042: Rob DeMartini – CEO of New Balance: The Leader Behind Their Explosive Growth

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Ryan Hawk

Careers, Management, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2015

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 042: Rob DeMartini – CEO of New Balance: The Leader Behind Their Explosive Growth

Rob DeMartini is a great leader and an even better human being. I’m very fortunate to now call him a friend. He truly understands the value of the culture and the key ingredient to a successful business is the people that work so hard to provide great products and services to their customers. We are extremely fortunate to have Rob share his knowledge with US, the loyal listeners of The Learning Leader Show.

Rob joined New Balance as CEO in 2007, moving to the company from Tyson Foods, where he oversaw all aspects of the company's $6 billion consumer products business. Prior to Tyson's, he was with Procter & Gamble for 18 years. Since joining New Balance, he’s grown it from a $1.5B business to now a $4 Billion business.

Rob DeMartini was named the country's Most Playful CEO (in 2011) in a nationwide search for inventive leaders who incorporate play and innovation into the work environment to encourage collaboration and teamwork.

Episode 042: Rob DeMartini – CEO of New Balance: The Leader Behind Their Explosive Growth

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The Learning Leader Show

“Successful people have a natural curiosity, energy, and optimism.” – Rob DeMartini

Some Questions I Ask:

What one common characteristic do all successful leaders share?
How did you get to this point? What’s your story behind the success?
Why were you chosen to be the CEO of New Balance?
What has been the key to the massive growth at New Balance?
What are the benefits from being a private company? Why can’t public companies take the long view?
What were the biggest challenges taking over at New Balance?
What is your hiring process? How do you make those decisions?
What are some great habits you learned at Proctor & Gamble that you’ve implemented at New Balance?
What is the biggest mistake young leaders make?

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

The importance of your relationships and who you have them with
The importance of culture in a business
Why people with a very high sense of personal awareness achieve success
The 5 year plan he has implemented at New Balance
The reason for high turnover after he took the role at New Balance
Why everyone should read Good to Great by Jim Collins
Why it’s important to balance both performance and a good look with your products
The importance of taking a complicated message and making it clear

“The innovation of our teams, combined with our values, is the reason we have grown.” – Rob DeMartini

Continue Learning:

· Go To: http://www.newbalance.com/

· Watch Video of Rob Names Most Playful CEO: Rob DeMartini

· Follow New Balance on Twitter: @newbalance

You may also like these episodes:

Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks

Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan

Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion

Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts

Did you enjoy the podcast?

This was a jam packed episode full of great content. Rob DeMartini is leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. Who do you know that needs to hear this? Send them to The Learning Leader Show!

Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell

Interesting Things About Rob

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know I've always believed that you know with very few exceptions over 30 years of working
0:06.1	Everybody gets up in the morning and comes to work and wants to make a difference and you know some do and some don, but they don't come to work not wanting to
0:15.1	contribute. And if you could figure out what each of them was really good at and
0:20.0	where their experience base and where their confidence was and put them in those seats,
0:25.5	that was the first step, you know, before you start throwing people off the bus, figure out
0:30.1	if you got them in the right seats and are they fired up about the seat they're in.
0:34.6	Our leaders born or are they made.
0:37.0	Our host Ryan Hawk believes that leaders can be made through determined focused work on learning
0:42.1	the art and science behind the makeup of
0:44.4	other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success.
0:48.9	You're listening to the Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk and I'm extremely excited
1:11.6	about tonight's featured leader.
1:13.2	It's Rob D Martini.
1:14.7	Rob is the CEO of New Balance.
1:17.2	He took over as their leader in the year 2007.
1:20.6	At that time, they were doing $.5 billion dollars in revenue. Fast forward to 2015 and they are now a 4 billion dollar business.
1:30.0	Just incredible growth with Rob at the helm.
1:33.2	Also in 2011, Rob was named the country's most playful CEO in a nationwide search for
1:39.2	inventive leaders who incorporate play and innovation into the work environment to encourage
1:43.8	collaboration and teamwork. In our conversation tonight we got into a number of
1:48.1	topics another jam-packed episode. A couple of them were. How we discuss is the specific reason for New Balance's explosive
1:55.9	growth. Anyone who's working in a leadership role, you'll want to hear the actual reasons
	...

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