0:06

Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the finite podcast.

0:09

This episode is set to lift the veil

0:11

on marketing leadership as we're here

0:13

firsthand, what it's like to be a CMO for

0:15

the first time. So if you're looking to be a

0:17

CMO in the future, if you want to be able to know

0:19

a little bit more about what your own CMO might be thinking

0:22

or the challenges they may be facing, or if you are already

0:24

a CMO, want to see if your experiences are

0:26

universal. Keep listening to hear

0:28

Tom fur CMO at legal technology

0:31

company disco. Tell us the five things you

0:33

should know before becoming a chief marketing

0:35

officer. I hope you enjoy before

0:38

we continue with the episode, I'd like to go a quick shout

0:41

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to learn why doing effective AB at scale

1:01

means better marketing. Hello,

1:05

Tom. Welcome to the final podcast.

1:07

Hello mate. How are you ?

1:08

I very well happy to be talking . It's

1:11

been a , since we've had a career focused

1:15

the podcast and I'm

1:18

forward this one , we , before you

1:22

are prepared to share some nice

1:24

open insights into the journey to the

1:26

CMO role, which I'm looking forward to hearing . So

1:30

before we get there , I will let

1:32

you tell bit about your background and

1:35

experience up until this and little bit about your , your

1:37

current role and team as well .

1:38

Yeah , yeah , sure . I currently

1:41

the CMO of a company

1:43

called CS disco, which is a technology company based

1:45

in the us and we provide legal technology

1:47

to help strengthen the rule of law . I've

1:50

been in this role , which is my first CMO

1:53

role , um, for about

1:55

just over two months, it's still super, super

1:58

new . Before that I was a Mongo

2:00

DB where I was VP of brand

2:02

content and creative during that

2:04

time there we, we rebranded and,

2:07

and repositioned MongoDB , which was amazing

2:09

fun. We learned a lot there before

2:11

that I was a company called Vage

2:14

, which for any American

2:16

listeners or recognized the name

2:18

probably is the company that powered

2:20

their grandmas telephone.

2:23

And that was a really fascinating opportunity

2:25

in that they wanted to pivot to becoming

2:27

a SaaS business and they sort

2:30

of brought up all these different brands for

2:33

the technology and really

2:35

the brand job there was. How do we , uh,

2:37

reposition and reintroduce a

2:40

really well known brand to , to a

2:42

completely new audience for a completely , uh,

2:44

different thing . So we , we , we sunset a bunch

2:46

of brands and we did a whole repositioning

2:49

exercise and a big, big brand campaign

2:51

there. And then before that I ran an

2:53

advertising agency. And , uh, before that

2:56

I dropped outta school when I was 16, which is

2:58

always a funny Tibit

3:00

to, I should say, I now live in America.

3:02

It's , it's always an interesting part of the story to

3:05

tell Americans, given how much

3:07

importance is placed on education

3:09

here. And , uh, it's always funny their faces

3:12

when they're talking about UTS and NYUs

3:14

and all these acronyms to sort of

3:16

tell them that I don't actually have much of an education.

3:19

I think that's great though. I mean, I think we've had

3:21

everything from, well, I

3:23

say zero education, no university degree through to

3:26

a nuclear physicist on the podcast in

3:28

, in terms of CMOs with different educational

3:31

backgrounds. But I think that's the beauty of marketing in

3:33

the industry . I think there's so many different people's

3:35

coming at it from, from different perspectives. You

3:38

think that's more of a thing in the us ? I mean, I think it's

3:40

only maybe the UK where, cause I have a lot of French

3:42

and European friends who

3:44

massively value, you know, it's almost

3:46

unusual if you don't do like three masters after

3:49

you've done your first degree in

3:51

France and I guess us is similar. Do you think it's

3:53

a big focus when you are talking to people about careers

3:55

in the us ? Yeah.

3:56

I just think in general it's a massive part

3:58

of the identity in the us . It always

4:01

kind of comes up in conversation. You know,

4:03

when you observe a couple of people meeting for the first

4:05

time, the first question will be like, you know , where you from? And

4:08

the second question will be like, what school did you go to ? And

4:10

, um, certainly when I was interviewing for CMO

4:12

roles, that was something that I

4:15

had to talk about is , you know , how do you deal with the

4:17

question of no degree or , or not going

4:19

to college? And look, I think what's important

4:21

is energy and ambition

4:24

and being humble. And I think that

4:26

if, whether you go to school or not, if you can

4:28

apply those three things to your career, you're,

4:31

you are gonna be successful. And , um,

4:34

I certainly look at it as the

4:36

fact, I didn't go to college meant I

4:38

probably had 6, 7, 8 years

4:40

more work experience and

4:43

hands on learning how to do the job versus

4:46

some of my peers that were , were leaving education

4:49

and then looking for their entry level role. I was

4:51

a VP at 26 years old

4:53

and I would not have been able to achieve that

4:55

if I had spent time at at

4:57

university. So I don't think there's

5:00

a , a wrong or right way of doing it. I

5:02

think what's more important is how you approach your

5:05

career and , and how you channel your

5:08

ambition.

5:08

Absolutely good advice. Before

5:10

we dive into the journey then to the , the CMO

5:13

role , tell us a bit about , at least the current marketing

5:16

org structure at CS disco , you

5:18

you're only two months in , so I'm not sure how

5:20

much change you've made, if any, yet, maybe we'll talk a bit about

5:22

that, but yeah. How , how does marketing look as a , as

5:25

a function in the team right now?

5:26

Yeah, it kinda depends when this podcast goes out

5:28

, whether or the changes happen . So

5:31

yeah , I run marketing globally. I have field

5:33

marketing , content, marketing, marketing, operations,

5:36

demand , generation, and core coms and brand into

5:39

me . And really it's it's

5:41

today. It's about two months in it's

5:43

about, you know, what are we gonna go and drive as a

5:45

team? And then how do we then apply

5:47

the resources, whether that's people or

5:50

dollars to driving those results.

5:53

And I think something we'll talk a little bit about

5:55

later is always starting with

5:57

those objectives is really, really difficult to

5:59

do, especially when there's loads of great activity

6:01

that's happening already. And I think that

6:03

that's where I'm currently at is kind thinking

6:06

less about people and resources

6:09

and more about what are we go and drive as an org .

6:11

Makes sense . The first question feels like

6:13

a big question, but a nice

6:16

scene setter , which is why

6:18

were you hired a CMO?

6:20

Yeah, I , I , I , uh, have

6:23

absolutely no idea . <laugh> look

6:26

, I think where I've benefited is

6:28

that the concept of

6:30

awareness or brand awareness

6:33

is really becoming more and more popular in

6:35

B2B marketing today . You

6:37

know, I think I'm, I'm kind of at the stage in

6:40

my career that perhaps if you were an

6:42

expert in digital marketing 15 years ago,

6:44

you would've benefited in the same way, which

6:46

is more and more brands are realizing

6:48

that if people don't know what you

6:51

do or who you are direct

6:53

response or performance marketing and

6:55

your sales team has to work so much harder

6:58

than if you have a presence already

7:00

within the market. And there's a guy,

7:02

I think he's head of brand at Salesforce

7:04

, uh, Colin Fleming. He had

7:06

this quote, which was that

7:08

in B2B two thirds of the

7:10

time when a business decision maker purchase

7:13

software, they already have a brand in mind

7:15

and 94% of the time the

7:18

buyer ends up sticking with that brand. So if you're not part

7:20

of the original consideration set, there's no way you're getting for

7:22

. So when people think of

7:24

what we sell, we , they must think of us. And I

7:26

think my experience is,

7:29

is effective at , at driving that and

7:32

augmenting the kind of performance marketing

7:34

piece. And the other thing I will just add on Colin

7:36

Fleming is I was introduced to Colin and I

7:38

emailed him to set up an intro conversation and

7:41

he never responded to me. Um , so

7:43

maybe with me building my brand

7:45

on this podcast, Colin will be happy

7:48

to have a five minute chat with me . Cause I think he's a legend.

7:50

You're leaving us with no choice, but to tag Colin

7:52

Fleming on LinkedIn when , uh, when this goes out, but

7:55

we'll do what we can . So yeah , you talked about

7:57

that , that brand background working

8:00

to your advantage . I mean , how much , and

8:02

, and you gave the comparison maybe 15

8:04

years ago , more digital , digital marketing

8:07

focus had

8:09

an Advantage's

8:12

there's a needed , right . But how much in

8:15

your journey to the next role there

8:19

, there on the brand versus the performance

8:22

side of things. And did you still have to assume,

8:25

you know , demonstrate a , a certain level of

8:27

knowledge and experience on the more

8:29

performance, digital side of things as well?

8:31

Yeah, it , it was really ironic in the end

8:34

because the , I think the thing that gave me most anxiety

8:36

about my career over the last 15 years

8:39

has been the brand tag that

8:41

I was given . And I think for anyone

8:44

listening to this , and you're not a

8:46

CMO, you are likely to be a

8:48

functional expert and that tag is gonna follow

8:51

you around . But for me brand was never really

8:53

put on the same level as demand

8:56

generation or field or, or whatever.

8:59

So I used to really think about how

9:01

do I basically channel my

9:03

experience to prove that I can do other

9:06

things, you know, there's elements

9:08

of product marketing within brand, the way we

9:10

buy media, the way we build ads,

9:12

the way we measure on

9:14

brand campaigns is the same as what you do within

9:16

demand generation. So I'd kind of use that as

9:18

a Proofpoint for demand generation. And

9:21

it wasn't until I spoke

9:23

to a very lovely man, Anthony, who used

9:25

to be a CMO at , at gain site . And

9:28

he said that really, you know, your

9:30

unicorn there's, there's lots

9:32

and lots of people that have had demand

9:34

experience, product, marketing, experience, field

9:36

experience, and actually

9:39

what you should do is focus on what makes you different

9:41

and amplify that. And that's ironic

9:44

because that's what we have to do in marketing is

9:46

focus on what makes us different, not just try

9:48

to blend into everybody else. And

9:50

that's what I was doing. So when actually

9:52

I started to lean into what made

9:55

me different and actively say, if

9:57

you are looking for a, a CMO

9:59

who is an expert in demand generation, I am not your

10:01

person. Sure. There was lots of companies that

10:03

said, you know, we're not really interested in that, but

10:05

there was lots that were so really kind of

10:07

owning that brand piece was really, really

10:10

important. And I was actually trying to a friend of

10:12

mine the other week, who's looking for a CMO

10:14

role and he was becoming despondent because

10:16

lots of companies are looking for product led

10:19

growth. He's like, I dunno anything about product led growth.

10:21

And my advice to him was reject

10:23

those opportunities and

10:25

proudly do it, you know, do it in a way that

10:28

lifts up what you are actually really good at. And

10:30

sure there's gonna be lots of companies that don't wanna chat to

10:32

you , but , but really you'll end up with the one that

10:34

really values you.

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11:06

, to find out more. I

11:08

saw the press release of you joining disco

11:10

. I gather your reporting to chief

11:12

revenue officer . You know , I guess whichever

11:15

way we look at it market as a held

11:18

to account by, by numbers in some form,

11:20

I guess the decision to go

11:22

with the CMO that's been more brand focused

11:25

is one that reflects on the outlook

11:27

of the leadership team within the business,

11:30

right? In terms of how they view marketing and

11:32

maybe that's unusual in itself to some extent , or do you

11:34

think there's a , there is a bit of a shift, as you mentioned

11:36

that now people recognize the importance

11:38

of, of brand cause again, not , not

11:41

to , um, at risk of putting a , a chief revenue officer

11:43

in a , in a stereotypical bucket, but

11:46

you might assume sometimes that they're more interested in

11:49

short term demand gen and fill the pipeline with leads

11:51

and actually sometimes less willing to

11:53

invest long time in brand .

11:55

Yeah, I think it's a great point. And I think, you

11:57

know , Andrew here , the , the , the CRO

12:00

is definitely a visionary and you can

12:02

definitely use that as a tag in post on

12:04

this podcast goes out as well . My next one on one will

12:06

be very , uh, uh, very

12:09

, uh, the tone of that will be very good . Look

12:12

, yeah, you need to earn the right to do the long

12:14

term stuff. For sure. You need to be able to demonstrate that

12:17

marketing is having a shorter term impact , but

12:19

ultimately, you know, whilst leads

12:21

is something that a sales organization cares about.

12:23

The other thing that they're painfully aware of is that

12:25

if your SDRs are, or sales, people are

12:27

going into meetings and no one knows who you are , you've

12:30

got a much harder job to do . So I think

12:32

that the, the organizations that will be

12:34

successful in the future will be

12:36

the ones that are able to balance the two. Then

12:38

the other thing I'll add to that is the reality is

12:41

that performance marketing is kind of commodified right

12:43

now. You know, everyone has the same

12:46

tech stack, you know, lead scoring is

12:48

not something that only a couple of companies

12:50

are doing. Everyone's optimizing,

12:52

you know, with an inch of their lives they're LinkedIn

12:54

ad spend. So actually

12:56

brand becomes much more important in

12:58

terms of how you drive that, that short

13:01

term stuff . And it's a both question. You

13:03

know, we saw when we were at advantage , we saw some

13:05

examples of when people saw a brand ad

13:07

and they saw a demand ad 10 X

13:09

conversion rates versus if they just

13:11

saw one or the other. And I think that

13:14

the great CROs, which Andrew is one

13:16

, understand that and, and give space for

13:18

that.

13:18

So you've been in the role a couple of months. What

13:21

did you think being

13:23

a CMO would be like? And what's

13:25

the experience been so far?

13:26

Yeah, I , I'm not really sure. I knew what,

13:29

or I had an idea of what a CMO would be like. I've

13:32

seen a lot of really, really great leaders

13:34

and I've seen a lot of really, really

13:36

horrendous ones. And

13:38

my strategy was to really think logically

13:41

about what are the elements of the great leaders

13:43

I've seen and what are the ones I

13:45

definitely don't wanna exhibit. So in

13:47

terms of how to be a CMO or,

13:50

or what it was gonna be like when it was starting, I always

13:52

knew that that those were the two , two things

13:54

I wanted to try and do the reality.

13:56

I think the , the biggest change is , is

13:59

that, you know, you're often at a senior leadership

14:01

level, you are the only marketer in the room and

14:04

you represent an entire function versus

14:06

just being a part of it. The majority of

14:08

conversations I have, aren't marketing conversations,

14:11

and often I'm not there to give

14:13

a marketing point of view. I'm there to give a business

14:15

leader point of view. And I think that's been the

14:17

biggest growth area for me. And

14:20

one, I would very much encourage people looking

14:22

for CMO roles to really think

14:24

about, which is you, aren't a marketing

14:27

leader, you are a business leader and you need to have an

14:29

opinion on the business. And I think one

14:31

of the fortuitous things about my career

14:33

is I've been very close to senior leadership

14:35

teams where I've been able to try and hone

14:38

my opinions and, and really learn

14:40

from the leaders on how they approach that

14:42

bit. And I think that really the

14:45

, the , the , the , the reality has been,

14:47

it's not enough to just be great at

14:49

marketing need to be able to be contributing

14:52

a business level as

14:53

Well . How much of that do you think is hard skill ? I remember

14:55

we had a CMO on the podcast and

14:58

they talked about doing a think , some kind accounting

15:00

course or something just to bring their

15:03

finance up to so they could have that

15:05

, that CFO discussion in , in the right way

15:07

. Were there any gaps that you felt like you had to

15:09

fill there ?

15:10

Yeah. For , oh , for sure. There's insane

15:12

amount of gaps. You know , one of the things is I'm dyslexic,

15:14

so I struggle with the numbers piece,

15:17

but I'm brave enough to

15:19

admit that to myself and, you

15:21

know, Carson who's, our finance partner is

15:23

in every single meeting with me and I lift

15:25

him up and I'm very open

15:27

with the fact that I'm gonna need probably

15:30

longer than most to really get my head

15:32

around these numbers. I think the , the , the side

15:34

of that is I , what I've become really good at

15:36

is distilling down problems to a very simple

15:39

form , not through necessarily

15:41

a , a strategic endeavor, but one

15:43

that I can understand it as clearly as possible.

15:45

And I think that everyone has these

15:47

gaps. It doesn't matter how senior you are admitting

15:50

to yourself and others, that these

15:52

are your gaps and, and asking for help

15:54

where you need help is the

15:56

most important thing . You know, the leaders that I've

15:58

seen fail are the ones that they know,

16:01

they D know everything , but they want everyone

16:03

to , they do . And that's the quickest way

16:05

lose trust . I , and get yourself fired.

16:08

When we first talked , we talked a little bit about imposter

16:11

syndrome, something that I've definitely experienced at

16:13

times. I know you've, you've kinda alluded to the same.

16:16

How have you dealt with it ?

16:17

Yeah. This hit me like a ton of bricks, you

16:19

know, and wasn't even sure I thought imposter syndrome was

16:21

real. I've worked with people who shared

16:23

that. They felt that. And when I started in

16:25

the CMO role, you know , I

16:27

, uh, I turn up to the office and they

16:30

show me my office and my office is bigger

16:32

than my, my living room in my

16:34

apartment. And I sort of sat

16:36

there and looked at the , all the different monitors

16:39

that were here and , and

16:41

sort of looked around the room and , and was

16:43

completely ready for Andrew's to

16:45

come in, knock on the door and drag me out and say , we've

16:47

made a terrible mistake. I'm also

16:51

34 years old , which means I'm

16:53

often the youngest person in

16:55

every single room, whether that's my

16:57

peers or my team. And

17:00

I, I really found, I

17:02

was anxious about the job

17:05

and was really worried. I'd bought bit

17:07

off , more than I could chew. And it manifested

17:09

itself in that I really struggled to make

17:12

decisions. I really struggle to think

17:14

clearly and things that, you

17:16

know, around brand that when I was a functional

17:18

leader, I would be a thousand percent sure of I

17:21

was now having real doubt creep

17:23

in. And I think that the thing

17:25

that really helped me deal with that, and

17:27

I'm still dealing with it today is speaking

17:30

to my network, you know , really leaning

17:32

on them to play ideas back and

17:34

using that to build confidence. I'm

17:37

looking at imposter syndrome as essentially

17:39

a bit of a journey to getting back to

17:41

how confident I used to be. And again,

17:43

talking about it, you know, I was sitting

17:45

on the subway going home and really

17:47

sort of playing things over in my head, but

17:50

once I actually admitted it, and I've told my

17:52

team, I've told this , the SLT, that

17:55

I'm ha I'm going through this right now, the support

17:57

network that Springs up, but also the

17:59

ease of knowing that it's not a secret that you're

18:01

just holding onto yourself has

18:03

really been helpful.

18:05

You mentioned big decisions there and how that

18:07

can be a bit of a paralysis for making big decisions.

18:10

And I know making big calls is part

18:12

of the job as , as you said, as you get into leadership

18:14

territory, and I've seen all kinds of frameworks over the years of

18:17

kind of how to make decisions, you know , four by

18:19

four grids known unknowns, unknown, unknowns,

18:21

all those kind of things , how you approaching it

18:24

now. Cause imagine we'll talk a bit about change

18:26

because often that's, it comes with the territory when

18:28

you Seemo, but I imagine you've got some big decisions

18:30

to make.

18:31

Yeah, sure. I , I think less about

18:33

the sort of frameworks of how to make those

18:36

decisions and more about the people side. So

18:38

as I mentioned, consulting your network, I think people

18:40

don't do enough . I think that's

18:42

a really important one and everyone's

18:45

kind of can look back over the , their previous companies

18:47

and think about people that are better at

18:50

you than the thing you've gotta make a decision on. So

18:52

I think consulting your network is really important.

18:54

I think the thing I learned at MongoDB was

18:57

seek out contrarian opinions. That's

18:59

really, really important. You know, I can be completely

19:01

sure of something and have all the confidence in the world,

19:03

but I need to make sure I am actually hearing

19:06

other perspectives and I don't just

19:08

shut them down because they're different to mine. I

19:10

really, really look at, do they

19:12

have a point? What if I'm wrong? What if they are right?

19:14

And then finally, I think owning it, that's

19:17

the other, the other piece, you know, I've seen leaders come

19:19

into a business and they, they wait six

19:21

months and they haven't changed anything. And

19:23

it's almost that they're scared to, to , to make

19:25

big decisions. And I think that the

19:28

irony is, is that even in pushing out

19:30

a decision, you're still deciding to do that. You're

19:33

still actually making a decision. So I think owning

19:35

it, and if you can be humble and take your

19:37

ego out of those big decisions, then

19:39

I think that's what sets people up for success. And

19:42

I think in terms of what decisions you actually have to go

19:44

and make, that's gonna be different to , to , to

19:47

every sort of situation and , and example of business.

19:49

Let's talk about that because I guess it's

19:52

no secret that when a new CMOs on the scene often

19:54

that comes with change, maybe there's a , an

19:57

unfair stereotype of new CMO comes in and almost kind

19:59

has to things , change things . Do

20:02

you think that's the case ?

20:02

I don't think it's the case that you have to , but

20:04

I agree it's , you know , every single person

20:07

that's been a marketing leader has experienced

20:10

new CMO coming in. And

20:12

the thing you think is amazing,

20:14

the thing you think is gonna add massive value

20:16

to the business is paused. And

20:19

you cannot understand why the CMO did that.

20:21

And if you were them, you would not do that.

20:23

And you would approach you in a different way. But

20:25

I think there's a couple of things that are important here

20:27

is, is you should stop or

20:30

pause things that require a lot of lift

20:32

or investment from the team you should

20:34

do that. Not cause you believe what they're

20:36

doing is wrong, but you need

20:38

one, the flexibility to be able to

20:40

go and drive the things that you need to go and drive. And

20:43

two, you need time to get your head around things. You

20:45

know, if you join a company and they're halfway through a

20:47

website project and they're ready to press go

20:49

on that, there's nothing wrong with saying, let's

20:52

go slow to go fast pushing that thing out.

20:54

But I think what's important is that you

20:56

have to remember, you have zero context outside

20:58

of what you learn in your interview. And I think

21:00

that, you know, everyone's also experienced leaders

21:03

that come in and call everyone idiots. And

21:05

then finally, six months later, they're

21:08

, they're , they're on board with the project

21:10

or the , the , the , the initiative that

21:12

people were driving because they now understand the

21:14

challenges and the history. And what they've done is,

21:16

is burn this sort of trust within their team. So

21:20

I think that ultimately it's really

21:22

about bringing your team along with you,

21:24

regardless of whether you pause something

21:26

or regardless of whether you continue things to move

21:28

forward.

21:28

And have you approached the , the people side of

21:30

things so far, obviously new team, new

21:33

environment, they've got a new leader within the marketing function,

21:35

I guess. How do you yeah. How do you take them on that journey

21:37

of, of change without annoying them too

21:39

much? Yeah,

21:40

For sure. And I mean , I'm lucky because I've got an

21:42

amazing team , um, here at disco, but

21:45

I think really what you've gotta do is make a deal and

21:48

the deal is, is that I'm gonna respect

21:50

you. I'm gonna give you the opportunity

21:53

to show me what you can do. I'm gonna

21:55

give you the opportunity to get on board with some

21:57

decisions and directions that you might not like I'm

22:00

gonna give you the opportunity to contribute towards

22:02

those things. And in return I ask is

22:04

that you give me the benefit of the

22:06

doubt as a new leader. I'm going to need my

22:08

time to get my , my head around things. And

22:11

it's my right to, to ultimately have

22:13

a sale of what we do and make tough decisions.

22:16

And I think that the people who can can

22:19

get on board with that deal are the ones

22:21

that have a chance to be successful. And

22:23

I think that leaders that are able to

22:27

separate their teams' identity with

22:29

the work make difficult decisions

22:31

, but still leave your team think respecting

22:34

you and

22:47

Of your, your reflections on the last couple

22:49

of months, but, you know , what's the starting

22:51

point. Like where do you, where do you focus? It sounds

22:53

like you've got some, some strong principles you've

22:55

just talked about there. And you , you can be very, very

22:58

clear with your team about expectations

23:00

and the opportunity and be quite direct

23:02

about those things. But yeah, it'd be interesting to hear where

23:04

you'd recommend the best starting point to be

23:06

.

23:07

Yeah. And , and this was something I learned really

23:09

quickly was, you know, when I , when I was at MongoDB,

23:12

Peter Yolanda , uh, joined a CMO

23:14

and I really admired the

23:16

way he went about taking

23:18

on that role and inheriting the team and the

23:20

decisions he made. You know, I went through

23:23

that process of him making decisions that

23:25

I didn't like, or I didn't agree with. Um

23:27

, but I really tried to get on board . And

23:29

when I left MongoDB, I

23:31

felt like I could replicate what Peter did at

23:34

MongoDB and I'd be successful immediately.

23:36

And what I learned was that, that this

23:38

idea that principles endure and formulas

23:41

don't, and there were some few

23:43

moments at the start where I

23:45

tried to do just the things I saw

23:47

Peter do, cuz they were wildly successful. And

23:49

I really respected the, the decisions he

23:51

made. You know, one of the things is that at

23:54

MongoDB, they write memos, they don't

23:56

use Google slides and that was something

23:58

immediately I wanted to, to , to roll out.

24:00

And the cultures here , here is different.

24:02

The situation is different, the characters

24:04

are different, the problems are different. So

24:06

I had to take a step back and think about what were

24:09

the , the principles in what Peter did versus

24:11

just blindly sort of trying to recreate

24:14

what I saw him do. So I think starting

24:16

with the people was really important as I've said, and

24:18

then getting into the objectives always

24:20

comes back down to what outcome are

24:22

we trying to drive ? And alongside that

24:25

the hardest lift was building

24:27

peers across the business, doing over . I

24:29

think I've done over one on ones in the first

24:32

two months . And that's been

24:34

incredibly valuable as again , I have no

24:36

context . I don't understand the business . Don't understand

24:38

the market . People's help .

24:40

Great advice . We have a into

24:44

little bit longer or a little bit over, but actually I

24:46

think every second was worth it. So I

24:48

feel like we could probably keep talking for another couple of hours,

24:50

but unfortunately we don't have the time, but

24:53

that's been awesome. Tom , thank you for sharing everything so openly.

24:55

I think you've , uh, set a benchmark for openly

24:57

sharing some of the, the challenges and uh

25:00

, the difficulties that come with the journey, but

25:02

um , excited to see where you take everything. Thanks

25:04

again. Thank

25:05

You very much, mate.

25:07

Thanks for listening. Before we go. Just one

25:09

final shout out to our finite partner, 93

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