S5E4: Dave Allen - Embracing AI and Student-Led Innovation

On this episode of the Leeds Business Insights podcast, host Claire Stewart talks with Dave Allen, the CEO of Pure Fishing for Sycamore Partners as well as a Leeds alumnus and Dean’s Advisory Board member.Dave describes his career path from landing his first job with Unilever to leading turnarounds, emphasizing a strategy of cutting invisible costs, reinvesting in brand building and innovation, strengthening culture, and assessing talent. He cites social media as one seismic consumer-products shift, requiring hyper-local, nimble marketing across platforms. Dave also says AI in business has turned out more to drive efficiency than replace jobs and encourages businesses and students to “just start.” He details a CU internship partnership that paired business and engineering students to solve marketing and efficiency use cases, including YouTube optimization and AI storyboarding, generating major view gains and $1.9M savings that the organization used to hire full-time AI staff to continue these trends. Dave and Claire also discuss the outdoors industry and what makes it unique.Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM.EPISODE QUOTES:An advice for people intimidated by AI08:10: [Claire Stewart] Is there any advice that you might give to businesses that are kind of intimidated by AI, and they don't know how it's going to impact things?08:17: [Dave Allen] Start. Just start. You know what? Some things will work, some things won't work. You'll find your own rhythm. I think where we started, you know, it was really around efficiency. How do we go and save money? And I think where we've evolved is, you know, to be able to push it more towards growth. So how can we leverage it to be able to be, you know, drive faster innovation, better innovation, and drive more sales across more channels. So, our journey has sort of taken us through efficiency and now into growth, but I think the most important part is just get started.AI is a real gift07:17: I would encourage people to think about AI as a real gift. So they've grown up with AI in a way that, you know, you and I haven't, right? So they've thought about AI in terms of how they approach everything probably since, even the tail end of high school for the batch of seniors that we have right now. And if you take a look at it, you know, if you're probably over 26 or 27 years old, you might as well be 50, because you really haven't used the tool that often. And so I think their ability to be able to take it, solve problems, but also be able to go and then teach a whole generation of people within an organization how to use it, how to leverage it, will give them a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.Why CU graduates stands out16:07: Part of the beauty of CU, I think, is not only the in-class experience, but it's all the other things that CU and Boulder has to offer. And so I think that, you know, I find a lot of those students are really high on the EQ side, and that's a huge differentiator and really important, for people in terms of how far they can go in their career.SHOW LINKS:Episode TranscriptDave Allen | Leeds School of Business ProfileTalent Meets Technology: How Students Solved a Problem for a Global Brand | Article