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Corner Office Conversations
Featuring Anthony Valletta, CEO and President of bartaco
by Kevin Stockslager, Managing Partner, Wray Executive Search
Over your career in the industry, you've worked across different segments, from fine dining to emerging concepts to now leading bartaco. What experiences have shaped your leadership style and the way you lead your team today?
I think the best thing is that it’s constantly evolving. I still haven’t found my style. I’ll figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be in companies at so many different points. I’ve been part of a company going public. I’ve worked for a public company. I’ve worked for a company going from public to private, worked for startups, and worked for literally a small mom-and-pop.
I think each one requires different leadership skills. I’ve been fortunate to be put in those scenarios, find my way through them, and make plenty of mistakes. Each one of those experiences builds and compounds on the others.
In the early days at Darden, I learned about systematizing and what mass scale can do for you. Switching to an independent taught me what it means to lead when no one else is there to lead but you. You have to wear a million hats, and there’s nobody to call unless you have a network—and that was before I had built one. You learn independence.
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