Pete Ruggiero, CEO of Crayola, entered the top job over a year ago after he had spent 27 years at the art supply company, which was best known for his legendary 64-crayon box.
But he didn’t start creatively – Störo is a figure type through and through. After completing his conclusion with a accounting at Villanova University (where he also played football), Ruggiero spent six years Deloitte and one and a half years at Union Pacific Railroad.
He joined Crayola with his headquarters in Pennsylvanias Lehigh Valley almost accidentally, such an account in the Morning call. Union Pacific pulled out of the area, but Ruggiero wanted to stay to lay his young daughter and wife, who had a top -class role in the local hospital.
He began 19 1997 in Crayola – then Binney & Smith – as an accountant.
“I am a second accountant who carries out external reporting and I will be a cost of accounting managers,” he said Assets. “I didn’t know anything. The extent of my knowledge of my cost accounting was a course with a three -loan at Villanova University.”
But Ruggiero got great Podcast.
“Losing the tie, go to the plant floor and learn the names of the employees,” said the mentor.
In his first year in Crayola, Ruggiero spent four hours a day on the production floor, spoke to the workers, learned their pain points and studied paths to improve efficiency, he said.
“I learned how the machine is going. What are your problems? And what can I do to help?” He said in the Jflinch Learning Lab Podcast.
“This year there was a stunning experience of learning,” he added. Some of what he learned, he improved parts of Crayola’s Manufacturing processAccelerate production and create a better label that would not pull off the colored pencil.
With the kind permission of Crayola
In fact, Ruggiero had such a success in the company that Ruggiero, when the opportunity came years later, to lead Binney & Smith’s Europa operations to move his family to Bedford, England for three years before returning the stages ideas for operations and financial roles. The selection of different jobs presented him perfectly to get into the role of the CEO when he pulled off in 2024.
“I had so many jobs in the company and experienced people in a very authentic and intimate way” told Assets recently.
He attributes his success of this sponge quality, which is ready to transform himself into a new role-of one of which he did not feel confident of.
“For me (the key to success) was a sponge and said to every opportunity that came in my way, even if it was illogical” Assets. He advises young experts like his 20-year-old self to learn the same thing to do-take possibilities and as much as possible.
“The move to Great Britain and the running of Europe, when I had a supply chain and a financial mandate, was not logical. According to these experiences, it was not logical to return to a financial mandate” Assets. “But each of these movements shaped me to the leader I am today, and the fact that I was ready to do it helped me.”
