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The purpose of the IT Leaders Council is to bring together IT Directors and Managers for leadership training, educational content from guest speakers, and peer discussions in a vendor-free, collaborative environment. IT Leaders Councils are currently offered in Indianapolis, IN and Columbus, OH, with more cities coming soon!
00;00;00;21 - 00;00;23;16
Leon Ravenna
I'm going to go over a couple things somewhere. It is my company because you probably know my building, but you don't know who the hell we are. What do you do? You look about me because. Well, why not? And then every company here guaranteed is a technology company. Okay. And I'm going to show you how we became a technology company.
00;00;23;19 - 00;00;48;19
Leon Ravenna
Okay. We sell cars. We're technology. We are. So with that, I'll get rolling. Don't worry about the text. It's just me being wordy. So most of you know of my black building. We're on 31. We changed our name, Got the times. I'm the C, so there are so, you know, it. It helps my threat profile. If we change our names, no one knows who to look for.
00;00;48;21 - 00;01;13;16
Leon Ravenna
And so we were desperate for service Congress seven years ago this month. And we were craft service says became part global. Now we're openly what will be in two years. I have no idea. But between fits we will be getting a new tenant. So, you know, we'll move in with us and they'll take floors two and three and their their sign will go up.
00;01;13;16 - 00;01;37;21
Leon Ravenna
We're actually putting sign on the back side over here. And Kamal, in their wisdom, would let us go up high. So we have to basically take up the top of the fifth floor. So that's okay. We just won't be able to see what's going to be built across 31. So last year we touched down 22. We're already 24 cuts, about 1.3 million cars.
00;01;37;23 - 00;02;01;12
Leon Ravenna
If I as we go through in 2018, we touch 6 billion cars. Okay. So we do a lot with cars. So I don't know if it was planned, but Europe, Rob, kind of fed right in along the car analogy so we're so we're all good about a billion and a half when I went there in 17 we were fortunate high six, we were just under 4 billion in revenue.
00;02;01;15 - 00;02;22;00
Leon Ravenna
We had 18,000 employees that we kind of walk through what we've done. We sell cars in a lot of countries. Some of them I don't want to sell too, but we don't really have choice. There are some that we can actually with what we do that now, what you'll notice we're going to talk about change. You'll see accelerate in our title.
00;02;22;01 - 00;02;46;04
Leon Ravenna
You'll see accelerate here when you talk about being busy. We have fundamentally always said yes, because it's it's it's the right thing to do. We got to get do a got to go do it. And I'll walk through some of that and and some of your your eyes glaze over on some of the stuff that we've done on grade wise couple of years.
00;02;46;06 - 00;03;12;09
Leon Ravenna
But we'll talk about transformation. Okay. If you think about we're in the auction business now, a an auto option viewer watch me Cam auctions or Barrett-Jackson. Okay we don't run one of the top eight links. Okay. And you can imagine trying to buy cars in eight lanes at once. An auction site for us historically is 180 acres, holds 14,000 cars.
00;03;12;11 - 00;03;37;22
Leon Ravenna
Every car might move five or six times. Well, it's on one of. So we do a lot with vehicles and we have changed that model dramatically. So real quick about me, I'm an old man. I've been doing this for 38 years now. I remember opening up the Chicago Tribune, just waiting for the day. I'd have five years experience so I could apply for those jobs that were there.
00;03;37;26 - 00;04;06;11
Leon Ravenna
Okay, Now it's like nobody's asking for 40 years experience. Like, I don't know why I actually started working at 12. I've been around cars my whole life. Okay? My dad was my ride, so I've been working 55 hours a week or more since I was 12. So, Rob, we talked about hinge moments. My dad was the hinge OC taught me work ethic, taught me you provide those kind of things.
00;04;06;14 - 00;04;27;26
Leon Ravenna
I went to tailor for those, you know, tailor my first job out of college. I was assistant manager. I wanted nothing more than to get our Walmart. I did not want to be an assistant manager because they hated the college punks. The where it where I was the mayor of 37 years and I live here in Carmel. We've got four grandkids.
00;04;27;28 - 00;04;48;25
Leon Ravenna
That's not my car, but it's an exact picture of my car. So it sits in the garage, doesn't get out much. And I got 2000 miles. It's got 700 horsepower in every single time that I get on it coming on and off or coming on to like Keystone, the very next ramp, I will see a police guarantee every time.
00;04;48;28 - 00;05;08;28
Leon Ravenna
Okay. So it's never been above 100. It's never been raised. That's all. We sold. That's very loud. It is. It is. It gets with it. And then just a quick career. I've been doing a lot of stuff. You'll notice the search. I was a M.C. and A as good as you got in the network world, Nobody cares. I don't work here.
00;05;08;28 - 00;05;33;14
Leon Ravenna
In fact, then it was a big deal. A lot of privacy, a lot of security. I've been doing M&A for 25 years. Okay. So I understand what you're going to what you're going to get, what you're going to have. And we'll talk about some of that. Okay. So waiting in the change, transformation, all that stuff, how many of you today have something that's changing in your organization?
00;05;33;17 - 00;05;58;01
Leon Ravenna
You all right? Okay. How many have more things changing than you think you can handle? Okay, just a few of you. Everybody else is like, so humble takeaways that I want you to think about in the mid-nineties. I was a very here in the Roche and I had a guy who worked for me in every end of the year.
00;05;58;04 - 00;06;25;01
Leon Ravenna
We had this thing this year sucked. Next year's got to be better, right? Well, we're 20 years past that and it's same thing. Okay. It always seems the last year sucks, but you got a little bit better than the year before and you can take on more. Okay. It's amazing how much you can actually take on. There are a couple of things I'll catch you to think about in your role as leaders.
00;06;25;08 - 00;06;52;17
Leon Ravenna
Okay. Maintain call. This is actually animated for me. Okay? I'm usually the monotone guy that doesn't say anything. I'm the CEO, so nobody wants to hear me talk because when I do it, something that I'm very typically okay. But if your hair's on fire, everybody else around you will be okay. So purposefully, purposefully, I make sure that I am calm at all times.
00;06;52;20 - 00;07;18;02
Leon Ravenna
Because if I'm sideways, everybody sideways. Okay. Now, Rob talked about this a little bit, telling your people what they're doing, what they're doing. Well, I have a couple folks that have been become citizens. Okay? Part of what I do, I look back and say, what is my legacy? Okay. It wasn't the building that I built for Baxter, okay?
00;07;18;04 - 00;07;42;08
Leon Ravenna
It's the people that I have built. And you brought up I had somebody I ran to a to an employee I had 20 years ago, and we saw a restaurant. He looked at my wife and he said, Just so you know, this is the best guy to work for a fact that resonates. That means a lot. And then what did your actually what do you do to earn that?
00;07;42;10 - 00;08;08;05
Leon Ravenna
Okay. People don't just automatically revere people. Okay. What are you doing daily to help earn that? And then finally, what did you learn last year? How have you made yourself more valuable? Okay, for a while. And in 21, who were making some changes and they said, listen, we know you do that, see? So stuff. And it's all very important.
00;08;08;05 - 00;08;29;17
Leon Ravenna
And but our chief technology officer is going the way would you do CIO stuff for a while? So yeah, I've done that. I'm going to do it. It was a lot, but we'll talk through some of that. But sometimes you take on those things because you're either asked or volun told one or two, but if nothing else, keep this in mind, okay?
00;08;29;19 - 00;09;03;05
Leon Ravenna
This is what drives me as a leader. Okay. Now I talk about transformation. In 2017, I went to a two car, serves at the time and we bought auctions. Okay, because they built on our portfolio. Well, we also had a company that did salvage in 2019. We spun that company off into a separate publicly traded company. Okay, That company was worth about $1.3 billion.
00;09;03;08 - 00;09;34;07
Leon Ravenna
It's it was acquired last year for 7.2. So pretty good shareholder value transaction, I would think. I mean, you start talking financials and my eyes glaze over, but I think those numbers work. Okay, that started it. And then COVID hit. Okay. When you are a old line physical auction based, people come to auction. And you know, if you think about it on an auction day, we would swell to like 500 people, drivers and stuff like that.
00;09;34;07 - 00;09;59;21
Leon Ravenna
So, you know, there might be 700 people at auction. It was an event like on March 13th, I was in Grand Cayman coming off the the day before the last day of our cruise. And I got a Wi-Fi connection and found out we closed for two weeks. Okay. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about those emails that I didn't pick up during cruise, but we closed for two weeks.
00;09;59;21 - 00;10;26;23
Leon Ravenna
And what we did is we went from 50% of our sales virtual to 100% of our sales virtual in about 3 to 4 weeks. Okay. And we have not stopped doing that. Our CEO, Fernwood, believes that digital is where we have to be and we are helping to lead this industry. Got now we changed the from it. Okay there's always back end changes.
00;10;26;26 - 00;10;56;29
Leon Ravenna
We still have seven or eight ERP systems. We're an acquisitive company, okay? And when we acquire, we don't necessarily integrate right away. And so we have fixed those things. That's what we're working on now. But then we go further and in 22 we sold our U.S. auction business. So 56 auctions again, take 180 acres, 14,000 cars, big physical places sold all that.
00;10;57;01 - 00;11;28;23
Leon Ravenna
We go to Carvana. I actually still have about 5000 people from Carvana on my network now as part of transition, which it is what it is and what we sold that and that furthered us. Okay, now we just finished this year, canceled dating our U.S. marketplaces, our Canadian and our European marketplace. Look, I so taking three or four different ways that you could sell a car and smash those together.
00;11;28;25 - 00;11;52;17
Leon Ravenna
Okay. Making it easier, going back to kind of our tenants, how do we make it easier for a customer? You know, if if a customer doesn't sell a car here and our customers are dealers and manufacturers. So think GM think. I think folks like that, they have multiple ways to sell that vehicle, right? We're facilitating that. All of that takes software.
00;11;52;24 - 00;12;20;22
Leon Ravenna
Okay. And you can't go to SAP and say, well, give me the option management system piece. Okay. There is there is no honor for that. So so this is how we're moving and everything that we do in our marketplaces today is hundreds online. Okay? We still have some physical businesses. We cut keys. So those car fobs, the key fobs you have, we cut those, we'll do them in 24 hours if need be.
00;12;20;24 - 00;12;48;08
Leon Ravenna
Then we inspect vehicles, stuff like that. But most of it is this all software. We have about 500 software developers in our organization and they're scattered around the world. So making this change and you've all done similar things. Okay, maybe not as fast, maybe a little bit faster. Okay. But every company is moving to be a technology company.
00;12;48;10 - 00;13;16;14
Leon Ravenna
So how do you manage through some of that? A question so far, I feel if I wasn't really as good as Rob, so hopefully I haven't fallen out too hard. So. So what are the drivers? Technology naturally is changing. COVID was a driver. The regulatory space. If you aren't having regulatory conversations on, say, a monthly basis, I am nervous for you.
00;13;16;17 - 00;14;03;14
Leon Ravenna
Like the FCC is coming after slows down. Well, they're coming after companies February for publicly traded companies is going to be a pretty busy month as see so I was right help rewrite some of the ten case okay regulatory is getting getting harder to deal with bad guys will get worse there's a lot more of them okay they they use I do okay and you've got to now use their to Friday are like so it's it's it's a nasty world that you live in but what else okay so supply chain you know as around May of 20 people start buying cars again and there all sudden there were no chips.
00;14;03;16 - 00;14;30;11
Leon Ravenna
So there were no cars. Okay. No new cars. Well, when you deal in a business that sells used cars and you are kind of a step in the process, when the dealer intercepts what you do, you don't have those cars. So, okay, so we've we've rebuilt the business. And then I, I would I would tell you on a technology standpoint, you all probably have one or three problems.
00;14;30;13 - 00;14;48;27
Leon Ravenna
You have Active Directory problems. Okay. People don't talk about it because it's 20 years old and they don't want to. But you have a job on that problem. Okay. A damn thing runs and if you touch you, you falls over. Okay, so no one's going to patch it. Okay. And then you have segmentation problem because you're all grew up.
00;14;48;29 - 00;15;09;16
Leon Ravenna
But all it is well and what people did is well, I soft talk so let's talk the things. Why. Well that just made your blast radius were nasty. Okay. And if I asked you if you had one, two or three of those problems now, ten of you would say you do the terms like, so it is what it is.
00;15;09;18 - 00;15;38;24
Leon Ravenna
And then third party stuff my customers are manufacturers, makes and so it's always third party problem. We're always going to be the problem. Your vendors are going to be the problem. Okay. So when I say change, Neal's coming on target. I thought it was message for me and I was trying to figure out what what I needed to go do.
00;15;38;27 - 00;16;07;19
Leon Ravenna
We have 14 lines of business we bought or sold seven companies in the last seven years, correct? When I talked about AA, we went from 18,045 employees. Okay, combination selling off company is spinning off companies, but let's look at the last 20 months. Okay? This is the short list of the things that we've done. Okay. We sold the business.
00;16;07;21 - 00;16;35;16
Leon Ravenna
We looked at cutting costs. Okay, you guys, look at that. Not really a big deal. We are heavy, doctor of of cloud and SAS. We moved to on from data centers to Veeam Cloud native. Yes. We have big presence in Europe. Yes, Azure and a little bit in GCB. We migrated from office 365 to Google. Okay. It had its own set of issues and and then we moved call centers offshore.
00;16;35;19 - 00;17;01;05
Leon Ravenna
Okay, doing a lot of stuff. We actually just late last year was Canadian assets in Manhattan was our biggest competitor in the auction space. So we still have auction locations in Canada, but all they do is service vehicles. Okay, so this is the short list of stuff. And there's really nothing on here from a security standpoint. Okay. And this is the short list that I could remember while I was doing it.
00;17;01;08 - 00;17;24;22
Leon Ravenna
But you all are doing similar things. And I would venture to guess that a lot of you, whether you're thinking about it or not, are working towards transforming your business. Okay? If you're not doing something that's working towards transforming it, I would question why you're doing okay right there. Any need? Okay. If you're at manufacturing bill points. Okay.
00;17;24;24 - 00;17;51;12
Leon Ravenna
That that's a that's you know, not not for discussion, but you need to be looking at how you were making that transition. So how do you get sleep? Okay. I typically wake up about 5:00 in the morning. I'm worried about who's attacking me. I really attack I'm having arguments. Okay. And when you think about it, how do you get sleep?
00;17;51;15 - 00;18;13;23
Leon Ravenna
I would say you wrap your arms around people. Okay? My security staff, I've lost two people in the last two and a half years. My security staff is not huge. Okay? But they like working together. We do interesting stuff. Okay. Now, I will tell you, nobody wants to talk about this, but everybody has A, B and C players.
00;18;13;26 - 00;18;35;06
Leon Ravenna
They all have a role and they're all in for it. Okay. There are some things that a person who is a C player has to do you need them to do, And let's make sure they know that their value for doing it. And I didn't talk to Rob, but people want to contribute. They want to feel like they're part of team.
00;18;35;06 - 00;19;12;02
Leon Ravenna
They want to feel like they're doing something of value. At the end of the day, that's all they want. Now, I talked about taking on C our responsibilities. At the end of 23. I backed off of that. The the technology landscape is getting too nasty. Had it focus back on on more security stuff and we we have that in we're now aligned on the technology side and are there things that you can move to a peer or quite frankly to people that work for you that deserve the opportunity to go do something new?
00;19;12;05 - 00;19;40;27
Leon Ravenna
Okay. Let let them try and fail on their own. You've done it forever. Sorry. I've done it forever. I don't know if you have, but I'm saying that their let them try it. And then. Are you being transparent? You know, if I'm I'm typically nothing if not transparent, if I can do it to a buddy of mine and and we're talking about the guys that I had that became CISOs and I said, well, they became CISOs, but after a year they want to be any.
00;19;41;02 - 00;20;05;24
Leon Ravenna
We're talking about humility. You said that's the humility part. You don't have to tell people that they didn't want to do it, but you do, okay? You're transparent with people to say there's problem. When I talk to my risk committee, we don't have everything is lollipops, the sunshine conversations. They don't want those conversations. They want to know what's bad and how they help fix.
00;20;05;27 - 00;20;30;24
Leon Ravenna
Okay, so being very transparent, this was a hard one right now. What does it look like from a leadership standpoint? Most people don't understand the top one. Get the hell out of the way. I mean, I've you know, I've I've learned this over time. You know, I, I still get beat up because, I mean, I was citizens warning check of my scary stuff.
00;20;30;27 - 00;20;52;26
Leon Ravenna
I do it every morning. When I say every morning, it's every morning, Saturday, Sunday. First thing I do, unless I'm on a cruise. If I'm on a cruise, I shut down. But otherwise I check it every morning. Now, do I have to know, do I want to? Yes. Do I want to make sure that I'm engaged or say what's happening?
00;20;52;28 - 00;21;21;12
Leon Ravenna
I view and you will have a different perspective on things because of that that you've learned over the last many years. Okay. So it's valuable. I use coach football when my son was this big, not this week. And I told parents, I said, if you ever hear me yell at your son or daughter, it is yelling for them.
00;21;21;14 - 00;21;38;02
Leon Ravenna
You will never hear me yell at them. I'm okay. When I was younger, I got to go that a lot. So I don't. Like I said, the thing you want to know is when I walk up to them and I put my arm around their shoulder and I whisper in their ear, that's the conversation you want to know about, okay?
00;21;38;04 - 00;22;08;00
Leon Ravenna
Because that's when we're coaching. I will never, ever, ever humiliate somebody in the in the context of an issue. If there's a problem, it's my problem. Okay. Rusty, you asked about about managing up. Okay. I see my job as making sure the people below me are successful and the people coming aren't successful. And the best book that I've read on that is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willett, former Navy SEAL.
00;22;08;03 - 00;22;27;29
Leon Ravenna
Okay. It's actually pretty quick, Rick. Secondly, for third, stay engaged. I look at stuff every day, not because I have to, but because I want to see what's happening. I want to be able to ask things. And every so often, not every time, but I'll ask a question and they'll say, Yeah, great point. We need to go look at that.
00;22;28;06 - 00;22;49;22
Leon Ravenna
I asked a question yesterday about some things that I saw in the city. I here's the ten things that we do to make sure we like to use. Okay, This is a really big one. One of the things that happened with SolarWinds and if you if you haven't had the opportunity, say opportunity fail, read the complaint against SolarWinds.
00;22;49;24 - 00;23;13;14
Leon Ravenna
It's a worthwhile read. I've got I have people ask me about the headlines. I said, I won't tell you what I think until I read the complaint. Okay. In the complaint, one of the things they said was the CEO never asked. He never took feedback. Okay? And so I, I purposefully go ask the people that work in my security group, what are we not doing?
00;23;13;14 - 00;23;41;17
Leon Ravenna
We should be what am I doing that gets in your way? Okay. You know, those are those are hard conversations to have for you personally, because you might be a poll. Okay. We'll see. We're going to see our public. Well, they're not telling you the truth. Okay. But I would I would argue go ask them, because again, people will tell them, okay, if you're asking in a please help me perspective, not a okay.
00;23;41;23 - 00;24;05;17
Leon Ravenna
It says here, I'm supposed to ask you what you think of me. Well, that's never going to do. Okay. Be humble about it. And then I hire for attitude. I have two guys who are still in the military. One of the really interesting things about the military is on the security side, they spend about 3 to $400000 training people.
00;24;05;19 - 00;24;31;01
Leon Ravenna
Okay, So if you're an opportunity to pick up one of them, it's a really good deal because they also understand sometimes I may have to stare at that wall for 8 hours and I don't know why, but I've been told to do that before and that's what I want to do. Okay. They are phenomenal employees. I also have a guy who was a came one of our call centers for our team over a call center.
00;24;31;04 - 00;24;57;18
Leon Ravenna
He did GRC work for us. And now the guy who runs my abstract program, guys, absolutely phenomenal, has been there for ten years. You know, he knows everybody. He knows what they're thinking. Okay. We also have a buddy that hired somebody who found him baling hay in a on a horse farm. Okay, guys, great pen, Pastor. Okay. Because they have different perspective.
00;24;57;20 - 00;25;26;25
Leon Ravenna
Okay? If I hire people that only look like me and think like me, we're going to get the same thing. But what I need is people who have diversity of thought, okay, I can attack you this way now. I can attack you this way. Okay. That's that's where we're where I think people start to be really successful. And then I think finally, you got to take care of yourself.
00;25;26;27 - 00;25;55;02
Leon Ravenna
Okay? What you do on a regular basis is it's pretty arduous. People don't necessarily understand what you do. Okay. And it's hard for you to explain to people within your company the struggles that you have. Okay. So let's start with that. It's not like finance and wealth, like these numbers a good you know, it's it's thinking through complex problems.
00;25;55;05 - 00;26;26;02
Leon Ravenna
Okay. This tough one, I will admit I failed here. Okay. Now, I will tell you that all three of my kids are through college. They didn't go to jail. That's a win. And I was. Yeah, I can count on two hands, the events that I wasn't at. All right, That includes global travel. That includes working in Cincinnati and living in Carmel.
00;26;26;05 - 00;26;52;22
Leon Ravenna
Okay, I would drive back for a hockey game. Okay. Between my son and my daughter, I spent 17 years in penalty box. The best place to watch a game from, especially when there's no glass in front. Here is the occasional pop that comes at your head. But it's all good. But I failed at this. Okay? I was present, but, you know, sixth grade, ran a sixth grade band.
00;26;52;22 - 00;27;17;26
Leon Ravenna
Concert's not really all that exciting. There was always some issue I had to deal with when my kids weren't performing because it's bad enough to listen to them who don't know how to play an instrument, let alone every other kid in the play. So there was always some kind of issue that that required my attention. But I was present, but I wasn't always there.
00;27;17;29 - 00;27;46;28
Leon Ravenna
Okay, Those are the things. You look back and say, Man, I screwed that up right now. Fortunately, my wife, bless her heart, did a great job with the kids. Okay? And then I was the bad guy and I would say, find the hobby. I walk five miles a day. I was looking and mean this weekend and the guy said he named his dog five miles so he could say, I walk five miles today, but and I mentor starter companies.
00;27;47;02 - 00;28;13;28
Leon Ravenna
I really enjoy working with companies trying to figure stuff out. Okay, most of it's for free. Okay. So it's a lot of work for, you know, some of them works alone fail, but it's it's the notion of helping others to be successful. And then I would say find someone to talk with. I started a of group here because nobody understands what you do.
00;28;14;00 - 00;28;36;10
Leon Ravenna
And sometimes you just got to yell at people, okay, I don't. But I've told numerous people I remember sitting in the the Newark airport on a trip back from Israel talking to somebody at the state and said, Look, you got my number. Nobody knows that you do call me, you hold me for 15 minutes, you'll hang up, you'll feel better.
00;28;36;10 - 00;29;07;10
Leon Ravenna
I won't care. Let's go on. I'll. Okay. Sometimes that that's needed because you have to have an outlet. And I started to see sort of apparent indie. So if there's security folks in your organizations that need an outlet, hit me up on that. And then sometimes you need a therapist. Okay. My wife is a therapist. She deals with your kids about you talk that have dealt with trauma, not something I could ever, ever do.
00;29;07;13 - 00;29;50;09
Leon Ravenna
I like dealing with things that don't talk back of that. But she's been after it forever. Go find some to talk to. So I finally did. Probably ten years late, but only deuce now. How's it going? Thanks. When you know it's all good. And then I guess the question that I would ask you as you as you leave today, sometimes when a really long place I got 25 years ago I went through a a leadership thing and I was talking to the and this was that there Roche and I talked to the guy who was running it and I went through all the complaints I had.
00;29;50;11 - 00;30;18;13
Leon Ravenna
He said, Why are you here? Why? Why do you stay? If this is if this is the problem, why do you say, okay, now that could be a good decision or bad decision? I went to a startup company. There weren't many startup companies in the 24, 23 years ago, and they had an ethics problems. I left. But, you know, sometimes you might find yourself in that spot and you have to decide for yourself, Are you in the right spot or not?
00;30;18;15 - 00;30;50;18
Leon Ravenna
Okay. But again, it's all about taking care of yourself. These pieces all fit into that top one. Okay? If you can't do that one right, that you're you have a place to work. So I think that's it. It is. I will take questions, Comments. There's no Red Bull tomatoes here, so you can't throw those at me. But question thoughts on transformation than anything else.
00;30;50;20 - 00;30;53;20
Leon Ravenna
It's all good. Let's go to the back to work for it. So thanks.