Cory Bouck started his career in the U.S. Navy — first as a flight officer serving on missions throughout Europe and South America, and later as a Naval Academy leadership instructor. These foundational experiences prepared him in ways he couldn’t have imagined when he started his career in marketing at Johnsonville Sausage more than 20 years ago.
Insight sat down with Bouck, who is today Johnsonville’s global director of business and culture integration, to discuss franchising Johnsonville culture worldwide, the complexities of international business and his new role as chairperson of Lakeland University Japan Management Corporation.
You started at Johnsonville as a senior brand manager, but you’ve had an interesting career trajectory since.
Bouck: We use a ladder as the metaphorical career path, but at Johnsonville it’s more like a jungle gym. I’m a former military guy with a few years of business experience who came into a small, privately held, family-managed company that had a need and they thought I could fill it. As Johnsonville was growing, owner Ralph Stayer asked if I would consider helping build a leadership development program because we were hiring too many of our leaders from outside the company. I ended up leading the organizational development and learning team. During that time, I was really passionate about leadership and spent nine months writing a book. I would get speaking gigs and, in the course of that, I spoke in the Middle East and I spoke in Asia. I got to interact with our Asia team, which at the time was only an office in Japan. When the Japan team needed a new leader, they asked me. I spent eight years leading that North Asia business, and every morning for the first year I woke up saying, “Today’s the day I’m not going to be stupid.” And every night for the first year I went to bed saying, “Nope, not today. Maybe tomorrow.” But after that first year, things finally clicked. In order to be effective overseas as an American, it helps if you put forth some effort to understand them culturally. If you spend some time understanding them, you will be able to accomplish your business goals much more quickly.
What were the biggest challenges between domestic and international business?
When I got the job, I thought I was getting the Asia job. But it turns out it was the China job, the Korea job, the Japan job, the Taiwan job, the Hong Kong job. Because all of their cultures are different. Consumers are different. Their appetites and what they want and choose to eat are different. Exporting is exceptionally complicated. We put sausage on ships that go to Japan, Korea or Hong Kong and all those countries have their own protective regulations. Our Beddar with Cheddar sausages are galactically popular, but we have to make different formulations for every single country, because every single country requires some sort of slight change. The science of that, the operational and financial complexity, combined with the exporting compliance makes it difficult. Another thing is currencies. You can choose to do business in Japanese or Korean or Chinese currency or you can make them pay you in U.S. dollars. Because of the financial fluctuations day to day, whatever choices you make and negotiate and how you deal with those fluctuations has a huge impact on the business.
Johnsonville has been expanding its global footprint with acquisitions in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. What role do you play in these acquisitions?
We realized that owning companies around the world requires cultural adaptation for not only them to feel connected to us and to operate with our philosophy, but also for our Wisconsin company that is growing in scale and scope to realize that about 25% of our members are outside the country now. We’ve got members living in Metro Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. As we grow in scale, we need an IT infrastructure that is consistent so we have IT, finance and operations people traveling to these places. Part of my role is to help our Wisconsin teammates as they prepare to go to countries they’ve never been in. Another is what I call “franchising the culture” because when you walk into one of the Johnsonville family of companies anywhere in the world, we want you to know you’re in a Johnsonville company, but we want it to be super relevant and adapted to their local culture as well. It’s a great role to get to be part business person and part ambassador.
What are your responsibilities with Lakeland University Japan Management Corporation?
The Lakeland University Japan Management Corporation is the entity with fiduciary responsibility for the finances and oversight of the strategic direction of the Japan campus. We are tackling all kinds of growth. We’re outgrowing the campus and opening satellite campuses in other parts of Japan. Managing that growth is one of the tasks of this board, and that’s a good problem to have. We want kids in Wisconsin to know that they can come to Lakeland and get an awesome education and they could also go to Lakeland Japan if they’re curious about the world and want an international experience.
Lakeland is one of just two U.S. universities with a Japan campus. What’s the relationship like between the Wisconsin and Japan campuses?
Twenty-five years ago, there were 20-some American universities in Japan and now it’s just us and big old Temple University. We’re on our way to 600 students — about 60% of them are not Japanese. As we look to the future, the vision is to [provide] international education by an American university in Japan, because we have such a diverse student body now; it’s not just Japanese and Americans. Japanese students will come here to Sheboygan. There’s probably a dozen Japanese students here right now. We specialize in hospitality because of The Osthoff and Kohler properties, and students that come here get to interact with them. The Japanese word “Omotenashi” means spirit of service, and that is so deeply seated in Japanese culture. The students are able to offer an even higher level of service and graciousness that’s important to companies like Kohler. Do we have things to teach the Japanese? Sure. And they have some really great stuff to teach us. That interactivity when people understand each other, that builds a better world.
