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Roger Hardy of Clearly Contacts Ltd.

Roger Hardy, the co-founder and CEO of Clearly Contacts Ltd., faced what could have been a Steve Jobs-ian moment: the gala opening of the first bricks-and-mortar retail showroom for his 13-year-old company. A physical store on Vancouver's Robson Street signalled a radical new direction for what had been a strictly...

By Dee Hon /

Roger Hardy, Clearly Contacts | BCBusiness

For Roger Hardy, leadership is about getting stuff done

Roger Hardy, the co-founder and CEO of Clearly Contacts Ltd., faced what could have been a Steve Jobs-ian moment: the gala opening of the first bricks-and-mortar retail showroom for his 13-year-old company. A physical store on Vancouver’s Robson Street signalled a radical new direction for what had been a strictly online company—the biggest shift since ClearlyContacts.ca began selling eyeglasses in 2008, in addition to contact lenses.

So, on an evening in March, Hardy stood in the crowded, balloon-festooned shop with a tie on and a mic in his hand. He made a few brief, unscripted remarks praising those who put together the event and encouraging those gathered to try out some glasses, and put the microphone away.

What was your first leadership position?
I would say starting Clearly Contacts. Leadership to me is creating that optimism, creating that enthusiasm, creating that passionate, engaged culture.

Is leadership learned, or something you’re born with?
Leadership can very much be learned. Introverted people can be great leaders. Extroverted people can be great leaders.

How do you ensure your continued growth as a leader?
I participate in lots of leadership summits and leadership learning. I’m also a member of Young Presidents’ Organization so I get together with other CEOs once a month.

How do you help ensure buy-in to your company¹s corporate culture?
My job is at times to think bigger and push a little harder and strive a little more, but every quarter the management team lists our top priorities, and those 10 people represent each of the teams inside of our company.

What is the biggest challenge to corporate leaders today?
In a public company, it’s aligning shareholders to long-term value creation. Sometimes your shareholders can be very quarterly motivated.

What qualities do you look for in up-and-coming leaders?
People who are hard-working, first and foremost. They have a bias to action, not a bias toward sitting around and talking about stuff. They’re innovative; they’re always looking for new and better ways of doing things.

Onlookers expecting the inspirational bombast of other e-commerce CEOs would have left underwhelmed. For Hardy, the occasion wasn’t about him; it was about his company. He hadn’t come with a presentation to regale that evening’s crowd, or Clearly Contacts’ 4,530 Twitter followers or the 479,174 people who liked the company’s Facebook profile.

“Once you’ve defined core values and your purpose for your business, the leadership style is much less about me and much more about the whole team,” Hardy says. “We’ve got a very collaborative environment here, where lots of ideas are brought to the table. That’s really been part of our success: being willing to try new things all the time. There are no bad ideas here.”

Indeed, that fostering of creativity from within his team brought about the store opening. “We’re very much an online company, and when I originally heard the idea of a store, it didn’t jell with the things I thought we were trying to do,” Hardy admits. But over time, he became convinced that a hybrid approach drawing benefits from both physical and online channels made sense for the business.

Hardy had redefined his company before, when Clearly Contacts moved into eyeglasses sales. “At first we started out saying that would be great, but that’s really not our thing.” But then, as now, Hardy credits his management team for making things happen. “It was our own team that was really the thrust behind taking advantage of the opportunity.”

Of course, fostering teamwork takes more than allowing the inmates to run the asylum. “From a leadership perspective, that’s the most important thing: having 1,000 people running in the same direction,” Hardy says. The company’s management sets its priorities quarterly and has an annual review, giving cadence to the business.

“Every morning, we have a daily huddle,” Hardy says. “Every single person in our company is involved for 10 minutes or less. They report on numbers that relate to those daily, weekly, quarterly, yearly plans that tie back into what it is we’re trying to do. We actually do cheer at the end of it.”