YOU GO, BOSS
Another season of ‘Undercover’ CEOs on CBS
ust as most Americans are preparing for some holiday time off, “Undercover Boss” is back — giving its CEOs-in-disguise a reality check about the work life of their employees. Now in its eighth season (premiering Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBS), the reality series has featured just about every corporate sector, from retail to service to government, but nearly all of the participants come away with the same reaction. “They’re shocked at how much work it is and I’m shocked that we still get bosses to do this,” says executive producer Chris Carlson. “They take eight to nine days out of their schedule and we shoot 12-hour days. It’s brutal.”
Producers look to cast CEOs who have a legitimate business reason (other than PR/ marketing exposure) to go undercover. Wednesday’s two-hour premiere features Sharon Price John, president and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Karen Freeman-Wilson, mayor of Gary, Ind. The third episode, airing Dec. 28, follows Greg Scott, CEO of the Midtown-based women’s fashion retailer New York & Company, who was looking to improve efficiencies at the brand, which was struggling financially when he took over in 2010.
“We as a company are at a place where we break even, we’ve accumulated a good amount of cash in the last two to three years, but how do we turn the corner and become a more profitable company?” Scott says. “I felt like this provided a unique opportunity to find out what was really going on . . . for me to see it first-hand.”
The undercover experience tipped Scott off to certain operational tasks that were placing a burden on the retail stores. He says it also made him more empathetic to the human factor of closing brick-and-mortar stores.
This season, producers encouraged the bosses to come up with a character they wanted to play, as opposed to pushing disguises on them. For more recognizable participants like the Gary mayor, that meant inventing an accent and a different way of walking. For Scott, it meant channelling an old friend — a blond-haired, blue-eyed, dog walker/yoga instructor — to help him stay in character as “Brett.” (Even his doorman didn’t recognize Scott when he returned to New York with the new look.)
“The hardest part, honestly, when you meet someone is to not go, ‘My name is Greg,’ ” he says. There was also the matter of having to dye his dark hair multiple times to get it blond. “After we dyed it back to black, my hair felt like sandpaper and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to lose my hair.’ I definitely gave it all for Brett.” To pull off the ruse, the “Undercover Boss” crew films plenty of footage they know they’ll never use for the fake show they’re pretending to make (in order to fool the other employees). Covers are sometimes nearly blown; in Wednesday night’s premiere, a Build-A-Bear fluffer machine explodes, sending stuffing onto CEO John’s hair — and her wig is almost pulled off while she’s picking out the pieces.
“That happens a couple times a season but it doesn’t happen as much as people would think,” Carlson says. “The other [fake] show that we shoot, we’re very convincing and we really produce it wholeheartedly. That makes it fun.”