The 10-Slide Deck That Won a $2B CEO Role: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's Strategic Job Search Framework

What this episode is about

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy outlines her strategic approach to securing a CEO role, detailing the importance of identifying key job criteria such as market potential, passionate customer engagement, and a solid business model. She emphasizes the creation of a personalized 10-slide presentation to articulate her vision and plans for the potential position during the interview process, ultimately leading to her successful appointment as CEO of Zero.

Key takeaways

• Finding a CEO job is a game of patience; don't just chase jobs, chase the right market tide.
• In a booming stock market, the sidelines can feel like quicksand; timing is everything in career choices.
• When seeking a CEO role, aim for passion, purpose, and a solid business model—just like dating, but for jobs.
• Job searching is like fishing: the best catch is where the schools of opportunity swim.
• The hunt for a CEO position is murky waters; typically, you'll be scouted, not just applying endlessly on LinkedIn.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ryan Hawk (Host) · 16 min speaking
• Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (Guest) · 38 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: StubHub, Zero
2. 5:00 – 10:00: TED
3. 30:00 – 35:00: Millio
4. 45:00 – 50:00: Google LLC, Millio

Notable quotes from "The 10-Slide Deck That Won a $2B CEO Role: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's Strategic Job Search Framework"

• All right, Sakinder, great to have you back on the Learning Leader Show.

  about Sukinder Singh · at 0:43

• One? You pointed out a couple things that are important. I had, we'd sold StubHub, managed through the COVID crisis. I wrote the book and I had been looking for CEO jobs…

  about StubHub · at 2:00

• Presentation and in between the fun second round was they said come visit ZeroCon. ZeroCon is like the TED of accountant for accountants and bookkeepers. It's like a conference…

  about TED · at 5:40

• That it's hard. It's an and not an or if you want to be a high performing SAS company over time. And AI of course is only going to accelerate the expectations of how efficient…

  about Artificial Intelligence · at 30:55

• Ideal business plan and we said bets can be smaller moves, they can be bigger moves. So, obviously, we just announced the acquisition of Millio, which is a leading bay player…

  about Millio · at 33:45

• Sure. Well, first of all, just for complete accuracy, I made that ask to Omid Cordistani, who was my boss and Google's chief business officer, who I think shared it with Eric and definitely aware and I was in at least one business.

  about Google LLC · at 47:30

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Sukinder Singh — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions
  She explains how she evaluated and won the CEO role at Xero, including her interview thesis/deck approach, leadership philosophy, and culture decisions.

Companies & orgs

• Zero — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at 1:02
  Zero is the company where the guest is currently the CEO, discussing its business model, culture, and recent acquisition.
  I saw the press release come out that you were you chose to take the CEO role at Zero and I thought wait a second zero that's what I use. I remember when I hear that you teamed up with my accounting firm that I work with and they say hey we.
• Millio — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at 33:48
  Millio is a company recently acquired by Zero, discussed as a significant strategic move.
• Google LLC — Company · Referenced company · 4 mentions · first at 46:44
  Google is mentioned as a past employer where the guest made a significant career ask.
• StubHub — Company · Referenced company · 2 mentions · first at 2:02
  StubHub is mentioned as a company the guest previously sold and managed through the COVID crisis.

Concepts & topics

• Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Strategy · 2 mentions
  AI is mentioned as a factor accelerating expectations of efficiency in business operations.

Places & events

• TED — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at 5:44
  TED is mentioned as a comparison to ZeroCon, a conference for accountants and bookkeepers.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 I had been looking for CEO jobs, seriously, Ryan, for well over a year. So, I was actually quite frustrated. Stock market's booming and like everything is up and to the right. And I'm like, wait, I'm on the sidelines. Am I missing my time?

0:11 I am fascinated by how people earn jobs. How does it all work? I said, there are four things I want in this job. Number one, I want macro tailwinds and I want to play in a good market. Number two, I was like, I want a customer I can get passionate about. Number three, I said it has to have a really good business model. Number four, I said the CEO job has to be available and I need to be able to learn for miles. In the interview process, you should be building a thesis and you should build a deck for yourself. You have the 10 slides on what you would do if you were in the job.

0:38 Is that a deck that you're willing to share? All right, Sakinder, great to have you back on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

0:50 Thank you. And congrats on all the continued success since we last spoke. Thank you. And you, too. I remember when I saw the press release come out that you were you chose to take the CEO role at Zero and I thought wait a second zero that's what I use. I remember when I

1:07 hear that you teamed up with my accounting firm that I work with and they say hey we love zero it's the best for our clients and that's what we use and I said great sounds good to me and I've been using it ever since and it's been great. So it's kind of cool that this product I already used before and now you're the CEO. So, I am curious though, last time we talked, you're you're kind of promoting your book. You're in between roles. You're thinking of what to do next. What made you say, "You know what? I think zero is the place for me. That's where I want to go run that company."

1:36 Uh, well, first of all, you're going to laugh because when I got the zero call, I said the same thing you did. I was like, "Oh, my tiny startup, the board list, which was always been my side hustle, you know, a governance platform where people can find great leaders for boards, was also a zero user." So, interestingly, when I got the call, I said to my husband, believe it or not, I was like, I know zero. I'm pretty sure this is the one. Now, I mean, if you zoom back and you say, "Why is it the one?" You pointed out a couple things that are important. I had, you know, we'd sold StubHub, managed through the COVID crisis. I wrote the book and I had been looking for CEO jobs, seriously, Ryan, for well over a year. So, I was actually quite frustrated. I was like, and by the way, this is like 2020, 2021.

2:17 Like, stock market's booming. every and I'm like wait I'm on the sidelines and like everything is up and to the right like am I missing uh missing my time interestingly by the time I took zero things were starting to already you know have crusted and like we were entering this era of like profits plus efficiency but okay so all the way back to the story why did I say yes I said yes because I not only knew the product but because in my looking I asked I said there are four things I want in this job number one I want macro tailwinds and I want to play in a good market and I'll say to people like look you can be the best person in the world, but you'd rather go where the fish are.

2:53 You know, swim with the tide. And the digitization of small businesses, particularly the back office, is still a growing sector. Number two, I was like, I want a customer I can get passionate about. So, I had told recruiters, look, I love consumer. Consumer is a hard business in tech. I said, I also love small business. I need to be able to empathize with the user. And as you and I both know, we're both small business owners. We've both been founders. So, that resonated. I knew the product to your point. I used the product. Number three, I said it has to have a really good business model.

3:22 Number four, I said the CEO job has to be available and I need to be able to learn for miles. And the last one's important because look, I'm in my 50s now and I think I have tons of energy, but you know, maybe you can relate for a lot of my career was like, well, it's not this job, there's another job, you know, like I I'm on a journey, right? And after StubHub, I was like, no, I just want the job. I don't want the job before the job or the job that leads to the next job. I just want the job where for the next five, six, seven, eight years. Like I feel continually challenged and I've actually cut out a lot of choices. A lot. So I had this really high criteria and believe it or not there's only zero and one other company in the course of a year and a half that met that bar. Hm. I am fascinated by how people earn jobs

4:11 and going like inside the process like did you go after them? They come after you mutual. What's the process like once you say okay they meet my criteria? How does it all work? How did this case all work for you?

4:25 Well, interestingly you say this. So, first of all, you can imagine my worry, frustration, concern that I'm like where like where are all the great CEO jobs? So, first of all, CEO jobs are opaque. So while you can raise your hand, I mean these processes tend to go the other way which is you don't know where like like it's not like it's not posted mostly on LinkedIn. This is a private process. It can be passive. It can be active. Almost all the big ones are run by head hunters. So generally you tend to get these calls. You can't just say gee, you know, I'd like to be CEO of your company. In the background, for whatever it's worth, I was working on two rollup ideas because I was frustrated that like if I didn't see the right co job, could I make my own luck? Do you mean could I go find a take a thesis and build a company at scale? Because I was looking for scale. So the way it happens is, you

5:10 know, you typically get recruiter calls in both the CEO cases I was talking about. I got them. But the inside process for zero was really fun for a few reasons. Number one, it went very fast. I think from the moment we started chatting, which is the beginning of Septemberish to the moment I got the offer, which was mid-occtober, that's a 3-month process. So they moved with intention, which I appreciated. It was very clear, you know, there was a first round, a second round and a final round in which there's always if you're a CEO, there's almost always like a board presentation and I had a board presentation and in between the fun second round was they said come visit ZeroCon. ZeroCon is like the TED of accountant for accountants and bookkeepers. It's like a conference of three or 4 thousand people. It had we do them around the world. So now of course I am at Zurichon but I attended the first ZeroCoon in stealth. I was in the

5:59 audience. Nobody knew. I was sitting among thousands of zero customers watching the current CEO and by the way it was a the CEO had announced his transition. So you know to the board not publicly. So it was a very managed process. It like done collaboratively with the CEO. So I had met I met the CEO but I was sitting in the crowd and nobody knew I was the contender for the job watching the current CEO present which kind of fueled my conviction on the opportunity. And then like by the final round, yes, the board asked me to present a vision. And I think I always say on a CEO job, this is probably the most important thing because somebody just called me who's interviewing for CEO role and asked for advice on what you should consider. And I said, hey, in the interview process, you should be building a thesis and you should build a deck for yourself whether or not you ever present it to the board such that

6:45 by the time you enter your final rounds, you have like the 10 slides on what you would do if you were in the job. And those 10 slides are either going to give you the conviction that this is an amazing opportunity because you know what you would do and can imagine your game plan for the next 24 months. By the way, it's a thesis of course because once you're in, you're going to learn a lot more. But it's just like, you know, when people say imagine the first 100 days on the job, I'm like, if you're CEO, I think you have to imagine the first 24 months on the job

7:12 and what do what are the moves you would make? what's your thesis on how your coming to this organization can help unlock or accelerate its impact? And so I did have a 10 slide deck and luckily for me the board I guess liked what I had to say and

7:27 is that a deck that you're you're willing to share? Uh you know I'll ask the zero board. I don't know if they'd be willing to share. Probably not. But I will say I I

7:36 I would just I personally like maybe we could talk separately. I'd love to see it because I again I love the the process of how people earn big jobs. I think it's really cool to think about like maybe we could talk about some of the things that you are allowed to share what goes in it like if if if let's say somebody so could maybe not even a CEO job but they're going for a leadership role because I think you should do this even if you're just going for your like your first ever management job you should take it seriously prepare overprepare have a thesis statement create a deck I mean it couldn't hurt to do this even if you don't end up presenting it couldn't hurt so let's say somebody's in that in that type of job because it's more related than just you going to be a CEO.

8:18 What is it? What's that process look like putting it together? You know, what are some of the things that have to be in there? What are some things that you put in there that you're allowed to talk about? I I think that's a that would I'm really curious of of how all that goes.

8:31 Sure. Sure. By the way, to to your point, the format is almost always the same. So, I think this is useful for anything. And think about think about to your point not just for entering a CEO job. Think about it trying to win a seauite job. think about having got the job, how you would write your game plan or business plan or your thesis. So, first of all, I always believe in what I call like whiteboard plans. Whiteboard plans are like a plan on a page like what's the starting thesis like by when? So, if you look at an organization or group you're, you know, going to inherit and you're thinking like okay, first of all, identify like the destination. So, at zero it's a public company. So, I could say okay, it's this is its current market cap. If I wanted to unlock shareholder value, which is the ultimate goal as a CEO, right, or unlock customer value, my destination within some time frame, like give yourself two years,

9:15 three years, just write a vision statement of like what could success look like, right? And now you think about so think about that as your like as the goal in the deck, the goal for the deck. And then you work backwards, right? So first of all, you need a goal and you can identify an outside in goal or you can ask the person you're interviewing with what does success look like? Do you see any goal set by in a time frame? And then I think the decks all look the same. for you was that a number a revenue target what was that for you for this

9:42 yeah so for me as a CEO in that deck I would be saying hey this is the current shareholder so maybe this leads to kind of what I'm about to tell you on the journey on the way so think about the goal in for a public company CEO it's about unlocking customer value because I believe if you don't have customer love just chasing shareholder value is not so for me the three constituents that I'm trying to kind of improve are my customers my investors and my employees. So, think about the destination is having like those three constituents, right? And again, I know I'm talking in CEO speak, but like you know for somebody who's crafting an internal vision might be this is my vision for my business in the context of the overall business and maybe for my team or maybe for my customers. But I think you always need a customer view. You always need like what does it mean to the business?

10:28 What is financial success for the business? In our case, it's also measured by shareholders. Um and then you and then you definitely need like for your team what does success look like? Presuming these are the three constituents and

10:38 are those equal? Those three equal you're all in service of the customer. So to me the customer first investors and

10:46 some would say some would say take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers. So the employees are first and then because of that

10:56 now that could be just a nice thing to say but you're you're actually in the seat doing the real job. You're a current operator not a former operator. You're a current operator. So I'm curious from you is that just kind of nice CEO speak that I put in the book after I retire or is there a chance that that hey take care of your employees they will take care of your customer. Is it what do you think about that?

11:19 Well let let me tell you how we're talking about it at zero. First of all, it's a virtuous cycle. Like it's a virtuous,

11:23 but if you think about a virtuous cycle and you said to me, what would I put at the top of the diagram of the circle? It would start with the customer.

11:30 Okay. Okay. You say starts with the customer. If we do right by the customer, you know, if you think of virtuous cycle, you probably have two other circles on that like cyclical picture and you would say, okay, bottom, if this is too much detail, let me know. But if you, you know, if you went to the bottom left, you might be like, okay, to take care of our customers, you know, our investors will be happy, right? And then you have on the other side like if we take care of our employees, you know, we take care of the customer. So I think it's I do think it's a virtuous cycle. And what we talk about at zero is a high performance, you know, high purpose, high people culture. We say all three.

12:01 You say performance, people, purpose. So now look at those three words aligned to the circle I just gave you. Purpose. We're here to make small businesses, you know, more successful. That is our purpose. That is the north star. Okay, it's the north. Make no mistake. And then we say we want a high performance culture, right? Because that is both great for our customers, but it's also great for our people. It's how do you come to zero and do the best work of your life? And we say a high people culture because we do care about our people. We do we are known for being, I would say, a culture that where employees like we don't really have at zero. We don't. Somehow we do this remarkable job of lovely people who come together who kind of want to do the right thing. I don't know how we do it, Ryan, but we've done it for 20 years. And my job as CEO is just not to mess it up. Like like it's it's a

12:50 remarkable culture. Every time people come in, they're like, "Wow, your people are so nice." Our customers say, "Your people are so nice. Like your brand is like really nice." So again, all I can tell you is I'm trying not to mess that up. So we correlate those three boxes I gave you. We say we're going to be high purpose, high performance, high people. And we said like, "Sorry guys, you don't get to choose. It's an and. It's not an or. It's an end and at the top is our purpose. So that means the customer, we all serve the customer. We all serve the customer. So that's the way we talk about zero. So anyway, back to the whiteboard plan. Hopefully like I know we digressed. So if you take the thesis that there's a a goal you want to get to, you have to you have to be able to say like success could look like this.

13:30 And I know some people on this call are going to be like, well, I don't know what the goal is. Okay, we'll start the other way, which is every deck every deck begins with the outside in opportunity. every single one. So to your point like how would you script a deck if you were building it for yourself? Always outside in first. First of all, what's the market context? Is this a growing market, shrinking market? Are you participating in tailwinds or not? Remember I said this like where to play choice was my number one choice as a CEO. I think when you're running a business, start with the outside end.

14:00 What's going on? Then I always have a SWAT. I do like, hey, what is our current hand? How are we doing against the opportunity? And it's always a SWAT. It always has four quarters. It's very classic like I write bullet points in each this deck had it. I said here zero's current right by the way.

14:16 Can you go through a SWAT real quick? I I remember this from take get earning my MBA but haven't really talked about it much since then. So can you just walk quickly like through SWAT is

14:25 strengths like four or five bullet points on the company strengths strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats.

14:30 That's it. It's just literally one page and you put four or five bullets in each box just stream of consciousness. By the way, in the outside in landscape, you also have to do the competitive landscape. So, you can't just do the market. You have to do the competitors.

14:43 So, part of what you're doing is you're you are showing them one, I've thought about this. Like, two, I understand what I'm getting myself into. I have I have an acute understanding of the market, of the situation, of the competitive landscape. I understand our strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. So you're you're in a way you're kind of exhibiting you're making the board probably be like ah okay she's got this I can go back to doing whatever else I was doing because

15:12 they want to know that you see the of any leader by the way and this is my core thesis you have to be outside in and inside out they want to know that you and you want to know like have you seen the picture can you see the movie before you think about the game plan so can you see the forest okay so that's your forest view then you have your SWAT okay and then of course like they want the critical thinking like Okay, if you saw this SWAT against the opportunity, what are the four or five moves you would make? And by the way, you know, remember you have if you're public, you have a company's financials or if you're private, you have your own financials.

15:42 Right? Now, this is where you ask like what's the goal line? Remember I said there's a vision. I typically put the vision on the first page. So, I start with the ambition. Like every deck is like here's where I'm trying to go. My thesis is we can be a blank organization by blank. Okay. Then I zoom out. I do market context. Then I do competitive context. Then I do a SWAT. Then I have one slide that's like my five moves. And believe it or not, I'm like, okay, if I do these five moves right, like this is my thesis. And then and then that's like the what the what I'm going to do. There might be one slide on like, hey, here's the how because I have to work with people. I have to work with investors.

16:17 So it might be like, hey, in trying to make these five moves, here's like two or three things to consider. And then believe it or not, I estimate the end outcome. And that is that's it. It's like a six- page deck. I think I remember doing for the board. I'd have to go back and check. I might have had six slides up front and I was like, "That's the sizzle, guys." And then I had the details and then I had like five more slides. So like the TLDDR should be like in five or six slides, can you paint a picture of like where you want to go, what you considered, you know, what you think the company's current position is, what are the five or six moves you think are most essential, and what could the yield be? And by the way, you can put a range on the yield. You can put a probability. You can say, "Hey, these are the three safe moves I'd make. This is two more meaty moves, and here's one flyer." Like, you can even

17:02 probability assess them. What do you think the person's looking for? When you go in to pitch for a job or have the job, I think most people presume that the that the person on the other end is looking for the answer.

17:13 They're looking for the quality of your thinking. They're looking to see like you could paint a range of probabilities and you have, you know, they're looking for your ability to assess solution pivot. So that's why you can put out, hey, here's five ideas. By the way, I'm going to give you like my probability on whether these will work or not. A couple here are really safe. A couple here are like flyers. A couple here like are probably going to work, but they require significant investment. They're looking to see that your thinking can encompass all those things, right? And then mostly they want to know that if you know like if you're wrong what would you do?

17:46 They're going to ask you that question. You're like well if I'm wrong I'll pivot. So

17:51 so I know this was a very long No no no it's great. What you didn't mention there in that deck is like you as a person your personal purpose your core values your behaviors that make those values true. Is that covered in previous interviews? And so you don't need to you don't need to cover that anymore or or

18:09 you Yeah, you hit it time. The only reason I didn't cover it in a deck is because I wouldn't have even gotten to the final round

18:16 if you didn't have all that. That's tableing all the personal time on like So it's interesting because at zero now a couple of times we don't do consistently but it's something we should consider a couple times more recently now as we're in the final rounds with leaders we give them a problem to solve and we and they build us a deck. It is remarkable how much because what happens as you know in early interviews is you're chatting to somebody and you're talking and you get to feel who they are. You might get to feel like to your point how do they respond to the soft questions, you know, and some people, you know, consulting companies do these like classic case interviews as you know, which are hard because you're asking people to think on the on their feet and some people are good at that, some are not. But if you give a person a business problem and say, "Hey, you know what? For the final

19:00 round, like here's a situation we're really facing. We'd love you to just like write a couple slides and come back and tell us how you walk it through. You see the clarity of a leader's thinking, their solutioning, their problem solving, how they work their way around a business problem. That is a what, right? That's not a who, that's a what. And so, yes, I think by the end they're testing the what. Now, of course, you know, you know this, right? in all leadership hires like the most important thing is not just front channel of like me chatting with you about how lovely I am and how lovely I think I'm all the back channel. So like, so to be clear, I'm pretty sure the whole way through my interview, somebody is back channeling what all the people have to say in the valley about me who've worked with me, the the lovers, the naysayers, the people.

19:43 Wait, by back channeling? Do you mean references and people who know So like I think a good process for any any leader, including one I hire, I'm back channeling all the way through because because you kind of hit the other important point. There's like the what of how you think. I think you hit the most one of the very importants the who of who you are, the why of why your values and your strengths, you know, are what this organization needs. Like these are the questions that any person is assessing who's hiring a leader. Like the what can they do the job? Can they think about the next job? How would they think their way around a problem? How they, you know, what's their vision? The who, who are they? Like how their values fit ours? What is their superpowers? and the why, like why is this person going to be the right fit for the job at hand?

20:29 I like back channels all the way through because it tells you a lot about the who. You can even ask the person there why. You can assess your own why you would hire them, but you can always ask the person there why. Like the zero asked me my why, like why zero. I listed the four things I talked about and I listed one, which was pretty freaking important to me. I was like, I want to go where my values fit and my strengths are valued. This is what I say now. I'm going to go where my values fit and my strengths are valued. So, do my superpowers align to what the organization needs? I'm doing that fit, but you should also do that fit cuz I'm not perfect and there's things you're not going to, you know, maybe if you wish for a leader of another's ilk, like you should know that going in. Um, and then number two, do we share enough values in common that like when the times get tough, like we want to be in

21:11 the boat with each other. Those are the only things I care about. Do you see my strengths as something that is added to this organization? Do I see them the same way or accelerants? And number two, do we share enough values? And so I said that to zero. I said like the reason I'm here is like man I look around. This place is full of lovely people. They want to do the right thing. They're diverse. They're humble. They're inclusive. Man, I would want to be a part of this tribe. By the way, the board is diverse. Like yes. And I know maybe diversity is a bad word. I'm sorry. I'm a woman of color who's a leader. I want to go to a place that welcomes like who I am, how I show up and have heterogeneity, you know, diversity of opinions in the room. So, yeah, do I look for that when I interview? For sure. I would love to go a little bit deeper on when you're making hiring decisions for senior leaders to work for you because one of

22:02 the commonalities I found secinder and and excellent long-term CEOs are that they're really really good about surrounding themselves with excellent people, high character, high competence. So you mentioned back channeling, so you're doing reference checks. You're checking on the people. That's one of the things, right? What are some of the other things you do? Take me inside the process. What is it like when you have an opening on your team, a direct report of yours? How does it work? What are some of the musthaves? Like they got to have this to make it. What's that process like?

22:32 Sure. And I interview anybody who's in our top kind of two to three leadership cohorts. So I care a lot that, you know, I don't just interview people who are in mine. Now, I don't have the hiring decision on some of those, but I do interview kind of the top two to three levels of zero because it's very important to me that our leaders all exhibit, you know, the values and the traits that will make them successful at zero.

22:54 If it how how common I want to get to that in a second, but how common is it that you have disagreements? Let's say it's two or three levels below you and you're interviewing them and you're like, "Oh my god, they're amazing." And someone else is like, "I don't know." Or or probably more more common, "No, I don't think they got it." And they're and the other person says, "Yes." Is that does that happen like a good amount?

23:12 You know, it doesn't happen as much as you think and I'll tell you why. Because um because you always have a diverse slate of interviewers um and you always want to have bar raisers in your interviewers. So, interestingly, you know, I'd say at zero in most of where I've been, if you have a high quality team and you have enough diversity on the interviewing panel, the right issues usually show up and it ends up being a close call. You know, I'd say the clear outliers are there. And then the controversy, to your point, I'll tell you where the controversy always is.

23:40 It's always about maybe somebody's strengths and, you know, and that they have superpowers and then the shadow of that and does that fit culturally. It's almost never about competence at that point. Now, look, could it be it could be about somebody's potential? Have they done this job yet? So, you're betting on their potential versus like, I don't know, known experience. That's another dimension that people sometimes debate. Well, this person has all the experience and this person has all the potential. That sometimes shows up in the end interview rounds. Um, but the close calls are always like about culture fit.

24:10 They're like, "Wow, this person is excellent at this. Are they going to be able to get it done here?" It's not about, you know, are they a great person or are they competent? It's almost always about culture when you get to these close calls, but they're always I would say that the issues always surface when you have a diverse slate of interviewers, which I mean comes back to why I like diversity of perspectives. So, what does the interview process look like for me? Um, I'll tell you my process is very specific and probably very funny to people. I always say sell interview sell. So when I meet with a candidate for the first time, I'm spending all my time selling the opportunity.

24:45 People are like what? Talented people have choice. I am in full cell mode on my Zoism they should consider. I can't tell you how many times I we've approached a leader who's like, you know, I'm not looking. I'm really happy where I am. And like I go into cell mode hard almost anybody. And quite frankly that's my most charming self as versus my most you know aggressive intense irritating self. So like man I got to bait and switch but I hope not. And then the second interview and then typically before I see them again believe it or not I put them through my whole leadership team. So I'm like I'm going to see you again but first I want you to meet a bunch of my team. So why do I let them meet a bunch of my team? Obviously in my cell interview I am getting to know who they are like you know like but my point is it's like it's like then tell me a bit about yourself and I'm going to tell tell you a lot about zero. So that first

25:35 interview is probably 50/50 me telling you know them letting them ask a bunch of questions and me kind of ask about who they are but it's not like what do you think about zero blah blah blah cuz they're not even sure they want to come and so in that I'm doing a silent assessment of like oh would I want to work with this person and then hopefully after that first call they're like you know what sindra I would like to learn more and then I'm like great now go meet five of my team members why do I do that because it makes it more efficient for me when I interview you know why they're going to go ask a bunch more questions.

26:05 They're going to learn about the organization. They're going to be a bunch more informed. So, by the time they see me again, now we're in interview time. Now, I'm like, "Okay, like you leaned into the process. You met each of my leadership team. You got to ask a bunch of questions. Now, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions." And then we get into the heart of it. And then I might meet with somebody one, two times. I might have them, if obviously, if the director went to me, they probably meet our board, a couple members, not all, but I probably have a couple board members interview.

26:31 Meanwhile, of course, after my first interview, we're calibrating. we're shortlisting and then we get to and then I probably see them again. The board sees them, you know, not the whole board, a couple people from the board depending on the role and maybe I have a couple more of my close-in leaders if it's a close call, spend more time with them. That's what it looks like. And then we make a call.

26:48 So, when we talked about your book, you mentioned that you you gave this advice like you don't have to be specifically qualified for a specific job before taking it.

26:59 So, do you still believe that? And if so, this job you were overqualified for, I think, right? But you still want to give this advice to others. How do you feel about this idea of still going for jobs that maybe you aren't even specifically qualified for?

27:15 Well, I think it comes to the quality of your thinking. So, you know, will I take somebody who's not specifically qualified for a job? Well, look, there are a couple things, and you can appreciate this. While you might not be specifically qualified for this job, you need to be qualified for whatever the company is headed to. Okay? So let's say you know zero is now a you know two billion plus kind of revenue organization. Let's say and we've just told you know our investors we're going to double by 2028. So like our fiscal 28. So we've already given you know we just said that with our recent acquisition. So if I'm thinking about the organization doubling you know like you would say okay well there are some must haves and some options at the MI level. So must haves are like can you operate at the next level of scale?

27:57 Okay, if you haven't done it in this industry or this job, can you demonstrate to me where have you seen the level of scale or complexity we're going to like as an example. So, I'd say in almost every job, Ryan, there's some must-have skills and they're right. And the question is you have to show that if you're not in this job, you have demonstrated the capacity for those skills. So, you know, if you ask me, would I take somebody I don't know, I'm making it up. We don't have this job before who hasn't been a COO into the COO job. Sure. But I want to know that the summation of the skills that I need in that job, they have demonstrated individually. So, so I think like you want to know that you're hiring a person who can go where the puck is going, right? In hockey analogies, without having to have done the specific job.

28:41 Where do you typically find that? You'd find that in people who are agile in their ability to learn, to grow, to adapt. And then, as I said, look, in the case of any company, including zero, there are some must haves. Is it likely as an example you know that at our scale we would hire a chief revenue officer who has never managed revenue? I would say that would be a very high risk hire for us you know but you know if you said to me hey again would I take a COO who's never been in the COO role but has managed discrete multiple functions over time at significant complexity who is now going to put it all together in this job I would say yes. So those are maybe like real and theoretical examples and yes I believe multiple times in my career earlier in particular the problem is on but once you've had 20 or 30 years maybe 30 years of experience Ryan you are qualified sadly for almost everything because you're just old

29:31 now I'm old so there sadly most of the people I interview are younger than me so sadly I am going to be overqualified for a lot of things now um

29:41 that wasn't always true you mentioned the fact that you're now a 2.1 1 billion company, 21% year-over-year growth. So, you just absolutely crushing it. I am curious about this balance between growth and we're getting into real operator stuff here. Growth and profitability as well as this obsession, this kind of Amazonish obsession for the customer that you've hit on a few times. How do you balance I don't know if they're competing priorities, but how do you balance out growth, profitability, as well as customer happiness?

30:14 Yeah. Well, you hit I think the and obviously this is now very specific when you're a public company CEO versus private because when you're private you might have more latitude.

30:22 Yeah. When you're public kind of hit the nail on the head. uh unfortunately it's not an or it's an and you know I'd say in tech in particular there was an era of growth at all costs as you know and then we moved to growth and efficiency and I think and if you look at today at multiples in in public tech and in SAS the category we play in if you are high growth and profitable you traded you know a bigger multiple right so investors obviously benefit from that and investors like that because to get both is is hard it's hard to your point it's hard so now Let's go to the fact that it's hard. It's an and not an or if you want to be a high performing SAS company over time. And AI of course is only going to accelerate the expectations of how efficient you are by the way. Right? So that benchmark is not going down, it's going up. Okay. So it's hard. So how do you do it internally?

31:12 First of all, like very early on I said to zeros like it's an and it's not an or. Welcome. We are going from being a teenager to like university. Like welcome to the graduating class. Like great that you're on the top of this stack. Yeah, I had to be a freshman again in the next, you know, in the next class at university and guess what? Like that it resets and so now it's growth and profitability. I think they understand that. Um I think the way you manage it internally is I think you do have a number of bets. I think you do have all things being equal. I'm a believer in bets. So you know at zero we do have a portfolio of things we are doing and they run the gamut to things that are trying to improve productivity to things that are trying to like I'd say multiple bites at the growth apple and at making customers happy and so I think that I think if you have a good CFO and if you have a supportive board

31:59 we luckily do you know they allow us to manage a portfolio of bets and we give I would say ourselves latitude with investors we've been clear with investors hey we're going to try and be balanced but all things being equal you we're not going to give you I don't know what we call like rule of 40 for us has been an aspiration not guidance and people say well why is it an aspiration not formal guidance and we're like well because at the end of the day we want the room within these two sectors to flex between growth and profitability so we're going to promise you both but the level of both we want to flex between where we see opportunity and again the best we you can do with investors I think is if you have supportive investors we are lucky that we do is to be able to say this is what we're doing internally let us give you examples of decisions we might make. Trust us to be thoughtful allocators of capital and to

32:46 be optimizing between, but we're not going to give you a specific number on each because that takes away our flexibility to make the right decisions for zero. Now, again, I realize I'm giving you an ideal case, right? Sometimes as co you don't have that latitude. Let's say you're doing a turnaround or what have you. Internally though, I think you need to manage a portfolio. Of course, you know, you need, I'd say, your own constructs and you need buffer in both. I believe that if you're going to get to the right outcomes, you need to be, I'd say, shooting past your target on both profitability and growth. And it's a balance. It's not easy. It's all about being what we call an allocator of capital. And what does that mean? That really means like you have to have a few focus. You have a set of focused bets.

33:26 You have to say to everybody, "These are the bets we're focused on. These are the ones we're not. I'm sorry, we can't afford to do everything." And you know, and a portfolio focused bets.

33:33 What are some examples of bets you've actually made? Would it be the recent acquisition be a bet? What are some examples of bets?

33:41 Yeah, of bets we made. Well, first of all, I mean, as we talked about, remember we talked about building that ideal business plan and we said bets can be smaller moves, they can be bigger moves. So, obviously, we just announced the acquisition of Millio, which is a leading bay player in the US. That would be called the biggest of big moves. Like you don't move make that move every year. You know, it is we're super proud of it. But it was many many months almost a year in the works. But in organically like let's not talk about M&A or we can talk about smaller M&A because you know Mio is an outlier in terms of its size. Bets are very simple.

34:12 If you read our investor day presentation we're like here are some of our bets. We are going to now use pricing and packaging to try and deliver more value to customers each year. That's a bet. We listed out like literally we had five themes. We had about three bets under each. We said these are the bets we're making. Number two, we're going to try and transform our sales motions so they don't just focus on acquiring a subscriber, but helping subscribers pick the right product on the way in and improve our mix. By the way, do these bets sound quite operational? Sure, that's what I mean about a fundamental bet. I'm like, here's some smaller moves we're making.

34:44 But when you compound these moves, we see that we can unlock a lot more value in a zero subscriber, not just keep adding subscribers without increasing the amount of products they take from us. So, you're changing your sales motions, you're changing your pricing and packaging. These are literally discreet bets we listed in our investor presentation. We had another one. We said, "Hey, we're going to reimagine the small business experience." I don't know if you know that, Ryan, but this past week, Zero just launched a reimagined dashboard for small businesses. You should go check it out. It's like was designed with 3,000 customers. We said a year and a half ago, we're going to do that. We just shipped it. Now, by the way, that's for customer happiness.

35:20 We're not betting on it having financial yield, but man, our customers want an easier to use dashboard with customizable widgets that they can control that gives them more insight. And so that was a bet. So remember we talked about customer happiness, financial performance, people. Imagine if you if I sent you our investor presentation page of like five themes and 15 bets, you would see their bets allocated to each of those things that are meant to drive each of those things. Some are for customer happiness, some are for financial revenue accretion, some are for productivity, some are for future growth. So that's what bets look like. And again, on a page, you ought to be able to write down like the and I think most zeros would say they could understand our bets.

36:01 Let's talk about the people side of things and specifically culture. This is hard to to get it right, but vital and super important. What's your overall mindset and philosophy on building I mean, you're in charge. You're the CEO on building an excellent culture at zero.

36:21 I think culture means consistency of message and what's important. So, I think you know people say, "Oh, culture is what you do, not what you say or what how people act when no one's looking." I told you like there's some important first of all, my first goal is to not excuse me screw up. I think I swore before not to really like screw up the thing that zero does uniquely right, which is it attracts really I don't know how else to say it. It attracts really wonderful people. That's all I can say. And for me, wonderful people, like I say, they show up. They want to do the right thing. They care. They collaborate well. Their natural inclination is to be helpful. And they're really unentitled.

36:57 Like those speak to my personal values, the type people I would want around me. By the way, I also want people who are very diverse from my style and perspective. And so, like I said, I love that Zero attracts all different kinds of people from all different kinds of backgrounds for that reason. Okay, so that's one. So, let's try not to screw up the thing the company does well. But I think in terms of the culture and how you kind of drive it, I think I really strive, as I said, to be consistent and authentic in my communications about what's important, to be pretty plain speaking on the things we're going to do and the things we're not going to do, right? and to make sure that what we say to investors, what we say to the board, what we say to employees, all matches up again and again and again. So for me, culture is about consistency. And maybe that is like a weird answer, but that's how I strive to I would say improve our

37:46 culture. Of course, we did things like look at our values and re we re-energized our values about a year and a half ago when we did our investor strategy. You know, the thing I talked about our portfolio of bets, we made them public. We sort of said, "Hey, for the next era, what do our values need to be? How do we take them? How do we tweak them? How do we improve on?" Yes. But you don't change your values every year. Mostly you try and live your values. And the best way I know how to live my values is to be consistent as a leader in my messaging in doing what I say I'm going to do and keep closing the loop for our employees. We talked about it.

38:17 We press on all three purpose, performance, people. We try and like I'd say manage all three in concert. And I try and move them as a system. And honestly, I just keep, believe it or not, in culture, I just keep trying to repeat the same thing again and again and again.

38:33 Funny. I love that you said this. What in all relationships in life, I think one of the key components to trust, which is the foundation of a relationship, and it's mandatory that you have it if you're going to have a relationship with somebody, is being consistent. is doing what you say you're going to do day after day after day, right? It's continuing to show up, continuing to do the thing, continuing to do the work, to being dependable, to being reliable, to consistently being there. All these unsexy words. It's funny, but man, it leads to it leads to trust. It leads to the formation of a strong and powerful relationship. So, it's interesting that that this consistency of messaging is so important to you. It makes a lot of sense that you've been able to build excellent cultures wherever you go because you're so focused on being consistent.

39:29 Yeah. I mean, I think you said there's one other word that goes with trust, which is authenticity, right? So, like I I believe like just say the thing. Say the thing say you earn people's trust when you do it. And quite frankly, and by the way, there are times you make unpopular decisions for culture. Let's not forget that. This does not mean that things don't change. This in fact quite the opposite. This is the challenge. This is the challenge in building a culture in today's tech that's enduring. Things change all the time. You have to pivot. You have COVID, you have AI, you know, you have efficiency. When I arrived at zero, we laid off almost 900 people 6 weeks after I arrived. Do you think that's a popular decision or an easy decision?

40:09 What happened? Why? I laid I basic remember that plan we talked about with the board. I said,

40:14 was that in the plan like I'm going to chop off 900 people? What was in the plan was not I'm going to chop off 900 people. what I was in was in the plan. Remember that outside in view. I said here's does well. Here's where zero benchmarks less well. So I was just very clear my outside in analysis of the company is it's amazing here. Now keep in mind again you don't make a decision like that legally. I arrived and by the way this is all public knowledge. There's nothing here I'm not saying that I that employees haven't heard. When I arrived I think I said to the board and I said to the current CEO because we had an overlap period. I'm like I'm going to bring in McKenzie and I'm going to benchmark zero because I'm pretty sure we're overly large. But I don't think like this isn't the kind of decision you just say, well, you know, this is my thesis. Think about the impact to employees, right? So, we

40:55 bought a Mackenzie. We did a six-w week goround on my and I took over the CEO seat officially on my birthday, which was like February 1st. And the very first all hands employees said to me, "Are you going to do layoffs?" And in my very first all hands, I had SAS benchmarks in my deck. And I said, "Look, I'm not going to talk to you about whether we die or not, but I'm going to show you an outside in view of where zero does well and where zero doesn't do well."

41:21 Put it out there. I talked about how excited I was. Maybe it was my first or second. But my point was within my first two all hands. It was either the day I did it or two weeks later. And a month later, we did a layoff and it was brutal. But again, coming back to consistency, I thought like my god, if this is my thesis and the world was heading there. This was an era byite like I mean there was more like it was untold number of layoffs in the beginning of 2022 and through 2023 but I was like wow can I really stand up in front of this team that I am about to be the CEO of and people are like are there going to be layoffs and I am doing a McKenzie study in the background

41:57 what is the data I can give these folks that gives them a clue to how I'm thinking about the business that's still authentic right so my point is like authenticity serves you through change So consistency is about consistency of like what are your north stars? What are the things that principles you're trying to uphold? How are you making decisions? Consistency does not mean nothing changes. Quite frankly, as I said, this is the hardest thing in culture. We are in an era where everything is changing and you're trying to bring your employees along. But like you got to go like are you not going to go on AI? If the whole market is valuing efficiency, can we afford not to make the decision to like if we're unprofitable to cut our headcount? No. So the question is how do you maintain culture and how do you maintain care for employees in a world where everything is changing? Quite frankly, that is a seminal question and

42:48 the only thing I know how to lean on is like the why. Be consistent on the why. Be consistent on your messaging. What are you aiming towards? Um and be and and I'd say be transparent. you know, within the bounds of what you can do and authentic in your messaging. I mean, that's it. Like that's so I think it is really hard to just, you know, say nothing changes. That's actually the problem. I think people are like, "Well, in a great culture, nothing changes." I said, "No, unfortunately, in a great culture, you have to adapt to what's changing." You know, that is

43:18 it's easy to criticize a CEO who has to lay people off when you're not the CEO because we don't see it all. We don't know what's going on. We don't understand the profitability numbers. It's so much it's so easy to criticize that person, but that's why it's not for everybody. And you got to be tough. And you got to be willing to do what what it takes to keep the company in business first and foremost and set the company up to succeed in the future. And that's why that job isn't for everybody. And you got to be willing to make those tough calls. And I admire that. I think that would be so hard to do. And usually though, anything worthwhile in your life that you've ever done is preceded by something really, really hard.

44:02 It's hard throughout. I mean, like quite frankly towards and what it's hard throughout. It's not just preceded by something hard. It's hard throughout. Right. But let me give you the the hope I have and again I'm going to come back to the quality of the zero team that I inherited and the people I get to work with every day. Like we have something called a global all hands, right? like it's our it's our monthly all hands and we do it live and I play a pretty big part in it. But you know what in those all hands like employees sometimes ask me tough questions and occasionally I'm like hey this is not appropriate. But by and large in those all hands I get to say to employees I get to talk to employees about the system view. Remember we talked about that Ryan the system view. You're right as a CEO you do see the system and often you get criticized because everybody doesn't see the system. But if you have

44:50 if your employees are smart and they usually are, you know, and you're willing to have an authentic conversation with them, you can give them a system view and they are grateful for it. Like every time I have a conversation with zeros and I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to zoom back and show you a piece of the picture I'm seeing." So again, just a simple example. I know we're going to wrap up soon. We just did this big acquisition of this company called Millio. And as you can imagine, I mean, my god, for 8 months, you have a bunch of people in secret working on a deal and then we launched it last week.

45:20 And in our first GH afterwards, you know, I had a whole script and I went off script because we had a GH and instead of presenting the same slides we printed investors, we're like, let us tell you what investors asked us about. Let us zoom back and give you a view of what investors were asking us about. And and people are grateful. They're well, wow, thank us. thanks for bringing us in the room and telling and like and when you can be place and you know I always start those ghs and look I'm going to knock on wood because I could be proven wrong but I start those ghes I said I'm going to share a view with you that of course is confidential like we don't you know this is stuff like I'm never going to write in a book I'm never going to talk about on a podcast but let me give you a feel for what it's like that has never served me wrong with employees not at zero not elsewhere if you're willing

46:05 to be authentic and and you can give them a system you now you can't give them everything to your point like there are things that are confidential what have you but the more you can help you know your team see the forest and give them a view of the forest they're smart people you know you think they're not thinking about these things of course they are so I mean I would just say as a CEO if you can be willing to answer tough questions or zoom back and give your teams the occasional systems view I think it will come back to serve you really well on the why when change happens

46:35 yes I want to close by talking about making a big ask. Okay, you did this earlier in your career to Eric Schmidt at Google, which I think is super inspiring. You're pregnant and you want to keep running an international business at at Google, but you told him like, I need to pay for me and my nanny to to to travel the world business class and I would imagine knowing you, you backed it up with great reasoning and a deck probably and a presentation. But I think it's inspiring to hear of people who make a big risky ask. And there's a lot that goes into it so you don't come across as some entitled person who feels like they deserve the world when you haven't fully earned it. So can you go into that story and how it could be helpful for maybe somebody else who's scared even though they like have earned the right to make that ask and what you would say to them.

47:30 Sure. Well, first of all, um, just for complete accuracy, I made that ask to Omid Cordistani, who was my boss and Google's chief business officer, who I think shared it with Eric and definitely aware and I was in at least one business trip to Korea where Eric actually kindly offered to take me and my daughter and my nanny with him on his travel. Um, so he certainly was aware and very supportive and I will am eternally grateful actually to Google for their support of my family situation in that time. How do you make a risky ask? I think you hit the nail on the head.

48:00 First of all, don't be entitled. You don't deserve it. Like, like, well, I take it back. You might deserve it, but don't go in like you deserve it. Go in and understand. Just be like, "Hey, I know this is a big ask." Now, to your point, I think in any risky ask, you have to first say, "How does it serve the person you're asking and the organization you're asking?" So, why did Google say yes? I think they said yes because they're like wow the cost of losing Sukindra in this job and replacing her with someone else and the cost of that time versus the cost of helping support her six-month-old at the time baby traveling with her as she like moves around the world to every pretty 180 different countries I was managing.

48:39 So first of all, I think you have to say what's the benefit to you like what's the upside and then I think you I mean I think in any risky ask you also have to outline the downsides and how you would mitigate those risks. So I think if you want to be a very thoughtful asker on a big risk by the way remember we just went through the board with a big acquisition. Do you think we didn't go through like here's a big you know we want you to support this acquisition here's why you have to be I would say and I think I write about this in my book you have to list you know the downsides as much as the upsides. So, first of all, go in and say, "Why is it beneficial to you?" Number two, what are the downsides of this risk to you? How would I mitigate them? So, somebody might say, "Well, gosh, the downside is, you know, blah blah blah." And you're like, "Okay, well, here's how I thought about that downside and how I'd mitigate

49:22 it." On balance that you've considered it all and that you and I'd say in most risky moves, is there a way back? So, often there is. Like, you can say, "Look, if this doesn't work out, here's like here's something we can consider, but let's try it." So I think that I think in very risky moves like in the case of the Google one, there's a way out. If it's a personal question, there's a way out. So I think you have to paint the upside for them. You have to be really clear on the risks and the mitigance that shows you've been thoughtful. And I think I would end with the ask again from a from a tone of gratitude and realizing they don't have to do it, but you would appreciate if they do it. And inside of that, yes, of course you can talk about your value, of course. But if you make it all about you, I'm not sure that's the the right point.

50:03 The point is it's about them um and your value in that equation. That's that's the key key point. Whether you're going for a job

50:11 or you're going for a big ask, if you're going for a job, you're essentially solving someone else's problem and you need to talk with them about how you're going to solve their problems and make their life better to make it as simplistic as possible. And I think when people mess this up, they focus on themselves and why maybe they're awesome or they deserve the raise or they deserve the job or they deserve the the business class ticket as opposed to saying this is how it solves your problem. Be others oriented, others focus, not not look at me, I've earned this, I'm entitled. It's no, this is how it's going to help you.

50:48 Yeah. And of course, look, I am of course a fan of if people want to advocate for a promotion or raise or I would never say don't advocate. I would say when you advocate, think about, you know, what you have done, what you still can do and, you know, and how you've demonstrated impact in the past and how you're going to demonstrate impact in the future. Like if I was going to go ask for a raise, I'd be like, "Look, I'm so excited to be here. You know, this is what I've accomplished. You know, this is I think what people would say about my work. I think I'm already operating at this level, you know, but you judge.

51:20 You let me know like I also would love the feedback. Okay, there's an ask. I'd love the fe, you know, and what I'm so excited to do if I if you were going to give me the promotion is like I can't wait to unlock more value here. Here are some of the things I think I could still accomplish. Like again, it's about the tone of the ask and um your recognition that you are part of a system. To your point, it's not you in your own system. you are part of a system

51:44 and paint the vision of you in the system and how it's better for the system and for you.

51:50 One more. You're meeting with someone who's earlier in their career, maybe they're early 20s, just graduated college, maybe business school, and they want to leave a positive dent in the world, but they're not fully sure how. What are some general pieces of lifec career advice for that person? Uh I always say do early on if you don't know how to leave a dent in the world world I'd be like do great work for great people. So what I like so sometimes you don't know where you want to go. You don't know what industry right so you might say oh this company's interesting or this person's interesting. I'd like I'd be like go find a way to I'd say apprentice under somebody super talented. Now talented doesn't mean easy. It doesn't mean you know what it doesn't mean like they're like the world's nicest boss. But I will say if you end up doing great work for great people you're going to be fine. And if

52:35 in that equation you don't even know what great works looks like, go find a great person in a category you find generally interesting and apprentice. And by the way, and when I say great work for that person means like work your tail off. Work your tail off. If you work your tail off for somebody who's highly talented, you're going to learn disproportionately more. That's it.

52:54 Yeah. Get after it and be a value added be a value added person to the team. Right. be at how I think the question you ask in the end of each day is what did I do to add value to my boss today? What did I do to add value to the person I'm apprenticing under today? And write those things down and think about it. Have conversations about it. Like strive for that. I think that is that is crucial and really good.

53:17 And look, and by the way, if you let's say you're doing great work for somebody that you don't respect or whatever, maximize the learning opportunity and in your next say, man, you know what? This is what I was capable of here. I maximized the opportunity. I got a great reference. again pretty much early in your career, right? And then be like, now I'm going to go find somebody great to work for. And great is usually defined by pattern of success, maybe outsized capability in one area or another, known for either like the the people who that who've like worked with that person go on to do great things. So you can see outside in markers of someone's success. Again, it doesn't mean they're easy to work for. You if you if your goal is to find accelerated impact in learning, it usually is around people who've done the same.

53:58 Love it. So, Kendra, this is amazing. I am so glad you came back. Let's keep checking in. I don't know. Let's make it more frequent because you're like right in the seat doing the thing. It's really, really hard and you're killing it. And I love talking to current operators who are getting after it, making a difference, building great cultures, building great value for not only your employees, but your customers and shareholders. It's awesome to talk to you. I'd love to continue this dialogue as we both progress.

54:26 For sure. And of course, I couldn't end this call without saying thank you for being a zero customer.

54:31 Of course. Thanks so much. Get started, but it makes me happy. Love it. Love it. Thank you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The 10-Slide Deck That Won a $2B CEO Role: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's Strategic Job Search Framework"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (Guest).

What is "The 10-Slide Deck That Won a $2B CEO Role: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's Strategic Job Search Framework" about?

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy outlines her strategic approach to securing a CEO role, detailing the importance of identifying key job criteria such as market potential, passionate customer engagement, and a solid business model. She emphasizes the creation of a personalized 10-slide presentation to articulate her vision and plans for the potential position during the interview process, ultimately…

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Sukinder Singh, Zero, Millio, Artificial Intelligence, Google LLC, StubHub. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The 10-Slide Deck That Won a $2B CEO Role: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy's Strategic Job Search Framework"?

The episode runs 55 min; the transcript is about 12,280 words in 112 timestamped sections.

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