Wendy Collie is a changemaking C-Level Executive known for amplifying the positive impact of individuals and teams. Wendy spent 17 years at Starbucks as the brand was quickly developing, eventually serving as Senior Vice President and General Manager. Wendy went on to lead New Seasons Market through significant growth as CEO and President. She is currently the Co-CEO of Evergreens, a fast-growing healthy quick service restaurant concept. Wendy shares how she hires authentic leaders and empowers high-performing teams to maximize growth in mission-centric companies.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
Highlights from our conversation include
● Taking Starbucks from relative obscurity to global ubiquity (2:31)
● Hiring with the customer in mind (5:33)
● Putting a purposeful philosophy into practice (7:47)
● The importance of servant leadership (9:08)
● Lessons from Howard Schultz and other influential leaders at Starbucks (10:16)
● One key quality Wendy values in leadership (13:07)
● How she and the Starbucks team scaled hiring as growth exploded (14:33)
● 5 principles of servant leadership at New Seasons (21:50)
● Her experience driving growth in a triple bottom line culture (22:43)
● Why hiring the “whole” person is key to her approach (26:05)
● How a change to orientation gave hires a thorough understanding of the brand (31:52)
● Why the sequence of getting to know a candidate matters (33:28)
● How storytelling benefits the interview process (37:52)
● How she set expectations and assessed existing teams for their ability to scale (38:51)
● How New Seasons’ status helped facilitate hiring (43:07)
● Wendy’s favorite interview questions… (49:23)
● …and red flags (50:42)
● How COVID 19 shaped her approach to building teams at Evergreens (55:48)
Visit HowIHire.com for transcripts and more on this episode.
