Glenn Fogel’s trajectory from suburban New York schoolkid to the crest of the dot.com explosion and the perils of global pandemic demonstrates exactly why the most successful career paths are often anything but linear. Glenn’s has featured detours ranging from a stroke at 17 to dual Ivy League degrees; from a stint as an IT programmer in the 1980s to multiple investment banking-related roles that were never quite the right fit. At the turn of the millennium, Glenn took a leap of faith into the world of online travel, anchored by a then little-known website called Priceline. That was 22 years ago and, of course, the rest is history. He has since been a guiding force behind Booking Holdings, a global brand with key acquisitions that also include KAYAK, Open Table, RentalCars.com, and Agoda. Glenn has served in several key executive roles, including Head of Worldwide Strategy and Planning and EVP of Corporate Development, responsible for worldwide mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. In addition to a law degree from Harvard University, Glenn is a retired member of the New York State Bar and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Managing pandemic’s global fall-out with grace.
When Covid19 struck, like many corporations around the world, Booking Holdings was faced with huge impacts. But unlike many corporations around the world, Glenn’s travel- and leisure-dependent industry had been completely hobbled overnight. There was no choice but to lay off a quarter of the company’s workforce and, even when done with the utmost care and respect, there was no way of getting around the trauma and disruption. “It’s not a human thing to do,” he says. “It’s an inhuman thing to tell somebody: ‘Hi, thank you for playing. You can now leave.” There is an art to letting people go with humanity, but at the end of the day, nothing normalizes the blow. The one silver lining, says Glenn, has been the current job market and abundant opportunities available as companies across all sectors have adapted and bounced back.
The alchemy of leadership.
Be charismatic! No, be humble! Go big! Go incremental! When it comes to inspiring leadership, there is no simple paint-by-numbers formula. Glenn has refined his style through years of practice and observation, taking from executives he has admired the traits that are most effective in motivating teams. There’s also a tremendous upside in learning from what you’ve done that did not go as intended. Glenn has no problem assessing and extracting lessons from his own track record, and adjusting accordingly along the way. For example, his real-world experience being laid off from an early investment banking job via a bloodless HR person reading a script – it’s the kind of formative shock that never quite goes away and that informed his approach when pandemic-related layoffs became inevitable for Booking Holdings.
When even enlightened leadership can’t really soften the blow.
Glenn is sensitive to what it means to be brutally laid off and understands that “the words matter a great deal.” Keenly aware of how painful it is to be on the receiving end, he is anything but cavalier when it comes to letting people go. But in an era of wholesale disruption, zoom communications, and pandemic adaptation some loss is simply unavoidable. “You try to do it in a way that will hurt less,” says Glenn, “but nothing you’re going to do or say is really going to make it all better because you’ve already made the corporate decision about what’s best for the entity going forward.” Part of the art of leadership lies in helping team members transition through change, even when they are resistant and the landscape is unknown.
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Understanding risk – and the costs of mitigation.
Companies are constantly addressing risk in various contexts, whether through SEC filings or disclosures to stockholders about the realities of industry exposure. There is a constant cost-benefit calculus: When is it smart to invest in anticipatory measures that might mitigate and protect versus taking a risk that whatever scenario won’t actually come to pass? “It’s a balance,” says Glenn. “We make decisions on how much risk we are willing to accept, whether it be as a company or as a society.” And sometimes there are competing demands: stakeholders with long-term interests versus stockholders with shorter-term goals. Glenn is constantly calibrating the tension: “You’ve got to have short-term results to make people believe that what you do in the long run is going to happen,” he says. Long-term proof points and concrete milestones build trust and soften the news when something less-than-rosy occurs. It’s a balancing act not dissimilar to corporate goal setting, which depends on multiple iterations and factors from multiple points of view.
Vulnerability? Sometimes. Authenticity? Always.
Glenn is a big believer in the “I am who I am” school of leadership. Being true to himself and speaking candidly are central tenets of his style, whether in a corporate board meeting or one-to-one. Since the advent of the pandemic has erased office culture, Glenn thinks whatever small differences in his persona at work versus at home have been blurred. He’s not sure if vulnerable is the way he’d describe his leadership style, but he definitely believes in telling the truth – however painful. This was his approach throughout the pandemic; from the earliest earnings calls, he projected pain in terms of years rather than fiscal quarters. “I think it’s important not to put on a false good front,” says Glenn. “I think it’s helpful to people if you tell them the truth.”
The art of riding through adversity.
Here’s a definition of adversity: Waking up one morning at the age of 17 to find you’ve suffered a stroke in your brain’s left hemisphere. Suddenly Glenn was in the hospital with a loss of motor function and language capabilities. He was unable to read or write or even simply dial a friend’s phone number. In looking back, there was no magic to what came next. It was just painstaking, hard work every single day. Glenn and his family learned a lot about neural plasticity and how to manage frustration. But moving through it was part of the healing and, given his subsequent college degrees (including with honors from Harvard Law), Glenn obviously exemplifies resilience. “We all have obstacles every day. Every day we have them – some big, some small,” he says. “Nobody gets out of this life easy … We don’t get a guarantee for good times all the time.” For Glenn, his stroke became an opportunity to come back better, stronger, more disciplined – an ethic that has served him well at every stage of his life.
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What’s in a routine … and outworking everyone else.
Glenn is deliberate in what he does and how he spends his time. He’s got a formula that leaves him feeling nourished, not depleted; in command, not overwhelmed. He incorporates exercise first thing every morning and then gets right down to business. Not surprisingly, this isn’t a guy prone to mindlessly scrolling social media feeds. He works through the day, breaks for dinner with his wife (and kids if they’re home from college) and if there isn’t a movie or some other entertainment on tap, it’s not unusual for Glenn to go back for another session at the computer after dinner. He’s a believer in getting to bed at a decent hour and makes it a priority to get at least six hours of sleep a night. At the end of the day, Glenn says, “the one thing I know I’m good at is I’ve got a lot of drive, a lot of endurance, and a lot of discipline. I may not be able to go faster than a lot of people, but I can go longer. And I can try harder.”
Who we bring correlates with the luck we make.
Glenn believes there has to be a nuance in how we show up in the world, depending on circumstances and audience. But in every case – whether in the board room or at a gathering of old law school buddies – the gold standard is courteous, appropriate societal norms. When it comes to a worldwide company, those norms have to be sized accordingly – globally inclusive, culturally expansive, universally curious. At the end of the day authenticity, discipline and hard work are key predictors for leadership success, but Glenn humbly adds one other ineffable ingredient: Luck. “All you can do is try to increase the odds of something good happening” by working hard, going the extra mile, endeavoring to be at the right place at the right time – ready to seize the opportunity when it materializes. Even when confronted with a monster challenge like pandemic’s impacts on a global and leisure travel company like Booking Holdings, Glenn is ever mindful of the advantages he has had and the many millions for whom good fortune is beyond reach. It’s all in the perspective.
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