October 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Curious about what it takes to stay ahead in the fast-paced world of retail and technology? Andrew Laudato, COO of Vitamin Shoppe, joins us to uncover the secrets behind his transformative career journey, from pivotal college decisions to navigating dynamic roles at major retailers like Bath & Body Works and Pier 1 Imports. Tune in to hear how Andrew's passion for people-oriented work and his strategic moves across industries have shaped his approach to leadership, innovation, and community building in the ever-evolving retail landscape.
We've got an insightful exploration of building robust IT infrastructures that keep retail businesses agile and competitive. Discover how transitioning from monolithic structures to composable architecture is akin to piecing together a versatile Lego set, enabling retailers to scale and adapt quickly to new technologies. Andrew shares the vital strategies of data visualization and enterprise design that are crucial for maintaining stability and security while fostering innovation. You'll learn why avoiding hardcoding is essential for flexibility and how a strategic enterprise architect plays a pivotal role in retail evolution.
Ever wondered how AI can revolutionize customer service and operations? Listen as Andrew sheds light on the innovative use of AI and technology at Vitamin Shoppe, from real-time translation tools to strategic telehealth partnerships that enhance health and well-being. We delve into the significance of mentorship and curiosity in navigating technological changes, with Andrew reflecting on personal stories and insights from mentors who've influenced his integrity and leadership style. This episode wraps up with thoughts on standing out in a changing world, emphasizing cultural understanding, practical experience, and the power of teaching to enhance one's expertise.
Biography:
Andrew Laudato is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Vitamin Shoppe, a leading health and wellness retailer. In this role, he leads operations across e-commerce, information technology, enterprise project management, supply chain, strategic sourcing, quality, and commercialization. Passionate about the fusion of people, process, and technology, Andrew is a recognized leader in digital transformation.
Andrew joined The Vitamin Shoppe in January 2019 as EVP, Chief Technology and Supply Chain Officer. Since then, he has spearheaded the launch of a new technology-driven retail format, introduced personalization initiatives, and improved process efficiency across the supply chain. His efforts earned him a promotion to COO in January 2020.
Before his tenure at The Vitamin Shoppe, Andrew served as Chief Information Officer at Brookdale Senior Living and spent 16 years as CIO at Pier 1 Imports, where he directed technology transformation across all business areas. He began his career at L Brands, a common starting point for many retail veterans.
Andrew is a member of the CNBC Technology Executive Council, the New York City CIO Executive Council, and an executive board member of George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation. He also serves on the board of Lideranca, a small business focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. A past Chair of the National Retail Federation’s CIO Council, Andrew was recognized by the NRF in 2016 for his outstanding contributions to the retail industry.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlaudato/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paula (00:00):
The vitamin shop has over 4,000 people that work for it.
It has over 700 locations injust the United States and is
about over a billion dollars inrevenue a year.
So Andy has a lot on his plateas the COO.
And, in case that wasn't enough, he also is the author of a
best-selling book, FosteringInnovation how to Build an
(00:21):
Amazing IT Team.
So stay tuned.
We're about to have a fantasticconversation with Andy about
his responsibilities and how hegot to where he is and what he
looks for and what he utilizesto be a top executive.
Stay tuned.
Gautham (00:34):
Well, my retail behavior.
I'm excited for you to interactwith Andy.
Andy and I have known eachother for several years now as
part of the retail center that Ilaunched at Mason, and I love
him for the person he is.
I've learned from him on bothleadership style as well as from
(00:56):
what a retailer needs to do tobuild other technology
infrastructure.
So I look forward to thisconversation and to see how he
positions himself as a retailerwho knows technology or as a
technologist who works in retail.
Rich (01:09):
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this one as well.
I know Andy from a businessperspective at Vitamin Shoppe
and I've had the opportunity tobe at a couple of conferences
with him and listen to him speak, and I love the fact that
obviously he's an expert when itcomes to tech and operations,
but I can tell in a couple ofinteractions that I've had with
(01:30):
him that he genuinely lovesretail in general.
So I look forward to hopefullygetting into that part of the
conversation.
Gautham (01:37):
I was also like in my online interactions with him
whenever I said hey, andy, Ineed some advice.
He's always ready to give itlike he'll make time,
irrespective of where he is whathe's doing, so it's an
important aspect of him that Iappreciate as well and I've
tried to build into myself.
Rich (01:54):
All right.
Well, let's go ahead and getstarted.
Paula (01:56):
Andrew Lodato currently serves as the chief operating
officer at the Vitamin Shop.
In this role, he leadsoperations across e-commerce,
information technology,enterprise project management,
supply chain planning andallocation, strategic sourcing
and scientific and regulatoryaffairs.
Since joining Vitamin Shop,andrew has helped launch a new
technology-driven retail format,introduced personalization
(02:18):
initiatives and driven processspeed and efficiency gains
across the supply chain.
Mr Lodato was Chief InformationOfficer at Brookdale Senior
Living.
Prior to Brookdale, he spent 16years as Chief Information
Officer at Pure One Imports,where he directed technology
transformation across all areasof the business.
Mr Lodato is a past chair ofthe National Retail Federation's
(02:39):
CIO Council.
Andrew, welcome to RetailRelates.
We're very excited to have youhere.
Thank you, itilled to be here.
Gautham (02:45):
Andy, we all have access to your resume, but can
you talk about three pivotalmoments in your career?
How have you got to where youare?
Where do you see yourself going?
Andrew (02:55):
Sure, I'll start back when I was in college and I went
to school for electricalengineering, and the reason I
did that was because at the time, you know, someone said, hey,
electrical engineers make goodmoney and I was good at math.
So I spent a year and a half incollege doing a lot of math and
learning about circuits until Ifinally asked kind of a basic
question which was hey, what doelectrical engineers do all day
(03:17):
anyway, and I really didn't likethe answer.
You know I'm more of a peopleperson and so you know I decided
that I need to switch, and thenI switched my career to
computer information systems soI could be more involved.
So obviously kind of silly notto ask that question before I
went to school, but shame on me.
And once I got the answer Ipivoted.
I always, when I do talk tostudents, think about hey, do
(03:39):
you really understand what isthe career going into?
The next big pivotal moment forme I was working at the Limited.
That was a big apparel retailer, and they decided to start a
new company, which everyone'sheard of, bath Body Works, and
so I was one of the firstemployees ever at Bath Body
Works.
So we were a little startupinside of a large corporation.
(04:00):
Because I was involved in everyaspect of the business and at a
young age, getting to spendtime with the CEO and the CFO, I
really had a mindset shift.
I thought of myself as atechnology expert that happened
to work in retail.
But as I learned more about thebusiness, I flipped and said
you know, I really am a abusiness person, a retailer
first, and then my skills,whatever they are, be it supply
chain or technology, you knowthose are secondary to doing the
(04:30):
job.
So that was a big pivotalmoment that for me.
Fortunately, I learned at apretty young age and then, more
recently, I was a peer one doinga nice job there.
I was a CIO for 16 years.
I was in a nice, comfortablegroup, but I decided to make a
change just because I felt likeI had nothing more to offer the
company and I probably wouldn'tgrow anymore if I stayed there
for the rest of my career.
(04:50):
So I actually left retail for abrief moment, went into senior
living, moved to a new city andreally found an area that I
could push myself and grow.
I ended up pretty quicklygetting back to retail, coming
to the vitamin shop, deciding tomake that move and it was again
a place I was comfortable andhappy, but I had that inner
ambition to push myself to thenew heights.
Rich (05:12):
I'm going to jump in and just ask what did you miss about
retail?
Andrew (05:17):
I missed the community.
You know we've known each otherthrough charity events and the
community and I was soentrenched outside of my day job
and the whole community so Imissed that.
But I also missed how rapidlythings change, which is funny
because people I meet in otherindustries I think that would
drive them crazy.
But what's the top prioritytoday?
You may come into work tomorrowand that's not the top priority
(05:37):
anymore.
So there's a lot of thingscoming at us in different angles
.
I don't know how many peoplerealize it, but retailers are
very innovative because we haveto be, because consumers are
very demanding.
So being in that senior living,it was a lot more slow paced
and steady.
So the energy, the excitementand the chaos I missed all of
that.
Gautham (05:54):
So you said retailers are innovative, and you've been
with the retail for 20 plusyears at least, so what's the
most innovative, most excitingthing that you worked on in your
career?
Andrew (06:06):
Yeah.
So you know, I don't know we'regiving our ages up, but I
started working before we hadthe internet, before we had even
email, before we had mobile.
So retail was pretty much thesame from 2000 BC to 1980.
I mean, if you go back andpeople got together in a market
and you know, from Trahan'smarket to the Silk Road, so you
think about the Mall of America,it's not much different than
(06:27):
what we had in Rome, it's not.
It's just, you know, merchantsselling their wares and people
going to that area, but all thistechnology just dramatically
changed it and it's been such afun ride.
From a project perspective, youknow I was part of a big team
with a leading role that builtPureOnecom and we took that from
zero to nearly half a billiondollars in revenue and you know.
(06:50):
So that was really probablyexciting.
But even now I'm working on areally exciting project.
We just launched the VitaminShop, full Health RX, which is a
telehealth program.
So we're now healthcareadjacent at the Vitamin Shop.
So you know I can go on and on.
But there's been littleprojects, big projects,
regardless of what you'redelivering, what you're building
, any project where a team comestogether, you're working really
(07:10):
hard and you're doing somethingcool.
Those are all my things I wouldsay are rewarding.
Paula (07:14):
Yeah, so we were talking about your background rewarding,
so what would you say?
It's often said that failure isa better teacher, right, and we
all talk about our successes.
Is there any lesson you learnedfrom failure that you'd like to
share with us or our audienceas a way of learning?
Andrew (07:30):
Yeah, I think we talked about that.
I wrote a book and my book'sjust a collection of here's
where I screwed up.
Here's a lesson I learned andhere's how you can avoid it.
I think one of my biggestmistakes in my career early on
was I thought of the humanresources department as my enemy
, kind of a group of people youknow.
And that's when, like in thelate 90s, when IT was really
expensive and things werechanging, it was hard to hire
(07:51):
people, salaries, so you know, Ithought of HR as the place you
went when someone made a mistakeor they were doing something
wrong or someone you know wasn'tperforming.
But so I always saw the HRpeople coming and kind of ducked
and hid or that.
But I learned pretty quickly bywatching others that the most
important thing we have asleaders is our teams and so
human resources.
I hate that phrase, they'repeople, but those are the most
(08:13):
important resources.
Any company, and especiallyretail, that has a lot of people
.
So really learning to embracemy partners in the beginning and
help build culture and driveengagement learning ending and
help build culture and driveengagement learning.
So I've done a 180 on that,from kind of thinking HR was the
enemy to saying the mostimportant business partner that
you can have as a leader is yourhuman resources partner.
Rich (08:33):
Yeah, I'll jump in with that, and I don't so much have a
question, it's just moreapplause.
I think one of the challengesthat we have in any organization
but we have it in retail iswhen you have one group or one
silo that will look at the othersilo as an enemy or not
necessarily as a partner, andhopefully that's one of the
things that we can do withtechnology and better
communication is to bridge that.
(08:54):
I would say that's a verysuccessful lesson learned for
anybody listening and since Ihave this as my catchphrase, I'm
using that as a note and takingit back to my leadership team.
Gautham (09:03):
So I saw you hold a cup of coffee or whatever you're
drinking.
Do you want to mention a littlebit about your leadership
policy and your philosophy aspertaining to that coffee mug
right there?
Andrew (09:17):
Yeah.
So speaking of phrases, I'vetrademarked this phrase called
be a diode, and I guess thatstems from my electrical
engineering training.
But a diode is an electroniccomponent.
It's actually in our computersand our phones and what it does
is it allows electricity to flowfreely in one direction, but it
completely blocks it in theother direction.
The analogy to leadership is asa leader, anytime there's a
(09:40):
problem, a complaint, someoneangry, it's your job to stop
that.
So you protect your team fromall that noise and you take it.
You know you're the leader,you're responsible, no matter
what happened and who did what.
You're responsible.
And on the flip side, allpraise, compliments and positive
shield right through you to theteam.
So when things go well, youneed to say, hey, the team did
(10:01):
it.
So the analogy is a diode islet the praise flow freely and
let the noise stop at you.
Gautham (10:08):
I had to ask that when I saw the article, that was a
phrase that stood with meAvailable to purchase on
andrewlodatocom.
And see, he's a good marketeras well.
Andrew is the jack of alltrades.
So, Andrew, with that said,we're going to shift to the
lesson from this podcast, whichis basically talking to our
(10:28):
audience, which is collegestudents and early career
professionals, on your area ofexpertise.
Now.
You spent decades buildingtechnology infrastructure, so we
thought that this would be atopic of expertise, although I
know that you've done dabble inalmost every aspect of the
business function.
So I've read your book yourbook is right there on my
bookshelf multiple times and oneof the phrases that stood out
(10:51):
to me a lot was to build thefoundation to pour concrete, as
you sometimes have said.
Talk about pouring concretefrom an IT infrastructure
perspective.
What are the essentials?
How does a retailer build thatfoundation that is going to
stand the test of time,especially given you said that
retail is extremely dynamic?
Andrew (11:11):
Yeah, for sure.
I have a lot of passion aroundthis, and the analogy is if
you're going to build a bigbuilding, what do they do?
They dig a big hole and fill itwith concrete, right, it
becomes a foundation.
And you've seen buildings wherethey didn't do that right and
they're either tipping over orthey fall over or collapse.
So any system infrastructurehas to be built on a firm
foundation.
This is security first andnetwork, and the phrase that we
(11:33):
like to use is KTLO.
Keep the lights on this is theemails emailing and the payments
happening and receipts, andthat Because when you're running
an IT organization, these arethe things that can get you in
trouble and they can take yourenergy and time and resources
away from doing the innovation.
Having that foundation is keyto every single thing, every
(11:54):
other thing that you do, andwhen things are going smoothly,
you can make them moreaffordable.
I have a phrase you know get itright and then get it cheap.
So you get things runningsmoothly, you can optimize it,
fine tune it and then pivot yourteam to get to work on growing
the business and the innovation.
So super important, I think,too often overlooked or not
discussed, so I'm glad youbrought it up.
As far as flexibility, you know,we're really moving away from
(12:17):
monoliths in tech to buildingblocks, so the technical phrase
would be an API or amicroservice.
The simple analogy is a box ofLegos.
So we're not buying thecompleted Millennium Falcon,
we're buying the pieces, parts,right, and the Legos then can be
reassembled.
What that means in retail is wemay have an API, a programming
interface called Get Customer.
So instead of every singlesystem having a copy of customer
(12:40):
data or having theirintegration, now you've got that
one that goes to your centraldatabase you have another one
called Update Order.
Now you're placing an order inthe store, on a phone call, on a
website, you click the UpdateOrder right, and now you have
that same thing.
So once you have all thisassembly, imagine you have a
whole new idea like oh, I wantto watch TV and click on the
vitamin and buy it.
(13:00):
All that's possible if I havethe customer data, the order
data, the transactional.
I have a new interface, but allthat backend stuff will work.
So what we build and arecontinuing to build at the
vitamin shop is this collectionof these building blocks it's
called composable that we cansnap together to do traditional
things like a website andnon-traditional things that we
(13:20):
can't even imagine right now.
Paula (13:22):
That's really funny that you say that, because the other
day I was watching Drunk History, which is educational, so I'm
not afraid to share that.
But they were talking aboutFord assembly line that we
(13:44):
started out with, so thank youfor highlighting that and making
it.
Just drawing that picture, yeahof course, andy.
Gautham (13:50):
So if this composability does that give
like the opportunities, I guessis that you can scale fast and
quickly, you can plug inwhatever new technology is
available and so forth.
But what is the foundationneeded to build this composable
interface Like how do youstandardize data, how do you
standardize terminology?
So for the do retailers face achallenge with that backend?
Andrew (14:13):
Even though you're building things in an agile way,
you still have to have astrategy and an enterprise
design.
So you know what is the cloud.
The cloud is just a computer insomeone else's data set,
figuring out where your cloud'sgoing to be, what's your
infrastructure, how you're goingto pass data.
One of the things that soundssimple but you have to get right
is naming standards.
So when the new person looksand understands, they can
(14:34):
understand.
You know, I call it getcustomer.
Everyone on this call knows whatthat means, but you know, if
you're a techie, you might callthat M518-B3.3, right, and so
naming things in plain language,having consistency.
If the module's job was to getmultiple customers, I would name
it get customers Again, simple,but those things really matter.
(14:54):
So it's a technicalarchitecture and design as well
as standard standardization.
Across that, having anenterprise architect on a team
is really key because that's arole that spans the entire
organization and is responsiblefor these things.
And the last thing I'll say andit's so important in business
is to draw the picture.
And draw the picture becausejust being able to see where the
(15:15):
data is flowing, a lot of timesyou'll go oh, this looks like
it's redundant or this is notredundant enough or this could
be a security gap.
So you know, we can talk aboutthese things in the abstract,
but drawing the pictures is alsoreally key.
Gautham (15:27):
So you talk about drawing the pictures, having an
enterprise architect In all ofthe innovative launches that you
have engaged in.
What are the lessons learnedthat can be transferable across
retailers, across industries?
Even that could be somethingthat students and others who are
listeners of ours can take away.
Andrew (15:45):
There's so many lessons learned.
Let's start with there's thisconcept called hard coding.
It's really, it's done a lotand it can't be done.
But, like in our business, wehave three regions.
We have the East and theCentral and the West.
Well, now we just had a reorgand now we have five regions, so
all the reports have to change.
Some of the reports you put inthe new structure and then you
come in the next day and theyall have that.
Some of the reports, the personthat built them hardcoded
(16:06):
region one, region two, regionthree.
So the business changed and nowthe report doesn't work.
So that's a simple example ofhardcoding.
So making sure that you havevariables and understand and
that only happens when peopletake a long-term view and even
understand what can change.
So you know the structure ismalleable.
Even in merchandising it alwayschanges what's in one
department, what's in the other.
(16:28):
So making that variable.
So it's an important lesson andif you're young you may not
know and it's a lot easier tobuild something with hard coding
than creating yet another tableand a database and integration.
Build something with hardcoding, then creating yet
another table and a database andintegration.
But you know, doing it right ismaking it everything with
variables.
Even things like headings couldbe variables.
So if you're going, you know,change the name of that region,
so region one maybe now has anew name instead of it's called
(16:50):
the East, it's called theSoutheast, so things like that.
Having a really good rapportwith your business partners,
because if we're going to builda bridge, we would have very
detailed architecture blueprintsbefore we started and it would
be computer simulated and tested.
But when you're buildingtechnology, software, say a web
app, you don't really know whatyou want.
When you start, you have anidea Until you get in it and get
(17:12):
your hands on it.
Instead of the old days wewould make people sign in blood
that yep, this is the design,and as soon as they wanted a
thing, then you had a changeorder and it was a big process.
So the whole idea of iterativeand agile design is let's get
something up quickly, aprototype, get it in the hands
of the customers, the businesspartners, the product owners,
the user experience people, andsee how it's working, because
what you designed on paper maynot work that well.
(17:34):
You may get stuck here or there.
So that's the other importantthing is have that relationship
and have an iterative process Inthat model.
The later in a project a changeoccurs, the more expensive that
change is A change whensomething's still on paper.
I mean, let's go back toconstruction.
If you're putting in electricaloutlets in your house and you
walk around before they put upthe drywall and you don't like
where they are, it's easy tomove.
(17:54):
But if they've already put inthe drywall and painted and done
the trim work, now you'retearing down the walls to move
the switches.
Gautham (18:01):
So early changes are easier less impactful from a
time and a cost.
That is good.
That is very, very good.
So let's I know that you're nowleading some retail AI council
and so forth.
A lot of talk in retail isabout AI today, and maybe a
couple of years ago it was aboutthe metaverse.
Give us your thoughts onemerging technologies and how
(18:23):
they integrate with retail, andhow can a person who's in the IT
world build that foundation?
Andrew (18:31):
Yeah, so look, it'll be a theme you'll hear from me is
start with the basics.
You know let's define AI, butI'll start with Gen AI.
There are a lot of reallysimple things it can do to help
everybody be more productive,like fixing our grammar and our
spelling.
You know, instead of having AIwrite your email, you might
write the email and drop it toAI and say find some problems
with this.
So really there's no excuseanymore for people that don't
(18:53):
have well-written, especiallyresumes with typos and content.
There's some really excitingthings that we're doing with AI
around diversity, aroundaccessibility.
There's a gentleman on our teamwho's deaf.
All of our meetings are onMicrosoft Teams with
transcription and kind of.
One of the neatest things wasmany people didn't even know, or
don't even know that he's deaf.
You know he reads the words andhe talks and he works just fine
(19:42):
.
And then when we're in person,he can hold up his phone, you
know, and it's translating inreal time.
It's just so neat to see AIbeing used to help someone.
You know work weather data andreally using it to forecast.
It's all about can I get theright thing in the right place
at the right time and ourproducts at the vitamin shop
they expire.
So it's not like milk.
It doesn't expire in a week.
You know, if we don't buyenough, we run out.
(20:03):
If we buy too much, then we'regoing to end up having to get
rid of that at the expirationdate.
And then what if analysis?
You know we can do things liketry a hundred different things
with AI and simulate.
And one of the holy grails thatI'm excited about and just
disclaimer, we're not doing thisyet but it's the idea of a
digital twin.
And a digital twin would be toactually emulate all or part of
(20:24):
your business in a computer.
So back to analogies.
Let's think of the game SimCity.
You know you build a city andthe Sims go to work.
So imagine I can build acomputer model of my entire
supply chain, my distributioncenters, my 700 stores, the
vendors.
Then I can play what-ifanalysis and say well, what
happens if we opened up a secondship?
The cost would go up, but theservice would improve, you know
(20:46):
the sales.
Or what if we decide to open upa high-speed fulfillment in the
Northeast, where we have a lotof customers for e-com?
So now that shipping cost goesdown and the speed to customers,
so maybe sales go up.
So these are all really excitingAI, and so I think the advice
is to get involved, whether it'son the AI council or learning
or reading.
I've had people say, oh no, I'mbehind on AI.
(21:07):
Nobody's behind.
This is so new and evolving soquickly.
Nobody's behind, and we're alllearning together, so this is
really exciting tech.
I'll just end it with, though.
Whether it's the cloud or theinternet or mobile, the AI is
not the end goal.
The end goal is to deliverbetter value to your customers,
right?
So my job is to sell vitamins.
Ai is going to be one of thetools, but my job isn't to
(21:28):
deploy AI.
Just like our constructionworkers, you're not going to ask
them what is this hammerstrategy or drill strategy.
You're going to ask them aboutwhat kind of beautiful house is
going to build for you.
So AI is no different than any.
Well, I guess it's different,but it's still another tool, an
exciting tool.
It's an evolving tool, but it'sjust another tool to help us
serve our customers.
Gautham (21:48):
Well, thank you for bringing it back to customer
centric.
I have one question driven by,and you know Rich and Paul are
going to give me trouble at theend and say, oh, there's another
question.
But you started off talkingabout healthcare and vitamin
shop, launching telehealth.
We talked about AI as anemerging space, but retailers
(22:09):
are also entering intohealthcare and some of them are
retracting as well.
What is your personalperspective on retail and
healthcare intersection and howdo you see retailers help
improve a society's health?
Andrew (22:20):
Yeah, well, health is the example of build a
foundation for your personallife, right?
Without health, what else canyou do?
And so, of course, it's soimportant.
And then consumers are gettingmore and more in tune to that
fact that you know, we used totalk about longevity, now we're
talking about health span, sonot just how long you live, but
how long you can live healthyand be active.
So the vitamin shop's alwaysbeen all about that.
(22:41):
It's our mission for people tolive their best lives, and
however they define it.
And so this was just a naturalextension for us.
Because eating right, exercisewe all know these things but
supplementation helps.
Certainly.
You know, if you don't like toeat fish three times a week, you
can take a fish oil.
And if you aren't eating allthe right mix of vitamins
vegetables you know vegetablesand you won't be getting all the
(23:03):
vitamins you need.
And protein is so important,and we know more and more about,
as we get older, that we needprotein.
Or you're trying to buildmuscle and who isn't trying to
build muscle?
Right?
We all want to be stronger,keep our muscles.
So that's part of it.
And then some of thesepharmaceutical options also just
add on to that, and again it'soptions.
We just want to be able toprovide options for our
(23:23):
customers, so that's what it'sabout.
Gautham (23:26):
And I'm assuming it's options enabled by technology
and supply chain infrastructurethat Vitamin Shop already has,
as well as knowing the customer.
Andrew (23:34):
Yeah, in this case we partnered with a telehealth
expert.
That's another important thing.
Don't try to do everythingyourself, whether it's tech or
business, you know.
Find a partner that is anexpert and bring to bear when
you're good at, and bring youknow what they're good at and
build something sooner.
Gautham (23:48):
So with that, Andy, I'm going to turn it over to the
next part of our conversation,which is on mentorship.
Paula (23:55):
So, Andy, you keep talking about take it to the
basics.
Take it to the basics, which Ilove, right?
Einstein, I think, has a famousquote that says make it as
simple as possible and nosimpler.
Make it as simple as possiblefor a fifth grader to understand
or a five-year-old tounderstand.
Do you think that that is themost important skills for
students and new retailers today?
Andrew (24:19):
One of the skills I think is so important is
curiosity and the drive.
You know, if you're a studentlistening to this and you think
you're going to be done when yougraduate, you know I got some
bad news for you because it's alifelong commitment to learning
and so having that curiosityabout learning and growing and
keeping your skills up I mean,everything I learned in college
is completely obsolete at thispoint.
You know, 30 some years laterand so curiosity and an ambition
to keep learning, I think isthe most important skill.
Rich (24:38):
I want to ask you the question about mentors and if
there's a mentor or mentors thatyou look back to that had a
impact on you.
And I don't necessarily want tocaveat it, but I feel like I'm
speaking with a mastertechnologist and a master
retailer, and I love thatcombination.
So I'll ask if there's someonefrom more of a tech perspective,
(25:00):
an IT perspective, and then isthere a retailer that you
mentored with?
Andrew (25:06):
Yeah, I actually like to answer this a little different
way, if you don't mind.
So you know, my best mentor wasmy father and I have this story
.
I was a young manager and I hada woman on my team who was not
only not performing, she wasactively fighting against a
project we were doing, but therewas a lot of issues.
She had been with the company along, long time.
She the project we were doing,but there was a lot of issues.
(25:29):
She had been with the company along, long time.
She had personal relationshipswith senior executives.
So I didn't know what to doabout this person.
So I asked my dad to go tobreakfast, told him the whole
story and he looked up and hegoes oh, I know the exact thing
you should do.
And I was relieved, right,because I was at my Winston and
he said on Monday you should goto work, you should meet with
your boss and you should quit.
I'm like what are you talkingabout?
Why would I quit?
And he goes well, if you don'thave the guts to do your job,
then you don't deserve to haveit.
And that probably hurt morethan being punched in the chest,
(25:50):
right.
And it was like no nonsense and, believe me, that breakfast
gave me enough courage to go anddo what I had to get done and
change that.
So I think that's probably mybest example.
When you think about technologymentors, it's just the people
that had that curiosity andtaught the fundamentals and
cared about that.
I mean, I can name a few people.
There's a guy named BobClaybrook who became the CIO at
(26:12):
Bed Bath Beyond Now he's aconsultant.
There's a gentleman named KevinVarela.
There's so many people thattaught me at the young age you
know to do things the right way.
Imagine you have a deadline andsomething's promised by Friday
and if you, if you cut thecorner, you're going to make
your deadline and go home, or ifyou don't hard code and you do
things right, you're going toeither work all weekend or
you're going to have to tellsomeone you're going to be late.
Those are hard decisions tomake and a lot of people have to
(26:33):
make these decisions when noone's looking and, truthfully,
no one will find out to.
Maybe six months later, youknow, or three years later, when
they change the three regionsto five and then your stuff
doesn't work because youhardcoded it.
So, learning from people thatyeah, we get you're going to be
late or we get that, but it'smost important to do things the
right way.
Those were important mentorshipthings for me.
Rich (26:53):
So I'll follow up to that.
You said that a lot of thethings you learned in college
are kind of obsolete now andyou're continually learning, and
I agree with you on curiosity.
How do you think students todaycan stand out with everything
that is going on?
Andrew (27:07):
Yeah, I mean, when I look to hire someone, I really
would like someone that workedwhen they were in school.
That really is good for me.
And also there's so much aboutculture and whether we're
working remotely or in an office, there's a lot to learn.
It's not just the textbookstuff, so plus I like that
people are putting in the extraeffort.
It's not just the textbookstuff, so plus I like that
people are putting in the extraeffort.
I'm a big fan of teaching.
You know you're both teachersand professors and I have this
(27:30):
thing that the best way to getgreat at something is to teach
it.
So if I see students that aredoing something you know just
even asking about helping mentorsomeone else or teach a skill
that's really a big positive forme.
If you think you're an expertat something, go try and teach
it, because you'll find out realquickly as you guys know how
much you know or don't knowabout any topic.
Gautham (27:48):
And I have to interject you are a teacher too.
You have a course on projectmanagement, if I remember
correctly right, Exactly thathas been taken by people across
the globe, so I can't even saythat.
Andrew (27:59):
Yeah, now you know, in my personal life I picked up a
little hobby of sailing a coupleyears ago and now I'm teaching
people how to sail.
So even that is an example.
Rich (28:07):
All right.
So let's kick off the rapidfire round.
I'll ask the first question andthen we'll just kind of audible
from here.
Andy, you've given a lot oftalks, I've seen you speak.
Do you have your favoritewalk-on music?
Andrew (28:22):
You know I need to have that.
This speak.
Do you have your favoritewalk-on music?
You know I need to have that.
This is a great idea.
I think there's a song it's anold song by the band called
Sticks, called You're FoolingYourself, you know, and part of
the job is like get up, you know, get going.
So I think that's prettymotivational.
So, yeah, I'm going to go withthat.
Paula (28:37):
All right, let me ask the second one.
So I talked about drink history, so I have to ask this If you
could trade lives with anyhistorical figure, fictional or
real, who would it be and what?
Andrew (28:47):
I'm going to go with Bruce Lee because you know I
think it'd be fun to be that fitand then also I wouldn't mind
beating people up once in awhile.
I'd be kind of just the amountof flexibility and fitness and I
think that would be nice tohave.
It's a good one.
Gautham (29:00):
So what's the most unusual item you've bought or
sold?
Andrew (29:04):
Yeah well, I bought a sailboat that was left for dead.
It was just sitting in some oldgentleman's yard for 20 years
and it looked horrible andsomeone said oh you know, we
didn't even know if it couldfloat, but it was filled with
water.
So logic had it if it's filledwith water it must be able to
float.
So that was pretty unusual, butit's really worked out and been
a lot of joy.
You know everyone jokes aboutboating being expensive, but
(29:27):
when you buy a sailboat for $500, it really is helpful.
By the way, I got involved withthat 500.
Gautham (29:34):
You can sail it, and now you've become an expert
sailor too.
I'm not an expert, but I'mgetting there, so I have to ask
you this Ohio State football yes, all around, I'm a brown in the
ask you this Ohio Statefootball.
Andrew (29:43):
Yes, I'll run Brown and the Cleveland Gardeners
Frequently college team here.
Gautham (29:50):
What do you think is what do you expect them to do
this year?
How do you expect them?
Andrew (29:55):
Ohio State will be in the playoffs.
There's no doubt about it.
I think they're going tocompete pretty handily for the
national championship.
They got three players fromAlabama because when Nick Saban
retired, a lot of the playerswanted out, so they're
definitely loaded.
But it's going to come down tono different than what we do.
Right, is it the right culture,leadership and a little bit of
luck, because you got to makesure key players don't get hurt
(30:16):
and we don't speak much aboutluck, but luck plays an
important role in well, look,amen.
It's just that Football canbalance inbounds or out of
bounds, and sometimes thesegames come down to that.
Gautham (30:26):
Well, Andy, that brings us to the end of our
conversation.
Thank you so much for makingthe time Really, really
appreciate it.
Paula (30:35):
Thank you so much to Andy for joining us.
What a fantastic conversation.
I particularly loved theimportance that Andy placed on
aligning one's skills with theircore identity and focusing on
the broader business perspective.
With that, let me ask GothamRich what do you guys have Well?
Gautham (30:52):
that was a fun conversation and apparently he's
a retailer who knows.
Technology is how he'spositioned himself, and I love
the fact that he talked aboutbuilding things to create value.
Right, there's always acustomer centric focus in
everything, be it building thefoundation credit or be it
(31:13):
building AI tools.
It's all about having thecustomer centric approach and
creating value for the customer.
What did you think about it,rish?
Rich (31:21):
You know, I was struck by several things.
Probably the thing that'ssticking out that I've got at
the top of my notebook is hiscomment about HR.
When he was talking, I thinkPaula had asked him about his
learnings and specifically inthis case, he was using the
example of HR and realizing thatit wasn't just a if I remember
the quote, a department that yougo to when things went wrong.
If I remember the quote, adepartment that you go to when
(31:43):
things went wrong.
He now looks at them as acrucial partner in building the
culture and building his team,which I think that's refreshing
it was really cool to hear himsay that and something that I
look forward to sharing with theaudience.
Gautham (32:01):
Yeah, and extending that, he talked about this
notion of partnershipsthroughout right.
Even when he talked aboutbuilding things, he said well,
you don't have to buildeverything, you don't have to be
the expert, be an expert atsome of the things and then
build things togethersynergistically.
So this notion of partnershipsand building things for a
greater group or collectiveseems to be central to efforts
(32:24):
that he engages in.
I am curious how do you seepartnerships play out in retail?
Rich (32:29):
I think they're crucial and I think what happens is it's
not easy.
I've been in cultures wherethere are definitely these silos
.
There are these invisiblebarriers that prevent you from
getting things done andsometimes being almost
counterproductive.
I've seen other situations andthankfully I feel like I'm in
(32:50):
one right now where you havegood cross-functional
partnerships.
In my case, what it allows foris a trust in your partner where
you don't feel like you've gotto double check everything
that's going on.
There's a trust level there.
I won't go into it, but I couldprobably develop a couple of
(33:13):
case studies where I've been inorganizations where that lack of
transparency and that siloedculture has brought companies
down.
Gautham (33:18):
Yeah, and think about his roles.
It's not just task functionalwithin the company, right Supply
chain, technology,infrastructure.
These span organizations.
It's a tough challenge to kindof get everyone aligned to build
these collaborative efforts.
Rich (33:36):
I enjoyed listening to the practical way in which he
discussed the building blocks oftech and I think he said, if I
remember it, it was that AI wasnot the end state, it was just a
tool to get you there.
And so he definitely has thatand I'm halfway through his book
right now.
He definitely has that morethoughtful, meaningful approach
(34:01):
to the way that he builds things, so you could see him almost
building a tech stack and a teamand collaborative relationships
in that same thoughtful way.
Gautham (34:11):
Yeah, and on that point , though, like his conversation
about these composable commerce,building those Lego blocks that
you can add and build to scaleand allow you the flexibility.
I think that's an importanttakeaway for students, as they
are our audience, as they gointo retail and figure out how
to build new applications,because that's going to pop up
(34:33):
ever so often.
I want to get your perspectiveon his conversations.
It was on more of the personalside, right, when he talked
about curiosity and ambitionbeing critical to survive into
then talking about howtechnology gets outdated so
quickly.
What's your sense of howimportant these two elements are
(34:55):
in what defines success?
We've heard this being said, Ithink, by almost every speaker
up until now.
Right, curiosity, you need tohave that continuous learning
ability.
Rich (35:07):
I think it's.
I mean for me, I would.
I would rate it as, if not thetop skill, one of the top three
skill sets that I'm looking for,because somebody can learn
about a technology, or they canlearn a particular how to buy a
certain category or how to doplanning, whatever the aspect is
(35:28):
in retail.
But if you're not curious, ifyou're not out in stores and
talking to customers, if you'renot looking at what's new from a
style perspective, if thereisn't that something driving you
, I'll tell you right now.
What makes me nervous is when Ihear those in the industry that
are avoiding AI and they almosthave this shunning.
(35:50):
If that's grammatically correct, the professor will have to
correct me, but it's this.
Well, I'm not going to look atit right now, at least be
curious about it enough to playaround with it and to see what
it's capable of doing.
And those are.
You know.
That scares me.
Gautham (36:05):
Yeah, I mean like as a professor, I will say that the
most important thing is to beable to play around with things
and figure it out and not beafraid of making mistakes.
Right, and I love when Andysaid like when people say, oh
it's, has a ship sail, he saidlike no, we're all learning
right.
And it's just that attitude andyou've got to just jump in at
(36:26):
some point and start learning.
Rich (36:28):
And it's interesting in the 360-degree view or
perspective of all the gueststhat we've had on the show.
I don't know that we've hadsomebody that has been purely
focused on building cultures.
Everybody has, to a certainextent, andy's someone you'd
love to have on the team.
I see why you had him as partof the Retail Transformation
Center.
Gautham (36:47):
Yeah, and he's very reliable, very funny and knows
his stuff right, like he knowshis stuff and all those other
things, the intangibles.
I found it very interestingwhen he talked about failures
and he brought up the story ofhis father and the lesson that
he learned from his dad onfailures and actually just doing
your job Right, and I find thisas another common theme amongst
(37:10):
almost all of our podcastmembers is then the family and
important mentors that come intoplay to shape them at early
stages.
Rich (37:20):
Yeah, I would agree with that, and different people will
embrace failure in differentways.
Some will openly accept it andsome will sit there and kind of
perseverate and learn over it.
But everybody, almost to aperson, has drawn valuable
lessons and not ignored it.
The leaders that pretend likethey never fail, those are the
ones we have to be worried about.
Gautham (37:42):
And I like the lesson there right and just do your job
right.
Rich (37:45):
That's a very good lesson for anyone at any point of time
it is and especially thisaudience All right.
Well, I know that Paula had todrop off, so on Paula's behalf,
gautam great to see you, asalways.
Want to thank Andy Lodato forjoining us on Retail Relates
another fantastic guest andhopefully everybody learns a lot
(38:08):
and until next time, weappreciate you tuning in.
Gautham (38:15):
Thank you.
The vitamin shop has over 4,000 people that work for it.
It has over 700 locations injust the United States and is
about over a billion dollars inrevenue a year.
So Andy has a lot on his plateas the COO.
And, in case that wasn't enough, he also is the author of a
best-selling book, FosteringInnovation how to Build an
(00:21):
Amazing IT Team.
So stay tuned.
We're about to have a fantasticconversation with Andy about
his responsibilities and how hegot to where he is and what he
looks for and what he utilizesto be a top executive.
Stay tuned.
Gautham (00:34):
Well, my retail behavior.
I'm excited for you to interactwith Andy.
Andy and I have known eachother for several years now as
part of the retail center that Ilaunched at Mason, and I love
him for the person he is.
I've learned from him on bothleadership style as well as from
(00:56):
what a retailer needs to do tobuild other technology
infrastructure.
So I look forward to thisconversation and to see how he
positions himself as a retailerwho knows technology or as a
technologist who works in retail.
Rich (01:09):
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this one as well.
I know Andy from a businessperspective at Vitamin Shoppe
and I've had the opportunity tobe at a couple of conferences
with him and listen to him speak, and I love the fact that
obviously he's an expert when itcomes to tech and operations,
but I can tell in a couple ofinteractions that I've had with
(01:30):
him that he genuinely lovesretail in general.
So I look forward to hopefullygetting into that part of the
conversation.
Gautham (01:37):
I was also like in my online interactions with him
whenever I said hey, andy, Ineed some advice.
He's always ready to give itlike he'll make time,
irrespective of where he is whathe's doing, so it's an
important aspect of him that Iappreciate as well and I've
tried to build into myself.
Rich (01:54):
All right.
Well, let's go ahead and getstarted.
Paula (01:56):
Andrew Lodato currently serves as the chief operating
officer at the Vitamin Shop.
In this role, he leadsoperations across e-commerce,
information technology,enterprise project management,
supply chain planning andallocation, strategic sourcing
and scientific and regulatoryaffairs.
Since joining Vitamin Shop,andrew has helped launch a new
technology-driven retail format,introduced personalization
(02:18):
initiatives and driven processspeed and efficiency gains
across the supply chain.
Mr Lodato was Chief InformationOfficer at Brookdale Senior
Living.
Prior to Brookdale, he spent 16years as Chief Information
Officer at Pure One Imports,where he directed technology
transformation across all areasof the business.
Mr Lodato is a past chair ofthe National Retail Federation's
(02:39):
CIO Council.
Andrew, welcome to RetailRelates.
We're very excited to have youhere.
Thank you, itilled to be here.
Gautham (02:45):
Andy, we all have access to your resume, but can
you talk about three pivotalmoments in your career?
How have you got to where youare?
Where do you see yourself going?
Andrew (02:55):
Sure, I'll start back when I was in college and I went
to school for electricalengineering, and the reason I
did that was because at the time, you know, someone said, hey,
electrical engineers make goodmoney and I was good at math.
So I spent a year and a half incollege doing a lot of math and
learning about circuits until Ifinally asked kind of a basic
question which was hey, what doelectrical engineers do all day
(03:17):
anyway, and I really didn't likethe answer.
You know I'm more of a peopleperson and so you know I decided
that I need to switch, and thenI switched my career to
computer information systems soI could be more involved.
So obviously kind of silly notto ask that question before I
went to school, but shame on me.
And once I got the answer Ipivoted.
I always, when I do talk tostudents, think about hey, do
(03:39):
you really understand what isthe career going into?
The next big pivotal moment forme I was working at the Limited.
That was a big apparel retailer, and they decided to start a
new company, which everyone'sheard of, bath Body Works, and
so I was one of the firstemployees ever at Bath Body
Works.
So we were a little startupinside of a large corporation.
(04:00):
Because I was involved in everyaspect of the business and at a
young age, getting to spendtime with the CEO and the CFO, I
really had a mindset shift.
I thought of myself as atechnology expert that happened
to work in retail.
But as I learned more about thebusiness, I flipped and said
you know, I really am a abusiness person, a retailer
first, and then my skills,whatever they are, be it supply
chain or technology, you knowthose are secondary to doing the
(04:30):
job.
So that was a big pivotalmoment that for me.
Fortunately, I learned at apretty young age and then, more
recently, I was a peer one doinga nice job there.
I was a CIO for 16 years.
I was in a nice, comfortablegroup, but I decided to make a
change just because I felt likeI had nothing more to offer the
company and I probably wouldn'tgrow anymore if I stayed there
for the rest of my career.
(04:50):
So I actually left retail for abrief moment, went into senior
living, moved to a new city andreally found an area that I
could push myself and grow.
I ended up pretty quicklygetting back to retail, coming
to the vitamin shop, deciding tomake that move and it was again
a place I was comfortable andhappy, but I had that inner
ambition to push myself to thenew heights.
Rich (05:12):
I'm going to jump in and just ask what did you miss about
retail?
Andrew (05:17):
I missed the community.
You know we've known each otherthrough charity events and the
community and I was soentrenched outside of my day job
and the whole community so Imissed that.
But I also missed how rapidlythings change, which is funny
because people I meet in otherindustries I think that would
drive them crazy.
But what's the top prioritytoday?
You may come into work tomorrowand that's not the top priority
(05:37):
anymore.
So there's a lot of thingscoming at us in different angles
.
I don't know how many peoplerealize it, but retailers are
very innovative because we haveto be, because consumers are
very demanding.
So being in that senior living,it was a lot more slow paced
and steady.
So the energy, the excitementand the chaos I missed all of
that.
Gautham (05:54):
So you said retailers are innovative, and you've been
with the retail for 20 plusyears at least, so what's the
most innovative, most excitingthing that you worked on in your
career?
Andrew (06:06):
Yeah.
So you know, I don't know we'regiving our ages up, but I
started working before we hadthe internet, before we had even
email, before we had mobile.
So retail was pretty much thesame from 2000 BC to 1980.
I mean, if you go back andpeople got together in a market
and you know, from Trahan'smarket to the Silk Road, so you
think about the Mall of America,it's not much different than
(06:27):
what we had in Rome, it's not.
It's just, you know, merchantsselling their wares and people
going to that area, but all thistechnology just dramatically
changed it and it's been such afun ride.
From a project perspective, youknow I was part of a big team
with a leading role that builtPureOnecom and we took that from
zero to nearly half a billiondollars in revenue and you know.
(06:50):
So that was really probablyexciting.
But even now I'm working on areally exciting project.
We just launched the VitaminShop, full Health RX, which is a
telehealth program.
So we're now healthcareadjacent at the Vitamin Shop.
So you know I can go on and on.
But there's been littleprojects, big projects,
regardless of what you'redelivering, what you're building
, any project where a team comestogether, you're working really
(07:10):
hard and you're doing somethingcool.
Those are all my things I wouldsay are rewarding.
Paula (07:14):
Yeah, so we were talking about your background rewarding,
so what would you say?
It's often said that failure isa better teacher, right, and we
all talk about our successes.
Is there any lesson you learnedfrom failure that you'd like to
share with us or our audienceas a way of learning?
Andrew (07:30):
Yeah, I think we talked about that.
I wrote a book and my book'sjust a collection of here's
where I screwed up.
Here's a lesson I learned andhere's how you can avoid it.
I think one of my biggestmistakes in my career early on
was I thought of the humanresources department as my enemy
, kind of a group of people youknow.
And that's when, like in thelate 90s, when IT was really
expensive and things werechanging, it was hard to hire
(07:51):
people, salaries, so you know, Ithought of HR as the place you
went when someone made a mistakeor they were doing something
wrong or someone you know wasn'tperforming.
But so I always saw the HRpeople coming and kind of ducked
and hid or that.
But I learned pretty quickly bywatching others that the most
important thing we have asleaders is our teams and so
human resources.
I hate that phrase, they'repeople, but those are the most
(08:13):
important resources.
Any company, and especiallyretail, that has a lot of people
.
So really learning to embracemy partners in the beginning and
help build culture and driveengagement learning ending and
help build culture and driveengagement learning.
So I've done a 180 on that,from kind of thinking HR was the
enemy to saying the mostimportant business partner that
you can have as a leader is yourhuman resources partner.
Rich (08:33):
Yeah, I'll jump in with that, and I don't so much have a
question, it's just moreapplause.
I think one of the challengesthat we have in any organization
but we have it in retail iswhen you have one group or one
silo that will look at the othersilo as an enemy or not
necessarily as a partner, andhopefully that's one of the
things that we can do withtechnology and better
communication is to bridge that.
(08:54):
I would say that's a verysuccessful lesson learned for
anybody listening and since Ihave this as my catchphrase, I'm
using that as a note and takingit back to my leadership team.
Gautham (09:03):
So I saw you hold a cup of coffee or whatever you're
drinking.
Do you want to mention a littlebit about your leadership
policy and your philosophy aspertaining to that coffee mug
right there?
Andrew (09:17):
Yeah.
So speaking of phrases, I'vetrademarked this phrase called
be a diode, and I guess thatstems from my electrical
engineering training.
But a diode is an electroniccomponent.
It's actually in our computersand our phones and what it does
is it allows electricity to flowfreely in one direction, but it
completely blocks it in theother direction.
The analogy to leadership is asa leader, anytime there's a
(09:40):
problem, a complaint, someoneangry, it's your job to stop
that.
So you protect your team fromall that noise and you take it.
You know you're the leader,you're responsible, no matter
what happened and who did what.
You're responsible.
And on the flip side, allpraise, compliments and positive
shield right through you to theteam.
So when things go well, youneed to say, hey, the team did
(10:01):
it.
So the analogy is a diode islet the praise flow freely and
let the noise stop at you.
Gautham (10:08):
I had to ask that when I saw the article, that was a
phrase that stood with meAvailable to purchase on
andrewlodatocom.
And see, he's a good marketeras well.
Andrew is the jack of alltrades.
So, Andrew, with that said,we're going to shift to the
lesson from this podcast, whichis basically talking to our
(10:28):
audience, which is collegestudents and early career
professionals, on your area ofexpertise.
Now.
You spent decades buildingtechnology infrastructure, so we
thought that this would be atopic of expertise, although I
know that you've done dabble inalmost every aspect of the
business function.
So I've read your book yourbook is right there on my
bookshelf multiple times and oneof the phrases that stood out
(10:51):
to me a lot was to build thefoundation to pour concrete, as
you sometimes have said.
Talk about pouring concretefrom an IT infrastructure
perspective.
What are the essentials?
How does a retailer build thatfoundation that is going to
stand the test of time,especially given you said that
retail is extremely dynamic?
Andrew (11:11):
Yeah, for sure.
I have a lot of passion aroundthis, and the analogy is if
you're going to build a bigbuilding, what do they do?
They dig a big hole and fill itwith concrete, right, it
becomes a foundation.
And you've seen buildings wherethey didn't do that right and
they're either tipping over orthey fall over or collapse.
So any system infrastructurehas to be built on a firm
foundation.
This is security first andnetwork, and the phrase that we
(11:33):
like to use is KTLO.
Keep the lights on this is theemails emailing and the payments
happening and receipts, andthat Because when you're running
an IT organization, these arethe things that can get you in
trouble and they can take yourenergy and time and resources
away from doing the innovation.
Having that foundation is keyto every single thing, every
(11:54):
other thing that you do, andwhen things are going smoothly,
you can make them moreaffordable.
I have a phrase you know get itright and then get it cheap.
So you get things runningsmoothly, you can optimize it,
fine tune it and then pivot yourteam to get to work on growing
the business and the innovation.
So super important, I think,too often overlooked or not
discussed, so I'm glad youbrought it up.
As far as flexibility, you know,we're really moving away from
(12:17):
monoliths in tech to buildingblocks, so the technical phrase
would be an API or amicroservice.
The simple analogy is a box ofLegos.
So we're not buying thecompleted Millennium Falcon,
we're buying the pieces, parts,right, and the Legos then can be
reassembled.
What that means in retail is wemay have an API, a programming
interface called Get Customer.
So instead of every singlesystem having a copy of customer
(12:40):
data or having theirintegration, now you've got that
one that goes to your centraldatabase you have another one
called Update Order.
Now you're placing an order inthe store, on a phone call, on a
website, you click the UpdateOrder right, and now you have
that same thing.
So once you have all thisassembly, imagine you have a
whole new idea like oh, I wantto watch TV and click on the
vitamin and buy it.
(13:00):
All that's possible if I havethe customer data, the order
data, the transactional.
I have a new interface, but allthat backend stuff will work.
So what we build and arecontinuing to build at the
vitamin shop is this collectionof these building blocks it's
called composable that we cansnap together to do traditional
things like a website andnon-traditional things that we
(13:20):
can't even imagine right now.
Paula (13:22):
That's really funny that you say that, because the other
day I was watching Drunk History, which is educational, so I'm
not afraid to share that.
But they were talking aboutFord assembly line that we
(13:44):
started out with, so thank youfor highlighting that and making
it.
Just drawing that picture, yeahof course, andy.
Gautham (13:50):
So if this composability does that give
like the opportunities, I guessis that you can scale fast and
quickly, you can plug inwhatever new technology is
available and so forth.
But what is the foundationneeded to build this composable
interface Like how do youstandardize data, how do you
standardize terminology?
So for the do retailers face achallenge with that backend?
Andrew (14:13):
Even though you're building things in an agile way,
you still have to have astrategy and an enterprise
design.
So you know what is the cloud.
The cloud is just a computer insomeone else's data set,
figuring out where your cloud'sgoing to be, what's your
infrastructure, how you're goingto pass data.
One of the things that soundssimple but you have to get right
is naming standards.
So when the new person looksand understands, they can
(14:34):
understand.
You know, I call it getcustomer.
Everyone on this call knows whatthat means, but you know, if
you're a techie, you might callthat M518-B3.3, right, and so
naming things in plain language,having consistency.
If the module's job was to getmultiple customers, I would name
it get customers Again, simple,but those things really matter.
(14:54):
So it's a technicalarchitecture and design as well
as standard standardization.
Across that, having anenterprise architect on a team
is really key because that's arole that spans the entire
organization and is responsiblefor these things.
And the last thing I'll say andit's so important in business
is to draw the picture.
And draw the picture becausejust being able to see where the
(15:15):
data is flowing, a lot of timesyou'll go oh, this looks like
it's redundant or this is notredundant enough or this could
be a security gap.
So you know, we can talk aboutthese things in the abstract,
but drawing the pictures is alsoreally key.
Gautham (15:27):
So you talk about drawing the pictures, having an
enterprise architect In all ofthe innovative launches that you
have engaged in.
What are the lessons learnedthat can be transferable across
retailers, across industries?
Even that could be somethingthat students and others who are
listeners of ours can take away.
Andrew (15:45):
There's so many lessons learned.
Let's start with there's thisconcept called hard coding.
It's really, it's done a lotand it can't be done.
But, like in our business, wehave three regions.
We have the East and theCentral and the West.
Well, now we just had a reorgand now we have five regions, so
all the reports have to change.
Some of the reports you put inthe new structure and then you
come in the next day and theyall have that.
Some of the reports, the personthat built them hardcoded
(16:06):
region one, region two, regionthree.
So the business changed and nowthe report doesn't work.
So that's a simple example ofhardcoding.
So making sure that you havevariables and understand and
that only happens when peopletake a long-term view and even
understand what can change.
So you know the structure ismalleable.
Even in merchandising it alwayschanges what's in one
department, what's in the other.
(16:28):
So making that variable.
So it's an important lesson andif you're young you may not
know and it's a lot easier tobuild something with hard coding
than creating yet another tableand a database and integration.
Build something with hardcoding, then creating yet
another table and a database andintegration.
But you know, doing it right ismaking it everything with
variables.
Even things like headings couldbe variables.
So if you're going, you know,change the name of that region,
so region one maybe now has anew name instead of it's called
(16:50):
the East, it's called theSoutheast, so things like that.
Having a really good rapportwith your business partners,
because if we're going to builda bridge, we would have very
detailed architecture blueprintsbefore we started and it would
be computer simulated and tested.
But when you're buildingtechnology, software, say a web
app, you don't really know whatyou want.
When you start, you have anidea Until you get in it and get
(17:12):
your hands on it.
Instead of the old days wewould make people sign in blood
that yep, this is the design,and as soon as they wanted a
thing, then you had a changeorder and it was a big process.
So the whole idea of iterativeand agile design is let's get
something up quickly, aprototype, get it in the hands
of the customers, the businesspartners, the product owners,
the user experience people, andsee how it's working, because
what you designed on paper maynot work that well.
(17:34):
You may get stuck here or there.
So that's the other importantthing is have that relationship
and have an iterative process Inthat model.
The later in a project a changeoccurs, the more expensive that
change is A change whensomething's still on paper.
I mean, let's go back toconstruction.
If you're putting in electricaloutlets in your house and you
walk around before they put upthe drywall and you don't like
where they are, it's easy tomove.
(17:54):
But if they've already put inthe drywall and painted and done
the trim work, now you'retearing down the walls to move
the switches.
Gautham (18:01):
So early changes are easier less impactful from a
time and a cost.
That is good.
That is very, very good.
So let's I know that you're nowleading some retail AI council
and so forth.
A lot of talk in retail isabout AI today, and maybe a
couple of years ago it was aboutthe metaverse.
Give us your thoughts onemerging technologies and how
(18:23):
they integrate with retail, andhow can a person who's in the IT
world build that foundation?
Andrew (18:31):
Yeah, so look, it'll be a theme you'll hear from me is
start with the basics.
You know let's define AI, butI'll start with Gen AI.
There are a lot of reallysimple things it can do to help
everybody be more productive,like fixing our grammar and our
spelling.
You know, instead of having AIwrite your email, you might
write the email and drop it toAI and say find some problems
with this.
So really there's no excuseanymore for people that don't
(18:53):
have well-written, especiallyresumes with typos and content.
There's some really excitingthings that we're doing with AI
around diversity, aroundaccessibility.
There's a gentleman on our teamwho's deaf.
All of our meetings are onMicrosoft Teams with
transcription and kind of.
One of the neatest things wasmany people didn't even know, or
don't even know that he's deaf.
You know he reads the words andhe talks and he works just fine
(19:42):
.
And then when we're in person,he can hold up his phone, you
know, and it's translating inreal time.
It's just so neat to see AIbeing used to help someone.
You know work weather data andreally using it to forecast.
It's all about can I get theright thing in the right place
at the right time and ourproducts at the vitamin shop
they expire.
So it's not like milk.
It doesn't expire in a week.
You know, if we don't buyenough, we run out.
(20:03):
If we buy too much, then we'regoing to end up having to get
rid of that at the expirationdate.
And then what if analysis?
You know we can do things liketry a hundred different things
with AI and simulate.
And one of the holy grails thatI'm excited about and just
disclaimer, we're not doing thisyet but it's the idea of a
digital twin.
And a digital twin would be toactually emulate all or part of
(20:24):
your business in a computer.
So back to analogies.
Let's think of the game SimCity.
You know you build a city andthe Sims go to work.
So imagine I can build acomputer model of my entire
supply chain, my distributioncenters, my 700 stores, the
vendors.
Then I can play what-ifanalysis and say well, what
happens if we opened up a secondship?
The cost would go up, but theservice would improve, you know
(20:46):
the sales.
Or what if we decide to open upa high-speed fulfillment in the
Northeast, where we have a lotof customers for e-com?
So now that shipping cost goesdown and the speed to customers,
so maybe sales go up.
So these are all really excitingAI, and so I think the advice
is to get involved, whether it'son the AI council or learning
or reading.
I've had people say, oh no, I'mbehind on AI.
(21:07):
Nobody's behind.
This is so new and evolving soquickly.
Nobody's behind, and we're alllearning together, so this is
really exciting tech.
I'll just end it with, though.
Whether it's the cloud or theinternet or mobile, the AI is
not the end goal.
The end goal is to deliverbetter value to your customers,
right?
So my job is to sell vitamins.
Ai is going to be one of thetools, but my job isn't to
(21:28):
deploy AI.
Just like our constructionworkers, you're not going to ask
them what is this hammerstrategy or drill strategy.
You're going to ask them aboutwhat kind of beautiful house is
going to build for you.
So AI is no different than any.
Well, I guess it's different,but it's still another tool, an
exciting tool.
It's an evolving tool, but it'sjust another tool to help us
serve our customers.
Gautham (21:48):
Well, thank you for bringing it back to customer
centric.
I have one question driven by,and you know Rich and Paul are
going to give me trouble at theend and say, oh, there's another
question.
But you started off talkingabout healthcare and vitamin
shop, launching telehealth.
We talked about AI as anemerging space, but retailers
(22:09):
are also entering intohealthcare and some of them are
retracting as well.
What is your personalperspective on retail and
healthcare intersection and howdo you see retailers help
improve a society's health?
Andrew (22:20):
Yeah, well, health is the example of build a
foundation for your personallife, right?
Without health, what else canyou do?
And so, of course, it's soimportant.
And then consumers are gettingmore and more in tune to that
fact that you know, we used totalk about longevity, now we're
talking about health span, sonot just how long you live, but
how long you can live healthyand be active.
So the vitamin shop's alwaysbeen all about that.
(22:41):
It's our mission for people tolive their best lives, and
however they define it.
And so this was just a naturalextension for us.
Because eating right, exercisewe all know these things but
supplementation helps.
Certainly.
You know, if you don't like toeat fish three times a week, you
can take a fish oil.
And if you aren't eating allthe right mix of vitamins
vegetables you know vegetablesand you won't be getting all the
(23:03):
vitamins you need.
And protein is so important,and we know more and more about,
as we get older, that we needprotein.
Or you're trying to buildmuscle and who isn't trying to
build muscle?
Right?
We all want to be stronger,keep our muscles.
So that's part of it.
And then some of thesepharmaceutical options also just
add on to that, and again it'soptions.
We just want to be able toprovide options for our
(23:23):
customers, so that's what it'sabout.
Gautham (23:26):
And I'm assuming it's options enabled by technology
and supply chain infrastructurethat Vitamin Shop already has,
as well as knowing the customer.
Andrew (23:34):
Yeah, in this case we partnered with a telehealth
expert.
That's another important thing.
Don't try to do everythingyourself, whether it's tech or
business, you know.
Find a partner that is anexpert and bring to bear when
you're good at, and bring youknow what they're good at and
build something sooner.
Gautham (23:48):
So with that, Andy, I'm going to turn it over to the
next part of our conversation,which is on mentorship.
Paula (23:55):
So, Andy, you keep talking about take it to the
basics.
Take it to the basics, which Ilove, right?
Einstein, I think, has a famousquote that says make it as
simple as possible and nosimpler.
Make it as simple as possiblefor a fifth grader to understand
or a five-year-old tounderstand.
Do you think that that is themost important skills for
students and new retailers today?
Andrew (24:19):
One of the skills I think is so important is
curiosity and the drive.
You know, if you're a studentlistening to this and you think
you're going to be done when yougraduate, you know I got some
bad news for you because it's alifelong commitment to learning
and so having that curiosityabout learning and growing and
keeping your skills up I mean,everything I learned in college
is completely obsolete at thispoint.
You know, 30 some years laterand so curiosity and an ambition
to keep learning, I think isthe most important skill.
Rich (24:38):
I want to ask you the question about mentors and if
there's a mentor or mentors thatyou look back to that had a
impact on you.
And I don't necessarily want tocaveat it, but I feel like I'm
speaking with a mastertechnologist and a master
retailer, and I love thatcombination.
So I'll ask if there's someonefrom more of a tech perspective,
(25:00):
an IT perspective, and then isthere a retailer that you
mentored with?
Andrew (25:06):
Yeah, I actually like to answer this a little different
way, if you don't mind.
So you know, my best mentor wasmy father and I have this story
.
I was a young manager and I hada woman on my team who was not
only not performing, she wasactively fighting against a
project we were doing, but therewas a lot of issues.
She had been with the company along, long time.
She the project we were doing,but there was a lot of issues.
(25:29):
She had been with the company along, long time.
She had personal relationshipswith senior executives.
So I didn't know what to doabout this person.
So I asked my dad to go tobreakfast, told him the whole
story and he looked up and hegoes oh, I know the exact thing
you should do.
And I was relieved, right,because I was at my Winston and
he said on Monday you should goto work, you should meet with
your boss and you should quit.
I'm like what are you talkingabout?
Why would I quit?
And he goes well, if you don'thave the guts to do your job,
then you don't deserve to haveit.
And that probably hurt morethan being punched in the chest,
(25:50):
right.
And it was like no nonsense and, believe me, that breakfast
gave me enough courage to go anddo what I had to get done and
change that.
So I think that's probably mybest example.
When you think about technologymentors, it's just the people
that had that curiosity andtaught the fundamentals and
cared about that.
I mean, I can name a few people.
There's a guy named BobClaybrook who became the CIO at
(26:12):
Bed Bath Beyond Now he's aconsultant.
There's a gentleman named KevinVarela.
There's so many people thattaught me at the young age you
know to do things the right way.
Imagine you have a deadline andsomething's promised by Friday
and if you, if you cut thecorner, you're going to make
your deadline and go home, or ifyou don't hard code and you do
things right, you're going toeither work all weekend or
you're going to have to tellsomeone you're going to be late.
Those are hard decisions tomake and a lot of people have to
(26:33):
make these decisions when noone's looking and, truthfully,
no one will find out to.
Maybe six months later, youknow, or three years later, when
they change the three regionsto five and then your stuff
doesn't work because youhardcoded it.
So, learning from people thatyeah, we get you're going to be
late or we get that, but it'smost important to do things the
right way.
Those were important mentorshipthings for me.
Rich (26:53):
So I'll follow up to that.
You said that a lot of thethings you learned in college
are kind of obsolete now andyou're continually learning, and
I agree with you on curiosity.
How do you think students todaycan stand out with everything
that is going on?
Andrew (27:07):
Yeah, I mean, when I look to hire someone, I really
would like someone that workedwhen they were in school.
That really is good for me.
And also there's so much aboutculture and whether we're
working remotely or in an office, there's a lot to learn.
It's not just the textbookstuff, so plus I like that
people are putting in the extraeffort.
It's not just the textbookstuff, so plus I like that
people are putting in the extraeffort.
I'm a big fan of teaching.
You know you're both teachersand professors and I have this
(27:30):
thing that the best way to getgreat at something is to teach
it.
So if I see students that aredoing something you know just
even asking about helping mentorsomeone else or teach a skill
that's really a big positive forme.
If you think you're an expertat something, go try and teach
it, because you'll find out realquickly as you guys know how
much you know or don't knowabout any topic.
Gautham (27:48):
And I have to interject you are a teacher too.
You have a course on projectmanagement, if I remember
correctly right, Exactly thathas been taken by people across
the globe, so I can't even saythat.
Andrew (27:59):
Yeah, now you know, in my personal life I picked up a
little hobby of sailing a coupleyears ago and now I'm teaching
people how to sail.
So even that is an example.
Rich (28:07):
All right.
So let's kick off the rapidfire round.
I'll ask the first question andthen we'll just kind of audible
from here.
Andy, you've given a lot oftalks, I've seen you speak.
Do you have your favoritewalk-on music?
Andrew (28:22):
You know I need to have that.
This speak.
Do you have your favoritewalk-on music?
You know I need to have that.
This is a great idea.
I think there's a song it's anold song by the band called
Sticks, called You're FoolingYourself, you know, and part of
the job is like get up, you know, get going.
So I think that's prettymotivational.
So, yeah, I'm going to go withthat.
Paula (28:37):
All right, let me ask the second one.
So I talked about drink history, so I have to ask this If you
could trade lives with anyhistorical figure, fictional or
real, who would it be and what?
Andrew (28:47):
I'm going to go with Bruce Lee because you know I
think it'd be fun to be that fitand then also I wouldn't mind
beating people up once in awhile.
I'd be kind of just the amountof flexibility and fitness and I
think that would be nice tohave.
It's a good one.
Gautham (29:00):
So what's the most unusual item you've bought or
sold?
Andrew (29:04):
Yeah well, I bought a sailboat that was left for dead.
It was just sitting in some oldgentleman's yard for 20 years
and it looked horrible andsomeone said oh you know, we
didn't even know if it couldfloat, but it was filled with
water.
So logic had it if it's filledwith water it must be able to
float.
So that was pretty unusual, butit's really worked out and been
a lot of joy.
You know everyone jokes aboutboating being expensive, but
(29:27):
when you buy a sailboat for $500, it really is helpful.
By the way, I got involved withthat 500.
Gautham (29:34):
You can sail it, and now you've become an expert
sailor too.
I'm not an expert, but I'mgetting there, so I have to ask
you this Ohio State football yes, all around, I'm a brown in the
ask you this Ohio Statefootball.
Andrew (29:43):
Yes, I'll run Brown and the Cleveland Gardeners
Frequently college team here.
Gautham (29:50):
What do you think is what do you expect them to do
this year?
How do you expect them?
Andrew (29:55):
Ohio State will be in the playoffs.
There's no doubt about it.
I think they're going tocompete pretty handily for the
national championship.
They got three players fromAlabama because when Nick Saban
retired, a lot of the playerswanted out, so they're
definitely loaded.
But it's going to come down tono different than what we do.
Right, is it the right culture,leadership and a little bit of
luck, because you got to makesure key players don't get hurt
(30:16):
and we don't speak much aboutluck, but luck plays an
important role in well, look,amen.
It's just that Football canbalance inbounds or out of
bounds, and sometimes thesegames come down to that.
Gautham (30:26):
Well, Andy, that brings us to the end of our
conversation.
Thank you so much for makingthe time Really, really
appreciate it.
Paula (30:35):
Thank you so much to Andy for joining us.
What a fantastic conversation.
I particularly loved theimportance that Andy placed on
aligning one's skills with theircore identity and focusing on
the broader business perspective.
With that, let me ask GothamRich what do you guys have Well?
Gautham (30:52):
that was a fun conversation and apparently he's
a retailer who knows.
Technology is how he'spositioned himself, and I love
the fact that he talked aboutbuilding things to create value.
Right, there's always acustomer centric focus in
everything, be it building thefoundation credit or be it
(31:13):
building AI tools.
It's all about having thecustomer centric approach and
creating value for the customer.
What did you think about it,rish?
Rich (31:21):
You know, I was struck by several things.
Probably the thing that'ssticking out that I've got at
the top of my notebook is hiscomment about HR.
When he was talking, I thinkPaula had asked him about his
learnings and specifically inthis case, he was using the
example of HR and realizing thatit wasn't just a if I remember
the quote, a department that yougo to when things went wrong.
If I remember the quote, adepartment that you go to when
(31:43):
things went wrong.
He now looks at them as acrucial partner in building the
culture and building his team,which I think that's refreshing
it was really cool to hear himsay that and something that I
look forward to sharing with theaudience.
Gautham (32:01):
Yeah, and extending that, he talked about this
notion of partnershipsthroughout right.
Even when he talked aboutbuilding things, he said well,
you don't have to buildeverything, you don't have to be
the expert, be an expert atsome of the things and then
build things togethersynergistically.
So this notion of partnershipsand building things for a
greater group or collectiveseems to be central to efforts
(32:24):
that he engages in.
I am curious how do you seepartnerships play out in retail?
Rich (32:29):
I think they're crucial and I think what happens is it's
not easy.
I've been in cultures wherethere are definitely these silos
.
There are these invisiblebarriers that prevent you from
getting things done andsometimes being almost
counterproductive.
I've seen other situations andthankfully I feel like I'm in
(32:50):
one right now where you havegood cross-functional
partnerships.
In my case, what it allows foris a trust in your partner where
you don't feel like you've gotto double check everything
that's going on.
There's a trust level there.
I won't go into it, but I couldprobably develop a couple of
(33:13):
case studies where I've been inorganizations where that lack of
transparency and that siloedculture has brought companies
down.
Gautham (33:18):
Yeah, and think about his roles.
It's not just task functionalwithin the company, right Supply
chain, technology,infrastructure.
These span organizations.
It's a tough challenge to kindof get everyone aligned to build
these collaborative efforts.
Rich (33:36):
I enjoyed listening to the practical way in which he
discussed the building blocks oftech and I think he said, if I
remember it, it was that AI wasnot the end state, it was just a
tool to get you there.
And so he definitely has thatand I'm halfway through his book
right now.
He definitely has that morethoughtful, meaningful approach
(34:01):
to the way that he builds things, so you could see him almost
building a tech stack and a teamand collaborative relationships
in that same thoughtful way.
Gautham (34:11):
Yeah, and on that point , though, like his conversation
about these composable commerce,building those Lego blocks that
you can add and build to scaleand allow you the flexibility.
I think that's an importanttakeaway for students, as they
are our audience, as they gointo retail and figure out how
to build new applications,because that's going to pop up
(34:33):
ever so often.
I want to get your perspectiveon his conversations.
It was on more of the personalside, right, when he talked
about curiosity and ambitionbeing critical to survive into
then talking about howtechnology gets outdated so
quickly.
What's your sense of howimportant these two elements are
(34:55):
in what defines success?
We've heard this being said, Ithink, by almost every speaker
up until now.
Right, curiosity, you need tohave that continuous learning
ability.
Rich (35:07):
I think it's.
I mean for me, I would.
I would rate it as, if not thetop skill, one of the top three
skill sets that I'm looking for,because somebody can learn
about a technology, or they canlearn a particular how to buy a
certain category or how to doplanning, whatever the aspect is
(35:28):
in retail.
But if you're not curious, ifyou're not out in stores and
talking to customers, if you'renot looking at what's new from a
style perspective, if thereisn't that something driving you
, I'll tell you right now.
What makes me nervous is when Ihear those in the industry that
are avoiding AI and they almosthave this shunning.
(35:50):
If that's grammatically correct, the professor will have to
correct me, but it's this.
Well, I'm not going to look atit right now, at least be
curious about it enough to playaround with it and to see what
it's capable of doing.
And those are.
You know.
That scares me.
Gautham (36:05):
Yeah, I mean like as a professor, I will say that the
most important thing is to beable to play around with things
and figure it out and not beafraid of making mistakes.
Right, and I love when Andysaid like when people say, oh
it's, has a ship sail, he saidlike no, we're all learning
right.
And it's just that attitude andyou've got to just jump in at
(36:26):
some point and start learning.
Rich (36:28):
And it's interesting in the 360-degree view or
perspective of all the gueststhat we've had on the show.
I don't know that we've hadsomebody that has been purely
focused on building cultures.
Everybody has, to a certainextent, andy's someone you'd
love to have on the team.
I see why you had him as partof the Retail Transformation
Center.
Gautham (36:47):
Yeah, and he's very reliable, very funny and knows
his stuff right, like he knowshis stuff and all those other
things, the intangibles.
I found it very interestingwhen he talked about failures
and he brought up the story ofhis father and the lesson that
he learned from his dad onfailures and actually just doing
your job Right, and I find thisas another common theme amongst
(37:10):
almost all of our podcastmembers is then the family and
important mentors that come intoplay to shape them at early
stages.
Rich (37:20):
Yeah, I would agree with that, and different people will
embrace failure in differentways.
Some will openly accept it andsome will sit there and kind of
perseverate and learn over it.
But everybody, almost to aperson, has drawn valuable
lessons and not ignored it.
The leaders that pretend likethey never fail, those are the
ones we have to be worried about.
Gautham (37:42):
And I like the lesson there right and just do your job
right.
Rich (37:45):
That's a very good lesson for anyone at any point of time
it is and especially thisaudience All right.
Well, I know that Paula had todrop off, so on Paula's behalf,
gautam great to see you, asalways.
Want to thank Andy Lodato forjoining us on Retail Relates
another fantastic guest andhopefully everybody learns a lot
(38:08):
and until next time, weappreciate you tuning in.
Gautham (38:15):
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.