A Year in Review- An Interview with our CEO
By: Amy Wolcott
Tags: Culture, Talent Acquisition, SaaS, Pandemic Diaries

Yello All! I’m Amy Wolcott, the Talent Acquisition Manager here at Yello. No, the above picture is not me, that’s Corey Ferengul our CEO living his best life via zoom.

This has been an interesting year for all of us; finding our new normal and reflecting on what’s truly important to us at home and at work. As I speak with candidates, I get many questions about how Yello has navigated the pandemic, what leadership is like and how I would describe the culture here. So I decided to interview Corey and cover some of those topics.

His transparency and passion are just two of our favorite qualities about him.

Corey, why Yello? (he officially joined as the CEO in October 2020, but had been an Executive Chairman with Yello since right before the pandemic)

I’ll be honest I wasn’t looking for a job. I was consulting and doing work on several Boards of Directors, all of which kept me very busy. I agreed to start working with Yello (back in January 2020) and found a few interesting things. First was a roster of customers that was unusually great for a company of this size and stage. These were large, professional companies that relied on Yello. Next, the relationship with customers really came out during April and May when the Yello team was working with their customers to figure out how to best manage the Fall recruiting season with everything going virtual due to the pandemic. This wasn’t just any normal customer/company relationship, this was an actual partnership. There was true consultative discussion with customers not just answering questions. The teams were collaborating. That was really intriguing. Lastly, I saw where I could make an impact. I saw some of the possibilities for the future and it’s important to me to not just take a role of any sort but to ensure I can make an impact.

What has been the biggest challenge of 2020?

2020 presented two challenges I’ve not confronted before.

The first wasn’t having to cut costs, unfortunately, I’ve dealt with that before. The first new challenge was having no clear idea what the “other side” (post-pandemic) looked like after reworking goals and budget for the year. Did we predict revenue correctly? Did we reduce cost enough in the business? Did we save everyone else’s jobs? Did we save the software our customers relied on? I hate reducing costs — and especially reducing the workforce. It really impacts lives…it sucks. Sometimes it’s needed or everyone is going to be hurt, so you make the hard choices. However, making major organizational changes in SUCH an unpredictable environment was a new one for me. While we used data to try and make those decisions, the reality was that the data was based on normal history — not a pandemic.

The second challenge was the country having a unified awakening to taking more aggressive action to the inequality that exists in our society and as a company figuring out how to navigate and give space to that. While I’ve been involved in DEI initiatives in the past, it was never with this level of significance or attention. I’ve been confronting some of my own embedded biases (as a middle-aged white guy I don’t wake up and always understand my privileges or biases). Yello was, and is, working on how to make an impact internally and externally. Change is hard. We started with how we address these issues/topics, how to get the team to buy-in and how to make sure we took sustained action. I wanted to make sure we didn’t just do something in the moment and walk away.

What has been the brightest spot of 2020?

Getting the financial plan right (referring to the re-budgeting and goal setting above). Now that wasn’t an accident. Like I said, we tried to use data, but we also took quick action to deploy our virtual capability (improved video interviewing, webinar capability) which helped with the financial plan success. We were able to meet the new renewal goals and new sales goals for 2020.

I mentioned our virtual capability. I’m incredibly proud of that effort. It involved all parts of the company and everyone was on board, focused on their deliverables and collaborating effectively. It was great to watch.

What is one goal you have in mind for Yello in 2021?

We have several goals, but the main one is focused on bringing more value to our customers (and prospective customers). I’ve heard from some customers that they really like Yello (or even love Yello) but they have a hard time explaining why to others in their company. We need to make this easy for them. We need to prove such great value in the use of Yello that our customers have no issues communicating why Yello is a critical part of their recruiting operations. There is no one way of making this happen, but it’s a series of efforts in evolving current capabilities, sharing more data with customers, teaching best practices, adding new capabilities, integrating with other vendors and much more.

Three adjectives to describe Yello?

Passionate, Evolving, Enthusiastic…and if you want one more — Determined.

What is something an old boss would say about you?

That I can be impatient and I am pretty ambitious.

What has been your favorite show during the pandemic?

My wife and I have watched Veep and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — the entire series of each. I’ve also watched the Mandalorian and rewatched my favorite show of all time — The West Wing.