Thomas Vozzo - CEO at Homeboy Industries | A Radical Approach to Business & Life

running a division at Aramark and then helping people rehabilitate after prison. There's something missing there, so what's the gap? Los Angeles is the gang capital of the world, unfortunately. I'm having lunch at the homegirl cafe with my friend. And he's asking me to get involved and as I'm leaving lunch, I'm looking around at the employees. I'm looking how they're... Amvoso, CEO of Homeboy Industries. The largest social enterprise dedicated to helping former gang involved men and women transform their lives through job training and human services. Through his leadership, Homeboy now serves 10,000 men and women each year. Why is this population not able to get the jobs before they end up in a certain point where a homeboy has to serve them? Who we serve are current gang members who have been incarcerated, so they come out of the prison and jail system. They voluntarily come to Homeboy and when they walk through our doors, they're saying, I'm tired of gang life. I want something different. Can you help? What is the one thing that you took from running multi-billion dollar organization and that you deployed into Homeboy? Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They've supported the podcast for almost two years now. Obviously, if you have never used HubSpot or have ever heard of it, you're just turning into the podcast for the first time because I've spoken about HubSpot a lot. But HubSpot is a tool that you need if you are a business leader and now they're helping you incorporate AI into your processes. See, AI is eating the web as we speak and what that means for a business leader is this. The time to embrace AI technology is now because for people like us, automation helps us do more with less while continuing to meet and exceed those incredibly high business expectations we set for ourselves. It's basically magic or honestly as close as we're going to get as business leaders. And if you haven't tried HubSpot's new AI features, you have to do that. Content Assistant and ChatSpot are two brand new tools that will immediately save you and your team tons of time. HubSpot's features run on ChatGPT's tech to help you make compelling content and manage your CRM way faster than before. We're talking ad copy, data analytics, workflow automations, all with a chat command. So head to HubSpot.com slash artificial dash intelligence. Today, my guest is Tom Voseau, CEO of Homeboy Industries, the largest social enterprise dedicated to helping former gang involved men and women transform their lives through job training and human services. His global business expertise and proven track record of leading highly successful businesses in the service, retail and distribution industries prompted Homeboy Industries founder, father Greg Boyle, to ask him to take the helm in 2012. Since then, Voseau has led the agency forward, bringing his business expertise and vision to implement a strategic and mission-driven development plan for the organization that has resulted in growth all around through his leadership, Homeboy now serves 10,000 men and women each year. In 2011, Voseau retired as the executive vice president of RMRC, a $13 billion corporation during which time he served as CEO and president of RMRC Uniform and Career Apparel Group. He also served as an executive officer and management committee member of RMRC from 2004 to 2011. During his time, the corporation transitioned from public to private, via a management private equity led $8 billion buyout. Voseau is a member of the advisory board for the Salvation Army, Southern California Division, and has served on executive committees of a number of industry-related boards. You know, I often think back in my life about, I've had great, a lot of great experiences and in many ways I feel like I live the charm life. But I had a seminal moment earlier, Mike, where you're about business and business, because I love business. I found myself having a natural ability to kind of run companies, understand what it takes to make the company successful from a sales standpoint, from an employee standpoint. And so this is back when I was running my the uniform set of businesses for RMRC. It was $2 billion set of businesses and think back to the 2008 recession, which is different than the recession we just went through in this pandemic. In 2008, it was sort of a monetary crisis and it was interest rates and money flow, but essentially what happened was within the four-month time frame, the economy shrunk, 10 to 15%. And the businesses I was running, that business shrunk just about the same amount. It was a uniform business. A number of employees out there is how many people in uniform? So we worked super hard to make our numbers. And we knew the year-end was coming, we did workforce reductions, we were kind of trying to be smart about keeping our long-term plans in place, but also having making the short-term numbers. And so the year was ending, and I still remember this is the seminal moment I was, we at that time I lived in California, went back to visit my in-laws in Philadelphia two days before Christmas, and I'm driving along my wife and I had a good food shopping on behalf of my mother-in-law, and I remember in the reigning parking lot in suburban Philadelphia at a supermarket and the chairman of the corporation called me up. And usually calls up for work Christmas that we share very happy holidays, but this time it wasn't about wishing happy holidays, it was about time when we're going to make the numbers per year-end. And you know I do tofully kind of talk through how we did our reductions that even though there was a 15% sale decline, we're still going to only make, we're going to reduce profits by 7%. So we're still going to make $150 million of profit, not revenue, $100 million of profit. And in that, and as I'm telling them, I'm thinking we're doing a pretty good job. What he turns to me on the phone is that's not good enough. We made promises to the street, and we have to hit our numbers. And you've got to do all you can to get back to your original number, which is trying to find another $10 million. And so I'm thinking to myself as he's telling me that story and telling me what I got to do, I have to now, in fact my mind, I know what it's going to take to cut that extra $10 million. I have to now do more workforce reduction, fire more people, people who will be of Canada for many years in our company, who we probably need down the line. And I think this is a big sense. This isn't this is not planning for a long term. This is not a people driven company at that point. This is clearly a shareholder driven company, which has the rules of the game. Well-run companies have this balance of shareholder value balance against employees. But in the time when push comes to shove, it's always shareholder's winning out. And I also know I know how the numbers work. I know that just by us going from 150 million dollars of profit to 160 million what our commitment was, it's not going to make a little difference in our long term valuation. So I'm thinking for the sense of pride that we are good to snort business people to make the street, we're actually now hurting people's livelihoods along the way. And so to me that was like that was the moment where I love business all along. I love sort of running companies and making a good place to work for people. I realize the rules of the game I understood but one of those for you of those rules don't sit well with me and that why do you always have to leave employees behind in the zeal to sort of do the highest performance on Wall Street. And so at that point I thought to myself, well listen I'm not in charge, you know I take the orders from the CEO and if that's where they got it that's what we got to do. But in my mind that was my point. As some point I got to find something different in life that while I've been very successful in the business world, there's got to be a way that we can run businesses and not sacrifice employees and people when push comes to shove. They can kind of keep things in balance even when times get tough. And it was interesting as I reflect back having that those feelings now over 14, 15 years ago and then now my life of this last decade at Homeboy Industries and how having people be first and foremost and what we do, how my perspective of running an organization changes. So we're talking when that conversation happened that you said that was about 15, 10 to 15 years 2008, right, that the crisis. So that was a few years ago, do you feel as though like I know what you're doing is drastically different than that mindset? But do you feel as though businesses have actually evolved past that? Have we still stuck in this shareholder stakeholder first mentality in 2023? We are still stuck and we have not evolved past that. I think it's very difficult for us to kind of shake loose those constructs. Listen, I want to be really clear, I love businesses. I do speeches on behalf of Homeboy and I lead off by saying I'm a committed capitalist and some audiences as in place so well, but I think well-run businesses are good for our society. And for the most part, businesses do right by their employees and in this narrative that's out there that all business folks or evil folks, that's no, no. Having a business that employs people, where people combine dignity and their job and dignity to the labor they do add value to our society. But I think back to your question, why we haven't shaken off those constraints is you think about the reward systems that's in place and how it's, you know, it's almost equally shady to talk about public companies have this quarterly mentality. But yet, you know, almost two-thirds of the business in the United States, large businesses are owned by private equity. They still have a very short-term profit-oriented mentality. I think we have to come up with a way of having a longer-term view for businesses and clearly those businesses that depend upon people, you know, service industry depends on people, has to rank that as high as shareholder value. And if you look at really the well-run companies over multiple decades is the ones who sort of put their people more upfront relative to the other companies that it's just more profit and financial driven. Now, let's look at the stark contrast between a company that was run with that legacy mindset and what you're doing with Homeboy. So let's pick like the number one lesson as you, because obviously then you move forward in your life and your career and you start Homeboy and I want to understand what gave you the idea to do this and where that inspiration came from. But what is the single most important lesson that you learned at AeroMark that you are adamant about making sure that Homeboy does not do that thing? Oh, I thought you'd go on the other way and say what did they lesson that they bring? No, I want to hear the opposite. I want to hear that one thing that gave you stress, it was traumatic, that was it this one particular instance? Yeah, without a doubt. Now listen, so I want to say again, I love businesses, I love work. There's a lot of good in corporate America, there's a lot of good learnings, there's whole issue of leadership development, people development, you know, the for-profit business sector has that figured out really well, most definitely. But when it comes to sort of what is the mission? What is an organization about? And often, not often, nearly every time in the for-profit sector, it is about driving, shareholder value, profits first, and it's that sort of mission to, that doesn't increase the share price, but the drive sales, the drive profitability, and well-run companies are good job of getting, having more people share in that pie. But without a doubt, when, think about the audience out here listening in business, and actually trying to make a tough decision, how often do you sort of say, well, how's this going to affect our employees? How often is that question factor in to a very difficult business decision? More often, it's like, is it good for our market share? Is it good for our profitability? Can we afford to make it that way? You know, very, very few times, is it like, if you're, if we're people oriented company, is it good for our employees over the long term? And then let's, let's flip it then. So the question that you thought I was going to ask, so, what is the one thing that you took from running a multi-billion dollar organization, and that you deployed into, into homeboy? Yeah, listen, so particularly, AirMark is a service company, and so you're not successful because you have a certain patent or product or technology. You have a service, and that service goes from client to client, and how well you perform is how well you get your next set of businesses. So, it is about leadership development. AirMark was a global company, very decentralized. It's spent a lot of effort and time of training up the next generation of leaders, so that the organization kept growing. And so it's bringing that point of how do you kind of develop leaders and manage it in an organization to grow organically as you would want to in any organization, and it's that people focus of investing in people from a development standpoint. The difference is, AirMark did it because they knew if they had great leaders, they were going to make more money. We're doing that at homeboy is that having great leaders and allow more people to heal and get out of gang life in the life of crime. Amazing. Okay, so then walk me through because a service-based business is, there's not, I don't see the path into what you're doing at homeboy. I don't see the clear, the clear, you know, the clear thread between running a division at AirMark and then helping people rehabilitate after, after prison, right? There's something missing there. So what's the gap? How did you get into this? Yeah, how did I get into it? So, back to that seminal moment I knew at that time, boy, I got to find a different, different way going about this. No idea what that would be. But also, you know, we were owned by private equity, sort of had a four-year lockup. I was going to work four years, four more years, do my best job I can and then go find a different chapter in my life. Another good thing, what public companies, big companies focus on is being local in the community. And so for many years, we're always encouraged to be on and help out local charities and boards. So I was on the board of the Salvation Army of Los Angeles. And from there, I was so impressed with how the Salvation Army sort of their employees, their officers put their time and energy into helping the most marginalized forgotten people, the homeless people along the way. And so it fell aboard, member. It was on that board, a new eye left, AirMark, and invited me down to the Homegirl Cafe for lunch. Now, again, Homeboy is the largest gang rehabilitation program in the country there by the world. Los Angeles is the gang capital of the world, unfortunately. But here we have Homeboy, a 30-year organization helping people get out of gang life and being very successful at it. And part of it is having social enterprise businesses and helping people heal through the context of a job. But I'm having lunch at the Homegirl Cafe with my friend. And he's asking me to get involved, and he knew I had time on my hand. And as a meeting lunch, I'm looking around at the employees serving us, the Homegirls and the Homeboys. And I'm looking at how they're doing a good job. They're working hard, they're smiling, they're talking to customers, they're interacting. And as this realization waves over me that I would have never hired any of those folks back in my for-profit job. And that here is this workforce that it seems like a pretty good workforce. And I say to end the context in my last eight years in my for-profit job, we've made 40 acquisitions in those eight years, we integrated them. So you have a sense as you're looking at potential companies, you walk the shop floor, you have a sense of the culture and how the workforce works. And here I'm looking at this Homeboy workforce saying, wow, I know nothing about this population. I know I would have never hired them. And yet they're doing a good job. And as I heard that they've changed their change in the life around. So when I had the opportunity to my friend wanted me to get involved in the board, I wanted to get involved. But you know, I always admired the salvation army officers who they've dedicated their professional life to helping people. And so I had time on my hand and wasn't going to go work again by figuring, well let me volunteer. And so as opposed to being a board member, you have something I'd come and volunteer and do. And at the time Homeboy was having financial problems, particularly getting its social enterprise businesses. I clearly needed an old guy with some gray hair and knew how to run businesses. And so I started volunteer. And did I ever think I was going to be a non-profit guy? No, they were thinking I was going to kind of go work with gang members. Absolutely not. I knew nothing about gang members. I knew nothing about the people, their struggles in their society. But when I soon came to learn, I still I soon fell in love with the organization. And what I saw was in the context of a job, people dramatically transform their life and really becoming upstanding members of our community. And that's, and yeah that's what it was we think about all of us. What I want in society is for everybody to succeed, right? And so here's Homeboy's helping the most demonized forgotten people move their life forward. And so I signed on as a volunteer. A couple months later the organization was going through some more financial troubles. Father Greg Boyle, our founder, someone on the board said, hey you want to ask Tom to see if he can spend more time with us. And he asked me to be come in for the first time to be the CEO. And I got a little bit demurred. I didn't want to work full time. I sort of wanted to go off and travel with my wife. I was really intrigued. I was wanting to, intrigued to also be in the great, in the vicinity of Father Greg, who was a living saint. And I said yes. And you look, I had all the hubris of a corporate CEO. I think, okay, I'll do this for six months to a year. I helped get them straightened out. And then I go off and do something different. And lo and behold, I'm the year 10 years later, loving every, still every minute that I'm there, learning so much more about business, certainly so much about the poor in our society, learning so much more about my own spirituality. And through the homies, I've learned to go on my own spiritual journey and find more balance in my life. And so that's, I was, I'm happy to always talk about homeboys, lots of things to say. But it's, I just feel like it's, it's coincidence or provenance that sort of led me to having that lunch, the homegirl cafe and jumping in. One of my favorite tools for the podcast that you're listening to right now is Munch. Munch is an AI powered tool that takes a podcast, a webinar, an interview, you name it. And it turns it into tons of media ready social clips. 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Everything happens for a reason, right? Everything always does. So I want to understand a little bit more about the people that you serve. So so so at a high level, you're helping people that are involved in gangs, get jobs, probably be a little bit of a living a better life, living in society in a better way than through through gangs. But help me understand the the person that you serve best is somebody who is in a gang that hasn't been incarcerated is this like a rehabilitation program after they have been incarcerated. Who do you actually serve? And then also I want to I guess ask ask a tough question and it's not meant to be insensitive. It's meant to better understand the people that you serve. Why would they not why is gang the default? Why is this population not able to get the jobs before they end up in a certain point where a homeboy has to serve them? There's a reason why and I want to understand that so they can better frame the the service that you're offering. Yeah well good question Scott. Let me first say who we serve are gang members, current gang members who have been incarcerated. So they come out of the prison and jail system and they voluntarily come to homeboy. There's not court mandated and not told them to be here. They voluntarily come to homeboy them when they walk through their door, our doors, they're saying I'm tired of gang life. I want something different can you help and where they're the help? To my surprise I learned I've learned so much being there. To my surprise many of the men and women we serve are second, third generation gang members. They are jumped in a gang at a young age when they're 12, 13 years old. They have by their uncle, by their mother, by their parent, or by their father. They almost in my view my words that like almost pre-ordained to be a gang member, the next generation gang members because that's all they know. When it was interesting so to part of your question why a gang right and I remember early on in my time I'm sitting there with father Greg asking similar questions along the way. He almost kind of distilled down to saying and he is sort of what he said to me. At the difference between him and I, why we're not in a gang and the men and women that we serve who are in gang, is that we had one parent who loved us and was there for us and took care of us. And if you think and as we think about all our people we serve they didn't have a parent in their life or their parents were their abuse their parents told not to go to school drop out of school to eighth grade because their parent needed them to be the lookout on the corner for a drug deal. They are just abused by their parents every one of the people we serve are victims of complex trauma. They join a gang thinking that's going to be their family that's their way out of that terrible household that they have, that unsafe household that they're they're gang their homies are going to take care of them. It's a false hope it's a false feeling because what happens is the gang turns on them they do something bad they get incarcerated they go to jail and they're left on their own. So when they're coming out of prison and listen we deal with serious violent offenders when they're coming out of prison they don't want to go back to gang right they know it's it's it's it's as a false self that leads them there they know it's there's no long term they also you know realize that you're on a gang and they don't they do dangerous things because they don't think they're going to live past 30 years old so you know having threats of long sentences is not going to sort of change people's approach whether they do crime or not but when they're in prison they they want to make a change when they're coming out of prison they want to live that lifestyle they dream about they see other people living and so we're there to open our doors to say listen we can help you and our secret sauce it's it's as simple as this we don't judge them by the color their skin their tattoo and their face the gang they've been the felon they had we just bring them in and we it's our simple sauce's relationship trust them because first time they've ever got trust in their life and we love them we have positive relationships there for them and we become their greater family and that's what enable somebody to turn their life around so for society to think of this what drives me crazy about society for I think that you we can as a society release tens of thousands of prisoners each year out of count just say to California tens of thousands and that society think that well if they just worked harder and smarter they can go get a job and thereby not join a gang it's as nutty because our folks are victims of conflict trauma they got a heel from that trauma we allow and what we do on boil help them heal while they're working so then after home boy they can get a job with other companies so so one thing that I'm curious about is that point when they're in jail and they're incarcerated and they're looking for something different is something better but that's not always the case so what what do we have to do to allow them to look towards something better because in jail recidivism rates increase exponentially and I'm sure like my back I'm Canadian and I know that Canada is not even remotely as bad as the US in terms of recidivism if you put someone in jail in certain jails in certain environments their chance of they're chance of committing another crime goes up X percent right because they're surrounded by the population that's not helping them rehabilitate so how does a jail or how does this how come some individuals are looking for a better life whereas some individuals you see high recidivism rates what is the differentiator yes and I would answer it this way so let me first say think about those statistics of recidivism going back into the prison system under a new charge right so a number of years ago there was an independent independent study of home boy done by UCLA and it showed that people have been part of our home boy program only have a 30% recidivism rate after two years of being out back compares to the statewide average to your point of 70% and so here we are two and a half times better than the statewide average so question so your question is why recidivate why do people go back into jail system and I want to say well why do people go back into the jail system out of two times more rate than they do after becoming this be a part of home boy and the answer is simply that we invest in them we try to help them heal from their trauma and so they can become resilient to take on what society throws at them in the US people come out of the prison with a massive amount of debt not just restitution charges but court costs and all let me let me tell you this one story so early so we have a home boy number of social enterprise businesses we have a home boy bakery and here's where we make artists in bread and we have 11 bread wraps go around and we deliver the restaurants all throughout Los Angeles we also have farmers markets and the artisan base bakery means handmade breads and so there's nothing better about breaking down walls and enemies so when two enemies stand at that bread table side-by-side shoulder-shoulder they're rolling dough you can't demonize some but your your relationship with you're working next to and so these two guys from rival gangs are able to work it out over the bread table right so that's what that's the value of having that type of work that we do but and we sell the bread and we sell the bread of farmers markets early on in my time my home boy I was walking through the bakery and you know trying to be friendly and talk to people and I overheard one of our best sellers at the farmers markets 26 farmers markets around Los Angeles George it's one of our best sellers every time he takes the breads out to the markets he's completely sells out and comes home early and he's had a gift for a guy I mean a certain amount of charisma right and so I overheard him talking to our manager asking for the weekend off by the weekends are important days for farmers markets so manager said yes and now I go up to talk to George and I just want to chit-chat hey what are you going to do you going to go to a ball game what are you what are you going to have what are you going to do and he looks at me and says I'm reporting in and so what's what do you mean reporting it well he was going to report into county jail on Friday night and spend three days there come back on Tuesday and he was doing that because he came out of jail in prison with debt he had cost of his parole officer court costs he has all these costs and like for society thinks that people on the day one coming out of prison they can start paying off their debt and then I have a job yet right it's just nuts and that sort of that sort of says what society throws up against them and so so he's at that time you can go to LA county jail and you can spend three days in jail and earn off some of the money that you owe and so I walked away that evening they go really responsible for George he's trying to do it the right way he didn't go he could have gone to his former gang and say hey let me get some money he could have gone to a loan shark and borrow money he didn't want to do that high interest rates he wanted to do it the the the good way the clean way all right so all weekend I'm thinking about it I see George following Tuesday hey George I went up to him quickly hey how to go and I see stress on his face and I think of what will happen and he said when he came out of prison he was able to get custody of his two children ten year old and a eight year old and he has sole custody of it he has no caregiver he has no he has no family support they're in the gang he doesn't live in the neighborhood any longer so the caregiver who is going to watch his kids that weekend while he went to jail called at the last minute and couldn't make it and so he had this choice or almost no choice because he committed to going to jail so he left this ten year old and eight year old at home in their apartment on their own for three days while he wasn't counting jail he just imagine the stress as a father what you go through thinking did you make the right decision I think it'd be okay how's it going to work quick the end of the story is they're they turned out okay or everything was fine right but as I'm listening to this story seeing his stress I'm thinking to myself oh my gosh I don't know if I would have done it that way I mean so you have to pause and think not the judge because they're faced by our folks coming out of prison so they're faced with impossible choices to live the normal life that we want them to live right and yet we just have to be there for them and get and help them some way get them more money so they don't have these choices but don't judge them by their actions so that was a long way answering your questions why hide your citizen rating and I say because people come out of prison they still have all these stressors to get done what's the side of throws at them and they just kind of give up bottom this give up sell out let's go back to the gang because it's easier money to be made and I'll sort of live life that way while I may die at 30 I don't have as much stress there are folks so though almost everybody knows deep down what they're doing is not right and they want to do it in a more honest and better way and and let's okay so let's talk about the let's talk about the progression of somebody that comes out of a gang so then when when you when you come out of a gang I'm assuming you're not these are general assumptions but I'm assuming you're not coming out with a college degree so if you are looking to make a living wage and you're looking to displace money from illicit activities it could be like highly lucrative how do you how do you fully move away from gang life because it's not going to be raising a family on on making artisanal bread there has to be progression there has to be some some way to make it I don't know what the the amount is but there has to be an amount that has to be made where you're making 60 70 80 I don't know what that is and then you can actually support a family you can put into retirement so what is the what is the way to actually support people so that they can become full members not just rehabilitated but on par with someone else who was getting a job support a whole family and retire yeah and that's the another the challenge right and and I put it in this frame you know the the working poor in our society have a lot of challenges and just as you talk but you can't provide for your family by being among the working poor and what I'm here to say is you know the in the in the United States the poverty rate has been the same for 45 years same narrow ban you know 12 to 13 percent and so as a society we haven't figured out how to help people lift people out of poverty along the way but what I've learned at home boy is whoa who actually is a way to help people who are poor and working poor the folks who are demonized and so to your question about gang members as they as they come into home boy and only 40 percent of them have a high school diploma so 60 percent do not so while we think people get educated in the prison system most people still don't get educated in the prison system and so what we do is again primarily we're a human service agency we help people heal from the trauma you know we have we have therapists on staff people we have you know homies go in the therapy we have NAAA classes we do as domestic violence counseling classes we have high school classes we allow people pathways to college junior college we get them in we take off their tattoos all in the context all this in the context of while they're working with us we give them a lot of space to do to do that work and so what we see is that now primarily they need to heal but then to your point the supplement then we have to upscale them upskill them so that they can succeed in our economy again another statistic 90 percent of the folks that come out of the prison system have never worked in a business for more than four weeks in their whole life and so they don't have the muscle memory of how to work so with all those challenges i'm here to say this is a good workforce once they go through an organization like homeboy and become resilient and learn the skills you know we have in in Los Angeles like Zagget rated cafe homegirl cafe only seven other restaurants have as high rating in downtown Los Angeles and it's fully run by gang members and felons and so I often think about if the workforce we have a homeboy is really good so it's as good of a workforce as you're going to get anywhere else and so in any workforce you're going to have this sort of people who sort of move up the ladder and have upward mobility and those are the ones who will get 70 80 90 thousand a year and as well as you're going to have people at the frontline level who who struggle because on enough skills to move higher our role is to help people heal get that first transitional job and then help them get the next level jobs above that we're proud of the fact that over a half of our management team or former clients and so again I know our workforce is just as any workforce that is won't get the market-based wages because of their backgrounds and so part of my my thing is as I as I thought about writing this book what lessons I learned it's also kind of just trying to challenge people in the business world yeah let's hire this this population because there is good of a workforce as any other workforce and they're very loyal and our folks deserve the right to have upward mobility in the job just like any other person who doesn't have a felony and doesn't not coming out of a gang in that they can shine based upon their own ability and we just got to give them that chance now how do we okay so how do we how do we really really change the landscape because we're talking about changing significant hiring practices for large organizations and that's what has to happen so what are the things the frameworks or even the ways that we can make businesses feel comfortable about changing hiring practices because right now it's probably a little bit of well if I have two candidates I'm going to go for the one that wasn't incarcerated or doesn't have a felony it just seems safer it's a way that you're talking about legacy business and how we how we shareholder centric and shareholder focus I mean there's a lot of things that are broken in business so yeah this is just another thing that that hasn't changed quickly right so how do we fix that yeah and we have to change the mindset of people in companies upper management and companies companies need to believe that they're part of the fabric of our society in that they contribute to the in a positive way or a negative way to begin the fabric of our society and so what do I mean by that so this is so if the company has this mindset that they're that their role is to have a quality job and that they believe they have quality jobs for all their employees meeting living wage benefits predictable scheduling upward mobility right that's all we're asking many companies have all that well I'm asking is that they hire people who don't have access to that or historically not have that access to that and to do that it takes a commitment you have to bring extra resources in you have to you have to not treat not worry about treating people equally off down the chain but realizing that if you're going to hire the working poor the demonized that you have to over invest you have to sort of give them more in some ways more time off another example my my administrative assistant secretary I had a homeboy young woman you know we try to know all our jobs you try to make have them for our clients right so she in and out of youth camp which is youth jail and Los Angeles as a young age she began it in and out she became a single mother at age 17 she came to homeboy without a high school degree with a homeboy three years single mother lived in shelters she had no family support lived in shelters along the way but wanted to do better for her and her daughter became my executive assistant and she has a good hardworking employee just like you would want so at homeboy any company we have a board meeting four times a year they started seven thirty in the morning my assistant would get to get to work at six thirty to make sure the room set up the waters out the copies are made just that's really why she was did dedicated an employee well there was a time where the night before one of our board meetings her parole officer calls her and says to her that she needs to report in for you know just a regular update meeting with him the next day at 8 a.m. she said well can I come at 10 a.m. because I have to go to my job needs me early in the morning and he said no if you don't show up at 8 a.m. I'm going to buy you and you'll be back in prison and so now of course we're homeboy we get it we understand that she now has to go but like that's so the challenges that is thrown up to her it from the from the system that's in place makes it hard and so we need employers who recognize oh let's give her that day off don't worry about it go to your parole officer come back and and once you give him that once you say don't worry about we have you covered they became they become much more loyal to you we're gonna you're gonna work even harder but oftentimes you get this thinking process in a business like well if we give her that time to go see her parole officer we're gonna have to now give somebody else time to go see their whatever no I'm saying no no no you don't have to treat me equally now if you have any attorneys listening and they're probably screaming saying oh of course you got to treat people you go I'm saying you take what I've learned to homeboys you got to take a case by case basis don't worry about setting precedent because the precedent is you're going to help people for where they need help and not worry about these these small workplace rules you're concerned about so that's why as businesses hire folks you got to have that type of mindset and I can you know I want to comment on that too like as a as an employer when when you go out of your way to do things like that like I've never experienced anything like that in my career but I mean I can understand that if you give somebody a case by case and you and you work with them as a human being that person is going to go above and beyond and they're going to be so like you mentioned so committed to your organization so committed to just making sure that they give 110% of themselves because you're going out of your way to support and that's the way you should work with other people like everybody's a human everybody has things going on and this is the thing but know that it's a marginalized group that is it's not even in the discussion right now which is the question and what people do is they hide behind I've seen this hide behind company rules company precedents and yeah so I'm asking companies to change rules but really what I'm asking is individually we can all extend ourselves to somebody less fortunate and to help them out and give them a moment of grace and some space and okay so let's talk about you know eating your own eating your own dog food and working with the people that you serve let's talk about the success and some of the things that you've done in in homeboy like the growth of the company the growth of the organization some of the strategies you deployed and basically the strategies you've deployed I mean the people that are deploying these strategies are the people that are this marginalized group of x incarcerated felons people that have gone to jail so let's talk about some of the success and the things you've done I mean it's it's interesting that you combine this like for-profit business acumen with the non-profit organization so walk me through some things you've done in the past 10 years yeah and so listen it is it is about a combination and that's where I feel lucky to be in both worlds along the way so let me first say homeboy industries was founded by father Greg Boyle Jesuar priest 34 years ago and his first station as a priest was to Laura's mission the poorest parish in the archdiocese wanted to get people out of gang life hit upon this obvious notion if you get them a job with make enough money for food and shelter they're not going to run with the gang for food and shelter so fast forward all these years later we're now an organization that we have 10 social enterprise businesses and so we have our cafe and we have a bakery we have farmers markets we we do silk screening and so we have a merchandise store and what we've been trying to do is grow our enterprise because listen we are let me before we go into that part of the answer today we're a 35 million dollar organization of which we raise 25 million dollars from donors and foundations eight million dollars come from our social enterprise businesses and the rest of the money which is only two million comes from government so we're 95% privately funded we're not depending upon government funds I would like to get more government funds it's hard for us to win government contracts because they have their way of helping people we have our way of helping people but we are away successful in fact we're blessed with many donors who sort of see us as getting the money to the services that help people without a doubt so my goal over those time when we've tripled in size from 11 9 to 35 9 is trying to grow all three revenue streams and without a doubt we've grown our businesses we've grown their donor support but it's about people so we're here we're a human services organization like I said before over half of our senior staff reformer clients wasn't always that way right and so we've made a conscious effort we you know corporations and companies talk about diversity equity inclusion all three good words all things people should do many ways homeboy industries have been doing that for 30 years and we we give and so for me it's the perspective I've put in place is we want to have people with lived experience all every level of the organization not just from high managers and so we've made that happen and part of the learning there is is you know the fact if we have somebody who is applying for a manager's job and one has a college degree and one is an internal candidate has sort of an intuitive sense in the smarts and do it but don't have a college degree obviously we don't care about whether you have a college degree or not it's whether you can do the you can do the job I think I've this observed this interesting phenomenon that it with the population we serve all our life they've been told they're no good they've been told in school they're no good they're told in the jails they're no good people wag their fingers at them and so a little bit more than a little bit they don't believe in themselves and so I'm going to talk about this concept of promoting people ahead of their time in the corporate world oftentimes we promote people we want to promote somebody and we bring them into the office we say we believe in you you know hear do these jobs do this responsibility for six months and at the end of that will you know we'll give you that promotion that's the way it happens most times at home boy I learned early on well that doesn't work because because they've been promised things all their whole life and and always been disappointed and so they're not going to go do those extra jobs with the hope of getting promoted you know that cliche I live by is you know head down to hard work and think good things will come that doesn't play out for the population we serve and so part of what this is sort of it's it's leaning into in a positive way to their skills knowing they can do the job saying we're going to give you this promotion here's what we want you to do and they know nine times ten they step up and get it done and so it's thinking about that different being willing to think about how do you promote from within to get a diverse workforce in a much different way leads to the success of home boy so now with three times the size we have three times amount of senior staff more than our clients they're able to serve more of our people come in our doors looking for help in a more effective way I want to talk about the Cali Road show I do not take my podcasts recommendations lightly but I have truly admired Cali's journey from the get-go she was a fresh employee at a Fortune 500 received seven promotions in eight years all this while building a company that blossomed into an eight-figure empire today she's a best-selling author top-ranked podcaster the proud owner and co-owner of six thriving companies and let's not forget she's an ink 500 awardee proving that growth isn't just a goal it is a lifestyle now her podcast the Cali Road Show dies deep into business growth strategies specifically targeted for those hitting the six and seven figure mark but it's not all business she also explores the habits mindset and disciplines of the world's most successful people it's a podcast it's perfect whether you're just getting started or you're trying to up level your success game but here's a deal kicker for me she is a super mom and a wife she embodies the truth that you don't have to sacrifice your home life for success she believes and shows that life changing wealth wild success a happy marriage and fulfilling home can coexist that is goal so tune in to the Cali Road Show on Apple Spotify wherever you get your podcasts trust me it's time well invested you know there's there's a there's a lesson there too and i'm not sure i can't remember the exact framework but when you when you're giving somebody an opportunity a good leader knows how to put that opportunity just right outside their comfort zone of their skill sets that they can level up an upskill to that to that to that job or that that the responsibility that seems like that's basically the management ethos that you've implemented across the whole organization and that seems to be like it's working it is working it is working now there's other things that you've done what i think are interesting with homeboy so speak to me about you you have three revenue streams you also have done acquisitions of four profit to to subsidize or to add on to those revenue streams and i want this is more just of a a creative business lesson for maybe founders or entrepreneurs or CEOs or executives that are in nonprofits that have not thought of all the different ways that you've thought of to bring in revenue into the company so you have your donations you have your direct revenue and then you have government subsidies but you've done other stuff so walk me through that yeah one good example is we have homeboy electronic recycling in the state of california there's all sorts of rules around how do you dispose of electronic equipment in a proper way and there was this business that started up called visitor electronics a number of years ago and it was you know any oftentimes small businesses struggle to take that first step up they need a capital infusion the woman who started up is it or electronics had wanted to set it up as a for-profit social enterprise and with similar value she wanted to hire incarcerated people she wanted to sort of lean into and giving them the job well what we do at homeboying still did and still do is not only do we have a business where we have jobs that we provide a lot of wraparound services to help that person thrive in their life right at that time that businesses needed not just money capital but also wraparound services so we acquire that business first you know acquire that business about four to thousand dollars in top-line revenue but we're now at past three million dollars in top-line revenue along the way and we still believe it can keep on growing so but we kept that a little bit set aside and we kept the management team in place and we wanted to run it with all the hallmarks of any of a for-profit business all the things you got to work on on the on the income statement the cost of goods the efficiency of labor all that and but we believe that has enough growth and enough margins in it that we can provide level of pay the market-based wages that we want and have it keep keep growing and it's a good business for folks who graduate from our program we call graduates and we land them into that business as as a very for-profit oriented business right and so oftentimes we at homeboy we have a lot of visitors come come to us they ask us how we do the work we do a lot of other organizations come through and you know they always stop in my office and ask about the business side of what we do and one of the first things I say is that think about the business model you want make sure you're not you know how to do that business model in a for-profit way and then be really clear about what of that then makes it a social enterprise organizations some some companies it's because they're in the green economy and they're recycling product other organizations like homeboy it's about we're going to have more jobs than a for-profit business would have and so the way I think about our businesses is while they break even don't make money the difference between our the profit the profit margin that we don't have is we spend that profit margin extra labor right but every other part of the income statement we we are as good as a for-profit business our cost of good soul or shrinkage or or how we buy and all that it's just as good but we have more people employed and as we think about growing businesses it's about how many jobs can we produce and how many quality jobs are there and can people have two people upward mobility in that business model I'm curious what your opinion is on on nonprofits as an entity being extremely focused on their mission but less focused on on the business fundamentals and it seems like that was almost even the case before you stepped in there was there was a there's a stress on the business I think that I'm sure some some nonprofits have definitely figured it out but if you think about the traditional nonprofit I've never heard of a strategy like you've deployed and and even the nuances of what you're focused on in terms of like sound business fundamentals and core business fundamentals it's not like you're ignoring the mission obviously actually if anything you're creating a healthier environment to fulfill the mission but do you find that the average nonprofit needs to focus on the mission but also look at some of these other strategies that you've deployed is that an issue with nonprofits whether they can't have a bigger impact or yes it's definitely an issue with nonprofits and also one more issue that gets into that mix is that many nonprofits in the human service space helping people have a majority of their funding coming from government contracts which sort of has the tail wag in the dog at that point and it's you get pushed into doing things that sometimes doesn't make sense it becomes very inefficient so it's this combination of you know being in contract compliance and then I mean do you have a skill the run businesses and do contracts it's kind of hard to do both at the same time and then all of a sudden you've kind of you're lost you have mission creep and you've lost like the true essence of what you're about and and so what it's important is sort of again have a good board in place that kind of keeps you true to your mission and we luckily have a good board and a founder who put it so clear everybody home where you're so clear we know what our mission is and the just the ways of how we implement it is what varies and and if you were going to give advice to somebody who actually wanted to start a nonprofit and they were they they had some business acumen but not to the level that you had and they were very mission driven what would be the steps that you you'd recommend so that they don't get trapped in this loop yeah if they want to start a nonprofit that's a social enterprise is yeah go find somebody who's run that business in the for-profit world and there are pending folks out there and so many folks kind of like myself who's realized yet you yeah at some point you've made it in business you've made the money you wanted to make but how do you kind of shift this to help other people out and so maybe it's like an older person who sort of wants to help the next generation has one one way of thinking about it could be younger people who've made it and want to help the next generation but it's I'm so clear you have to get somebody who's run it in a for-profit way and just clearly know for us it's the labor line that is different yeah and that is how we treat our employees that it's different that we have the labor line means we have more people on in place to do the work because we know we have to give time off for the guy who goes into jail for three days that reduces that we know we got to give time off for the woman who has to go see the probation officer along the way and that's how you have to provide that type of support service and understanding around it um one thing that I want to I want to speak about some lessons that you've learned over your career and and you said you've had many pivotal moments in your life um because of homeboy and what you but also some of the leadership lessons that you deploy as well so let's just focus on on you a little bit just to sort of tie this up um one of the things that you don't do is you don't take a salary I thought that was very interesting uh speak to me about why you don't and maybe just commentary on if that's a if it's a good strategy if it's more of a marketing gimmick is it something like we see we talk we see billionaires that don't take salaries as well so what is the benefit of of not taking a salary um to the organization to the company to even the executive team when they when they look at you do they want to model you in some aspect speak to me about that decision yeah um and I mean it's going out of the way it's not a marketing gimmick because I kept it quiet for nine of my 10 years I never told I didn't need to insinuate you it was a marketing gimmick but that was in my brain right because yeah well we're back to Leo liiah cocoa and they'll get paid one dollar to produce k-bars right right um so it's how old I am in the last story you dated yourself right I read books right but listen so let me tell you how I got to that point right so I come to homeboy look I I feel blessed but the work I proud of the work we did in air market it was a very very interesting success story whereas 93% homeboy employees and so there was a liquidity event went public then we were in private and then we got cash anyway made a lot of money and so um I didn't come to homeboy to make money and this is actually if I can talk more about around this question because it's illustrative of why I think homeboy successful it's just I was there who worked for the right time for me and for the home for this organization I just wanted to come help people right and that's a lot of people want to this go help other people and so I didn't come to homeboy with any ego to say I got I got to I got to brandish myself and make myself into a nonprofit warrior my job was I was going to go make I want to make father Greg job easier I saw the stress I saw I knew how to run an organization I saw all the stress he was under and yet I see the magic of when he's ministering through the homeies and how that changes their life around and so I wouldn't think okay I'll just I'll just do this and so the board said okay they wanted to hire me I said fine we had to put a salary in place thinking that's that's what you do right all right three weeks into me taking on the role uh oh I mean being a smart CEO I didn't ask the question before I said yes is how much money do you have in the bank can you can you can you make payroll three weeks into me taking the role we have a cash crunch and we won't not going to make payroll and so and this is like that now this is like beginning in January I'm thinking oh my gosh I have this anyway I have not long story how it happened but what do you do so you're in scramble mode from that moment on uh so I did a workforce reduction we trimmed back expenses didn't take in as many clients I stopped taking a salary and so it was like and then also we had a borrow money to make payroll which is out for you any any business that has to start borrowing money make payroll you've known you're in big trouble right yeah but I thought we had the right plan in place I knew how to move this forward it was sort of like betting on ourselves that we're going to make this happen and so we made it through the year uh we you know finally made it through the end of the year fundraising is big in the in the Christmas time area so finally 11 months later where you get enough money paid off the loan and then have a little bit of money in the bank and so from there though I realized I fell in love with the organization and so I could have taken a salary but I was like why not I'm fast saying money I knew we could help three or four more people and I that may not be the right way of thinking about it you know I think you know my organization like doctors without borders and they go off and then help people in other countries and they do they take money they don't take money but and you sort of get into this this whole concept of being guilty and and having this you have resources they don't have resources type of thing a little bit it was in that place but it was to me and my wife and I just made a decision we don't need that thankfully we don't need the money there are more people who need more but people need more money more all right so that's our personal decision that we made but the interesting thing is foundation world looked at us and say oh wait a minute you can't afford to pay your CEO but what's wrong with you as an organization so it it was actually interpreted as a negative it was interpreted as a negative right right right along the way and so then you know one thing leads to another but but where I stand on this the other thing that but where help though is and this is it's a very unusual situation I can't imagine it's going to be many people in this situation but as I'm kind of working hard trying to make change happen in the organization from a not changing the mission mission was always strong it was like are we organized correctly or we spending too much money doing all those things as I'm trying to make change happen internally it kind of gave a credibility hey I'm not here to sort of this casher paycheck and making these nutty things he's here to try to we're part of this team we're all in this together to to get the organization to a thriving perspective and that's I think that's not a long way helping me sort of get the team to move along and get there faster and so you know you get used to it and then it's like well then why start taking a salary at that point after we got more successful and and so I we made it more knowledgeable because you know I wrote this book The Homeboy Way and I guess I wanted to put it out there because listen I'm not just again it's not just some guy sort of caching in on homeboy it's like no no no no all the royalties go to homeboy all the everything we get helps the organization out it's like here's a message I really believe in in the way of helping poor people our society with more organizations and more people get there the better off and and how do you how do you as a CEO now because you know you're not you're not measured and you're measured against organizational KPIs but how would you measure the success of a CEO without a salary how do you measure that success in your in your own organization yeah good question look again it's an easy answer for homeboy it may not be as easy for other organizations right easy answer for homeboy do homies show up every day to to change your life and we have more people than we can serve each and every day and because we're still adding value to their life now we have KPIs and foundation world we'll give all those statistics but the real thing is every day more people are coming in to help us than we can afford and we have to turn people away and so without a doubt our mission is so strong because of that and as I measure myself as a CEO I was like why would you turn people away how do we can we not grow even more so we can help more and more people so that's the stress in my life is having to turn people away as an organization and not being able to help them when they're in that vulnerable position and we know if we're not helping them no one in the county is helping them they're back in gang world gang life causing problems so no I appreciate that and I just was curious about how you measure more your it's very organization dependent but you're clear on your mission and I think that that's how you measure like true success now I guess to summarize I mean you've worked with incredible people I'm curious what lessons have you learned from the people that you serve and the the homeboys and the homegirls that have you know for lack of better term made you a better person or made you a better leader yeah they go with the two categories early on look I wanted I wanted to be a father Greg's orbit as I took on this role and it's been great great for me to be in his orbit and I've learned so much of them but it sounds cliche to say but it is so true I have learned more from the homeboys and homegirls than I think I've given them along the way and and what I've learned from them they are authentic people no pretentious you know the rest of us society of all these pretenses and we all have all these we put up these false selves of ourselves and posture and position boy the people are born our society they're too they're too it's too hard for them to have those pretenses and so they are they're pretty like they're natural they're they're authentic yeah you invite everybody listening this come visit some homeboy at homeboy you'll you'll feel the energy you'll feel the love in the room you'll hear a lot of laughter you know here I come in as a as a corporate CEO and and there's a lot laughter and meetings have a lot of joking I don't think what's going on people got to get serious but what I came to learn is it's it's in that it's not sarcastic jokes it's sort of good natured self deprecating clear personal one-on-one it's you see laughter you'll see crying at homeboy and so I've learned to be I learned that they're not they're authentic I've learned that they've changed your life because in my words because they finally understood that God loves them and once they understand that God loves them they can love themselves and thereby move their life forward and so they they I've seen that they're on this spiritual journey and I'm thinking to myself that they're on a spiritual journey well I let me pay attention Tom you you should go on a spiritual journey as well which has which has helped and I have been on that and it's been it's been great for me the third area I've learned from our team is there the most generous people around I can't tell you the number of times that I've seen our homies our clients take the last five dollars out of their pocket and give it to somebody else so they can buy food I can't tell you the number of times we I take some of the team members of lunch and they only eat part of their lunch I eat my all my lunch they eat part of the lunch they get in the bag on the way back they hand it to almost person they have this like natural generosity that I think the rest of us society overthinking we don't sort of just become expansive with our resources and so you know it's those three things I try to go be thinking about and try to do better at it now as you all know the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network they have incredible podcasts so please go check out the roster but one of my favorite shows is not hosted by Phil Agnew you just have to understand that some of the smallest changes can have the biggest impacts on your life and on Nudge this is what Phil goes through he speaks about evidence back tips to help you kick bad habits get a raise grow a business every single episode is bite sized 20 minutes comes packed with practical device from some of the most prolific entrepreneurs behavioral scientists in the world and it's the UK's fastest growing business podcast I definitely recommend you go check it out you should listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcast I love that no I know there's always there's always lessons and I'm sure you're in it every single day so I appreciate that any anything that I want to get some places to send people so your socials website all of that but anything floors yours that we didn't cover that you'd like to leave the audience with about about homeboy about entrepreneurship about building businesses about nonprofits take it away yeah just one more topic along the way and it's a little bit the same theme that I've been mentioning as as we go you know look the working poor in our society struggle right and I came into homeboy as a big believer in the quote unquote American dream a big believer in meritocracy because you know I grew up a middle-class kid you know took loans to go to college came out worked hard did well did really well in the business world and so I believed in meritocracy what I've seen dead on that homeboy is oh no meritocracy doesn't work for poor people in our society it just doesn't and you know Martin Luther King has his famous quote that it's cruel just to suggest to a poor person to lift them up by the bootstraps when they don't have bootstraps right and that's that's the message I want to get across so in society sometimes a wager finger at people work harder they can do more well I'm trying to say is everybody in the business we're gonna realize are folks in the front line workers of our society a lot of stresses or life a lot of challenges if they're not doing a good job it's not because they don't want to work hard because something else is out there and so part of this is thinking about how do you kind of help your fellow person in their life and it's not about kind of you know on this just work harder you'll get there you got to kind of create different different situations and the other thing is it's to me it's I've learned so much I talked about a little bit my spiritual journey it's about finding foundational joy and there's a whole body of work on joy in Desmond Tutu and in Dalai Lama have this great book on joy and it's very helpful to kind of think through how do you bring more joy your life and and it's bar it's you know that's in our society sometimes we think about I can I worry about me you worry about you but really it's you find joy through others and it's about moving into the relationship with others that is it is something that we all need to practice more thank you um if people want to get the book if people want to connect with you if people want to go learn more about homeboy or or even just reach out where all the links all of that where should they go all the links well you the books on Amazon it's called the homeboy way yeah clearly um we have a lot of social media links at homeboy homeboyindustries.org we have a Facebook page we have a LinkedIn page I would encourage people to go to our Facebook page we have a lot of our a lot of content there a lot of videos of people talking first person narratives about their story of transformation they're now they're all inspirational along the way and it kind of gives you good flavor for the clients we serve and how we go about it okay perfect and then I ask everybody this question to close it up um after your career after you know one career in the in the for-profit and now another life in the in the nonprofit um what does success mean to you yeah and I and I want to um cliche and cliche way duck that question because it's um because I come to learn it's not about defining success it's uh listen I now realize I uh I know God is loving me and I sort of my spiritual journey is about how to how to sort of have not understanding God's love but putting that into action and how to do that with other people and so if I'm doing that every day for the rest of my life I guess that's the definition of success it's there's there's no measurement and I just know like endpoint that is this it's a philosophy and that's what you work towards