Raising The Bar on Leadership

Cultivating a gifting strategy that builds bridges between organizations and their customers is hard, and is what inspired Jonathan Legge to start &Open. In today’s episode, Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Legge talks about how they bootstrapped their company and grew it purposely and organically by hiring slowly, hyperfocusing on their numbers, and staying true to their values and mission.

In this episode, PJ Bouten, Co-Founder and CEO of Showpad, recognized a need to empower sales and marketing teams to deliver a better buyer experience. Since 2011, PJ has helped build a global company with more than 1,000 customers in 50 countries and grew the organization to 350 team members. But when the pandemic hit, he was faced with difficult decisions in order to save the company as a whole. PJ talks about the importance of finding a great co-founder, investing in your managers, and treating your people with compassion and empathy.

Tim Schumm, the founder and president of Lucas James Talent Partners, started and grew the organization to a team of 32 people in just 20 months– then COVID hit. Tim shares the step by step process he took to lead his team through this crisis, what it takes to build a culture of feedback, and the daily practices he follows to make sure he shows up at his best for his team and his family. 

In this episode, Matt Kunkel, the co-founder, and CEO of LogicGate, discusses the importance of mentors and relationships. Matt co-founded LogicGate, a Chicago based SaaS platform which operationalizes regulatory, risk, and compliance programs for organizations, just over 4 years ago and has quickly grown it to 120+ employees and raised $35 million.

Matt discusses the critical role mentors played in his growth, his focus as a leader in this time of crisis and what he’s doing to help his team feel more in control and more informed in this time of uncertainty.

In this episode, Jack Altman, CEO and Co-Founder of Lattice, a performance management and employee engagement platform, talks about why the employee experience is a company’s biggest asset and how management’s role evolves as an organization grows. Lattice, in just four years, has grown from startup to a growth stage business with over 150 employees and 15,000 plus customers. Jack shares how he’s evolved as a leader, how the role of HR has changed to a revenue and strategy center, and why the CEO and Chief People Officers’ roles are a lot alike.

In the 8 years under President & CEO Bracken Darrell’s leadership, he has transformed Logitech and their stock price has octupled - that’s 8x growth! But in our conversation, Bracken doesn’t talk about stock price, profits, or revenue – instead, he shares the importance of the two-person team, of giving power and autonomy to make data-driven decisions to the people on the ground level, closest to that decision, and about what’s possible when we all align our brains to one singular problem.

Tom De Weerdt, EVP and CFO of Mauser Packaging Solutions, blends a bit of right and left brain into his leadership style. Using a philosophical and growth mindset along with plenty of spreadsheets, Tom has led several global teams at a variety of large corporations. It’s integral for leaders to keep an open mind for as long as they can, says Tom, and seek out a variety of trusted perspectives from a diversity of people before making key decisions; otherwise you just end up confirming your own hypotheses and biases.

In 2003, Devin Gross started as the first salesperson at a pre-revenue healthcare engagement company called Emmi Solutions. In 2010 Devin was named by the board as the CEO, where he went on to grow them from 35 team members to nearly 200 at the time of the company’s acquisition in 2017.

In this episode, Devin talks about the challenges and fear he faced going from salesman to CEO overnight and the strategies he implemented to retain and engage his staff as more layers grew between him and his staff.

In today’s episode, Desmond Clark, the former Tight End for the Chicago Bears, two-time author, motivational speaker, philanthropist and Co-Owner of The Insurance People talks about the similarities between leadership on the field and in the boardroom, on his transition from Dez Clark the football player to Dez Clark, the business leader, and what drives him to wake up each morning.

In today’s episode, Kris Rudeegraap, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Sendoso, a leading sending platform for innovative ways to engage with customers, shares why his number one priority as the CEO is hiring and retaining top talent and then enabling that talent to reach its full potential. Kris shares some unique strategies for finding the right fit when hiring and two steps to take when building a team from the ground up.