Take 5 With CEO Nancy Richardson

Nancy Richardson of San Antonio Shoe "took five" with First American's Amy Weader to chat about building a strong employee culture, leadership, and the future of manufacturing. Read more below.

 Amy: Who is Nancy Richardson? Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Nancy: I'm the CEO of San Antonio Shoe. I am a CPA and an attorney. Throughout my career I have been general counsel and CFO of publicly traded companies. I ran finance and accounting here at SAS from '86-'92, then spent 20 years in technology. I returned to SAS in 2012 as CEO.

 Amy: I know you have so much pride in your role and the company. When you chose to return to SAS, what led you to that decision?

 Nancy: It was a combination of several things, really. I had always kept a relationship with the family, and respected what they built at SAS. Also, for me, coming back to SAS from the technology space allowed me to go back into an environment I probably didn't fully appreciate the first time I worked here, being young and ambitious. But now, having more maturity, I realize I actually appreciate a privately-held company that has values it places on par with financial performance.

 Amy: That's great. Speaking of leading the company, what principles guide your leadership strategy?

Nancy: It would be hard to bring it down to just one thing. You know, most of my focus has been on building a team, because the reality is, a cohesive team can accomplish so much more than the same number of individuals separately.

 We've worked on individual leadership profiles to understand what each of our strengths are and where each of us have struggles, and then helped each other from there. To me, that goes for everything from not setting someone up for failure and giving them a job that they're ill-suited for, to understanding where their strengths are, too. Then it's easier for someone to say, "I can take that, that's something I enjoy doing and you struggle with." It's not to say that any of us can't take our struggles and work on them, but at the end of the day, the reality is, one person is not going to be good at everything. So, when you're building a team, you really want to have an appropriate balance of skills across the board.

 Amy: Sure, so strong teams are a theme in your culture. What else makes San Antonio Shoe unique?

Nancy: There is one thing that has always been unique to SAS, and that’s the idea of creating as much of a family atmosphere in the workplace as we can.

 While we know that it's important for every business to be profitable, the reality here is that we try to focus more on how we treat people than we do about squeezing every penny we can to the bottom line. Our founders’ views were that if you treat your people right, the rest of the business will take care of itself. And when we say people, we mean employees, customers, vendors - really everybody in the chain.

 Amy: What does the future look like at San Antonio Shoe?

Nancy: Our vision is to remain a U.S. manufacturer, but be a global distributor. Before I came back to SAS, the company really viewed itself as a U.S. manufacturer and a domestic company. But that has shifted, and we now view ourselves as a U.S. manufacturer that will have a global presence. Being a manufacturer is central to who we are, so our long-term plan is not to become a distributor and contract out all of our manufacturing. We're shoemakers at the core, and that defines who we are.

 Amy: That's exciting to think about. Will online be big a part of how you reach a global scale?

 Nancy: Yes, it will be. The reality is that the Internet today is what brick-and-mortar stores were 25 years ago. Will we always have brick-and-mortar stores? For the foreseeable future, yes, because usually revenue optimization today usually comes with a combination of brick-and-mortar and online presence. I see that in my own shopping habits. Sometimes I want to go to the store, sometimes I want to shop online. I think there's a role for both of them for now.

 Amy: What is your take on advancements in manufacturing and new automation technology?

Nancy: As manufacturers, we're obviously pretty obsessed with quality. We look at where it makes sense to automate and also where technology doesn't have it quite right yet.

 For instance, when you visited, you saw that we've invested in two of the Teseo cutters. There have been machine cutters for leather for probably 15 years at this point, but the first ones didn't really perform as well as humans. They were quicker, but they lacked judgement about where you should cut it. Leather comes from mother nature, so we always thought that humans needed to cut leather because you could see it and make judgment calls. But the truth is, today, the technology has become advanced enough that we can mark those pieces ahead of time, and the machine will cut around them.

 It's really a combination of watching technology to make sure you're investing when it's going to fulfill your needs, as opposed to just automating for automation's sake.

 Amy: And that’s five! Thank you, Nancy, for taking the time to speak with us today.

Nancy: Of course, thank you. 

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