David Lasus, BE03
The cookie master
ALUMNI & FRIENDS | Mix together late-night cravings, more than 100 cities and college towns, and a store that sells and delivers warm cookies until 3 a.m., and you’ve got quite the recipe for success.
Just ask David Lasus, BE03. When he began working at Insomnia Cookies in July 2011 as director of operations, he could taste the potential. “I knew there was a great idea,” he says. “We just needed to make the model scalable.”
Quickly promoted to chief operating officer just months after coming on board, that’s exactly what he did. “Department by department, we redid almost every process,” says Lasus. For instance, rather than compromising in-person customer service each time the telephone rang, he developed an 80-person call center to process all phoned-in orders. It was one of hundreds of changes to revamp the customer experience and enhance the operations.
Lasus, who serves as partner and a member of Insomnia’s board, as well as a member of UD's Hospitality Leadership Advisory Board, credits his UD education as “legit preparation for my career.”
In his five years with the company, Insomnia has grown from 14 shops in eight states to a cookie juggernaut with 120 stores across 33 states, including one right on Newark’s Main Street.
“Cookies stand the test of time,” he says. “And we want to be the master of cookies.”
