E28: Jerry Gamez is former Global CEO and Board Director at Le Pain Quotidien Group. 

The group consisted of the restaurant brand operating in 21 countries with over 7,000 team members with 5 offices (United States, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, and Spain) and a manufacturing company with six facilities in Europe and across the US.   

He’s also served in senior leadership roles at publicly-traded companies like Burger King, Walmart, and UPS. He’s also had leadership roles in private equity-backed companies. 

His passion and extensive food experience have placed him in a unique position to aggregate growth channels.  With the implications of the new normal and the rapidly evolving eating habits, he is at the center of the global acceleration away from animal protein to more plant-based food.

Jerry is currently a Non-Executive Board Director of a European restaurant group and Board Advisor of a prominent North American workforce management SAAS company.  

Jerry’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-gamez-65ab0430/ 

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Jerry’s interesting path from Southern California to Switzerland.
• Two ways to go about identifying and contacting potential mentors.
• Why you’re never too high in your career to find new mentors.
• The simple way to frame your meeting with a mentor.
• Why being in the inaugural Walmart Executive Leadership Academy (only 15 selected) was like an” MBA on Steroids”. 
• The intense strategies Walmart uses to accelerate the growth of their high-potential leaders.
• What Jerry learned as an expat that he applied to make his expat experience even more successful.  
• What it was like leading the growth of Burger King across EMEA.
• The biggest lesson from being Global CEO of Le Pain Quotidien.
• Jerry’s go-to strategy for handling the stress of the CEO role.
• The advice that Jerry wishes he’d received early on in his career.
• The one trait he’d instill in every employee.
• The part of employee turnover “value-chain” that often gets missed.
• Books, Association, and TEDx recommendations for every leader.

HIGHLIGHTS:

How Walmart Executive Leadership Academy teaches to accelerate student’s growth:

• They have an interactive, hands-on program.
• They assign senior executive mentors.
• Studies are heavily based on business case studies.
• Students solve business problems in small groups.

Things Jerry would have added earlier in his career:

• Learn more languages.
• Live outside your home country.
• Proactively ask for mentorship.

QUOTES:

“There are two things you should be able to deliver: hard work and integrity.”

“The good mentors are always busy, so you must seek them out.”

“The skills you’ve acquired are never as relevant as the skills you can develop today and tomorrow.”

RESOURCES:

TED Videos on Sustainability https://www.ted.com/topics/sustainability 

Seba Castiglioni – Sustainability leader in the plant-based space. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianocc/?originalSubdomain=ch 

YPO Europe https://www.ypo.org/europe/ 

Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Strength-Principles-Practices-Priorities/dp/1414318022 

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