Scaling Up: Lessons From The World's Best CEOs and Founders

Episode 2 of our People and Culture mini series features the phenomenal Anna Binder, the CPO of Asana, the $15b NYSE and LTSE listed technology business that is changing the way businesses work, collaborate and thrive.  The genesis of Asana is important to frame this conversation; When co- founders of Asana Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein were both working at Facebook, of which Dustin also co-founded, they discovered amongst the hyper scale journey that that business was on, everyone was spending over half the day sitting in meetings, responding to email, and searching for infomation. Doing skilled work was taking a backseat to the 'work about work', the ultimate inefficiency for any high performing employee and business.  So Dustin and Justin built a tool to make it easier for teams to coordinate and collaborate on their work flow. It was such a game changer, they left to go fulltime and all in on this idea, and started Asana, building solutions to help more teams do the great work.  From day one, the company has been about letting employees around the world be empowered to do their best work by providing the software to enable this. Of course this is also self fulfilling to the Asana mission and this virtuous cycle has enabled Asana to be the exemplar of what scaling a great culture looks like – it is without fail voted one of the best places to work by every award and measure, and at the centre of this is Anna – who is considered in the industry to be the best.  This conversation covers some ground and importantly gives wonderful insights into what has enabled Asana to scale so effectively – from the mental model of “culture as a product”; that is one to be constantly designed, tested and iterated upon, to what Anna describes as corporate mindfulness, this was a treat to listen to one of the great business leaders in America talk passionately about the topics that are relevant to every fast growing business.  TDM is always publishing insights into how we think about scaling culture, including an investor lens on how to diagnose it. All our content is on our website and social channels, the links are in the show notes, and you can always get in touch with me on twitter - @ eddiecowan  Show notes;  How is culture defined (triangle analogy – mission, values and 10,000 decisions) (4:16)  Asana as a culture first business and its long-term focus (7:00)  Unique value proposition of Asana (10:01)  The key drivers of engagement and the Pyramid of Clarity, energizing the workforce (11:25)  Founders background and the beginning of Asana (13:43)  Epic empowerment enabling a united team (16:02)  Culture as a product at Asana – how it has changed from the initial vision (19:07)  Identifying and overcoming cultural bugs through engagement feedback (21:31)  The skills required for and role of the strategic CPO (23:42)  Mindfulness in the workplace – intentions, prioritisation, focus and flow (27:08)  Asana’s similarity to the culture of high performing athletes (30:44)  Recruitment – hiring for a cultural fit (32:01)  Tools for tracking performance and engagement – the growth and impact cycle (34:17)  Importance and implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion at Asana (36:40)  Wellness in the workplace and regular mental health check-ins (40:03)  The role of the board and the CPO’s interactions with them (44:15)  Changing dynamics of investors’ interest in culture (46:26)  Opportunities for Asana to continue to scale people and culture (48:14) 

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)

Cameron McIntyre is one of Australia's most respected executives, having played a major part in the Carsales.com (CAR:ASX) journey over the last 15 years, initially as the CFO in the late 2000s where he was charged with seeing the business' transition to the ASX boards, and most recently as the CEO, where he has been guided the business tremendously well through their next stage of growth. Carsales is now a beast of the business, with a market capitalisation of over $7b and a top line revenue of c$450m, making it one of Australia's greatest ever technology companies.  Carsales.com was started in a garage in the late 1990s by Greg Roebuck, and this episode explores the growth journey from these humble beginnings, but more importantly zooms in on the strategic pillars that has enabled the business to flourish.  This episode is a great exploration into the variety of skills required to succeed as a modern day executive, and serves as a great case study on what it takes to build and lead great teams over long periods of time. To hear Cam speak on how he thinks about fostering innovation, retaining great talent and what is on the next horizon for Carsales as it strengthens it global footprint was both enlightening and inspiring.   You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show notes; Carsales’ origin story (2:36)  Cam’s first impression of the CarSales business (3:49)  Disrupting the secondhand car market (5:31)  Key strategic pillars in growing the business and winning the consumer (7:05)  Managing important investors (8:44)  Finding the right investment partner in the early stages of a business (10:38)  Key learnings from the public listing process (11:54)  Skill development from a CFO to a CEO role (14:45)  The growth quotient and its importance at an organisational level (16:06)  An entrepreneurial board as growth partners (17:33)  Transitioning away from a founder-led business (19:01)  Expanding margins in a high growth business (21:24)  Growing the business into new, emerging markets (24:22)  Fostering a culture of innovation (26:19)  The next big horizon for CarSales (28:55)  Attracting and retaining talent throughout the growth journey (31:34)  Prioritising diversity and inclusion in a large tech company (34:59)  Obtaining board support for diversity and inclusion initiatives (36:53)  Growing from mistakes as a leader (38:45) This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Pro Medicus may well be one of the most under the radar growth stories of the world. Many listeners would not have heard of Pro Medicus (ASX:PME), nor its low profile and humble CEO and founder, Dr Sam Hupert. Which is funny, given that the business started in 1983 and has a current market capitalisation c$6.5 billion. This is a story of patience, persistence, and perseverance. An inspirational story that needs to be told.  There is some ground to cover for sure - in 1983, the IBM personal computer had not even made its way to Australia, there was no venture capital community and yet, here we are almost 40 years later lauding what many assume is an overnight success story. We walk through the timeline to pull out the themes that emerge over such a long and succcessful career.   Pro Medicus has become a leading software solution for radiologists to help manage their practice - from scheduling patients or billing patients to ensuring great clinicals outcomes, be it viewing scans on location or on mobile. Think of it almost as the clinician’s operating system – a cross between a CRM, practice management software and data visualisation bespoke for the needs of radiologists and surgeons. Sam is a gentleman, full of sage advice and views, all the while delivering them with an egoless charm that is just so genuine. Settle in, this is a story not to be missed.  You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show notes; History of Pro Medicus; the IT and healthcare ecosystem in 1983 (3:46)  Initial product and demographic for version 1.0 (6:22)  Challenges of listing Pro Medicus in 2000 during a tech crash (7:40)  Benefit of Pro Medicus’ balance sheet strength during the GFC (11:07)  Impact and advantages of visage technology (12:57)  Visage acquisition and its influence on Pro Medicus’ product and cultural synergies (15:25)  Pivotal Sutter Health deal in 2014 (18:10)  Selling into a tier one hospital (20:03)  Competitive advantage of partnering with universities (22:03)  Scope of Pro Medicus’ sales representatives (23:45)  Navigating technological changes (25:32)  Plan for the personalization and consumerization of healthcare (26:57)  Basic principles for talking with investors (31:28)  Should Australia change their system around founder sell-downs (35:26)  Role of the board to support business growth (37:38)  Biggest changes after transition to publicly listed (39:54)  Vision for Pro Medicus’ legacy (40:53) This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Katherine McConnell, the founder and CEO of Brigte is revolutionising how Australians are financing and decentralising sustainable energy solutions in their homes. A former Macquarie banker, and mother of two, Katherine initially mortgaged the family home to go after the opportunity of becoming the leading consumer finance business in the space. And that she has – Brighte has financed ten percent of the solar installations in Australia and processed over a billion dollar of applications across 90k homes. Recently having secured a $100m funding round, Brighte have driven deeper into the value chain becoming an energy retailer. This is a far reaching conversation, from the business itself being at the forefront of sustainable investing in Australia, to the scaling challenges of remote onboarding at scale, Brighte is a beacon as to what is possible as one of Australia’s fastest private companies.   You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.  Show notes Brighte founding journey and Katherine’s background (2:56)  Evolution of the Brighte business model over time (8:27)  Building a revolutionary consumer brand and a consumer value proposition (11:45)  Energy marketplace network effects and the impacts for Brighte (13:25)  Understanding Brighte’s financing (15:43)  The impact of green investing and financing tailwinds on Brighte (18:44)  Scaling challenges in automation and digital capabilities (20:55)  The origin of Brighte’s values (23:05)  Evolution of Katherine’s role as a founder, CEO and leader (25:25)  Challenges of hiring in a purpose-driven company (28:16)  Hiring in a remote / hybrid work environment (30:00)  Maintaining culture and enabling productivity in a hybrid environment (31:28)  Juggling fast growth and business sustainability at Brighte (33:45)  Female founders in the start-up world and how we can empower more as a society (35:45)  Maintaining work life balance when scaling a high growth business (39:38)

Welcome to the fifth season of "Scaling Up"! Expect an ecclectic mix of incredible Australian growth stories, told by their founders and CEOs. Some of the episodes are with businesses at the earlier stages of their scaling up journey, as well as a few of Australia’s largest listed businesses. Regardless of scale, or business model, there are some common scaling pain points, and we try again to uncover how these leaders have overcome them. Like our last series, we also have a little mini series, this time lasering in on the role of Chief People Officer and what scaling great cultures looks like.  To kick off though, we have two episodes featuring two of Australis’s brightest venture backed consumer finance companies. By releasing them side by side, it should be easier for listeners to compare and contrast the lessons in similar business models.  The first, is Athena Home loans, and our interview with the founders Nathan Walsh and Michael Starkey.  Founded in 2017 and launched two years later, Athena has already funded over $3.5b of home loans in Australia on the simple premise of allowing for fast, simple, transparent and cost effective digital loans. The home loan market in Australia is massive as you can imagine, and crucially controlled by the four legacy banks. The banks though are having some of their lunch eaten by the non-bank lenders, of which Athena is at the top of the list.  To enable Athena to scale rapidly in a highly regulated environment, Nathan and Michael from day one realised that talent was the most important element to their, and built a crack team of leaders who could scale from start up, right through the scale up journey. The conversation covers a heap of ground – from scaling a consumer brand, to finding competitive advantages in their cost of capital on the lending side of the business, as well as some hot topics around remote versus in-office work as we come out of covid-19 restrictions.  These two are high functioning and thoughtful in everything they do, and this translates into some wonderful insights for founders, management teams and casual listeners alike.  You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show notes;  Founding story (4:00)  The original vision for Athena (4:30)  Why the 'talent first' strategy (8:45)  Overview of the Australian homeloans market (10:40)  Building bands and scaling acquisition costs (14:00)  Biggest difficulty on consumer side of the bussiness in terms of scaling business (16:33)  Processing power and scaling a range of products for consumers - what is Act 2? (19:12)  Funding model and value proposition for funders (23:25)  Trying to scale the funding side of the business (26:30)  Being a culture first business (28:10)  Concept of a cultural balance sheet (32:50)  Heading back into the office and working remotely (36:13)  The importance of the role of the Chief People Officer (40:10)  Biggest scaling challenge when it comes to culture (43:05)  What does success look like over the next 5 years and what are the hurdles to overcome to achieve this (45:10)

Abhishek Gupta is the co-Founder of Circles Life, Asia’s first fully digital telco. Everything a Circles customer experiences is completely online, bringing the same level of sophistication to the telco world that consumers enjoy in many other walks of life, such as their food delivery or ride sharing.  Circles is currently kicking off its second act. Having penetrated Asia initially with it direct to consumer telco offering, they soon realised that their in house technology stack could be rolled out for other telcos to use, and have now started to offer a B2B SaaS platform to enable this. This is an interesting vertical playbook to be running, and we dig into Abhi’s vision of where this may lead.  This is a wonderful deep dive into the challenges and advantages of scaling a company in Southeast Asia, as well as giving insight into the technology eco system more generally.  Raised in India, Abhi is a true high performer, a wonderful leader and someone who is trying to disrupt one of the largest markets in the world. You would not want to bet against his success.  You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show notes; Growing up in India (00:03:11)  Skills Abhishek learned from his years in consulting (00:05:01)  Circles Life founding story (00:07:14)  The tailwinds of the telecommunications sector in South-East Asia (00:09:49)  The insights that had developed as to how Circles Life was going to disrupt the legacy telcos and why the customer-centricity was so important (00:10:48)  What led Circles Life to make the transition to  B2B from B2C (00:15:52)  What the telco industry could look like in 10 years (00:17:58)  Insight into the technology scene in South-East Asia (00:21:56)  Circles Life culture and how it has evolved (28:09)  Circles Life’s culture as a competitive advantage (31:13)  The value of an employee ownership plan (33:12)  How Abhishek’s job has evolved over time (34:45)  Having a personal board of directors (36:59)  The power of story-telling (39:59)  How Abhishek thinks about adversity (42:32)

David Obstler, CFO of Datadog, a $30 billion tech powerhouse, shares invaluable insights from 25 years of scaling fast-growing companies. He discusses the evolution of the CFO role from financial oversight to a key strategic partner for the CEO. David emphasizes the significance of trust, collaboration, and effective communication in fostering sustainable growth. He also dives into the intricacies of investor relations and the pivotal role a strong board plays in steering a company toward success. Expect golden nuggets of wisdom throughout!

The first episode in this mini series is Jill Woodworth, the CFO of Peloton (NASDAQ:PTON). Since 2018, when Jill joined, Peleton has been on a hyper scale journey – she took the reins of the finance function when the business was a private, $200m revenue company. In under 4 years since then, it is now a $4b revenue business listed on the NASDAQ.  The next two episodes are moving the spotlight away from the CEO and Founder to their most important partner in the business, the CFO. You can liken the role of the CFO to that of a navigator on a ship – charged with the responsibility of charting the course, tracking the journey and ensuring hazards are avoided along the way. CFO is often the most underestimated piece of the scaling puzzle, and why we felt the need to finally shine a spotlight on them.  Jill gives some fascinating views into her transition out of investment banking, scaling her team from 12 to 200, working with a passionate founder, as well as what in her opinion makes for good investor relations. We also traverse  the work that goes into preparing a company for an IPO. All these give deeply valuable insights into what it takes to scale quickly and effectively.  This mini series was inspired by a blog post that TDM produced last year - “What makes a great CFO” and I hope this podcast episode brings this blog to life.  You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show notes; Jill’s background in banking and then transition into her role as CFO at Peloton (00:03:32)  Including the skills that were transferrable to the CFO role from her banking experience and the skills she felt she needed to develop (00:7:22)  How Jill’s leadership style has evolved as the company has undergone hypergrowth (00:11:01)  The elevation of the role of the CFO within an organisation (00:13:47)  Skills that make for great CFOs (00:15:40)  Jill’s relationship with Peloton Founder & CEO, John Foley: (00:18:06)  How has John’s leadership style changed over time (00:21:31)  The role of the CFO in creating wonderful IR (23:35)  TDM blog 'What makes great IR'  (00:26:15)  Insight into transitioning Peloton from private to public (00:27:02)  Including how this changed Jill’s job (00:30:37) This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Ethan Berman, was the CEO and founder of the NYSE listed Risk Metrics, until it was bought by MSCI in 2010 for US$1.55b. RiskMetrics, which was spun off from JP Morgan Chase in 1998 and became the market leader in risk management software systems. We need to transport ourselves back to the late 90s – a time of floppy disk distribution and only a handful of pioneer SaaS companies. From writing plays in Paris, Ethan ran one of the fastest companies, software or otherwise, anywhere in the world during one of the most interesting modern decades, spanning both the dotcom crash at the turn of the decade and the GFC just 8 years later.  Few have had Harvard Business School case study written about them, nor received a letter from Warren Buffet commending him in his remuneration philosophy. Ethan is a private person, and so the opportunity to interview him was a tremendous honour. TDM was an investor in RiskMetrics back in the day, and Ethan’s view of the world – from remuneration to fundraising - has shaped our own views more than any other singular force. After this, we hope you will see why.  You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. Show Notes; Articles and documents mentioned in this episode HBS Case Study on RMG Ethan's Letter to the Board to pay him less - full version NYT article relating to Ethan's leaked letter to the board  Sadly the letter from Warren Buffett is not publicly available Ethan’s journey from playwriting in Paris to being the founder and CEO of RiskMetrics (00:03:38)  The difficulty of spinning a software company out of a huge global investment bank (00:07:53)  Creativity in starting a business (00:11:15)  The changing role of the CEO in fast growing company (00:14:36)  How Ethan’s leadership style changed over time (00:19:40)  The hiring process at RiskMetrics and assessing culture fit (00:22:30)  Transition from private-market CEO to public market CEO (00:26:28)  How Ethan view and dealt with crises at Riskmetrics (00:30:05)  The appropriate level of transparency (00:34:30)  Becoming a bad news organisation (00:35:11)  How Ethan viewed remuneration (00:38:10)  RiskMetrics’ approach to options (00: 43:27)  The philosophy behind RiskMetrics only raising ordinary equity (00:45:55)  Ethan’s view on M&A (00:49:22)  What led Ethan to sell the business (00:53:45)  Does Ethan regret that RiskMetrics did not change the way risk was measured in the world after the GFC (00:59:18)  Ethan’s new project, i2learning (1:01:05)