Cover Story
Investing in people
How Rodger Riney keeps Scottrade growing by keeping a close eye on culture
By Mark Scott
Smart Business St. Louis | May 2008
Page 1 of 3
There was a time when Rodger Riney interviewed each and
every person that came to work at Scottrade Inc.
“I had the privilege of being in on the hiring of probably the
first 500 or 1,000 people that we brought through here,” says
Riney, the company’s founder, president and CEO. “I could be
very careful and use my intuition as to whether I felt someone would fit in our culture.”
One of his most important qualifiers is the type of ego that
a job candidate brings to the table.
“There have been people that I interviewed where I just got
this feeling that they felt somewhat superior or had maybe a
little bit too much ego to fit in,” Riney says. “We succeeded in
the early years maybe on who we failed to hire as much as
who we did hire.”
These days, with nearly 2,000 employees and 2007 revenue at
$1.03 billion, Riney no longer interviews everyone who comes
to work at Scottrade. But his culture of teamwork and family
remains a key component of the online stock brokerage firm.
Your ability to convey the importance of a consistent and
healthy culture and identifying people who fit that culture is a
key factor in achieving lasting success. Riney still has a large
role in defining the culture to every one of Scottrade’s new
employees. At least once a month, he meets with a new batch
of employees in a session that allows both parties the chance
to get to know each other on a personal level.
“We have each new associate tell a little bit about themselves
so that everybody can get a feel for the type of people that
we’ve hired, their previous experience and the job they do now
for us,” Riney says.
He returns the favor by talking about his own background
and the early days of Scottrade.
“We really try to set the cultural tone early in their employment,” Riney says. “After you get the person in the door, we
have not just ‘meet the president,’ but we also have (an orientation program) that gives the associate a nice first few days
with the firm. We tell them a lot and go over a lot of stuff about
how the firm works and try to give them a good insight as to
what Scottrade is all about.”
By focusing on bringing everyone together and promoting a
sense of teamwork, Scottrade was rewarded with being
named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For List
for the first time.
