In this episode we unpack the topic of: "Transitioning Roles: From COO to CEO". This is Part 2 in our transitioning roles series. Our special guest is John Saroff, CEO of Chartbeat. 

Bethany and I discuss what a CEO does, and how a COO can build competence in these areas: 

• Vision
• Fundraising
• Board relationships
• Setting the tone for the culture

We then discuss the following with John: 

• What is the role of a CEO and how does it differ to the COO role?
• Do you have a COO now? Why not? 
• How does the stress of the CEO role differ to the COO? 
• As someone who has suffered from depression, how has that influenced your time as CEO? 
• What do you wish you would have known when you transitioned from COO to CEO? 
• When you transitioned into the CEO role, did you struggle with role definition? 
• When is a COO ready to take the CEO role? 
• How do you become emotionally available to employees? 

References

• Chartbeat

Biography: 

John Saroff is Chief Executive Officer of Chartbeat, Inc., an ecosystem of enterprise solutions that enables media companies to grow reach and revenue. Chartbeat serves more that 1,000 brands globally, including The New York Times, BBC, ESPN, BuzzFeed, Paramount, Warner Bros., Hearst, and McClatchy. The company brings together Chartbeat, the industry-leading content analytics software for digital publishers; Tubular Labs, a comprehensive analytics solution that delivers a unified view of social video audiences; and Lineup Systems, a bespoke tool for providing media companies with revenue management software. John has worked on the cutting-edge of media and technology for 24 years, at companies ranging from Google to NBC. He holds a joint degree in law and business from Columbia University and is a graduate of Haverford College.

Summary:

• Career development and CEO transitions. 0:06
• Bethany shares how she spent her 20s experimenting with different identities and careers, feeling less ashamed about her lack of progress.
• Brandon: Inspired by Pierre Trudeau's career path, he pursued various manual labor jobs in his 20s without a clear career goal, focusing on enjoying life and graduating from university.
• John Saref: As CEO of Chartbeat, he transitioned from Google and NBC Universal, discussing how a CEO can build competence by galvanizing the organization and stakeholders around the company's vision, mission, and purpose.
• Leadership, vision, and communication skills for CEOs. 3:32
• Bethany emphasizes the importance of having a clear and compelling vision as a leader, which she believes is essential for inspiring others to work towards a common goal.
• Brandon agrees that vision is crucial, but also acknowledges that it can be challenging for ordinary people to articulate a powerful storyline in a way that is both competent and charismatic.
• Brandon: Product background helps with vision and storytelling (black slide technique)
• Bethany: Keep presentations simple and focused on the future (no bullet points, no visuals)
• CEO responsibilities and skills. 7:40
• Bethany and Brandon both played key roles in fundraising rounds, learning investor thinking and complementing the CEO's strengths with their own areas of expertise.
• Fundraising is like another sales cycle, requiring collaboration and pairing off with different people to add value and secure investment.
• Bethany emphasizes the importance of communication and empathy for CEOs in investor relations and customer meetings.
• Bethany and Brandon discuss the importance of building relationships as a CEO, with Bethany emphasizing the value of having a strong relationship with key stakeholders.
• Bethany and Brandon also touch on the topic of setting the tone for the company culture, with Bethany noting that as CEO, you are setting the tone rather than just toeing the party line.
• Career transition from corporate lawyer to content acquisition at NBC. 14:19
• John Saroff transitioned from corporate lawyer to content acquisition at NBC after feeling unfulfilled and depressed in his law career.
• He networked extensively and interviewed with 26 people for the job, eventually getting hired by Mike Stipe, who is still a close friend.
• Saroff emphasizes the importance of finding a career that aligns with one's passions and values, rather than simply chasing the "brass ring" of partnership.
• CEO responsibilities and stress. 17:21
• John Saroff, former COO, describes the difference between the CEO and COO roles as "enormous" and "really different," respectively.
• John Saroff does not currently have a COO, having taken over as CEO after his predecessor left to start a company sold to Twitter.
• John Saroff describes the stress of being a CEO, comparing it to being the "least bad choice" with a small team and limited resources.
• CEO stress, depression, and mental health resources. 21:00
• John Saroff highlights the stress-reducing aspects of being a CEO, such as having ultimate decision-making authority and being accountable for the company's success or failure.
• Bethany agrees, noting that the lack of authority to make decisions without the CEO's approval can be immensely stressful for team members.
• John Saroff discusses his struggles with depression as a corporate lawyer and how he found support through therapy and medication.
• He emphasizes the importance of mental health resources for employees and stigmatizing mental illness in the workplace.
• Saroff shares his success story of managing depression and anxiety, encouraging others to seek help.
• Leadership, vision, and growth as a CEO. 26:19
• Bethany shares her struggles with perfectionism and feeling like she didn't measure up in her 20s, despite being high achiever.
• Brandon contrasts their backgrounds, sharing how he didn't have a full-time job until age 28 and didn't have traditional experience, but found success as a CEO.
• John Saroff reflects on his early days as CEO, realizing the importance of having a clear vision and mission for the company.
• He emphasizes the need to identify what the company is the best in the world at, and how it can move the economic engine and fire up employees.
• CEO role and coaching employees. 30:59
• John Saroff describes his CEO role as a "very involved coach" drawing on experiences from college leadership roles.
• John Saroff emphasizes the importance of coaching and communication as a CEO, using examples from his experience as a Liverpool fan and a New York Giants fan.
• Saroff believes that meddling can be healthy if employees understand why the CEO is involved, citing the example of a client who only tells the CEO the truth.
• CEO mindset, emotional intelligence, and self-care. 34:45
• John Saroff emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and emotional reserves for CEOs, citing it as a key trait for success in the role.
• Bethany highlights the need for CEOs to be able to operationalize and inspire their teams, while also taking on ultimate accountability.
• John Saroff emphasizes the importance of taking care of oneself holistically to be successful in any field, especially as a CEO.
• He practices active listening and reminds himself that his opinions are just that, while acknowledging the feelings and opinions of others.
• John encourages listeners to take action and make the transition to their desired career, emphasizing that it only takes one "yes" to make it happen.

Brandon 0:06

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the operations room a podcast for CEOs. I am Brandon Mensa and as always joined by my amazing and lovely co host, Bethany Ayers, how're things going, Bethany,

Bethany 0:18

they find my world is so small right now, I haven't left my house in three weeks that it's just fine.

Brandon 0:24

Well, you know, Bethany, I was thinking about something, which is, I feel like I still have yet to get to know, Bethany. And it occurred to me that maybe that's what we should talk about here a little bit, which is a bit more digging into to who we are, and how we've come to these places in our lives. So at the end of your 20s, where are you? Are you in a job or something? Or what's what are you doing at the end of your 20s?

Bethany 0:45

Yeah, so I listened to a podcast with Brene Brown and Angela Duckworth once, where they both talk about how they spent their 20s trying on lots of different things and identities and who they are. And their careers didn't start until their early 30s. And I just loved that episode so much. Because it made me not be ashamed of the fact that I did nothing in my 20s. And my career did not progress in any way. And I did not reach any of my goals. And my career really started to take off in my early 30s. And so I have a lot less shame about it. I'm like, Look, Angela Duckworth and Brene Brown are just like me, except you, especially if

Brandon 1:32

it's fine. Well, honestly, I think that's the norm, isn't it? I mean, maybe I'm deluding myself. In similar fashion, actually, I read an autobiography of Pierre Trudeau, he was a Canadian Prime Minister twice over probably the most famous Canadian Prime Minister of all time. And of course, Justin Trudeau is his son. He was a great speaker, really articulate super smart, had a wonderful career. And in his biography, he talked about really not having a full time job until he was in his early 30s. So I was like, Oh, my God, that's, that's unbelievable. That sounds like the path I want to take. So over the course of my 20s, and this is, you know, by design, I had no real goals per se outside of graduating from university, I suppose. But purely from a career point of view, there was nothing going on because I was a serial manual labourer, which is Doritos, factory college pro painters, heavy mover, industrial mover, which is the hardest job on the planet, by the way, I enjoyed it, it was good fun. There's zero responsibility, and you get paid, not awesome amounts, but enough to enjoy your life a little bit. So between that and graduating from university, that was the plan. And I accomplished that plan quite readily, I would say, you know, the career journey, like you said, was really the 30s, in my case, as well. So with that, we've got part two in our transitioning roles series. So the first part was, of course, with Cleo shim, who moved from CEO to investor in this case as part of her transition. And today, we'll be talking to John saref. He's the CEO of Chartbeat, formerly of Google and NBC Universal, and we'll talk about his journey from being a CEO to a CEO in this case. So why don't we start with this, Bethany? Which is this core question of what does a CEO do? And what can a ce o do to build their competence to be effective at that level? And I'll run through a couple key things from my point of view, I just want to get a sense what you think here. So the first one is just this basic idea of galvanising, the organisation and stakeholders around the vision, the mission and purpose of the company. How can a ce o build all competence in this spectrum? Do you think? Well,

Bethany 3:32

I think that's one that I've been told I'm quite good at. And so it's always one of those things of like, if you already know that you can do it, you don't know how you've done it. It's hard to teach anybody else. But it is something that I've landed on, as very important. So when I became Chief Customer Officer at peak and had like, all of these departments reporting to me, it was the largest team I've led. I decided I really needed to understand what a leader was, and what does leadership mean, and what's the definition of leadership? And so I texted my old coach, Al Kenny, and was just like, oh, what does leadership mean? What's the definition? And he texted back, like, this is something you have to figure out yourself. And I thought he was just being a coach.

Brandon 4:17

Very Yoda of him. Yeah.

Bethany 4:21

Well, that's what I thought. And I thought, like, Oh, bloody coaches. Here you go, again, gonna make me think it through. And then I started looking at definition. So I googled what is leadership? And what's the definition of leadership? And so I started looking at them, and I can't remember what Brene Brown's definition was, but as you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of hers. And so she was one of the first people I looked at, and whatever her definition was, did not include vision. And I was like, Well, I disagree with her definition. Because, for me, the absolute most important thing for a leader is to have a vision that is clear and compelling, and then ensues. Every Buddy, to want to achieve that vision, how you develop the skill? I don't know. But I think you need it.

Brandon 5:08

I think part of it's the intangible of the charismatic CEO, in this case, being able to very powerfully Articulate Storyline, you know, but I think for us more mere mortals, the real question is, how do we do it in a way that we're competent. And I think to your point, you've done the podcast circuit, you know, you've done a speaking circuit, you're great at this in terms of being able to articulate, I don't consider myself to be to a level, to be honest. But the couple things that I do think about is that I come a product background and being a product leader, it comes a little more naturally to me in that sense, because, you know, a lot of my pitching that I was doing was around the product roadmap, why is this product strategy tremendously exciting? Why is this roadmap tremendously exciting? And articulating that to the organisation to galvanise the company around that roadmap, and of course, customers as well. So that training ground of being a product leader, I thought actually serves me quite well, in this respect.

Bethany 5:57

I think the other thing is less is more. And it's like the number of times you see these like massive business cases, or super long strategies, and nobody remembers it, nobody gets it. One slide. With one sentence is what people will remember and what matters. So I think part of it is super simple. And then the other part is, it's a vision. So actually, what does the future look like? So that people can see it. And it's not just bullet points. Exactly.

Brandon 6:30

My former product leader, he had a awesome technique that I absolutely loved. It was, I remember questioning him the first time I saw him, like, what is this? Like? Why are you doing this? So he would basically put in a slide a black slide, the entire slide was black. And during his presentation, he would stop the presentation almost. And he's like, the black slide goes up. And he's like, look, I want you up in the audience to imagine this. And then he goes on this kind of imaginary imagine scape storytelling to kind of get them in the space of being excited by the roadmap or whatever he was envisioning for the product in that case, and black slide and the way that he did, it was just a great way to make it pop in that sense. And to your point, no bullet points, no visuals, the black slide, all eyes are on him, because he was the focal point. And it's just a great trick of the trade, I think to make that come alive. In that case.

Bethany 7:21

I will use that one, if I'm brave enough in the future. Point

Brandon 7:24

number two in the CEO arsenal is this concept of never running out of cash in the bank. And if you look at any blog about a CEOs job, that's responsibility number two, in this case, how do you build a competence in the space? So

Bethany 7:39

the way I've built it out, is being massively involved in all the fundraising rounds. So you start to learn what do investors care about, because at least in the UK, I know the US is slightly different 90 95% of investors are former investment bankers, they maybe have a little bit of operating experience, but pretty much not so they understand a spreadsheet. They understand numbers, they understand models, and they're super logical. Being involved in fundraising means that you learn how investors think. And then you can translate your business into a spreadsheet and some process flow slides. And

Brandon 8:20

I think in this case, you're exactly right, which is you want to be on all the VC calls, and not as like an extra person observing, but as a key contributor, and in this respect, understanding your CEO, and what they're good at in terms of those calls, and you being able to complement and supplement them with something that they're not good at. And really adding that value to those VC calls. That's the sweet spot a little bit, which is you're there for a reason, you're there for a purpose. So just purely as an example. In my case, I was the the SAS benchmarking KPI guy. So at my fingertips, and I was quite astute about this. Here's our metrics. Here's our KPIs. This is where we're at. This is what the benchmarks are, this is what the ranges look like. And when we talk to investors and VCs, they love this stuff. And that was my pure play compliment to the CEO that I was working with. He was great at vision, he was great at mission and purpose. I was great at the numbers and the metrics and the KPIs are like contextualising it to make it really come alive. And I think the last little bit was just more around the market opportunity. So the classic Tam, Sam saw. And again, from a VC standpoint, they love that stuff, especially when it's grounded with real credibility. In that case,

Bethany 9:24

yeah, I did the exact same role. And also, like just the one point to add in is doing fundraising rounds always sounds super sexy and romantic. And if you've not been involved in it, or you've been kept at arm's length, you don't really know how to add anything to it. But it's basically just another sales cycle. And so you are pairing off and peering with different people in that process. So the way I've worked is that the CEO, peers with the partner, and it's selling the visions, but also like selling the process, why this company is unbelievably valuable, why you would be stupid not to be involved and like really building that relationship, and then the COO, peering with the associate or like the second layer down, who ultimately has to pull together the document for the IC, build out the business model that they believe in. And what my job was, was everything that you're talking about Brandon in beautiful slides, because the more beautiful slides that you create, that makes their lives easier that they can just lift and shift into their investment memo, and getting ready for their investment committee, the easier you make life for them. And then

responsibility number three, for the CEO, in this case, classically, is investor relations, and to a lesser extent, key commercial relationships as well. What's your sense of this one? How can this CEO build out competence in this area?

Similarly, it's about being a good communicator. So push yourself to speak at as many company events as you can take an active part in board meetings and see customers, I think, oftentimes, a CFO that doesn't come from a sales background, can be quite intimidated around why should I see a customer? What should I say, I don't really know what my value is. And I have felt that way, at times. But when you go into customer meetings, you're just talking to somebody who's has the same level of experience as you do, you can intuitively answer questions and understand where they're coming from more than your sales team. And you might not be able to demo the product yourself. But you can certainly understand the business problems and what customers are struggling with in a way that other people in your team can't. So just go out and practice and realise that you know, more than you think you do. Yeah,

I think this is actually a huge one, which is on the commercial side of the business, whether it's actual customers or key suppliers that you have, I think you as the CEO, the company, building out a really good relationship with one, two or three, makes entirely good sense to me. And your role to your point is not to sell them anything your role is to hold to have a relationship with a senior stakeholder on that customer side of the business, where if there's things to be talked about issues to be resolved, you have that relationship, and you have an ability to do that. And I think to your point, it ensures that your chops when it comes to being able to talk about the company talk about the product to a customer is there. And it's just a good proving ground, I think as you kind of grow into the CEO role, where you'll end up doing similar things in that respect. Its

own your relationship and your title, that's a time when your title helps you. You could go into the room wrapped in the COO title, and everybody will listen to you. Even if you don't feel like it, yourself.

So responsibility. Number four, setting the tone for the culture. What's your take on this one.

So even as a CFO, when you go and you speak in front of everybody, and you're embodying the values, you're still toeing the party line, whereas as CEO, you're setting it. So I think probably practically, it's the same skills, but perception wise, it's slightly different.

I see. Okay, so from a competence point of view, there's nothing special the CEO needs to do to build a competence in this area. Given

that you're a CEO who's spending a lot of time speaking in front of the company, and being seen. Yeah, so I think it depends on what level of visibility you have already.

Yeah, actually, sorry. You're right, Bethany. I feel like I'm making an assumption here, which is people like us. All right. So why don't we move on to our conversation with John saref. And let's do that.

I am delighted to welcome John saref. To the show, John is CEO of Chartbeat. And what we're going to be talking about with John today is his transition from C O to CEO of the same company. This is part of our series on C Oh transitions or what to do after being a COO.

Welcome, John. Delighted to be here.

So before we get into that journey, I saw another career transition that looked fascinating, which is moving from corporate lawyer to content acquisition for I think it was NBC, which kind of sounds like a dream job, if not maybe as well paying as a lawyer. So how in the world you've managed to pull that off. I've

often joked that if I ever was going to write a memoir, it would be miserable lawyer to happy business executive and eight easy steps. I was in between jobs and needed some money and I actually taught a class called miserable lawyer to happy business executive and eight easy steps. So there's always a future in that, but I was a miserable lawyer. I had gone to law school, I loved law school. And I also did an MBA at the same time, I kind of had a sense that in my longer view of my career, I might not want to be, you know, a partner at a at a big law firm. And I went to a traditional US law firm, and I worked on corporate deals, and I was pretty miserable. The work was insane. In terms of hours, it was, you know, somewhat mind numbing. And I also think that I didn't really want to be a partner. I mean, I think one of the things that I realised very, very quickly was that the brass ring at the end of this, which was joining the partnership, which my colleagues were very, very eager to do, I just didn't want to do. So as a result, I kind of resolved after really just a few months, like, I gotta get the hell out of here. And I would say that I had kind of a health scare along the way, which was that I became very, very depressed. And I think that the one thing that I will say is that treating that really helped, you know, I think, a combination of the sleep deprivation, the pressure, probably some things in my genetic makeup had just crushed me. So I went and saw a really great psychiatrist. And, you know, he took really good care of me. And he was like, why are you doing this anyway? And I was like, I don't know, what you're supposed to do, you know, made me think that, okay, there's, there's a world out there, and I just activated my network, you know, I, it took me about six months from getting healthy, making the decision that I was going to leave, and then I just network my ass off. I literally sent emails to everyone I knew in media, I'd always loved media and wanted to work in media, sent emails to everyone I knew in media, called called people, et cetera. And I was very lucky, which is that NBC was looking for a person who knew a little bit enough about the law to kind of be able to negotiate contracts. But someone who knew enough about media to be able to talk to media customers, you know, I interviewed with 26 people for the job, got the job. And that was how I made the transition. And actually, the guy who hired me is still one of my best friends, a guy named Mike Stipe, who's a CEO of artsy, was the VP who hired me at NBC. And we're still very close. It was a great break. But I would say that the one thing that I think was about it was that, you know, as CEOs, we think a lot about funnels, right. And I had a big top of funnel. I emailed and called everybody, and I probably got 99 noes, but I got one. Yes. And that got me going.

What is the job of a CEO? And how does it differ from a CEO in your eyes?

It's totally, totally different. And I think it's different in ways in which I didn't appreciate when I was the CFO. So I would say that the biggest difference is, it's all on you, I would say that there's this thing that you do when you have every job other than the CEO, which is like, at the end of the night, you can go to bed and you can be like, Well, ultimately, it's that guy's problem, or that woman's problem. Everything is my fault. Absolutely everything. I'm accountable for everything. And that's an enormous, enormous change. And I also think another thing that is really, really different is the levers that you use to affect that change are really different. So, you know, I see oh, you use a lot of operational levers. Right. That's the job. That's the name of the podcast, right? Use a lot of operational levers. And I think a CEO, you use more kind of decision making levers, right? So it's much more about leading people to the right answer, through setting a compelling vision, a compelling mission, creating a great culture, making sure you're hiring the right people than it is about, you know, figuring out how to grind down, you know, an extra 10% efficiency. I think one thing about having been COO is that I know how to do both. Now, you know, my coo routes, if any of my teams need help getting some more efficiency out of something, I'm a good resource, but it's a very different job.

And do you have a COO now,

I do not. At first out of practicality, then for a while out of intention. And now I think it's probably up in the air again, I think when I became the CEO, it was kind of a funny transition. My predecessor was a wonderful guy named Tony Hale, he left the company to go start a company called scroll, which he then ultimately sold to Twitter. And, you know, when he left the venture capitalist associated with the firm, with Chartbeat, we're like, how about you take over you? You know, there's nothing that VCs hate more than a CEO search, you know, especially with a company that is at that point six or seven years old. So they, they you know, they looked around and I was the least bad choice. They put me in the chair. But you know, very practically speaking, you know, we were still venture backed. We were losing money as part of our strategy and I quickly realised that in order to stabilise the business, I was gonna have to get costs under control. And one great way to do that was to not have a CFO so originally that was the reason and then I think in a small company, I actually think it can be very, very confusing when I say small company I mean, under 100 Like really small. I think it can actually be confusing you get you have like the mommy daddy proud One where people will go to the COO, I'm sure everybody who's listened to this podcast knows what I'm talking about. And they'll be like, Oh, can I fly to Zimbabwe? And the CFO will say, No, you can't fly this. And by the way, like, we don't have any targets in Zimbabwe. And then they'll go to the CEO and be like, hey, go to Zimbabwe, you know, but like, guess what opened up the African market? And I wanted to avoid that at first, right? I wanted to avoid that. And that was the company's gotten bigger, I think I have begun to consider it again, like, you know, but then I think you get into the whole question of, how do you define the role, and I know some topics that you've covered before, which is no two of those jobs are, are alike. So I have not backfield myself, but I'm certainly going forward possibly open

to it. You talked about in the first answer about stresses of the job, and ultimately rolls up to a single individual, which is you in this case? So can you maybe describe a bit of the stress difference between being a CEO versus the CEO, and what that heightened difference looks like, just to kind of give her CEOs a bit of a sense of what they're up against, when they hit that role.

I wouldn't say there's more or less stress, it's just very different. The one thing that is left much less stressful about being the CEO, is that you're ultimately accountable. And you can do whatever you want. That sounds crude and crass. But the actual ability to make the decision, and yes, I'm accountable to my board. And there are ramifications for my team. If I make half baked decisions, I try not to make half baked decisions, although you shouldn't review my team and find out if I actually do. But I know ultimately, that if there's a crisis, I can make the decisions and I'm in charge is actually in some ways, very, very stress reducing, I would say that there are things that you're stressful about that I think is see oh, you know, like, I'm much more concerned about how the team is doing, are folks, you know, motivated, and really, really coming to work? Because they love what they do? Or are they punching a clock. And I think one of the things that's really great about our company, is that we've built a culture where people are really, really excited to come to work and really motivated. And we're able to recruit great people, as a result of that. Also, cash. Cash is obviously important to the CEO, right? A lot of CEOs have that kind of, you know, finance or sales and marketing background. But cash is life. And actually having to think about being accountable for all the cash in the business, where it's going, how it's being allocated, is just very, very different. I think, as the CEO, I was much more responsible for deploying that cash effectively, whereas a CEO, I make the decision, and then kind of tell people how to deploy it. Those are the two things that I think, even when we're, you know, we're profitable now. And even when we're making money, and you know, there's no existential risk to the business, thinking about how you're deploying cash and where you're putting it and is it being put to its best use is a very, very different thing than SEO where you're more that decision is kind of made for you and you have to actually put it, you just have to carry it out. I have to say, it

sounds really nice. Because I think how much time do we spend talking about like how to deal with a C E. O who's controlling and won't let go of any decision making. And so you're responsible, but you don't actually have the authority to make decisions is immensely stressful. You

know, I think a lot of the sandbank and free trial, I could imagine, you know, many of the listeners to this podcast, having a lot of sympathy for people like Caroline Ellison and the other witnesses, because they had this very controlling CEO who was like totally inaccessible, spending money like crazy, not listening to them. You know, it was like the dramas that that exist inside, many companies just blown up to the hundreds of billions level. So I've been there. I know what it's like Tony was a terrific partner. And we're very, very good friends. But there were certainly times when I was like, God, I wish I could just deploy the cash. And then all of a sudden, I was in charge of it. And I was like, oh, there's a little stressful.

Let's just change how we make these calls. Now, when it says stops being theoretical, and starts being actual,

I get that exactly.

I was really curious about when you mentioned the depression that you had struggled with being a corporate lawyer, and then becoming CEO, but then CEO, like you need to have a lot of emotional resource for it and the ability to handle the ups and downs. How have you balanced both? If you don't mind me asking.

You know, I think there was nothing as bad as the depression I had as a corporate lawyer. Let's put that to be clear. You know, I think like a lot of type A people I had been, I've never really been bad at anything. Also, I was totally sleep deprived. And I was totally without any support at the firm. And I was very, very fortunate that I was able to find a spectacular psychiatrist who actually still see to this day, you know, it's been 17 years under his supervision, and he's the best, you know, and through a blend of Psychopharmacology and, you know, meeting prescriptions and talk therapy, you know, we've worked it out and I I've never had a depression as massive as the one that I had at the firm. But sir, you know, like anybody who has struggled with anything mental health related, you know, I've had my ups and downs and my blue days and my blue periods, and just being able to have a terrific resource. And I think that's one of the things that I feel extraordinary lucky for. And also to be able to ensure that I did this first as COO and now a CEO, make sure that my company's health plans enable folks to get get access to that, and, you know, D stigmatise it and, you know, make sure that folks, whether it's a small d, depression, and they're just having a shitty day, or a big D, and there's a real issue, making sure that people have the space and the time to take care of it. It's really important. I would actually say that, luckily for me, things have largely improved, right? There's I've never been as down as I was, in that time period. But that's I think, because of the care that I'm in, and the care that I've been in for, you know, for 17 years. So it's a success story, right there is, there's life on the other side. And actually, it's funny to that, because the first chapter of miserable lawyer to heavy business executive is make sure you get help, because I think a lot of folks who are really, really unhappy in their jobs, probably have some low level, depression or anxiety, or even high level and people know how to treat it, right? It's not something that's incurable. It's something that in many cases can be helped in most cases can be helped.

Were you in your 20s?

Do you think it was 26? Maybe 27? Yeah, I

have to say, I would never relive my 20s I think I would relive any other decade. But my 20s I found the 20 is the hardest in the entire world. Maybe mine were just like, numbed by drugs and disappointment.

I'm going to interview the interviewer why, why were they so bad?

I think it was a lot of what you're talking about of like, type A personality, always not the top of my class, but nearly the top of my class, which made me much better than the person at the top of the class because I have more perspective in my competitive brain, and then you follow all of the rules finish university, and you should just continue being the best at everything. I didn't go into consulting, and I didn't go into investment banking, because I moved to London instead. And then nobody here care that I went to Columbia. And I was just like, another graduate. And I thought I was smarter than everybody else. I wasn't, but of course, you know, you have to learn that. So I was like, why don't I have the job that I should have. And then at the same time, I didn't really know what I wanted. And then I remember when I turned 25, I cried for the entire day, because I was now going to be closer to 30 than 20. And my life was over and I was no closer to my life goals.

I feel like our backgrounds couldn't be any more different. I think literally, I didn't have a full time job until I was 28 years old, nevermind being tough on my class and being woeful from my 20s. In this sense. I was working at a Doritos factory as she was getting A's across the university. And

it takes all kinds, right. I mean, I think that, you know, one of the things about both of these jobs, CFO and CEO, is that you need to be able to flex every company needs Doritos factory experience, and especially Doritos factory experience, and the type a more traditional experience. When

you reflect back on the past seven years as a CEO, what is it that you would have wished you had known day one entering the position itself? Fast forward seven years?

It's a great, great, great question and something that I think about all the time. So I think the first thing is the importance of vision and mission. And sometimes I use those words interchangeably, and sometimes I use them separately, right vision being, what is the company doing to improve its world or the world and mission being how it's going to do it? I see Oh, you think about that. And maybe you've lived that. You're not really responsible for it. And I think in my first two years of CEO going, I kind of was in denial about how important that was. There were a couple big influences in my life. It was an informed denial, but I think it was still wrong. Which is there's a great Lou Gerstner book about the time he took over IBM called who says elephants can't dance. And when Gerstner took over IBM, he said, the first thing he said was the last thing this company needed was a new vision. Which is really ironic because he basically changed the entire vision of IBM. So I don't know why he said that. But at the time, I was kind of like, oh, like, I'm gonna be like, Lou Gerstner. Like this company doesn't need a vision. I also met I think the CEO, maybe if eBay in the time. And I asked him what his corporate vision was. And he was like, oh, like everybody tells you you need one of those. And you don't. Both of those things are totally wrong. Like, especially in a market where you're competing for talent with places like Google and Facebook and the big investment banks, and you're competing for customers with folks like Adobe and Google. You need to be able to tell both your employees, your customers and yourself why what you're doing is important. And I think that it took me two years, I think the first year in denial that that was important. The second year, kind of fumbling around and trying to figure out what ours was going to be, before I actually started to really nail it. And now it seems so obvious in retrospect, that that was should have been one of the first things I worked on. Because if you have a good vision, everything kind of falls into place. And actually, the thing that I like to use is in Jim Collins, his book, Good to Great, he talks about this thing called the hedgehog concept, which is, you know, what is the single thing that you're the best in the world at, that moves your economic engine, and that fires up your employees and makes everyone want to come to work. And if you can find something that sits at the single point of those three, you're going to be okay. And I think that if I was gonna give advice to anybody in their first 90 days of being a CEO, like read that chapter, and start looking for that thing, because it usually exists already at the company, it usually just needs to be kind of dusted off and cleaned up and shaped up.

So I was speaking to somebody recently who was struggling with their CEO. And as part of the conversation, we realised that the CEO didn't have a job. And so was meddling with everybody else's jobs, because they had recently hired in a leadership team. And now a lot of the like, operational stuff they were doing, they weren't doing anymore. And so then they didn't know what their job was. When you transition from CEO to CEO, did you struggle with figuring out what your job was? Now?

I actually think it was much harder to define my role as CEO. Oh, to be honest, because I think I vacillated between being kind of the sales, marketing and finance leader, with the title of COO, and second in command on everything. One of the things that I think changed over time was kind of going back and forth. I think that was harder, I think, as CEO, you know, I was a camp counsellor. It was like my first job. I was a summer camp counsellor for teenagers. In my summers during college, very, very American job, right? You go up and live in the woods for two months with a bunch of 13 year old, 14 year old 15 year old teenagers, you know, you teach them baseball and build a fire and stuff like that. And then when I was in college, I ran the freshman orientation programme. So at my university, I was responsible for with a good friend of mine, we did it together, we were responsible for the basically the experience of the first week of every first year students college experience. And I think that a lot of what I did very, very quickly, was kind of take the things that I learned there and brought them to the CEO role. So I think of myself mostly as a very, very, very involved coach. You know, almost like for our British audiences, like a European clap, because I'm a Liverpool fan for, you know, American audiences, you know, like a Bill Parcells, because I'm a New York Giants fan, right. And one of the things about my job, it's really interesting is that everybody who I've hired is much better at their job than I am, right, whether you're, you know, relatively junior person in sales, or you're our staff engineer, like, you're better at your job than I am. So all I can do is coach, all I can do is kind of coach and coaching can be both big picture coaching, like, hey, like, this is where we're trying to get to, and I need you to think about how to get us there. Or it can be very, very tactical coaching, like you're doing this wrong. And I know why you're doing this wrong. And let me help you because I did this 20 years ago. And that's the kind of role I play. So a lot of my CEO wing is, there's a great Andy Grove quote, right, which is, you know, the one on one is the one hour a week that you can affect somebody's other six days, really, really structured, thoughtful one on ones with all of my leaders, I lead the all hands every week, we have a company all hands every week, I still lead it, because I feel like that's a chance to coach the whole company and cheerlead the whole company. You know, I run our board relationships, because I feel like actually engaging with the board understanding what they want, you know, they're like the owner, right? They're like the, in the Liverpool example. They're like John Henry, in the giant example. They're like, the Mara family, right? They ultimately, it's their money. So you know, I really, really feel like that's the analogy for me. And I feel like, sometimes actually, meddling is actually really healthy. I think the part that can be really challenging is that your employees have to know why you're meddling. Because I think people can be like, wait a second, like, I'm the CRO like, why are you like, calling us a client? Right. And I think it's really important for the CEO to communicate clearly to, in this case, the CRO and be like, I am calling this client because I know him really well. Or I'm sorry, she won't tell you the truth, because you're trying to sell her something. And she'll tell me the truth, because I'm the CEO, or whatever. And I think that's where things break down. So I would encourage that colleague of yours, like, Actually, everyone just asked the CEO, like, what are you trying to achieve here? Like, what is the purpose of what you're trying to do? And if they don't know like, that's a problem. You know, like, I think a lot of CEOs Like just kind of winging it. And I think being intentional is really, really important. And to the fact that the CEO can help the CEO be more intentional, I think that can be actually a great role for the CEO to play. So

I guess, a different thought occurs to me, this has made me a little more personally relevant in some ways. But when do you think a CEO is ready to take the mantle of being a CEO? Like, what's a primetime CL, it's ready to take the seat as a CEO, in this case,

many ce o 's are already ready and just don't realise it. Because the jobs are so different, that if you're qualified to be a CEO, you may also be qualified to be a CEO, especially in the size of the companies and we're not talking about Disney, right? You know, we're talking about Chartbeat, right, which is, you know, tuned for the person company. So, I think the scorecard is different. If you're building a, like an interview sheet, the interview sheet is different. But the things that you need, you know, executive presence, communication skills, the ability to both manage the board and manage the employees, I think those are things that are probably the most important, right? Like you have to be able to speak the language of a board member, whether that's a private equity person, a venture capitalist, or an independent board member. And you have to be able to speak compellingly to an employee straight out of high school or college. That's something that I would look for in a CFO or a CEO. I think it's the framing is different. A CEO was trying to operationalize, right, they're trying to get incremental improvement out of the team. Whereas the CEO is trying to affect step change, right? By either allocating capital or setting an inspiring direction. And I think people can flex to do one or the other. It's just kind of like, can you hit that framing, and really, really nail it. So I don't think it's necessarily about skills. It's more about, you know, mindset and a willingness to be flexible in your in your mindset, and

take on the ultimate accountability, the buck stops with you. That took me a long time to be willing to even consider that. I knew I did not have the emotional reserves for it for a long time, but feel like I've figured out how to do that. Now. That's

very self aware. I think a lot of folks, I think a lot of folks when they're chasing the brass ring are not that self aware. And I think that's a very self aware point.

So John, I'd love to carry on talking. But unfortunately, we're rapidly running out of time already. Our final question is, if our listeners can only take one thing away from our conversation, or from the podcast today, what is that one thing,

I would not have said this before we started down this path. But I would say that the taking good care of yourself point I think is the most important point, no matter what job you're in, you can only do your best work, when you are taking good care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. And I think that for a lot of us who are CEOs who want to make the transition, right, actually staying calm, staying focused, and being able to think clearly is really, really what makes all of us successful. And I think in order to do that, you got to take good care of yourself. When I think back on all of the transitions that I've made, I've been like fired like three times, right? Or four times, right. And if you told me in high school that I would be fired four times, I'd be like, Oh, but just being able to rebound and make the transitions requires a clear head and physical and mental and emotional. And make sure you take time for yourself, make sure you're taking the time taking good care of yourself, and keep going right. And I think the other thing, just rounded out is Brandon's point earlier, it only takes one yes. Right. So if you're really, really, really set on being a CEO, and you want to make that transition, it only takes one yes, it may be the company that you're at now, it may be a company that you've looked at, or maybe an investor, you know, or something like that. But I think that, you know, that's the other point, which is like, you're not stuck, right? You just haven't had the right opportunity yet.

I was reading a book called you're a badass at making money, something like that. I can't remember it. Like there's a woman who's done this badass series. So like, just you're a badass in general than making money and some other things. And she had very similar point of like, know where you want to go, don't inhibit yourself and tell yourself, you can't do it, and then just go for it. Put in all the energy talk to everybody that you know, and you'll get there in the end. And then she has all these case studies for it. And there you have with your MVC story like the example. We actually have an episode coming up, I think, I can't remember the the schedule right now, where we're talking about embodied leadership and emotional literacy. And I just was wondering if we could carry on from what you've just said around resourcing yourself and being emotionally available. What have you done, to be able to become that person versus the incredibly depressed, corporate lawyer.

You know, a lot of talk therapy, really good care, and then also things like really, really working on your listening skills. There are great active listening courses that you can take. I mean, I think I probably took my first one in college and active listening is a thing. It's a discipline that can be learned. And I think that's one of them. It can be so tempting to have an opinion on everything. And I think just reminding yourself that you have your feelings, your feelings are real. But your opinions or just your opinions, everyone's rushing to say like, oh, you know, this person's an idiot because they did that this person is an idiot doing that, right? And just saying, like, it occurs to me that that's not a great decision is a world of difference. And I think those are the things that I think I do, right, what number one, taking care of myself holistically. And then number two, reminding myself that I'm just a person with feelings and opinions. Everybody my company's same and all my customers are the same.

Love them. So that's a wonderful way to wrap us up. So thank you, John, Sarah, for joining us on the operations room. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe or leave us a comment and we will see you next week.