The COO Who Started in Aisle Five With Joe Baker

Mar 17, 2026

59:38

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What does a grocery store in Philadelphia have to do with running a billion-dollar operation? If you're 17-year-old Joe Baker, quite a lot, actually. Joe started bagging groceries at 17. By 24, he was the youngest store manager in company history. And by 32, he was running a billion-dollar business for Hertz in Los Angeles. Today, Joe Baker is the COO of Veritext and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and the lessons he learned as a grocery bagger still resonate with him all these years later.

On this episode of Quality Time with MoreSteam, Joe explains how he leads at the intersection of people, process, and technology. For Joe, the industries may change, but his approach does not. Joe puts people first, and he believes that a great culture is the foundation of a great organization.

Joe and host Dan Swartwout get into the good stuff. How do you earn trust in a new organization? How do you get people to actually buy in? How do you build a culture where people care? Joe has been answering those questions his entire career.

Business is a game of inches. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are also in every minute, every second of this interview with Joe Baker.

In this episode, you will hear about:

1:42 - Meet Joe Baker

5:39 - Getting into Villanova's MBA program

8:38 - The common thread throughout Joe's career

10:24 - Learning about leadership at Joe's very first job

12:56 - Why Joe's first job was so impactful

15:29 - The best opportunities for improvement or change when joining a new organization

18:18 - One of Joe's first mentors

20:19 - Joe's introduction to Lean Six Sigma at Hertz

26:24 - Business is a game of inches (voice of the customer)

30:52 - Dan's survey story

32:38 - Conducting effective surveys