Faisal Galaria is the CEO at Blippar, a company creating the tools to enable everyone to create compelling AR experiences. During the course of his career, Faisal has gained over 25 years of experience leading and growing teams in some of the world's most disruptive consumer technology companies including Spotify, Kayak, Skype and now Blippar.

Just prior to Blippar, he was the Chief Strategy and Investments Officer at Gocompare, which he helped digitally transform and IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2016. Previously, Faisal was one of the youngest ever Senior Partners of Alvarez & Marsal, the world’s largest turnaround and restructuring company where he founded and led the European Digital Media practice.

Faisal was previously a Senior Vice President at Spotify, where he launched Spotify in seven countries, including its biggest market the USA. He was also an early member of the Skype team, initially as Head of Global Business Development and became the European Director after Skype’s acquisition by eBay in 2005.

Faisal took over at Blippar about 2 and half years ago, after the company went from being an early AR pioneer and tech darling in the UK, to a company fighting its way through insolvency. Under Faisal’s leadership, the company is releasing new products and has regained its stature as a key enabler of a broad range of AR experiences.

In this conversation, we talk through the challenges of managing the downs and ups of tech startups and the recent product releases by the company. We discuss some of the challenges in working through a turnaround and how they’re similar to a fresh new startup. We also talk about the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are common to the successful companies of which he’s been a part.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com