People and Culture Mini Series (part 1): Reimagining the Face of Corporate America w/ Elias Torres (Co-Founder) and Dena Upton (CPO), Drift [S5.E5]

This episode is the start of a Scaling Up mini series hoping to illuminate some amazing growth stories in regards to people and culture. We go deep on the scaling challenges that all companies face when it comes to people and culture and highlight what best in class can look like - from the role of a great, strategic CPO, to operationalising the values of the business, we are hoping this mini series really illuminates some amazing growth stories in regards to scaling a business' most important asset and competitive advantage, its people. 

To kick things off Elias Torres, the co-founder of Drift with his CPO, Dena Upton. This was a bit of a treat. Drift, aside from being one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies in America, is the beacon of what corporate America could look like - the new American dream if you will, focused on diversity and equal opportunity. This has been deeply baked into the Drift mission from day one – Elias immigrated to the USA as a 17 year old from Nicarangua. From the humblest of beginnings, he has had an immense career, initially at IBM and Hubspot to now as the co-founder of Drift, where he has become a voice for latin and immigrant founders. 

Dena has seen what scale looks like, having been on the LogMeIn journey for over 6 years and gives wonderful insight into her role and how it supports the visionary founders of drift. 

We are committed here at TDM to helping founders, management teams and investors understand why people and culture is so critical to the enduring success of businesses. We have a few things in the works in this space, so keep across our website and social channels for more people and culture related content. You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. 

Show notes:

Drift’s vision for a people-&-culture-first company (3:17) 

Role of founders in driving the cultural vision (6:05) 

Role of the CPO in enacting the cultural vision (7:55) 

What makes a great CPO (12:35) 

Hiring a great CPO (14:36) 

Maintaining culture in a hyper-growth company (16:17) 

Tools to measure engagement, performance and culture and acting on insights from these tools (18:42) 

Hiring at scale and recognizing when you’ve made hiring mistakes (20:18) 

Managing the tension between diversity and cultural fit (24:38) 

Creating a positive exit process (26:02) 

Enacting and scaling diversity and inclusion (27:33) 

Measuring progress on DEI goals (32:33) 

How being a digital first business advances DEI and equity goals (33:37) 

Role of the board in achieving DEI goals (35:12) 

What does cultural success look like for Drift (38:30)