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Key Takeaways So believes technology should feel as warm and intuitive as a great team member.
From approving a GoPro experiment to rethinking kiosk design to testing value programs, So encourages her team to study the guest perspective and build experiences grounded in real behavior, not assumptions.
When Steph So told her family she had become chief growth officer at Shake Shack, the reaction was not exactly reverent. “I got a lot of, ‘Is that really a real job?'” she says.
She laughs about it now, because the role that sounded fictional to her family is one of the most complex seats inside the company. It touches menu innovation, digital experience, marketing orchestration and the ways all of those pieces create what she considers the heart of the brand.
Hospitality sits at the center of that work. So believes digital tools should never dilute warmth. “My goal for our digital platforms is that they should behave like the most educated, most warm team member you have ever interacted with,” she explains.
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It means anticipating needs, remembering past orders and tailoring the Shake Shack experience even before someone walks in. “I want to be anticipatory. I want to be personalized,” she says. To So, digital hospitality is simply hospitality expressed at scale.
That mindset fits a brand that started with something as simple as a cart in a park. “Shake Shack was founded as a very humble hot dog cart in Madison Square Park,” she says. It was meant to raise money for a public space and support an art installation, not become a global brand. But guests loved the feeling of lining up for a good meal outdoors.
The cart turned into a permanent kiosk, then into a burger phenomenon that grew faster than the founders expected. “If you asked Danny Meyer, he never thought there would be more than one Shake Shack,” So says.
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