September 29 · 1 hr 1 min
In December 2008, James D. White took over a public company that had almost no cash left. The previous management team had burned through $100 million, made a string of bad real estate deals, and left the market cap heading one direction. He walked into the Great Recession with a smoothie chain that didn't sell anything hot, in cities where it was winter.
He told the board he needed six months to figure it out. Inside 45 days he'd moved on two executives. Inside seven years the market cap was up 500%.
In this conversation he goes through all of it: how he raised money for a company with none, the anonymous index-card exercise he ran in his first week, the pitch he made to get the job in the first place — "you can give me any 10 people and I'll get more out of them than nine out of ten people on the planet" — and the executives he admits he kept far too long because he's loyal to a fault.
Before Jamba: Coca-Cola, Ralston Purina, SVP at Gillette, and an $8 billion business at Safeway. Since: twenty-plus years in boardrooms, including Cava, and two books written with his daughter Christa.
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00:00 "You can give me any 10 people"
01:30 The résumé: Coke, Purina, Gillette, Safeway, CEO
05:00 The fifth-grade class that almost decided his life
08:00 Why he hunts for the superpower, not the flaw
09:30 Running a team 15 years older than him at 24
12:00 Being the boss vs. actually being followed
15:00 The pitch that got him the CEO job
17:30 How he reads a company in his first week
20:00 120 anonymous index cards and four questions
23:30 Taking over a company with no cash in December 2008
25:00 The $100 million his predecessors burned
27:00 Selling oatmeal in a blizzard to stay alive
29:30 The executives gone inside 45 days
32:00 "Loyal to a fault" — the call he should have made
35:00 When your management team outgrows the company
37:30 Human capital is financial capital
40:00 The bathroom test
41:30 Picking up the trash in the parking lot
43:00 Culture when you're not in the room
46:00 "Good intentions don't drive outcomes"
48:30 Coaching CEOs who don't know what their people think
51:00 Bad boards, useless directors, and "shadow government"
54:00 What he tells people who want the chair
56:30 The books he's handed out by the thousand
59:00 His father worked as a skycap until 89
62:30 The sister he'd put up against anyone
