Leadership Passage: COO to CEO

I think we can move on to discussing leadership. I’m interested to discuss how you transitioned from operations director, COO and now CEO. What were the big challenges you faced?

Early in your career, you sit there and you think, being at the front line and doing everything is the most important thing. If I think about operations, making sure I’m on the phone, making sure I’m out in the field. Doing the granular work and showing I’m the hardest worker there and being an example to the team. That was my first mindset. None of you guys are going to be a harder worker than me. Over a period of time, you start becoming a manager and you start becoming a director and you think, actually, the more I do that, the less I can start thinking about where we are actually going here.

I think the first transition, for me, was what metrics are the most important metrics, outside of the company metrics? Again, if I think of Just Eat, you just sit there and say, order volumes, restaurants online. Those were the two key KPIs. Every single day, we’re getting a lot of orders; it’s growing every single day. We’re getting more and more restaurants. Then you start thinking, what about consumer feedback? What about Trust Pilot? What about NPS? What about churn rates, repeat rates? So you transition then, to become the figurehead, to say these are our five key numbers, three key goals and do it interdepartmental, which feeds into the company metrics. That, for me, was the first piece and moving away from the day to day, to leading the team in a different way.

On top of all the business metrics stuff, there was also the people. I’ve always had a very strong bond with team, at every single level. But you then had to move to a people manager, which wasn’t just, ‘’come on, it’s all going to be okay; it’s going to be fine’’. It’s being upfront. You want to grow in this organization; you want to be X, Y and Z. This is how we do it. But I think the transition from operations director, to COO, it wasn’t that hard. There were just different challenges.

I think from COO to CEO, there was a massive jump. You then move from the face of the company and then you are responsible for where the company is going, the strategy, the figurehead. I actually remember a funny story. When I first came as CEO, I had all these media companies and all of our advisors saying X, Y and Z and a lot of my stuff, at the beginning, was scripted. It took me one week to rip it all up. I said, I’m not a scripted guy. The problem I had with scripts are, one, for me, it’s less genuine. Secondly, whenever I’m in an interview, I’m thinking about the script and it’s less organic. The first thing I did, at the beginning, was rip it all up and said, I’m not going to follow a script. There’s key themes, but here’s how we’re going to do it.

That transition and having the courage to do it. I think, from COO to CEO, it’s a big jump. Then you are also pleasing different audiences. Of course, you are the figurehead of the company. The whole company relies on you, your morale, where you’re going to go. There’s a natural pressure there. Then you’ve got your existing board and your investors, which you’ve got to keep in the loop and ensure that you manage that correctly. Then you’ve got potential new investors coming and how that all works. It’s all these different audiences and, I think, that jump was probably the steepest, in all that I’ve done.