The jour­ney was nev­er fast, nev­er script­ed and nev­er guar­an­teed. For An­ge­lo Daniel Austin, who has spent just over 11 months as CEO of Xtra Foods, the climb from su­per­mar­ket floor staff to the ex­ec­u­tive suite was de­lib­er­ate­ly an­chored in ser­vice, dis­ci­pline, men­tor­ship and an un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that de­tails mat­ter.
Austin grew up in Brazil Vil­lage, one of six sib­lings in a house­hold where mon­ey was tight but val­ues were firm­ly root­ed. Those ear­ly lessons, he told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian last Fri­day, shaped not on­ly his char­ac­ter but his ca­reer.
“I came from a very hum­ble home,” Austin re­called. “My par­ents taught us sim­ple things: if some­body gives you some­thing, al­ways say thank you. Al­ways say, “Have a nice day.”