Lessons from 40+ Customer Advisory Boards: Insights from Adam Rasner

Adam Rasner, VP of Technology Operations at AutoNation and longtime IT executive, has participated in over 40 Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) throughout his career. In this conversation, Adam shares what makes a CAB truly valuable from the customer’s point of view, drawing from decades of experience across major brands like WebMD, Burger King, and Restaurant Brands International. Viewers will learn how CABs can influence product innovation, strengthen partnerships, and build human connection — if done right. Adam reveals what separates a mediocre CAB from a strategic one and offers candid, actionable advice for CAB hosts and members alike.

Adam Rasner, Customer Advisory Board Veteran - Transcript

Irene Yam  0:00 

Hi everyone. I am so excited about today because I get to talk to Adam Rasner. He's a seasoned technologist. He's started at WebM deep in his career, Irene air Burger King, then Restaurant Brands International, and now at auto nation. You know, I've asked him to share his journey, and he's a super veteran, like there are so many vendors that want to have him join the cab that he has to say no to. I've also interviewed him in length in my book, because we've known each other for plus 20 years, and he knows what a world class advisory board looks like, and he also knows how to improve them from the customer point of view. And I'm just so excited to have you here. Thank you. Adam, yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. So, okay, the first cabinet I know you've been on is on riverbed. Oh, wait, and you also have you also took time from it to go back and get an MBA correct. It

Adam Rasner  1:05 

took a little bit of time to get my my master's in business, just because I thought it would add value down the road in my career, as you get into leadership roles, understanding the financials is pretty important. So yeah, I thought it was a good investment of time

Irene Yam  1:17 

and money. I want to say I got to ask for you to join our customer advisory board at riverbed. And then, since then, I don't know you're, you're just on the hook all the time to be on advisory boards. So tell me what, what are some that you've you've enjoyed being on,

Adam Rasner  1:35 

yeah, so you know, riverbed cab was a very long time ago. It's kind of sad to think about how long ago it was. But through those years, you know, I've been approached to be, to be part of various cabs, and I've taken the approach that, you know, if, if the product is critical to our Business's mission, and they deliver on the promise of what we were sold, I always consider these more like partnerships people. We call them vendors or whatever, but I consider it partnerships, and so I'm willing to invest in back into that company to give them good, valuable feedback. I think it's a win win. I think they get good feedback from us, and then they tell us their roadmap, their agenda down the road and the real the well run cabs there both sides. Get good value out of it, and you actually see meaningful things come out of them.

Irene Yam  2:31 

When I first met you, you were a network engineer, and then soon you were running Irene air it so kind of tell me how your career kind of went from network engineer, Senior Network Engineer director, you know, running parts of it, all of it. So tell me about

Adam Rasner  2:50 

your journey. My interest really, initially in technology was in networking. I found it super interesting and challenging and evolving. And so that's kind of where things started. And along the way, I think different people that that I reported to saw something in me, that I had the ability to understand the technology, but then I also had the people skills, the leadership skills to lead a team, which, quite honestly, you know, people in our industry know it's hard to find a good blend of people that are both pretty proficient in technology, but also have the people skills and the leadership skills to run to eat. And so I was given, you know, opera to grow a lot of different growth opportunities on the way to get to where I am today. You know, at a level in a fortune 150 company, I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but I also have a lot of people to thank along the way that has helped me get here.

Irene Yam  3:43 

Well, thank you. I appreciate your humility as always. You know, I'm gonna just jump into it. You know, you've been to probably over 40 calves the last time last year I talked to you about that was about four over 40. Yeah,

Adam Rasner  3:57 

give or take, yeah,

Irene Yam  4:00 

that's a lot. Okay, so thank you for telling us how you think about why you want to serve on an advisory board. But what, how has it shaped your management style, your strategies, and then also networking? I think you get a little bit of everything, and you take it back to your company too. And how do you how do you inform and share and grow your team and your business from sitting on advisory boards?

Adam Rasner  4:30 

Yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there. I'll start with saying that there's no way for me to participate in every customer advisory board that I'm approached with. So I have to think about, you know, where is the best use of my time? And so back to the previous question. I look for, for, for vendors, partners that are foundational, that we've made significant investments into, and that I see it as a long term partnership, almost like a marriage. And so in that marriage, there's going to be tough times. There's going to be good times. Yeah, provide, you know, I need to be able to have a two way street. And so the cab. The cab does a lot of different things. One is, you know, I solicit feedback from my team before I'm about to go off to a cab. Say, how are things going? What, you know, what do we like to see? What are we happy about? What are we not happy about? And I take that feedback with me to the cab, and I share it at the cab, and more often than not, if they have the right level of people there, the feedback can be generally similar. And you know, what I find very powerful is that when you are taking time, you know, sometimes you're gone two or three days out of the office, you can be flying across the country, you're making an investment of time, and you want to see things come out of that. And so the best thing that can come out of a cab is where you have a partnership with the company that is is taking the cab seriously. They're listening to the feedback, and they're they're affecting change based on what they're hearing. I've been to lots of cabs were, you know, it felt very, you know, kind of salesy. I've been to quite a few that are very well run, that are, you know, that they are listening what to what we're saying. And when I come back a year later, I've seen some real change. So that's my philosophy about how I choose which partners to participate in the cab, and then the networking component can't be understated. You know, I'm trying to I want both sides to get benefits out of the time we're spending together. And certainly a benefit to me is to meet with a group of my peers from around the country, in some cases around the world, that are facing the same challenges. And some of the best cabs I've been to, they certainly focus on their product, but then they spend a good part of the day just talking about our industry and what our challenges are. In most cases, they're very common challenges, and I learned an awful lot from the people sitting around the room other dealing with certain issues in technology. It could be tech, it could be people, issues. It could be, you know, work from home, kind of stuff. It could be any number of things and and so that's, that's, that's a significant value to me.

Irene Yam  7:14 

Networking. Sorry, it's like a springboard for you, and you have this now after a cab, whether it be virtual or physical, you can still have, like, ongoing conversations with colleagues.

Adam Rasner  7:25 

Yeah, Irene. I've had, I've had people that have called me from cabs that I'm no longer on, or they're no longer on, before we're linked in together. Had a gentleman in another type of he's an RV industry. We run a cab together and contacted me just asking me about some of the challenges in our in our systems, and how we were dealing with cloud and on prem infrastructure. That's happened more than one time, and so, yeah, it's invaluable. It's invaluable those relationships, you know, when you need them.

Irene Yam  7:58 

Yeah, not that sound corny, right? But it's, a true synergy that allows you to really build that connection trust, and then afterwards, you just pick up the phone and ask for help. And you've built that trust over this customer advisory

Adam Rasner  8:12 

board program trying to think, the longest cab I've probably been a part of is maybe six or seven years in the making. You know, consistent, consecutive, seven years in a row. And it's not only am I looking forward to, like getting some CEO visibility, hearing what the road map is, and having the product specific conversations, but I'm looking forward to seeing some of the people that I get to see once a year for one day, you know, potentially on the other side of the country or wherever they're going to have it, and just talking about how their life has been as a leader in technology.

Irene Yam  8:42 

Yeah. I mean, we buy at the end of the day from people, yeah, yeah. My tech from, I don't know, using perplexity now to figure out if who's the best we're, you know, we're looking at Gardner and everything like that. But it's, it's about who you can connect with, 100%

Adam Rasner  9:00 

100% I, like to say, like to me, the manufacturers, the vendors, the partners, there they are. It's a relationship based business, and people do business with people that they like and they trust. And it's the same thing on the business side, I built really long standing relationships with people in all different industries, big companies, small companies, all different kinds of challenges. And that's there's value to me, and hopefully I'm getting that value back when we sit down and talk about what's going on in our lives, in our industry in our companies,

Irene Yam  9:42 

yeah, well, I'm going to just make a plug for you right now, because I've known you so many years. But Adam, you were out here in the Bay so I'm in the Bay Area. You're in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You were out here for business maybe four years ago. Sorry. We were.

Adam Rasner  10:00 

ABCs, EDC, for all actually, was a whole bunch of different vendors. I think we knocked out about eight or nine in the Bay Area.

Irene Yam  10:07 

And I think it was CDW, was really your partner in that that brought you to all these meetings, correct? Yes, yeah. So I want to make a plug for them, because we've been talking about what a great partnership you've had with them, right? And that's, that's what helps you, right? You need to find a good partner, right, to grow to scale. But not only that, you took the time to call me up and invite me to your dinner, and you were so kind, because at that time, I had lost Clyde, and it's been a few years in, and you were just checking in on me. And I think that's we don't talk about that, but I think people, when we, when we, when I, try to find cab people to serve on the cab, I look at the soft side. Okay, yeah, you got the skills, and you're knowledgeable. But I actually look at the person inside like their integrity, and it's hard. But you know, when you first try to meet with someone and get to learn who they are, it's really important to see who's best on the cab. So thank you for being a wonderful human, a dad, a person, and helping me out and just checking in on me. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah,

Adam Rasner  11:20 

yeah. No, I appreciate that. I you and I are friends outside of all of this so that. So I value that. And no, I don't disagree with you. If you're going to be the anti social, you could be an amazing leader of a technology organization, but if you're going to show up to a cab and sit in the corner and not participate, and don't have that kind of personality that can engage with people probably not a good fit for the cab, because they're looking for a two way conversation and right? And it's funny enough, sometimes I go from a cab from year to year, they've made changes, and I'm like, Oh, are they not a customer anymore? Right? But I get it kind of quietly in my ears, well, they weren't a fit for our cab. That's, I think that's a lot to do with personality. I mean, I'm sure to get invited to a cab, you're generally a pretty big customer. You're a big fish in their world. But there are other elements I think that are important to selecting your CAB members for sure.

Irene Yam  12:15 

Yeah, actually, that's a really good segue to the next question, but I also want to say yes, people in on my side when we're trying to build a cab. We want, of course, the biggest customers, but I also want to find the most strategic customers, those who really think ahead, those who have maybe opened up and shared a roadmap with us, and say, Wow, that kind of aligns with ours. And maybe they might be really good at being a part of our cab. Maybe they're a smaller business, but that's okay. I think they their mindset is in the right place, and I actually want a little bit of that mix. It doesn't have to be like the biggest, most strategic customer or something like that. It could be the little guy too, yeah, but just really forward thinking, right?

Adam Rasner  13:02 

Yeah. I think, I think most of these big companies, when they're putting together their potential targets for CAB members, they try to the biggest dollar spenders, the biggest logos, you know, I only think that's one small element of the makeup of the right person to be in a cab. And so, yeah, I agree with you. I've been to some cabs where it feels like I'm doing most of the talking. That's not good either, right? So gotta get a bunch of like minded people that are forward thinking, that are not shy. I've given I've given negative feedback, significant negative feedback before, because I feel like that's what they want me to do, right? If things aren't going well, I'm going to tell them, if you don't have that personality, it's not

Irene Yam  13:44 

fit for you. Yeah, thank you for doing that. Thanks for elevating our caps. You are seasoned. And there are people who want to be a part of the cab, maybe a, you know, wicked smart, you know, it leader in maybe a small company, not a big logo. How did they get a seat? How did they get invited on a customer advisory board? You were kind of there too, yeah. I mean, I want to say early on at Rainier, we didn't ask Mitch the CIO at the time we asked you,

Adam Rasner  14:13 

yeah. Well, I think, I think one, we were taking a fairly big position very early on in a relatively, fairly unheard of product. It was coming along. I think we were early adopter. We were a decent, you know, we were a decent sized customer. And I'm guessing, I'm hoping, what you're going to say is, you saw something in me that you thought would be valuable for your senior leadership, to hear from me how we were using it, the good, bad, the ugly. But the question is, you know, how would I guide other people if you want to be in cabs? Obviously, the selection is done by the partner, the vendor, the manufacturer, but I think, I think I've been invited unsolicited most of the time, just because I'm like, super, very. A very forthcoming feedback. I will tell them, I will I will tell them when things aren't going well, but my local reps, I will be your biggest advocate. If you, if you do what you say you're going to do in the pre sales process, you know, I'm asked to do some testimonials and things like that, but I'm also, I'm going to give it to you the other way too. When it's not going well, I'm going to tell you, and I'm going to be very vocal about it. And so I think my guidance to you is the guy, the people that are selling to you, right? Have the dialog, and if it's a two way dialog, both positive and negative, generally, those are the kinds of people that will you know that they want to hear from, and they want to take, they want to invest in you, spend the money to fly you somewhere, put you up in a hotel, feed you for two or three days. And hopefully you've got to feel that it's a value to you personally to take two or three days out of the office. Try to disconnect from everything going on in your day job, to go sit with them. And you know, one hear about the roadmap of the product, give them the good and bad feedback. Network with with, you know, peers, to get some insights from them, and then come back with, with some learnings for your team. You know, bring brief feedback from your team and come back you

Irene Yam  16:13 

learn, yeah, don't just keep it in your best LIKE, share it out, right?

Adam Rasner  16:18 

Zero value, zero value for what's coming if I share it, I'm not, generally speaking, I'm not the hands on keyboard anymore, like I've gotta, I gotta feed information to and from my teams. Yeah, that's great.

Irene Yam  16:33 

You were the youngest board member, customer advisory board member at riverbed at time. I think you were in your late 20s, something like that? Yeah, yeah, you were. You're young. And

Adam Rasner  16:43 

alright, I can't believe how long ago it's been. It's hard to, hard to believe,

Irene Yam  16:48 

yeah, well, I don't think you had

Adam Rasner  16:50 

this going on. No,

Irene Yam  16:53 

alright. So you brought up a good point about spending time and flying across country, given the uncertainty of the world, and now we have these great tools, virtual or in person. I'd love to hear your take. Like, there's good parts to virtual your family, yeah, let's start there. What's your take? Well, give us some advice, like, help help other practitioners out how we could build a better, engaging customer advisory board online?

Adam Rasner  17:25 

Yeah, so my, my, my personal opinion is that I believe that the in person is infinitely more interactive and more productive, and my personality better lends itself to to being face to face with people. There are a lot of people that you know are very productive online and teams meeting, and maybe that's a generational thing, I don't know, but you know, the cabs that I've participated in virtually one I've got a million distractions. There's very there's zero chance that the people listening to this, or the people that might be in cabs listening to this, that they're going to be able to be at their office, or be in their normal routine and really be able to focus for six or eight hours in the cab with all the distractions, if you're working your home stuff, if I'm here at the office, at the automation office, my door, someone just actually tried to come in while we were on your live and they saw we were recording and backed out. But there's just a million distractions when you're trying to have back and forth dialog, I feel people are much more for some reason, which you think they feel more protected being behind a screen, but I find it to be less interactive than in person, which is very strange to me, but more or less, more than anything is it's the distraction and the ability to really focused and be productive. I recognize that there's significant cost in flying 2030, customers to a location, putting them in a hotel, feeding them. I think usually customer covers the flight, so they cover the hotel and food supplier there, but I do believe that most people would say that they're more productive in person. Doesn't mean you can't run a cab online. I think people, when you do it online, maybe the companies sometimes are a little less selective on the CAB members, because they don't have to vet as much. If there's 20 or there's 50, it's the same cost for them. So maybe you don't get as good of, I don't want to say quality cab participants, but you may not get the level that you want, or, you know, just not interactive. So that's kind of my view of the world on this whole like in person or remote. Yeah.

Irene Yam  19:32 

So how many virtual cabs Do you volunteer for? And how many physical in a year would you say?

Adam Rasner  19:38 

So, funny enough, several of the cabs in them on they'll do one in person. They'll try to do a quarterly or twice a year virtual one. I try to attend those. But again, like, you know, they want, they want to try to carve out four or five hours out of the day, you know, day, which, you know, I have to, like, get myself physically out of the building or out of my house. To have that kind of focus, just too much operational year right, to be able to dedicate that kind of time. So I've joined a few of those and and I don't love them. Couple of ones during the covid years, they they decided, you know, because of the travel stuff and covid, that they would go virtual. And I just found them not to be nearly as productive. So all in all, maybe five, five to six or seven of those I've done over the last five years.

Irene Yam  20:27 

Virtual. Okay, tell me, because since you've been to like over 40, what does a good to great cab? Because you thought you've been an OG of a cab, meaning you've like the one that you've been in for seven years, and you see the beginning of it, and then you see it progress, and you see it to great. So maybe you can share some experiences and tips, and what is it like to see something that's okay? So for example, a basic cab could be, you know, a new leader needing to valet some strategies. They get some people in a room, they try their best to have engagement, but they just, they didn't really practice, and they show up. Yeah, the higher one is, wow, everything's dialed in. So I want to hear that experience please. I think a lot of people think if they can just show up, it's enough, and that's good.

Adam Rasner  21:23 

Yeah, you you definitely, you definitely have, like, if you want to get true value, and I'm guessing these things can cost, you know, significant dollars, six figures and up. If you're going to make that investment, you've got to do the homework to prepare for it to get the value. You're basically trying to pack in, you know, a lot of a lot of information in an eight or nine hour day. You've invested all this money. So, yeah, I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done poorly. The ones that are done poorly are very, are very sales focused. It's about, you know, it sure they're about they're going to tell you about the roadmap and why they're better than everybody else, but that kind of consumes the day, and that's not really and also, it's not very interactive. It's more of a one way. We're bringing you to a place. It's supposed to be an advisory board where you're hearing like a good two way conversation on a number of topics. Only a small portion of those topics should really be about the product, and the rest of it should be about, you know, technology generally, that's, that's why I think people want to participate in these things. Is for the networking element and to just hear about everybody's problems. So the ones that are not poorly, very sales focused, very one way conversation, and probably, you know, generally speaking, not well thought out on the topics that have it designed today, the timing very well. Spending way too much time on one topic or something that is people want to get deep on they've carved out 30 minutes. And the ones that are done really well are, you know, certainly there's going to be an element of hearing about the product, hearing about the roadmap. I love the ones where they talk about our our wish list from the previous tab of features, support, issues, whatever. And then they spend the next, you know, hour talking about how they remediated those and improvements they made. And they asked us, Hey, have you seen, have you felt these changes? And then they said, Okay, what are we going to talk about? You know, what do you want to talk about this time next year for us to fix? And so those are great two way conversations, and that's where you really feel like you're moving the needle with this company. And then the time, you know, discussion, networking, time talking about the industry, generally. Ci CEO, FaceTime is always great. Most of the cabs I participated in, the CEO is there getting, like, you know, real legit quality face time with the CEO, whether it's formally in a session, or just sitting at lunch next to him and talking about, you know, what's going well, what's going poorly. These are all kind of the things that I'm looking for out of a successful cab. And yeah, and I it's hard, it's hard to nail it on your first try. We definitely recommend people read your book for some big thought, thought leadership about how to design one of these things. But the one I've been on for seven years started off a little bit Mickey Mouse, like you know very some of the things I'm talking about, but saw it infinitely mature. As the company got bigger, they became a powerhouse public company, and now you may have acquired another big company. And you know, hearing from the CEO, see, I CEO, what his vision for bringing these two companies together was very interesting to me, and a million questions about it. So that's, that's my that's my view of good and bad. Oh,

Irene Yam  24:39 

I love it. We are end of time because you have another meeting. Yeah. So thank you so much. Adam.

FAQs.

1: What makes a Customer Advisory Board successful from the customer’s perspective?

A successful CAB creates a two-way dialogue where vendors listen to customer feedback and make visible changes. According to Adam Rasner, the best CABs aren’t sales events — they’re strategic engagements where customers see their input implemented and feel invested in the product’s evolution.

2: How can CAB participation shape leadership and business strategy?

Adam notes that CABs are more than feedback sessions — they’re opportunities for networking, leadership growth, and strategic alignment. By engaging with peers and sharing cross-industry insights, leaders gain fresh perspectives they can bring back to their teams and organizations.

3: What should CAB hosts prioritize when selecting members?

Beyond big logos or budget, CAB hosts should seek out forward-thinking, engaged customers who offer honest feedback and are aligned strategically. Adam emphasizes the value of selecting members based on contribution potential, not just company size.

4: How do virtual CABs compare to in-person ones?

While virtual CABs offer flexibility, Adam believes in-person meetings foster deeper conversations, fewer distractions, and stronger relationship-building. He recommends CABs maintain at least one in-person meeting annually for maximum impact.

5: How can aspiring CAB members earn a seat at the table?

Adam suggests being vocal, constructive, and collaborative with your vendor partners. Customers who share thoughtful, actionable feedback — both positive and negative — are more likely to be invited to participate in CABs and influence future product direction.