Retail Relates
Welcome to Retail Relates — where commerce gets personal.
Each episode brings you inside the world of global commerce — across retail, consumer services, hospitality, and brand marketing — through powerful human stories and the ever-evolving forces shaping what we buy, why we buy, and how we connect.
From entrepreneurs and icons to industry veterans and rising changemakers, we spotlight those redefining how people lead, create, and connect in a fast-moving world.
Hosted by our roundtable of industry experts, we offer a 360° view of the marketplace through honest conversations, lived experience, and practical insights that resonate.
Let’s get started — this is where the story of modern commerce comes to life.
Retail Relates
From the Marine Corps to the C-Suite: Tony Wells on Leadership, Brand, and Marketing Transformation
What does it take to evolve from Marine Corps infantry officer to CMO and board leader? In this episode of Retail Relates, Tony Wells shares the lessons that carried him from the Marine Corps to the C-suite.
Tony’s career spans senior roles at Nissan, Visa, Schneider Electric, ADT, 24 Hour Fitness, USAA, and Verizon, where he most recently served as Chief Media Officer. Today, he’s a Venture Partner at AZ-VC and serves on the boards of Yelp, Nexstar, and TripleLift. His journey is filled with pivotal moments - mentorship that opened doors, career risks that paid off, and personal trials that underscored the importance of resilience.
Tony candidly addresses today’s marketing challenges, warning of the over-rotation toward performance at the expense of brand. “Brand answers the question ‘why,’ performance answers ‘why now,’” he explains, outlining a framework for sustainable growth.
From career self-management to board governance, Tony offers practical wisdom and inspiration for professionals at every stage. If you’re navigating change, building a career, or leading teams, this conversation is one you won’t want to miss.
Tony Wells Biography
Marketing Strategy | Brand Leadership | Board Governance
Tony Wells is a strategic marketing and transformation leader with over 25 years of experience driving growth, brand evolution, and digital innovation across leading Fortune 500 companies.
Tony is currently a Venture Partner at AZ-VC, which is Arizona’s largest venture capital fund. Previously, Wells was the Chief Media Officer for Verizon, one of the world’s leading providers of technology and communications services, generating more than $133 billion in revenue and serving more than 120 million customers. Before Verizon, he served as Chief Brand Officer for USAA, the 13-million-member Fortune 100 and +$35 billion revenue financial services company serving America’s military community. His career also spans executive roles at Schneider Electric, ADT, 24 Hour Fitness, and Visa, where he built and led high-performing teams, delivered award-winning campaigns, and championed digital and organizational transformation.
A U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Marine Corps officer, Tony brings a mission-first, values-driven approach to leadership. Today, he serves as a board member, advisor, and mentor for several organizations including the Association of National Advertisers, focused on advancing innovation, diversity, and the next generation of leaders. Tony is recognized for his commitment to service, inclusion, and meaningful impact in both business and the broader community.
Welcome to Retail Relates, where we connect the world of retail through real stories, practical lessons and conversations with today's industry experts and influencers. I'm one of your co-hosts, Rich Honiball, and we're kicking off a new season with our co-creator and co-host, Paula Gean, right here in the studio and, new this season, we're going to be bringing in a roundtable vibe with guest co-hosts to add fresh context and perspectives. Joining us also in the studio today is Judy Sejini. She is one of my former students at George Mason University, a recent graduate just starting her career, and our first student guest co-host. Judy planned to audit this one quietly, but curiosity has a way of jumping in and, honestly, that's a superpower that we encourage in the world today.
Rich H:Our guest this episode is Tony Wells, a senior executive marketer whose path runs from the Marine Corps to the C-suite. He's led some of the most visible brand and media platforms in the country and he's here to talk about what really drives growth, opportunity and momentum in modern commerce and how to take charge of your own mission, your career. A little bit more about Tony. He is a marketing executive known for progressive, agile leadership. He's currently a venture partner at AZ-VC, arizona's largest venture fund, and most recently served as the chief media officer at Verizon, leading integrated media strategy for a global technology and communications leader. Previously, Tony was the Chief Brand Officer at USAA and held senior CMO roles at Snyder Electric, ADT and 24-Hour Fitness, with senior posts at Visa and Charles Schwab. He serves on the boards of Yelp, Nexstar and TripleLift. A US Marine Corps infantry officer - because you are never a former Marine - Tony is a US Naval Academy graduate with executive studies at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. To say that Tony's experience and accomplishments are impressive would be a vast understatement.
Rich H:In this conversation, Tony threads together lessons from the core and from the boardroom why the best marketers balance performance marketing with brand investment. How to articulate the why and the why now to build connection and urgency, how our careers evolve and why the skills that got us to this point may not be the skills that drive us forward. We also get candid about risk, pushing past the fear of the unknown and how to invest in ourselves when the path ahead is unclear and not guaranteed. So whether you're just starting out or leading large teams, planning an award-winning, customer-focused campaign or your own career roadmap, there's a lot to learn here. We think you'll take away some powerful, practical truths from this episode, so let's go ahead and jump right in.
Rich H:So it's my pleasure today to welcome Tony Wells to Retail Relates. We've just read Tony's bio. He has a tremendous amount of experience in marketing, consumer behavior and much more. Hey, Tony, welcome to the program.
Tony W:Thanks, Rich, it's great to be here.
Rich H:I'm joined by my co-host, Paula Gean. Paula, great to see you.
Paula G:Rich, it's great seeing you, as always. Thank you Tony, for being on.
Tony W:My pleasure!
Rich H:Paula normally asks the first question, but I'm going to go ahead and jump in with this one. We've read your bio. You are immensely talented, but one of the questions that has become a kind of a hallmark to Retail Relates is instead of going through the linear progression of your career, what are the three pivotal moments in your life that have gotten you to where you are today? I think it can be personal, professional, whatever you choose.
Tony W:Well, I'll just, I'll stay career oriented. I think there's three things. One was, I think, my time at the Naval Academy and being commissioned as a Marine infantry officer. I think it had a profound effect on me in terms of how I view the world, how I process information, how I attack problems and how I try to lead as a servant leader. That would be the first, I think. The second was probably when I was at Nissan as a kind of mid-level manager. I had an unbelievable boss who I credit kind of with putting me on a different trajectory in terms of my career. One by kind of grabbing me from another business unit and bringing me over to work in automotive retail or at least on the factory side, and investing in me and challenging me and, I think, for opening up my eyes that I could really do more, and so that idea of boss and mentor. And I think the third was when I got the first time to be a CMO of an organization. I think making that leap to the C-suite for me was really impactful and I think it crystallized for me like hey, I belong here, I can do this. And I think, like a lot of folks, I suffer occasionally from imposter syndrome and it proved to me like hey, you've got the talent, you have the ability to stay here and do this job and guide a brand toward successful business outcomes.
Paula G:I know why Rich is smiling because of the imposter syndrome. That's really something we all struggle with and talk about here. Tony, thank you so much for being vulnerable and for sharing that. You make it sound so easy, as if one day you looked around and you were just all of a sudden in the C-suite. But we know it's a difficult journey. Is there any particular point in that journey that stands out for you? That taught you a critical lesson? Whether that be good or bad?
Tony W:The first when I was at Visa. I was a VP level sponsorship marketing, a member of the marketing team, and I knew that I wanted to be a CMO. But the challenge at Visa at that time was that there were a lot of very tenured folks and when I went to the organization saying hey, I'd like to move to another role that could get me there, it just kind of fell on deaf ears. It happens in organizations sometimes, and so for me what I took away from that is like, hey, if I'm going to sit in that chair one day, I may have to do it at another place, another company. And I loved Visa. It was a great, still it's a great brand. I enjoyed my time there but I left and went to 24 Hour Fitness, went to work for CEO Carl Liebert, who I actually shared a Naval Academy experience with, naval Academy experience with, but I got my first CMO role there.
Tony W:Much smaller brand.
Tony W:I went from, you know, a nine-figure brand in terms of marketing spend and investment down to a brand that spent at the peak maybe 60, 65 million.
Tony W:So in many respects, in terms of presence and spend and things that sometimes marketers gauge especially retail marketers gauge whether they're successful or impactful enough. I took a step back in order, I think, ultimately to go a step forward, and you always have to be worried about confirmation bias in this that oh, it worked for me, then it's going to work for everybody. And they said, oh, it worked for me, then it's going to work for everybody. That going to another brand, a smaller brand, in order to get a chance to sit in that seat and to achieve something that was on my kind of career roadmap turned out to be one of the best decisions and thankful for my Visa experience. But going to 24-Hour Fitness you know 21,000 employees, you know 400 locations, did retail, kind of did you know services as it relates to fitness, opened new stores, private equity, like, I just learned a lot, and so I guess the takeaway would be sometimes you have to take a step back in order to go too forward.
Paula G:The slingshot effect.
Tony W:And I would say one other thing in my career, I went to ADT as the CMO in 2012. I left 24-Hour Fitness to go to ADT. I was really attracted by the company's mission. I had a great CEO in Rain Gorsani. They were spinning off from Tyco, so it was an IPO. It was just a lot of things that were very attractive.
Tony W:90 days after I got there, my wife was diagnosed with colon cancer, and so here we were, moving from California to Florida, and I said I'm not sure it makes sense to move now. You know all of her friends, her network, her healthcare was all based in California and we would have had to rip all that out to move across the country. And so for the next two years I commuted. My first year I commuted like 50 out of 52 weeks, basically almost. I think I maybe missed four weekends where I didn't fly back home on a Friday and then take a red-eye Sunday back into Florida, and so it was very challenging.
Tony W:Obviously, the business was challenging in terms of what was happening, but the personal side, in terms of just what you're facing and I think again, the lesson there is like, hey, your health is your wealth, and so, as a career takeaway is, like you know, invest in yourself, take care of yourself, put your oxygen mask on first before you can help others a little bit. Because for me that was very trying time obviously making sure my wife got through that and trying to support her, but during that time I was running ragged. It was a really aggressive way to personally kind of have to go through that. Put on a bunch of weight, was dead, tired, but at the end of the day the balance on that is like you can only do that for so long until the wheels kind of fall off. So this idea of work-life balance making sure you're taking care of yourself and your family and your loved ones and those that are important to you that's the other takeaway.
Rich H:You mentioned servant leadership and the importance of that. How do you define that and how have you carried forth what you learned at the Naval Academy and the Marine Corps into what you do today?
Tony W:Yeah, I mean, there's a book in fact that I think embodies this kind of the ethos of a Marine officer, which is officers eat last, and this is a true story. I've been out to the field lots of times and you may get one hot meal if you're out of training and when you get to the end of the line there's maybe not as much protein as you. The mission first, but you have to be mindful of taking care of your people and kind of being in the trenches with them titles and where I office and all these things and it's. It can be really easy to lose sight that your your first job is if you take care of your people and you give them good direction and you have, you know, good people that they will get to the outcomes. But I think a big part of that is them believing that they know you will take care of them, that you don't have any hidden agenda, that you just want to accomplish the mission, and I think that has served me well.
Tony W:I will say that I loved being a Marine. It was the best job. There's nothing like being a platoon commander as a second or first lieutenant Like it is the best job. I think. Maybe my whole career I've been chasing a little bit to get that same esprit de corps, that same camaraderie and same focus on mission. And you know, maybe I've come close a couple of times. But being a Marine officer was the best job I ever had and it's not one for 60-year-old guys like me anymore but it did have big impact in how I look at the world and the filters that I, you know, kind of see the world through.
Rich H:Well, and you just handled that answer with grace. And I'm going to point out to Paula what she may have missed, but I know your background and so I know you were an officer in the Marines but I went Naval Academy to Navy and you gracefully let me off the hook and mentioned your Marine background. Of course, Navy and Marines being a - it's one team.
Tony W:It's a team. It's the Navy and Marine Corps team.
Rich H:But I appreciate how deftly maneuvered that was. So your background has been consumer marketing, performance marketing. You've been around the periphery of retail and at first glance somebody would look at your background and say, well, has he been in retail? You and I would say absolutely. How do you define retail and how would you define it in the context of your career?
Tony W:Wow, that's interesting. So I'm going to defend that. I feel like I'm a retail marketer. So automotive again, maybe more on the factory, so if somebody's at a dealership they'll go. Oh, that's not automotive retailing or Visa dealing with thousands of merchants and transactions 24-hour fitness. So I think retail is anything where a consumer is looking kind of come in and make a decision, needs to select from a wide array of products that they could potentially select from. And I also believe for the most part there's a physical experiential nature to it. All you know, where you have this tactile ability to touch or feel or be engaged with a team member who's helping you potentially transact or make that, you know, make that purchase decision. So that's how I kind of view retail.
Rich H:So I was hoping you were going to take the bait on that one, because we've had that conversation about retail being a much broader defined industry and we have one of my former students an A student, I'll mention who is auditing the podcast today, and Judy's probably smiling a little bit because this hopefully echoes what we've been teaching in class, which is that many times when people think of retail they think of just the front line or they may think of buying to a certain extent marketing but it is a wonderful 360 degree periphery. If you are defining the most critical metric in marketing today. Obviously we always are going to not default, but we want to drive sales, we want to drive profitable revenue. That's what pays the bills. But what are the most critical metrics that you go into an organization and say this is really what I'm looking at. I know that's a broad question. I'm giving you a little bit of latitude here.
Tony W:You're putting me on the spot here, Rich. I'm going to throw in an editorial comment, maybe unsolicited at first. As I look out, I see, from my perspective, a very alarming trend and that is that I think a lot of marketers and brands have over-rotated toward performance marketing. And I get why you're doing it. You're trying to make the cash register ring, you're trying to get a conversion on a website, I understand it. But I also believe, when you over-rotate and don't invest in brand, I think you lose margin and pricing power, I think you lose brand equity. That when your brand goes through a tough time, your customers kind of give you a little bit of grace and I think you get away from many of the trappings of pricing, and I do think that today's marketers have kind of overcompensated for that. That said, I think you need kind of a nice blend of brand and performance marketing metrics.
Tony W:So if I was coming into a retail organization, I'd want to know a little bit around awareness of the brand and consideration. So when unprompted, unaided awareness? So not prompting on a piece of research, but saying, hey, who are the top brands in this category? And then the next is saying consideration. So you now know that you're buying this widget, what are your top two or three brands? I want to know that I'm in that group, with a very, very high degree of likelihood that I'm on the shopping list.
Tony W:Next I would be looking at traffic. So people size Like how big is the basket? Are we getting a fair share of wallets? So those would be the three to four and I might put in something around NPS or OSAT to connect the loyalty button to see if they're going to come back, are they likely to refer and I know there's a lot of debate around JD Power versus NPS and all these different metrics but I do believe that high referral ability from a brand, from a current customer, can help reduce your marketing expense and get that repeat purchase which I think is so important in today's world.
Rich H:Yeah, we could have an entire podcast on debating NPS, and I agree with you, though, and I think it's more about having consistency in the metric, and not necessarily there's always going to be different viewpoints on that satisfaction metric, but it would be fun to grab a bunch of marketers and debate it, and we would probably get nowhere.
Tony W:Now rate me there. Rich, those KPIs. Do they resonate with you? Did I forget anything there?
Rich H:Oh they absolutely do. I think traffic and conversion is a critical one. I think aided and unaided awareness and I do agree with you that I think and I was having this debate at a conference I was at last week is that in many respects, and I'll say industry-widewide, because obviously I think we do it well, but we have fallen victim to the urgencies that today brings. And you can see brands and retailers and companies that aren't investing in their brand and that aren't investing in the future. They're very transactional towards today because they're trying to hit a quarter, they're trying to hit something, and I think that can weaken the and you and I have seen brands and companies that have gone out of business over time because they haven't made that investment.
Tony W:Yeah, and look, as I said, I think, to me, brand is around, so let's just pick the last brand. I was at Verizon. Why? Verizon Performance answers the question is why now? So, hey, at the top with Verizon. I want to talk about the power of the network, the reliability, the dependability, the coverage and potential benefits that you get as a customer. Is why now, okay, we've got a great offer, great price, a free phone that we can give you and that tells you come on in now. And I think you've got to deliver on both of those, because if you just say I have a free phone, I have a free phone, I have a free phone, you lose the benefit of like, okay, then I'm just shopping every two or three years for a new, you know, phone, not basing my decision on the power of the network and the coverage and the reliability that I give.
Paula G:It's value selling or value buying, I guess.
Tony W:Value is benefits over price, and if you just focus on the denominator. If you just focus on the denominator, the end game to me is not very pleasant.
Paula G:I want to ask you a question about your career now. So you've gone from this executive career to sitting on boards. At what point in your career did you realize that that is something that you wanted to achieve, or that was a goal of yours, or it made sense for you, and then how did you actually make that happen? So it's not easy to get on some of these corporate boards, especially.
Tony W:Great question, Paula. I went on my first board actually a nonprofit board when I was on the National Board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and I was representing Nissan, who was a corporate sponsor, and that's when I got my first taste of governance and managing risk and helping an organization get the outcomes. That gave me the first taste and I think probably around 2019, 2020, there was a lot of talk around CMOs being on boards and up to that point, I think most boards really favored a CEO or a CFO for participation and I think there's a lot of new thinking around this, around diversity of who's in the boardroom, the benefit of having an IT expert, someone that sat in the CHRO spot, someone that sat on the CMO that can help around growth, and so that's when I, around that time, decided that that's something I want to consider, something I want to do as an evolution of my career, and I was very fortunate to do a bunch of nonprofit work, which is what I always tell people who ask me hey, how do you go about it? Build that. And then I got my first opportunity to be on a VC board for a company, a software company, and that kind of brought me into the commercial. My first public board was Yelp in 2020. So it's been a remarkable journey. I do think more CMO and more retailers need chief merchandising officers, chief digital officers.
Tony W:There's a lot of folks that I can add value in the boardroom because they talk growth and they also have a very unique perspective on kind of the consumer mindset being the voice of the customer For me, though. I will tell you, paula, that I found it really, really rewarding. I feel so blessed Two years ago when I left Verizon and decided that I was no longer going to be an operating exec. This Nextar, which does they're the largest owner of TV stations and they own the CW network and News Nation and so very connected to the space that I've operated in. And then TripleLift, which is owned by Vista Equity and they're a programmatic supply side ad tech partner, so they've been a blessing to my career. It allows me to stay close to business and, trust me, being on the board is different than being an operating exec. It's kind of like nose in, hands out. As much as I sometimes want to lean in heavy, that's not the role that a board plays, but I do think it is something that more and more folks should consider as something that they want to do in their career. And then you know, I'll say one final thing. It's a little bit of a pitch.
Tony W:A great book I read that kind of helped guide me. A friend sent it to me. It's called "Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks and it's this concept that your life, your career, has, you know, maybe two or three waves to it and what you were successful at at the beginning of your career may not be what gets you to the end and if you try to hold on to that it may not be as enjoyable. So kind of embrace this idea of moving past some of the titles and chasing kind of the ego parts of a career and put that behind and see what you can do next. That's going to make a lasting legacy to you as a person.
Tony W:So it's an excellent book. I'd highly recommend it for folks. It may be more for people that are 50 or over who are kind of getting close to that or not, but I think anybody could actually benefit from it. Because in the book he says some people actually their first curve is very, very short. If you're an athlete you know most NFL athletes three or four years they've got to figure out what they're going to do next, because they're not going to be on the field anymore.
Rich H:Well, and I was going to say and I'll turn it back over to Paula in a second but I was going to jump in and say that there's probably some brands that should be reading that book because they take that first big win that they get thinking Palm Pilot, talk about them. They're gone and they ride that as long as they can without innovating, and the landscape is littered with brands that had their first success and didn't understand how to go through that second.
Tony W:You know what I hadn't thought about that parallel Rich, but it's the same thing. You know it's Blockbuster, it's Kodak. You know it's it's Blockbuster, it's Kodak. You know it's Borders Books. You know, like you don't pivot, you don't make the change, and so anyway, great book.
Paula G:You have such a rich and diverse background, is there a strategy that you've had, that you've employed across your different industries, that you've been a part of?
Tony W:Look, Paula, it's a very interesting question and at times I've wondered if the diversity of verticals I've been in has hurt me or helped me. And for me personally, I loved it because I moved to different industries and go-to-market strategies and I think overall it made me a better marketer, a better retail market, because I'd seen so many different ways you know, brands and companies express themselves and how they use the four Ps to accomplish the task. So I found it beneficial. Now sometimes you're talking to a company you know, let's just say financial services. I know I had interviewed for a CMO at a financial services and I have that in my background, but they were looking for somebody that had, you know, 30 years and you know, five years of visa and four years at USA, but that doesn't add up to 30 years. But what I did find is Nissan automotive retailing working through a dealer network, franchises like you. You have to bring them along. You can't dictate, you know, and so if you're in a retailer that has franchises like it's a different way, you have to conduct it. You got to get them on board. They have a say in advertising.
Tony W:And then I go to a mall developer and like, okay, my job is to bring traffic to the mall and make sure all the merchants there are successful. So now I have to put on a slightly different filter. Then I spend some time in an agency, which is great. I'm representing a brand but I don't get to make the decisions. But I need to come up with lots of great ideas that they can go to market.
Tony W:I go to Visa. They're not a consumer brand. They work through issuing banks and acquiring banks and merchants. You know so. Dealer networks or Schneider Electric, where they have lots of different go-to markets. They sell direct, they go through Home Depot and retail. They go through distributors, they go through integrators.
Tony W:All these things created complexity around how are you going to get to the number and how you're going to move product and services? And to me, every time I switched it did require a little bit of extra hard work to understand the dynamics of how the business was run, but I think it brought me unique perspectives that made me a better marketer, made me a better executive, because I'd been in so many different ways of viewing the world and they all market slightly different and it's just worked out well and it may not be for everyone, but I do see, you know, gen Z, gen X, like a career now is often, someone said, a jungle gym. It's not a ladder. You just don't, it doesn't go up. You bounce around, you go up, you go down a slide, you come back up, and you know, all trying to figure it out along the way.
Rich H:So, I will ask the question - is there a strategy that you deployed at any point during your career that didn't go as planned or that you'd like to have back? Because, knowing then, you know now you might have done a little bit differently.
Tony W:probably would point to my time at ADT. It was a very challenging time. I was at ADT from 2012 to 2014. And that was the exact moment that all the cable and telco brands decided to get into the home security business. And so you went from a brand that had 80% share of voice. All of a sudden you're dealing with cable networks and wireless providers that have media networks at their disposal. So we're going up against Comcast.
Tony W:Well, comcast has cable, so you can rest assured that the customers that are in their footprint are going to have a pretty high share of voice. They're going to be seeing it every night when they turn on their television. So I would say, rich, it's not one thing specific, I think, meeting that moment. For me, if I had to do that all over, I would approach it very differently in terms of expectations around share of voice and how maybe the brand should have pivoted a slightly different to meet that moment. You know ADT got through that moment, but it was some significant headwinds and when you're used to being the big dog you know in the neighborhood and all of a sudden you've got multiple brands on a, you know on a national basis, kind of coming after a market share. You know it was tough going.
Paula G:To get to where you've been and to see what you've seen. Is there any advice that jumps out at you that really has made an impact?
Tony W:Yeah, one is an approach and one is just advice that I'd give someone. The approach would be no one's going to manage your career better than you and you have to be vested in it. And that kind of sounds stupid. Of course I'm vested in my and that kind of sounds stupid. Of course I'm vested in my career. But really, and what do I mean by that? And I'll give you some examples.
Tony W:I'm amazed by the number of folks that have worked for me or have worked in my organization who take a semi-annual or annual review and don't maximize it. They'll fill out the form that's in the HR. You know information systems and workday or whatever. They'll fill that out. Here's all the things I did. But they won't show up for that very important meeting with their boss with more context, more color, asking for more support than you would think. And those are moments. That's your moment. You've worked all year. You should insist that. You know I want 60 or 90 minutes to walk through what I did.
Tony W:But, more importantly, rear view mirror is great, because that's obviously what you're going to get your mirror, your bonus. You have to spend time on it, but spend as much time, I would say, looking forward through the windshield. Here's what I want to accomplish, boss. Here's some of my career aspirations. Here's a couple of stretch goals. Be really, really buttoned up, thoughtful, and help your boss. Help you reach the career aspirations or the goals that you have. Most cases they want to, but they can't read your mind and it's not just like well, I want to go from a manager to a director, a director to VP yeah, that's part of it, you know. Go from a manager to a director, a director to VP yeah, that's part of it. But you need much, much more in terms of tell me how I can get there.
Tony W:But another question I would say when you're doing a performance review is ask the force rank you. If there are five managers, you're one of five managers. Ask your boss to say of those five, how do I rank? A lot of organizations may not tell that. But if you're one or two, all right, you're in the game. But if they tell you, well, you're four or five, you better pick up the pace and that's an opportunity to go. Well, why am I four or five in your view, and what can I do to get to two or three, to get further? Sometimes an organization will tell you and send you signals and you're not picking up on it. But a conversation like that, when they say, oh, you're five of five, you're at the bottom, that may mean that you have to make some tough decisions for yourself. This might not be the organization for you, this might not be the department, this might not be the role, and if you think hard about that, you can make decisions now that are best for you.
Tony W:So take the review and the mapping of what you want to do next in your career. Spend time on it. Don't just blow by and go. I got my 3% merit increase and I got my bonus and I'm out the door. Thank you very much. That's super important time and you need to enlist your boss to help you on your journey.
Tony W:And then the second is just more of a mindset, which is it's a marine for me carryover, which is know yourself, know your job and know your people. So know yourself in terms of what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what drives you and kind of how you relate in this context. Know your job that's around competency, like that is that's the table stakes. You have to be competent at your job and challenge yourself, and you know, being a lifelong learner and continuing to improve your skills. Lastly is know your people. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do you play to that? How do you be a servant leader for them? How do you set them up for success, both career wise, but also obtaining the mission? And I think if you can do both of those, I like your odd. That's when you know hard work meets luck and good things happen.
Paula G:Yeah, absolutely, and thanks for sharing that. Something that you talked about was taking control of your career and, obviously, being assertive and proactive and also being data driven. What are some qualities or traits that you look for for people on your team?
Tony W:So that first one is competence that they know their job. Not that they know everything, but they know their job and kind of what's expected of them. The second is tenacity. I believe hard work, scrappiness, resiliency can make up for so many things that get thrown into a business environment. Like do they have some fire in their belly? Can they take a punch and get back up? Some fire in their belly, can they take a punch and get back up? So I really think that you know, if you know your job and man you're just you got some fire in your belly like I'll go to war with anybody that's got those two things. I like my odds. Those are two things I hold in really high regard in terms of people that I've worked with or worked for or have worked for me.
Rich H:That's a great perspective. All right, so I'm going to pivot to the rapid fire round, but before I do, I want to close this section out with one question what are you most excited about when you look at marketing and consumer behavior in general?
Tony W:Well, look, I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be in retail or marketing. There are a lot of pressures. There's a lot of opportunities. When you start to look at AI, even beyond AI, quantum computing there's just some amazing things that are going to change the environment that we're operating in, the consumer expectations, and so it's going to be an exciting time. It's going to require people to be super agile and nimble and athletic in order to meet the moment. But, man, it's exciting. This is not a place where you can just rest on your laurels and I don't care what brand you are. I mean, look at Apple, great product, I love Apple. But, man, they've got a macro environment that they're operating in, that they've got to be nimble, they've got to be able to meet the moment. So I think it's an exciting time, I think, for somebody who's at kind of near the end of their career versus those that are coming in it right now, like, man, this is going to be fun. Tighten your chin strap. It's going to be fun.
Rich H:So that is. That's outstanding. I would agree with you, and I think a lot of times we have a tendency to look at the negative, and that is absolutely a positive. Judy, did you want to jump in with a question?
Judy S:Oh yeah, I had one really quick question. I really enjoyed hearing you say that no one is going to manage your career like you will, because I feel like that's the point where I'm at. I'm graduating college. It's time for me to, you know, break into the marketing world, retail world. I just wanted to ask how you managed the change from Verizon to 24-hour fitness. Where that in-between feeling of just being anxious of what's coming next?
Tony W:Yeah, you know Judy, I think I had two moments in my career where, like I was scared Did I say shitless? It was when I got out of the Marine Corps and I went from being an infantry officer to trying to get a job in corporate America, like and I very, very fortunate that I landed a job in Nissan's corporate communications department, and because I had been trained also as a public affairs officer in the Marine Corps as a secondary MOS. But I was scared. There was like a month there where I didn't know what I was going to do. Everything that I'd been about, you know, I wasn't part of the team anymore because I had, you know, my papers. I got my DD-214. Like I was out.
Tony W:Man, I was like that was. And then I think, leaving Verizon after being an operating executive for so many years, to say, hey, I'm going to go do something totally different. I'm going to go serve as a corporate board director and I'm going to get involved with some VC activity Scary moments. But I think preparation. One of the things I would encourage you know folks like you, judy, to do is network. I would encourage you know folks like you, judy, to do is network. Network is not a bad word.
Tony W:Sometimes I think when I have three kids 33, 28, and 27, I'm like you need to network more. They're like you know. I don't know if they view that as like sucking up or like asking for something, like it is about putting good karma out in the world. And when you network, you exponentially increase the idea that you're going to connect with someone, that you can help or that they can help you. So it's not a one way, it's not transactional. So put yourself out there, seek to meet folks. You never know who or why or how someone will come to meet you. I think again, always in those opportunities, ask somebody what you can do for them. Also, can I help you in any way, so that it's not just I'm trying to make withdrawals. You have to make deposits in this thing called networking, but it is not a bad word. You shouldn't feel bad about doing it. It's a good part of life. It's like meeting people, trying to understand, understanding their story and seeing how we can help each other.
Judy S:Yeah, I completely understand how your kids feel, because that's all the advice I've been getting lately. It's to network, network, network and I'm like I'm trying my best here to network with everybody. I really appreciate that advice. I'm definitely going to try my best. Thank you so much.
Tony W:Hey, Judy, I got one more. This one's totally free, I'm not going to even charge you for this one. Hey, do some scary stuff now in your career, take some chances, you know, kind of on the trapeze, leap for the bar without the safety net a little bit. And why do I say that? I find that once you, as you get older and you end up with a mortgage and kids and a spouse and like, your tolerance for risk goes dramatically down. It's a great time now to go do some things that are different and exciting, and you'll figure it out as you go along. But now's the time to take more risks because you can start yourself. You can keep reinventing yourself. At this point it's kind of hard for Rich or Tony Wells to reinvent themselves. But, judy, you can do it 10 times in the next couple of years.
Judy S:I think that also makes it so much scarier because I know I have so many options and I can do so much with not having as much risk. So I feel like it's so positive, but also sometimes I'm like this is what makes it scary to me. I want to know that I'm taking all the chances I have and not regret it in the future.
Paula G:Yeah, whatever choice you make is going to be the right one for you. So as soon as you make a choice, just be confident in it.
Judy S:Well, thank, you so much for all the advice. I really appreciate it.
Rich H:Well, I can speak for Judy, having had her in class, that she is good at networking and figuring things out. So the good thing with her she has options that she's considering. So, Tony, I'm going to pivot to the rapid fire round and I'm going to get it started with one of my favorite questions, one that I don't think I can answer or answer consistently, but let's put you on the hot seat. What is your walk on song?
Tony W:It's called "We Ready by Archie Eversol. And you know what's so funny about this, rich yeah, you're like that didn't't roll off your. You're like, oh yeah, I know that song, we Ready by Archie Eversol. I was actually the other day reading the Marine Times and there was a story about, I think, a deployed MEU Marine Expedition Unit and they mentioned that they were playing this song on the flight deck before they took off to kind of do some training operation. And I was like, okay, that's a good go to battle song right there, like that, you should play it at some point during this podcast. So people cause it probably won't roll off the tongue for everybody, but it's, it's a good go to battle song.
Rich H:So We Ready? I'm adding it to mine.
Paula G:Sorry, It was my turn, but I was googling the song and listening to it, so it was yes, we will have to insert the song in that awkward silence because that was there, you go, put it in the silence. So, uh, next rapid fire. What would be your last meal if you could choose?
Tony W:Probably pizza, pepperoni, sausage and mushroom pizza. That is. That's my comfort food. Like I have that and I'm good to go.
Paula G:Okay, what style then?
Tony W:That's a good question. Probably just traditional, just a regular. You know, not thin, not New York, not deep dish, not Detroit, like you know all these different pizza styles, but it's just regular, nice, good crust.
Rich H:All right, so I'm going to close it out. Do you still know how many push-ups you can do?
Tony W:You know, that's funny, Rich. The other day I was doing a workout and I got to 20, and I was hurting, so I'm going to go. You know, my life depended on it. I think I could probably do 30, but that's about it.
Rich H:Well, that's about 29 more than I can do, you know.
Tony W:So at this age you lose so much muscle mass. That's what I'm blaming you on my age.
Rich H:You're keeping it All right. So I'm going to the last question. You can transport yourself anywhere in the world for 24 hours, instantly there, instantly back, so you don't have to worry about how long it's going to take you to get there and come back. Where would you go?
Tony W:Wow, that's a tough one. I'd probably go to Mount Everest. Just in terms of a grand place, that makes you realize how small you are in the world, like how big this thing, planet Earth, is. And if you go to the top of Mount Everest I would assume you'd be reminded of that pretty darn quickly. And it's funny. I had a Naval Academy classmate that was actually doing that and he's been sending pictures back. So it's yeah, I'd probably do Mount Everest.
Rich H:Now I will tell you as many times as we've asked that question, most people will default to someplace they've been. It's very seldom that someone goes someplace they haven't been and I think you pun intended, have kind of hit the mountaintop as to where you would go. Hey, tony, this was an absolute pleasure from beginning to end. A set of lessons learned. I greatly appreciate it and I'm actually hoping you come back and maybe co-host a couple of these with us. What do you say?
Tony W:Yeah, Rich, I'd love to do that. I appreciate that that's an honor to be asked to do that, but I definitely enjoy opportunities to kind of convey and I think at this point, like I said in my career the ability to give back and help others, and if there's just one little nugget in here that helps somebody along the way, it's worthwhile. So thanks for the opportunity to talk to your audience and, Paula and Judy, it's been great.
