Vivint CEO the subject of CBS reality show
Todd Pedersen, CEO of Vivint, pre-disguise. His appearance on CBS's "Undercover Boss" has him interacting with lower-level employees who don't know who he really is.
Pedersen's "Undercover Boss" getup.
Vivint CEO Todd Pedersen, left, installs a home security system while participating in the CBS television show "Undercover Boss." Pedersen's episode airs Friday night. Visit heraldextra.com to read more on the episode.
Todd Pedersen doesn’t look like the typical CEO of a billion-dollar company: T-shirt, jeans, flat-brim baseball cap and a muscled, gym rat physique. But when the Vivint CEO donned a disguise for CBS’s reality show “Undercover Boss,” he really, really didn’t look like a CEO.
The show’s season finale, which airs Friday night, features the disguised Pedersen getting the inside scoop as he completes various tasks for the Provo-bred home security company he founded. Working alongside lower-level employees, Pedersen battles his fear of heights on a sloping roof during a wireless installation, and even fields some stressful calls at Vivint’s monitoring center. CBS and Pedersen can’t divulge many details before the episode airs, but it’s certainly an experience Pedersen won’t forget.
“I was a little nervous about potentially being discovered by my employees, but I was mostly nervous about the actual jobs I would do,” Pedersen said in an email. “I’m probably the most unlikely tech CEO, and a lot of the jobs I did were very technical. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything.”
The production team for “Undercover Boss” reached out to Pedersen first, and he gladly got on board. When Pedersen started the company more than two decades ago, he said, he and his wife knew the names of every employee — “and often the names of their spouses” — but that became impossible as the company expanded.
“Now that Vivint has grown to employ 7,000 people, I unfortunately haven’t been able to keep up with everyone,” he said.
The show’s executive producer, Chris Carlson, said Pedersen was the ideal candidate for “Undercover Boss.” He described Pedersen as a unique and compelling leader whose “regular guy” personality makes him incredibly approachable. This, of course, isn’t always the case with the executives featured on “Undercover Boss.”
“Based on the level of passion and drive Todd has for the further success of Vivint, I might think that he’d become Provo’s favorite son,” Carlson said in an email.
Friday’s episode isn’t the first to feature a Utah businessman. Greg Miller, CEO of the Utah Jazz, was featured on the show this time last year. Like Pedersen, Miller adorned a fairly extensive disguise.
“It would take maybe an hour and a half, two hours to get me into costume,” Miller told the Daily Herald. “To include that beard on my face, and stain my teeth, stain my fingernails, to put the fat suit on, and all that.
“Standing in close proximity to level-headed adults, I didn’t feel like I was completely fooling them,” he added. (The producers insisted that yes, he really was.)
Getting a ground-level look at the company often causes “Undercover Boss” participants to enact changes within their companies. Miller was no exception. He updated some run-down aspects of EnergySolutions Arena, and with his mother, Gail, set up a fund for Utah Jazz employees that acts similar to an endowment. Employees who are dealing with catastrophic personal circumstances out of their control, such as unforeseen health issues, can apply for financial assistance through the fund. Last year, Miller said this fund helped 25-30 employees.
Will Friday’s “Undercover Boss” feature any similar revelations for Pedersen? We’ll just have to wait and see.
“When I started this business, my dad told me to treat my customers and employees like gold,” Pedersen said. “This experience on ‘Undercover Boss’ reminded me just how essential Vivint’s employees are to the success of this company. If I could get away with convincing the rest of our executive team to put on wigs and glasses, I would have them all experience what I did on ‘Undercover Boss.’ “
The “Undercover Boss” episode featuring Vivint CEO Todd Pedersen will air Friday at 7 p.m. on CBS.