Interview with Stephanie Gallo, E. & J. Gallo Winery - Assignment Example

First Last Teacher Interview with Stephanie Gallo, E. & J. Gallo Winery Family businesses operate a great part of U.S. economy.There are about ninety percent of family-owned businesses that contribute forty percent of nations GNP and pay half of the total wages. However, only two of three of family owned businesses will go on with their actions because of the internal disputes that are likely to arise among the family members. A lot of modern huge multinational businesses have started their lives as small family enterprises and overcame their inside conflicts and reached the third generation in action because of the firm business plan. It included a family and professional development plan that helped to achieve its best performance. They obtained market value, have reached the best opportunities for investment and innovation, paying much attention on quality and operational efficiency of their businesses (Epperlein, Kier, Rach, 2014). One of such family- owned businesses is the E&J Gallo Winery. When eighty years ago brothers Julio and Ernest Gallo started their business, it was the beginning of their dream to come true with the Gallo family tree roots to be established deep into the winery production. Nowadays Ernest and Julio Gallo’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are involved in the Winery, passing their family traditions and values not only to the next generation but also to the whole world. They pay attention to ethic, quality of products and perfection performance of the wines they produce (E.&J. Gallo Winery, 2014). The Gallos are the worlds biggest family-owned winery business and may become soon the U.S.’s largest company that produces wine. The business owns eight wineries, has sixty brands sparkling, still and dessert wines. It is the biggest exporter of California wine. Locating on ninety thousands acres of ground, it has long-term contracts. There is an information that worldwide sales of the company are about eighty million cases. In 2013, the E. & J. Gallo Winery company celebrated its 80th anniversary (PinotFile, 2014). Today the Vice President of Marketing for E. & J. Gallo Winery is Stephanie Gallo, the granddaughter of the Gallo founder. Starting her career from almost her childhood, now she is member of the Board of Directors for the Human Services Center and is a regular speaker on women in business. In 2007 Stephanie Gallo was named a Young Entrepreneur of the Year by California State University Stanislaus for her contribution into the family enterprise and life of the community (Braham, 2014). When was the start of Stephanie’s career? Stephanie Gallo have started her career thirty six years ago. For her family wine has always been the heart of the business. When she was growing up, she usually sat at the dinner table with father and grandfather, listening to their talks about new product introduction, new campaigns and was also asked her opinion about the business from the marketing standpoint. As Stephanie continued to mature in her career, she was already inclined towards marketing and started with the sales position for one of our campaigns, where she has learned the fundamentals of sales and the basics of wine merchandize knowledge. Then she started to work as an assistant of marketing manager continuing to improve herself in a professional sphere. She was also given more responsibilities. Today Stephanie manages the popular portfolio of wine brands including the Gallo brand, Turning Leaf, Barefoot and Bella Sera. Was the job inside the family automatic? From the Gallo family perspective, the more responsibilities to a child were given no matter if she/he could handle, the better business would run in the future. However, for the business, it’s important to have well qualified and talented personality that are involved into business. And if there were no proper family member for such assignment, the one who would responds all the requirements, then the family had to ensure that talent from the outside. Was there a want to be a part of a family business? Stephanie Gallo always knew she wanted to be a part of the winery. When one grows up in a family business, he/she is exposed to the business from a very childhood, as Stephanie considers. She knew as an undergrad that she wanted to get into marketing due to the already successfully done couple of internships at the winery. How did she get the promotion? Stephanie Gallo always tells people that she took the assignment that no one wanted. When she started to work in the marketing, everyone wanted to start working in the international marketing department. Strong management team and a new business in the company were the main reasons for most people to get involved with the marketing. A lot of people wanted to work there. Stephanie started on Turning Leaf brand that at that time was doing not very well. However, by doing small things at that time, she was able to prove that she could turn that business around. During the whole career she took those brand assignments that were considered to be the less glamorous and the most challenging. She found it easy to work on a brand that already had a good position. But it was rather complicated and exciting to work on that brand that was not doing well and this gave her possibility to make certain mark on a business. Were there any difficulties in letting people know what she has done for good for the company? Stephanie Gallo considers that to let people know what are the achievements and contributions she had made were the results that spoke for themselves. It doesn’t matter whether it is the increase of the revenue from point A to point B or other achievements. When one has a hard fact to say and results to show, then it’s pretty difficult to argue about the facts and what contribution one makes for the business. What did she do to develop her self-confidence? Stephanie finds such question very interesting and believes that much was from her career development. She simply took projects that no one wanted. These were the works that were out of her comfort zone. She has started the project having no experience but complete it as it should be. Besides she always wanted to prove to herself and to others that she can turn the business around. Such taking part in uneasy jobs forced herself to struggle to achieve better results. The best for her was to feel that she grow in the professional way was to put herself into the uncomfortable situation and then find the best solution. That’s how she developed her self-confidence. It forced and pushed her and forced her for the development. Did Stephanie Gallo have any mentors? For Stephanie Gallo the best mentor was her father. The reason is why she says so is that she worked with her father day and night, much more than with her grandfather, for example. Whenever she took a new piece of business she recommended the course correction or brought the new way to bring product to the market, and she always went to dad and if she made a great business case, he always supported it and never revised what she did. If she sale and there were mistakes, he said “great, you’ll make some more mistakes again”. Her father was a tremendous mentor for his daughter from the professional environment. What are the pluses and minuses of having the family business? Stephanie thinks that to go to work with her brothers and cousins to take this company to the next level was the main plus. They work together toward the common goal and it’s very self-satisfying to know that they all do work together. However, there are certain minuses in working in a family business. The main Stephanie considers the inability to be enough disciplined about separating personal and professional life. If one is unable to sustain work-life balance, it all mixes into one and it will not help the work. If the family has issues to solve, they do it easy. Is it a problem when head in the company is a non-family member? Stephanie Gallo believes that if the company wants best person in the best possible position, is should search for this person notwithstanding the fact that she/he will be the family member or not. And whether or not it is a family member, it doesn’t matter. They work extremely hard to attract world customer to take their business to the next level. The way the founders built this company is by attracting world class winemakers, world class marketers or supply chain people. They say that if one’s smart, he/she is going to hire people that are smarter than oneself. The business just uses this formula to attract world class talents. How does the company develop women? The company is working on this question all the time. It offers mentorship programs that are available for all the employees. The sales organization does the great job with this gathering special Wine conferences and organizing meeting with the women to share experience of personal and professional questions so to be able to grow professionally and help work life balance issues to be resolved. What are the family installation that help Stephanie to succeed today? The most treasured legacy that family brought with it through many years is the values and they are really what keep Stephanie going and develop further. Since she was a child such values as love, respect, desire to educate, creating opportunities and feeling of gratitude for those opportunities are the important values that she preserves. These traditional values are similar to Gallo’s corporate values, such as the integrity, respect, humility, innovation, and teamwork. The Gallos strongly believe that family is the most valid way for their Winery business to be the world leader. These days, E. & J. Gallo Winery is the biggest family business winery in the world and the largest exporter of California wine. One of the factor and pluses as the Vice President of Marketing Stephanie Gallo considers is the unity with the family. Such trace is noticeable in the book “From Siblings to Cousins: Prospering in the Third Generation and Beyond”, where the members of one family, like Stephanie Gallo and her father and her cousins work together in a sense of shared values that hold the family organization together and help reaching the highest levels of their business. Who knows, maybe Stephanie Gallo achievements and professional experience will become the model for her daughter in the future. Works cited Aronoff, C., War, J., (2011). From Siblings to Cousins: Prospering in the Third Generation and Beyond, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print. Braham, S., (2014). Stephanie Gallo Interview: Becoming a Woman Leader in Your Family Business, Womens Leadership Success. Web. 13 August 2014 Epperlein, P., Kier, M., Rach, W., (2014). Family-Owned Businesses & the Executive Search Consultant, Cook Associates, Inc. Web. 13 August 2014 E. & J. Gallo Winery, (2014). PinotFile, Volume 9, Issue 44, The Prince of Pinot, Web. 13 August 2014 Henretty, A., (2002). Theory into practice, Family business fruitful for Stephanie Gallo 99 Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Web. 13 August 2014. Leal, S., (2014). Inspiring Latna of the week: Gallo winery Vice President of Marketing Stephanie Gallo! Latina media ventures LLC, Web. 13 August, 2014 Read More