Austin Ramirez, CEO of Husco, Shares Lessons on Community, Empathy, and Transparency with the Aspen Global Leadership Network

The Aspen Global Leadership Network, an initiative of the Aspen Institute, interviewed Husco CEO Austin Ramirez for its Leadership Lessons series. Ramirez is a member of the 2018 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.

In the interview, Ramirez provided leadership lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, touching on community, empathy, and transparency:

Community – “MaskForce was a totally organic, employee-led initiative that kicked off immediately when the pandemic started…Over the following months, the Husco team designed, launched and produced nearly 50,000 face masks that primarily went to local first responders. This project wasn’t a top-down initiative, it was an initiative that our employees took on themselves because they know that we take pride in being a good citizen of our community and that we like innovating and taking risks. It makes me so proud to be running a business full of folks that are willing to dedicate their personal time and personal comfort to try to make an impact in the community.”

Empathy – “Seeing people working out of their homes, seeing people deal with pain and loss, and still figure out how to go on with their day-to-day lives, has added a real spark of empathy that I hope I can keep burning hot in the years to come.”

Transparency – “A commitment from myself and from our leadership team was to be as transparent and communicative as possible throughout the entire crisis. Our Husco team members are all humans, and they appreciate being treated like adults, they appreciate honesty, they appreciate transparency. And I think the job of the leader is to provide that transparency in a way that still allows you to inject optimism and hope for the future.”

Read and watch the full interview here: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/community-empathy-transparency/.