Articles By Shayne Fitz-Coy

This page features a collection of articles by Shayne Fitz-Coy, covering acquisitions, investments, business turnarounds, and operational leadership. His writing offers practical strategies for building resilient teams, turbocharging growth, and creating companies that compound over generations.

At Sabot Family Companies, he buys to hold forever — not flip — focusing on real businesses with real people and real problems. One company was losing $3M annually when he bought it; today it generates $4M in profit annually.

His Business Operating System guides every turnaround:
• Go and see what others overlook.
• Earn the right to lead through building people.
• Build to last.

His articles explore acquisition strategy, operational turnarounds, leadership and culture, and patient capital — what he calls Capitalism with Love.

Shayne Fitz-Coy: The Teaching CEO Redefining Educational Travel

Shayne Fitz-Coy also known as The Teaching CEO, runs a portfolio of companies and guest lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Seoul National University. But ask him what he really does, and he’ll say: “I run schools disguised as businesses.” Fitz-Coy is a third-generation educator, who serves as CEO of Rustic Pathways -...

Why Shayne Fitz-Coy’s Approach to Educational Travel Is a Game-Changer

Most educational travel companies still operate like glorified tour agencies - shuttling teens between monuments while checking off cultural boxes. Shayne Fitz-Coy saw this broken model and built something radically different. As CEO of Rustic Pathways, he pioneered a psychology-based approach that’s fundamentally reshaping how the industry thinks about student transformation. “I don’t run companies....

The Unseen Edge: Why “People First, Data Second” Isn’t Just a Motto, It’s an Imperative

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that the more dashboards we build, the more metrics we track, and the more algorithms we deploy, the better our businesses will perform. Yes, data is undeniably critical but at Sabot Family Companies, we operate from a conviction that: People First, Data Second. It’s the bedrock...

At the Actual Place: Why Rustic Pathways Leaders Stay With Students

Article written by Shayne Fitz-Coy on Rustic Pathways This article outlines Rustic Pathways’ leadership philosophy for educational travel programs. We believe the most effective leaders in experiential education are engaged at the point of service delivery: at ‘the actual place.’ This approach prioritizes hands-on leadership over remote management. Why This Note Exists At Rustic Pathways, we...

The Psychology of Travel for Teens: Why Some Programs Transform and Others Don’t

Article written by Shayne Fitz-Coy on Rustic Pathways Why do some teen travel programs yield change and others don’t? After 12,000+ students, one pattern keeps surfacing: transformation happens in the stretch zone. Too comfortable and teens stay the same. Too stressed and they shut down. The programs that work find the middle. The ones that...

My Employee Used AI to Ask for a Raise. So I Used AI to Say No - Here’s What Happened Next

Article written by Shayne Fitz-Coy on Entrepreneur Last month, I stared at my screen as an email forwarded from one of my managers hit my inbox: “According to available industry data, the average annual salary for a Coordinator in New York ranges from approximately 73k to 82k. Given my performance over the past year and...

I Made Our Company Culture Public. Here’s What Happened to My Business

Article written by Shayne Fitz-Coy on Entrepreneur I was doing walk-and-talk check-ins with our Seoul team. The first meeting went great, a check-in over iced Americanos. The second employee walked in and answered the same question I’d asked her teammate, word for word. They’d traded texts in the 75 seconds between meetings. That moment showed...

How I Turned a ‘Dying’ Business Losing $500,000 a Month Into a $45 Million Cash Machine

Article written by Shayne Fitz-Coy on Entrepreneur I’m on my knees in a Niles, Illinois, apartment, installing a medical alert system for an elderly client. I had just bought into the company, and we were losing $500K a month. I needed to go and see why. She served me tea and cookies while I worked....

More Than a Trip: My Vision for the Next Generation of Global Citizens

For me, true education has always extended beyond the classroom walls. Some of life’s most important lessons are learned when we step out of our comfort zones and into the wider world. That is the core belief behind Rustic Pathways. At its heart, Rustic Pathways is about creating life-changing travel experiences for students. We design...