The CEO of Brooks Running believes ‘if you put one foot in front of the other, you’re our customer’ todayheadline

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Transcript:

Dan Sheridan: Gen Z right now is engaging and running earlier than any other generation in the history of fitness. And we have data that shows, you know, for Gen X, for millennials, for boomers, they started running when they got into high school, cross country and track. What we’re seeing with Gen Z is they started at age 11, because think about it, in COVID, you’re at home, your parents are going out for a run or walk, so you’re going to join just to get out of the house. And so we have a wave of a generation coming that we’re pretty excited about, and we’re seeing it around the world.

Diane Brady: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Leadership Next. The podcast about the people…

Kristin Stoller: …and trends…

Brady: …that are shaping the future of business. I’m Diane Brady.

Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.

Brady: Kristin, are you a runner?

Stoller: I am not. In fact, I can’t bring myself to do it, but I Peloton.

Brady: Yeah, I’m not a runner, either. But I actually got very intrigued by running after our conversation with Dan Sheridan, the CEO of Brooks Running shoes, which I think of as a cult brand for people who really like to run—like Phil Wahba, who interviewed him on stage at our COO [Summit].

Stoller: That’s where we had Dan and did this interview. We were at our COO Summit in Scottsdale, Ariz. Our colleague, Phil Wahba, interviewed him on stage and had a great conversation. And I chatted with him this morning, because I was like, “What was your favorite part?” Because he loves the conference, and he said he loved that. Dan said, “We are mostly footwear, and that’s what we’ve been historically, but now we have permission from customers to expand and get into new areas.” Fashion being one of them, athleisure.

Brady: How do you get permission from your customers? So this is—what’s also fascinating about Dan, I found, is here’s a guy who started as a field rep, 26 years in one company. He’s now, of course, CEO, and really, it is a brand that has been almost religiously focused on people who run, who care about the technical aspects. So why this pivot point, and why now you’re able to expand into a lot of different areas into this whole generation—well, athleisure, as you mentioned, I think that’s going to be interesting.

Stoller: Yeah, my thought is that now running is such a cultural phenomenon where it used to not be. We have the Strava app. People are using Strava like it’s social media. So, running is super popular.

Brady: You want a date, get on those running shoes, right?

Stoller: Yeah. So many dating running clubs in New York. And Dan, also, just the most jovial guy, I think we’ve ever talked to.

Brady: Lots of great stories. We’re not going to judge yet; most jovial, we’ll appoint that at the end of the year when we do our wrap up, I’m sure, our awards ceremony. But I do love the culture that he’s created, the Messy Mondays, et cetera. So I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned. And how do you create an incredibly engaged culture and expand? Let’s not forget that other companies like Nike have been struggling because of tariffs. So these geopolitics, politics writ large, is really impacting companies like Brooks, and we did talk about that as well.

Stoller: And speaking of Nike—just going up against such a giant as Nike, that’s his big competition. That’s hard.

Brady: Yep. Well, I will say, Phil, as I said, our resident runner on staff, was very excited to have Brooks. No better for him, and I was very excited to talk to him. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Stoller: Me too. All right. Well, let’s roll tape.

Brady: Cities are home to the majority of the world’s population and account for 80% of global GDP. That makes the health and sustainability of our cities critical to creating a prosperous future. And of course, business has a role to play. Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte US, is the sponsor of this podcast, and he joins us now. Jason, great to see you. 

Jason Girzadas: Great to see you, Diane. Thanks for having me. 

Brady: So how should businesses play a role in creating more vibrant and sustainable cities?

Girzadas: It’s clear to me that the health of cities is inextricably linked to business’s viability and success. I think it starts with an awareness or a recognition of that mutually dependent reality. I think the how is around collaboration. It’s bringing to bear the capabilities of businesses to support cities’s renewal and innovation. To understand the criticality of cities’s role around economic prosperity, innovation, as well as cultural exchange.

Stoller: Jason, could you give us some examples of successful urban transformation projects that have been driven by these innovative business practices?

Girzadas: I’m proud to say that Deloitte, back in 2023, we started an effort called Yes SF. Here in San Francisco, where I live, the launch of Yes SF, with other business collaborators, has brought together our competencies around stimulating interest amongst innovators to bring sustainability and technology innovation to benefit the city itself.

Stoller: Excellent. Well, that sounds like a very cool project. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. 

Girzadas: Thank you.

Brady: Thanks, Jason.

Brady: Dan, we’re here at the COO summit in Scottsdale. You just had a really great conversation with our colleague, Phil Wahba, and I love how you talk about Brooks Running and the niche that it occupied and where it’s going now.

Sheridan: Yeah, well, so you know, I think the right way to talk about Brooks is, we’re a global brand. We sell in over 50 countries around the world. We’re the number-one brand here in the U.S. in performance run, and that’s been a journey. It’s not an accident.

Brady: So niche is cruel? Is that a cruel way…?

Sheridan: Yeah, I won’t take offense.

Brady: You’re a mass-market brand. Let me correct.

Sheridan: We are a performance run brand at the root of everything we do. So every day we get up, there’s 1,300 of us at Brooks, that simply think about running, the run culture, runners, and their journey in life and health and wellness. And that focus, we often say sharp focus creates mass appeal, is inviting many people into this brand that choose an active life, and we love to say that if you put one foot in front of the other, you’re our customer and we’ve been able to… I think for anyone that, you know, health and wellness is a part of their life, many of us get up in the morning, we think about a few things. I think about coffee, and then I think about moving and moving our bodies. And so our sharp focus on performance run has a big tent to invite many people in, because more people than ever around the world are investing in themselves through health and wellness, and we sit in the middle of that from a product perspective. So our product is how we win every single day, and we’ve been consistent over a 25-year period to deliver performance products that are meaningful in people’s lives.

Stoller: Now I want to get into your background, because I find it fascinating. But before I do, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t say, Are you a runner yourself? What’s your running routine?

Sheridan: Yeah, so in our company, we define, we have two groups. There’s runners, and then there’s people that run. The runners, you can tell when you look at them, right? Maybe less than 5% body fat. I’m joking a bit…

Stoller: …I think you’re correct. They’re serious…

Sheridan: They’re dedicated runners. It’s who they are. They define themselves as runners. And then there’s people that run. I’m a person that runs. I joke that I think I was genetically engineered to plow a field and sit on a bar stool, but I love running. It’s a part of my life. And I grew up in ball and bat sports, but running was central to every activity that I ever engaged in. And then when I got to Brooks, 27 years ago, I became a runner because of the people that I was surrounded by, and what it meant to me. You know, we believe at Brooks that running is transformative in people’s lives. It changes their lives.

Brady: The endorphins?

Sheridan: Yeah!

Brady: You still haven’t given Kristin your running routine. You’ve gone from being a person who runs to a runner, to running every day?

Sheridan: I don’t. Age caught me, and so I run a couple times a week. I’m now a yogi. I do a lot of yoga. I do five, six days a week of yoga.

Brady: Is there a shoe for that?

Sheridan: There is not. This is our problem. We can’t solve that issue for yogis.

Stoller: Like a very fitted to the foot?

Brady: So you don’t slide off the mat. We’re not here to do product development for Dan Sheridan.

Sheridan: Yeah we’ll tap into that if we have to.

Stoller: Yeah, Dan, you’ve been at Brooks for over 25 years, working your way up. Tell us about your journey and why you’ve stayed so long?

Sheridan: Yeah, so it’s either a weird story to some people or a fun story you can, you can…

Brady: …weird and fun!

Sheridan: Yeah, I actually got out of college. I went to the University of Washington in Seattle, and I grew up in a family of two teachers, so I went into the family business, and I taught high school and coached high school basketball straight out of college. I thought that’s what I wanted to do. I was a high school basketball player, and I thought that was a great lifestyle for me. I didn’t love the teaching. I was probably immature in my early 20s, and, you know, found my way to Brooks through a friend that was working there. So I started in a very entry-level role called a tech rep. Which, tech reps are field reps, so we traveled around to all of our customers, and we trained them on our products and our programs, and ultimately tried to get them to pull the blue box out of the back to sell. And that job was confirmation for me that I loved this industry. I was a sneaker head. Growing up, I always loved sneakers, but I found myself loving the business, and I was lucky enough. Brooks was very, very small. When I started at Brooks, we were 50 employees and about $50 million in global sales. We’ll finish the year with about $1.6 billion this year, 1,300 employees. And so I was super lucky to start almost in a startup, right? It was a startup at that time, and then Jim Weber showed up in the early 2000s and he was a leader that I could tap into for career development, but he had a vision. He was an incredible leader. He was an even better person, and I was able to study under him, and my career kind of progressed through sales and marketing and then operations and general management, and I’m now very humbled by the role that I fill for Brooks.

Brady: So I want to go back to the tech rep days. I am not a person who runs. I’m a person who swims, also not a shoe opportunity.

Sheridan: I love it, I swam growing up.

Brady: And I think about—can you unpack for me, like, what was it that made the running shoe so special? I mean, just give me a little bit of the technical details as to—because, a little bit, to me, a running shoe is a running shoe. Shame on me.

Sheridan: How dare you.

Brady: Yes. Well, you know…

Sheridan: …so this is a question I get all the time, right? And you know, the truth about running is that it really matters to a runner on mile 22 at the marathon, whether the shoe is going to work, right? And so what happens to runners is injury. Injury happens to every single runner. If you’re doing something repetitiously right, over and over again, it tends to end in injury. So early on in our journey, we tapped into that. How do we reduce injury in runners? So we’ve done 25 years of deep research on the biomechanics of human motion. We’re science based, and those studies help us develop R&D, innovation and materials, geometries in our shoes. And therefore, what we’ve done is, we’ve got a model now where our consistency is based in science, not in trend, like a lot of the market does, produces consistency and fit, feel, ride, and quality. And so our shoes, over a 25-year period, have been consistent in reducing injury, in making people more comfortable, and empowering their journey in fitness.

Brady: Can you say what it was at the genesis, back when it was 50—I feel a little bit like it’s KFC’s special recipe, but was there a particular aspect that really differentiated it from what else was in the market?

Sheridan: Yeah, I think—so, a couple things. One, product is the number-one reason that Brooks is where we are. But it’s 100 things that matter in business for us to get there. So the very first thing that we identified is where runners are influenced into the sport of running, and that happens locally at your local shop, right? So we built our entire business model around independent running retailers, because we knew that they were the best editors of the best brands and the best products in the world. And if we could get them to adopt our products and recommend them to runners, we were onto something. So we built our entire business model with this great product for the independent retailer. What does that look like? You know, inventory planning for an independent shop who doesn’t have a big back room for inventory. So we had to stock all the inventory. We have not changed that model. And so what we do is we’re able to service 10,000 points of retail around the world on a weekly basis, and many of the bigger brands just can’t operationally do that. So we’ve created this supply chain and operations team to really execute at a local level, and then you match it with marketing, right? So running, again, is local. It’s the authenticity of our brand that knows running and knows the run culture that really matters to a runner. You put, on top of that, our purpose of inspiring everyone to run and be active, which we live by every single day, to get people moving. It’s a perfect scenario in business. We’re purpose driven. We execute really well, and we’ve got a product that people want.

Stoller: You’re bringing me back. I’m getting some nostalgia about going with my mom to, like, the local store in Connecticut, getting the shoes, trying them on, getting whatever that foot thing that you would slide—you’re bringing nostalgia. And I think another reason that I think your brand is doing so well right now, in my opinion, is this nostalgia factor with younger generations who are kind of drawing themselves to these older brands, you know, Brooks, New Balance, others, because they miss that kind of thing. Talk to me about how you’re kind of capturing a new generation of customers for such an old brand?

Sheridan: Yeah, we used to say that people aged into our brand. So, stick with me on this one. When you got into your 30s, you had work, maybe you’re starting a family, maybe your body was starting to finally speak to you: pain, ache, things like that. Your foot actually was hurting. They would find our brand, because we had a solution for all of that. And what we’re seeing now in the marketplace, we call it generation well, there’s actually four generations, for the first time maybe ever, that are all focused on some similar trends in performance run or health and wellness. You’ve got boomers, you’ve got Gen X, you’ve got millennials and Gen Z, and all the survey data shows that all four of those generations are focused on some key health and wellness benefits. Longevity is a goal for them. Movement, physical movement, social connection, mental health. We know in Gen Z that 65% of Gen Zers on Strava say the reason that they’re engaging and running right now is for mental health. That’s never happened before.

Brady: Are there idiosyncrasies between the generations? I’m Gen X.

Stoller: Millennial.

Sheridan: Frequency is one, how often you run is one. Social connection, so, run clubs right now, I don’t know, you know—in your communities?

Stoller: Big in New York, especially the dating scene, yeah.

Sheridan: So Gen Z, not only mental well-being, but social connection. And we think it’s a push off of the COVID years, right? Of growing up, you know, in your home with your parents, and that connection that they want, we all can read the data on less drinking, less going to nightclubs or bars. And the social connection in run clubs now is the new dating app in our industry.

Stoller: Well Strava, you brought up Strava, which I think is like—people are using that like Instagram now to track each other’s runs. I’m sure that certainly helped you, too.

Sheridan: It is, and it’s a bit of a social accountability, too, for that generation to be accountable to your physical journey. And so you know this generation, Gen Z right now, is engaging in running earlier than any other generation in the history of fitness, and we have data that shows, you know, for Gen X, for millennials, for boomers, they started running when they got into high school, cross country and track. What we’re seeing with Gen Z is, they started at age 11. Because think about it, in COVID, you’re at home, your parents are going out for a run or walk. So you’re going to join just to get out of the house. And so we have a wave of a generation coming that we’re pretty excited about, and we’re seeing it around the world. We just launched in China. China is having a running boom like never before. I was there two weeks ago. We went for a run with a run club there called Dark Runner. And they run at night in Shanghai. And it is, it’s incredible. It’s this, the universal truths of running, the transformative nature of running in people’s lives is consistent in every market that we do.

Brady: I’m just going to pause and just mention my family for a second as a slight, slight divergence here, because my kids, my Gen Z kid was a big skateboarder. And when you’re talking, I think, about the skate shops, the shoe drops, and the lifestyle brand, right? It was all about the sneaker app and such. How much of that, as you think about the lifestyle component—have you adopted any of the scarcity, for example? The collaborations? The things that also make people feel special, like they can’t maybe get that particular pair that easily?

Sheridan: Yeah, I think so. Where I’ll start with that is, first and foremost, the running silhouette, the run shoe is now the choice for almost every fitness activity. This is why this tent is so big, and we’re going to expand our brand. So if you go to the gym right now, most people are in a running shoe. If you go for a walk, they’re not necessarily in a walking shoe. They’re in a running shoe, right? So the running silhouette in our industry right now is the choice for most people. There’s a lifestyle component to this that has come out of COVID as well. The casualization in the workforce is great for our business. So I don’t know how you guys are Monday through Friday, but I rarely have a leather shoe on. I’m wearing, you know, a bit of where I work. But you see it everywhere. At conferences this week, I saw more athletic footwear with suits than I’ve seen…

Stoller: …I’m wearing a sneaker right now…

Sheridan: …yeah so, then you take that, that trend, right? And our brand, it’s pretty fun right now. So we just launched our lifestyle category. Brooks is 110 years old, right? One of the oldest sporting goods companies in the world, and we have a catalog of product that has authenticity and in our heritage of running. So we’re bringing that back. And the way you do that is exactly what you said, Diane. You do it through scarcity models to make sure that one, your brand is in demand. You pick your distribution carefully, because sneaker heads want to be authentic. They want the special products, and we’ve been able to do that. We just did a drop with Jeff Staple in New York, who’s a huge sneaker head and an icon in the space. So we’re bringing back lifestyle, and it’s because people are asking us, they want our products, not only on the run, but they want them off the run. They want this brand to be a bigger part of their life. And so we have permission to do that because of our history and the products that we can bring to the market.

Brady: What part in your career did you realize you had the possibility of being CEO?

Sheridan: Yeah, it’s, it’s an interesting one. You know, I’ve always wanted to be a leader in every part of my journey in life, whether it was when I was competing in sports, I always wanted to be the captain of the team, and I was lucky to do that in high school. I was always a leader in, you know, clubs and sports and in college, you know, I really knew that I wanted to lead something. My parents were leaders. They were community leaders, they were teachers. And so when I got to Brooks, I always knew that I wanted to lead.

Brady: Why? Why? Why do you want to lead? Can you pause a second on that?

Sheridan: My wife would say, I don’t follow very well.

Brady: Ok, there’s that.

Sheridan: I, even in conferences, Diane, I sit and I think, okay, how could this be better? What could I do to help or things like that…

Brady: We’ll continue that conversation [inaudible] …

Sheridan: No critique here. This was an unbelievable conference. You should both be very, very proud, but it’s something inside of me that I just have always, you know, leaned into. I’m fascinated by great leaders. I study great leaders. I read about great leaders. I want to be around them. So I knew early on that I wanted to lead something. I also know that I’m a team player, and I love building teams and being around great teams. And so over my years at Brooks, I always probably took more risk in my career to lead. I didn’t know the function. You know, I don’t have a business degree. I have a sociology degree.

Brady: Business of people.

Sheridan: Business of people, and strategy, and connection, and the like, and so, I knew early on I wanted to lead. It was probably in the last five years where Jim and I really started to talk about this. And succession planning for any organization is critical. We’ve been succession planning at Brooks for over 10 years, all the way down to our senior leaders. And so, you know, that’s a critical part of my success story, is Jim had the vision to do a succession plan five years ago, he didn’t anoint me or say you’re the one…

Brady: But you started getting invited to dinner once a week…

Stoller: …Well, I want to go back to the succession plan for a minute. But you mentioned there you took a lot of big risks, and I want to know what those were. What was your biggest risk that you took?

Sheridan: Yeah, so in 2019 we had a tragedy at Brooks, our former COO passed away, and I was in a general management role of global sales. So I was leading our global businesses around the world. And Jim pulled me in and said, I think you can do this COO role. I had never led an operations team. I had never led an IT team. I had no official training in any of that. I grew up in this business, so I knew it really well, and that was the biggest risk. We opened a distribution center in the Midwest about four weeks after I became the COO and it went completely sideways. We could not ship the volumes that we needed, and I was placed in this role. Had no training in distribution, no training in operations. And you know what? What’s always served me well is curiosity and solving problems and leaning on the experts around us so that they can do the work, and I can help and guide and support. So that was a big risk on the company’s part and on my part, in terms of, you know, the skills that were actually needed to do that job. I had incredible people around me. I lived in Indianapolis for some 30 weeks getting that facility up and running, and now it’s a world-class facility, and I’m super proud of all the work that the team has done. But that was a huge one.

Stoller: That’s a good one. And then, how did you convince Jim that you were the one?

Sheridan: Oh, I don’t know if it was convincing. You know, look, I get asked all the time for career development advice, right? And the truth is, there’s, there’s fortune in that. No pun intended here. There’s a lot of luck. But I think, you know, the hard work that goes into anyone’s careers, you guys know that is no accident. And I worked really hard to position myself, with others, to be in a spot where I was a choice, right? And so, you know, it was 25 years of grinding and working and all the things that people do in their career to put myself in that position. I don’t apologize for that at all. I worked really hard.

Brady: Yeah, you wanted it, right? Well, you said you studied leadership, great leaders. I mean, talk about what struck you as you were doing your studying. Are there books that you found particularly useful as a guide for where to go?

Sheridan: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of books on leadership. I actually study mistakes a lot in leadership…

Brady: …what’s your favorite mistake?

Sheridan: Yeah, I won’t go—there’s one that I think deeply about, that I won’t talk about, because it’s a competitive one. But what I watch in leadership—you know, here’s some general themes that I think about in leadership mistakes. The first is not understanding the customer really well. And the customer can be very broad, maybe stakeholder is the right term, right? I think of our stakeholders as first and foremost, our end consumer, our owner, right? Our employees, and then the direct teams that I manage, and what I’ve watched over time is, when people lose sight of those stakeholders, and it becomes about an individual. And so we have, we have a saying that that was brought to us by Charlie Munger at Berkshire Hathaway.

Brady: Very funny guy.

Sheridan: Very funny guy, very, incredibly intelligent. And he talks a lot about organizations avoiding the ABCs: “arrogance, bureaucracy, and complacency.” And I think in leadership, it’s just a good guide and a mental model that I always follow. I approach things with low arrogance, because I don’t know everything. So I’m super curious about how I approach people. You know, bureaucracy, I often say I’m allergic to bureaucracy. Even in nonprofits or school committees that I’m asked to be on, my first question is, is there a lot of bureaucracy in this organization? I can’t function in that. I don’t know how to function in it. And so Brooks is a place where there’s low bureaucracy and complacency is interesting, right? I think every organization can rest on your history and, you know, we’re not immune to that at Brooks. You know, we’re the number-one brand in the U.S. and in Germany now, but really in every other market, we’ve got a lot of room to grow. So we’re not complacent in…

Brady: …that’s what Jim Collins says, right, it’s doing the right thing for too long. Or somebody said that. I think of ABC as “always be closing.” Another Glenn Gary Glenn Ross…

Sheridan: Or “always be cobbling,” as well.

Stoller: You mentioned leadership. You just mentioned Berkshire Hathaway. So I think we have to ask the natural question, which is Warren Buffett, I’m assuming you’ve met him, Dan. Talk to us about that. Meeting him, any advice he’s given you? What’s that like?

Sheridan: Yeah, we’re so—I say this a lot: We’re so fortunate. Our ownership structure may be the greatest in the world, right? We’re owned by who I would call the GOAT of capitalism, Warren Buffett. And I have had the chance to meet him over the years. We were at Berkshire’s shareholder meeting about a month ago, and Warren was there. And obviously he came by…

Brady: Swan song.

Sheridan: Swan song. It was a mic drop and so, you know, I reflect back—in 2014, he came to Seattle to meet with all of our employees. We were celebrating Brooks’ 100 year anniversary, and he said one thing that has just stuck with me ever since. He said, “Berkshire focuses on the long term, and your jobs are simply this, to make sure the brand is stronger at the end of the year than it was at the beginning.” And at that time, I was young and thinking, “Okay, what does that mean for me in my role?” But the truth is that’s a huge thing for us to do. You have to do 1,000 things to keep your brand strong. You have to create great product. You have to keep your morale and your culture going. You have to keep your customers happy, right? But for me, in my leadership role, that’s how I think about it. Is our brand strengthening every season in every market? And it takes investment, takes really hard decisions, it takes talent, capability, new technology and the like, and so his wisdom there is something that you know I think deeply about as I make decisions for this brand.

Stoller: You’re so optimistic, and I love that about you, Dan.

Sheridan: I think leaders have to be optimistic. Why would you follow anyone that’s not?

Stoller: I love that, because you always come in and meet us with a smile, which is so great. But I’m wondering, because we’re all human, and I’m this way too, even though I have a resting smile face. Was there ever a time where you felt like quitting and you’re just like, “You know what? I’ve had it. This is enough.”

Sheridan: Oh, you know, of course, I use the 80-20 rule this way. And I tell young people at Brooks this that, look, we’re not perfect. Brooks isn’t perfect. No organization is. We’ve got our warts and bruises and things like that. And so you know, for me, 80%—this is my framework. Eighty percent of the time I love what I’m doing. 20%, you know, there’s things that drive you nuts and things you can’t solve and so if that ever got out of whack for me, in my daily job, I would, you know, probably have a bad day and re evaluate either how I was showing up or the teams or problems I was solving. So you’re never in in 100% you know, kind of stasis. So for me, I’m always balancing that and trying to keep my head straight on, okay? What’s real within that 20% what have I created in my head that’s not real? And, you know, I’ll say it again. I just think as leaders, you have to be optimistic. You have to have a winning attitude. Otherwise, no one’s going to follow you. Your customers aren’t going to follow you. Your employees aren’t going to follow you, and your owners are probably going to scratch their head and say, What’s going on here?

Brady: Well, I think about two things I bonded over, and I don’t know Warren Buffett that well, but I’ve interviewed him. One was his favorite book, you know, How to Win Friends, Influence People. Chapter Seven, as Kristin knows, make the other guy think it’s his idea. But also when his daughter in law was using the Buffett last name to sell investment books. And it was about authenticity. It was about earning it and I wonder, this next generation of leaders we talk about new skill sets, there’s the stuff that’s classic that you’ve talked about. What do you think changes now in terms of, do you hire differently? Do you build your career differently? And if you were starting out now, do you think you would do things differently to get to where you want to be?

Sheridan: Well, I think the landscape now with remote work and a new generation that is challenging how we grew up in the workforce, and is really having us think about the work environment and career development attached to that.

Brady: Do you have remote work?

Sheridan: We do. So we’re three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we have kind of flexible days on Monday and Friday. The truth is, we build products, so people have to be together to do that. So the majority of our employees are in office, you know, call it four, four and a half days a week, but we have a flexible work environment. And so I think about this next gen. I have a daughter who just graduated from high school, headed off to business school, and, you know, we talk about this, you know, like the workforce and, and I just believe that proximity to leaders really matters in your career development. I, you know, and I’m a product of that and, you know, being in the hallways or being in meetings where really hard problems are discussed, and absorbing that and seeing how people negotiate and talk through and debate in meetings is super important. So we’re trying to foster that in our workforce and in our physical spaces at Brooks. So we just opened a second building in our Seattle campus, and the concept was very big open spaces for connectivity and places for people to share. And so you know this, this next generation of workers, they have huge goals in their career and ambitions, and what we’re trying to do is foster a place where proximity matters to the work. Doesn’t mean we don’t have remote work and tools to do that, but for me, I want to be a leader that empowers people to be together. I think it’s super important. Relationships matter in business and in life and Brooks is a place where relationships matter.

Stoller: I’m sure you get a lot of customer stories being thrown your way, whether you want them or not, but I’m curious what’s the most unique or unusual piece of feedback you’ve gotten from a customer, and did it lead to any sort of big change?

Sheridan: You know, we get, we have an engaged customer base, because the journey of health and wellness matters. You know, we had a lady that wrote us a story that she said her daily run as a gift, from her to her, right? It’s her gift of time to just step out of her crazy life and go for a run and so we get all these inspiring stories.

Brady: She wasn’t complaining about the shoe. She was just, “thanks for the shoe.”

Sheridan: She was because, you know, at the root of it, what we do is we empower people to have maybe the best part of their day, which is activity. But we get a lot of inspiring stories, stories of how we’ve changed people’s lives in changing their wellness journey, weight loss, cardiac disease, things like that. And so those are the ones that I, you know, obviously I just treasure because we’re changing people’s lives. We get a lot of product feedback.

Stoller: Yeah, what do people say about that?

Sheridan: I mean, we get product ideas of innovation and in product, we get a lot of critiques on our product, right? We get a lot on color and material and trend and so, you know, we take those. I probably get three a day that come straight to me and those are important for us. For me, you know, I said at the conference here, one of the things that I think a lot about in my role is keeping my head above the clouds to see the future, but seeing staying grounded enough in the dirt and the mud to know what’s going on.

Brady: Makes you a very tall person. I want to, no, I’m not going to be a curmudgeon here. But one of the things I think is interesting is, as technology has developed for shoes, we’ve seen athletic products that almost go too far. They enhance too much to the point where the bodies go, Whoa, hold on a second. That’s just too good a shoe. Have you had that problem? I’m kind of curious what you say no to?

Sheridan: Yeah, this is a great question. I mean, so, you know, we have a robust R&D and innovation process at Brooks. And you know, in footwear, you’re 24 months out from product, and in R&D, you’re, you’re 36-48 months sometimes from your R&D and innovation cycles, right? So you’re really far from the market in terms of developing and designing and then producing and getting to market. And so we’ve, yeah, we had some failures, for sure. A lot of ours, though, were either too early for the trend. So our team really is studying the insights of runners and then the science piece. And you know, a lot of times we’ll be early and the product won’t sell really well, and it’ll take 6-12 months, and then it’ll take off. And so we’ve been lucky, because I think we’re based in science. That has helped us in limiting the mistakes that we make.

Stoller: Can you talk about one of those biggest failures? Because I think it also is super helpful, like you said, for people to learn from mistakes and failures and figure out what they could do better.

Sheridan: Yeah I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of examples in our journey, maybe one where we were late. You know, we were late to a party. If you remember the Barefoot phenomenon in the…

Brady: Those were some of the ugliest shoes. I’m sorry, you have some? They sell well?

Sheridan: We would agree, but this was, this was a time in our industry where there was a debate whether the shoe was bad. That was a scary moment for us when we were in the shoe business.

Brady: Keto diet, we were all trying to go back to our neanderthal ways.

Sheridan: So we had this moment at Brooks where maybe our R&D was a little slow, and in really seeing what was in market, this barefoot phenomenon. And so we did a hurry up offense to get sharp and smart on what is that insight that people are buying these shoes. They’re saying, I don’t want a shoe anymore. I want to feel the ground. I want to be in my bare feet.

Brady: What was the insight?

Sheridan: So the insight was this, that people actually want experience in their run. And we were, we were in a very prescriptive moment in running where you would go into a running store and you either pronated or supinated. And so we were prescribing a shoe to you based on how you looked on a treadmill. The insight was that people actually wanted either to feel far from the ground or really close to the ground. And so we developed a whole line of shoes called the pure project, which was based on feel. It was based on your experience in your run. Some days you want to be really cushy.

Brady: Wait, this is a failure story?

Sheridan: No, this is one where we were late. We were late, we failed in seeing the insight in the market. And so we developed a line of shoes that had the most cushion and the closest to the ground. And it was a home run for us. We nailed the market and furthermore, it helped our R&D and the like. Some of the mistakes we make are more on kind of not predicting the trend correctly. And so we’ll, we’ll develop shoes, maybe that on the trail or on the road that just missed the trend, and we’ve had those over the years as well.

Stoller: The trend things—so, I’ve noticed, especially with a lot of your competitors, this huge push into fashion and athleisure. Is that something that you want to pursue too? Or what do you think about others doing that?

Sheridan: Yeah, so I think we do. We want to be in the life of a runner, and so that’s on and off the run.

Brady: The celebrity runner. Who likes rhinestone running shoes. What does lifestyle mean?

Sheridan: Celebrity runners aren’t bad, you know, we just did an activation with Jeremy Renner in 2024. We have a great relationship with Jeremy Renner. Patrick Schwarzenegger is an influence of ours on White Lotus.

Stoller: Buzzy right now, that’s a good one.

Sheridan: So, you know, running is important in everybody’s life that has an active life, and so we’re tapping into the cultural moments to do that. You know, the truth is, our brand has permission to play and trend, but we’re going to root it in performance. Performance is going to be, you know, our North Star, and then off of that, because what you’re seeing in the market right—now look at, look at every major professional sports league. It’s a runway now when they show up to the locker room, that is a trend that has athletics, has performance products at the center of it. In Vogue magazine, we counted, I think there were four months in a row where it was an athlete that was on the cover.

Brady: Do you look at that and think dumb money, given the amount of money some of your competitors spend for endorsements?

Sheridan: Well, I think for Brooks, we’re going to be very intentional in who we partner with and how we partner. You know, we don’t, we don’t necessarily chase trends. I call them jet streams, and you know, they’re tailwinds. You got to jump on them when you can clearly define them, see how they connect to your brand. But we’re going to do it through a performance lens every time, because we’re a performance product company and that’s important to our point of view.

Stoller: I do have a bit of a newsy question for you, Dan, because I know you, you mentioned going to China and Singapore. I know a lot of your production is overseas. How are you feeling right now? Are you considering moving production to the US, or how are you looking at this current climate?

Sheridan: Yeah what a tricky time it is to be in business and to have your manufacturing in Southeast Asia. So, you know, Brooks has been manufactured in Southeast Asia for the last 30 years, really. We’re mostly in Vietnam and Indonesia.

Brady: You really got dinged in Vietnam.

Sheridan: Yeah so the truth about athletic footwear, and footwear in general, 99% of the footwear that’s sold here in the US comes from Southeast Asia. 56 to 60% comes out of China. We’re outside of China, so we’re a bit fortunate in the standpoint of we’re not manufacturing in China, but in 1930 the Smoot Hawley Act implemented footwear tariffs on imports into the US, and we already had high tariffs. We had 20% tariffs out of Vietnam already. So now we’re in a pause, kind of hold, where we have an additional 10% on top of that, and that’s a math problem. It’s a math problem for every business that manufactures out of Southeast Asia. So our plan, and we had been working on this before the election, because we knew that something was coming, and we implemented that plan on day one of Liberation Day to go to work on the entire supply chain. And what we didn’t want to do is penalize the consumer…

Brady: …how much have you raised prices?

Sheridan: About 3% on select styles, not across all of our styles. And what we were able to do is work with our entire supply chain to optimize cost and efficiency and process, to get some of the other margin back in a smart way. And so we’re positioned really well. We launched it to our retailers, you know, a couple of weeks after Liberation Day and and, and that landed really well.

Brady: Liberation Day sounds so benevolent.

Sheridan: I’m smiling.

Brady: Gulf of America, Liberation Day. Enough said. Enough said about that, I guess. You know, you make it sound easy, and obviously there’s a lot of hard choices. Talk about this juncture right now. What are some of the toughest choices you have to make? Pricing, of course, is one in an uncertain environment. But, you know, give me some sense of what gives you pause, where you think there’s not an easy way forward.

Sheridan: Boy, how much time do we have?

Brady: We have hours for you.

Sheridan: Yes, look, I think the uncertainty around the world for global trade is something we think deeply about. We’re a global company.

Brady: In terms of reaching consumer markets?

Sheridan: Yeah, and just disruption in global trade. You know, everyone knows that we not everyone knows we know that free trade is a place where we would love to be. But you know, that’s not reality right now. So I think a lot about just global trade and how it will disrupt our businesses and our markets that we’re investing in, specifically in China and Southeast Asia. For us, you know, if there’s a disruption in the South China Sea, that’s not going to be great for the sporting goods industry, to say the least. You know. And then there’s a lot of things that I think about in terms of investments, right? We’ll do about 1.6 billion this year in global sales. We’re not the biggest in our industry. We’d like to say we’re the most relevant in our industry. And so our dollars have to stretch. Our marketing dollars have to stretch, our investment in technology has to stretch. The disruption that is absolutely coming in technology, and AI is, is a place that we’re spending a lot of time on right now as an organization. And this week was great for me to have perspective on other companies and how they’re dealing with it. So I think a lot about that. I think about, you know, growth, my job is Chief GrowthOfficer and so where we grow and how we grow, while strengthening the brand, really matters. You know, we’re not going to be a brand that goes down market, down channel with our brand. We’re going to stay premium and so that opens up different markets for us, you know, I said Southeast Asia, but Europe, we’re pushing into Europe. We’re pushing into the Middle East, because running is central in all these markets, and so we spend a lot of time on that. And then as you get bigger, keeping your culture with you as you grow is super hard. You know, this company was built as a purpose driven brand. We still are. We want to inspire everyone to get up and run in the morning or walk or go to the gym, and so having that as your fine point, to drive your culture through value sets that everybody understands and is consistent with is another really hard one for us to keep in front of our employees as we continue to add more teammates to this team.

Stoller: Whenever I finish a conference or a trip with friends, we play the rose and thorn game, where we do the best thing and the worst thing. I want to ask you, Dan, because you’re a little over a year into the job, what was your low and your high, or your rose and your thorn from this past year?

Sheridan: Well, I think my high is just recognizing what an opportunity this is.You know, I’m humbled by this opportunity to say that, , you know, I’m proud is an understatement. I’m super proud of where Brooks has been, and where we are now, and that I’m, you know, one of many people leading it, but in this seat, so that’s probably my rose, just pride and in a company that I care deeply about. An employee base and customer base that I care deeply about. All the thorns, yeah, it is a hard one. You know, I think the tariff announcement rocked us a bit. You know, when that announcement came out, it was 46% on top of the 20%. So you can imagine the math problem that we were trying to solve, but on the other side of that was this group of people that just came together and we solved it. We haven’t, you know, necessarily executed everything yet, but we had a plan. We knew exactly what we wanted to do. So that was a really hard moment. I think all the other you know policy changes with the the US president and everything that’s coming out is really hard as leaders to say, Okay, what’s real, what’s not, what do we pay attention to as a brand and a leadership team that has to lead a group, and, and so those were hard moments to say, Okay, where do we stand? And, you know, at Brooks, we root in our values, and we stand like rocks when it comes to our values, and we adjust and do all the things you have to do to adapt. But because we’re a purpose driven brand that has clearly defined values, we lean into those in those thorny times.

Brady: I wanted to stick with the global landscape a second, because one of my favorite stories was when Swiffer went to Italy. They took all the value proposition of the Swiffer and upended it. They made it a scrub brush with granules, because Italian women looked at the Swiffer and said, I don’t think so. They wanted to get down on their, you know, and scrub their floors. When you look at these different markets, are there cultural idiosyncrasies? You’re a student of sociology. Do you sell differently? Can you give us—are there idiosyncratic taste differences that you’ve noticed that you think are interesting. No, no judgments, but just anecdotal.

Sheridan: Yeah, absolutely, you know we say, Think global, act local.

Brady: So what are some of the ones that struck you?

Sheridan: So take product specifically, right? We know that, actually the biomechanics of human motion are, are borderless, right? Runners are human.

Brady: Humans are human. But human tastes are different.

Sheridan: So we have that but, but what people want and how they connect to product emotionally is different in every country. And so what we’ve had to do is really think about our global approach.

Brady: Give us an example.

Sheridan: Yeah. So take a product where we’re designing, developing, materializing, coloring out of Seattle, Washington, and we bring that over to a European market, and we put it on the table, they look at us like we have four heads, like, that’s not going to work here. And so it’s this negotiation that happens between a global line and how you actually assort merchandise and color your line locally. It really matters.

Brady: What do Europeans like versus Americans right now?

Sheridan: So if you go into a general sporting goods store in the US, you’re going to see a pretty traditional shoe wall where you’ve got black on black, black on white, dark navies, right? Maybe, maybe some more kind of floral colors and things like that to sprinkle in. In Europe, it’s less about these basic colors and more about kind of how you stand out. And so performance, right? Is how they look at a performance brand. So performance colorways are super…

Brady: …neon yellow…

Sheridan: …yeah, things like that. They matter in those markets, in China and actually in Southeast Asia, Japan specifically, it is really about the wall in terms of the time that you’re going to run in a marathon. So this shoe is for a sub three hour. This is for a sub four hour. In the US, we assort it by cushion, stability, right?

Brady: Is that a real science? That sounds like, to sort by sub three hours because…

Sheridan: Well it’s the way the consumer thinks about the sport, right? So all those are real in product, and then there’s nuances in community and where they shop, right, and how they consume information that’s very different in every single market. And, you know, there’s, there’s some similarities too. You know, online is still pretty universal for research and product discovery, and so having robust ways for people to consume your information online, social and social commerce is way ahead in Southeast Asia than it is here in Europe, sure. So we got to nuance that as we go, we go, global influencers are different, and who you tap into is much different in every market, but you come back to the universal truths of running, and that’s why this brand can expand, because runners are choosing this activity because it’s important in their life, and we know that because we’re at the center of the run culture.

Stoller: Well, thank you for joining us and thank you for being here.

Brady: What’s your best time?

Sheridan: Oh, the guys and gals back at the office will laugh. But when I was in my late 20s, I did a half marathon under an hour 30, which for me was…

Stoller: …was that good? As a non runner, I actually have no idea…

Sheridan: It was good for an Irishman that sits on a bar stool and plows a field.

Stoller: Okay, all right.

Brady: Well done you.

Sheridan: I was quick-ish.

Stoller: And quick-ish is where you want to be. That’s where I want to be.

Diane Brady: Thank you for joining. 

Sheridan: Thanks 

Brady: And thanks for coming to our summit,

Sheridan: Thanks to Fortune for doing this.

Brady: Leadership Next is produced and edited by Ceylan Ersoy.

Stoller: Our executive producer is Lydia Randall.

Brady: Our head of video and audio is Adam Banicki.

Stoller: Our theme is by Jason Snell.

Brady: Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media. I’m Diane Brady.

Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.

Brady: See you next time.

Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcasters and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.