record_id: 29ef8b3e-f83d-8168-944b-cae5b919c82b
created_time: 2025-11-01T00:53:00.000Z
title: 10-31 Interview: Brayden - Senior Operations Manager Candidate at Wayfair, Lean/CI, ERP/WMS, KPI Coaching
source_url: 

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:00:03
This is Brayden.
Speaker 2 00:00:04
Hi, Brayden. Lisa Banks from Wayfair. How are you. 
Speaker 1 00:00:07
I am doing well. How are you. 
Speaker 2 00:00:09
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for your understanding yesterday. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 00:00:14
Oh, no problem. These things happen.
Speaker 2 00:00:18
They do. They do. I'm not a fan when they do, but again, I appreciate it. And then when it happens, I'm always like, wow. But anyway, it is what it is. So I'm happy that you've applied to Wayfair. What brings you to us. 
Speaker 1 00:00:36
Well, ultimately, I'm trying to get back into, for lack of a better term, corporate America. When I left Reconserve, I basically was looking to... Figure out my next steps in life and needed six months to figure it out and then this thing called cove it happened and I found myself at home with with three little boys and. I'd been Without telling you my life story. I kind of dabbled in it's like oh, maybe I can start something passive income.
Speaker 1 00:01:11
That thing went really well, and then it was like the economy started going crazy in a bad way. And so I got asked to come on to try you and help them scale and so, it's a it's a family company and, I'm ready to go put my big boy pants back on and I.
Speaker 2 00:01:33
Hear you. Yeah getting back into the world of it. So, So with the company that you were brought on what type of you know, what were you tasked? What do we do? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:01:44
What were you tasked to do? So I was tasked. That's a, that's a, it's a loaded question. Um, it was a, uh, I was tasked to scale the company. Um, so Triune is a pool construction company. Um, and, and, uh, they're literally building the nicest pools in the world. Um, so with where I could, I could tell you names, um, if I wasn't restricted by NDAs and you'd go, yep, I know that person. I know that person. Um, right. So very high end pools that cater to celebrities as well.
Speaker 1 00:02:20
Right, right. And so, um, you know, they, they, pools are so good that, uh, it, you know, there's, there's this poll to say, Hey, why aren't you doing stuff in South Orange County? Why aren't you doing stuff in Texas? And, uh, my cousin, who's the owner, um, basically said, you're an ops guy. I've been watching your career. Uh, we happen to be the same age. Um, so we're. We were always pretty tight, and I've always looked for a reason to bring you on, and I don't know how to scale, so will you help me with that?
Speaker 1 00:02:53
And, you know, those conversations are always very easy, right? Oh, well, how good's your team? You know, what's going on? Oh, we're perfect. We're awesome. And I was like, great, then this should be easy. Let's define the processes, and then let's, you know, reproduce it. And it wasn't like that. So when I got on, it was just very clear that there was what we're expecting to be done and what was really happening was completely different.
Speaker 1 00:03:28
And at the same time, we actually were still feeling the fallout of COVID. So, so the, what was happening was we, you know, the, the life cycle on these pools is like two years. And so you can start several different, um, sections of it. And, um, what ultimately happened is we had these two very large pools that, uh, we had asked pre COVID, um, this before my time there, but basically, Hey, do you want to, every year they, they increase the equipment costs by 10%. Do you want to, do you want to get your materials early or you want to wait?
Speaker 1 00:04:07
No, we want to wait. Well, then COVID happens and we experienced a four X in, uh, material costs. And so when we went back to the customer, they're like, well, I can't pay that. That's not what you bid me. And it's like, yeah, well look at the fine print in the contract. You'll notice that, you know, as, as the costs go up, this is only good for 30 days. And so what we ended up having is a way to pull off of those jobs and it created a huge hole in our schedule. So I used that to my advantage, um, to essentially, I had determined that the, um, the team needed.
Speaker 1 00:04:43
to be restructured. And, um, I knew that once we, once we got rid of the, the head guy, um, running the tile crew, that, um, because it was 80 to 90% all familial ties that we would see, that we would see a drop off in, um, in our labor force. And so I said, well, let's use this. Um, so let's, let's let this guy go. And then, um, we can experience a downturn. We don't have to worry about, you know, whether or not we'll have enough work for all the.
Speaker 1 00:05:14
labor, you know, we can, we can use this to our advantage and then kind of grow everything back up. But in the, in the, in the interim, um. I feel like I'm going to ramble, and I'm going to turn this into a very long window.
Speaker 2 00:05:29
No, no, I mean, just go ahead. Yeah, I'm interested. Okay. And then we'll go into more specifics.
Speaker 1 00:05:34
Okay. So, from there, what we did is I had basically determined that we didn't know how to do the basics. So, you know, I'm sure you've seen these beautiful infinity edge pools. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so, I mean, but what we're doing is, you know, we're not just doing, it's not just 20, 30 feet, it's 75. 100 you know and and if they're off by a 16th of an inch um what what'll happen is because water.
Speaker 1 00:06:10
is always level um it'll all drain towards that part so now you got this this whole idea of oh we've got water you know cascading down the wall just perfectly not anymore you don't um you've got it all you know flowing off to that that corner over there um and so we were starting to have problems we're just missing all of our marks and um what was happening was this stuff was missed before but nobody would ever see it um because we didn't have somebody that was actually.
Speaker 1 00:06:42
doing the rounds and checking on the crews and they go oh shoot we missed and then they'd they'd, fix it before anybody found out and they hid you know and if they're hiding the big stuff obviously they're hiding the little stuff too so we weren't waterproofing right we weren't there it was just the list went on and on and and um, it was it was very difficult to figure out where the problem was so I actually ended up splitting up the crew into several smaller teams where it's just two to three people per team so I could.
Speaker 1 00:07:13
identify where my problem was but also I had I had known for a year before we let the guy go that he was the guy I just couldn't get my my boss to agree because he wanted to be loyal and so I started trying to identify where my leaders were you know what what are what are we doing right what are we doing wrong and and trying to figure out okay you know how am I gonna train these guys back up once once the the crash happens if you will mm-hmm so once we did that I we lost everybody.
Speaker 1 00:07:44
we brought it all the way back down to two people where I was I was actually in there kind of showing them how to float learning myself and figuring out how to do all of this fun stuff and and now we're we've got a system where we've got, four guys on our tile crew and we're ready to start going again but we at that point um give you an idea they didn't even know um it took me about a year to collect all the data that i needed in order to determine um what our unit costs were and obviously um if you don't have unit costs you.
Speaker 1 00:08:21
don't have kpis and so um they didn't even know that we weren't making any money on installing tile and so all of our money was coming from essentially our markups on materials um so at that point we were we were doing about 140 dollars per square foot we're down to 100 dollars per square foot and we're on track to do i'd say 90 dollars on our on our existing pool as we've kind of changed everything around we've got a system in place where actually our.
Speaker 1 00:08:54
Our top guy now has only been doing pools for two and a half years, and he's doing it better than the original guy because I was able to systematize all the processes. They wanted to call it art. And it's like, no, the design already happened. That was the art. Now we have to execute. And here's the ways we're gonna do it. The thought came to my mind when you were saying, these things happen with the phone calls. These things happen. Yeah, but I wish they wouldn't.
Speaker 1 00:09:25
And one of the biggest things that I learned especially in construction is we do make mistakes. We all make mistakes. In construction, it just costs a lot more when you do, but everybody wants to pretend like it doesn't happen. And so we set up, I set up all these little fail safes where the installer will actually, the installer will actually. Whatever see if he's floating if he's whatever is his desired.
Speaker 1 00:09:59
Dimension is measurement is that's the word. I was looking for, He would then ask his helper Hey measure this tell me what you get without actually telling him what the measurement was and so that way we We kind of put in this idea that says we will make mistakes Let's catch it before before it's too late because in construction. It's install, Demo and then reinstall but oh by the way when you remove it You have to make sure that you you don't scrape any of the waterproofing or anything like that.
Speaker 1 00:10:30
And so you have to surgically remove it so now you're up at three four times the cost and so, You know the biggest idea was how do we step through this in a way where we're not making mistakes and, I think that was probably one of the largest things that I brought in into this team because, The owner can see the entire pool in his head. So he's like, do this. You got it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. And he looks at me. He says, you got it? And I said, yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1 00:11:01
I'm sorry. In that one, I said, no, I don't got it. But if he has it, then I got it. And he's like, okay. And so then he leaves. And I look over at my guy. And this is the guy that we ended up getting rid of. And I go, so you understand? He goes, no, I don't understand at all. I was like, man, you know. Yeah, fair enough. But who can follow some of that stuff in their head as they're going through? And so we created, instead of walking through and telling them,
Speaker 1 00:11:32
we started drawing it all up for them, giving them dimensions on every single thing. So that way, here's your paper. Here's your dimensions. And by the way, I'm going to come and measure these later, you know, after you do it. Right. So we've been rebuilding from there. And so when you say, did I, you know. How am I doing at the job I was tasked to do? That job changed pretty quick once we realized that we weren't there yet. And then we lost the sales that we were looking at. And so now we're, just now are we starting to go, oh, good.
Speaker 1 00:12:04
Now we're booked out two years. Let's, now everything we slap on now, we can start saying, okay, that's extra. Now we need to grow it. And so that's where we're at right now.
Speaker 2 00:12:18
Got it. Well, thank you. And before this, before COVID, do you have any background at all in fulfillment, working in manufacturing? Like, talk to me a little bit about your background there.
Speaker 1 00:12:29
Sure. I will not take you through my life story, but.
Speaker 2 00:12:33
No.
Speaker 1 00:12:34
No, no, well, but I want to start there, if you will, because what you need to know about me is that my dad owned a trucking company growing up. And we had over 200 units running in all of California. I was, I was. To give you an idea, I was driving a forklift when I was eight, running a warehouse when I was 13 during the summers. So, I learned to run business as if it was my own, because at that time it was my own.
Speaker 1 00:13:05
So, we were doing trucking. So, warehouse logistics, deliveries, pickups, I mean, that was kind of what I grew up with. That was my blood for a while. From there, I moved into, when my dad sold the company, he was like, okay, it's time to make a name for yourself, because nobody wants to give a terminal to a 21-year-old kid. So, I kind of had to make my way back and went back to college.
Speaker 1 00:13:36
I used that as an opportunity and made my way into Reconserve. Reconserve is a bakery feed manufacturer. They kind of do a dual process thing, so their raw materials, they're actually servicing the customers, which are bakeries, and they're bringing in their waste and turn it into animal feed, so they'll dry it out, grind it up, and send it out to the cattle farms and the dairies. And so a year after I started with them, I kind of said, okay, I fixed your transportation, it's running by itself, boss, since you like to play solitaire, how about you teach me the plant, and I'll run it all for you, and you can continue to play solitaire.
Speaker 1 00:14:22
So that was a good deal for him, and then I did that for another, I was at Reconcert for 15 years. A couple years into that, they said, hey, can you do the same thing with transportation in Stockton, and then in Ontario. And, oh, your plant's running well, too, can you figure out Ontario for me? And we've got a sister company that does... breadcrumbs. Can you oversee that as well? And so I did that for quite a while. And so that's.
Speaker 1 00:14:57
where my manufacturing, my logistics, I mean, and throughout all of that, we were sending out product. We were loading every day, sending it out to the different farms and dairies. Obviously, we were overseeing everybody coming in. So that's where my background in that is as well.
Speaker 2 00:15:19
Fair enough. And talk to me a little bit about who you are as a leader. 
Speaker 1 00:15:25
your overall leadership style. Sure. I think that ultimately, you have to have good processes and culture. And the good process is we're making sure you do it efficiently. The culture is what keeps the processes being used. Um, and so first and foremost, as, as a leader, um, when I come into every, because I started.
Speaker 1 00:15:59
working for my dad, it was always this, uh, Hey, go in there, go figure it out and fix it. Um, which actually meant, Hey, go get rid of the manager. And, uh, I know you don't know what you're doing, but that's okay. You'll figure it out. And, and that ended up being my career. Um, and what I've noticed is the, the best thing I could ever do was to bring along, figure out who's, who's here that cares. Um, and, and then from there, um, once I can determine, so my style is first and foremost,
Speaker 1 00:16:36
do you care? Um, I want, I want to, I want to understand who my people are and what brought them to whatever mistake or. Error that was made where we can that we're currently looking at, um, so. I'm going to first determine hey, Is this an education issue right did did they understand what they were doing because most most of the time? Companies are saying here's what you do not here's why you do it. So there's no real buy-in.
Speaker 1 00:17:08
It's just hey, I do this thing so my boss doesn't get mad at me But I don't know why i'm doing it and therefore I don't know if i'm actually doing a good job, so Uh-huh, um, I like to come alongside of them make sure they understand what they're doing, Why they're doing it and then if they understand those things and they're still making mistakes, And it's and it's repetitive. Um along the same pattern, then maybe you got a guy that doesn't care, um, and at that point in time if you can't bring them along then, There's got to be accountability because again, you have to maintain culture. I can't have one guy over here. That's just.
Speaker 1 00:17:42
Nailing it every single time another guy over here. That's not not pulling his weight, So I think you know making sure that everybody understands the standards making sure that everybody understands that we care first Right ends up creating a culture where you have buy-in at the at each level, Because if I come in and I try to do all the work myself, you're gonna have limited return, but if I can get everybody else to, Buy into what I'm selling now. I.
Speaker 1 00:18:15
Reproduce myself in so many different ways and I'm just spinning a plate and I'm coming in and saying hey guys So I like to I want that power. I want to educate and then ultimately I was having a conversation with my guys today So they listen, you know, Everywhere I've ever gone those that want to achieve ended up going up, you know getting promoted doubling their pay, you follow me. I know you guys think I talk a lot, but I'm only talking because I see that.
Speaker 1 00:18:46
you don't understand. And so we need to make sure that you understand. So that's my long-winded.
Speaker 2 00:18:55
response to that. No, no, fair enough. And then talk to me about coaching and development. So it's a big piece of this particular role. So can you provide examples of how you were able to coach.
Speaker 1 00:19:06
and develop your leaders into other roles? Sure, sure. Thank you. It always depends on, the person that you're bringing in. I think, you know, when I left Reconserve, I brought in, when I was at Reconserve, and first when I went from transportation to basically plant management,
Speaker 1 00:19:39
i had to bring in somebody that could assist me but also take over the transportation side of things and so i ended up um tapping somebody that i had worked with in the past and said hey you know i know you're doing real estate now and you know nothing about it but i know you you can do this um and so he's just looking to do some of his career he's looking for somebody to give him a shot and i was able to take him ultimately he he started his half half time kind of being office manager half transportation manager and that was that allowed me to kind of stay with him.
Speaker 1 00:20:14
and coach him through everything um and then i'm giving you results first and then i'll tell you, what happened but he ended up moving into transportation as as a full-time role we hired on an office manager from there we hired her straight out of out of college, And then as transportation manager, he was very successful so much so that he ended up getting somebody else to, somebody else had worked with him in the past and said, hey, you're really cooking. I got an ops manager position over here.
Speaker 1 00:20:47
You know, I'll pay you 30 grand more. And he went, hey, I've got a dilemma here. And I said, man, go make the money. That's okay. You know, I'm a big believer in people first. The business will be here. We'll figure it all out. But I think it goes back down to, you can't manage what you can't measure. And so everything needs to be defined on some level. All the unit costs need to be understood.
Speaker 1 00:21:17
And not just what are the numbers, you know, so if we're talking about transportation, we were talking about. you know how efficient was that pull because we had were bringing in raw material from the bakeries and so some they all had different they had they all had different setups and so if you're pulling a trailer you'd want 20 tons if you were pulling you know this style box you'd want 12 tons if you're pulling that style box you wanted eight tons so we we had to put it we had to.
Speaker 1 00:21:48
define each customer by what they had and then essentially we came up with a percentage full capacity um and so we were to come up with that and so that that gave him one aspect of saying okay you know when do i know if i'm doing the right thing as as far as timing's considered concerned but um sorry i'm i i'm realizing that i uh i'm gonna talk too much develop the kpis um you know develop the kpis so they know where they're going for.
Speaker 1 00:22:22
And then help them understand when they're missing, help them understand why. I think that that's the kind of stuff that needs to be hands-on. See here, you decided X, Y, and Z, and that led to a failure. But, you know, here's our number. Here, let's shoot for this. Let's shoot for that. In fact, with him, before I'd even let him do the management, I would, or before I even brought him on, you know, I had created an ERP system for us where we had a dashboard that evaluated our customers.
Speaker 1 00:22:54
And so, you know, each night we would call each other and I'd say, okay, what would you do here? You know, and here's my plan. And it's like, no, let me help you understand why that didn't work. Or, yeah, that's good because of this. Or, oh, I hadn't even thought of that. So I educated him first. And all employees. even me on some level, um, if I'm, if I'm not honest with myself, um, we, we have an,
Speaker 1 00:23:26
a natural, you have to kick yourself in the butt every once in a while, especially at my level. Um, because we want to not work in, in, on some levels. And so, um, you know, I think it's very important to just come in and saying, Hey, how we doing? What's going on? What's up with, you know, what's up with X, Y, or Z. Um, and, and we have to keep them accountable on that level. And again, you can't measure what you, you know, you can't manage what you don't measure. And so we use real.
Speaker 1 00:23:58
figures to kind of keep people honest. Um, so he ended up running his own show, um, as an operations manager at another company. And, uh, and then my assistant, um, she came in as an office admin. Um, and, um, I had a good relationship with her, but my, my style of leadership is also, hey, if you can do it, then you should do it. If it, if it's a long, if it's within your role. And so, because if they're not doing things and they're not understanding and they're not growing and they, you know, and what that also does is it frees me up to do the things that I'm uniquely qualified for.
Speaker 1 00:24:46
Um, so, but by doing this, by continuing to push stuff more and more on her, um, I was able to, as soon as I left Reconserve, I, uh, I got a phone call from the VP over there. We were on really good terms and he calls me up and he says, Hey, I've got this problem. I'm not sure what to do with, with the sister company. And, uh, the young lady's name was bad. And I said, bet it can handle everything you know you just have to tell her she you know she she's got the.
Speaker 1 00:25:20
smarts she doesn't have the confidence so if you can if you can come alongside of her and and give her all of these issues you know and then let her know the coaching and all right right and let her know that she's got an out anytime you know anytime she calls you'll pick up the phone, she's great and he goes man i can't believe i didn't think about that you know and so um they ended up actually she ended up taking over that sister plant um and uh i think they doubled her.
Speaker 1 00:25:53
pay and uh they hadn't seen profit at that plant like that in, years that the beauty that she had was that she was actually she was she was fluent in both Spanish and English and so she actually started generating sales because their primary demographic at that particular location was non english-speaking Hispanics and so she was able to take that that plant to the next level and primarily through in fact she just called me and said a couple.
Speaker 1 00:26:26
days ago and said hey I got a new job I'm now at this paint company and and we need to talk because I need to I need to figure out how to how to develop some KPIs here and said yeah sure no problem so so it's always great when they reach back out yeah yeah why again I'm a big believer in lifting these lifting them up the company's gonna be around forever, Most companies will, you know, but if they're stuck at the same job forever, because I don't want to, because I don't want to lose them. Well, then, that's just me taking care of me.
Speaker 2 00:27:11
Absolutely. So last question I have for you is just talk to me at Wayfair, most if not all of our decisions are data driven. So talk to me a little bit about how you utilize data to drive decisions.
Speaker 1 00:27:23
Sure. So Triune is interesting because we, we stored all of the data that we had. And we stored it poorly. And we and we don't and we and we didn't use it. We didn't have I think I told you it took me about a year to put together all the all the, um metrics in order to determine what to do um because we we didn't have we okay yeah I can tell.
Speaker 1 00:27:54
you how much labor we spent on these different phases of of the project but I can't tell you what the square footage of that pool was so I can't put it to a metric that I can apply at different um at different uh jobs um so I'm at triune um I had to put all that together to determine okay how much are we spending per per uh for waterproofing per foot how much are we spending you know for uh pipe penetrations for concrete for um and and I think I'll end triune.
Speaker 1 00:28:29
on this note because I'm excited to tell you about what I did at Reconserve but um I think the most interesting thing was when we started fixing things and and doing things a little bit better I got some pushback from from my boss and you, He said, you know, it's costing us more money to do this. I'm not making the same amount of money. And I said, listen, let's look at this here because you've never actually made money on these particular job codes.
Speaker 1 00:28:60
And here's all the info. Here's how you can read it. Because he was afraid he didn't want to sell any more tile jobs. And he said, what's the point of selling a tile job if I'm going to lose money? And I said, well, if we're being honest with each other here and if you're looking at these numbers, you've always lost money selling tile jobs. Because now you've got a guy that, you know, basically you hired a manager. And so now you decided with your MBA that you can hold me accountable for all of these different job codes, which is fine.
Speaker 1 00:29:31
But you've never made money on these job codes. You make all of your money on materials and on the markup. And so if you look at what we're, if you look at the job codes and you track it, you'll see that actually. you know we're going down which is a good thing but yes you're right we're not there yet we need to fix that and so we're using that as a way to fix that um so i think that you know that the data has to be it has to always be there um with with reconserve i actually created an erp system.
Speaker 1 00:30:08
because they had they didn't have a good way of tracking um anything really all they all they had a website that when we brought in material they would record it um but they couldn't tell you what was good and what was bad um and when i got brought into reconserve it was so these these bakeries have to throw out their waste and they have to throw out their waste into one of our containment systems not only do they get paid for it but.
Speaker 1 00:30:43
California we're regulated like crazy and so they can't throw away this stuff. because it's against the law and so when when they would fill up one of our containers either it was overweight and now we had safety and legal issues or we had a lockout system that would prevent them from throwing more product in there so they have to shut down their whole line so you get this like these big companies like mission foods right and and just little reconserved just shut.
Speaker 1 00:31:15
down one of the largest you know tortilla producers in the world and so when I came on that was a huge problem I had determined that we could actually anticipate when they needed service before they ever called us and so, I basically looked at all of their data and said, let's assume that they're a normal business that tries to have the same amount of waste, if not less, every single month.
Speaker 1 00:31:48
And since we knew what type of container they had, we knew the capacity. And now that we know what they're throwing out daily, we can determine how much they're throwing out and how long it'll take for that container to fill up. And so from there, we started being able to proactively schedule the drivers to show up within an hour or two of the time that they were actually going to be full. So that helped us not only in load efficiency, that helped us in customer service.
Speaker 1 00:32:24
that actually also allowed us to reduce um we were able to reduce the labor force, by um i want to say 27 and then and then overtime by 40 through doing that because um what we also did is we we expanded our service hours to 24 7. so by doing that we were able to actually do less work through all of it because now and we had happy customers thank you for that and then i.
Speaker 2 00:32:57
do have an idea of what um you're looking for from a compensation standpoint just in a general sense it doesn't put you down to anything just like a ballpark of what you're looking for um i i if.
Speaker 1 00:33:14
can i be blunt um sure you're like no you know tell me lies um i i would really like to see um, myself around $200,000. I understand that's higher than what's on the ad right now. I think I'm worth more than that.
Speaker 2 00:33:34
$200,000 won't happen for this role.
Speaker 1 00:33:35
And I understand that. And that's why we're still having this conversation. But it's also Wayfair, which is a company that I could grow into. And like I said, I'm trying to get back into the business world. For sure. I know that I need to earn it again. And so that being said, would I want to be at the top range of your guys' offering?
Speaker 1 00:34:08
Yes. Yes, I would.
Speaker 2 00:34:10
Yeah. So our mid-band is in the $160,000 range. And that doesn't include restricted stock units. So, you know, we can continue that conversation. So ultimately, let me tell you what's going to happen. So our associate director is on business travel next week, but he is reviewing profiles of people that I speak with. So ultimately, he'll be making a decision probably by the end of next week.
Speaker 2 00:34:40
It's a little bit of a delay because there is business travel or early the following week on whether or not he'll be moving forward with interviews. So he's probably still going to be checking next week. So I'll probably know by mid-next week whether or not we're going to move forward with an interview with him.
Speaker 1 00:34:59
Okay. Can I ask you a couple questions about the role? Do you have time? I know we've gone over the... As I'm looking at the posting, it seems like... Drive creation quality initiatives, process change initiatives, other lean initiatives to enable their functional area, command a strong senior presence, create and maintain a strong safety culture. I saw a lot of create processes, and it just seems like I'm surprised as I look at this, and I also looked at the Georgia one to compare it, but I'm surprised that the processes aren't already in place that are a little bit more firm, standardized from a,
Speaker 1 00:35:55
top-down perspective. I was hoping you could maybe shed some light on that for me.
Speaker 2 00:35:59
Well, it's a good question. The processes are in place, but we're always looking to improve. It's one of our, you know, people principles, but it's not a matter of not having the processes in place. But we're a very agile company, lots of change. We're, you know, we're just about to finish the Manhattan transition into our fulfillment center. So we're very, you know, we're, you know, we're advanced from a technological standpoint. But, you know, we also want to make sure that our leaders are accountable for the processes we have in place. And we're always looking for people who can bring great ideas to the table. So we already do have very developed SOPs and expectations, but we're looking for very innovative individuals, people who can, you know, look at something and, you know, provide strategic insight and solutions.
Speaker 1 00:36:53
Sure, sure. Okay. And is this? This is an existing position already.
Speaker 2 00:37:02
Are you asking why the position is open. 
Speaker 1 00:37:06
Yes.
Speaker 2 00:37:07
Well, the Senior Operations Manager is a position that we have in all of our fulfillment centers. So it's not a newly created role. So the structure in our sites are we have the frontline associates, and then we have our supervisors. Supervisors report into ops managers. Ops managers report into Senior Ops Managers. And Senior Ops Managers report into the Associate Director Site Operations.
Speaker 2 00:37:38
And then that individual reports into the director who doesn't sit on site but manages quite a few of the fulfillment centers. So if I'm understanding your question, that is a role that we have. throughout the network.
Speaker 1 00:37:52
Okay.
Speaker 2 00:37:53
If you're asking why the position's open, we had someone, a phenomenal individual, that ended up sadly leaving us due to something a little bit closer to home, so it was very tough to lose that individual. But it's always a good reason to have an opening, meaning that person loved it, but it's just, you know, had to make a tough decision.
Speaker 1 00:38:14
Sure, sure. Okay. And by the way, sorry if I worded that poorly from a... Why don't you guys have processes? No, I know what you meant. Yeah, I just wanted... It's like, okay, you know, establish a sound process improvement initiative. It's like, well, what's going wrong there? So is there anything going on there that... What would you guys like to see? What would be the biggest change that you guys would like to see.
Speaker 1 00:38:45
in, say, the first 6, 12 months. 
Speaker 2 00:38:50
It's not necessarily change, but it's, I guess you could say, I mean, for lack of a better word, well, yeah, I mean, we're always looking to improve and grow. The thing with this particular role is really growing coaching, mentoring our existing leaders, you know, being, you know, very numbers driven, strategic, being ahead of the game, very process efficient, you know, very keeping a close eye on our KPIs and driving for excellence for our end customer, really having a good sense of how the.
Speaker 2 00:39:31
fulfillment center works and having a very strong ability to drive engagement for the teams and the sites and just overall. And it's very common for most hiring managers to say we're looking for bar raisers, so people that can really raise the bar.
Speaker 1 00:39:54
Sure.
Speaker 2 00:39:55
And what do we want to change? It's not about changing. I mean, we're always looking for ways to increase efficiencies, different ideas on how to bring in new talent. Like, for example, right now we're doing a military hiring event, bringing in best-in-class. You know, it's now all of our leaders are involved in getting their yellow belt, eventually their green belt. So there's lots of things that we're doing, and we're ahead of the game.
Speaker 2 00:40:27
We're also... We've also invested a lot on AI, so we expect people to really lean into our AI tools. We use Gemini, and we expect that all of our leaders, and everyone for that matter, they're utilizing our technology and leaning into our technology.
Speaker 1 00:40:47
That was my next question. Can I ask, do you guys use ERP software? What do you use for that. 
Speaker 2 00:40:60
We use Oracle.
Speaker 1 00:41:04
The NetSuite. 
Speaker 2 00:41:05
SAP. Yep. Actually, I've got something here I can read to you.
Speaker 1 00:41:19
Apologies. No, you're fine. Usually, I like asking about tools because it tells me a little bit about the culture from an operations standpoint of, do we have a good tool to deliver this information so that we can allow that, in an easy way, so we can allow for the employees to understand, you know, their level of success. 
Speaker 2 00:41:53
Yep. We do. And then just also, you know, we're also looking for someone with a lot of expertise in emerging, you know, warehouse technologies, autonomous robots, you know, would be great, intertwined with our WMS system. But just bear with me for a moment. Sure. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:42:37
And we, you know, obviously want someone who's proficient in our Google Suite products plus.
Speaker 1 00:42:43
Yes, I am.
Speaker 2 00:42:51
SAP, SQL.
Speaker 3 00:42:53
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:42:60
And those are some, if you have your Lean Six Sigma or any type of Lean or Six Sigma experience would definitely be a plus.
Speaker 1 00:43:10
I'm actually, I will have my, it's not through AQS, so I don't have a green belt, you know, or a black belt of any sort. But I do, I'm finishing a course, I'll be done with it this week, not this week, next week. It's Friday already, so. So I will have that certification done. Yeah, I went to go do the green belt and, you know, obviously they want the actual,
Speaker 1 00:43:45
it's a project. And so it's like, okay, well, you know, I'll do that on my next company. So, I am definitely looking for, it's good to have, I've always loved the mentality behind it. It wasn't well received at Reconserve. And so I just had to study it on my own. That's good.
Speaker 1 00:44:16
Is there anything...
Speaker 2 00:44:17
And I will have to jump in a minute just because we're at... Fifteen minutes. I have another interview to jump on in five minutes, so to get ready for. Okay. Any other questions? And if you miss something, you can always email and ask me.
Speaker 1 00:44:32
No, no, no. The only other thing I was going to ask you was, is there something about me that would keep you from pushing me forward to the next round. 
Speaker 2 00:44:45
Well, ultimately, I'm not making the decision to push you forward to the next round. Our hiring manager will be making that decision.
Speaker 3 00:44:52
Sure.
Speaker 2 00:44:52
I think, you know, having more experience and fulfillment, I think, would benefit you, without a doubt. I do think there is, you know, you don't have that background, but you do have a manufacturing background. And, you know, being within the fulfillment environment, it's... It's a very collaborative environment. There's a lot of coaching, managing, developing leaders, so I'm sure that's something that you would excel in. And as I said, it's ultimately not my decision, but it's a fair question.
Speaker 2 00:45:30
But if anything were to stand out for me, I would say that just your overall background in fulfillment is lacking, for a better word. But you were able to provide some good examples.
Speaker 1 00:45:45
Okay. And... What I'll do also is I'll send you, um, my resume that kind of shows everything of it. Cause honestly, uh, with, with my background in just how I grew up working for my dad's trucking company, which, which was small when you compare them to the big truck trucking companies, but extremely fast paced and extremely lean, um, extremely dynamic. And so I'll, I'll send you that just so you have a little bit better picture and show that I have something. Um, but the idea of, of a fulfillment, yeah, the, the idea of fulfillment, um, does.
Speaker 1 00:46:21
not scare me in the least. Um, I love the chaos of it if that makes sense. So, okay.
Speaker 2 00:46:32
And I love that you love the chaos of it for sure. Um, but yeah, so as I said, ultimately I'm not making that decision, but I want you to know that, you know, um, it. It's not of what you have, what you don't have. It's just really ultimately what the hiring manager needs.
Speaker 1 00:46:49
Sure, sure. I asked a question just to make sure that I'm, you know, you get such a small window into the individual that you're talking to, and so if I didn't check a box for you or didn't package something right, I just want to make sure that I have one last chance to go at it. But I understand, and I know you have to jump, and so I don't want to hold you more than that.
Speaker 2 00:47:11
Yeah, and I wish more people would ask questions like that because it shows that you're self-aware, and I appreciate that. I've been doing this a long time, so I'm always curious as to why I end up finishing an interview and I don't get questions. So I appreciate that very much, and I... I think that it just shows your interest in the role. But that said, I do have to jump. I have to prepare my notes.
Speaker 2 00:47:42
It's actually an interesting interview. It's a little bit more involved, so I'm a little bit late getting ready for it. But I appreciate it, and I'm happy that we got to spend this time together.
Speaker 1 00:47:58
Likewise. So I'll let you go. Have a great weekend, and hope to be talking to you next week.
Speaker 2 00:48:03
And I look forward to seeing that updated resume.
Speaker 1 00:48:06
Yes, I will send that.
Speaker 2 00:48:08
All right, good stuff. Well, I hope you have a good weekend, and thank you for your time. I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 00:48:14
Thank you as well, Lisa. Take care.
Speaker 2 00:48:17
Bye-bye.

[AI_SUMMARY]
Brayden, a candidate for Senior Operations Manager at Wayfair, seeks to return to a corporate environment after leading family business operations. He has experience in operational turnarounds and process improvements in luxury pool construction and bakery waste-to-feed manufacturing. Key achievements include restructuring teams, improving efficiency, and implementing data-driven decision-making. Brayden emphasizes coaching and developing leaders, fostering a culture of accountability, and utilizing data to drive operational improvements. He is enthusiastic about the role and open to earning seniority through performance, with a target compensation of ~$200,000.