Anne Saunders, President of Consumer Division at FTD, Northwestern & Wharton Grad, and Yoga Devotee  

Anne Saunders’ C.V. shows a person whose business savvy — helped along by the Advanced Management program she completed at Wharton, and an MBA from Fordham Gabelli – seems to span multiple industries: she has worked as an SVP at Starbucks and Bank of America, an EVP at Knowledge Universe, and as President at Redbox. She is now the President of the Consumer Division of FTD — everyone’s favorite go-to vendor used to express, with emotion and scent, feelings of deep appreciation for another person.  This means that her company’s daily work is, in the end, all about making people uplifted (since to the recipient, a bunch of flowers is like a fragrant, petal-rich messenger of happiness).

Saunders’ career versatility is something she herself notes, saying that she “has learned so much by not being reluctant to try out new industries and new challenges.” This instinct towards constantly refining and exploring new business skills meant that she attained her MBA after being in the workplace for several years. Her reasoning? She wanted to move from the managerial area, to “go deeper into leadership skills, and given my experience, I had different questions and interests than I did in my earlier career.”

Even with the high ascent in the corporate milieu that followed, she does not focus solely on that: she has a huge interest in yoga, as well as knitting; makes sure that she and her husband have breakfast with her kids; and (surprisingly) offers Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as her book recommendation, saying it her “favorite book ever.”  However, her business education shows through clearly in her insights about team-building and overcoming career obstacles, while her succinct, outside-the-box thoughts on a leader’s best qualities lean towards the humanistic end of the scale — rather than focusing on “alpha” male/female  traits — and may reflect the mind of someone also schooled in literature.

Can you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
I think of myself as a mom, wife, leader, friend, yogini and knitter.  

What does a day in your shoes typically look like?
Usually I wear flats – so assume my day is comfortable, first of all!  But seriously, I do yoga and mediate for thirty minutes.  I have coffee and read the paper with my husband, and we have breakfast with our kids.

Then I’m in the office around 8 a.m. I usually have 10 – 15 meetings each day – sometimes one-on-one meetings with my direct report team, or group meetings to check on the progress of projects. I go home to have dinner with my family by 6:30 p.m. or so.  I’ll read, hang out or talk with friends in the evening.  I am an early-to-bed person, always before 10 p.m. 

What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning, and the last three things you do before you go to bed
Brush my teeth (both times), kiss my family (both times), and reflect on the day – either what’s to come or what’s happened.  

What is your breakfast of choice?
Yogurt, berries, nuts and COFFEE. 

What keeps you energized and motivated at work?
Ensuring I’m tending to the other parts of my life – my family, exercise, yoga, spiritual reflection, and fun!  That gives me the energy and balance to approach work positively, not as a chore.

What is your favorite part about your job?
Best part and hardest part is working with people – figuring out how to motivate and inspire individuals and teams to accomplish more than they imagined they could. 

What and who inspires your work?
I like making an impact, either in the results of a business, or even more satisfying in making an impact in people’s working lives. For me, the most gratifying aspect of work is to get an email from someone who used to work with me that lets me know about their progress, or about a memory they have of something I did or said years ago that is still meaningful to them.  

What is your favorite leisure activity after a stressful work week?
Yoga.

What has been your biggest obstacle in your career and how did you overcome it?
I tend to be energized by obstacles – if you tell me “no,” I’m going to figure out a way. So I might rephrase the question above to be “What have been my biggest learnings in your career?”  And my answer is that when I was a young manager, I had to learn that it is important to flex your style to fit each individual you are managing. You can get much more effective results if you coach, reward and incent people based on their own personal motivations.

I also learned that it is possible and preferable to talk through frustrations with your job or your workplace, rather than choose to think no one will care, and then leave the company.

How many times have you changed your career direction?
Many times: I’ve worked in advertising, retail, telecommunications, financial services education, and ecommerce. I have learned so much not being reluctant to try out new industries and new challenges. 

Three questions you like to ask during an interview to know if the candidate (or job) is the right fit?
I always begin an interview asking people to “Tell me about your background.” That open-ended question is how I see if  they can sum up their experience and unique capabilities that express the kind of contribution they would make.

I also always ask people about the best manager they ever had, and why they were able to work so effectively with that person. That tells me what is important to them in a manager, and gives me a sense if our styles would synch.

Lastly, I always want to hear about what people do for fun, it gives me an insight into what they would be like to work with.

What are the most important qualities of a good leader?
Curiosity, humility, and humor.

What advantages do you see as a woman in the workplace?
As we look at very senior positions at many large companies – C-Suite, BOD positions – where there is a lack of representation, one key advantage women bring to these roles is that inclusion is a predictor of better business results. I’m proud to say that at FTD, we have three women on the executive team, and four women board members.

What book would you recommend for women just starting their careers?
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – my favorite book ever. I’m not big on business books! 

What were some of the major components in managing your teams, specifically the Starbucks team of 300+ for which you were responsible before FTD?
Doesn’t matter if it 5 or 500 – here’s how I think about what I do:

• • • You need to know your team – as individuals, and about their capabilities and motivations.
    • You need to have and articulate a vision for where your team is headed – what does success look like?
    • You need to get out of their way, and let them develop the action plan for how they will deliver the vision.
    • You need to participate in measuring the progress and success of that action plan.
    • You need to recognize and celebrate the team successes, and help them learn from, and be okay with, the shortfalls. 

Why did you go back to school and take an advanced management program after receiving your MBA? Is this something you would recommend?
At that point I had been a manager for a while, and was starting to manage other people managers. I wanted to go deeper into leadership skills, and given my experience, I had different questions and interests than I did in my earlier career.

I only recommend further study beyond college if you have a sincere interest in organized learning on the subject matter. Don’t do it to make more money, or because you think you should. Do it if you feel compelled to learn more in an academic environment.

Favorite quote you try to live by?
It’s a tie:

• • • “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be” — attributed I think to Abraham Lincoln
    • “Don’t let best get in the way of better” — Jim Barksdale, past CEO McCaw Cellular (where I knew him),  among his other professional accomplishments.