Now more than ever, retailers and brands face a relentless and unprecedented pace of change. Leaders are adapting to new workplace dynamics and processes that were initiated by the COVID era. In our Season 3 debut episode, we sit down with Andrew Laudato, author of "Fostering Innovation: How To Build An Amazing IT Team" and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe, for a masterclass in building the modern competitive workplace.
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by CommX.
Now more than ever, retailers and brands face a relentless and unprecedented pace of change. Leaders are adapting to new workplace dynamics and processes that were initiated by the COVID era.
Retailers see both the benefits and the downside to the distributed workplace; broader hiring choices, productivity gains, and in some cases, a happier workforce. But with those gains comes real challenges—how to foster innovation and build a cohesive culture that can take your organization to the next level.
In our Seasons 3 debut episode, we sit down with Andrew Laudato, author of "Fostering Innovation: How To Build An Amazing IT Team" and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe, for a masterclass in building the modern competitive workplace.
https://www.vitaminshoppe.com/lp/careers
Andrew Laudato currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Vitamin Shoppe. In this role, he leads operations across e-commerce, information technology, enterprise project management, supply chain, strategic sourcing, quality, and commercialization. He is a member of the executive leadership team.
Mr. Laudato joined The Vitamin Shoppe in January 2019 as EVP, Chief Technology and Supply Chain Officer, and since that time has helped launched a new technology-driven retail format, introduced personalization initiatives, and oversaw process, speed, and efficiency gains across the supply chain.
Mr. Laudato was previously Chief Information Officer at Brookdale Senior Living. Before Brookdale, he spent 16 years as CIO at Pier 1 Imports, where he directed technology transformation across all business areas. Like many retail veterans, he started his career at L Brands.
Laudato is a member of the CNBC technology executive council, the New York City CIO executive council, and an executive board member of the George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation. In addition, he serves on the Board of Lideranca, a small business focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
ABOUT US:
Veronika Sonsev is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. She also leads the retail practice for Chameleon Collective and is a contributor for Forbes on how to grow retail and ecommerce in the age of Amazon. Having spent the last 10+ years working with some of the largest retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, Veronika has intimate knowledge of the challenges facing retail and ecommerce today. She is also an advocate for women in business and founded the global non-profit mBolden, which is now part of SheRunsit.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Vitamin Shoppe, people, career, business, hiring, technology, call, retail, learn, leader, book, company, culture, role, create, podcast, CIOs, commerce, bit, meeting
SPEAKERS
Andrew Laudato, Veronika Sonsev, Michael LeBlanc
Michael LeBlanc 00:05
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext, and presented by CommX.
Michael LeBlanc 00:14
Now more than ever, retailers and brands face a relentless and unprecedented pace of change. Leaders are adapting to new workplace dynamics and processes that were initiated by the COVID era.
Michael LeBlanc 00:25
Retailers see both the benefits of the downside the distributed workplace; broader hiring choices, productivity gains, and in some cases, a happier workforce. But with those gains come real challenges--how to foster innovation and build a cohesive culture that can take your organization to that next level.
Michael LeBlanc 00:40
In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Laudata, author of "Fostering Innovation: How to Build an Amazing IT Team", and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe for a masterclass in building the modern competitive workplace.
Andrew Laudato 00:53
The idea was that after a long career, could I give something back or give something to younger people coming up in their career? So, the idea of my book is to help people on a career journey, maybe learn some things that I learned the hard way, to learn, them the easy way, it's a lot easier to read, you know, a lot of my book is here's where I screwed up.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Well, Andy, welcome to Conversations with CommerceNext podcast. How are you doing this afternoon?
Andrew Laudato 01:20
I'm doing great. Good to see you, Michael and Veronika.
Michael LeBlanc 01:23
Well, it is. It's great to be here. And as you mentioned, I'm here with my esteemed co-host and co-founder of CommerceNext, Veronika Sonsev. Veronika, how are you today?
Veronika Sonsev 01:33
I'm great. It's great to see both of you.
Michael LeBlanc 01:36
Andy, where are we finding you today in the world? Where abouts are you?
Andrew Laudato 01:39
Yeah, I'm in Dallas, Texas.
Michael LeBlanc 01:41
All right. Well, listen, let's talk about you. You've had such an interesting career starting in IT, a bunch of years with, with Pier 1, we actually have a trifecta of RETHINK retail, influencers on the podcast today, all three of us happen to be RETHINK Retail influencers. So, you-, you've had a lot of time in IT. Now your COO, Chief Operating Officer of The Vitamin Shoppe. So, talk about your career journey a bit, pivotal moments and, and just give us a bit of sense of, of your background.
Andrew Laudato 02:08
Yeah, well, I started way back. I think at some point, you start stop saying when, but I started as a computer programmer at THE LIMITED, which is, you know, for those who remember women's apparel, And I was all in on tech. I like to say I was nerd, before it was cool to be a nerd. But we can talk a little bit more about that later.
Three years into my career, THE LIMITED decided to spin off a new company called Bath & Body Works. And I was really excited about this. So, I was like, me, me, me. And I got the job as the project manager to actually create all the systems for Bath & Body Works. And it was a fascinating job because we were like this little startup inside of this giant corporation.
And back then, THE LIMITED owned 17 brands from Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie, Lerner, all these other brands, so we got a little room, it wasn't even an office space. And what happened was because we were a small company, I got to be involved with meeting with the CEO and the CFO and the merchants. And at a very young age, and you know, in my 20s, I really flipped from being a technologist that worked in retail to being a retailer who knew technology, so it was a great opportunity. Obviously, they're still doing well, which, which is exciting for me to see. So, I would say that was a big moment, early in my career.
Andrew Laudato 03:29
Then I would say another, another pivotal moment which was just kind of an aha, or light bulb when, and I don't remember the exact year even, but at some point, in my career, I realized that leading an IT department or really leading anything, is really just all about people. It's, it's a people business, right? I'm not the person. Can I write a computer program? No, you know, I did that 30 years ago, you know, I don't know the tech of today. And I don't know how to configure a router, or to buy the right product for The Vitamin Shoppe or you know, but you know, I know how to find good people, to motivate them, inspire them. So, I would say that getting the opportunity at a young age to flip to being a business person and then kind of learning along the way that leadership is only always about people were, were two big things in my long career.
Michael LeBlanc 04:16
Now, did you always want to be in IT or business? Is that the path that you were destined to you know, sometimes retail is called the accidental career? Was it accidental for you, or was it more purposeful than that?
Andrew Laudato 04:29
Yeah, so you know, I had a little passion for computers. I had an Apple IIe when I was in high school, I actually tried to play football but I'm way too small, slow for that and I got injured. So, I had this broken leg and nothing to do so my dad brought home his computer and you know, a manual and, and I figured it out.
But you know, I went to school for that. Got my job. It is interesting, and I had a job offer from a bank for more money than from THE LIMITED and it was only $1,000 a year more. But I was going to take that job because it was the biggest offer. And my, my father said to me, you need to take the job for where you think you'll have the most opportunity to grow, be interested. And so it was that pivotal mo-, moment because of, you know, the advice from my father that I picked retail over banking. And look, I don't know what a career in banking would have been like, but it sure sounds boring compared to what I got to do in retail. So, it's funny how, you know, mentors, parents, leaders can give you these. I mean, I laugh thinking about it, but 1000 bucks seemed like a lot of money for me it at, -
Michael LeBlanc 05:32
I'm sure.
Andrew Laudato 05:32
22 years old.
Michael LeBlanc 05:34
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure it did. All right, so you're now the COO at The Vitamin Shoppe. We were going to dive into all that. So, talk a little bit about The Vitamin Shoppe. For those who are, who are listening and, and your role within that organization, (inaudible), -
Andrew Laudato 05:47
Sure, well, look, it's really exciting to be in the health and wellness space, and The Vitamin Shoppe is a omni-channel retailer. We have over 700 stores in the US, we opened our first franchise store, we have wholesale partnerships with the US Navy, the Army, with Kohl's we have a thriving digital business at, vitaminshoppe.com, we have our own private brands, we have nine different private brands. And we are in the health and wellness business.
Andrew Laudato 06:17
So, one of the really exciting things about The Vitamin Shoppe is our store employees that we call health enthusiasts are true experts. And so, we have an environment where people can come to our store, talk about their needs, their issues or goals, and then really work it out. So, fun company, doing well and doing a lot of innovation.
Andrew Laudato 06:38
So, my specific role at The Vitamin Shoppe, I oversee our, our digital vitaminshoppe.com P&L reports up to me, I oversee our supply chain, and I oversee our technology. So, that was kind of the, the I guess you had in marketing kind of the whole goal of everything about commerce. I also oversee our commercialization and quality teams, which has been a lot of fun for me and our strategic sourcing group. So, that those are all my roles at the, The Vitamin Shoppe.
Michael LeBlanc 07:07
Well, I can see you'd have lots of time on your hands to do something like write a book. So, you wrote a book about fostering innovation. It's not like you've got time on your hands. That's a huge remit. But let's why what spurred you to write a book talk about that a little bit? Was it always something you wanted to do? And then, you know, Veronika wants to dive in. She we were talking off mic about this wants to dive into the book itself. But tel-, just tell us a bit about what spurred you to write the book in the first place.
Andrew Laudato 07:33
Yeah, you know, while writing the book was my COVID project, so I wrote it over the winter of 2020 to 2021. And I am so appreciative and thankful for all the mentors I've had in my career, you know, I mentioned my father earlier, but there's just been so many, including my current boss, Sharon Leite. And so, the idea was that after a long career, could I give something back or give something to younger people coming up in their career. So, the idea of my book, is to help people on a career journey, maybe learn some things that I learned the hard way to learn, them the easy way a lot easier to read, you know, a lot of my book is, here's where I screwed up, here's what I learned. And here's what you can do to avoid making the same mistakes. So, it really was about giving back trying to help someone and that was that was my goal. And, you know, the books only been out, you know, six weeks or so. But already I'm already hearing from people that are, you know, gaining some insight. So, it's really been wonderful.
Veronika Sonsev 08:27
Yeah, I've seen I've seen pretty amazing reviews on Amazon from, from some, some fans, which is so great to see. Let's dig into the book a little bit because in, in the book Fostering Innovation: How to Build an Amazing IT Team. You know, when you and I talked, it's not just about IT, a lot of it is comes down to culture. And my question for you is how do you create that environment, that culture that makes a company ripe for innovation?
Andrew Laudato 08:55
My book is about that. It's about an environment for innovation. It's actually not really about how to innovate it's about making, you know, making it in an environment where people feel safe. What I'll say is what I say in the book is you got to start with the day job. And you know, if you're leading an IT team, the most important thing that you need to do is keep the lights on you got to make sure that you know the website comes up and when people submit, and the security is good. And so KTLO or ‘keeping the lights on’ is the most important thing you can do. You can't put a back porch on your house if your kitchen is on fire, right? So, you got to deal with problems first, -
Veronika Sonsev 09:28
right.
Andrew Laudato 09:29
And then and I, I've mentioned it, I have this Laudato hierarchy. That's like the Maslow's hierarchy. So, you know, Maslow says, if you're being chased by a bear, you can't fall in love. And I have kind of the same parallel where you know, you got to, you got to be running an efficient, organized, cost effective, value driven company, so that you then have the license to, to innovate.
Andrew Laudato 09:52
If you think about what innovation is, you're asking the company to spend their money, their talent and their time on something that probably won't work. So hey, give us a lot of money, give us your best people, take away from your projects and let's go let us go do something, it probably won't work, right? When you say it that way, it's like, wow, who would ever do that. So, you really got to earn the right to do that by making sure everything else is in order.
Veronika Sonsev 10:14
And I liked the point that you made. Also, you kind of talked about two aspects of it. One is like making sure the, you've earned the right from the company from the senior management. But the other is to create the space where employees feel like they can take risks, and kind of fail. And you and I talked about that a little bit when we prepared for this, this podcast, about how giving people that permission to fail is so key to allowing them to innovate. So, it's, it's kind of interesting how those things are to two parts of the same equation.
Veronika Sonsev 10:46
I want to talk a little bit about people, because a lot of times there's, you know, the foundation of culture, but then there's also making sure you have the right people there to help perpetuate the culture and ensure that you know, things get done accordingly. Talk about your approach for hiring people.
Andrew Laudato 11:04
Yeah, so I hire people for the things that I can't change. So, I believe by the time you come to me, there's nothing I can do about these four things. And they are integrity, intelligence, ambition, and temperament. And I don't know if it's genetic, or it's what you learned in kindergarten, or from your grandmother, but, you know, I can't teach someone to have integrity. And if someone doesn't have integrity, nothing else matters, right? So, that's first and foremost. There's actually an old war-, Warren Buffett joke that if someone has low integrity, you don't want them to be very ambitious. But integrity is number one, you know, that's the no brainer.
Also, you know, is someone's smart, you know, I can't make someone smarter. And did they have ambition? I ask a lot of questions in interviews about how do people learn and what do they want to do? And then temperament, you know, are you going to lose your cool when something does go wrong? And we, you know, we try to celebrate failure, but it really stinks. If something doesn't work, you know, it hurts. So, if someone's going to learn from that, and have a good attitude or not, so it's easy to say these things.
These are all, you know, ambitious, long term, but it's, it's hard to do in reality, because someone's like, yeah, that sounds nice. But I need someone that can program in Angular tomorrow, right? I need someone that can help us with our wholesale business tomorrow, you know, so it is a fine balance. But investing for the long term, and hiring for the long term is really important, and something that I really focus on.
Veronika Sonsev 12:32
Yeah, I think it's part of your temperament. I always like in my case, when we're hiring, we look at people who could take feedback, well, like people who are self-reflective and understand, kind of, and have learned from mistakes that they've made and don't take them. Like they were made wrong, but kind of take it as part of a learning process.
Andrew Laudato 12:50
(Crossover talk), Yeah, I agree I didn't mention self-awareness, but you know, nobody wants to fail but if you don’t have good self-awareness you might not know that you're not doing well and if you don't how, you know, and you don't accept feedback and you think it's wrong, you're not going to be able to grow because why would grow if you don't think there is anything, any need too,
Michael LeBlanc 13:09
If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure and hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss another great episode. We will be right back with our interview with Andrew Laudato, from The Vitamin Shoppe right after this important message.
Michael LeBlance 13:14
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Michael LeBlanc13:33
Let's, let's double click on culture now in the modern COVID era, the post-COVID era is certainly the last two years have been disruptive in terms of building teams. And hey, quick question for you, you know, pre-COVID in the before time, were you the kind of person who would hire someone remotely, I talked to many business leaders who were hesitant culturally, as they felt it was very hard to create cohesion, hiring a senior person in a different physical place in the world. That's kind of our little bit I guess I wanted your input. It's kind of the hybrid word, workplace feels like the new future but nested in all that is all this discussion around how you create culture remotely, so to speak. So, how do you how do you what's your advice on building that right collaborative culture? And is that your approach as you think about your team?
Andrew Laudato 14:44
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, when you study project management, one of the remedies for a failing project is to create a war room and stick everyone in the same room, right and immerse them and so being remote, you know, kind of goes against that philosophy. But one thing that we have now that we hadn't even had is this technology, what we're how we're having this, this call today, and whether in Zoom where teams, or all these tools are so much better than they used to be. So, that helps. But I think you have to lead differently when you're remote.
Andrew Laudato14:50
So, I'm all for a hybrid approach to work. And, but you have to be way more intentional, intentional about making sure that everybody's included. I mean, if someone's an introvert, they're not in meetings, I think it's easier to hide in a remote work environment. You know, if you're in a conference room and someone isn't talking as a leader, you can kind of give them a look like it's your turn to speak up, or you can kind of give someone else a look like it's your turn to, to quiet down. But when you're in a remote setting, you know, the talkers might want to talk more than the quiet people.
Andrew Laudato14:59
So, I run my meetings differently, I call on people and sometimes I even put the order out in advance of who's going to speak, you know, kind of a round robin, as a company at The Vitamin Shoppe, our CEO, we are having monthly staff, quarterly town halls, we do monthly town halls now. So, we are communicating more frequently, more content. And another thing we're doing that I just love is we're doing a daily stand up with our entire corporate office. And this is I've always done this as an IT leader. But now we have over 100 people every morning. It's at 8:45. And we go over sales, and we go over, if anything went up in the night, and we go over any upcoming changes. And we hear from operations in the supply chain. And it's a fun meeting. And then at the end of each meeting, we get an update on something about a product or an ingredient or today we learned more about managing diabetes from one of our scientists. And that meeting is only 10 minutes long. And you actually can't do a100 person meeting in 10 minutes. In real life, right? It takes that long to shuffle into a room and shuffle out. So, and people join, you know, a lot of people are invited optionally, in their in their cars on the school drop off safely, you know, joining the meeting, but it's, it's been something that we did kind of on an emergency basis because of this, and it's something we'll keep doing. So, it's a long list, but really communication is at the top of it and making sure that everybody is included, nobody gets left behind.
Michael LeBlanc 17:15
Well, I guess, you know, I've heard it said that the toothpaste is out of the tube. I mean, it's now, there's likely no going back, this may be one of the longer lasting if other things were accelerated, this was kind of created from the COVID era. Is it, is it your perception that there's more pros than cons? I mean, you also get a larger market. You know, it's not we’ll get to hiring and finding people later in the podcast. But it also gives you a larger market to, to hire from Are you taking advantage of that is that front forward in you're thinking, as well?
Andrew Laudato 17:43
We now have people that work at corporate our corporate office is in Secaucus, New Jersey, we now have corporate employees that are in 26 states in three different countries. Well, yes, that's over sound resounding yes to that question. Absolutely. And we're able to cover time zones, I love hiring people, for our IT help desk out of our stores, think about we can hire people in different time zones that so they can work more of a normal schedule and support the stores where they live. And, you know, in IT we've always hired people around the world that's been going on my whole career, but you know, embracing these teams and incorporating them into everything we do. The technology and the change. I mean, we debated this nonstop pre-COVID and the debates over now does it work, right? And, -
Michael LeBlanc 18:26
right, -
Andrew Laudato 18:27
Now we know. Yes, it does work. And so, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 18:31
the culture, right? Because as you're articulating, the productivity is there, that's real, but the culture part is the hard part, right? I, I, which I think you have so much to, to com-, to contribute to. Now your book is about in some ways, as you said, making mistakes. But, you know, in the light of the kind of Dan Pink, learning from regrets or the power of regrets, you know, as you think about your career reflect on a long successful career, is there any one or two things you call out and say, boy, I would have done this differently, looking backwards? You know, for anyone?
Andrew Laudato 19:01
Yeah, I don't know how much time you have Michael, but I guess, (crossover talk). But look, I've, I've put I've had a project where I talked about some times where I made some shortcuts so that I had made the budget, I put the budget as the most important thing and didn't deliver what the customer wanted. And that was so in fear of the CFO and not wanting to have the conversation, you know, I convinced the team to cutting some corners and we didn't deliver what we needed to deliver.
Andrew Laudato 19:27
So, you know, not having the courage or the boldness to you know, step up and raise my hand and say, we need more money to do this right. I really, really go back and, and I have to say fixing it costs more than had I done it, you know, because ultimately, it's, you’re going to spend the money so we had to go back and fix it. So, that's in my top but anytime I get enamored or fall in love with the shiny object, you know, I once bought a big shiny storage device. I think it was a million dollars. And I think, you know, 18 months later, you know, the price has plummeted. And so, I thought that thing was just the most amazing thing and then it was a very expensive, you know, investment, so. Just everything I talked about earlier about putting people first the times when I didn't do that, you know, I have a lot of regrets from it. I shouldn't call them regrets I call them learnings experience.
Michael LeBlanc 20:15
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Veronika Sonsev 20:58
I like I like how you framed that because I really do think a lot of that is like part of it. If you make a mistake, what did that what's that expression make a mistake once shame on me make it twice, sh-, shame on or the other way around, make it once shame on you, make it twice shame on me, I can't remember how it goes. But the point is, is that part of it is learning, right? And I think that's the key with all of this stuff is, is when you when you look back, you know, what did you learn? And how did you kind of adjust? And what do you coach your team to do as a result of, of the of the change. We've had a chance to learn a lot about your career, which has been very impressive. I'd love to get your perspective on how you think the role of an IT leader is going to evolve. I mean, that's where you spent a lot of your career, even though you're now in the COO seat. But how do you think the IT leader role the CIO, the CTO-TO role? How do you think that's going to evolve in the next five years?
Andrew Laudato 21:58
Yeah, you know, I call it from the basement to the boardroom. And for me, that's literal, like I had my computer back then in the basement. And now you know, I'm and I go to the boardroom, and so, but from the shadows, or from being a, a cost, I mean, every company structure is different, but there used to be about the bait that should IT report up to the CFO or to the CEO. And more and more, you know, you're seeing what's called the seat at the table, you know, a lot of people will talk about demanding a seat at the table. And I think that's a horrible idea. I think you need to earn your seat at the table, because so many decisions in business are made to the informal org structure. So, if you're the person that the CEO gives a call when, when she wants to chat about you know, growing the business, then, then you've won right, then you've made it.
Andrew Laudato 22:48
So, just 20 years ago, there was that famous Nicholas Carr article in the Harvard Business Review, ‘Does IT Matter?’ And, and you know, he, he posited that there won't be CIOs and the it will dis-intermediated was the term back then, that did not, you know, materialize just the opposite. You know, digital has really just driven the importance. So, I think that the tech first CIOs are go-, are going to fall by the wayside and the business driven, digital driven CIOs are going to leave, but I call it a golden age. I mean, I think there's no more wonderful time, I think, I encourage everyone to tell their children to go into tech.
Andrew Laudato 23:28
And even if you want to work in supply chain, you know, you can go the tech route, because so much of supply chain is about technology. And if you really have a passion for marketing, a lot of marketing is about technology, right and being, being changed. So, you know, when I get a chance, I just got to speak at George Mason, and I always talk about this about really thinking of technology is a really nice career to be a successful business leader.
Veronika Sonsev 23:54
So, you almost look at technology as the foundation of, of any business career, not just a CIO or CTO career, and from your perspective, kind of given the importance of technology. Now, the evolution of that is really to be an even though, like to be in the C-suite to be in the boardroom to be kind of at that place where decisions are made, because technology underpins so much of the business.
Andrew Laudato 24:21
Yeah, I mean, you talked to a lot of business leaders, right, ask companies, what are their top 10 initiatives or top five initiatives? I, I would predict that 10 out of 10, or nine out of 10 are going to have some technology component, if not be technology driven, in every industry. You know, everybody in a company uses technology even you know, I used to say it when I was at Pier l that except for the people in the mailroom, but then they got these handheld scanners and they you know, so I don't know of a job today that doesn't have a technology component. I really can't think of one.
Veronika Sonsev 24:52
So, kind of given your transformation efforts at The Vitamin Shoppe and the growth that you've seen that the company, I'm sure you're probably hiring for a number of roles, you want to talk about some of the big roles you're looking to fill and where people can learn more.
Andrew Laudato 25:08
Yeah, I love this right. So, we have an open role, I think I mentioned is for to lead our wholesale group. And that's remote, you know, kind of live anywhere job, we have a cloud engineer job open, we have a role for an analyst on our CRM team. These are just as of today, you know, this will change. People can definitely go to the careers page on vitaminshoppe.com. And they can also just, you know, to apply for the job and let me know on LinkedIn, and then I'll make sure, but a lot, a lot of opportunities. And when a company is doing well and growing, that's what does create opportunities. So, that's exciting.
Veronika Sonsev 25:47
That's awesome. It sounds like they would be part of a very dynamic and exciting team at a, at a good point at the company. So, I'm sure you'll get a lot of inquiries.
Michael LeBlanc 25:58
Well, we'll make sure of it. We'll put links in the show notes. And hopefully, we'll spread the word out here. I mean, your, your insights, and this discussion testament alone, who would not want to investigate an opportunity to your company a chance to work under your, under your wisdom. So, speaking of wisdom, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and your insights and a bit about your book. And we'll put links to all that great stuff in the show notes. And, you know, it's been a great discussion. It's a great interesting business at this intersection of time and, and technology and culture. So, really, Andy, thanks so much for joining us on Conversation with CommerceNext, it's been a real treat to meet you and, and get a bit to tap into a bit of your wisdom around culture and IT and retail. So, thanks again so much for joining us.
Andrew Laudato 26:41
Of course. Thanks for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 26:43
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext, please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon music or your favorite podcast platform, where we will be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct to consumer brands each and every episode.
Michael LeBlanc 26:59
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Have a fantastic week everyone