of starting in new markets. This is the first sort of go, hit the butting and go, and I'm excited about what we're gonna learn. Also, we're going to deliver and create traction for for the future for Derek's brand and you know, many many other geographies around the country.
00:23:49
Speaker 1: You know, there's something you said in that you can't be what you can't see. So having a diverse executive team is critical to provide women and minority employees with role models and mentals and show that it's possible for them to become leaders within the company. You know, I wonder how did seeing black leadership in your PEPSI code days or otherwise. You know, how did that have an impact on your personal aspirations?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: Oh, it had a huge impact.
00:24:16
Speaker 3: Again, I'm a really good historian of the PEPSI history of the African American culture. You know, going back to the nineteen forties. Matter of fact, you know, the first black two black interms of corporate America were hired by PEPSI in the early nineteen forties, Alan mc keller junior, who went to South Carolina State and Jeanette Mound who went to Hampton University Hamping Institute at the time, but Hampting University where I went. And so they were the first to hiring corporate by PEPSI as part of an essay contest. Subsequently, there the first black salesforce was hired a few years later by PEPSI because they identified the black cohort as being an important business case item from the US. They wanted to make sure they can penetrate that market to drive sales and drive growth for their franchisees. And they saw that that group was basically being untapped. Someone else was investing in that cohort, so they decided to do that and leaning that way, and obviously to do that, you've got to sort of be able to walk to talk, and not only on the outside, but also on the inside. And so they started that journey back in the forties, and that obviously was carried through even up to today. And so when I was obviously being recruited, I knew that history understood history, So they understood a lot better as I've been in the company and got a chance to even have a relationship with Alan mchaelisay, can you imagine a younger executive like me that's rising up has a relationship with the first block you know, intern and sales leader or salesperson individual hired in Corporate America in the forties.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the nuggets that he gave me.
00:25:38
Speaker 3: For about a ten year window up until he passed away in twenty eighteen, I was getting some real nuggets from him, and it was a pleasure. I go see him every year in Saint Louis and he would, you know, just share a lot of wisdom.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: And inspiration with me. And really I understood the playbook.
00:25:55
Speaker 3: I understood the mission, I understood what was expectedunderstood that I had to need to have a lot of courage like he and his comrades did. They had to have a lot more courage than I did. And so if they were able to do what they did back in the forties and fifties and sixties to get things started for many of us around corporate America, I can do my.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: Part to carry forward and pay it forward. And so that was beautiful.
00:26:17
Speaker 3: So I was always inspired by the company's mission on this, and my role was to sort of keep, you know, paying it off and make sure we're handing the torches off to the next group so that they can keep running. That they keep running that race, race of progression, excellence, you know, and high achievement. And that's that's what I believe they intend to do.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: You know, we talked often on this podcast about how you know, diversity is not just the right thing to do, but it actually yields business success.
00:26:44
Speaker 2: Right.
00:26:44
Speaker 1: Can you talk about in your experience is how you've seen diversity actually impact the bottom line?
00:26:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's no doubt. It's always it's a business case. I mean this, the company made that decision back in the forties. Aways it always started with.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: The business case.
00:26:57
Speaker 3: Now the fact that you know it was also orally right and really as the social norm started to change and move, it.
00:27:04
Speaker 2: Was the right thing to do as well.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: So now you've got this business case where it's driving revenue and profit and you're also helping society improve and uh, and it's in terms of its shape and scope, it's it's the gift that keeps some of us the best of both worlds. And I think today, you know, what's missing in some of these conversations filling recently has been we've gotten off of the business case, right, Uh, nobody. You know, people are saying, well, we're walking away from a certain programming element or in our business well, you know, absolite of talking about what you're doing. It. To me, that creates a big void in terms of where you're walking away from an inside perspective or you walking away from the outside perspective. Because the last time I checked any business that you want you want growth from all cohorts, right, you want the minority cohort, you want the female cohort, you want the white non uh, you know, diverse cohort.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: You want everybody's money, right in terms of your business.
00:27:55
Speaker 3: I think that's the way most certainly big businesses approach their growth strategy, and so in my if you stay consistent with that and look at that as the lens in which you approach this whole thing as a triangle, there's a consumer need that we're going to continue to focus on because that drives and pays the bills and delivers the shareholder returns for us inside the company. That connects to the culture of the company because we want to basically look like the market that one we sell to. We're pursuing on some level, we want to look like that market. So therefore it is a recruitment effort, a development effort, and an acceleration off that should occur organically with that as you continue to pursue these consumers outside and growth these consumers, knowing that demographic ships are going to keep changing and leaning in to where there's more buying power coming from those cohorts. And then there's a community element where you know you're obligated to as you make profit and you're doing the right thing with your culture to now help continue to stand up areas where your people work, eat, play, and lift your consumers and you and your socials in the company. It's your obligation to do that. So in my mind. If we if we stay within the triangle and still focus on that, Yes, we can rename it, we can rebrand it, we can involve it.
00:29:06
Speaker 2: We should evolve it from where it was, no doubt about it.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: But just to say I'm walking away from it, not and not doing anything else, what does that really mean?
00:29:15
Speaker 2: Are you?
00:29:15
Speaker 3: Are you walking away from the consumer part too? Because if you, how do you do that when you so? That's a to me, this is a big leadership moment, and I think leaders need to stand up and defend their position around the business case and how that connects inside the company and it connects outside of the company. And Yeah, I don't like I don't like the word carve out. I don't like the word mandates. I don't I think those things are detrimental to a culture. I think those things are absolutely things that should not be in play anymore. Things that might have been necessary in more turbulent times, extremely turbulent times where laws are being broken all the time. I think we're in a different era now. There's still a lot of challenges out there, no doubt about it. But if you stay true to that model, you're going to be doing the right thing. And you're going to be making the money the business decisions. You're gonna do the right thing for your associates across all cohorts. Everybody can win. Everybody truly can win, and you're gonna do the right thing. From the community activation standpoint, the places are in the most need, you're gonna stand those up. And again, all cohorts should be involved in that in terms of impact. So nobody should get left behind, nobody should be excluded, nobody should be isolated. And I think that delivers a win with profit, a win with culture.
00:30:24
Speaker 2: And a win with sort of standing up.
00:30:27
Speaker 3: The places we work, live, eat, play in, and value the most is our communities.
00:30:31
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna make this my last one respectful of your time, but I'm super interested in you go into a little level deeper on that because I remember there was about twelve conversations that I had in the middle of the George Floyd COVID you know time period where we were talking about all the commitments being made to our people and my interviews like it's at least twelve interviews where I'm like, I was asking how long is this window going to be open? And out of those conversations we were like, you know, three years, maybe four years, and surprise, we're at three four years. You know, since that to where we're starting to see some of this stuff be rolled back. But there's a reality on the field where you're you're an entrepreneur working with some of these brands, or if you're working with somebody's companies that you have to live with, how should we be thinking about Okay, maybe the corporate you know, sentiment.
00:31:23
Speaker 2: Will be reset to where they actually figure out to your.
00:31:25
Speaker 1: Point that okay, you got to feel that void with something, but I got to live today, like I got to figure out how to navigate this particular situation I'm in. How should we be thinking about that, both as entrepreneurs and as executives or career people.
00:31:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had I had to, I mean also had to deal with this real time. And I do think there was an environment and I mentioned this on the calls on the other day, that there was also an atmosphere.
00:31:48
Speaker 2: While there were a lot of there was a lot.
00:31:49
Speaker 3: Of pleasuing of commitments and spending and you know they're they're true.
00:31:53
Speaker 2: Let's let's face it. There were committed.
00:31:55
Speaker 3: Carve outs were committed and people would actually approach me outside around almost with an entitlement mindset, and I think that was that wrong. And I think, you know, looking back on that, in some of those conversations I would have with some of these organizations who were just basically saying, I saw your company made a statement. I'm calling you to engage in conversation around I want to participate.
00:32:16
Speaker 4: I want to participate, you know, and I'm going to participate based off of what participate off of who you are, where you look, like like like sort of talking to me about capability, talking about competency, talking.
00:32:28
Speaker 3: About ROI you know, like you need to get sort of your act together, like like I want to help you, but you got to first help yourself.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: And so the first thing I would say to a lot.
00:32:37
Speaker 3: Of business and this wasn't everybody, but there were a fair amount, a significant amount of businesses who just expected to get handouts because it was that it was a time and they read a statement on social media or somewhere in the media.
00:32:53
Speaker 2: And my whole perspective is and right now, especially more.
00:32:55
Speaker 3: Importantly, is it's all to me about you demonstrating your ability to have owner capabilities, stronger competencies. You're a good to understand your organization's language of who you want to work with and working with them and understanding how to make connections inside those spaces is going to be different between you getting the business and not getting the business won't be because of who you are, where you look like, and everything else. And so I think taking care of yourself and leveling up your self is a starting point. I think for a message to all businesses, don't expect carve outs.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have expected anyway.
00:33:27
Speaker 3: And if you were in that mindset of expecting things just because you were, you know, quote unquote, there were there were carve outs allocated to minornial businesses, and you're having to jump in line. You're having to jump in the queue and get and get you know, get programs, get commitments from that.
00:33:43
Speaker 2: Hey, more power to you.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: But that was going to be short lived and now we're here, and so how do you stand up in your own merit? And it's the same thing for associates, right, So leadership has to solve for the consumer, the culture, and the community park That challenge needs to be absolutely pushed an associate, how do you what I would say, how do you want better on yourself, how do you believe in yourself and how do you be yourself? And what does that best version of self model look like for you? As an individual inside a company. Now, your selection criteria may change. You may look at companies now differently based on them while we're going to opt out or we're going to opt in, or you know, you to me should always take a step back from that anyway and look at the companies that do the best job of the triangulation because their companies out there to do a good job of triangulation and articulate that. They're companies that don't do a good job of article. They might be doing triangulation, but they don't articulate try and language. And then those companies that just aren't doing triangulation whatsoever. They're not paying tentionial ll they're basically focused on the top and the bottom line. But in terms of community, in terms of culture, you know, hands off on that. And so use individual need to do your homework and research on those companies that have those different sort of you know, tiers of their engagement in this, and then you have to decide as you're doing those companies, you're going have to find ways for you to level yourself up. You're not gonna again look up and expect them to do that for you. Now, as you start to get tractions, you start delivering an ROI for them that shows that you are a high caliber player, You're a high caliber athlete. You're going to get the investment, you're going to get the time, you're going to get the opportunities. And so I'm trying to, you know, in this new chapter, empower people, Equip people with the knowledge and the playbooks they need to be their best version themselves. And therefore you have a better control of your own destiny than sort of relying on a lot of infrastructure to sort of help you get there, because that for at least right now will be very rocky and very turbulent. You're not going to have it, certainly, it's not gonna be very transparent of what that is if it's there. So you have to now find ways to really bounce yourself up to navigate through that until we can get back to the leadership model, can get back to some stability and a good articulation of what.
00:35:57
Speaker 2: The new DEI journey really is. How's it branded, what does it look like, how's.
00:36:02
Speaker 3: It affected three that the trianglet I talked about, how do we create something that wins for everybody? How's it more comprehensive, How's it more collaborative, and how's it more compassionate.
00:36:12
Speaker 2: That's what I call the next.
00:36:13
Speaker 3: Set of three seas need to be and leaders need to go figure that out.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: We don't need one leader now like we.
00:36:18
Speaker 3: Did many many decades ago, or that one leader is not not in place anymore now. It to me is in common around community by community. This could be city by city, it could be state by state. But leaders need to come together try and create these frameworks that they can then take into big business, they can take into education, they can take into government. You know, they socialize these things to now help move this along in a progress aggressive, productive manner, not a man of where we're all going to be fighting uphill or talking about things that create a lot of ten boycotts and things like that. Those things are in my mind against short sighted. I want to play the long game, not the short game, because I think we're better equip if we can set up the future. Trying to set the future up right now. If we're not setting up the future, what are we doing. We're still trying to get it ourselves. It's not about us anymore. It's about the next generation. We got to set the next generations up for success. And that mind really will now require a new leadership challenge with some different thinking and a thing that's comprehensive, collaborative and compassionate. And I think we can get there. I know we'll get there. It's gonna take some time.
00:37:23
Speaker 2: But this is a lockdown leadership moment, not a retreat.
00:37:27
Speaker 3: Not to fight each other, not to condemn each other, how to criticize each other. It's a time to really lock and load and really focus on what's out in front of us for the next five, ten to fifteen, twenty years.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: Now, what's happening to me in this short period of time.
00:37:41
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production to Blavity Afro Tech in the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Immedia, and it's produced by Morgan DeVaughn and me Well Lucas, with the digital production support by Kate McDonald, Shurget and Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about my guess of the tech. This up is an Innovatives afrotech dot com video version this episode will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube. Don't tap in, enjoy your black Tech crea money, share it to somebody. Go get your money, get some love,
Speaker 1: I'm with Lucas and this is black Tach, Green Money.
00:00:05
Speaker 2: Derek Lewis is a strategic.
00:00:06
Speaker 1: Thought leader and transformational executive and was the first ever president of Multicultural Business and Equity Development at PepsiCo North America. Passionate about building inclusive ecosystems and accelerating economic opportunity, he led major initiatives like Pepsi's dig In and the Black Restaurant Accelerated to help black and Hispanic communities nationwide. A veteran over thirty years at PepsiCo, he rose through the ranks from a sales trainee to the C suite, all while driving equity and impact that scale. He works to ensure Black entrepreneurs, professionals, and communities cannot only survive, but drive. He also has a new book out, Survive in Advance, lested on living a life without compromise, which is available wherever you get yours. So I'm very interested in, first of like, your corporate origin story, at least at PepsiCo. You know, you started as a sales trainee there, and I hear so many beautiful stories of people who started as an intern, started in you know the you know, as somebody just mentoring me, and then I ended up in one of the top seats, and I wonder how that happens. How do you start as an entry level person and end up you know, president in this way.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: Look, I was incredibly blessed to have a great career at PepsiCo, first of all, getting recruited off campus Hampton University or on campus at Hampton University, and then be able to start in Baltimore, Maryland and essentially really get a great understanding of the business. So I appreciate starting at the very lowest level so you can really get a feel for how things work and operate.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: And then at the same time I was.
00:01:40
Speaker 3: Allowed to sort of be myself and charted my own course in terms of my progression and.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: My development things like that, and so I just kind of took off.
00:01:48
Speaker 3: I mean, the business is very fast paced, is very intense, very dynamic. The company was the same way, and so it was it was just this environment of pace and pace, and so there were those that made it and if you you know, certainly made it survive, you accelerated, and there were those that didn't make it then obviously chose to go, you know, work in other.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Businesses, other industries, et cetera. So it it had early on an up or out feel. It did.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: Be honest with you, I think we had some labeling of that inside. I'm not sure that's always the case or what was the case throughout my entire career.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I know it was the case about my entire career.
00:02:22
Speaker 3: But early on you can't get a feel that there was a lot of encouragement to you know, want to get promoted, want to move up, want to accelerate, and so that that created really high performance expectations that quite frankly, just stuck with me throughout my entire career. So the bar never ever lowered. The bar, if anything, kept moving up higher and higher and higher. As I took on each assignment, I was able to challenge myself. I was actually being able to be my hardest critic at the same time. So therefore there wasn't a challenge that I wasn't able to sort of mentally emotionally take on and try to do my best to beat my best and deliver you know, solid outcomes.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: You know, I imagine I've not sat an. The corporate role is high level, as yours was, but I imagine this is not like rocket science. But it's what does it take then, like if it doesn't, if it's not you know, brain surgery or getting you know, a ship spaceship off to the moon. What is it that separates people from who find success at the highest levels to those that don't.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: Well.
00:03:19
Speaker 3: I talked about the three rs a lot, Results, relationships, and reputation. I think singularly those pillars in my mind, as I've gone through all my corporate experiences, I would use those three pillars as the keys to the success. And there's a lot of double clicking that you can do on those things, but I think those are the pillars, right. If you're really, really good at all three, you're going to achieve the hospital success. If anyone of those are off, it may slow you down and stall you. If you're only good at one of the three, you're not gonna have a good.
00:03:43
Speaker 2: Very short career. Solely in our company and maybe others as well, I would imagine. But I think there's this.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: Notion of I look at having one having conviction for what business you're in, Like the business is a tough business. You absolutely have to want to be there. You have to want to be there, you have to embrace the challenges of the business. You have to embrace the pressure of getting performance. You have to embrace the resiliency and determine all the things that come with that industry in that hyper competitive environment.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: You have to bring that too. You have to bring a sense of ownership, you know, you you have to own what happens.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: You can't you know, shift blame or deflect, you know, on others, things that may not happen, things that might not play out of things you have misses, you have to own those just as much you own the wins. You have to own the misses too, and the lessons that you have to learn and bounce back from, you know. So I learned this sort of fail fast mentality because you're gonna have failures along the way.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: You're not gonna You're not a bat a thousand and everything that you do.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: But I think failing fast was solely an important lesson for many of us who were coming through going up through the system. So I look at conviction, I look at ownership, I look at action orientation. You have to have a bias for action. You cannot sit back and wait for something to have. You have to go create. You have to go create sort of that magic, that energy, that competitiveness out in your air, your space, your function, whatever business you're involved with, as a heavy degree of action orientation, finding solutions. So as challenges come up, you can't sit back again and just sort of explain, you know, I've got all these challenges going on.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: You've got to while you do that, You've got to go find.
00:05:09
Speaker 3: Solutions and create a brilliant atmosphere of action. I look at also being very consistent in what you do. You don't want to sort of in my mind Bob and weave or be you know, herky jerky in your philosophy and your attitude and your mindset.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: You show up one day, you're coming in on top of the world.
00:05:26
Speaker 3: The next day you're down. Your energy levels are low. So you want to be a very consistent performer. I think when you show up for work every day, not only for yourself, but also for the people around you.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: This might be people that you're leading, might be.
00:05:37
Speaker 3: People that you're working for, might be peers, and you got to show up for the customers because they want to see the energy and commitment from you as well. And also I look at hustle Man, you've got to move fast, you know, so fast paced. World's a fast paced business you're in. And I look at the people that have a lot of conviction for what they do.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: I look at a lot of people.
00:05:54
Speaker 3: That own their career, they own the decisions, they own the whole thing through and through, people who have a bias for action, people who are very consistent people to hustle.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: I think that is a really good.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: Success formula for people to achieve the highest level possible, and then you start transitioning to this delivers results, build war class relationships, and then develop a great strong reputation, which really is your brand. Putting those three together, I think creates a lot of longevity and sustainability and your efforts to be the highest level you want to achieve or be just be the best version of yourself, whether you're moving to the top or not.
00:06:28
Speaker 1: You know, there's this quote I found from you where you said, I still draw on the things I learned my very first week on the job, Like, talk to me about some of those things that were foundational to you experience.
00:06:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, go back to that sort of conviction model and conviction ownership, action consistently and hustle. I was going out in the route, and I find that, you know, I really have to own. I have to own making sure all the products were priced properly. I have to own to make sure all the products put in the right flow, have to make sure all the equipment is stocked properly, have to make sure the back rooms are clean up, to make sure I'm throwing out my try, you know. And there were things along the way in the first couple weeks that I was missing on. I didn't necessarily price everything right, I didn't throw all my trash away. And I found that all these comments and criticisms. Things were coming from all over. They were coming from store managers, they would come from backroom personnel, they were coming from customers, they were coming.
00:07:18
Speaker 2: From you know, grocery supervisors.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, like it felt like the world sometimes is collapsing on you when you weren't doing parts of your job. So I recognize in is that attention to detail matters, you know, And then all those other attributes I talked about as well, And so that was a continue that was almost a microcosmo what my whole career is going to buy. You're going to have people stakeholders who are involved at that time.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: These are people around the store.
00:07:42
Speaker 3: But as you grow and as you exponentially grow in the company, it's now a big customer, you know, it's now a bigger geography. It's now thousands of people, tens of thousands of people that are your responsible for and right so the stakes just get.
00:07:55
Speaker 2: Higher and higher.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: But that early snapshot on around you know, attention to detail, all the understanding, all your stakeholders you were involved in your journey with you have to be focused on.
00:08:06
Speaker 2: You have to deliver for them as well.
00:08:07
Speaker 3: It's not about just what you do and your time and your experience. You also have to make sure the experience people around you that support you also are they're enjoying that and it's complementary to what you bring to the table.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: So I learned early that you know it's going to.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: Take while you have to bring a lot of the effort and energy to at night, a lot of what happens around you.
00:08:25
Speaker 2: It's just more about It's more than about you.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: It's about it's about a team, a team environment, whether inside of the company or outside of the company, and your ability to see that and build that camaraderie and build those relationships early, understand the value of those and how they contribute to you having the highest level of success. I thought was great for me to get at an early stage because then I was able to replicate that again. Stakes get higher, constituents get higher, they're bigger titles around, involved in scenarios now. But I didn't really look at that as because of the bigger stage. I didn't didn't make me more nervous to create more anxiety. It just drew me back to, Hey, this is no different than when you were in the store. You have people that are important new the success puzzle here. You've got to make sure you're bringing all these people along for the ride. But you have to be the catalyst for what happens in this in this in this environment.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: This is your house.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: These people here living with you, supporting you, making this house grow. But you've got to be the catalyst for change, for growth, for vision and bringing these and leading these people to success with you.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: You know, you've managed multiple billion dollar operations there at Pepsi Co. And I wonder what is different about how a company that big thinks about growth and scale that small business owners' startups can learn from.
00:09:39
Speaker 3: Well, I think it all starts with your strategic plan and where you're headed. And so the company was always you know, looking forward. So while we were you know, into the details, into the moments, into the day, the week, the periods as we call them, the quarters, there was still obviously a lot of sight to the future and the roadmaps being built out in these different phases, you know, and these are these are you know three years out, five years out, seven years out, ten years out, So very strategic.
00:10:05
Speaker 2: Roadmap of where you want to be down the road.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: And how do you sort of start building the bridges of where you are today and to where you want to get to? Uh, what investments required from a brand building standpoint to draw the consumer demand, drove consumer demand? What investments are required to drive operational excellence that's obviously through your supply chain and your sales organization, you know, what investments require to help build you know, call it the best place to work, having the strongest talent, the best athletes, I would call recruiting, developing, accelerating people's careers, you know. And then also then you have a community aspect. How do you ensure that you have a operate with purpose? And so if that agenda is is sound across those pillars and that framework on a strategic roadmap all the way down into what's in the immediate UH and operating planning cycles, it's going to be a business that you know will be built to be successful and you're going to have to pivot and tweak it. Everything doesn't go perfectly, so you have contingencies and things like that that you think about. So a company that basically stays ahead, always looking at newer trends, trying to understand and react to where the consumer is going, not just where the consumer.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: Is today, I think is also important for smaller businesses to take on.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: So you got to have one eye on what's going on now, and you got to have one eye on what's going to happen later and be prepared for that and invest in that so you were able to harvest the growth that comes out. If not, you can get left behind and you're playing catch up and you become a distant number three, four or five, six player or whatever in the space. And now your growth cycle, your growth outlook is really shrunk because you've missed out and didn't do the proper due buildings on planning.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, you make me think of this experience I had when I worked in corporate America, just for a very short time. I wasn't suited for it, but I was working in the corporate America for this short time and I was recruited by this company as an executive fellow. So I was following the CEO around for a period of time, and I was going to those board meetings in etc. So I would get a chance to meet the board and the directors in the CEA and sometimes they would invite me out get to know me. And when I went to my role, I was still developing those relationships with the board when I was a fellow, And I remember the person who I got sent to work under was like, hey, you got to chill on the board, you know, relationships. And I remember thinking because I had also heard this same person talk about another individual who was remarkable but nobody knew who they were. And I'm like, well, if you're not building the relationships, then what you're talking about with that guy over there that would happen to me. And so I wonder what your take is on how to My two love language words are ambition and initiative. So I wonder how you can find that balance between doing good work in your role but still developing the relationships to advocate for yourself.
00:12:49
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it's critical.
00:12:50
Speaker 3: I think again that fits very nicely into my results, relationship reputation framework.
00:12:56
Speaker 2: Right.
00:12:56
Speaker 3: So, once you establish a performance, you know sort of mantra that you can get the numbers because performance matters, and doing it the right way, doing it consistently, all that matters. That's like to mean, the first entry into the next conversation in the next room, and then all of a sudden, Now, really it is about the sort of construct of how.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Well you collaborate.
00:13:16
Speaker 3: What's your trust level like with people as you go out and engage. Are you a win win person or you a win lose person? Right there, there's a way to navigate relationships. Are you just good at managing up? Are you good at just managing down? Can you manage across?
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Right?
00:13:28
Speaker 3: And so, really treating relationships as the real foundation of this house was super important me and others who I think saw the highest level of success because you do have to know people, people have to know you, and you've really got to establish the real strong fundamentals. Again on trust, collaboration, teamwork, effort, you know, win win. Those type of things have to be in play for you to navigate yourself. And then I call reputation is your brand. You know, people have to know who you are. They have to see you from a character perspective, they have to see you from the image perspective.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: You know, how do you show up, how do you communicate? How do you look?
00:14:02
Speaker 3: You know, those things all matter quite frankly, and you get judged on those things all the time, and so you can't you take a day off and somebody's seeing you for the very first time on an off day. That could set you back many many many, you know, could set you.
00:14:16
Speaker 2: Back many cycles on that.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: So I really tried to preach everybody every day you wake up, you've got a body of work to do.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: To execute your job. You need to deliver in that.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: You need to wake up every day and think about how do you continue to you know, build established, build strength, and reinforce trust, collaboration, communication, amongst the broader peer set that you have again above you, below you, beside you, that's inside the companies outside of the company. Are always nurturing relationships when you can, and then your brand. You know, are you showing up to here's your best rods yourself? You know, that's whether again, the way you look when you show up, the way you communicating to people, that's the way you put out material, the way you write emails, your slides. You're always, you know, portraying a brand. You always betraying an image and a reputation you want to have on the high end of the rain. So it's complimentary to everything else that you do. And then that lift, quite frankly, just put you in spaces that are going to create massive separations between you and many others in your organization. Right, So you have to do both. It's not the it's not the ore, it's the it's the and that you're talking about.
00:15:19
Speaker 2: So you have to do both.
00:15:19
Speaker 3: You can't sort of say I'm gonna play it safe and just keep my head down and do everything right and hope I get noticed that's the way to play it, or just play this game where I'm just gonna spend time a lot of people and have all this high exposure but have nothing to talk about or nothing tangible with.
00:15:33
Speaker 2: That, no substance with it. That's not going to get you very far either.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: It may feel better because you know people and you get to hang around people and get to go to some cool places, but at the end of the day, you're going to get exposed that you're not delivering anything, so you're gonna lose on that in as well.
00:15:46
Speaker 2: So to me, it's you have to put both together.
00:15:48
Speaker 3: And I think the framework I talk about is very useful for me and others, and it's a certainly other ways to approach it as well, But it is definitely about the end, not the ore.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: What inspires you to take on this big days cheesesteaks as a franchise owner.
00:16:03
Speaker 3: You know what, I can't find Philadelphia cheese steaks here in Orlando, so I decided to buy, you know, buy a brand myself. But I grew up loving cheese steaks when I was a kid and living in DC. It was always a treat. I didn't get it eat to eat them often because you know, it was definitely a more expensive treat in the family.
00:16:19
Speaker 2: We went out to eat when we had them. They were really really good.
00:16:22
Speaker 3: When I started putting money in my pocket, you know, cutting grass and doing shores and things like that, I would weekly go get cheese steaks on the weekend, and so it's always became a really important brand of food category for me as a child.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: And therefore that never left me, you know.
00:16:36
Speaker 3: And so when I graduate from college, I go up to Philly to see my friends, We go to Atlantic City, we go, you know, hang out, go to an Eagles game or something next day, and I always had to stop through and pick up cheese steaks on South Street or other places in town. So it's been a brand of food that has stuck with me for many, many years. I moved around a lot, and I missed that category a lot. When I moved out West, I basically never didn't have a cheese steak for like ten years, maybe unless I came back to town for some reason, but I can't even think of when I had one in the ten years.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: And so I've always had this craving.
00:17:06
Speaker 3: I got to meet, obviously, Derek Hayes when my doing my Pepsy relationship, and supported his business when he really started to get his balance, you know, took him under my wing, took him out to HPCUS, took him on HPCU tours, did a lot of investment in his brand and helped give him a lyft.
00:17:21
Speaker 2: So and I was to help navigate through kind of coming through COVID.
00:17:25
Speaker 3: After COVID obviously, now he has been very, very successful. He and I always spoke about one day, you know, when I wasn't in the business anymore and he decided to franchise, you know, considered me for a store that that was one store. He made me sign from more to one store to get it. But I'm excited about it. It's a unique brand of food, a very tasty, mouthwatering brand of food that you just can't get in any sort of scale in this market. I know consumers love regional food brands, so it's an opportunity to create some fund, some excitement. And for those who are in the Northeast. Is a ton of Northeasterners that live down here, as you know, it'll be an opportunity for them to engage and something they may have experienced, you know, back when they were home, or something they crave on a routine basis.
00:18:07
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, we want to be here for that. I'm going to I can need to cheese that now.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: If I want to three hundred and sixty five days of a year, that's what's most important to me.
00:18:15
Speaker 2: So we're gonna have some fun and launching business.
00:18:17
Speaker 3: I get to add some jobs, create some new excitement for people in town. So it's the whole business proposition, you know, spend time investing back in the community. And so I look at this as an end in proposition while we're gonna have fun doing the work.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: You know, many executives struggle or just hesitate to get into entrepreneurship, Like, how have you navigated that? And how have you made? Imagine a change of mindset, you know, how you think about attacking you know, business cases. What would you what advice would you give those people who are considering it.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I would say your corporate experiences prepare you for this.
00:18:51
Speaker 3: You know, I have a again a very strong brand building acumen. I have a very strong operational acumen. I have very strong talent management acumen. I have strong community relationship acumen. I have strong partnerships acumen. So everything that I learned in my thirty five years is very transferable. Actually, I think it's set me up in many way ways to be even more successful being an entrepreneur.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: I got to work with a lot of entrepreneurs.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: I got to learn from a lot of people who were in their own businesses while I was in the corporate space, right, So in my mind, a lot of those skills are transferable.
00:19:29
Speaker 2: I think with anything, you have to take some risk with this.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: This is you know, certainly it does have associated risk with it, But I look at as more of an opportunity area, kind of like I did throughout my entire career. I don't look at what could go wrong. I look at what all could go right. So I think a lot of it is just mindset. But I think from a skill package, I think most corporate executives are built to do this and do it, especially if they pick their passions and places they really really care about and lean into. I think, you know, they're going to find themselves to be set up for success. Would encourage more people to take a look at hopefully, you know, people can learn from what I'm doing.
00:20:04
Speaker 2: Take a page of my book.
00:20:05
Speaker 3: Now, there are some definitely some learning curve things that I'm going through in terms of you know, things like construction and real estate and you know, equipment. Now, there's some early learnings that I'm gonna have so as I go through the next phase of expansion, I'm gonna be much more well equipped at setting myself up to be more efficient.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: In that model. But yeah, there's some early learning curve things.
00:20:26
Speaker 3: That that you know I'm gonna I'm gonna do better at next time. There are things I'm hitting the ground with immediately that are all a benefit and attributed to my corporate career. So you know, there's a give and take there, and I look at obviously every data goes by learning experience to get better and better.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: But I can't wait to get open.
00:20:44
Speaker 3: I'm getting open here in about six weeks inside my brick and mortar stores. I'm already opened inside the arenas. The arenas have done very very well. I'm really proud of what we'll be able to do inside both the Kia Center and Camping World Stadium just a short period of time.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: But now it's time for brick and mortar and.
00:20:59
Speaker 3: Obviously create more access to the community on a three on a sixty five day basis. So I'm looking forward to that, you know, opportunity to do that in a couple of weeks, and we're opening two stores.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: That's just the way it landed.
00:21:09
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily plan it to be that way, but based on the real estate selection and where these locations are. I'm really pumped up about where they are and the communities they operate are going to be in, and I'm excited to get both of them off the ground as soon as possible. Yeah.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: You know, typically when you buy into a franchise, you're buying in operation and then you get to, you know, work out that playbook, right, And it sounds like you got in early enough and potentially you're helping design the playbook, And I wonder what was the thinking behind that? First of all, you can correct me if that's not true, but first of all, like, I wonder, what is the thinking behind doing that versus you know, you're going to start Derek's you know, Chiefe States or Derek's you know whatever.
00:21:51
Speaker 3: Well, look I've got I'm proven. You know, it's proven that I know how to scale big brands. I've been doing that my whole life, right, So you give me a good brand I know how to and that's that's kind of how I looked at this. So I wanted to make sure, you know, certain the things that I did in my career were transferable to what I do in my next chapter.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, starting my on brand.
00:22:09
Speaker 3: You know, I saw the challenges of starting new brands inside the big company.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: I saw how much money was required.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: There's certainly a higher failure rate than most probably can imagine, you know. And that's not a slide on any R and D or anybody for that match, just it's just hard, Like the business is hard to push new products through, and it takes a it takes a lot of resources to hit, to hit really home runs or hit you know, I don't even call it doubles and triples in the business. So I wanted to make sure that when I did this one, I was doing something that they had a lot of growth in front of it. And again, this category is not as developed in this market, so it's a lot of I call it big white space opportunity. Two, it's a great brand in terms of a taste profile and quality profile, so I give it really hot marks there. And so when you look at that and then sort of my understanding of the marketplace and you put all those factors together, it creates a really nice picture of opportunity for for.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: The business and what we can go do.
00:23:05
Speaker 3: And so I love those type of opportunities where I can look at scaling up and you know, really having a great opportunity to create a great.
00:23:13
Speaker 2: Run and being new. So yeah, you're right, we're kind of reshaping.
00:23:17
Speaker 3: We're enhancing the playbook as it goes along because he's a obviously gonna be looking to stretch more and more geographies. Obviously, being the first franchise e creates a really good template that we can now disseminate and use as a bit of a model going forward.
00:23:31
Speaker 2: Not that this won't be twiggable as well.
00:23:33
Speaker 3: There's gonna be other learnings that we're gonna have, at least in terms of starting in new markets. This is the first sort of go, hit the butting and go, and I'm excited about what we're gonna learn. Also, we're going to deliver and create traction for for the future for Derek's brand and you know, many many other geographies around the country.
00:23:49
Speaker 1: You know, there's something you said in that you can't be what you can't see. So having a diverse executive team is critical to provide women and minority employees with role models and mentals and show that it's possible for them to become leaders within the company. You know, I wonder how did seeing black leadership in your PEPSI code days or otherwise. You know, how did that have an impact on your personal aspirations?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: Oh, it had a huge impact.
00:24:16
Speaker 3: Again, I'm a really good historian of the PEPSI history of the African American culture. You know, going back to the nineteen forties. Matter of fact, you know, the first black two black interms of corporate America were hired by PEPSI in the early nineteen forties, Alan mc keller junior, who went to South Carolina State and Jeanette Mound who went to Hampton University Hamping Institute at the time, but Hampting University where I went. And so they were the first to hiring corporate by PEPSI as part of an essay contest. Subsequently, there the first black salesforce was hired a few years later by PEPSI because they identified the black cohort as being an important business case item from the US. They wanted to make sure they can penetrate that market to drive sales and drive growth for their franchisees. And they saw that that group was basically being untapped. Someone else was investing in that cohort, so they decided to do that and leaning that way, and obviously to do that, you've got to sort of be able to walk to talk, and not only on the outside, but also on the inside. And so they started that journey back in the forties, and that obviously was carried through even up to today. And so when I was obviously being recruited, I knew that history understood history, So they understood a lot better as I've been in the company and got a chance to even have a relationship with Alan mchaelisay, can you imagine a younger executive like me that's rising up has a relationship with the first block you know, intern and sales leader or salesperson individual hired in Corporate America in the forties.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the nuggets that he gave me.
00:25:38
Speaker 3: For about a ten year window up until he passed away in twenty eighteen, I was getting some real nuggets from him, and it was a pleasure. I go see him every year in Saint Louis and he would, you know, just share a lot of wisdom.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: And inspiration with me. And really I understood the playbook.
00:25:55
Speaker 3: I understood the mission, I understood what was expectedunderstood that I had to need to have a lot of courage like he and his comrades did. They had to have a lot more courage than I did. And so if they were able to do what they did back in the forties and fifties and sixties to get things started for many of us around corporate America, I can do my.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: Part to carry forward and pay it forward. And so that was beautiful.
00:26:17
Speaker 3: So I was always inspired by the company's mission on this, and my role was to sort of keep, you know, paying it off and make sure we're handing the torches off to the next group so that they can keep running. That they keep running that race, race of progression, excellence, you know, and high achievement. And that's that's what I believe they intend to do.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: You know, we talked often on this podcast about how you know, diversity is not just the right thing to do, but it actually yields business success.
00:26:44
Speaker 2: Right.
00:26:44
Speaker 1: Can you talk about in your experience is how you've seen diversity actually impact the bottom line?
00:26:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's no doubt. It's always it's a business case. I mean this, the company made that decision back in the forties. Aways it always started with.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: The business case.
00:26:57
Speaker 3: Now the fact that you know it was also orally right and really as the social norm started to change and move, it.
00:27:04
Speaker 2: Was the right thing to do as well.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: So now you've got this business case where it's driving revenue and profit and you're also helping society improve and uh, and it's in terms of its shape and scope, it's it's the gift that keeps some of us the best of both worlds. And I think today, you know, what's missing in some of these conversations filling recently has been we've gotten off of the business case, right, Uh, nobody. You know, people are saying, well, we're walking away from a certain programming element or in our business well, you know, absolite of talking about what you're doing. It. To me, that creates a big void in terms of where you're walking away from an inside perspective or you walking away from the outside perspective. Because the last time I checked any business that you want you want growth from all cohorts, right, you want the minority cohort, you want the female cohort, you want the white non uh, you know, diverse cohort.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: You want everybody's money, right in terms of your business.
00:27:55
Speaker 3: I think that's the way most certainly big businesses approach their growth strategy, and so in my if you stay consistent with that and look at that as the lens in which you approach this whole thing as a triangle, there's a consumer need that we're going to continue to focus on because that drives and pays the bills and delivers the shareholder returns for us inside the company. That connects to the culture of the company because we want to basically look like the market that one we sell to. We're pursuing on some level, we want to look like that market. So therefore it is a recruitment effort, a development effort, and an acceleration off that should occur organically with that as you continue to pursue these consumers outside and growth these consumers, knowing that demographic ships are going to keep changing and leaning in to where there's more buying power coming from those cohorts. And then there's a community element where you know you're obligated to as you make profit and you're doing the right thing with your culture to now help continue to stand up areas where your people work, eat, play, and lift your consumers and you and your socials in the company. It's your obligation to do that. So in my mind. If we if we stay within the triangle and still focus on that, Yes, we can rename it, we can rebrand it, we can involve it.
00:29:06
Speaker 2: We should evolve it from where it was, no doubt about it.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: But just to say I'm walking away from it, not and not doing anything else, what does that really mean?
00:29:15
Speaker 2: Are you?
00:29:15
Speaker 3: Are you walking away from the consumer part too? Because if you, how do you do that when you so? That's a to me, this is a big leadership moment, and I think leaders need to stand up and defend their position around the business case and how that connects inside the company and it connects outside of the company. And Yeah, I don't like I don't like the word carve out. I don't like the word mandates. I don't I think those things are detrimental to a culture. I think those things are absolutely things that should not be in play anymore. Things that might have been necessary in more turbulent times, extremely turbulent times where laws are being broken all the time. I think we're in a different era now. There's still a lot of challenges out there, no doubt about it. But if you stay true to that model, you're going to be doing the right thing. And you're going to be making the money the business decisions. You're gonna do the right thing for your associates across all cohorts. Everybody can win. Everybody truly can win, and you're gonna do the right thing. From the community activation standpoint, the places are in the most need, you're gonna stand those up. And again, all cohorts should be involved in that in terms of impact. So nobody should get left behind, nobody should be excluded, nobody should be isolated. And I think that delivers a win with profit, a win with culture.
00:30:24
Speaker 2: And a win with sort of standing up.
00:30:27
Speaker 3: The places we work, live, eat, play in, and value the most is our communities.
00:30:31
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna make this my last one respectful of your time, but I'm super interested in you go into a little level deeper on that because I remember there was about twelve conversations that I had in the middle of the George Floyd COVID you know time period where we were talking about all the commitments being made to our people and my interviews like it's at least twelve interviews where I'm like, I was asking how long is this window going to be open? And out of those conversations we were like, you know, three years, maybe four years, and surprise, we're at three four years. You know, since that to where we're starting to see some of this stuff be rolled back. But there's a reality on the field where you're you're an entrepreneur working with some of these brands, or if you're working with somebody's companies that you have to live with, how should we be thinking about Okay, maybe the corporate you know, sentiment.
00:31:23
Speaker 2: Will be reset to where they actually figure out to your.
00:31:25
Speaker 1: Point that okay, you got to feel that void with something, but I got to live today, like I got to figure out how to navigate this particular situation I'm in. How should we be thinking about that, both as entrepreneurs and as executives or career people.
00:31:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had I had to, I mean also had to deal with this real time. And I do think there was an environment and I mentioned this on the calls on the other day, that there was also an atmosphere.
00:31:48
Speaker 2: While there were a lot of there was a lot.
00:31:49
Speaker 3: Of pleasuing of commitments and spending and you know they're they're true.
00:31:53
Speaker 2: Let's let's face it. There were committed.
00:31:55
Speaker 3: Carve outs were committed and people would actually approach me outside around almost with an entitlement mindset, and I think that was that wrong. And I think, you know, looking back on that, in some of those conversations I would have with some of these organizations who were just basically saying, I saw your company made a statement. I'm calling you to engage in conversation around I want to participate.
00:32:16
Speaker 4: I want to participate, you know, and I'm going to participate based off of what participate off of who you are, where you look, like like like sort of talking to me about capability, talking about competency, talking.
00:32:28
Speaker 3: About ROI you know, like you need to get sort of your act together, like like I want to help you, but you got to first help yourself.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: And so the first thing I would say to a lot.
00:32:37
Speaker 3: Of business and this wasn't everybody, but there were a fair amount, a significant amount of businesses who just expected to get handouts because it was that it was a time and they read a statement on social media or somewhere in the media.
00:32:53
Speaker 2: And my whole perspective is and right now, especially more.
00:32:55
Speaker 3: Importantly, is it's all to me about you demonstrating your ability to have owner capabilities, stronger competencies. You're a good to understand your organization's language of who you want to work with and working with them and understanding how to make connections inside those spaces is going to be different between you getting the business and not getting the business won't be because of who you are, where you look like, and everything else. And so I think taking care of yourself and leveling up your self is a starting point. I think for a message to all businesses, don't expect carve outs.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have expected anyway.
00:33:27
Speaker 3: And if you were in that mindset of expecting things just because you were, you know, quote unquote, there were there were carve outs allocated to minornial businesses, and you're having to jump in line. You're having to jump in the queue and get and get you know, get programs, get commitments from that.
00:33:43
Speaker 2: Hey, more power to you.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: But that was going to be short lived and now we're here, and so how do you stand up in your own merit? And it's the same thing for associates, right, So leadership has to solve for the consumer, the culture, and the community park That challenge needs to be absolutely pushed an associate, how do you what I would say, how do you want better on yourself, how do you believe in yourself and how do you be yourself? And what does that best version of self model look like for you? As an individual inside a company. Now, your selection criteria may change. You may look at companies now differently based on them while we're going to opt out or we're going to opt in, or you know, you to me should always take a step back from that anyway and look at the companies that do the best job of the triangulation because their companies out there to do a good job of triangulation and articulate that. They're companies that don't do a good job of article. They might be doing triangulation, but they don't articulate try and language. And then those companies that just aren't doing triangulation whatsoever. They're not paying tentionial ll they're basically focused on the top and the bottom line. But in terms of community, in terms of culture, you know, hands off on that. And so use individual need to do your homework and research on those companies that have those different sort of you know, tiers of their engagement in this, and then you have to decide as you're doing those companies, you're going have to find ways for you to level yourself up. You're not gonna again look up and expect them to do that for you. Now, as you start to get tractions, you start delivering an ROI for them that shows that you are a high caliber player, You're a high caliber athlete. You're going to get the investment, you're going to get the time, you're going to get the opportunities. And so I'm trying to, you know, in this new chapter, empower people, Equip people with the knowledge and the playbooks they need to be their best version themselves. And therefore you have a better control of your own destiny than sort of relying on a lot of infrastructure to sort of help you get there, because that for at least right now will be very rocky and very turbulent. You're not going to have it, certainly, it's not gonna be very transparent of what that is if it's there. So you have to now find ways to really bounce yourself up to navigate through that until we can get back to the leadership model, can get back to some stability and a good articulation of what.
00:35:57
Speaker 2: The new DEI journey really is. How's it branded, what does it look like, how's.
00:36:02
Speaker 3: It affected three that the trianglet I talked about, how do we create something that wins for everybody? How's it more comprehensive, How's it more collaborative, and how's it more compassionate.
00:36:12
Speaker 2: That's what I call the next.
00:36:13
Speaker 3: Set of three seas need to be and leaders need to go figure that out.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: We don't need one leader now like we.
00:36:18
Speaker 3: Did many many decades ago, or that one leader is not not in place anymore now. It to me is in common around community by community. This could be city by city, it could be state by state. But leaders need to come together try and create these frameworks that they can then take into big business, they can take into education, they can take into government. You know, they socialize these things to now help move this along in a progress aggressive, productive manner, not a man of where we're all going to be fighting uphill or talking about things that create a lot of ten boycotts and things like that. Those things are in my mind against short sighted. I want to play the long game, not the short game, because I think we're better equip if we can set up the future. Trying to set the future up right now. If we're not setting up the future, what are we doing. We're still trying to get it ourselves. It's not about us anymore. It's about the next generation. We got to set the next generations up for success. And that mind really will now require a new leadership challenge with some different thinking and a thing that's comprehensive, collaborative and compassionate. And I think we can get there. I know we'll get there. It's gonna take some time.
00:37:23
Speaker 2: But this is a lockdown leadership moment, not a retreat.
00:37:27
Speaker 3: Not to fight each other, not to condemn each other, how to criticize each other. It's a time to really lock and load and really focus on what's out in front of us for the next five, ten to fifteen, twenty years.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: Now, what's happening to me in this short period of time.
00:37:41
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production to Blavity Afro Tech in the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Immedia, and it's produced by Morgan DeVaughn and me Well Lucas, with the digital production support by Kate McDonald, Shurget and Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about my guess of the tech. This up is an Innovatives afrotech dot com video version this episode will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube. Don't tap in, enjoy your black Tech crea money, share it to somebody. Go get your money, get some love,
