Mediocrity: the silent killer of companies.
Anthony Reeves has globally led at Amazon, Airbnb, WPP, and LVMH. Organizations that understand both the power and the limits of human technology. Through Eat the Donkey, he helps leaders face what AI can’t fix: weak foundations, risk avoidance, loss of judgment, and cultures addicted to comfort.
“95 % of purchase decision-making takes place in the subconscious. The moment you stop selling products and start wrestling with the uncomfortable questions about relevance, value, and meaning, you find clarity .”
From a childhood in the outback to the world’s largest boardrooms.
The Australian Outback and High Country laid the foundation for who Anthony is. These are places where survival isn’t theoretical, and comfort isn’t an option. From an early age, he learned what matters, what doesn’t, and how to recover when things go wrong. In these climates, failure wasn’t a choice.
That survival mindset followed him into business, where he held global leadership roles at Amazon, WPP, Airbnb, and LVMH. He learned that organizations fail the same way people do: by avoiding the discomfort required to transform while staying true to their Foundations. In other words, being average is not good enough for a company.
He is a brand and business innovator, consultant, and speaker. He doesn’t do incremental. He doesn’t do “that’s how it’s always been done.”
“Anthony is a rarity. He is THE BRIDGE. He bridges decades of leadership experience with state-of-the-art digital expertise. He bridges brand experience and leadership, with technology and data-driven craft. He helps teams and businesses grow. You will love hearing him speak and it will change your organization.”
Martin Albrecht | President | CROSSMEDIA
EAT THE DONKEY
Why Great Companies Embrace Discomfort.
AI is driving brands toward the mediocre middle.
When everyone has access to the same data, tools, and optimization logic, companies begin to look, sound, and behave the same — offering the same products, experiences, and trade-offs in the name of efficiency. In the years ahead, this race to sameness will frustrate customers, disengage employees, and stall growth.
Drawing on a career inside the world’s largest agencies, leading brand work at Amazon, and advising iconic companies like LVMH, AirBnb and Kohler, Anthony Reeves argues that the only way out is to stop worshiping the data and start doing the uncomfortable work it can’t do: i) ruthlessly prioritizing the customer and ii) ruthlessly prioritizing the company's Foundational System.
He calls this eating the donkey: making the hard, often counterintuitive decisions that reduce real customer frustration rather than optimizing toward averages.
In this leadership book, Reeves shows how enduring brands escape static mode, return to explorer mode, and continue to evolve while holding fast to the foundations that make them beloved by customers, trusted by employees, and resilient over time.
Ease is a greater threat to growth and progress than discomfort. Most businesses are unwilling to make hard decisions.
The hard decision to eat donkey as a child was about survival, not comfort, not shame, not anything else. Making a hard decision now, for better prosperity later.
In business, I have witnessed hard decisions being avoided. And a series of small, rationalized choices will quickly add up. They quietly erode standards, clarity, and conviction. By the time leaders realize what’s been lost, the decision they’re facing is no longer about growth and future success; it’s about survival.
I work with organizations, leadership, and brands during moments of growth, change, and pressure. My work helps organizations strengthen their Foundations so that growth reinforces who they are rather than erodes it.
With decades of experience inside some of the most high-stress companies, I’ve become a recognized leader in business, marketing, and brand. With my global roles at LVMH and Airbnb, and my long Amazon experience (Amazon shares leaped from $325 to $ 2,150 during that period), I speak passionately about Foundations, Leadership for Growth, and Customer Experience.
