ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½

Claire Stewart: Today's LBIdea is to think about AI as a tool that can drive efficiency and innovation for businesses and help current students stand out in the job market.

Our guest today is Dave Allen. Dave is the CEO of Pure Fishing for Sycamore Partners, as well as a Leeds alumnus and Dean's Advisory Board member. He's a turnaround specialist for middle-market private equity portfolio companies and has been in the consumer products industry for over 30 years.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Dave.

Dave Allen: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you, Claire.

Stewart: Awesome. Well, we know you're obviously here at Leeds because you are a great part of the continued work on our board as well as a high-impact alumnus. But for those that don't know you, we'd love to do a little bit of an introduction. So, could you tell us about your background and career trajectory?

Allen: Yeah, of course. I graduated Leeds, I guess before it was actually Leeds, in 1993. So, like a lot of CU students, I came from Southern California, fell in love with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, and went out there. I did not get into the Leeds School of Business originally, so I had to make grades my freshman year to be able to transfer in. But I've spent the first 18 years of my career with Unilever. That took us, sort of, across the globe. And then the last 15 years, I've spent turning around sporting goods companies.

So, we've moved about 14 different times. We've been really fortunate to live in some cool places like New York, LA, London, Park City, and now Charleston. But CEO has always been a really important part of, sort of, my career journey. I got my job originally from the Career Center. So, like a lot of students that were business students in the day, I spent a lot of time in the Career Center interviewing, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get a job with Unilever.

So, I sold soap to independent grocery stores in the state of Colorado, northern New Mexico, and western Kansas, and I think, still to this day, that's the most difficult job that I've ever had. But I definitely owe my career trajectory to my start through the Career Center at Leeds.

Stewart: Amazing, yeah. So, in terms of the role that Leeds and CU ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ played, it really that Career Center was, kind of, connected you with Unilever originally, right?

Allen: Yeah, 100%. So, I've used a lot of different companies from a lot of different industries that came on in. They do flights, I think, of either 13 or 26 interviews, sort of, per day. I went in, was fortunate enough to get a couple of different offers, like the Unilever offer, and they ended up being just a great employer, and were wonderful to me and my family, and gave me a lot of good experience that I was able to build on for what I do now with turning around companies.

Stewart: Absolutely. So, like you mentioned, you've, kind of, become a specialist for this turnaround work for middle-market private equity companies. When you take the helm of a company that needs a strategic pivot, what are the first few things that you evaluate to determine what's working and what isn't?

Allen: From a strategy perspective, the thing that we're always taught at Unilever was, sort of, three things, cut costs, build brands, and then develop culture. So, if you take each of those, sort of, independently, cut costs, people always look at costs as a real negative, whereas I look at it as a positive.

So, it's we try and take costs out that are invisible to either the consumer or our customers. So, how do we do things more efficiently? We then take that money, and then we dump it right back into the brand. So, typically, the things that I go and turn around are brands that are wonderful brands that have just been underloved for a while, so that means either they haven't had much innovation, or they haven't had much marketing support. And so, then we dump that money back into brand building and innovation.

And then lastly, culture is very much part of our strategy. So, we want to make it a great place to work, a great place for people to go and build their careers. And so, we spend a lot of time on really defining our values, what makes us different, because ultimately, people can copy our strategy, but it's really difficult to be able to copy our culture, so we spend a lot of time there.

And then the last thing is really, sort of, talent assessment. Typically, when I go in, as I mentioned, they're quite often businesses that are in pretty dire need, so I'll typically replace most of the senior leadership team. The thing that's really interesting, usually what I find is, sort of, below that level, people at the director, people at the VP level, you know, are there, and they've been there during successful times, and it's really just about listening and asking them, "Hey, what did you used to do when this was so successful?"

And usually, it was a person that told them, "Stop doing this," or "Stop doing that." And so, oftentimes it's actually quite easy. It's just being able to listen about what made these brands and businesses so great in the past and then bringing those things back. And the beauty of what I do is, if you do the right things with these great brands, is that consumers will come running right back to you and give you a big bear hug and almost act like they haven't left, so you can turn them around pretty quickly, which is fun.

Stewart: Yeah, that's awesome. So, having 30 years in consumer products industry, what are some of the biggest industry shifts that you've seen, and how have you approached them and integrated any of those into your organizations?

Allen: Yeah, far and away the biggest shift that we've seen, at least in consumer products, is really the advent of social media. So, if you think about before how we reached people, it was really through, sort of, endemic media. So, if we were trying to reach somebody in a specific industry, we'd typically do that through TV. We'd do it through things like magazines, periodicals. You could really reach a pretty concentrated audience at that point.

Now, that audience is really fractured through social media, which is both good and bad. So, if you think about the business that I'm in now, you know, we have a lot of fishing brands. We own about 35 different fishing brands. Fishing is hyper-local, so how you go, and fish and what you fish for in Colorado is quite a bit different than what you fish for here in South Carolina.

So, we leverage our combination of our pro staff, all of our captains, and then what we call our select anglers to be able to go and then address all those specific fisheries, and then stay very, very local, because scale, like, has its positives and its negatives for us, we have to stay really nimble, because the barrier to entry on social media is so low. Like, if you have a cell phone, you know, you can have a voice. And so, it forces us to be very nimble, and if you think about how we deliver to different audiences, the audience for TikTok is quite a bit different than an audience for Facebook, using probably the two most opposites.

So, for that, we need to be able to go and then reach those people, but it allows us to be able to reach really small, like very micro-targeted niche audiences. So, for us, it's very, very effective. But it has caused a really big shift in terms of how we go to market with all of our brands.

Stewart: That's awesome. Well, talking about changes in the market, obviously AI has been a huge change for all businesses, and we're seeing how each business and each business leader is evolving with that. So, how are you thinking about AI as a business leader, and what are the challenges and opportunities that you see?

Allen: Yeah. So, AI is a huge seismic shift in terms of everything that we're doing. Initially, when we really thought about AI, I thought it would really replace a lot of jobs. That was a lot of the hype and the buzz, sort of, 18 months ago, that it would go in, replace all these jobs, and just lead to all these SG&A savings. And it's really turned out not to be the case. And instead, what we found is that, you know, it drives a lot of efficiency, so that our people can really focus on tasks that are more meaningful, where they can add more value, which is wonderful to be able to go and see.

Stewart: That's awesome. Yeah, so what would your advice be to current students and graduates? I know you've worked closely with some Leeds students, which I want to ask about in a minute. But for current students right now that may be intimidated by AI and the implications on their industry, what advice would you give to them?

Allen: Yeah, somewhat similar. Probably 18 months ago, I think students thought, "Oh no, we're really, sort of, screwed because AI's going to take all of our jobs, and then it's definitely going to take entry-level jobs." And that hasn't been the case. You know, and instead, I would encourage people to think about AI as a real gift.

So, they've grown up with AI in a way that, you know, you and I haven't, right? So, they've thought about AI in terms of how they approach everything, probably since even the tail end of high school, for the batch of seniors that we have right now. And if you take a look at it, you know, if you're probably over 26 or 27 years old, you might as well be 50, because you really haven't used the tool that often.

And so, I think their ability to be able to take it, solve problems, but also be able to go and then teach a whole generation of people within an organization how to use it, how to leverage it, will give them a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace. So, I think it's a real gift. I think they have to look at it to be able to say, "Hey, how can I get experiences to be able to demonstrate my ability?"

And hopefully some of the experiential learning and some of the opportunities that we've been able to provide through our internships have been useful in that regard.

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. So, how do you think others should be thinking about AI and business leaders? Is there any advice that you might give to businesses that are, kind of, intimidated by AI, and they don't know how it's going to impact things?

Allen: Start. Just start. You know what? Some things will work, some things won't work. You'll find your own rhythm. I think where we started, you know, it was really around efficiency. How do we go and save money? And I think where we've evolved is, you know, to be able to push it more towards growth.

So, how can we leverage it to be able to be, you know, drive faster innovation, better innovation, and drive more sales across more channels? So, our journey has, sort of, taken us through efficiency and now into growth, but I think the most important part is just get started.

Stewart: Yeah. So, you are one of the wonderful employers that has employed Leeds students for an immersive experiential learning project. And I'd love for you to share that decision and what that took to, kind of, make the decision to use those Leeds students, to help solve some challenges with AI, and what did they do?

Allen: Yeah. Our journey was an interesting one. So, we didn't start with interns and with the University of Colorado, but we started with a couple of consultant partners that we have. And as we asked them probably about two years ago to be able to take a hard look at AI and what we should go and do, I was looking for somebody that could come in and really give us a, sort of, a full solution to our business. And what I found was they didn't really know either. They were trying to figure it out, and more importantly, they were, sort of, figuring it out on our dime, which didn't necessarily feel great.

And so, we have two daughters. We have a daughter that's 22 and a daughter that's 25. One is in finance, one's in consulting. And with talking with them, they used AI all the time. Their friends used AI all the time, and did a lot of learning from them. They both had very positive internship experiences. One had done an externship experience as well. And so, it led me back to Carolyn and Vijay to be able to say, "Hey, I think we can leverage students to be able to help us get started with our journey. So, where should we start?"

They introduced me to Al Pisano, who was helping lead a group of students start the AI Club at CU. And it was great because it was a combination of engineering students as well as business students and some arts and science students as well. And so, as Al and I sat down and, sort of, said, "Hey, here's what we're thinking about, these are some of the use cases we have," he was like, "That's perfect. I think those are great."

And basically, what we agreed was, we'd really prioritize going fast over doing this perfect, and that we'd, sort of, learn on this thing together. And that's what we did. So, we started, and we had 18 interns about a year and a half ago. And so, we solved, sort of, six different issues that we had primarily around marketing efficiency.

So, the way that we structured the teams was we had three interns. So, it would typically be a combination of business students and engineering students. So, think computer science, data science, and then a combination of, you know, whether they'd be finance or marketing or other business majors, and then we had one mentor from our team to be able to go and lead each of those projects.

And we just had an amazing experience with them. So, we run a 12-week program. Al and I developed, sort of, the process to be able to go and have, sort of, a standardized approach to the internship. And the first one, we focused on some really cool things like YouTube optimization. So, it looked out at all the YouTube videos, and then it would say, "What are the common characteristics of the YouTube videos that are most successful?" And it'd look at a combination of copy as well as the thumbnail, and then we could go and basically take a video that could be 30 minutes, and it could pick out the one thumbnail that we should go and use to be able to increase the effectiveness of that video. And we saw increases of 300, 400% in terms of views. I mean, it was just crazy. We had another project that delivered video storyboarding.

So, the way that we used to go about storyboarding was if we were going to go and brief our captains or an influencer on how we wanted to capture some content, we would go and you'd have somebody from the brand or the product team go and then brief somebody from creative, and then they would go do storyboards and say, "This is how we want to capture the scene. This is the picture from the back of the boat. We want the sun to be going up, and this is how you go out to fish," and all those things so that the person knew how to capture that image. We're able to then go and take that and then do that all through, like, video storyboarding, all that was AI-generated.

So, it almost looks real. We don't use any of it online, but we use it internally. But it makes it so that somebody really understands exactly what you're trying to go and capture. So, some really cool stuff that we did there. But from there, that gave us the confidence to be able to say, "Hey, we can do this and do it, A, at scale, and we can go do some other things."

And so, then the next round of interns we had, we had another 18 interns. We really focused on efficiency. So, basically, the objective then was, how can we leverage this to be able to go save money so that we can go and self-fund hiring people full-time? So, the thing that was wild was we ran these six groups of interns, and they saved us $1.9 million.

Stewart: Wow.

Allen: Which was amazing. We used that then to be able to go and hire four to five full-time students, to be able to go and lead our AI efforts, which has been fantastic. So, it has been a huge success. The people that we've had on our team that have been the mentors have learned a lot, and then we get people that are really just, sort of, evangelical about, sort of, AI, taking that back into the business, which is great.

Hopefully, we've given people a lot of, or the interns, sort of, this great experiential learning where they've been able to take something that was a really ambiguous issue that we had in the business and then go and work together and be able to go and solve it. So, it's been wonderful. It's been a great partnership, and hopefully it's something that we can go and scale, and they can leverage across other businesses in the Colorado community as well.

Stewart: Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, it's incredible experience for the interns themselves, and being able to put that on a resume and say the cost savings they created and the kind of innovation that they were able to do before they were even in the workforce. So, yeah, I love the impact of that story.

How have you seen this program, kind of, bridge the gap between business and engineering in how these students are working?

Allen: Yeah, it's been really fun. So, we naturally put them together in, sort of, mixed teams. So, they were either, sort of, two engineering students and one business student or vice versa. And the thing that we found on each is that, you know, if you were to generalize, the engineering students had to learn some soft skills, right?

So, they had to learn, sort of, okay, what's the issue? How do we go solve it? How do we communicate it? How do we get support for this idea? And then how do we sell it in? Whereas the business students had to learn the hard skills. So, almost every single business student had to learn some coding, right? So, they weren't the ones that ultimately did all the coding, but they had to have a working knowledge of it.

And so, it was great. I think it really pushed them to be able to say, "Hey, how do I take AI even further?" But I think most importantly is that it forced them to go and work together, that they realized the best solution is, sort of, the three of them working together to be able to go and solve something. So, I think for both sides, at least, the feedback that we've gotten is that it's been a really positive experience, sort of, working with the other school.

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great experience. So, as a Leeds alumnus and advisory board member, when you look at the current crop of business students coming out of CU ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ today, what skill outside of technical AI knowledge, which we've talked about, do you think is the most critical for them to possess to succeed today in modern business?

Allen: I think about it in terms of, sort of, the what and the how. We'll teach you all the what, so we'll give you all the hard skills, right? So, unless you're an accountant coming out of business school, everything else we'll go and teach you, functionally. So, then, really, it comes down to what are the soft skills, right?

So, what's your EQ, or emotional intelligence, that you go and bring to the table? And I think, you know, a couple of things are really important. So, as you think about presentation skills, right? Somebody's ability to be able to take a ton of data, to be able to synthesize it, take it down to a couple of meaningful points that are really actionable insights. That's a big one.

Another one is just communication skills, right? So, that's storytelling with data. Can you take all that data and tell a really high-impact story to be able to influence somebody or persuade someone? And then lastly, you know, really good listening skills as well. And I think one other one to me is just have a great, can-do attitude. If you really look at people that are successful, I think they do two things. They work really hard, and that's a combination of consistency and then some grit, and then they have a great attitude. And I think if you can do those two things and work hard and have a great attitude, in my experience, you get really, really far.

And I know it sounds like a massive oversimplification, but people that are really hard workers that have great attitudes, get really far in organizations. And so, I think part of the beauty of CU, I think, is not only the in-class experience, but it's all the other things that CU and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has to offer.

And so, I think, you know, I find a lot of those students are really high on the EQ side, and that's a huge differentiator and really important for people in terms of how far they can go, sort of, in their career.

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. So, from Coleman to Igloo and now Pure Fishing, you've led businesses with really strong ties to outdoors. There's huge interest in the outdoor industry, obviously, here in Colorado. What makes that sector of business unique in your experience, and what attracts you to it?

Allen: Yep. So, a couple of things. It's a huge, huge industry, so it's about $1.3 trillion a year-

Stewart: Wow.

Allen: ... in the outdoor industry, so it's about 2.4% of the GDP. So, there's 5.3 million jobs that are in the outdoor industry. So, it's a huge, huge industry. There's also 183 million Americans that participate in outdoor activities, right? Whether that's hiking or skiing or biking or playing golf or fishing, right? Any of those type of things.

But for me, it's really the combination of, the outdoor industry provides not only, sort of, physical benefits, but also emotional benefits. And so, I think, you know, a lot of students are at CU. I know I was because of the outdoors and all the things that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and the community offered. So, it's just a wonderful industry to be part of. And one of the things I find a little bit unique is that oftentimes the businesses that are run in the past have been founder-led, and they're people that are really passionate about a given sport, and they're wonderful, and they've driven great innovation. Oftentimes, they're not the greatest business people.

And so, then, you know, when we go and lay some professional management on top of that and then continue to support it with innovation, and then some spend behind it, we can do really great things on some of these businesses. But for anybody that's considering, you know, working in an outdoor industry, I'd highly encourage people to do it because it has been a fantastic place. Anytime you can, sort of, marry, you know, what you really enjoy doing outside of work, with what you do with work, that is something really special.

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. So, what does innovation look like to you in the outdoor space and recreation space right now, and just in the future when you take a look at other companies?

Allen: Yeah. Innovation's fascinating. If you think about one thing all day long, you can have an endless stream of innovation. I think about it at Igloo, you know, in the coolers, when we looked at sustainability and said, "What can we go and do?" We launched the world's first biodegradable and fully compostable cooler. You know, it was a fantastic piece of innovation.

When I look at our business now, we have a brand like Berkley that, you know, through science studies all six senses of fish. And then we leverage, sort of, that science and those insights to be able to develop bait that is just more efficacious for people. And ultimately, it's about creating products that help people have more fun or do their hobby more effectively. And so, for us, it's really fun to be able to help, sort of, bring a little bit more joy to people's lives through innovation.

Stewart: That's awesome. Yeah. It sounds like such a fun space to be in. I love hearing all the examples of innovation in the space, as well as your experience with these different groups and, kind of, how you look at them differently every time you take over a new organization.

So, wonderful stuff. We want to thank you so much for joining us today, Dave, and we really appreciate your insights and all you do for CU and the Leeds community. So, thank you again for joining us.

Allen: No, thanks for having me, Claire. Much appreciated.

Stewart: Thank you again for listening to Leeds Business Insights. Make sure you're one of the first to hear every episode by subscribing to the show wherever you get your podcasts. The Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of the Leeds School of Business and produced by University FM. We'll see you next time.