Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-December 5, 2020

we reveal the Bloomberg Fifty List. Now, covid are reckoning on race and a U S election made compiling the fourth annual Bloomberg Fifty easier in some ways as many people are doing notable things, but harder and others because again, many people were doing notable things, so many people standing

out in this remarkable and very challenging year. With that in mind, coming up this hour, we'll find out how that list of fifty was compiled, and then we're gonna take you to our virtual reveal celebration of these individuals held this week at Bloomberg headquarters in New York City, and that included a conversation with an alum of last year's B fifty list, Chipotle Mexican Grill chairman and CEO Brian Nicol, plus Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund,

Christalina Giava, a champion of relief during the pandemic. We begin though this hour with how the Bloomberg fifty comes together. For that, we had to check in with the editor in charge of pulling together the B fifty list, Brett Beagan. Basically, what happens is in the summer, so somewhere early on in the second well, I guess in the spring. It'd

say early on in the second quarter. I started sending annoying emails out to a lot of reporters, hundreds and hundreds of reporters basically around the world, saying, you know who in your area of coverage is really standing out, and do we think that that person or that group is going to be standing outcome December. It's it's sort of a hard calculation in a normal year. Then throw COVID and an election and everything else on top of it.

That's right. Yeah, it's a miracle. We got to Carol, you did get to fifty, and it's an amazing list. I think it's really representative of the type of year we had. Um talked to us about the categories, Right, you have business, you have politics. You do break it down, Yeah, we break it down into five categories. So we have business, as you said, politics, entertainment, finance, and then science and technology we kind of uh lump together into one category

that was a big one this year. And there's one name that no doubt about it. I bet from the get go you're like, yeah, he's going to be on this list. You know who I'm talking about. I think you're talking about Dr Fauci. I'm not if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, there are certain people every year that are sort of no brainers for this list, and uh he seemed like one of them. And um, you know in any given year, there's always like one or two people who you think,

oh they'll they'll definitely wind up on the list. But this year we were pretty certain about that. Um, so, yeah he's on the list. He talked to us. Um, you know, there's fifty entries and we do so longer in the magazine, do longer profile features on ten of them. He was one of them. Um, he spoke with our Michelle Fake Cortes. Um, she was our internal one of our internal go to voice constantly on COVID. That's right, that's right, and um he talked to her. Uh we

tried to so in a normal year. Also, we do a lot of these interviews, maybe in early November, and we kind of have a nice easy landing when it comes to our deadlines. But because of the election this year as well on top of COVID, we Um wanted these interviews to be as fresh as possible. So she talked to him really recently. Um, politics, let's go there. I mean, what a year? Uh so crazy? Um, we do have a president elect. Um, but we still have a president at least as of this recording, who's still

fighting at the election outcome? Politics, How did you guys approach it in terms of who you thought were some of the standout voices and had to be on this list. Yeah, I mean we take a pretty expansive view of what we consider politics. So we have everyone from actually the Chief Justice on this list, John Roberts, who in the session that ended in July was in the majority of the time, which is the most he's ever been in the majority. Surprising, right, yes, surprise ing. Obviously things are

about to change with Amy Coney Barrett's arrival. Um. We also looked to the founders of Black Lives Matter. We actually interviewed all three of them. Rebecca Greenfield. UM talked to the three of them for UM their take on, you know, a year in which we saw upwards depending on the estimate, of twenty six million people taking part in Black Lives Matter protests. So we talked to them and uh. We also did an interview with and I'm I'm going to do my best with His name is

vit Lana skana Skaya. I've been I've been working on that one, Carol. So she is the opposition leader who is currently in Lithuania fighting against Lukashanko in Belarus, and she's got a fascinating story. Basically was um, you know, stay at home mom and her husband was sort of running and then lo and behold that's uh. She finds herself basically having to sub in for him and saying, okay, well I'll do it, and then more and more people

start coming to her rallies. Upwards of sixty people come to hear her speak, and now she is the principal opposition figure in Belarus. So that UM really politics. We go all over for that and some great contributions also from the Mid East and from Africa. This year really was a political year like no other, not just in the US, but globally um business. I'm going to highlight one because we talked about him and his company so much on air John Foley of Peloton like it was

one of the stay at home work from home winners. Yeah, I mean, I actually just want on you to see how long it might take to get a bike in there now upwards of four I think they were saying four to eight weeks for bikes. So they've had some you know, supply chain issues. But he's a great example of a business that on you know, maybe on March one, they're they're doing well, they're happy with how things are going, and by April one, it's like whoa, you know, what's

happened here? And how do we how do we profit from this? And how do we not only look to the current moment, but what do we do when this you know, not going would hopefully end soon and people can return to their normal lives, Like how do we continue that growth? So the story of Peloton this year is is pretty fascinating. It's funny in a year where we couldn't see a lot of sports, they're more more people from sports on this list than ever before. And

that's because yeah, this is kind of world. But that's because in this absence, basically a lot of them decided to become really proactive to either help with COVID or the fight for racial justice. That was Features editor and the editor in charge of pulling together the B fifty list, Brett Beak, and check out the cover story on B fifty all the write ups on each member of the list in this week's issue of the magazine. It's online, on news stands and on the Bloomberg Coming Up shares

the Chipotle Mexican grill Man. They are up around four hundred since he was named CEO. We will check in with the Chipotle CEO, Brian Nicol as we continue our special coverage of the B fifty that's next to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with Pierrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. This week, it's all about the Bloomberg fifty, the people who were shaping in the most unexpected ways, from real estate to banking, manufacturing to entertainment, retail,

to finance, politics to media. And to celebrate the list this year, we tapped an a lum of last year's B fifty list who continued to make a mark on his companies in this difficult year. We're talking about Brian Nicol, chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. If anyone knows about how to bounce back from crisis, multiple crises, in fact, that's this CEO we started with, going back to when

he took over. The very first step was where our customers you know, uh, what are their thoughts, feelings, trust, level of engagement, you know, um belief systems. So you know, step one for me was understanding that and then also

the other piece two was understanding where employees were. You know, our company, our experience is really driven by our employees, so did they feel like they were on their front foot, that they feel like they're on their back foot because if their experiences, you know, one of defensive, I think our customer feels that it's a defensive experience as well.

So we really spent a lot of time, frankly in the first couple of months diving into understanding both of those things, and frankly, that's what's driven our strategies UM from day one. Well, and it's interesting, what what did you maybe learn about those first two years in the company and dealing with that and then getting to the current crisis. And again the customer right was worried. Your

employees were worried as well. Yeah. Yeah, So you know, look when we went back, you know, if you rewind the tapes here a couple of years ago, what consumers were saying to us, our customers were saying to us is, you know, you guys need to get back to talk what makes your special. Um, you know, remind me why I feel good about eating at Chipotle. And you know the answer was they felt good about eating chipol because

it's real culinary, it's ingredients with integrity. Um. You know, we take a different approach to how we prepare and cook our food. Um. And so that was really what enabled strategy number one, which is around being more visible and you know, frankly more loved. And you know, we really set down that mission of just talking about what makes Chipole unique. The other thing that we knew we had to do was dial up our culture of safety

and wellness. And you know, our employees they viewed the practices as more of an initiative, not an ongoing culture. And you know, in my opinion, it's like, look, we can only have employees working if they're healthy. So it sounds harsh, but we had to install a zero tolerance policy on this where if you don't do the wellness check and you're not honest on your wellness check, you will lose your job. Um, Like, we've got no tolerance

for that. And so that was a tough you know, a couple of mounts because I got a lot of emails from people saying, like, I can't believe lost my job because I didn't do wellness checks. And you know, it was like, look, this is our culture. If you want to be a part of our company, that's what we do. And also, if you're not truthful, we've got two problems. One, we're a company of high integrity and too, you know, you're putting our company at risk when you're

not truthful whether or not you have symptoms. You know, by the way, we have a program where you get paid sickly, so there's no incentive, you know, to not tell us the truth. So, you know, doing things like

that that materially changed the culture. And unfortunately sometimes it takes a couple of stories being retold about we're really meaning business on this zero tolerance approach to the wellness and food safety as well as then you know, reminding our consumers why they loved Chipotle was at the forefront of what were really instituted day one, and that just got us back to running great restaurants again. You know.

It was like, look, if we know we have healthy employee is we know we're practicing the right protocols, we can focus on making delicious guacamole, terrific chicken, you know, the rice correctly, and every detail matters in our business. So, you know, this was a crazy year, disruptive, it was an upsetting you as you well know you guys, you do your very purpose driven. I mean it's really in the DNA of your company. How have you as an

organization and as a company kind of demonstrated that. Yeah, Look, you know, I think I'm really proud of how our company has done that. Um. I think we've been tested numerous times and whether or not we were going to be true to our values and our purpose. Um and I think we've stepped up and done that in every way. You know. So, whether it was when the pandemic hit, um, you know, I had a lot of employees that were worried they're gonna lose their job and then when they realize,

you know what, we've got a really healthy balance sheet. Fortunately, we are an essential business. We're gonna be able to continue to operate now, only you're not losing your job. We're gonna, you know, because I know other people in your family probably have been impacted. We're going to increase wages for temporary and we honored first quarter bonuses because look, January and February, the guys were doing an unbelievable job. March hit and it wiped out would have been their bonus,

and that just wasn't the right thing to do. And you know, fortunately we were in a position to do it, so we did it. And uh, you know, it was those types of examples that you know, I think we stepped up with our values and making those decisions consistent

with our values time and time again. And you know, I don't know if you've seen our Round Up for Real Change program that we've instituted as well, but you know, we did that because we wanted to participate aid on a bigger level on these various causes that are important, from historically black colleges all the way to the farm Link program that we're doing right now, what I was going to ask you more specifically about some of the investments you guys did in your people that have benefited

the organization. And also you were is thing on digital when you hit the ground when you took over the CEO spot. But you really, you know, ampted it up big time in terms of what was going on in the pandemic and reaching your customer. Talked to us a little bit about that. Yeah, you know, Uh, look, one of the things that was fortunate is we made one of the early decisions to go very aggressive into digital access.

And that actually came out of that consumer study I talked about earlier, which is a lot of our younger consumers were saying, he's I love Chipole, but why can't I have more access um specifically digital access. And so we went full tilt on putting in that digital experience.

And uh, you know, luckily we finished implementing all of that in December of nineteen and then you know, March of twenty happens, and you know, our digital business went from like five percent of sales to about twenty percent of sales around January February. Than covid. Yeah, then Covid hit became eighty percent of our business, any percent of our business, and now it is about fifty of our business. UM, So you know it's a it's going to be a two and a half billion dollar business this year, UM,

which is pretty amazing. Um. You just didn you just open your first digital store to completely digital We did. Yeah, we did in Highland Falls, New York. And you know, I'm happy to say that's off to a really good start too. So you know, there's definitely demand. And the thing I love about that Highland Falls store is if we didn't have a digital only restaurant, we probably wouldn't

be in that trade area. So many brands understanding that customers and their communities demanding more of them going forward. That's Brian Nicol, chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. She is the first international monetary fund. She from an emerging market. We have done in in a couple of months, so much and so fuss that we really don't have dressed will hear from the I m F Managing Director Krystelina

Gorgieva managing through the crisis. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. It's a special issue and a special week at Bloomberg Business Week, as we highlighted the Bloomberg fifty, the people who were shaping this year in the most unexpected ways from all walks of life, and a big one on that list the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Krystallina Gorgieva. She's a Bulgarian economist with a doctorate from the country's

Karl Marks Higher Institute of Economics. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the i m F has increased lending to member nations by fifty percent to two hundred seventy billion dollars. Through grants, the fund has helped twenty nine of the poorest member nations cover their I m F loan payments, and Georgieva

is raising money from rich nations for more relief. Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Webber sat down with the i m F chief for more and I contended that I came through this year feeling very proud of the staff of the UH. We have done in in a couple of months, so much and so fast that we really don't have precedent in our history. We have provided financial support to eighty three countries. But most importantly, we moved out of the traditional or talk orthodoxy on what we're

supposed to say, which is when you're in trouble, tighten up. UM. My best line probably during this crisis is two policy makers spent, keep the receipts, but spent. And I don't think there are many cases in the history of the fund when the managing director would be appearing two countries to spend more. Uh. The year, of course, is finishing with the brighter light. Vaccines are coming. But I have no doubt that one is not going to be a simple and easy year either. So let's talk about that.

Let's look ahead. What are you most concerned about as you look ahead? You mentioned the vaccine there's some hope there, but what are the areas of that looks like you know, any potential problems that you want the world to be aware of. But the the most important policy issue next year is going to be vaccines. Vaccines policy would be at at the heart of economic policy. I worry about two things. The first one is that we get carried away vaccines are not imagic one. You do not have

them to waigh all the impact of the pandemic. They will be scarring and we will have to manage through a not the simplest of years. There will be structural shift. We are saying to policymakers. Do not withdraw support prematurely, but eventually there has to be withdrawal of this support. And the risk of doing it either too fast or without thinking of how you cushion the transition for firms and workers is absolutely there. My second worry that we

will miss an opportunity for transformation. One can be a fantastic year for the future of the world. On two counts. Climate action, we can boost public investments to accelerate a transition to the new climity economy, generate jobs, accelerate private investments, and do two things at the same time, deal with the COVID crisis and prevent the other crisis from hitting. The second is even more important, and it is dealing

with inequalities after pandemic. In the past, we have seen that in evidence inequality goes up the risk of inequalities within countries like a tale of two cities, as Deckens wrote it, and inequalities across countries is very high, and policy makers ought to zero on that. I would be very frank to alert people that there is some space for more progressive taxation and certainly more space for creatively using public money to help people to help them selves.

We work very closely with US. US is our largest shareholder, and we are particularly close to our membership at the time of crisis. That's Crystallina Gorgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. This year, Gorgeva has hired two female department heads to replace men, raising the women share to forty eight of twenty. The i m F has also started a YouTube channel with videos on topics such as how to compile macro economic statistics, improve central bank law,

and use fintech to contribute to financial inclusion. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Our coverage at the Bloomberg fifty continues with the ones to watch. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with cairol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Our coverage of the Bloomberg fifty continues, and when we pull together this year's list, we also take a look back at some notable lums of past b fifty lists

that included former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacy Abrams. She definitely stood out for lenning up people to go out and vote in this year's presidential election. Also Jose Andress, founder of World Central Kitchen making sure people got fed during the pandemic, also fed chief J Powell and Cathy Woods, CEO of Our Investment Again. Check out the magazine for more on the reasons why. We also like to give your heads up on some people we know you'll want

to keep an eye on this coming year. It's what we call the ones to watch. Bloomberg fifty editor Brett Began is back with fashion designer Tia Audiola, writer and publisher of Notes on the Crisis, Nathan Tankus, and chef and author Kwamie on You watch a See if you could? Will start with you just walk us through what the pandemic has been like. Oh god, um, it started off pretty rough for me personally. I'm just going to be honest. Um. I I left New York right at the beginning of

the pandemic. So in March I went to Nigeria thinking, you know, I don't know what's going on. I'm going to go back to my family for like two weeks come back to New York, but then I got stuck there and they closed the airport indefinitely. And you know, my brand is based here, my studios here, my team's here, and so I sort of solved for the first two weeks. And my mom was kind of like, you're a designer,

like designed something for the pandemic. And so I started looking back at like my umpasion history references and like what face masks were looking like during that time period, and I sort of just started coming up with some face mask ideas and like put them out on social media. Um, and people reacted really well to them. They sort of went viral, and just sort of figured out other ways to be of help and of use during the pandemic.

So I had a ton of contests where I had my audience tag family members who are nurses, doctors and sent them, um face masks, professional medical face masks that work kind of looked kind of cool that they would like want to wear for twenty four hours. Um. So yeah, I would say my main thing during the pandemic has been working on face masks and just like long term plans, long term collaborations going with the flow great. Thank you

so much, Kwamie. Tell us what you've been up to in the last nine months and accomplishments that you'd love to highlight as well. I've been trying to stay saying for the last nine months. You know, first of all, I want to sell the managers in the house. You know, we got to two people here from Nigeria, so that's always nice, you know what I mean? You know what I mean. Um, but I think you know, I'll use the buzzword pivot. We've all had to pivot in this time.

And maybe it's our mentality. We were pivoting, um, what we are willing to sacrifice for our happiness, you know, how we're pivoting in that regard. And then obviously you know we're on Bloomberg, so our business, how are we're pivoting within that? So for me, it mainly started in that order. It was like my mindset, you know, I had to understand that this wasn't going anywhere, and I can either sit back and let and and go on a ride, or or I can jump into the driver's seat.

So I drove into the driver's seat, you know, I left my restaurant. It didn't really make sense to operate a restaurant in this time frame. You know, I'll be back with a vengeance when we can have a full dining room inside and outside. Um. I started doing a lot of stuff on social media and getting brand partnerships, and then I started turning towards media in general. You know, I have the movie that's in the work, So that got me in the rooms of a lot of production companies.

So I started pitching them ideas for TV shows, you know, digital series, unscripted, scripted. I started are doing research on how to write. I started taking acting classes. So UM, I mean I was able to really thrive during this time because I just I just didn't stop and I kept trying to do things. I understood that we had a lot of time and opportunity in space, and we were also able to omit things that weren't bringing us joy. Um that we're kind of arduous and um taking away

from who we really were. And there's no better time than today that I've realized, especially during this pandemic, to do exactly what you want to do in life. It's great.

Thank you, Nathan, take us through what you'ven up to. Yeah, So, UM, my experience of the pandemic has been kind of strange because I think, in some ways uniquely strange because it's been frankly career making for me, UM in that, you know, uh, the early March, let's say, like March eighth, March nine, I started realizing what was happening, started paying attention more to what was going on the crisis US. You know, I work on academic policy in general, but don't necessarily, UM,

work on the week to week. And but you know, there's certain things that happened that made me sit stand up and take notice of what was going on a little bit before everyone else was catching up. And I realized that this was, you know, gonna be a gigantic crisis UM, and that we you know, early on, I think a little bit before other people started calling it a depression. UM, I thought of it as a depression.

That I realized there weren't really people who were writing about it, UM, you know, very very rapidly, especially you know, the panoply of new programs that we were getting, the Cares Act, but also UM, the Federal Reserves, crisis facilities, and I saw an opportunity to just write about that UM all the time. You know that first month I wrote um uh twenty two pieces within a month, I was was publishing a piece basically every weekday. And UM,

that was able. You know, that was an opportunity to really make my make my career and get a lot of attention for a lot of knowledge that is, you know, most useful in a crisis, but kind of sometimes can lay dormant um during in other periods. And so I was able to build my own newsletter, um which is uh, very very successful, and get a following, including a policy following including you know, people within within the U. S

Government and within the US the next US government. So much I just want to ask you, you know, you all work in very different fields internally. I've been referring to this as the fashion, finance and food panel, right, and you all work in in very different fields. But the thing that you have in common is that you're all young, um, and that you're facing this pandemic really at the at the beginning of your careers, or let's say, in the first quarter of your careers. And I'm just curious,

do you think that that has made this harder? We're easier, um than if you were certainly more advanced in your in your careers, um quam me if if you don't mind, maybe we'll start with you on this one. I mean, I think youth is relative and it's a mindset. So I think that there are people that are you know, just starting out when they're at forty or fifty, um. And there are people like me that I started when

I was five years old. So in terms of my professional um uh history and length of time, I think that I have a lot of experience, you know, I have some some more experience than people that are better older than me and in different facets. And I think once you understand, especially within every craft but cooking, that you know nothing um than that kind of like broadens your mind to soaking so many different things. You know.

I've been a personal chef, I've been a chef on the boat, I've opened a restaurant, I've written a book. I'm just finished writing another book. So like, once this thing hit, it was like, Okay, well I can no longer cook for people anymore? How can I? You my

other assets? And I think as as a business, you need to look at always diversifying your streams of income and just diversifying who you are as a person, so that if something hits where I can no longer serve people directly, then do I switch to a ghost kitchen? Do I do things online? Do I do classes? So I do more writing? Why don't I try to sign a book deal with him this time? And that's that's really where I came from. So I don't really look at my youth is something that that deters me or

or gives me an advantage? I would say my professional um uh prowess is something that that I use to my advantage more than um, more than others, Nathan, So take us through. You know, obviously you said that the pandemic really afforded you an opportunity to launch your your business. Do you do you think that that was easier or harder given your age? Um? I mean I think that certain senses was easier. I'm in a more flexibility. You know, if I had been in a conventional job, UM, I

wouldn't have been able to put everything aside. And you know, at least the beginnings a week writing and thinking and reading about the crisis. Um, So it was definitely an advantage in that sense, um, and definitely uh, the motivation, the drive to do it I'm not. You know, I can't. I can't speak for anyone older, but I'm not. UM, not necessarily something that someone forty five or fifty would have done, even if they had the career flexibility to do it. UM. Yeah, So I mean that's how that's

how I kind of think about it. Nathan, How did you think? I'm just curious, how did you say? When was the moment where you said I have a voice on this and I think I'm someone that other people with a lot of advanced degrees should be listening to. Um. On the one hand, it's sort of it that's quite a sort of like moment to to to reach, but on the other hand, obviously been successful at it. When did you is that? Hey, I guess I'm the say here. I think. UM, I think it was really just that

no one else was writing about it. UM, I was I was being encouraged, you know. I I you know, my big moment has been this year, but I've already kind of built a lot of large network. UM. I have a lot of friends, including Bloomberg journalists friends. UM. You know, Joe Wisenthal was extremely supportive of me, uh and my career and basically tweeted out every piece I

wrote for the first month. That's Bloomberg fifty. Editor Brett began with fashion designer Tia Audiola, writer and publisher of Notes on the Crisis, Nathan Tankus, and chef and author Kwamie on You watch a that wraps up the first time of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, our special coverage of the Bloomberg fifty from Bloomberg Radio. I'm

Carol Master. Morehead in our next hour, including highlights from my panel at the B fifty Virtual Reveal and all star lineup of CEOs and senior leaders talking about customer centricity and running a business where the customer comes first. On that panel, the CEO of Chewy Audion and GSK Healthcare, the president of Nordstrom and Phila North America, the head of global operations at Group On, and salesforces chief Growth Evangelists. Plus, we check in with the director of the Most Watch

documentary and ESPN History. We're talking about the last dance that's coming up on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Master. Coming up in the second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, we continue coverage of the Bloomberg Fifty, this week's cover story and special issue.

The list compiled with the input from Bloomberg journalists and analysts to name the people shaping in the most unexpected ways. And speaking of that, coming up in just a moment, we've got an all star lineup of CEOs and senior leaders talking about customers during the health crisis and how to put their changing needs and demands first. And let's

get to that panel. In this segment, we hear from Jennifer Esterbrook, President of PHILA North America, Brian McNamara, g s K Consumer Healthcare CEO, and Summit Seeing Chewy CEO and director. I'm going to start with Brian at g s K Healthcare because health health care wellness never mattered as much as it did today. Brian, what are you seeing from your customers or what did you learn from

your customers during this crisis? Yeah? And and and you're right, um, you know we're in the consumer healthcare business, so um, the trends and the impact of COVID nineteen on consumers and how they think about health and wellness has been pretty incredible. And you know, when we looked at the world pre COVID UH, something like sevent of the world's population UM was interested in more proactively managing their health.

But that's been completely turbocharged. UM. You know, the the idea of going into this health crisis healthier and and having a much better chance of coming out the other end. I think it's something that's really been imprinted in the

consumer psyche now. So we're seeing a big shift to this idea of consumers really proactively managing their health, if that's around immunity products or vitamins, minerals and supplements to help manage their their their balance and their intake of nutrients, to how they're actually operating beyond the categories that we work in UM, you know, of how their own managing their own health and their weight. UM. So it's been a really significant shift. All right. So we just heard

from Brian Summit, come on in on this. Because the other thing that I noticed during the pandemic as I walked my dog every night on really quiet, dark streets, but there were chewy boxes at the curb everywhere. The customer cared about their pets you know, we've I mean, this is a time when we saw customers really lean in with engagement because it's a time off, it's a time of solitude in some way, and it's a time when relationships matter even more. And when everybody was in

their own houses, unable to travel. I think pets kind of sort of brought us together and that actually formulated, believe it or not, the central team of one of our campaigns that we ended up launching across Zoom, gathering people across North America, bringing them together from different kind of ethnicities and origins and race and diversity to be able to just you know, formulate a bond or bring forward a bond that was formed on the relationships the

fact that they had pets, and so, you know, one we really saw that too. What we saw is we're a young company. We're ten years this year and we've grown, uh you know, at the end of this year to be close to seven billion dollars in revenue. Twenty people.

But these people are team members, have never actually worked remotely, and so one of our greatest challenge was how do you take a workforce that's not enabled to you know, who was in office one day and then the global pandemic shows up and you have to take a let's say a customer service task force that is all North America seven and overnight migrate them to work from home.

So we've you know, we've had those kind of sort of internal challenges that we've navigated, keeping health and safety of team members up front, as well as figuring out business continuity while providing customers and experience that has been uh,

you know, completely continuous or completely coherent. And one of the best parts of of the pandemic for us has been, or at least a testament to our brand has been wherever we took a bit of a pause to understand expectations and reset our experience so that we could be at par or better than we normally are, our loyal

customers jumped in to the rescue of the brand. Uh. And you know, you could see this on social media going on where when our service levels degraded at the peak of the pandemic, let's say delivery um and new customers were jumping in going you know, we are hearing enough from the company, loyal customers, the older cotesel jump in and saying, hey, this company has always been kind of pro customer and customer centricity of the core. So you know, why don't we kind of give the company

a break? And that was just awesome to see. I can go on and on, but I don't want to ramble you. Well, I'm gonna well, I'm gonna jump around. I want to bring it some of the kind of the other retail brands. Jennifer, come on, and what happened to FeelA and I feel a customer during the crisis. Well, interestingly,

we have two levels of customer. We have our selling customer, that's the retailers because we're mostly a wholesale business, and then we have a We had actually pivoted at the end of last year and said we've got to start building our directed consumer. So on the cell inside, we had a lot of retailers um canceled orders, asked for payment extensions, uh, and so we worked with them. We wanted to know in March, you didn't know if people were going to survive, if the world was going to survive.

We have never as you said, there isn't any place book, and so we did. Even though we're a much smaller company than many of our part retailer partners, we did everything we could to support the big ones and the small ones, payment extensions, whatever they needed, if they wanted to cancel orders, if they wanted to push them out, and it was the spirit of we knew that if the retailers went into bankruptcy we wouldn't survive. That would also be the end of us because you need people,

We need them to sell our product. So we really felt like part of our mission was um to do what we needed to do and work with them and not And there were, you know, brands, some of our larger, largest competitors that said, no way, you're not extending, you're not canceling, you're not doing anything. They didn't, you know, they just didn't work with the customers. So that was

one way that we helped our retailers. And then in terms of the consumer, it it was we had a little bit of luck because um, we pivoted at the exact right time. That comment, that last comment from Jennifer Estabrook, president of Phila North America. Coming up, our panel continues. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This

is Bloomberg Business Week with GARYL. Masser from Bloomberg Radio continue our special coverage of the Bloomberg fifty and my panel where we talked with a bunch of CEOs and presidents and leaders of companies where they were talking about

customer centricity. In this excerpt here from Pete Nordstrom, President, chief Brand Officer at Nordstrom, Peter vander Doyce, he is the co founder and CEO of Audion, Barbara Visce, Senior vice President, head of Global Operations Group On and Jennifer Estabrook, President of Phila North America. What we started to do. First of all, we we uh. We had planned a

lot of experiential events. Everything was canceled, including the first professional sporting event that was canceled was the BNP Parrybot Open, which we sponsor. So and everyone is in a panic. So he said, you know what, We're going to use our tennis athletes to convey this message of stay home. And the athletes from were from all over the world. So we pivoted to help people, to engage them, to

amuse them and humor them. And then from a product standpoint, we quickly pivoted to get because just as as the pandemic was hitting here, our sourcing operations were reopening in China, and so we were able to quickly pivot and provide the comfort cozy products that people wanted at home. And and because we were building our online business, we were able to see from the data what people were searching

for and what they wanted. And so you know, through throughout this we've tried to engage them, keep them calm, keep them, do public service announcements, stay home. This summer we did a campaign to wear a mask um and so uh it's and it has helped raise the profile all doing some good in the world. And I think all of our even the retailers we had one a couple of ones that filed in bankruptcy during the period, but everybody when it was over said thank you so

much for working with us and keeping us going. I feel like community collaboration, digitization was a big couple of the themes. Um Panni from Nordstrom come on in because the retail world really it was just you know, SmackDown, shut down. It was really hard. I know your digital sales, I think we're up like thirty seven from last year

and your most recent update. Um to Wall Street, what happened to your customer initially gosh, all this stuff that I'm hearing for everyone else in the panel, it's all super familiar. We're all in the same boat here. Um. You know, it's just there was so much uncertainty that um, I think that was probably the main thing and always all do it was all uncertain and so we we found ourselves really in the first time having an existential

threat our business. And we've been on a hundred nineteen years and I I mean personally, I've never really been involved in managing for cash flow and liquidity and all that stuff that sounds kind of obvious and business, but it's just not the position we've been in. So you know, internally we had to really think about those things. But that the thread that was going to pull us through.

And I'm sure everyone in the panel would say the same thing as the relationships you have your customers and that all the things you can do, whatever touchpoints you have to engender trust and confidence. And luckily we've we've got a lot of loyal customers and we were able to pivot and find new ways how to serve them. Luckily we are we have a big digital business, and so that was pretty natural that that happened. Pretty easily,

but you know it was. It was so disruptive and it continues to be UM and there's a lots we learned from that, and I guess the silver lining of all of it it definitely forces I think to the team you talked about the beginning, it's like, if you don't have customer centricity in terms of the way that you're viewing this, you're really going to be in trouble. And I think it kind of helped us redouble our

efforts about putting the focus in the right place. Peter from Adan, come on in UM, you too saw some customer behavior changes result of the pandemic, and your customers are other businesses Uber Tiffany McDonald's group on Spotify, Microsoft. What did you hear from them? First? It was we were in this situation as we have officers around the world. We had the Shanghai office was hit by the pandemic much earlier, but also got out of it much earlier.

So our first question was what do merchants actually expect

from us? So for merchants, we helped them with the payments, we helped them with everything around their consumer to make sure that that they can compete on knowing everything about their customer and the data around it will making the payment really And what we found out in China because we already learned our lessons there, that merchants were thanking us for being very proactive during the approach because we also felt a little bit like, hey, we are doing

relatively well a lot of online volumes or we see more volume coming in. But we reached out to all our merchants through acount Management and um, you see that during a crisis that is really appreciated. There can be the merchant that says, look, I have other things on my mind. But what we found out there are merchants which are doing a lot of refunds and then our pricing was never intended for merchancy which Unforcity and to refund ninety or percent of their sales of the last month.

So that stuff we came into a lot of merchants were selling much more online or didn't have we're thinking about an online president, didn't have it. So we were developing new products with them to be able to get to pay through an email so that their customers could still shot with them. So it was a very the intense intense time and still is with projects being canceled, but also certainly new projects being started, because what we typically see saw in retail is that we had merchants

where they're online volume totally compensated for their stores. So first you of course had to dip consumers could not come into store, but if they also had an online presence, you sew a full compensation of that in the online world. And then when the stores opened, you saw a lot of that volume coming back through shore. But actually the total was more than so some of the volume in

new patterns was actually sticking. And that's what we still see that the total for those merchancies still more than where they were before the pandemic. UM, Barbara, I want to bring you into this. You see a lot of group on UM and you've been going through your own restructuring, but you've got B two B and BTC customers. You work with a lot of small businesses. We have talked a lot about the hit that small businesses have had,

certainly with the shutdown of the economy. So what have you seen kind of from that two sided marketplace that you've got. UM. Yeah, the main difference with the other panelists is, like we really have like a two side of the marketplace and obviously UM or core businesses being local and local merchants being hit very hard this year. UM. So very similar to what other panelists have been talking about, which is really just listening to what their needs were.

So our businesses are like health and beauty restaurants, we talked about this and UM and also everything around leisure, UM and activities obviously hits their hearts. So what I would say is like one, UM, the agility just moving very fast and and changing based on their needs to UM. Similar to what Peter was saying, is just helping them with tools, helping them manage capacity with the new restrictions.

So we give them like some booking tool so that they can manage the capacity that has been reduced UM given the sanitary restrictions. That last comment from Barbara Vice, senior vice president ahead of Global Operation in Group on coming up our panel continues. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. It's all about the Bloomberg fifty. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. We're back with more of our special coverage at the

Bloomberg fifty. Bring you highlights from a panel I hosted at the event. In this segment, we hear from Pete Nordstrom, President, chief brand Officer at Nordstrom and Summit Singh Chewy CEO and director. You know, one of my one of my personal greatest learnings when I joined Chewi uh was, you know, I've I'm a I was born and brought up in a in a cost constrained environment, and I when I came to Chewi, I really knew how to drive efficiency in a business and customer centric city was always in

the back of the mind. But what I saw it Chewy actually blew me away. I sat down my first couple of weeks, I sat down with my customer service teams and I spent some time there and customers always, by the way, still directly reports to me. And here's the reason for that. What I found was that we didn't recognize customer service as a cost center at all. And that was first of all, there was a bit sort of bit contraintutive to me, and I was like, Okay,

I think there's something here. Let me listen a little bit harder. And what I found was that when we said, hey, customer service is an engagement mechanism for us or a revenue generation center. I started listening even harder, and we're all data driven leaders, and so went back and sort of,

you know, went back and brought some data. And what we can say, wha data is the level of investment that we put behind our customer service, the social media teams that we run within our customer service, our policies that we communicate via the experiences that we build, or the pure investments that we make invel in delivering a high touch, personalized service that is almost unheard of in

today's world. What what's an example of that? Even today, at the scale that we're operating at, we don't have any automated voicelines. We have even beings picking the phone. Customer service agents aren't subjected to any metrics like average handle time or productivity. They essentially are encouraged to interact with the customer in a happy, friendly manner and take care and solve the problem regardless of how long it takes.

And what that's done for us is we can show why a data that the cohort of customers that interacts with our customer service has greater lifetime value and greater retention versus the customers who haven't been exposed yet to our friendly, personalized or high touch customer service. So you know, from our standpoint, investing in experience building and customer service in some way is a way to generating profits. So the two are actually not separate or not counter or

competitive with each other at all in my opinion. Peter and Nordstrom, you want to come in on this because I think about you know, I think for such a long time Nordstrom has been really thought of as that customer centric experience, and I'm just curious, how do you measure it, How do make sure you're doing the right things in terms of what your customer really wants? Well, I like that question about if it's a competing agenda, whether you're doing stuff for customers or shared I think

that's great. And actually one of things we talked about recently was that when you do things that solve problems for customers and makes them feel good, it's in the best interests of shareholders. So I think that that's important. I mean, you know, look at we're a public company, and we know we're accountable for those results. Um, but you know, you also and a lot of people have talked about, I hear, how to engage your people and your teams to you know, really be the face of

the brand. And you're not going to win the hearts and minds with your team by getting behind this big rally and cry. I'm sureholder value or you know, economic profit or I mean, it's not that those things are wrong and and they're fine principles, but you've got to find things that can galvanize people on a mission that everyone can buy into and play a role. And for us, you know, to keep the customer stuff front and center.

You know, I think if you're a good business, if it's good for customers, you've got to figure out how you can make after you figure out what's great for customers. So, you know, it's it's just been core to our DNA that that we stick to that. I mean, obviously there's a reactive part of what we do and having to respond with customers want, but we we want to try to lead to and it just try to anticipate some of those things as well. Um and I you know, I think one of the things that helps us do

that is, you know, how competitive the marketplace is. There's so many great companies out there really doing innovative and interesting things that I think that helps keep us moving forward in acting ways this in the best interest of customers, diversity, inclusion. How has that changed the conversation at Nordstrom because of this year, Well, I think Brian mentioned it earlier. It's UM. It's been really eye opening. I think to go there and to be vulnerable and to open yourself to feedback.

You know, we're all in the customer business and I think you know, really naturally inclined to be attuned to what's going on with customers, and it's such you know, an inclusive environment. It's the you know, the best environment to have you're trying to draw a lot of customers. But it's just was made so clear of how I guess how much more there was behind this UM and if you're not open to really hear it and understand

from everybody, then you wouldn't know. And it created an opportunity for us to have a lot of great feedback. Uh that I think it's going to serve us really well. It's you know, it's certainly the right thing to do in terms of how you treat employees and customers. That last comment from Pete Nordstrom, President and Chief brand Officer

at Nordstrom. What an amazing lineup of leaders and CEOs and talking about the changing customer landscape, how they were impacted by the pandemic, and how these companies are innovating going forward, straight ahead. On Bloomberg Business Week, it is the most watch documentary ever at esp in. That's what you get when you follow one of the most iconic athletes in history. We hear from the director of The Last Dance. That's next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg

Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. We're gonna wrap up this week with more from our coverage of the Bloomberg fifty. It was one of the most talked about series of the year, and no it isn't Tiger King, but you could find it on Netflix after its debut on ESPN. We're talking about The Last Dance. We all needed content during the pandemic, and many found it in the ten part series that became the most watch documentary

in ESPN history. The Last Dance won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series at the seventies second Primetime Emmy Awards. It was directed by seven time Emmy winning director and producer Jason Hair. I caught up with Jason at our B fifty virtual reveal to talk about directing that documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls championship season. I said yes before they finished the sentence when they asked me I would be interested in

the project. I grew up in in the eighties and nineties, so so uh, Michael Jordan's career in the Bulls Dynasty parallels my trajectory as a sports fan and as a pop cultural fanatic. Um. I was eight years old when he came into the league, and that was eighty four, and I was a senior in college in when this season was filmed. The last dance season was filmed, So that kind of took me through my childhood. So for them to even mention that name or this subject, it

was an easy yes. But wasn't easy was that it took them two years to get to the starting line in a business sense, because you had four major entities, but multibillion dollar entities in Jump twenty three, which is Michael's company, the NBA, ESPN, and Netflix to all get to the same table and to agree logistically, creatively, financially that they were going to collaborate on something like this.

It took two full years. Actually did a full length documentary while they were negotiating this UH, and then I came back in the time and worked out So we started on in January of two thousand eighteen officially, and we finished it up while you were watching it. Well, so tell me about I think when you described to me getting these four behemoths together, you know, Netflix, ESPN, Michael Jordan's company, and then the NBA, that it was

like turning an oil tanker. What were what were you privy to in terms of the negotiations, because first of all, I mean they were I guess maybe once or twice, all at the same table, but a lot of it was done virtually. Well that was afterwards the negotiations. I'm not privy to it all because, like I said, I was working on a different project. And when they finally had their ducks in a row and everything was figured out logistically and and the budget was figured out and

we could go and start to shoot. UM. It's a challenge always to to to answer to one UH distributor, be that a network or a production company have you. This was four distributors and the biggest distributors you could possibly imagine, all coming into the same into the same virtual room. Like we're talking right now. I am a face to face person, and I always wanted I don't like fifteen voices on a phone, really like three voices

on the phone. So I was always endeavoring to get people to the same table so that we could all sit there and sketch things out literally on a pad on an overhead, or or show slides or things like that. We only had two times in the entire making of this dock when we got all of the parties involved into one room um to hash out exactly what our likes and dislikes were about other people's visions at the table.

So there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and in this case, it actually there's there's the DNA of each of those four entities is in the finished product, right And because you can definitely see it what happened, because it was originally supposed to air right in the summer, and all of a sudden with COVID and everybody kind of just you know, dying for comment. You know, looking for content. You guys sped up the release date. What was that like, Yeah, we knew. Um. I think March

eleventh was what's called the Rudy Gobert game. That's when Rudy Gobert tested positive and they canceled on site just before tip off the Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder game. And after that, that's the last time I saw my staff was the day after that, because very quickly the lockdown went back to New York, and I was thinking, because this is supposed to eric in junction with the

NBA Finals. June second is when it was supposed to air, So I was thinking, Okay, the NBA Finals are now not gonna happen until at least in our minds, it was like they're gonna delay and maybe a month, because I think at that point none of us had really any idea how how severe this was, and I was thinking, oh, we have an extra month to do this, and then as the days passed by that weekend, I realized, oh no, they're going to want to move this up almost two months.

So we ended up settling on April nine as our premier date, so we were literally finishing uh Episode six seven eight nine and ten as episodes one and two were airing on April nineteen, So it was, Um, normally you have some time to shoot and then edit and then relax, and then you do a bit of promotion that you can watch it at home with your families. We're watching on one screen and editing another episode for

next week on another. Yeah, no relaxing here. So all right, and everybody's waiting to talk to us about the interviews. My understanding is I think you told me you did hundred and five interviews, a hundred and six shoots. Um, tell us about those interviews. They were with some pretty amazing people. Yeah, it was, Um, we had an embarrassment of riches. I mean, it's a testament first of all, to to to Michael actually diving in and committing to

this and his team committing to this. That these people who were featured in the stock a lot of them to get these kind of phone calls all the time to be a part of a story like this, or to tell the Michael Jordan's story of the story of eighties and nineties basketball, and so many times that oftentimes they don't even pick up the phone. So, Um, Michael and his team drafted a letter and said, Jason and his team are going to be calling you. Michael is

participating in this one. Essentially, this is the real thing. We're actually doing this now. Well then that greased the wheels for myself and my team to be able to call people. And we had already been vetted because Michael had already notified all of the parties. We gave them a lists about a hundred and fifty people that we might be contacting, and then they reached out to those one fifties. So, you know, I mean to sit down

and experience talking to these people. I wouldn't even know where to begin if you said, who's the most interesting interview you conducted? Because it goes all the way from Barack Obama and President Clinton to Michael himself and his interview, you know, dwarfed any expectations that I had or hopes that I had. It was it was exceeded those expectations all the way down to Steve Kerr's mom, who was one of the most impressive people that I've ever met,

and Michael's mom herself as well. So we had a hundred and we interviewed a hunt and five people. There are hund six shoots, as you said, and there are very few of any duds in that entire bunch. Well, I did ask you when we spoke um yesterday. I said, so, which interview stuck out? And you said, Okay, the boring answer is Michael. But it really was the most incredible interview. You spoke with him three times. Yeah, we spoke with him um in January two eighteen, and then in two

thousand nineteen. We spoke of him in May and December. He was only contracted for two interviews for his involvement in this, and we quickly real eyes that the interviews were going so well. They took longer than I thought they would, and by the time the second interview ended, we only had material for six or seven episodes. I still hadn't gotten to episodes eight, nine and ten in our storyline. So he and his team were gracious enough to grant us a few more hours for me to

sit there and bug him with questions. But he came in that day and it was very very clear. I didn't know what Michael to expect. I didn't know if he was going to get up after a half hour and say that's all I'm giving you, I know, if he was going to be offended by the questions or if he was going to try and direct me in some places, it was it was, uh, it was suspenseful,

to say the least. Well, Jason tell me about because I asked you specifically, because I was, you know, going through some of the clips and stuff, and there's that one where he's like in the white outfit in the white background, he's got a drink next to him and it's got a cigar. You said that when you walked in, you knew it was going to be a different kind

of interview. Yeah. Yeah, I'm used to seeing me. At that point, we had done two years of research be fo we role cameras on that interview, so I had seen just about every Michael Jordan interview that had ever been conducted. And what I really wanted to do with his interview and some of the other main characters would make this seem a little bit more relaxed in a

home setting. Oftentimes it was their home. Phil Jackson was his backyard um to get to the real person rather than the icon that we're used to seeing the pregame or post game in a in a scrum of media so for Michael to sit down in that chair and kind of kick his legs out and be really relaxed. He had just played golf that day, He had a cigar,

he had a drink next to him. It was clear that this was going to be almost kind of a window into what it's like to hang out with Michael Jordan rather than this this, uh, you know, rigid interview that he normally does for for other for other events. So tell me. You did ask him to why he wanted to do this documentary? Now what did he say? Well, originally I asked the first time I met him was two years before we shot, and I asked him, why do you want to do this? And he said, I own?

And I said why not? And he said, because when people see this footage, it's very raw, it's very revealing, and you know, I don't think that they're going to have the context to understand why I was acting that way sometimes towards my teammates, towards my opponents. I mean, as as anyone watched the series knows, he can be a vicious guy and a ruthless competitor. So I tried to impress upon him in that first brief meeting, that you're gonna have ten hours of context to provide these viewers.

This is actually the time where you can silence all of the critics that you think you have in regards to these topics and others. So by the time he got there two years later, I think it was twenty minutes into that first interview, I asked him about arriving in Chicago as a rookie, and I said that one writer uh called that eighty four Bulls team the traveling Chicago Bulls Cocaine circus, and Michael threw his head back

and laughed. I had never heard that laugh come out of him and the research I've done or in the time that I had spent with him in person, so that would have been enough for him to validate that statement just with his laughter. He's very adept at at dodging a question like that. Not only did he not dodge it, he laughed and validated it and then went on to give us an anecdote about his time there as a kid, coming straight from Chapel Hill and witnessing

all of these things. So we knew very early on that he was both feed in on this. Some of the episodes for the Last Dance broke viewership ratings for ESPN, becoming the most watch ESPN documentary ever. Got to say it was a lot of fun to talk with director Jason Hair, seven time Emmy winning director and producer. And that wraps up. The weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio are special Bloomberg fifty issue. Thanks so

much for joining us. I'm Carol Masster. Be sure to tune in daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week conversations download them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News, and be sure

to check out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra podcasts. It's our Business Week talks this week featured in the magazine, We take you to one of this year's successful I p O S, which is up around two since its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in September. It's the company that has patented a synthetic version of the active ingredient in so called magic mushrooms for use in treatment resistant depression. We talked with Compass Pathways chairman, CEO

and co founder George Goldsmith Bloomberg Business Week. It's available on newsstands, now online and of course on the Bloomberg. Have a safe weekend everyone, This is Bloomberg