Anne Kubek, BA ’88/MBA ’04: Leading With Purpose, Powered by People

Building the foundation

Kubek attended the School of Literature, Science, and Arts at the University of Michigan for her bachelor’s degree in 1988 and then returned to earn her Executive MBA from the Ross School of Business in 2004.

In the years between, she began building what would eventually be a nearly two-decade career at the Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain Borders, where she steadily rose through the ranks from general manager to a variety of senior leadership roles, including executive vice president of merchandising and marketing. It was at Borders that Kubek first began to appreciate the connection between strong operational leadership and the power of well-supported people.

In roles that spanned human resources, merchandising, and operations, Kubek developed a diverse toolkit of skills that she continued to sharpen through her EMBA coursework. As she continued to learn and grow, Borders did as well, expanding from a small, locally-owned company to a global Fortune 500 brand. Kubek witnessed firsthand the impact of rapid growth on people, processes, and organizational culture.

“When I started at Borders, it was still a pretty small company. We had nine stores, and we were still owned by Tom and Lewis Borders. But we grew to a $3.5 billion Fortune 500 company with hundreds of stores all over the world,” Kubek explained. “I saw what that scale and growth do to companies and the challenges that it can create, and how you have to be building for that growth.”

When Kubek left the company with Borders closing its doors in 2011, she carried a wealth of operational knowledge and a growing conviction that she would come to rely on throughout her career: sustainable growth hinges on empowering people.

Putting people first

Kubek brought that philosophy with her into the world of start-ups, working in senior operational roles with companies like ReUp Education, Verb Inc., and Evolve. Across these ventures, she began to lean more deliberately into her people-first mission with each opportunity.

“People in operations can function because we get work done through people. And so, starting with the people, who do we attract, how do we retain, how do we grow, how do we train, how do we incentivize them?” Kubek said. “How do we make this process better, smoother, faster, easier, and more productive for employees so that we unleash the things that are great about their skills and what value they can add to the company?”

Kubek focused on making systems and processes more intuitive, efficient, and empowering for employees, with the goal of helping her people produce their best possible work every day. This passion for talent development led her to put team building at the heart of her leadership strategy.

“It's one of the things that’s very exciting to me, to watch people grow in their careers, take on new responsibilities, and become the future leaders of the organization,” Kubek said. 

I've gotten to the stage of my career where the people you work for and with are honestly as important as anything you do. And so, being really well aligned and focused on how you're going to grow a company is exciting to me.

Carrying lessons forward from Ross, Borders, and beyond

After more than 10 years of honing her leadership skills at start-ups, Kubek recently found a new opportunity that aligned perfectly with her values and experience: senior vice president of people and operations at accounting firm PaulHood. In this role, she continues to champion the idea that companies thrive when their people do.

Looking back on the journey that led her to this role, Kubek credited the foundations of her leadership approach to the skills and mindset she developed at Michigan Ross.

“I've done a lot of different things, which is really what led to me being a chief operating officer in multiple roles. But a lot of finding success is about just being able to ask the right questions,” Kubek said. “No one is an expert in everything. But if you learn good critical thinking skills, which is what I think Michigan Ross gave me, it helps you to be better when you manage the data team or the product team or the finance team, where you’re not the expert, but you need to be able to adapt, learn, and lead.”

Kubek said one lasting takeaway from her time at Ross is a deeper understanding of what it means to make an impact and who that impact touches.

“I think it’s important to understand that when you make an impact on an organization, that impact is really on people. The people you lead, the people you serve as your customers, the people you work with, and the vendors or partners you have,” Kubek said. “Having respect for all the different stakeholders within an organization's sphere is so important. I learned so much about that at Ross, and I learned a lot about not just seeing everything through my own eyes, but seeing it more holistically.”