Visionary and tech industry veteran: Meet Hootsuite’s Senior Vice President of Product and Technology
By: Hootsuite Careers
Tags: Leadership, Product, Impact

What’s the most important trait someone on your team needs to have?

I’m going to cheat and answer with a balance of three key traits: passion, curiosity, and respect. Based on my experience, the healthiest, happiest, and highest performing teams are comprised of individuals that are strong and well-balanced in all three key traits. Having a diverse and balanced team helps to eliminate other challenges that one sees from time-to-time, such as “brilliant jerks” or a lack of passion to innovate.

How do you see the industry changing in the next 5 years?

The marketing technology industry is going to continue its crazy pace of hyper-evolution. Digital experience platforms will mature and commoditize to accommodate the Web and Mobile presences of brands. More traditional means of customer contact, such as call centres, CRM, and e-mail will shrink in usage.

Taking its place will be social, which will result in the principal means of customers interacting with brands. I know in my own life I see more of the brands I care about on social than I do through more traditional means these days. I have been a very frequent flier of United Airlines, and I see far more of them on Instagram or Facebook than I do except when I’m buying a ticket or actually on a plane. And who would want to pick up a phone when you could iMessage or WhatsApp instead? With my busy schedule, picking up the phone is an inconvenience as it literally requires blocking a slot off on the calendar that I’d rather put towards customers or the team. And in the event of a customer service crisis, a brand is held accountable via social — which has never happened with more traditional means of contact. And in that case, the consumer significantly benefits.

What this is going to do is create an innovation “arms race” between the social networks themselves and for social technology players to help brands most effectively manage their presences. As with most categories, social technology will likely end up in an oligopoly with a handful of dominant players as has occurred in most other categories such as CRM, content and commerce platforms. With its size, history, and position of market leadership, Hootsuite is very well positioned to be at the absolute forefront of the social technology space.

“Everyone should have a clear development plan with training, stretch assignments, etc. that help them realize their potential and career aspirations.”

How do you build and develop your team of talent to ensure everyone is at their best?

To ensure that everyone is at their best and have an inclusive, diverse workplace where people can have fun over the long-term, a couple of key elements need to be in place. First and foremost, there has to be clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Second, there has to be a very clear mission. From there, I believe in having very clear expectations for progression both within a given role as well as clear steps for someone to transition to another role as part of their career development.

Everyone should have a clear development plan with training, stretch assignments, etc. that help them realize their potential and career aspirations. This requires a significant investment in people, but it absolutely pays huge dividends over time. This is especially true in high growth environments where the needs are ever-expanding.

What does company culture mean to you?

I view company culture as a blend of the company’s mission and purpose, values, people, and success metrics. Those elements together combine to create the culture of daily life within the organization. In my 20+ year career in the technology industry, Hootsuite has one of the clearest (and aspirational) missions and corporate values combined with an amazingly talented workforce and ever-maturing success metrics.

So far, I’ve found the culture to be amazing and I am having a blast each and every day. When I joined Hootsuite, I was worried that I had over-hyped my own mental expectations; instead, I have had them pleasantly exceeded each and every day.

How would you define your leadership style?

I believe in creating teams where people can achieve their personal and professional goals while achieving amazing business results — and having a lot of fun at the same time. To make this happen, I believe in the concept of empowered accountability coupled with clear support from me as a leader. It is my job as an executive to ensure that expectations, roles, and responsibilities are crystal clear. This just eliminates ambiguity and chaos.

Next, I am here to help in any capacity that is required. That can be serving as a sounding board, unblocking something cross-organizationally, or helping to facilitate collaboration.

Third, I am here to help develop the careers of each and everyone in my team. This is often a mix of mentorship, creating stretch assignments, ensuring access to training, or whatever else is required to help my team achieve their career aspirations.

What do you do when you’re not in the office?

First, I have a lovely wife who is a senior software engineering executive for another high growth technology company. She manages a global team spanning four countries with her anchor point being in the United Kingdom. So yes, we have been living in separate countries for several years which makes things a bit complicated but does make for some interesting travel meetups. I am extremely proud and supportive of her!