What do you do when you can’t serve customers in cafes and carry on business as usual? You try unusual things, says Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary. Forced to close cafes and restructure teams, Panera is leveraging its advantages (like a robust e-commerce system) to launch a slew of initiatives, from Panera Grocery to contactless delivery to Together Without Hunger, providing 500,000 meals to food banks across the U.S. It’s not the same Panera, says Chaudhary, but a Panera that will make it into the post-pandemic world. Interviewed by editor Bob Safian. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pet adoptions have soared during the coronavirus lockdown, as people seek companionship and solace. For Chewy, the pet-supply company, that’s driving unprecedented demand. Ultra-rapid growth has its own set of challenges that CEO Sumit Singh is responding to by: hiring (at 13,000 employees, with plans to add another 6,000 to 10,000 by end of year); setting up a COVID task team that meets daily; instituting health and safety checks; rolling out customer-facing innovations in a weekend, and more. Why? Because a leader's job during a crisis, Singh says, is to first communicate with the team, and then innovate for a post-pandemic world. Interviewed by editor Bob Safian. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.