Ryan Bennett, Global Head of Franchise Operations at WeWork
Ryan oversees franchise development and operations for WeWork. Prior to his current role, he was Co-CEO for WeWork India. In this capacity, he managed numerous aspects of WeWork's India operations, including growing the building portfolio through design and development, scaling local infrastructure and personnel, and continuing the WeWork tradition of first-class operations and community-building. Ryan was the first person hired to help scale operations back in 2012, when WeWork had 5 open locations and 35 employees. Prior to WeWork, Ryan spent time working in Sales and Account Management for Marriott Hotels in New York City. Ryan received his BS from the University of Delaware with a double major in Marketing & Management.
Q: Why do you choose to spend your time mentoring others?
A: I enjoy mentoring others for a few reasons. One, I think it’s a great way to learn. I'm someone who likes to build and run teams. The more types of people you can meet and work with, who have different skillsets and are different ages, in different periods of their career, etc, the more you learn about how to work with people.
I've had a lot of really unique experiences during my time at WeWork: from working there when it was a small startup of 30 people that grew to a large organization of around 15,000, to living extensively in the Netherlands and India. I find it rewarding to bring my global perspective across different business environments to others who may not have that experience. It feels good to be able to contribute back in some way.
Q: What do you personally gain from mentoring?
A: I love it when people say that there's no such thing as a self-made person because it's the truth. Like anyone who has been successful in their career, their success is usually a by-product of hundreds of people who have helped them along their journey, some more impactfully than others. I get a lot out of being a part of those stories in terms of helping people to develop and to be successful. In my professional life, I get the most pleasure from seeing people that I've been able to hire, mentor, and manage, grow into leadership positions throughout the company. In many ways, seeing their growth is something that I like to brag about more so than anything else.
Leaders should be measured around a) the type of people they bring into the organization and b) how they develop those people. In a mentoring environment, the goal is the same – to bring out the best in the people around you. I think that's a great skill to have, and it's something that I take a lot of pride in.
Q: To what do you attribute your success?
A: I attribute my success to several factors: to my parents and to the people I had around me when I was young that instilled in me the right lessons, and to mentors I’ve had throughout my career across several different spectrums.
Early on, I learned the value of hard work from my parents and also to follow the things that you’re most passionate about.
When I was in school, I knew that I had some intelligence, but I also knew that there were always going to be tons of people that were much smarter than me. And the only way to compete would be, in many ways, the passion that I brought to what I was working on as well as the perseverance to accomplish goals I set to achieve. I learned about perseverance playing sports. I learned that it's not always the biggest and the fastest team that wins. It's the team that's most prepared, the team that has the best coaching, and the team that works the hardest and wants it the most.
I've always prided myself on knowing that I'll never be the smartest person in the room and being comfortable in that. Thus, I focus my efforts on initiatives that I'm passionate about because if I do that, that's when I'll be excited to give it my all.
Q: What does good mentoring look like to you?
A: Good mentoring to me starts with good listening, understanding what people want, and their challenges. From there, setting big goals and building a tangible plan to achieve those goals, whether it's better public speaking, how to negotiate better, etc. Finally, holding both parties accountable to make that happen.
Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in mentoring?
A: My biggest piece of advice would be that the objectives should be very clear to both sides. If that is done upfront, it becomes 10 times easier to make it happen and avoid spending time that is not valuable. Many times, people don't know the objective. Obviously, everyone wants to improve, but on what, how do you want to improve? What does improvement look like? How do we measure that improvement? What are the tangible results that define success?
Q: How has mentoring impacted your own journey?
A: I learned a powerful lesson from my first boss at WeWork. At the time, he was the COO, and, in those days, we would work from 8am to one o'clock in the morning. It was intense. He was close to 20 years older than me; I thought I was putting in all that I could. And every day he would beat me into the office, and he would still be there when I left. I was amazed by his energy. One day he said to me, “what animal best describes who you are? ” When it was his turn to answer, he replied: “I would be a cockroach because if there was a bomb that destroyed everything on the earth, all that would be left would be me and my cockroach friends, surviving.”
What he meant by that was that nothing could stop him. He would keep going, and going, until until there was nothing left in his way. By no means am I recommending that people work 18 hours a day, but if you take the approach that there is no way you’re going to be defeated keep chipping at it every day, eventually, there won’t be any problems left to solve and you’ll still be standing. This idea of survival and never giving in until the job is done struck a chord with me and became a big influence in my life.
Q: Why do you choose to mentor with Ceresa?
A: When I researched Ceresa, I thought an organization that was focused on providing this type of mentorship to people would be valuable.
I am impressed with what Ceresa is building and the framework around mentorship with clear objectives and goals. I think this framework will help me become a more successful mentor and put me in a position to add more value to mentees. I also see this as an opportunity to meet like-minded people and try to expand my professional network.
Mentorship: integral to the Ceresa whole-person approach
At Ceresa, mentorship is an integral part of our leadership development process. The mentor-mentee relationship is a key component in providing the structure, and at the same time fluidity, necessary to facilitate pointed leadership and career growth for both the participant and the mentor.