Five Levels Deeper: How Curiosity Opens Doors in Executive Leadership

In the third episode of season two of Link by Link, host Derek Lutz sits down with professional acquaintance and long-time friend Mike Forrest, the Chief Operating Officer at LePrix. In this technical masterclass, Mike breaks down the definitive mindset that has accelerated his operational career across specialized, high-variability supply chains, ranging from fast-growth consulting to high-velocity perishable fulfillment and luxury asset recommerce.

Titled "Five Levels Deeper: How Curiosity Opens Doors in Executive Leadership," this discussion pulls back the curtain on how a simple commitment to digging multiple layers past surface-level operational anomalies builds the cross-functional credibility required to manage enterprise-level global teams, navigate cross-border cultural friction, and command multi-year P&L strategies.

His leadership footprint spans fast-growth consulting and high-stakes operational roles across deeply varied supply chains, including high-velocity perishable fulfillment at UrbanStems, complex reverse logistics and recommerce infrastructure at Optoro, and high-value luxury asset management at LePrix.

Executive Advice: The Power of Five-Deep Curiosity

Derek Lutz: If you were speaking to your younger self or a young professional entering the supply chain and operations landscape today, what core advice would you give them to accelerate their career into senior management?

Mike Forrest: Be relentlessly curious and deeply intrigued by the anomalies. Every major leadership opportunity I received occurred because I noticed an operational error and was curious enough to dig four or five levels deeper into the root cause than what was required on paper.

If you possess that baseline curiosity and pair it with the ability to bring cross-functional teams together to talk about solutions transparently, senior executive groups will naturally open doors for you. That specific trait carries you all the way from solving a bottleneck on a physical receiving dock to building a complex, multi-year P&L forecast alongside finance and sales. If you want to manage large teams and truly scale a business, your greatest asset is the ability to communicate across specialized groups, and curiosity is what allows you to do that effectively.

Navigating the Nuances of Global Operational Cultures

Derek Lutz: That curiosity is so vital when you are dropped into unfamiliar operational territory. You have managed global operations across very distinct cultural landscapes, from Europe to Japan and China. What have been the biggest structural adjustments you’ve had to make?

Mike Forrest: In Europe, the enterprise client base is exceptionally knowledgeable because they understand that many luxury goods are manufactured right in the EU. But the real structural contrast came when we launched our Tokyo processing facilities in early 2024. We acquired and trained a team from a company that had recently filed for bankruptcy. While they were familiar with recommerce, they were used to a very specific set of old habits.

Getting them to adopt our updated processes took significant time. Tasks I assumed would take two days took two weeks. It wasn’t a negative trait at all; rather, their approach to operations is highly exacting and focused on perfection. If you change a documented SOP that they have run the same way for four to five years, you have to go through a full triage explaining exactly why that change is necessary. It forces you as a leader to apply that same deep curiosity, to strictly evaluate if your change is correct and ensure you are communicating it with absolute clarity.

Derek Lutz: That is a classic example of what we call talent wiring. Some operators can build the plane while flying it without needing every detail, while others, especially within Japanese culture, will not execute until they understand the exact purpose and structural impact of a decision. Once you get them on board, they are fiercely loyal, but you must respect the "why" first.

Mike Forrest: It affects everything, including software development. A few weeks ago, our US-based tech team shifted a button and changed a piece of text inside our core operating system without communicating it across borders. The next morning, the Tokyo team halted operations entirely because they didn’t want to blindly click an unverified button without knowing the rationale. It taught us that our tech, development, and product teams must be just as controlled and proactive about systems changes as our physical handlers.

Sourcing and the Trust Horizon in Asia

Derek Lutz: How does that long-term relationship dynamic apply when building out a supply chain infrastructure in China and East Asia?

Mike Forrest: In the US, a business can often approach a vendor and expect to secure standard Net 30 terms relatively quickly. That structure simply does not exist in Asia unless you are a massive market player or have spent years building close-knit, personal relationships. It took us nearly three to four years of consistent, small-volume purchasing to secure net terms with some of our key suppliers. You have to put in the face time, prove your operational consistency, and actively sell your business case over a multi-year horizon to earn that systemic trust.

The Perishable vs. Luxury Matrix: Quantifying Operational Complexity

Derek Lutz: You’ve run operations across a highly unique mix of supply chains, flowers, luxury assets, and reverse logistics. From an operational standpoint, which of those is the hardest to manage?

Mike Forrest: Each environment presents distinct structural underbellies that look simple on the surface but are deeply complex in the weeds. Flowers are easily the most punishing daily execution environment. You are operating within a strict two-to-three-week product shelf life where cold-chain temperature management and continuous quality monitoring are completely non-negotiable. Furthermore, it is a highly emotional consumer event. If you experience a defect in execution, the customer’s response is amplified.

Derek Lutz: The demand volatility during peak events like Valentine's Day must be incredible.

Mike Forrest: During Valentine's Day, your supply chain expands by a factor of 10x to 15x to absorb 20% to 30% of your total annual revenue in a single week. You are forcing an extreme capacity expansion using temporary staff, third-party logistics integrations, and farming partners who are simultaneously facing the same exact scaling stresses. It is an environment structurally riddled with opportunities for quality control breakdowns.

Breaking the SKU Model: Sourcing and Authenticating the Secondary Market

Derek Lutz: How do those extreme execution lessons translate into luxury resale at LePrix?

Mike Forrest: In the luxury secondary market, moving an item from point A to point B is physically straightforward, it is a handbag or a piece of high fashion, so your primary exposure is just theft and strict inventory control. The true complexity lies in the definition of the product entities themselves. Resale breaks the standard SKU paradigm. Every single item is a highly distinct individual product rather than a uniform SKU orientation.

We have to evaluate every single asset through a rigorous authentication framework: matching its style to original manufacturing standards, tracking historical valuation curves, and determining real-time market pricing. Certain legacy luxury items, such as Hermès Birkins or Kelly bags, can appreciate 15% to 20% in value over a four-to-five-year period. Just like the floral industry, our enterprise B2B customers do not want to see or absorb this backend operational messiness; they require a perfectly scrubbed, fully authenticated asset.

Mike Forrest: In the luxury secondary market, moving an item from point A to point B is physically straightforward, it is a handbag or a piece of high fashion, so your primary exposure is just theft and strict inventory control. The true complexity lies in the definition of the product entities themselves. Resale breaks the standard SKU paradigm. Every single item is a highly distinct individual product rather than a uniform SKU orientation.

We have to evaluate every single asset through a rigorous authentication framework: matching its style to original manufacturing standards, tracking historical valuation curves, and determining real-time market pricing. Certain legacy luxury items, such as Hermès Birkins or Kelly bags, can appreciate 15% to 20% in value over a four-to-five-year period. Just like the floral industry, our enterprise B2B customers do not want to see or absorb this backend operational messiness; they require a perfectly scrubbed, fully authenticated asset.

Reverse Logistics and Where Complexity Quietly Kills Performance

Derek Lutz: Before LePrix, you spent years optimizing reverse logistics at Optoro. What do most commercial organizations fundamentally misunderstand about the returns lifecycle?

Mike Forrest: Most executive teams incorrectly categorize returns as a simple corporate cost center or a write-off on the P&L. Historically, the legacy mindset was to push returned goods out the backdoor via crude liquidation channels for pennies on the dollar.

True reverse logistics optimization requires giving intake personnel deep, data-driven routing tools. The second a returned product is scanned at a retail location or warehouse, the system must instantly pull its product profile and evaluate its optimal commercial routing, whether that is immediate restocking, direct-to-consumer secondary marketplace distribution, or optimized B2B liquidation pathing. When you unify that processing data, you shift returns from a drain into an active customer loyalty and margin optimization engine.

Derek Lutz: With all of this data blending, where does complexity quietly kill performance within an operation?

Mike Forrest: It always dies quietly at the explicit interfaces and handoffs between disparate teams, decoupled software systems, and external suppliers. Catastrophic operational failures are rarely caused by a single isolated event; they are almost always the compounding result of tiny, incremental tracking mismatches that go unnoticed for months. If your data streams are out of sync by even a fraction during a baton handoff, the downstream operator is completely disarmed from executing their function. Operational excellence requires absolute transparency, immediate error escalation, and relentless double-checking of the upstream function.

Listen to the full masterclass with Mike Forrest on Spotify to explore the absolute limits of supply chain precision.