North American retail pioneer Stephen Bebis shares insights with business students

During a March 4 visit to Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, Stephen Bebis, partner in the Bigwin Group, encouraged students to work hard, learn the numbers, and find a balance between work and family. He also shared wisdom he gained from his more than 25-year-career.

Bebis reflected on points that helped him in a career that included executive positions in retail companies such as Home Depot, Sears, Brookstone and Alcanna Inc. Besides working hard, building the support of colleagues and picking the right mentors, Bebis informed students perception is reality. “Stop complaining about your boss,” Bebis advised. “How your boss sees you is the reality you live in. Fixing those perceptions is your challenge as his employee.”

Many students’ questions for Bebis revolved around his retail experience. He offered the “Seven Ps” for retail and focused on discussing the people part – having the right people and getting out of the office and into the stores to talk with employees and suppliers.

“I never get good ideas in the office,” he claimed. “Ideas come from the field.”

Bebis also noted how winning management teams are chaos: “Everybody yells at everybody.” But the arguments are “positive conflict” about business issues and not personal, he explained.

For Bebis, retail's future requires firms to integrate technology with the in-store experience, citing Best Buy and Indochino as exemplars. However, he added, a tailored in-store experience requires information about the customers, a real disadvantage for brick-and-mortar retail. Facial- and phone-recognition technologies help, but may lead to a backlash from customers. 

Bebis currently works in executive coaching and recruiting. He previously held executive offices at both Sears and Home Depot before he headed to Canada to found and become CEO of Aikenhead’s Improvement Warehouse. He built the company from an idea to over $1 billion in sales in just three years before he and his fellow investors sold 75 percent of the company to Home Depot in 1994. Bebis also founded Reno Depot, a home improvement warehouse retailer in Quebec and served on the parent company board of Group Van Royal.

In 1998, Bebis founded Golf Town, a company he ran as president and CEO until Dec. 2011 after taking the company public in 2004. After Golf Town, Bebis took over the president and CEO role of Brookstone until May 2013 when he left to serve as president and CEO of Liquor Stores N.A.

Bebis has served on many charitable boards including the Moffit Cancer Centre, Outward Bound Canada and Prostate Cancer Canada. He won the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was elected to the Retail Hall of Fame in Canada in 2007.

Students appreciated Bebis’ honesty and straightforwardness. “I like the way Mr. Bebis thinks,” reflected Felipe Martinez-Sarrasague ’19. 

“He didn’t sugarcoat the amount of work he put in to be successful as well as the personal mistakes he made with his family to work and achieve more,” Michael Belt ’19 added. “I found it interesting that, nowadays, he has noticed an increase in his employee’s performance when they emphasize balancing work and personal life.”

Bebis’ visit continues the Love School of Business’ Lessons from Leaders series. Each semester current or former business leaders address seniors enrolled in the Strategic Management capstone course. As they begin their careers, students can draw from the experiences and advice of accomplished business founders and executives.