Dean Carter: |
I'm Dean Carter and my role is the head of shared services, which at Patagonia means that I lead our finance, HR, and legal groups. Patagonia is based in Ventura, California, mainly because there's a great surf break there. It is, right now, a little less than $1 billion dollars and about 2,500 employees across the world. Patagonia was founded 40 years ago by a French-Canadian climber, Yvon Chouinard.
From the beginning, Yvon set out to create an un-company. So he wanted to create a place where people could make money and do the things they wanted to do and live full lives. We hire people at Patagonia, whether it's in our corporate office or in our retail stores, who are interested in and love the spaces where they live. We look for a passion for caring about the environment. And if we're doing things that force the store manager to be in the back room all the time, or our employees to only be on the floor behind the cash wrap, then we're doing something that is antithetical to the culture and the purpose and why we're here in the first place.
Culture matters, and you know when it matters most when you stick to it in the great times and the really challenging times. And so when I think of the history of Patagonia, obviously right now are very good times. But the decisions that we make, even in the bad times, because there were bad times with Patagonia—2008 was not a great time for Patagonia and a lot of companies, but we didn't cut healthcare. We didn't cut on-site childcare. We didn't cut training and development. That's the test of true culture—when the decisions you make are consistent, or the business is really, really good or really, really challenging. And I think that's why our employees stick with us—just ridiculously low rates of turnover.
An element of the Patagonia culture is this irreverent, unconventional approach. So if everyone is just turning right, Patagonia is definitely the company that will turn left. From an unconventional approach to the democratization of work. The reason that we picked Workday is because it was the company that most aligned with our values. |
