Play Maker

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Bryan Stockton, born and raised in the Midwest, started working at a young age. He got his first job in the fifth grade – a newspaper route that earned him enough money to buy his first of many guitars. He attended Indiana University, where he completed a compact course load to earn both his bachelor’s degree and a master’s in business administration in five years. His first job out of college was with meat manufacturer Oscar Mayer Co. in Madison, Wis. He stayed with Oscar Mayer for 22 years as it transitioned from being a public company to become, after a series of acquisitions, a unit of Kraft Foods Group Inc. in Northfield, Ill. It was during his time at Kraft that Stockton first met and worked with Robert Eckert, who later served as chief executive at Mattel Inc. for 11 years. Eckert recruited Stockton to the El Segundo toy company as executive vice president of strategy and business development in 2000; in January 2012, he was promoted to chief executive. He was named chairman earlier this year. Stockton recently sat down in his El Segundo office with views of Los Angeles International Airport to talk with the Business Journal about lessons he learned in business, how he rose to the top spot at Mattel and his passion for playing guitar.

Question: As the head of one of the world’s largest toy manufacturers, you must know a lot about toys. What was your favorite toy as a child?

Answer: I love auto racing. I grew up in southern Indiana, where you have the Indianapolis 500 – the world’s greatest race. I wanted an electric slot-car racing set. I can’t remember how old I was, but when I got it, I had two controllers and two cars. I’m right-handed, but I taught myself how do to it left-handed so I could race the cars. I would hold those controllers and race these cars, and the controllers would get white hot. I’d let go of them and my hands would be red from the heat. I loved that! I would try to make those cars go around 500 times to be like the Indianapolis 500, but I don’t think I ever accomplished that.


Where did your interest in business originate?

I think I kind of came by it genetically. My grandfather was the dean of the school of business at the University of Kansas and my father was the head of the Ph.D. program for the school of business at Indiana University. I’m the wayward son who didn’t stay in academics.

Did you always know you wanted to be in business?

No, I actually started off as a biology major. I believed I was going to be a doctor. My C in chemistry convinced me I probably wasn’t as strong in the sciences as I’d need to be.

Why did you switch to business?

I had always enjoyed business. I had a paper route in the fifth grade. That was the way I earned money to buy my very first guitar. I started working in a clothing store part time during high school and in both my undergraduate and graduate years. So I was there for quite a while and I learned a lot about business. The man who owned the store was a fantastic mentor for me. It’s amazing all the things that I learned about business in that clothing store, in terms of sales, customer service, inventory and managing people.

Where did you first work after college?

I started at Oscar Mayer back when it was a public company and the Mayer family was still around. While I was there, Oscar Mayer got acquired by General Foods, which then got acquired by Philip Morris, which then bought Kraft (in 1988). (Kraft was spun off in 2007.) It’s usually easier for me to just say I worked for Kraft for 22 years. It was a great company. I actually worked with (former Mattel CEO) Bob Eckert three times at Kraft. I was with the meat part of the business, he was with the cheese. What’s more compatible than meat and cheese?

Why did you leave after 22 years?

I went to work for a company called Basic Vegetable, which is based in the Bay Area. I was CEO for about two-and-a-half years, until we sold it to ConAgra Foods. Around the time I sold that company, Bob was recruited to come to Mattel.

What path did you take to become chief executive?

I started as the executive vice president of strategy and business development. After about two-and-a-half years, I was asked to run our international division. I always describe that as my second favorite job ever; (being CEO) is my first favorite. After that I was asked to become the chief operating officer. I did that for a year. During that year, all the operating parts of the business reported to me. Then, about 18 months ago, I was named CEO; in January, I was named chairman.


Were these all opportunities you were gunning for?

There are very few M.B.A.s who don’t want to become a CEO someday. I definitely fell into that group.


How do you run the business? What are your duties each day?

What I really focus on is alignment. My goal is to eliminate barriers to success. I’ve always believed that if I’ve got strong people who want to succeed and want to work together as a team, the only thing that keeps them from doing that is a barrier. So I spend most of my day really focusing on: Are we aligned? Are we doing what we said we were going to be doing? And what can I do to eliminate a barrier?

How would you characterize your time at the head of the company so far?

It’s been great, and I think part of the reason it’s been great is we went through a very orderly transition process with Bob’s retirement. The board was very supportive of the process and engaged in the process, and Bob was very good about really drawing the lines in what I was responsible for and what he was responsible for. So when the calendar date changed to January, it was a change, but it wasn’t a black-white change. It was just a different shade of gray.


The toy industry was somewhat troubled during the recession and it hasn’t seen much growth here in the United States in the last decade. How do you deal with that?

The toy industry is still growing, but it’s a very different mix. The growth is really coming from places like Eastern Europe as the economies in places like Poland and Russia grow. Latin America is a huge market for us. It’s a billion-dollar market; it’s been growing double digits for quite some time and it’s going to continue to grow because of the massive growth of the middle class. Asia also has huge potential. As a region for toys, it’s still underdeveloped.

How do you grow a toy company with such disparate markets?

We focus on four places where we want to grow. No. 1 is our core brands, things like Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Thomas & Friends. The second is with new franchises. Monster High has been a huge success, and we just relaunched a brand called Max Steel that’s been very popular in Latin America. The third piece is with our entertainment partners: We’ve got some great entertainment relationships with Disney, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks and Warner Bros., for example. Fourth is international. We’ve grown it from a sort of low 30 percent of our portfolio to 50 percent. Our stated long-term goal is to get it to 60 percent of our revenue, so you can imagine we’re investing heavily in places like Russia, China and Brazil.


What’s a typical day like for you?

One thing I’ve learned as my career has progressed is that the days get less typical. I try to get up and exercise early in the morning, and I try to get to work early in the morning. Early for me is between 7 and 7:30. I’m usually – hopefully – out of here by 6.

Tell me about your family.

I’ve got four kids: two daughters and two sons. They are 32, 26, 21 and 16. I also have two grandchildren, a 9-month-old grandson and a 3-year-old granddaughter who loves Barbie. She has to – and, of course, grandpa had to give her her first Barbie – that was the law.

What do you do to relax?

This sounds old-fashioned, but I like to sit down and talk to my wife because we don’t get to do that as much as we’d like to. Playing guitar also falls into that category. I like to listen to music and play music. I also try to exercise, but – I’ll be honest – I wouldn’t put that in the fun column.


What interests you about playing the guitar?

Well, my very first goal was to be a Beatle, but I never got on the right career track for that.


That’s great. Which Beatle did you want to be?

Not Ringo. I would say I was vacillating between John and George. There were some things I liked about George and some things I liked about John. As I’ve gotten older, I appreciate Paul a lot more.

Tell me about your first guitar.

I remember my mother taking me to the music store. I had been there several times trying to figure out what guitar I wanted and how much it was. I think I paid $24 for it. It was my very most prized possession. I loved that thing and I took care of it. I bought a learn-to-play guitar book and taught myself. It was a bad thing to start, because I’ve been playing and collecting guitars ever since, and I’m always buying or selling one or another.


What’s the best advice you ever got?

There was a fellow by the name of Sol Schwartz who ran a shoe store just a few doors up from the clothing store where I worked in Bloomington. My mother had taken me to Sol’s store for years to buy shoes; he’d seen me grow up. As I was leaving my hometown with my M.B.A., and I was buying my last pair of shoes from him, he said, “Bryan, I want to give you one piece of advice: Never tell a lie.” I said, “Well, Mr. Schwartz, I don’t make a practice of telling a lie, why are you telling me this?” He said, “You don’t have to remember the truth but you have to remember a lie. In business and in your personal life, if you tell the truth, you’ll always be doing the right thing.”


Now that you know a thing or two, what advice would you give a young entrepreneur?

I’d tell them a couple things. First – you really need to enjoy what you do. That’s easily said, but you spend so much time at work, and if you start counting the hours, you probably spend more time at work than you do with your family. You’re very picky about the person you choose to share your life with – you wouldn’t just spend it with someone you don’t care about and have real feelings for. I think the same goes for business. You really have to have a passion and a feeling for it, and if you don’t, you’re probably not doing the right thing.


What’s the second thing?

The second thing I always tell people is: You need to learn to be a great team member. A lot of people think that’s an odd thing to say, but this world runs in teams and it’s not just athletic teams. Until you learn to be a good team member, you’re going to have a hard time being successful. Having said that, the other thing I always tell people is that you also need to figure out how to become a leader on that team – not necessarily the designated leader, but people can see and sense who’s really contributing and making a difference.

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