We interviewed JuE Wong, President at Elizabeth Arden, in our latest podcast. Wong shared important tips on managing your team, handling personal tragedy, and insight into how she handled raising a family with a fast paced, international career. Here are our top four favorite highlights:

On good management advice
When asking JuE Wong what advice she wished she received when she was a first time manager, Wong mentioned that the most important lesson she learned was to actively groom a #2 that can support and grow alongside her in an organization. She reinforces this lesson today be ensuring her 8 to 10 direct reports have a #2 that they feel confident can represent them in executive meetings, and can speak on behalf of that overall function. 

Wong also advocates for giving your team a lot of leeway to succeed or fail on their own, but in the case of bad outcomes, always ensuring that you’ve put in place a safety net so that the entire team can fall and bounce-back together. 

A memorable example for her was when she was a trader at Cargill, she had a $200MM position in the market that she was very enthusiastic about. However, she was in over her head with that choice, and eventually was in a spot where she was facing massive financial losses. But unbeknownst to her, her boss had taken an opposite position to limit the overall company losses. This ensured that she still had a chance to learn and figure out stuff herself, while still not having long-term negative effects on the company.

On having an owner’s mindset
Regardless of your role in a company, Wong advocates that you should always think in terms of a P&L. Even if you are in PR or are an Office Assistant, you should think through what costs are you incurring for the organization and what kind of ROI are you getting on those investments. You can use budgets and a P&L this to stay disciplined in your role and to prove your value to the organization.

On setting targets
Wong always had great respect for sales people in her organization, and ensured that she only set targets which she herself could meet. She was proud to hold the record at Strivectin for having the most sales per hour while working the sales floor with individual customers. 

On dealing with personal tragedy
In 2009, Wong’s husband passed away a few weeks into her first stint as a CEO, leading Astral Brands in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s become very comfortable talking about this tragedy in her life as she feels like, by sharing the story, more people can benefit from learning how she handled the situation. 

She reminds us all that we have choices. It’s up to us on how we view and move forward from situations -- good or bad. This time in her life ended up being very pivotal for her career. She believed the lessons she learned about how to work better with people as a result of this tragedy accelerated her career trajectory as CEO of Strivectin, and President at Elizabeth Arden.

JuE Wong, President at Elizabeth Arden

Today’s guest is in constant pursuit of helping other entrepreneurs reach their goals and for consumers to live healthier, happier lives. He is Gautam Gupta, Co-Founder of snack subscription service, NatureBox.

Gautam set out to disrupt how people consumed snack food, by creating healthy options and delivering them in a simple way.

Given trends towards healthier eating, he felt the business model was going to be an instant success but quickly discovered he first had to build a thorough understanding of how consumers purchase snacks, as well as the retailer buying journey in order to get placement on store shelves.  

Since successfully growing NatureBox, Gautuam continues to advise other entrepreneurs on how to create a unique differentiated product and a compelling customer experience – both of which, he believes, are the biggest drivers to success today, over and above location and marketing.

He shares his personal tactics on how to approach entrepreneurial problems and his love of teaching really shows.

Please welcome, Gautam Gupta

Gautam Gupta, Co-Founder of Naturebox

Today’s guest started literally in his garage, fulfilling orders made on an app he developed himself with his partners. He is Chieh Huang, CEO of Boxed, a membership-free wholesale retailer that offers direct-to-consumer delivery of bulk goods. 

Like every startup, Chieh had to be very selective of what areas to scale and when, eventually coming up with the idea to hire robotic engineers to innovate new and exciting ways to fulfill customer orders. 

Though highly automated, Chieh has always believed in giving the customer a personal touch and so he ensured every order was sent with a hand-written thank you note. 

Chieh shares insights into his management tactics – having a very strong opinion against micro-managing, speaking as a former micro-manager – and how he takes the time to be present for his team members from the bottom to the top. 

His energy is quite infectious and I hope you enjoy listening to Chieh as much as I enjoyed chatting with him.

Please welcome, Chieh Huang.

Chieh Huang, Co-Founder & CEO of Boxed

Today’s guest is a former Shark Tank competitor whose idea was rejected and business name was teased. He didn’t give up, though, seeing a real opportunity to disrupt the flower industry and has successfully done so – even having one of the Sharks return, invest in his company and have him do the floral arrangements for this Shark’s wedding. 

He is John Tabis, the Founder & CEO of The Bouqs Company.

John believes so strongly that in order for a consumer brand to get off the ground you have to have a great story and a lot of hustle – two things he has an abundance of.

Starting the company with a co-founder half-way around the world – communicating by WhatsApp, Skype and email – John built a brand with consumers at the heart of it, simplifying the flower-buying process and telling a wonderful story of where each stem come from and who are the people cultivating them.

John shares many of his personal tactics that have helped him scale the business to success, his passion for big picture ideas and much more.

John Tabis, Founder & CEO of The Bouqs Company

Learn more at www.exactconnections.com/podcast

The Connections Leadership Series Podcast

Popular tracks