CEO MONTHLY / ISSUE 12 2022 9 Mar22259 High Quality Content, Low Costs Alibris is the premier online marketplace for independent sellers of new and used books, music, and movies, as well as rare and collectible titles. It connects people who love books, music, and movies to more than 250 million items from thousands of sellers worldwide. CEO Monthly has recognised the company’s CEO, Anindo Dey, with his career spanning over 25 years in publishing, digital content, and education, as CEO of the Year, 2022 - Vancouver, Canada. Join us as we learn more about the company and Anindo’s career. Headquartered in Berkeley, California, with other offices in Sparks, Nevada, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Alibris spans multiple channels and verticals with amain focus in consumer retail and B2B partnerships. It is a platform integrated with many larger retailers such asWalmart and eBay, selling books and other products, and offering great prices to students – thus becoming a critical platform for keeping their education costs low– as well as a range of other customers, including young adults, parents, and grandparents. Alibris continues to thrive as a strongly independent business – thanks to the loyalty of millions of customers and business partners, and the incredibly capable and dedicated business, technical, and support staff whomake it all happen –while not falling victim to an industry dominated by the biggest retail giants. This independence enables the company to be run by a diverse workforce that sells products without prejudice and for everyone’s consumption. Indeed, the employees of Alibris are the key to its success. Many of themhave worked at the company for more than five years, with some even for longer than 20 years, so they bring an enormous amount of knowledge tomaintaining andmanaging its technology, content, and customers. Anindo Dey tells us, “Our business is over 25 years old andmuch of our platform is highly complex, built in parts over decades, so a new person will need time to understand. We seek people who are patient and capable of learning withminimal support, feel comfortable working in a diverse environment, and have a passion for books and related content.” He continues, “Our internal culture reflects my open style of working where my door is always open for debates, discussions, and discourse. Any employee can (and they do) reach out to me at any time and their performance is gauged on the basis of individual and teammerit.” Anindo does lead the team with an open and inclusive style, having done so consistently for over two decades, as manager at various stages. He shares, “I recognise that my team is a collection of people with expert knowledge in their respective fields and it is my job to create an environment in which they have the freedom to express their choice and creativity. I have a small but diverse team withmixed-race, multi-religion, and LGBTQ employees and talking freely and openly about topics that are important to everyone is encouraged. “This is a big change from my early years as a manager where I had a largely singlerace male dominated team. However, even then, employees were encouraged to voice their concerns in an open manner. Later in a subsequent business, I had some oversight with cross-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-gender teams. What was common in all these scenarios was that if employees were given the freedom to express their choice, their performance increased manifold and that was always highly encouraging for me.” Anindo goes on to tell us about the challenges that have come with his career: “The biggest challenge to the business in the early days was the decline of the books business in the face of increased digitisation from academic and trade publishers. We adapted by partnering with one of the world’s largest eBook and digital content suppliers and started selling these products on our platform. “Covid helped bring focus back to books of all genres and Alibris benefited. However, the onset of recession, high interest rates, declining academic enrolment, and out of control gas prices are posing a big challenge. Retail businesses are suffering from a decline in online purchases as more people are setting money aside for a rainy day. People are also buying less books as they spend more time outdoors. All of these are challenging but we have converted this to an opportunity by partnering more on the B2B side of the business to diversify and gain access to more customers.” Current recessionary pressures are forcing all businesses to hunker down and reduce exposure to market volatility, and Anindo’s plan is to focus on keeping the business stable in 2022 and then focus on growth in 2023. Alibris is in a very strong position to exploit market conditions as the world comes out of recession, so sentiment is very bullish. With regard to his own career, Anindo tells us, “The work I do at Alibris perfectly complements my own ambitions which are to ensure the business continues to play strongly in this space and maintain independence.” Company: Alibris, Inc. Contact: Anindo Dey Email: [email protected] Website: www.alibris.com Oct 32
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