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We explore people-first leadership with Casey Coonerty Protti of Bookshop Santa Cruz, from family roots in service to making brave, values-led decisions through crisis. COVID recalibrates pace, transparency meets limits, and empathy becomes a daily practice on the sales floor.

• family culture of service shaping leadership style
• upfront vs behind-the-scenes leadership trade-offs
• slowing down decisions during COVID for safety
• centring core values when answers are unclear
• balancing mission and financial sustainability
• training new staff on history and expectations
• transparency, what to share, and unionization
• anxiety, boundaries, and practical coping habits
• controversial books and courageous curation
• communication modes and avoiding performative input
• why fiction grows empathy and better leadership
• Readers Club details and community gratitude

Bio

Casey Coonerty Protti is the second-generation owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz located in the heart of downtown Santa Cruz for over 59 years. Casey received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, a MPA from Harvard University and a MBA from Northwestern University. Casey returned to Santa Cruz to run daily operations of Bookshop Santa Cruz in 2006 after working in the nonprofit field and serving as a consultant for the American Bookseller’s Association. Besides raising her two children and trying to read and travel as much as possible, Casey served on the Downtown Commission of Santa Cruz and the boards of the Santa Cruz Downtown Association, the Santa Cruz Education Foundation, The Independent Booksellers Consortium, The Women's Educational Success Program at Cabrillo College and the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs.

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