Roots’ Chief Financial Officer, Mona Kennedy, is coming out of the pandemic with renewed appreciation for the company’s built-in resilience. From the front lines to the head office, Roots’ company culture champions agility and values their people as their greatest asset. I sit down with Mona in this episode of The Voice of Retail podcast to talk in-depth about how this and other strategies have propelled Roots through the past eighteen months.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Roots’ Chief Financial Officer, Mona Kennedy, is coming out of the pandemic with renewed appreciation for the company’s built-in resilience.
From the front lines to the head office, Roots’ company culture champions agility and values their people as their greatest asset. I sit down with Mona in this episode of The Voice of Retail podcast to talk in-depth about how this and other strategies have propelled Roots through the past eighteen months.
Having assumed her position at Roots only a month before the pandemic hit North America, Mona has faced her baptism-by-fire with ingenuity, preparation and determination in uncertain times. Calling on both her personal experience with teamwork and professional experience at other iconic Canadian brands, Mona offers insight on her approach to retail in the pandemic and Roots beyond lockdowns.
Mona is a well-rounded finance executive with significant experience in strategy, sales, marketing & trade spend. She has extensive experience in budgeting, forecasting, M&A, divestitures, restructuring, risk management, investor relations, IT implementation and strategy development & execution. She has a solid track record for delivery and building trust at Board and C-levels by consistently exceeding business goals through strong stakeholder focus, superior team leadership and collaboration, and keen business acumen.
Mona is a CPA who holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen's University.
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I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
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Michael LeBlanc
Mona, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Mona Kennedy
I'm doing well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, thanks for joining me I'm so excited. I love the brand. I mean, as I, as I kind of will talk about it is, it is this households uniform of choice. But pre-pandemic as well, just love the brand and love everything about it. So, it's really exciting for me, and I'm sure for the listeners to learn more about you and learn more about Roots and thoughts about that.
So, let's jump right in. Tell us about yourself, your personal, professional journey. I see you, you have both Indigo and you've got food industries in the background. But tell us all about it and how did you get to where you are today? And what do you do for Roots?
Mona Kennedy
For sure, so yeah, I'm the CFO here at Roots. I've been here now for one and a half years. I joined in January of last year. So, just you know, a month and a half before the pandemic hit all retailers very hard. So, I have to say, you know, it's been, it's been an eventful and interesting year for sure.
Michael LeBlanc
No kidding.
Mona Kennedy
Which, you know, we can kind of get into later. In terms of my journey, you know, I've been on a number of iconic Canadian brands, as part of my career. I started my career at Bombardier Aerospace, moved on to Maple Leaf Foods, then Indigo. And now, you know, the ultimate iconic brand, Roots. So, I feel like I've had a pretty good experience as, as Canadian companies are concerned.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, Roots is a retail brand name that needs absolutely no introduction. Though I do have, you know, I've got people listening from around the world. And what I often find is we know of Roots, but we don't really know Roots. In other words, you know, how many stores, the scope and the scale, maybe a bit of the origin story. Could you take us through that for, for a bit?
Mona Kennedy
For sure, so Roots is a brand that has been around for nearly half a century. And, you know, it's known for comfort, quality and versatility around the world. We operate about 100 retail stores in North America, primarily in Canada, but a few in the US. And we ship to more than 60 countries worldwide through our website. We also have more than 100 partner operated stores in Asia and sell our products through third party retailers in Asia as well. Online, we have a broad range of products designed for what we call, you know, your everyday adventures, and they range from basically baby, toddler, kids, men, women, and leather products. So, that is kind of, you know, the, the scope of our business and, and how we operate.
Michael LeBlanc
And a big early adopter of eCommerce as well. And, I have to tell you, I do, I do retail tours, or I used to do retail tours in the before time, they'll, they'll begin again soon. And I always take people to your store Yorkdale because it's got those iconic elements of the brand in the store, right? The original signs and different things like that. So, well done. So, it really is great. Now, just let me let me pull on a couple threads a little bit. You operate across 100 brands and in Asia, is it like a franchisee system, when you talk about partners? What's that structure like?
Mona Kennedy
Yeah, so we have a partner that we have been with for, you know, over a decade in Asia and they operate over 100 stores that are primarily in Taiwan, but also in China and Hong Kong as well.
Michael LeBlanc
Now you also do some co-branded stuff. I was in different stores and I see co-brand, is that is, that a part of the merchandising strategy as well? Kind of extend the brand where it makes sense in partnerships.
Mona Kennedy
Yeah, you know, kind of partnering and co-branding has been part of roots from the start. There are kind of many pictures and campaigns that we kind of see from many years ago where we have partnered with a lot of celebrities. And, it's always been part of the brand and our heritage and it's something that we continue to pursue.
Michael LeBlanc
So, as you said, you started, good timing, started a month just before the pandemic. So, I'm sure you've had quite the ride joining a retailer just before, of course, you were with a retailer before with Indigo.
And, let's talk about the experience that you've had. I mean, as I said, in my house, certainly, you had a bit of a tailwind Roots was the, the uniform of choice. But on the other hand, hundreds of store closures. I mean, we're still dealing with it. We're talking here mid-June, we're still dealing with Ontario stores that are only 15% occupancy. Epic lines this past weekend, I saw it every store. But, on the other hand, I'm like, I'm like that one-armed economist joke like, on the other hand, you've got a super, super strong eCommerce. You've got one of the top eCommerce leaders, James, James Connell, in the business. You get a new DTC warehouse. So, how does all this, how do all these ingredients come together? How have they come together for Roots during the past 18 months?
Mona Kennedy
So, I think how they've kind of all come together is the success that we've had over the past year, we've kind of gotten through this pandemic year with flying colors. But, we've also been able to strengthen our fundamentals and have a company that is going to kind of come out on the other side much stronger.
You know, we have a lot of strong products, we've got a strong brand, we've got a loyal customer base, and a flexible business model where we've been able to really adjust and pivot as government regulations changed, as, and as we were faced with new waves of COVID.
We have a very strong omni channel platform that has enabled us to be there for the customers regardless of how they want to shop. And I think you know, what's really important to keep in mind is that the customer has also been facing a lot of uncertainty and change on their end, right. So, being there, how they want to shop us has been kind of critical to our success. You know, for example, during the holiday season, we were offering virtual shopping events online and facetiming, with customers that really didn't feel comfortable shopping online, and things of that nature. So, really, we've been trying to be there for the customer, however they want to shop us.
Michael LeBlanc
That last point is really interesting. I just did an interview for CTV News. And they’re, they were talking about, we were talking about live streaming. And as you probably know, thanks to your presence in the Asian market, that's very popular in China, right. That live stream, is that something that was popular? Is that something you can see the brand doing more of and, you know, what we talked about on CTV was, you know, there's so many ways to go, you could hire an influencer to do it, or you've got great associates that themselves can be the ambassador. But you know, it's, it's one of those things that that doesn't come easy for everybody. Did, did the brand, did you feel that was a good experiment? And is that something you could see the brand doing more of?
Mona Kennedy
I think, you know, we really liked the experiment. And, we saw some success. It's obviously very popular in Asia. And, we actually did some live stream concert series as well, during the pandemic, which were quite successful. So, it's definitely something that we are going to test and continue to see how the customers react to. I think, you know, in Asia customers want to shop that way, right.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Mona Kennedy
So, it's easy, easier to kind of get off the ground. But here, I think people are a little bit more uncertain. So, we'll, we'll just have to see, right, I think coming out of the pandemic, we'll just have to see how the customers are reacting, you know,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Mona Kennedy
Do they want to still do these types of things? Or, are they really eager to go back to the store and touch and feel the product?
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, I guess the answer is probably going to be 'Yes'.
Mona Kennedy
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, this is, this is one I want to follow up a little I mean, you talked about improving or not improving, but you know, establishing these fundamentals culturally within Roots, what, you know, and you were new to Roots, you kind of I'm sure had a sense of the culture joining, but what kind of effort went in amongst yourselves in the leadership team to kind of keep that business going? I mean, the ups and downs and starts and stops. I mean, it's very hard on, on the people, very hard on the employees, what, you know, what, what jumps out at you as kind of come couple of cases, tech successful things you did, to keep everyone going in the same direction and post some, some great results?
Mona Kennedy
You know, a number of years ago, I was sitting on a jury, and it was a jury trial for a murder. And, so I sat on this jury, and we, I was in a room with 12 people trying to kind of make a pretty critical decision about somebody's life, right. With incomplete information and you just basically have to hit the ground running, and learn how to work together very quickly. While this wasn't exactly the same, it felt a little bit like that for me. And, you know, I was new, our CEO was fairly new. And we didn't really have, you know, or neither one of us really understood kind of the team norms, and the group norms, and how they work together. So, I would have to say, for me, it was a little bit like that was, you know what, we've got a big problem. And together, we just need to figure out quickly, how to solve it and how to make decisions.
We were lucky that the rest of the team had been here together for a while they had,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
You know, great ways of working together. But, I think you know, the critical thing that we really needed to figure out was how do we make decisions very quickly with incomplete information. And, I think the team did a great job of doing that. One of the main things that we did in that, in trying to do that was trying to come up with different scenarios and alternatives. So, what would we do if this happened? Or what would we do if that happened? And really go from there. And you know, through that we've kind of come together. And I would say, we're working very smoothly together now.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's talk about eCommerce. So, you've no doubt seen a huge lift in eCommerce. You had a new warehouse, DTC warehouse, you're ready to go, what, how is the organization dealt with what is probably, you know, Cyber Monday every day? I mean, those kind of volumes have been huge, you know, what, what's been the, you know, what's been the best response, what we've been able to do to keep up?
Mona Kennedy
I'd say we've done a few things. I think, firstly, you know, we've got a very seasonal business, right. So, we've got really big peaks during Cyber Monday and holiday, more than a lot of other retailers. So, naturally, we have some incremental capacity that we can tap into when we face these peaks. And we know how to deal with them when we face the peaks. So, I think that really helped us.
Secondly, we've got one pool of inventory for our stores, and eCommerce. So, all of the inventory is in one place I can be tapped into which, which is fantastic. And, I think a lot of other retailers don't have that.
And, I think Thirdly, you know, we've got a true omni channel platform, we can, you know, we can, we do in store fulfillment. We fulfill from the DC. And through that we've been able to access our inventory across our entire network and have been able to really operate under the Cyber Monday, everyday demand curve, as you say.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, I talk often with my podcast partner, Steve Dennis, from Remarkable Retail about how important stores are. And he's, he's always said that, you know, stores are back, but they never went anywhere. I think they're a strategic advantage you just mentioned, you know, some of the orders that, that can be picked up almost right away, as soon as ready, right. So, you fulfill from the store and from a central DC. So best of both worlds, right?
Mona Kennedy
That's right, absolutely. And, you know, from a, from CF, my CFO seat, being able to access the inventory that's, you know, stuck at the stores has been critical for us, because, you know, we would ship all this inventory to stores and then the next week stores are closed, right. So, then what do you do with that inventory? And,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
This, this most recent wave has been two months. So, that's an entire season for us, right. So, our ability,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
To be able to access that inventory has been critical,
Michael LeBlanc
You know, stores beginning to open up thankfully, we're at what 15 in Ontario and across the country stores are opening up. How do you expect the consumer, the demand to change? We kind of talked about it briefly like live streaming. In other words, I see this you know, I was out on the weekend, I saw massive lines of people standing and wanting to go back into stores and resume or normal life. eCommerce, no doubt has had a great acceleration. And, many think that, that the eCommerce is artificially high. That once the store is open, it will kind of ebb off a little bit,. What's, what's Root's perspective on that?
Mona Kennedy
You know, what we've seen in the past year is that obviously, eCommerce grows when stores are closed, and it moderates as the stores reopen. But we do believe that there has been a permanent shift to eCommerce as most, more people have become more comfortable. You know, like I personally, we've been doing click and collect for grocery for the past year. And I don't think I'll ever go back into a grocery store, right. So, I think a lot of people have gotten used to shopping online. And we think that, you know, the elevated eCommerce sales are going to continue. But, at the same time, as you said, you know, with apparel customers do really want to go to stores, and touch,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
And feel the product. And that is really critical as well. But you know, at the end of the day, as I kind of said a couple of times now, we're there how the customer wants to shop us, you know,
Michael LeBlanc
Right on.
Mona Kennedy
Come to store, if they want to go online, if they want to buy online, pick up in store, buy in store delivered to home, you know, however they want to do and we're able,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Mona Kennedy
to fulfill it and we're ready for that. So, I think,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
That's, that's what we kind of have going for us.
Michael LeBlanc
And even different payment options, right? You introduced a, an option to have multiple payments on the same basket size, just that more flexibility, yeah?
Mona Kennedy
Exactly. And we, yeah, we implemented after, After Pay this past year.
Michael LeBlanc
After Pay right, right on, right on.
Mona Kennedy
That's what it's called, yeah. This this past year as well. So, yeah, a few different kinds of options to really kind of stay with what the customer is adjusting to.
Michael LeBlanc
So, it was last year, was that the first time you'd bought groceries or food online? Or just you did a lot more.
Mona Kennedy
We did a lot more. So, no like, I am generally a very heavy eCommerce shopper. But with grocery,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Mona Kennedy
We just haven't transition there. We would do it once in a while but it wasn't really part of our routine. But now, honestly, I have not been in a store for the past, a grocery store for the past year.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Mona Kennedy
It's all been online.
Michael LeBlanc
Interesting, interesting.
Mona Kennedy
You know, I am one person that doesn't enjoy grocery shopping. I think many people like touching their apples.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Mona Kennedy
Me on the other hand, I like to just kinda pressing a button and then they come to my house.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, it's, it's interesting, right? Because, it's also part of discovery. And you know, when I've talked to the grocers, they're, they're, you know, they enjoy the, the efficiency, but they do worry. It's hard to introduce new products on eCommerce sites. And so, they do worry about that kind of browsing and impulse stuff, right. I mean, they do worry about that. But, the good news is eCommerce spins, food eCommerce spins the flywheel of all eCommerce. Like once you're shopping for food, you know, no compunction about shopping for other things.
All right, let's talk, let's talk about your tradecraft as a CFO. How do you balance, how are you balancing that, you know, we hear, I've been hearing for months and months and months the supply, the challenges in supply chain. There's articles in the paper today about it. We've been talking about it for months, how do you balance, you know, I need to secure inventory, I don't want to miss, I think there could be a big surge, you know, the stockpile of so much money is in Canadian's bank accounts. We see, we see good days ahead, but you're, you're trying to make a forecast. I don't know, retailers are looking at 2019 to give forecasts and they need to have liquidity issues. How do you balance all that? What's your, what's your perspective as a CFO and balancing the tradecraft of trying to figure all that out, all, all those moving parts, all at the same time?
Mona Kennedy
So, I'll go into kind of like two things, which I've kind of mentioned so fa. You know, the first one is creating forecasts and scenarios. And, you know, over the past year, my poor finance team has created hundreds and hundreds of forecasts and scenarios. Does, to kind of say, 'What if this? What if that',
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right.
Mona Kennedy
Right, and really testing their limits. Because, it's not really that important to come up with the most precise forecast. What's important is to kind of know, you know, what are the extremes of this forecast? And at what point am I in trouble? So, that's kind of what we've been doing from a financial perspective to say, you know, what are all the various things that need to happen for us to require to do something else. And making sure that we're ready for all of those various alternatives and scenarios, I think was really critical last year. I think it's become a lot easier this year as we start the year in a much stronger financial position,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Mona Kennedy
And also, with a lot more certainty. But last year, that was really a full-time job for the finance team.
Michael LeBlanc
It feels like, and I wonder if you would agree, that building agility in the organization now is almost, if not more important than building that kind of rigor around forecasting and analytics, because you just don't always know what's coming. We don't, we still don't know what's coming over the next 18 months. Would you, it sounds like that's the kind of emphasis and culture you want to build in your team. Is that, Is that a fair assessment?
Mona Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of my second point, is around likely decision making, and also being able to shift. Shift your position, and not just like one or two people, right, you have to shift the entire
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Mona Kennedy
Organization. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Mona Kennedy
Making sure that even the company knows that when you're making a decision, this is not going to be a permanent decision. And it's for sure changing. You know, one thing that I kind of tell my, my team is, I can assure you that whatever forecasts we come up with is wrong, right. So, we need to kind of just work around that and say, 'Okay, if it goes this way, what do we do?'
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
If it goes the other way?
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
What do we do?
Michael LeBlanc
Well, let's talk, I mean, you've shared many lessons for the listeners, you have been very generous. So, any other lessons that you, the executive team, your people have learned that really gonna help carry you through the, you know, learned in the COVID era that are going to be helpful in the post COVID and whatever comes next?
Mona Kennedy
You know, I think, you know, this isn't really a learning, but it's something that we knew, but it just kind of became a lot more important during this past year, and a lot more prevalent, is that our people are our asset, right. Our people at the store, our people at the distribution center, they've been at the front line, really doing everything that they can in this changing environment, with the support of our head office, you know, transitioning to work from home overnight, and adjusting to all the various changes. I think, you know, our people our asset, we need to invest in them. And we need to make sure that they're happy. Not necessarily a learning, but, you know, something,
Michael LeBlanc
Sure,
Mona Kennedy
That was just really top of mind for me. And, then the second one is around resilience. I think it's really important to ensure that you, you know, create a culture of resilience. And, you know, we have a company that's been around for 50 years, it's been through many cycles. But, you know, this one has been a tough one, right. And just,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Mona Kennedy
Through the resiliency that the team had built over the past 50 years, they were able to get through it. But it just continues to be more and more important as, as the environment is quite uncertain.
Michael LeBlanc
So, I'm sure before you came to Roots, you had a few Roots, products in your closet, as many, many, many Canadians do. But, I'm also pretty confident you've got more Roots products that you had before you joined. I mean, I've got luggage, I've got bags, I got coats, I got everything. What, what's the, what product do you love the most? What are you most excited about that you've seen coming that we don't know about? Or what, what's your next employee purchase at Roots?
Mona Kennedy
Yeah, you know, my, I've been just kind of joking with the team. I own every Banff bag that we have we have produced.
Michael LeBlanc
I love those. I love those, those are great bags.
Mona Kennedy
Yeah, it's an iconic product that in this past year we've come up with some really, really fun colors that really speak to, but so I bought, bought a number of them over the past few months. And, as I kind of just get excited about the possibility of potentially traveling sometime soon, so I kind of have the bag sitting in the corner and I watch them, just dreaming at the moment. So, that's, that's kind of a product that has really excited me over the past little while.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right on. Well, I think we're all looking forward to traveling a little bit more and seeing friends and family and maybe some business colleagues. So, listen, Mona, thanks so much for, for your time. It's great to insight snapshot into and the Roots and the Roots business. I wish you continued success and a great long run at Roots and thanks again for being on The Voice of Retail podcast.
Mona Kennedy
Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.