Driving Innovation at Coborn’s: A Leadership Conversation with Naser Ayyub

In a world where innovation fuels business success, how do leaders stay ahead of the curve, build strong teams, and still manage to keep the customer front and center? That’s exactly what was on the table when Naser Ayyub, CIO of Coborn’s, joined Kelly Wendlandt for an episode of The Kelly Wendlandt Podcast. Naser dives into everything from his technical background to managing people, all while balancing evolving technology trends.

In this insightful discussion, Naser offers a blend of wisdom and practicality that any business leader or technology enthusiast can appreciate. If you missed the podcast, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered with the key highlights and lessons learned!

The Journey to Executive Leadership: More Than Just Technology

Naser’s journey to becoming the CIO of Coborn’s started with a solid foundation in civil engineering. While it might not seem like the typical path for a tech executive, Naser’s curiosity and eagerness to explore different areas of technology eventually led him to software development and system administration. His story serves as a reminder that executive leadership isn’t about following a set path—it’s about embracing change and growth.

What really sets Naser apart is his ability to balance technical expertise with people management. “You need to keep growing,” Naser says, emphasizing how crucial it is to continue learning and evolving with your team. This growth mindset plays a vital role in his leadership style, particularly in how Coborn’s prioritizes diversity and cross-generational teams. Diversity isn’t just a buzzword for Naser—it’s a core component of company culture and innovation.

Diversity brings fresh ideas, different perspectives, and ultimately, stronger teams. Naser doesn’t just lead a department; he nurtures a culture that values open-mindedness and collective growth. He mentions that managing people, just like managing technology, requires constant learning and adaptation—skills that every executive leader should hone.

So, how do you manage a growing and diverse team in a fast-evolving industry like grocery retail? Naser is clear: flexibility, open communication, and an emphasis on innovation.

Embracing Innovation and Enhancing the Customer Experience

As technology continues to advance, businesses need to stay nimble and innovative. This is especially true in the grocery industry, where customer experience is everything. For Coborn’s, innovation is all about adding value to their guests. Naser talks about the company’s efforts to roll out advanced technology like self-checkout systems, phone-based point-of-sale (POS) solutions, and AI-powered data management.

Data management, in particular, is a big deal at Coborn’s. As Naser explains, “Data is a huge focus for us.” The company has been investing in AI-ready data systems, ensuring that data entry is clean and up-to-date. This attention to detail enables better decision-making, which ultimately benefits their guests by providing fresh products and ensuring the shelves are stocked accurately.

Naser’s forward-thinking approach means he’s always a few steps ahead, anticipating market changes and guest needs. Projects can shift midway through, so rolling out new initiatives quickly and efficiently is critical to staying competitive. “It’s exciting for us and for the company,” Naser adds, showing how Coborn’s continues to evolve to meet the demands of today’s tech-savvy consumers.

But it’s not just about the technology—it’s about the results. Naser shares a compelling story from a Steve Jobs talk where Jobs emphasized that it’s not about what technology can do, but rather, how it serves the customer’s needs. Coborn’s, under Naser’s leadership, mirrors this philosophy by focusing on how their technological advancements directly improve the customer experience. Whether it’s through advanced checkout options or AI-enhanced data systems, Coborn’s strives to make every interaction smoother and more personalized for its guests.

 

AI Generated Transcript

Kelly Wendlandt (00:00.138)
One, We are live with Naser Ayyub. Naser, how are you this morning?

Naser Ayyub (00:04.749)
I’m doing well, thank you, Kelly. How are you?

Kelly Wendlandt (00:06.874)
Absolutely. gorgeous. Yeah, just doing great. It’s a gorgeous morning here in Minnesota. It’s going to be 84 or 86 degrees uncharacteristically warm for October. October. we do need some rain. We had so much rain for the you know, it seemed like it rained every day for 90 days during the middle of our summer.

Naser Ayyub (00:18.649)
Yeah, we need a little rain.

Naser Ayyub (00:30.797)
Yeah, well, I don’t mind it at this point because winter is approaching.

Kelly Wendlandt (00:34.627)
No.

Well, we do need some rain and thankfully my wife is taking a teaching job and so she’s been too busy. She usually mows our lawn because I don’t get to it. You know, with my schedule it’s difficult to get to. We have a big riding lawn mower. So the lack of rain has kept the grass from growing. So that’s one blessing.

Naser Ayyub (00:57.655)
Yeah, yeah. Further impacting trees too and poll colors and everything else.

Kelly Wendlandt (01:03.82)
yeah, that’s yeah, that’s right. I’m actually going to go up. I have a friend who is a retired airline pilot. And so he and I go flying general aviation airplanes now. And and we’re going to go up, think, this next week and go to the North Shore on a smaller airplane and look around and see how the colors are doing up there. I’ll report I’ll report back. I’ll let you know how it’s going up there. So let’s talk a little bit about your background, the role of

Naser Ayyub (01:21.485)
Nice.

Great.

Kelly Wendlandt (01:33.238)
of an executive leader in technology, were you technical as just the background getting into the role? Were you technical or were you from the finance side or were you from the HR side when you got into the?

Naser Ayyub (01:48.857)
I’m technical. Actually, when I started my education career, I was focusing on civil engineering. So I finished a couple of years in civil engineering. I took every elective related to engineering. Even my advisor was wondering why, you know, because I always thought that’s going to be helpful in the technology world. And it was just growing. That area was growing and I wanted to be part of engineering companies and more heavy in the technical side.

and started as a developer and a programmer, you know, in a co-op back then and had a general mainframe. That was a great experience and grew from there and became a system administrator and managing networks. And so I grew there and then more balanced with the software skill and the people skill and help in other areas and other locations. And that’s how I got grown from

the leadership role and they can continue education and taking courses in that area and maintain the technical skill. But you get to a point now you hire the expertise, know, and then bring them on board. So that’s where the shift will start. But I enjoy the technical part of it at the high level.

Kelly Wendlandt (02:59.854)
Yeah.

Kelly Wendlandt (03:10.329)
I think I run into a lot of ex-engineers and technologists who end up in CIO roles, and then they, through trial and error, learn the management of people side. How has the management of people, the working with groups and leadership of people, was that something that came naturally to you, would you say, or was it learning lessons along the way, or how did you hone that skill?

Naser Ayyub (03:37.315)
Yeah, it’s with people. You have to continue learning. People are different, different generation, different groups, we’re very big on diversity. And so that’s very interesting. So you have to keep an open mind and listen to ideas and then bring those ideas from different groups. So I would say it’s ongoing. So I don’t think the minute you feel you mastered it, that’s I think that’s a wrong approach. So you have to keep growing. And as I mentioned,

bringing new people, different generation and diversity. That brings great ideas to the team and we have an excellent team here. I mean, I will not be able to do that without a great team and remarkable company to work with.

Kelly Wendlandt (04:22.646)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it’s it’s it’s the toughest part of any role is being in a, you know, in a position where you have to relate to a wide variety of people and build trust with people. You really have to open yourself up. Do you find, you know, because Coburn’s does a good job of hiring a good diverse group of people, is it?

Is it something that you’re cognizant of daily is connecting with people at an individual level and building that or is it or you’re setting the strategy and you let people who work for you build the relationships?

Naser Ayyub (05:03.009)
it both but also continue that connection with the executive and leadership and then try to be a couple of steps ahead and listen to their ideas and their teams and where they’re heading. And that’s the alignment we have to always IT be part of and proactively be flexible and to align and change because businesses are changing, especially in the grocery world. It’s evolving. So we have to stay open and

And projects, they’re long-term projects, if there’s a project that’s going to take you a year, two years to implement, you might just finish half of it and the strategy changes. So rolling out things faster to the stores, to the market, to help our guests, that is my number one thing, just to bring that value and be unique and helping our guests.

Kelly Wendlandt (05:57.816)
I was watching a YouTube video. I’ve somehow got it. The algorithm has pinpointed me and now sending me shorts and my wife makes fun of me because I’m not a social. I wasn’t a social media person, but I’m more and more turning into one. I’ve never had a Facebook account, but so I was watching Steve Jobs in his early years and one of his employees criticized him, stood up at an Apple meeting and said, hey, we’re we’re.

we’re moving away from OpenDoc, which is an old technology. People here may or may not remember it. So it’s called OpenDoc. They said, why are we going to Java when OpenDoc is so much better? Steve Jobs, and then he criticized Steve Jobs at the same time. threw a, and by the way, what have you been doing the last five years? And Steve Jobs sat back and thought about it and answered the question.

with humility, but talked about the technology is not what’s important in what we’re doing. It’s the result it provides for our customers. so OpenDoc might be awesome at some things that Java can’t do. That’s probably true. But the customer needs are where we have to start all of our conversations. And then the technology.

whatever it is, has to be able to support that. Would you generally, is that how you view, would you agree with that statement?

Naser Ayyub (07:29.709)
Yeah, it’s starting it, it’s making the change. Change is not simple. It’s not easy in any organization with people and the way they have done things. And there is a risk. So we encourage people to take risks, calculate the risks. I smile when you’re said, know, criticized. I always say, you need to be criticized before you’re being recognized. So those, go together. So always.

when you’re hitting and taking risks and getting something going on and getting some momentum, you will be criticized and challenged. look at it as being challenged and curious. People are asking curious questions. So the next step will be the recognition and the team will be recognized and the guests will recognize the value rolling out new product, a new website, like what we’ve done, our e-commerce site. It’s a great site where we’re

We’re finishing up the last banner here. It’s involved the whole e-commerce site. It’s willing to go through with all our stores. So doing that, and then we developed several strategies at the moment. It wasn’t simple. It’s very challenging, costly. It requires a lot of justification. We’re looking at point of sale, make it more convenient for our guests. We’re looking at self-checkouts, that’s growing area, convertible lanes, any means of

of a checkout. Now it’s not a physical machine you check out. Your phone becomes a point of sale and you can check out. So having that different ways to meet the different type of individuals and groups. We have individuals, they want to look at things digital. We have individuals, they love to look at still a newspaper and a paper and a cup of keep ons, you know? So managing all that technology with our

guests and make sure they’re happy, they have quick access to what they need. That is exciting for us and for the company and the company is growing and those are one of our big values. So it’s helping our guests.

Kelly Wendlandt (09:35.912)
You mentioned a number of things there and I love how you tied them all back to the guest experience. You mentioned point of sale. You mentioned being able to check out with your phone. You mentioned self check out. So you’re really you’re hitting data. You’re you’re hitting the latest technologies. I’m assuming there has to be a lot of security that’s part of that. There’s got to be a lot of redundancy of making sure the customers don’t forget. People like me come in with my phone and I’m going to be someone who’s an adopter of that kind of technology. But I

I might forget to hit a button or something and I don’t want the security guard to jump on my back as I’m walking out the door. I’m one of the people that’ll use that technology and it’ll make me want to go to Cobourns or the Cobourns family of stores. And so it’s cool that you’re relating those technologies directly to the customer experience.

Naser Ayyub (10:31.331)
Yes, yeah, that’s very important. And you mentioned about data. I that’s a very big focus area for us. And then we’re that data and putting the systems and making sure data being entered directly and updated on time. And we have unified data out there, data warehouse. And then we’re partnering ship with big companies to have that and what we call it AI ready. So for help to help us decision or decision making.

And so data is a huge focus for us at the moment than a lot of other companies.

Kelly Wendlandt (11:08.501)
We see that all around town and around the country, data being a primary focus, a lot of challenges and a lot of work that is cumbersome. To get that just the data clean is such a big effort. There’s so many multiple systems that have been built out over the last 30 years that have redundant data and to get…

the right people in the room to agree that it is the same data and you can use the one piece of data that’ll be the masterpiece of that data. You know, that’s a big lift as we like to say over on the IT side.

Naser Ayyub (11:42.585)
Because, yeah, it.

Naser Ayyub (11:48.193)
It’s a cultural shift, call it. It takes all, involving HR. We involve HR from a cultural training, the importance of data, from data access, and then maintain that access level, and also train individuals and create business owners and product owners for each of the systems, how you enter the data, make sure the data is accurate.

You can keep cleaning the data, but you need to get also to the source of the data, make sure it gets entered clean. So it has so many different angles. And that’s why we developed the data governance committee. And we go through those things and we ask ourselves the questions, what kind of reporting, what kind of data cleansing we need to do and which area we need to focus on. We want to make sure the whole organization using a standard set of reports.

Kelly Wendlandt (12:19.998)
Yeah.

Naser Ayyub (12:42.561)
and everybody’s having the same type of reports, the same databases for accuracy to help making decision making to ultimately help our guests to have fresh product. They have the products they have on the shelves when they go in there, when they look at their app and they look at how many we have on the shelf, it gives them accurate information. So all of that, that’s related to data. So you have to master that part.

to get into the AI ready data. So that’s why we’ve been focusing on it for now, a year.

Kelly Wendlandt (13:19.067)
Yeah, always comes back to the customer, right? Always comes back to making a better experience for the… Coburn’s is such a great company at focusing on the experience for the people. And I think it’s probably why they’ve been around for so long and been so successful.

Naser Ayyub (13:34.679)
I cannot speak more about the family. This is a family owned business. Chris and Emily and Peter Coburn, they did a great job. Chris is really focused on the customer and guests and making sure they have the product, the fresh product. It just, you feel that ownership. You feel like you’re providing to your community, to your neighbors, a fresh product and the service you like, you want to have.

So we all are owners of Covrens. So we act like owners. We have excellent, remarkable team. So I’m happy to be here.

Kelly Wendlandt (14:14.055)
You were, you, Coborns and you specifically were recently recognized at the Orbeez, which for those of you who don’t know it, it’s the preeminent organization for recognizing technology leadership and technology companies. And so Coborns and NASA as CIO was recognized recently. Was there anything about that event that surprised you going to it?

Naser Ayyub (14:21.995)
Naser Ayyub (14:40.391)
it’s an honor. I didn’t expect that, but it was exciting, interesting, and I really enjoyed being there. met a lot of exciting people, people I knew by name, probably through LinkedIn or some other means professionally, and I ended up meeting. It’s an excellent learning experience. It’s an honor to be part of that team, that elite individuals out there.

I’m very happy and excited and thanks for bringing that up, you know.

Kelly Wendlandt (15:12.592)
Yes. Yeah, well, yeah. Great recognition for you and for the company. I’m trying to get this. got this. I got the sun is coming in at the weirdest angle. anyway, yeah, that’s fantastic that you and the organization were recognized and rightly so. Naser Ayyub, thank you so much for your time. It’s been great having you on the podcast. And for everybody else out there, you’re listening to the vodcast. Thank you.

Naser Ayyub (15:37.625)
Thank you.