Executive Chairman of the Board, Domino's Pizza, Inc.
U-M Athletic Director David Brandon addresses the Detroit Economic Club
AmericaJR.com's Jason Rzucidlo reports from inside Michigan Stadium "The Big House" for a special meeting of the Detroit ...
Transcript (5 segments)
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Bill Pope0:00
Bill is also the vice president of global sales for Dell Inc. Please join me in welcoming your presiding officer today, Mr. Bill Pope. This is a really, really good event. We probably would have sold a lot more tickets if we had it outside with a little cover, but we'll work on that next year. So just let everyone know, this meeting today was a vision of Bruce's. He put together a lot of effort and hard times. We had many lunches and dinners. What a credit to this university and everything he's done. This is going to be a great event for us. We're looking forward to coming back here next year. Thank you so much, Bruce, for putting this all together. To get started, I have the honor of introducing our moderator and keynote presenter for today's meeting. Our moderator was born and raised in East Lansing, Michigan, but he went to school in Ann Arbor. He played offensive tackle from 1969 to 1971, helping his team to two Big Ten titles and two trips to the Rose Bowl. In 1971 he was named second team All Big Ten. But all of us here know him as the color commentator for Michigan football and the host of Inside Michigan Football with Rich Rodriguez. Our lives have been pretty simple in my house: every Saturday it's Michigan football, and then the Lions game on Sunday. He's always been there for us. His passion for football, the University of Michigan, and the state of Michigan is second to none. Please welcome Mr. Jim Branson. Our keynote speaker today is well known in the global business community. He served as chairman and CEO of Domino's for the last 11 years. He also served as CEO of Valassis and held numerous sales and leadership roles at Procter & Gamble. All this experience has led to numerous board appointments in the private and public sector. He currently serves as Domino's non-executive chairman and sits on the board of Burger King, TJX, DTE Energy, and Kaydon Corporation. He is also an active member of the community, serving many civic and charitable organizations, including his very own Detroit Economic Club. Earlier this year, President Mary Sue Coleman announced that effective March 8, David Brandon would be assuming the role as Michigan's athletic director. David is the 11th athletic director and will now put his leadership mark on this 130-year-old athletic program. Please welcome Mr. David Brandon. So with that, Brandy, we're going to turn the program over to you. Go Blue!
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Jim Branson3:14
Thank you very much, Bill, I appreciate it. And thank all of you for the great Economic Club for having us here today. Having me as the moderator, this is a wonderful group, an august body that has had tremendous speakers in the past. For me, it's always a thrill to be on the list of people that have actually been involved. A couple other things I want to do before we get started. One, Dave and I are friends. This will not go smoothly because when I go, it's your normal average business club interview. So we may have some fun. Second, about that second team All Big Ten thing: if you are upright and breathing, you can make second team All Big Ten. The other thing I want to do—if he doesn't do it, I'm going to do it anyway because I know if I do this, I will be invited back to Dave's house for dinner. Please give a warm welcome to Dave's beautiful, lovely wife, Jan Brandon. Nice job, that's good for another steak, baby. All right, so now we'll get started. Dave and I are friends; we played together on the beach back with those teams. I talked to Dave about taking the job as athletic director. I think first we should say that you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You have been one of the leaders in the community for a long, long time. You're making gazillions of dollars. So they come to you and say, how about you take about a 100 to 200 percent pay cut, walk into an athletic department that is being investigated by the governing body of collegiate football? What the hell were you thinking?
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David Brandon5:16
The taxes were killing me. Listen, I always felt that you worked really hard throughout your career. I worked really hard to accomplish the things I wanted to accomplish and put myself in a position where I could do what I wanted to do as opposed to what I had to do. I was fortunate to get to a point where I had choices as to what I wanted to do the last third of my career. And the choices that I had did not have to be driven by economic reasons; they were driven by passion and love for doing something I thought was important. And I love this place. This place had a profound impact on my life as a student athlete. Getting a degree from this university—I would have never been able to afford to come here back in those days. I would have hopefully gotten a college education somewhere, but not here. So thanks to Bo recruiting me and the four-year scholarship I received here, I got a degree from the University of Michigan. It cost me five dollars. There was one lab kit for a botany class that for some reason my NCAA scholarship didn't cover, and I remember I was really ticked off reaching into my pocket to get five dollars. But nevertheless, this was a terrific experience for me. I love being around these student athletes. I love being around the coaches. I understand the important role that this department plays. It's a five and a half billion dollar institution; this is a little 105 million dollar unit. But from my way of thinking, it is the sales and marketing department of this university. We travel the world. Our basketball team is playing in Europe as we speak. We represent this university and this brand all over the country and all over the world. We're on TV. We display our talent. We're able to showcase who we are and what we're about. Believe me, athletics is a big part of what defines the block M. And to be in a position where I have some leadership involvement in driving that and building that and perpetuating that is a great opportunity.
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Jim Branson7:33
How many CEOs though who are on that treadmill, looking to be a CEO at another company, looking to be a CEO at another company, moving forward, moving to bigger, moving to better, moving to more responsibility? Why was it Brandon who said, okay, now it's time to go to the University of Michigan? I mean, you had to run on those circuits. Those guys didn't talk about becoming athletic director at Wittenberg or Ohio State or Michigan State or wherever. Why you? That's because those jobs aren't as good.
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David Brandon8:13
Listen, I was a CEO for the last 22 consecutive years of my life of two great Michigan-based public companies. And it's important to say Michigan-based because unlike a lot of CEOs who go from port to port and move around and chase the next deal and negotiate the next contract, this has been home for me for all the two years of my life. P&G relocated me out of Michigan for a two-year period. Other than that, this is home. This is what I'm about. I've been to all those football games. I've been connected to this community. I've lived in Ann Arbor. So I'm a non-traditional CEO in many respects. The fact that I've been able to do what I've done in the state of Michigan in southeastern Michigan is unusual. And it just created a stronger connection and passion for me with this community and this place that I went to school. So I don't think there's a lot of people that would transition from a six billion dollar company to being the director of athletics at a university. But that doesn't mean it wasn't right for me. CEOs of companies handle a lot of different things. Traditionally, athletic directors were former football players or former basketball coaches. There's a change happening. What did being a CEO handling all this money bring to this job? How can you put the two together and make one an experience that will enhance being an athletic director? Well, being a CEO and being a director of athletics to me, to a large degree, is the same issue: leadership.