Cydcor Podcasts

Welcome to another episode of the Business Leaders of America Podcast. In this episode, I sit down with Vera Quinn, the first female President and CEO of Cydcor, a $300 million leader in outsourced face-to-face sales.

Vera’s journey is a true testament to resilience, determination, and people-first leadership. She began her career as a door-to-door sales representative and rose through the ranks to lead a company renowned for connecting brands with customers in meaningful ways.

In this conversation, Vera shares how early experiences in sales shaped her leadership style, the strategies behind Cydcor’s remarkable growth, and how she balances high performance with cultivating a strong, people-focused culture.

If you’re interested in leadership, growth, and building a thriving team, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

What does it take to go from answering a newspaper ad to running a multimillion-dollar company with over 4,000 sales reps? In this episode, we sit down with Vera Quinn, CEO of Cydcor, who did exactly that.

This isn’t just a story about business growth, it’s a crash course in grit, merit-based success, and personal transformation. Vera opens up about her 30-year journey from door-to-door sales to the C-suite, and she shares the principles that helped her not only rise through the ranks, but lead a company redefining how Fortune 500 brands acquire customers today.

If you’re building a team, thinking about entrepreneurship, or just trying to become the leader others follow, this episode will leave you with actionable insights.

💭 Vera Quinn is the CEO and President of Cydcor, a global provider of outsourced sales. In her role, she’s grown revenue by more than 35% and led the company’s retail and omnichannel expansion. Vera began her career in door-to-door sales and joined Cydcor over 25 years ago, serving in various roles, including Senior Vice President, Director of Operations, and COO.

In this episode…

When growing leaders, organizations must foster an environment where individuals can reach their utmost potential. Leadership programs often focus on technical skills rather than the personal growth necessary to inspire and guide others. How can organizations create a culture that fosters leadership from within?

💭 Vera Quinn, CEO and President of Cydcor, a face-to-face sales outsourcing firm, is the first woman to become President of Cydcor. She has taken the company to 300% growth through her business savvy and people-centric leadership. Vera creates compelling opportunities and fosters growth and potential in others. She also creates a positive culture of learning, development, entrepreneurism, hard work, and fun.

In addition to paying success forward at Cydcor, Vera also elevates lives in the country of Belize through her non-profit organization Liberty Children’s Home. Liberty Children’s Home provides 53 children with a safe place, daily school, three meals a day, and caregivers that care.

💭 What are the ingredients for truly successful leadership? Vera Quinn, President and CEO of Cydcor, joins us to dissect the qualities that set great leaders apart. From her journey in door-to-door sales to navigating the complexities of the Corner Office, Vera's experiences illuminate the themes of self-awareness, integrity, and resilience. She candidly discusses the importance of leaders being brutally honest about their strengths and weaknesses and shares how focusing on service and the development of others transforms organizations.

Throughout our conversation, we uncover practical strategies to enhance leadership effectiveness. Vera highlights the significance of understanding and adapting to different personalities to driving personal and collective success. She offers invaluable tips on managing high-stakes, emotional conversations, emphasizing the power of taking breaks and regaining composure. Real-life anecdotes from Vera’s career underscore the message that persistence and resilience are key to overcoming professional setbacks.

💭 Have you ever wondered how one simple choice can change the trajectory of your entire life? In this episode of The Leadership Project, we welcome Vera Quinn, CEO and President of Cydcor, to delve into her inspiring career journey. Vera shares her life story, starting from her immigrant parents' humble beginnings in Toronto, through various challenges including the early loss of her mother, to her rise from door-to-door sales to leading a $330 million organization. Key leadership lessons fro...

"Life is about taking risks, I don't think you get incredible rewards without incredible risks..... the best things in life are often risky."

A brilliant conversation with Vera Quinn about how to successfully navigate business challenges and opportunities. Vera puts the focus on people and what we can learn from each other if we are open to embracing this. we live in a world where life and systems in general are set up to reward people who are ‘right’ – a leader's goal should be to have smart people and give them a voice for the right answer to come through dialogue/brainstorming.

We discuss the power of people in a digital world and how this can translate into business growth. We delve into valuing collaboration, diverse perspectives, learning from failures, risk management and understanding cultural differences as a way of finding strategies to manage the different pressures in the workplace. Vera also addresses managing CEO pressures, focusing on impactful work, self-improvement, and aligning actions with goals. We also explore true success through peace and contentment, the transformative impact of therapy, and the importance of taking action to overcome challenges and pursue personal growth and positive influence.

If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate the complex landscape of business growth while staying true to your roots, listen to the full episode where Vers generously shares her experience, wisdom and inspiration.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

• People can be whatever, whoever and however they want, from both a potential and self-worth perspective - transient states do not define us.
• Seeing life through an immigrant lens was very influential personally and professionally to strive for a better life; a formative experience in a sales job talking to people on the doorstep was an opportunity to learn about values.
• Big moves and changes or once-in-a-lifetime experiences can be very rewarding but require risk and risk-taking is integral to entrepreneurship.
• Life and systems in general are set up to reward people who are ‘right’ – the goal of a leader should be to have smart people and give them a voice for the right answer to come through dialogue/brainstorming.
• Leaders can reward speaking up, collaborating and pushing back to encourage risk-taking, and can role model the behaviour of only having the right answer 10% of the time (and reward the process instead).
• Tolerating risk reframes failure, and failure is what happens when we give up: risk is a part of life and failure is a learning, with role models coming in all shapes and sizes – both younger and older.
• Bias training looks at everyone’s unique set of experiences and lens on the world: we need to stop and understand others’ lenses and appreciate that different cultures are real by valuing feedback from other perspectives.
• It will take time to have more women in leadership, but women must organise, support, teach, and advocate for each other – the system will not keep women out as 50% of talent is women and businesses need good talent.
• Employers must understand why there are fewer women in the pipeline for digital and tech – how can we fix the process, make the roles attractive to women? Barriers take time to break down and there is residue bias in older generations.
• The pressure of being a successful CEO is created by the stories we tell ourselves. A commitment to provide an opportunity for employees to create a better life for themselves means focusing on what is important.
• A person’s legacy is forgotten after two generations so it is far better to make the here and now count. In developed countries, we have a responsibility to be the best version of ourselves as we can, having won the birth lottery.
• Delivering on commitments for the long term means eliminating, automating and delegating for productivity and involves a constant cycle to find the highest and best use of your time.
• Definition of success: to feel peace (nothing to do with business) and understand what peace means - peace is about acceptance, not trying to change, being present in the moment and being ok with it.
• Transformative personal experiences from which we change and learn allow us to influence the most people and this flows out into professional life - leadership is an inside job that can influence the culture at work.
• Life is short so we must take the step and not shy away from challenge and regardless of the outcome, we will be better for it - everyone has power in their circle of influence.
• People are always willing to help but we need to ask for it – we are not alone if we don’t want to be; we can change our state immediately by moving in a different direction.

Today’s guest is motivating and inspirational. When I met Vera Quinn, my guest today, I felt like a fire was lit underneath me. I love Vera’s energy, grit, and perseverance. She is a woman who achieves her goals, but also gives back, which is inspiring to see. I’m sure you will be inspired by Vera’s personal story of her road to CEO, just like I was.

During our conversation, Vera and I chatted about:

Why perseverance and drive are the backbone of who Vera is. Vera’s personal and professional values and why they are the underpinning of everything she has done in her career. What strategic and people-centered leadership are and how Vera has used these principles to become the CEO of Cydcor. The book that Vera has been reading for 23 years in a row and why. We also touched on the foundation that she runs called the MyTQuinn Foundation, which is an amazing story in and of itself.

In the episode we explore leadership and the current challenges which is faced by many of the leaders around the world. Vera's approach to leadership is truly inspiring and her story is one which we can all learn a lot from. There is so much value in this episode, and the discussion which we had is another which I am very proud to bring you, there is definitely some nuggets of wisdom within this episode for every leader to take and reflect upon.

This episode features Vera Quinn, the CEO of Cydcor, who shares her journey from a door-to-door salesperson to running the company. Vera provides valuable insights on her personal journey, challenges faced by female leaders, and the importance of fostering a people-first atmosphere in organizations. She gives practical advice for upcoming leaders, emphasizing the need to be interested in others, valuing clear communication, and believing in people's potential to thrive when given opportunities to do big things.

Since joining Cydcor more than 20 years ago, Vera Quinn has been a driving force behind the company’s success. Vera was named President in 2015, and in 2016, Cydcor achieved a record year in revenue. Vera is primarily accountable for cultivating strong client relationships and ensuring sustained revenue growth. She heads Cydcor’s retail, residential, and business-to-business divisions and is responsible for broadening Cydcor’s reach through strategic business development and new client acquisition. Vera oversees campaign management, field management, and a variety of company support functions.