Season 2; Episode 2: Feeding People Feeds Leadership with Andy Stern & John Rigos

Andy Stern and John Rigos are co-CEO’s of Aurify Brands based in New York City. Aurify Brands is a next generation hospitality group that creates, grows, and operates category-leading brands including Le Pain Quotidien in the US, The Little Beet, Melt Shop, Fields Good Chicken, and The Little Beet Table. The Aurify Brands portfolio comprises nearly 100 restaurants across these five brands in multiple markets, across 9 states. 

Andy Stern and John Rigos have worked together for over 21 years as entrepreneurs and now as CO-CEO’s – and they have a tremendous amount to teach us about building businesses, creating a successful partnership, the core leadership fundamentals they lean on, how to lead in a crisis, and the challenge of making difficult people decisions. 

Key Takeaways from this Episode:

CO-CEO’s (how to be in equal partnership successfully

• 
  
• Critical foundations for a CO-CEO or partnership to work: trust, shared core values, communication, functional decision-making process, check your ego, appreciate other perspectives, shared accountability, ability to talk about and overcome conflict and disagreements.
  
• Without trust and knowing each other and having the same outlook; entering a CO-CEO partnership is like going into a blind marriage – it may work, and it may not.
  
• Sharing a moral compass cuts down on conversations you don’t need to have and allows you to focus on business challenges and issues instead.
  
• Holding each other accountable in a partnership is hard because no one reports to anyone in that relationship; it’s about us not wanting to let each other down.
  
• What derails relationships is making assumptions about what people are doing or thinking, you must remove assumptions, even a simple daily meeting can do that.
  
• Find a partner, it's hard and isolating to be on your own, even if means giving up equity in the long run it’s worth every penny.
  

Leadership Fundamentals

• 
  
• Learn to be accountable to yourself.
  
• If nice guys finish last, it’s probably a sprint, but in a marathon, the nice guys always finish first.
  
• Tell people you don’t have all the answers, everyone needs to participate in new ideas.
  
• Just like being a parent, a key component of leadership is doing what you say when no one's looking.
  
• Leading leaders: support, challenge, and push people but in the end, they make their own decisions because they must own and execute these decisions.
  

People Decisions

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• People decisions is critical, the wrong people in the wrong positions can be cancerous; the amount of energy you spend on a bad fit is draining and it's never getting better.
  
• Letting people go is a business decision; you can't be emotional about it and yet you must see the human side of it. But you must do what's right because it impacts so many people. Inaction is ten times more damaging than taking action because everybody knows what should be done. You lose credibility If you don't act quickly.
  

Building a Business (that happens to be in the restaurant industry)

• 
  
• We’re building a portfolio restaurant business modeled after technology businesses.
  
• In this industry you can change the trajectories of people's lives and have a big impact.
  
• We’re creating leaders in a space that's not known for leadership.
  

Leading in Crisis

• 
  
• Transparency about decision making is critical during a crisis.
  
• During a crisis, immediate focus on triaging, bring calm then chart a path forward.
  
• The most challenging thing during a crisis was losing connectivity and being isolated.
  

To learn more about my work in executive coaching, leadership development and team effectiveness check out my website, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at winnie@winnifred.org.  

Reach out and tell me what was helpful about today’s episode or any suggestions you have for my show.

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I look forward to sharing another transformative conversation with you next week!

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