Carol:
Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited about my guest today because she spent her career proving that the most powerful kind of leadership doesn't always have to come with the biggest title. Nikki Freeney is the vice president of Customer Success at MV Transportation, the largest privately owned passenger transportation company in North America, moving more than 110 million people every year. She started as a journalist, moved through government and crisis communications and over two decades has helped grow MV from a small company into a billion-dollar industry leader. Along the way, she's become the trusted face between transit agencies, the communities they serve and the riders who depend on them every single day.
She was honored recently by the Conference Of Minority Transportation Officials, COMTO, as one as the women who move the nation. And she now hosts the MV's own podcast, On the Move. And today, we're going to talk about People-Forward Leadership from inside one of the most people-dominant industries there that there is and what it means to lead through trust rather than title and how an industry built on human connection is thinking about the age of AI. So, Nikki, I want to welcome you to the show.
Nikki:
Thank you so much. I am excited to be here. Love the show. Have seen some of my friends and peers up here. So I feel honored to be a guest today. So thank you very much.
Carol:
Oh, fabulous. I'm so glad you're here because your background is very fascinating and the work that you do, particularly because EV is a private organization, is such a different perspective that I hear from other places, so I'm really excited about the insights that you're going to share with us today.
Nikki:
Yeah, I look forward to it.
Carol:
Yeah. So let's start with the fact that you started your career as a journalist, moved through crisis communication and government affairs, as I talked about, and then landed in transit. So when you look back, what was the throughline through those careers that either prepared you for the work that you do in transit or led you to this organization and this work?
Nikki:
I have always been fascinated by the intersection of people, information and power, I guess, and decided as a child that I wanted to be a journalist. My grandmother, God bless her soul, she just passed away in March, I was very close to my grandmother, she used to tell my mom all the time, "This girl is either going to be a lawyer, a journalist or a mermaid," because I loved swimming. And did not want to go into law, didn't want to do the standardized LSAT and all that kind of stuff, even though people have been trying to encourage me to go to law school, but I always loved talking and writing.
And in the seventh grade, was chosen to be the seventh grade reporter for the newspaper and it just expanded my mind in terms of what journalism really could do. And I've always been very pro Black. I grew up in a very, very pro Black family and I realized that I was able to share the stories about growing up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in a predominantly white city, I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and just wanted to tell the stories that I saw of children that we were bused from our neighborhood to Robert E. Lee Elementary School, middle school and-
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
... junior high at the time. And I just felt compelled to tell the stories about these Black children having to get up early in the morning, earlier than our counterparts that could walk to the school to be bused for 45 minutes, what did that feel like. And so I started to share those stories and just thought, again, that that taught me the intersection between people, information and then the power of my pen, the power of my voice, the power to be able to show leadership through my pen and my voice, right?
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
Help change the narrative about how we were seen as young Black, very vocal students, how we were seen. And it just fueled the passion. So eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, I was a reporter for the school newspaper, and then in high school, I did an internship. I left school at 12:00, I think I was done with all of my credits, left right before lunch and did an internship at the local Black paper in Orlando.
Carol:
Oh, wow.
Nikki:
So decided I was going to go to FAMU Journalism School and the rest is history with journalism. But I will tell you, again sticking on that theme of the intersection between people, information and power, I got out of the journalism business maybe four years after graduating from college because we started manufacturing the news. I saw back in '98, '99 where we are now in the news business, that we were going to lose our independence, that we weren't going to be able to tell the stories because the powers that be were buying up the news, right?
Carol:
Yes. Is that when we started seeing commercials for the news?
Nikki:
Yes.
Carol:
It used to just come on, but now it was competing and there's commercials about who has the best story. And I'm like, "How are you preselling the news before the news?" I used to wonder that myself.
Nikki:
Yeah. Yeah, because that was clickbait pre-clickbait to get us to watch certain news programs because then the advertising dollars went there and then they made more money and it became a for-profit business. And so I decided I didn't want to work for those leaders and ended up ... Actually, I don't think I share this much in my bio, I don't know why, but ended up becoming the spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and did that for five years, traveled with Governor Lawton Chiles, wrote speeches and different things, press releases for Jed Bush's office.
So I did a lot in government in Florida, decided I was done with that after about five years because we weren't really making any money and ended up going to the transit agency, LNYX, in Orlando as the media relations and marketing manager. And that just fueled my love for transit, specifically paratransit because I saw how vulnerable that population was and that back in the late '90s, early 2000s, transit agencies were doing anything they could to outsource that business because it was one of the most high profile services that they offered because of the population that you are servicing, right? And if you leave grandma somewhere for an hour, grandma and her family are coming to a board meeting complaining about it, right?
Carol:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki:
So I decided that I really wanted to focus on how we could tell a better story about what paratransit is and then how we could make sure we were designing a service that the people deserved. And so just transition from journalism, government, being a spokeswoman to continuing my communications journey without being a reporter, but translating that to a communications career.
Carol:
Wow. I love that and I love the intersection of people, information and power. And I see the throughline through that, is that you're a storyteller, and like you say, using the power of the pen to tell the story to initiate change or betterment for different populations and communities and I can see that as a throughline. At MV, you were also the VP for Marketing Communications, but now you're the VP for Customer Success. So why that transition? Knowing that that's your background and telling the story, how are you bringing that into this new role?
Nikki:
So it's a hybrid, right? Because MV still, a lot of our general managers, our regional vice presidents, and frankly, a lot of our executive team really still rely on me from a communications aspect. Even though we have a PR and marketing team, I created the role at MV when I joined back in 2001. So I joined in 2004, so people still see me in that capacity-
Carol:
Got you.
Nikki:
... and why I'm no longer in that capacity is I actually left MV back in 2011. And at that point, I was the ... At that time, I was the executive vice president of public affairs. So government relations, marketing and communications was under my purview. MV moved from California where we were headquartered and where I lived to Dallas and I didn't want to go to Dallas. And so I decided to resign, but because of, I believe, the great work that I've done for MV and the relationships that I built at the company, they didn't want to see me leave. So they put me on a consulting agreement. So I continued to help MV grow. When I joined the company back in 2004, we were a $24 million company. Now we're over $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
So I can say that I have helped the company grow in that way. So that's why I left, they didn't want me to leave, so I consulted and then I eventually came back to work. And they had changed some dynamics and they really wanted me to be in this customer success role because of the relationships that I have with a lot of transit agencies because of my role at [inaudible 00:10:56].
Carol:
Yeah, yeah, but they still know you're brilliant, they still rely on that.
Nikki:
I like to think so. I like to think that's what it is.
Carol:
Yeah. I saw your interview with the founder and how you talked about how you write her speeches and support her even in how she was showing up. So yeah, I could see you're a much valued member of the team there for sure.
Nikki:
Yeah, yeah. And the owners are just the salt of the earth people, right? And they trust me and I trust them. And so we have a really good working relationship to the point where they'll tell senior leadership, "If you all want me to do something, call Nikki first, so she can vet it." So we do have that. We still have that relationship.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. That is so powerful and so key. I'm happy to hear about that relationship. And you mentioned about supporting all the leaders within the organization. I know that you've traveled the country with MV's owner, meeting drivers, agencies, community leaders. I'm curious, in hearing as someone who's a storyteller and hearing the stories of people who are partaking in the system, what did you learn in those rooms that you never would've learned if you were just relying on a report or a dashboard? What was it about being there with the people and hearing these conversations that really made an impact?
Nikki:
How important transit is to our communities and how important it is, how important having access to transportation changes a community. I didn't grow up as a public transit rider, so I didn't have ... All I knew was what a lot of people know. You see a bus, you see a driver, "Is it empty? Is it full? Where's it going?" It's in my way when I'm trying to drive my car to go somewhere. That's all we knew. But being in the rooms with drivers, these are people who take their jobs seriously.
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
They really are our first ... They are ambassadors for not just for the company or the transit agency that they're driving for, but for the community. People don't realize people get on the bus and ask drivers for directions, ask them about life situations. People don't realize sometimes-
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
... someone will leave a child on the bus and our drivers become caregivers, not just for children, but for elderly people late at night who don't necessarily ... The driver doesn't want to see them walking down a dark street, so they may help them get home or-
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
... become first line of defense, right?
Carol:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki:
Our paratransit drivers, they are sometimes the only person that a client who they are transporting sees in a week, right?
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
Our drivers will call us and tell us when they feel like a person is being neglected or doesn't have something. And one thing about MV Transportation is we are going to jump in and help, right? I'll give you an example that I am very honored to have been a part of. There's this really small community in Florida. In fact, I was born there. It's called Pahokee, Florida. Pahokee and Belle Glade are two very rural communities. Back in the day, they were sugarcane. That's where sugarcane was grown. It's still grown there in mass. U.S. Sugar has one of its major plants there, right?
And so the community is about 45 minutes west of Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, very rural, very small, a lot of poverty now that the sugarcane mills have closed and everything has been automated. And so we are a partner with West Palm Beach with PalmTran and so we operate their service out there. And we had a driver who would see this family of ... It was a husband and a wife and I think it was three or four children and they would be walking down this major highway trying to get from one city to the other. And these cities are, one is 10 miles, two of them are 10 miles apart, one is a mile apart and they're very small rural cities, but there's not a lot of infrastructure.
Carol:
Got you.
Nikki:
And our drivers would see them walking knowing that they could ride the vehicle. What they didn't realize is that they couldn't ride the vehicle because they couldn't afford car seats for their children.
Carol:
Oh, wow.
Nikki:
And so our drivers let us know and our owners bought car seats for that division-
Carol:
Oh, wow.
Nikki:
... so that this family could ride, this family and others could ride the vehicles, right? So a lot of people just have a negative perception sometime of bus riders and these are the people who are fueling the economics of a community, right? These are the hotel maids, right? These are the chefs and the bartenders at country clubs that people who don't like transit frequent, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
And so I can tell you without looking at a transit system that 70 to 80%, or not knowing the particulars of that system, that 70 to 80% of the people who ride those buses are riding to go to three places, work, medical appointments and school. That's what fuels our local economy. We should all be supporting transit, right?
Carol:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki:
And so those are some of the things that I would not have known had I not been in a privileged position because this is a privileged position, to be able to understand people's mobility needs and how it helps to provide a better quality of life for them. And so I try to tell that story as much as I can to people-
Carol:
That's a powerful story.
Nikki:
Yeah, to people who otherwise wouldn't know it, right? I remember years ago when I worked at LYNX in Orlando, we were having a little bit of a struggle with some elected officials who didn't necessarily support the transit system, right? The Speaker of the Florida House wrote that the agency could screw up a one bus funeral. This was how bad things were, right?
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
And so our Government Affairs Team and our Marketing Communications Team decided that we wanted to do a legislative breakfast for our federal, state and local legislative delegation. And one of the things that we did that was so powerful is that we took every district, mapped out how many people get on and off the buses in all of these districts, especially in a lot of the red districts. Those elected officials were shocked at how many people lived in their districts that ride the bus that depend on the bus. A hotelier in Orlando, a billionaire just passed away not too long, a couple of years ago, Harris Rosen owns all the hotels in Orlando, pretty much out in the tourist district, he told me one day if LNYX ...
Just out of the blue, I was talking to him about something and he asked me where I worked, told them LYNX and he said, "You work for LYNX?" I was like, "Yeah." He said, "If LYNX shut down for one day, I would go out of business." This was a billionaire.
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
So he got it because his cleaning staff, his-
Carol:
Yeah, they were taking it to work.
Nikki:
That's how they got to work. I know it was a little long-winded, but I think it's important for people who watch your podcast and are looking for transit information to understand what we do every day is critically important. It's not just a man or a woman driving a bus and that's it. There's a lot that goes behind it.
Carol:
Yeah. No, I think that is so important. I'm so glad you shared that because we talk a lot about the internal workings, but the heart of what these organizations do are moving a community.
Nikki:
Absolutely.
Carol:
And one of the things that I feel vicariously, what I love supporting and doing work in transit organizations is because I feel like I'm also giving back to the community. Because if I can help them be better, the service that they'll provide in the community would be amazing.
Nikki:
Right.
Carol:
I remember I wasn't a big ... And I still, where we're at in Southwest Washington, I tend to drive more, but I had a massive car accident and I needed paratransit. I needed to be taken because I couldn't drive and people really couldn't position me to drive. I had to stay in a wheelchair because it was a bad accident and I had to be brought to my doctor's appointments. I had to be taken back and forth to my PT appointments for months and it was because that was available to me-
Nikki:
That was available to you.
Carol:
... that I was able to do that, that I didn't have to go into a nursing home because how else would I get that kind of service? They weren't coming to my house to do it.
Nikki:
Right.
Carol:
So the service that they provide to the community, and that's just a small piece of what you were talking about, just to get to work, to get to school and everything else that it does, it's powerful. And I love that you shared that. So it makes me think that must be where the tagline, "Driven by people." It's almost like, "Driven for people," but I know it's, "Driven by people," as a tagline.
Nikki:
Right. And we just really changed that in the last year, because for 49 years, 48 years, our tagline was, "We provide freedom. The freedom of mobility."
Carol:
Wow. A pretty powerful one.
Nikki:
It is. We still use it every now and then, but I prefer that one because it gives me a visual of what my role is every day, is to provide the freedom of mobility, the freedom of access, the freedom of a mother who does not have transportation to allow her children to participate in extracurricular activities when you can extend that bus route a little longer for these kids to get home. So I really enjoy what I do. I fell into transit, but I love it and I'll be here until they don't want me.
Carol:
Yeah. Well, I'm curious, why did they change to, "Driven by people," which is easy to put on a website, but how are you all living that with a 20,000 employee group and why did you make the change? I'm curious.
Nikki:
I'm not 100% sure why we made the change, I'll be honest with you, but I do understand it because we are driven ... A lot of people don't understand that we are just regular people behind this machine that is driving the economy, that is moving millions of people every year. So we drive people and the company is driven by people. I'm not sure though why we changed it. I need to ask.
Carol:
Yeah. Well, it caught my eyes, as we're at People-Forward Leadership Podcast, I was like, "That's really cool, 'Driven by people.'" And I was just curious, not only where that came from, but how does that ... On a regular Tuesday, what does that look like, right?
Nikki:
Mm-hmm.
Carol:
I know what it looks like in terms of the actual drivers who are doing it, but what does that mean behind the scenes in terms of your work and other people's work who are creating the conditions for these people to be able to be driven by people?
Nikki:
Well, one thing about MV, and I can say this with all honesty, we are one big family, right? Everybody is always looking out for each other and our drivers are the most important people in this organization. And when you are onboarded into this company, that is the first thing that you learn, "You are here. You might have an executive title. You might be a vice president. You might be the chief information officer, but you are no more important than the driver on the street and your job is to make their job easier and more satisfying so that they can do the work that pays all of us. We eat because of those people that are driving the buses."
So MV is very much a family oriented ... We argue like brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, but at the end of the day, it's because we understand the mission that we are all privileged and blessed enough and that is driven in us, that we are privileged and blessed enough to be in the positions that we are in. And I don't mean to be an executive or to be making whatever salaries we're making. I'm talking about, to be in a position, we are privileged to be in a position to help other people, to make sure other people's quality of life is as good as it can be because we're offering those services to them, those transportation services.
Carol:
Yeah. No, I love that. And what's interesting is that the last APTA Workforce Summit, I actually sat on a panel with Cris Kibbee, your CIO, and he was sharing some really innovative things out of his shop that they were doing around AI with piloting autonomous vehicles, but also really leveraging predictive analytics to increase retention within the driver community, understanding at every point when an intervention needs to be made to make sure that-
Nikki:
Absolutely.
Carol:
... like you said, the number one person on the team is the driver, which I thought was incredible and definitely ahead of the game with other organizations in terms of what they're doing with AI. But I'm curious, as a company whose identity is around driven by people, how does the future of AI or autonomous vehicles, how is that impacting conversations that are having amongst the drivers and how you all are positioning that within the agency?
Nikki:
Well, in many ways, we are following what transit agencies are doing, right?
Carol:
Okay.
Nikki:
So a lot of transit agencies are looking at incorporating AI. I don't think the goal is to put anybody out of work, but the goal is definitely to expand options for riders, right? When I came into transit 20 years ago, the goal was or the way we moved was everything was for those riders that depended on us, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
We put all of our resources in making sure that our regular bus riders, our regular shuttle bus riders, our paratransit riders had the customer experience that they deserved, right? Uber came in and really transformed and disrupted transportation, not just public transit, but transportation in general, right? And what we started to see, especially as we, as transit agencies, started to incorporate Uber into some of their services, for instance, paratransit, sometimes a paratransit vehicle is late because you have a dialysis patient who you picked up or you're there to pick up, they're not ready because they may be bleeding. So that is going to make the next trips late. So we may send an Uber vehicle to pick them up, right?
Carol:
Okay.
Nikki:
And that paratransit rider is saying, "Hmm? Uber worked for me here. It could work for me here," or it could work for a passenger that is not necessarily transit dependent. And so transit agencies started seeing that you could increase your ridership to a certain extent, get new riders by providing this new technology. And so I think MV is really just keeping up with that trend or understanding the trend and what's coming down the pike and then building resources and software and applications around enhancing what transit agencies are already doing.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki:
So go ahead.
Carol:
I was just going to say, I completely agree with that. I'm of the school that AI is an exceptional tool to augment but not to replace, right?
Nikki:
Right.
Carol:
But I definitely know that people have a fear around it because there's still some confusion or lack of understanding. And I'm sure a lot of that comes, even from your role, how are you storying what AI means? And like you said, keeping up with the other transit agencies, but what does it mean in your organization? And I'm just curious if you've been tasked with, as you roll out different things or look at different augmentation with AI as other agencies are doing it, how are you telling the story and keeping the people to understand that, "It's still people, but we're leveraging and supporting you with it and dealing with the fears and all that kind of stuff around it"?
Nikki:
And it is challenging sometimes, because even the transit agencies who are rolling it out in some aspects, some of them are very cautious. The unions are like, "How is this going to affect us?" And so again, we are really following the lead of transit agencies, but when we know that they're like ... Cris Kibbee is amazing. I've worked with a lot of IT people at MV over the years and Cris and his team just have come in with a fresh new perspective on how we can enhance transit by using some of these new technologies that are available to us. And so when we hear that a transit agency is having high turnover, we want to be able to build an AI component that, like you heard Cris say, allows you to say, "Hey, this person interviewed well but may not work out because of ..." right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
And not using that tool, being very cautious of not using that tool to eliminate people, right? But absolutely using it to analyze whether or not this person is going to be able to meet the standards that we've set forth, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
And so we're rolling out, when we come out ... When our IT team comes out with new applications, then our team, the customer success team, is provided with that information, we analyze it. In fact, I just got off of a call with Cris' team right before this call where they were sharing some new information and ideas. And then we, in turn, go out and roll that out to our clients to see if it's something that they want. A lot of times, we'll do a pilot to see if this is something that they want, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
We've used AI to help with scheduling. We've used it again to help with hiring. We've used it to help us better understand what our employees need, right? "Can we provide better benefits based on something that we researched using AI in our industry?" So I have a love-hate relationship with AI and I think the hate part of it really comes from the lack of regulation, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
At some point, our government has got to start regulating what we can and can't do with it. And I think, once that happens, people will not have as much fear around it as they do. And the other part of it is I'm a writer naturally, always have been and I hate getting accused of using AI because other people can't write doesn't mean that I can't write, right?
Carol:
Right, right.
Nikki:
But that's the other hate. But I actually do. It has opened my ... I love history, so it has helped me expand my knowledge on a lot of historical research that I do.
Carol:
Yeah. No, I think that's great. Like I said, it's a great tool to augment, but never as a replacement. When I've talked to organizations around AI readiness or rolling it out from a people perspective, not the tech perspective, and this is what I was sharing on the panel, and I think what you talked about in terms of information and storytelling is so powerful because I always say, "You need framing. You have to frame like, 'Why are you using it? What is it for? What does it mean for us?'" But also governance to your point.
Nikki:
Absolutely.
Carol:
"So what are the guardrails around how we're going to use it so that we're decreasing fear and letting people know that it's a tool to help?" But then the third piece is like, "How are we going to evaluate it to make sure it's just working?" right?
Nikki:
Right.
Carol:
But what you bring to the table to really frame the conversation and help bring people along with it to have that openness, that transparency, the communication, a lot of organizations are missing that piece. They get right to the tech or thinking about the governance structure, but they don't have the conversation to say, "Let's talk about it. Let's frame what we're using it for and tell the story about who we are with this new tool that we're using."
Nikki:
And I think that is indicative, and I hope nobody gets offended by this, but I think that is indicative sometimes of leaders not fully understanding how to include their communication staff in some of these decisions.
Carol:
I agree.
Nikki:
Right? There are a lot of agencies and a lot of companies in general that don't elevate their communications leader to a senior leader staff or a senior leader position. They're not sitting at the table. And I can tell you, I have seen so many disasters that could have been never happened if your communications person was sitting at the table. And I've had to fight in my career. I'll be honest, I've had to fight in my career over the years to get a seat at the table, but once I was at the table, they were like, "We don't know why we didn't have you here in the first place," right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
And we have to be honest, "If I'm not comfortable with AI ... If you're sending me out to talk about AI and I'm personally not comfortable with it, I'm the wrong messenger. So you should sit me down, so we can have a conversation, a debate back and forth. And then at the end of the day, you're the boss, so I am going to go out and sell it, but give me the opportunity to ask the questions that I know the public or our clients or our drivers or the union are going to ask and let's make sure we have answers, the appropriate answers for that."
Carol:
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And that brings up something else because you're not the CEO of the organization, but you've helped move a quarter of a billion dollars of business and you're the trusted face in front of clients and communities. So to your point, in fighting for getting that seat at the table and now that they see you there, they're like, "Oh my goodness, where have you been in our lives?" right?
Nikki:
Mm-hmm.
Carol:
How do you continue to lead and shape the company's direction from the seat that you're in?
Nikki:
I have a unique position because I've been here and I was on the executive team. I think we have maybe 10 people on our executive team and there's only one person that is on there that has been at the company as long as I have. And so because of the role that I've played, I was able to absorb a lot of information or I had access to a lot of information, I should say. And I am the walking historian of the company a little bit. And so people really rely on me to give them the, "How did we manage this before? Is this going to work with these specific clients or is this going to work for us as a company? And then how would you communicate that? Help us communicate that."
So I'm in a unique position where our marketing and communication team has a weekly call with me where we just talk about what they're planning to do and where they're moving and I provide input in that. So I'm just in a unique position. Yeah.
Carol:
Yeah. But I still think it's important. Sometimes people think they need a title to make a difference.
Nikki:
No, you don't.
Carol:
Yes. And you, from what I hear from you, it's relationship, is the longevity, it's the trust that you've built, the impact that you've made that allows you to have that level of influence and-
Nikki:
Yeah. And I've never been a person that has worried about the title. Listen, as long as you pay me what we agree, you go pay me every Friday, every other Friday, you can call me anything, right? Just don't call me out my name, but you can give me any kind of title you want to give me. And I get that I think from my mom. My mom has never wanted to manage anybody, but has always been a leader everywhere she worked, right?
Carol:
Okay.
Nikki:
And that is because we know our job, we know how to communicate with people. We know how to get people. One thing that is important in leadership, and I think it is important to share this, is that people genuinely have to like you to follow you. And if you have an unlikable CEO or an unlikable boss, you are just on that job to get your paycheck that allows you to live your life, right?
Carol:
Yeah, yeah.
Nikki:
If people do not like you, you will never get the most out of them. And so you can be a leader with no title, whatsoever, the newest person on the team, but if you are likable and you have great ideas, people are going to follow you. And I will say that a lot of people growing up, I think our mothers and grandmothers and our aunts and uncles who are older than us, they would, "Go to work, do your job, put your head down and go home." That is not the reality anymore. You have got to engage, you have got to know people. I tell you, one of the reasons that I am successful, and I share this with people that I mentor, is when you meet people, be engaged with people, right?
Carol:
Mm-hmm.
Nikki:
I know clients whose mothers are in nursing homes. And so when I'm on the phone with them, I'm going to ask first, "How is your mother? How is your son that was struggling in math when we talked last? How is he doing? Did you find that tutor that day?" You understand what I mean?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
"How is your husband? How are your children? When are they graduating?" You genuinely have to like and understand people for people to do what you need them to do. And I can't express that enough. People have genuinely got to like you and you've got to like the people that you work for. So it doesn't matter if you're the CEO or the janitor. If you are nice to people ... There is nobody at MV I don't think that I can't get anything out of because I am genuinely nice to people and I care about them and their families and their livelihoods.
Carol:
Yeah. Well, that's very well said. I always tell people they have a misunderstanding around leadership because it's really not about you, it's about your people that you're leading.
Nikki:
Absolutely.
Carol:
Right? It's the people that at least you're trying to lead, right? And so leaning into understanding them and having a connection and relationship, even if for some people that's a struggle to do, you still want to make the effort and not say, "Oh, well, that's not my thing."
Nikki:
Right.
Carol:
Because if you don't inspire, motivate, connect with, build relationships, or if people don't feel seen, heard, valued and cared about by you, you're right, they will shut down and you won't get the best out of them for sure.
Nikki:
And that's why a lot of these people don't understand these Millennials and younger. My mom, when I left my job back in '98, '99, whenever I left the reporting business and she knew I wanted to be a reporter my entire life, my mom was like, "Have you lost your mind? You kids are not loyal to these jobs," and I had to tell her, "Mom, these jobs are not loyal to us. We don't have pensions like you all had. They will get rid of us in a heartbeat. We don't have unions like you all had and so we have to move around." I'll tell you in 1993, '94 at the Career Placement Center at Florida A&M University, they told us, "Go on these jobs. Stay two or three years. Get the training and move because they'll get rid of you real quick and bring in somebody else that's making more money than you. Keep moving until you get to the top." And my mom was shocked by that.
Carol:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Nikki:
Stunned. And so I think it's just important that people understand you can be a leader without a title. Think about it, the receptionist at the front desk knows everything and everybody. She is a leader in the company because she will let you in. She will let you in when you ain't supposed to be there-
Carol:
Right, or keep you out.
Nikki:
... or keep you out. You'd lost your key car, you can't get in. If she don't like you, she going to act like she don't see you buzzing in, right? So you have got to be nice to everybody. And my grandmother, my mom, my mom has seven sisters, and that is what they have instilled in me, "You have got to be nice. People have got to like you and you have got to like people in order for you to be successful, period."
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. It's about relationships. You're correct.
Nikki:
It is.
Carol:
You're correct. So now you host MV's own podcast On the Move. Was this your idea? What made you want to take the mic and tell the story to get back? Is it because you wanted to still get back in there?
Nikki:
It wasn't because I wanted to get back in there. It was because we have so many great stories at MV. We have been in business 51 years and we have the quintessential American story, right? A husband and a wife or they met at the post office. They worked in the post office here in California, met at the post office, decided to get married, bought a vehicle and started running service, picking people up in San Francisco. And they're an interracial couple, a Black woman and a white husband. And they started this business in San Francisco with one van and three employees. And the amount of-
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
And just over the 22 years I've been at MV ... Gosh, I can't believe I've been here that long, but the 22 years that I have been here, just some of the amazing things that we have done and some of the amazing applications and software that we have created that people don't know about, I just thought it was important to share that story. And our new CEO, he's been here three years now, but he calls it The New MV because he's done some innovative things. He's really brought on some great technology and some great people, some really smart people from all different industries. And we call it The New MV internally. So I just thought it was important to share what we're doing, what we've done and what we're doing. And that was a great way to do it.
Carol:
That is so great, yeah, continuing that storytelling and making sure the legacy is ... You're right because the stories you shared just in this time that we've been together have been really impactful and I think inspiring for anybody who will listen to it to hear. And so what a great thing for even your employees and everyone there to hear all of these stories so they know what they're a part of and know what the community and the legacy that they're continuing on.
Nikki:
And whenever new employees find out about the story and that Alex and Feysan were actually the first driver and the dispatcher, when I joined this company, I would walk into a division and Alex would be dispatching and would have on a uniform. And I thought, "This is amazing. This is the owner of the company." And when people hear that, that work here, they buy into the story because they know that the owners understand what their job is and what they are going through, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
And it really is a blessing to be a part of this company. It really is. I have seen MV change so many lives.
Carol:
Yeah. I think that is so powerful to have people not just show up thinking they're doing a job, but really have a connection to the purpose and the history and the legacy and the impact that's having because we all want to feel like what we're doing has some value and some purpose and that it matters, right? And you're creating that through having the podcast and through sharing this information and letting them know that the owner was wearing a uniform, dispatching, that everybody is committed to the work and to the purpose of the organization and that no job is too big or too small for anybody to do. I love that.
Nikki:
And I'll tell you, before he retired, Alex, the other owner, before he retired, he sent a birthday card to every single person in the company on their birthday every year.
Carol:
Wow.
Nikki:
A personal one where he wrote a personal message and signed his name. I remember going to HR getting the list and giving it to him every couple of months, giving it to ... And he literally sat in his office with a box of cards and wrote it out. And I said, "Can we get you a stamp that's just your name?" He's like, "No." And then maybe 10 years later, he's like, "I think that stamp will come in ..." And he only used it to stamp his name, but he wrote out the name in every card.
Carol:
Wow, wow. Yeah.
Nikki:
Yeah, yeah, just an amazing company to work for.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah. Those stories definitely need to be told. So say someone listening is three or four titles below where they want to be and I know you already talked about the power of relationships and leadership, but what would you tell them about building the trust and influence that eventually can move a quarter billion dollars?
Nikki:
Understand your job. Definitely understand your role. Go to work every day with the intention of making a difference. Some people just come to work and be like, "Let me go do this work today, so I can get paid, but I don't want to be here." I go to work every day with a goal of making a difference that day, right? So I would say, regardless of your title, go to your job to make a difference and then learn the job that you want. The job that you're in may not be the job that you want to stay in. It's that job that gets you in the door or gets you recognized by specific leaders who can change the trajectory of your career. Learn that job.
I literally got to MV because I wanted to learn more about paratransit when I was at LYNX. We were having a hard time with it. Our director couldn't get anybody on the senior leadership team to really help him because they were like, "We hired you to do that. You manage that, right?" And I went down and I said, "You know what? I'm going to offer my services to you. What do you need?" And from that moment on, I rose through the ranks of the organization. Sometimes find the hardest job in the organization and figure out how you can help make it easier.
And that's what I did with paratransit. Did that at LYNX. MV recognized my work and they tried to get me to come work for them for three years. I was like, "I ain't coming to work. I don't want to go work with you all." And eventually, they brought Feysan for me to meet and I said, "She is really the heart of this company and is the type of leader that I want to be, a compassionate leader, a leader that cares about people, cares about humanity, really believes in the mission of the company that she started, right?" If Ms. Jones can't get to her doctor's appointment, Ms. Jones might pass away. If Ms. Everett can't get to the grocery store, she hasn't eaten in two days, right? We got to make sure we get her to the grocery store and get her some food or take her some food over.
We've had drivers that have planned a whole Thanksgiving meal for a rider that they knew was going to be by themselves on Thanksgiving and didn't have the means to have a meal. So they created and left their families to celebrate with that person. So I know I'm getting off the question that you asked, but recognize where ... What do I want to say? Recognize or identify the leaders, those people that are leaders in your company and get to know them, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
There's nothing wrong, you come in as the HR generalist, but your trajectory is to be the chief HR director or the chief of HR at some point. Ask them when they have lunch with you because you just have some questions that you want to ask them about how to get in that role at some point in your career. You have got to raise your hand and say, "I want to do this. I'm available." I think that has defined my career. If there's something going on and I want to learn more about it, I'm volunteering to do it. And then eventually, the money will come. There is not one job I have taken because of the pay. It is because I wanted to do the job, and later, the money came. It always does.
Carol:
Yeah. I love that. So what I heard was go to work with intention and make a difference, find the hardest job and help make it easier and get to know your leaders.
Nikki:
Get to know them.
Carol:
I love those three. Those are the three nuggets I got for what you shared, which I think are powerful nuggets.
Nikki:
Yeah. You got to get to know the people that run the company. And it's not about who you know, it's who knows you. You can know the CEO, but if the CEO doesn't know who you are, he's never going to say, "Hey, what about that Nicki girl down there in marketing? I ran into her in the elevator and she introduced herself and gave me a quick little story. What about her? Maybe she can help us with this." People have got to know who you are too.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay. Well, Nikki, here's my last question. What's the one thing about the future of how people move that you're most excited to help build?
Nikki:
Ooh, what is that? Ask that one more time.
Carol:
What's the one thing about the future of how people move that you are most excited to help build?
Nikki:
I'm really excited about autonomous vehicles. I'm here in California, so I live halftime here and halftime in Atlanta. And my-
Carol:
Okay. Oh, so you run all those Waymo, Waymo, Waymo.
Nikki:
Waymo, yes. That's exactly what I was going to talk about, right? They fascinate me. They scare so many people, but they-
Carol:
Including me.
Nikki:
... fascinate me. You too? They fascinated ... Now I have been in one that got stuck, but then it recalibrated or whatever. But I'm just excited about autonomous vehicles and not because they could eventually put us out of work or drivers out of work, but I just think it's time for us to have this adaptive technology that allows us to really expand our minds and have access to so many different things, right?
Carol:
Yeah.
Nikki:
I would love to be able to call up an autonomous vehicle that wouldn't be so expensive, but that could take me from here to LA where I don't necessarily have ... I can be working, I don't necessarily have to be involved with a whole bunch of people or paying attention to the road. I could just be driving ... So I'm really excited about autonomous vehicles.
Carol:
Yeah. I think that's exciting. Well, listen, let me just say first of all, I see why you won that COMTO award.
Nikki:
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I sometimes feel like I'm just rambling, but I appreciate that. Thank you.
Carol:
No, how you see organizations. One of the things, like I said, for me foundationally is always ... Our motto is that, "When people thrive, organizational success is inevitable." And from everything I hear you talk about, it really is a people-centered focus. It's around making an impact, giving to the organization, supporting the key people who are making the organization run, telling their stories, giving them information. There's so many things that you shared that I think are so foundational to leadership and our organizations to think about really creating an ecosystem and a culture that supports their people. And it sounds like, and the numbers don't lie in terms of where it was when you came in, where it is now. So clearly, something's working.
Nikki:
Yeah. You know what's working? I think MV looks at everybody's judgment before they look at our technical skills and it gives all of us the opportunity to have a voice in things that we may not ... I'm not skilled in planning, but if I can tell you that the way you're planning this route is actually going to affect all of the people in this community because of, now we, Planning and Communications, are working together to deliver a service that's going to benefit the people we are building this service for. And so I, just like a lot of people in this company, have been able to do a lot of different things because they trust the judgment and understand that the way that they have onboarded us into the company, they understand that our judgment is based on what is best for the company.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you talked, it just went right back to what you shared initially, which was people, information and power, right?
Nikki:
Yes.
Carol:
You have the information, you help your people and then you have the power to be able to really support that, which is-
Nikki:
Absolutely.
Carol:
... I love the through line that has just carried you through your career, so yeah.
Nikki:
I appreciate that. Yeah, it's been a fun career. I can't believe I've been out of college as long as I've been out of college. I thought about it the other day and I'm like, "I'm actually a senior now. I'm middle-aged now, right? The career has gone so fast."
Carol:
Yeah. No, I know. I think about that too. I think about that too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I came out in the '80s in college, so I just-
Nikki:
Yeah, I graduated in '94, so yeah. It's been 32 years. That's a long time. I'm like, "Wow." But I have enjoyed every job that I have had because they didn't feel like jobs. It felt like I was going with family to make a difference in somebody else's life.
Carol:
Yeah. And that is so powerful. Yeah, that is so powerful. That viewpoint, that perspective of the work you do, I know this is why you make such an impact in the work that you have been doing. And definitely, for MV Transportation. Yeah.
Nikki:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I do love my job and I love the company that I work for.
Carol:
Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for this. I appreciate you being a guest on the podcast. What you shared definitely to me proves that leadership isn't just about a title on the door, but it's about trust that you build in every room you walk into, as you shared. You've shown what it looks like to move an entire industry forward by keeping people at the center and that's the heart of our People-Forward Leadership. So to everyone listening, you can follow Nikki's work at MV Transportation and hear more about her on the On the Move Podcast and I'll make sure to drop links to everything in our show notes.
And if today's conversation sparked any ideas, please share it with another leader who needs to hear this, to hear new insights and new ways of thinking about how they show up and how they support their organization to be people-forward, right? Because influence is much bigger than a title. So I want to thank you again for joining me, and until next time, keep leading people forward and I'll see you soon.
