Without Borders

S6 Ep3: Following Up with Sophy Caulier, Freelance journalist and contributor for Le Monde

Tyto — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:31:32 +0000

Welcome to Without Borders, the podcast from Tyto. As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we know that earning meaningful media coverage across this region requires more than just a good story. It demands a deep understanding of how journalists, creators, and media owners work, and how influence is evolving in today’s increasingly interconnected and fast-changing media landscape.

The second series of Following Up is designed to give PR leaders at global technology companies exactly that perspective.

Hosted by Tyto media experts, Pauline Delorme and Bastian Meger, the series brings you candid conversations with some of Europe’s most respected technology journalists, industry influencers, and independent media founders. We explore how stories are selected, how influence is built across multiple platforms, and how commercial pressures and changing audience behaviours are reshaping the media landscape - and what that means for PR teams.

In this episode, Pauline and Bastian are joined by Sophy Caulier, freelance journalist and contributor for Le Monde, covering national and international news with a focus on politics, economics, culture and in-depth investigative journalism. With over 30 years of experience as a professional journalist across a range of publications, Sophy is also a skilled writer who trains managers to enhance their media presence.

In this conversation, Sophy discusses the role of freelance journalists as the “shadow army” in modern media. She also talks about how curiosity and reporting instincts shape great stories, sharing a fascinating anecdote of landing a major scoop on Steve Jobs returning to Apple, illustrating how breaking news can emerge from good reporting rather than aggressive digging. Finally, Sophy gives her view on the changing media landscape and the value of journalism in human judgement, storytelling and turning communication into meaningful information.

Across the series, Following Up gives communications leaders the opportunity to hear directly from the people shaping Europe’s technology conversation, offering a valuable perspective that helps refine media strategies, strengthen engagement, and approach the region with greater confidence.

For more episodes of Following Up and the wider Without Borders series, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S6 Ep2: Following Up with Adrian Swinscoe, Punk CX

Tyto — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:18:38 +0000

The second series of Following Up is designed to give PR leaders at global technology companies exactly that perspective.

In this episode, Pauline and Bastian are joined by Adrian Swinscoe, a well-respected writer, author and influential voice in the world of customer experience, and host of the Punk CX podcast. A longtime advocate for better service and meaningful customer outcomes, Adrian has spent years researching, writing and speaking about what it really takes for organisations to deliver experiences that customers value.

In addition to being a writer and podcast host, Adrian has also authored several books, including a best-selling 2016 book called How To Wow, the 2019 hit book Punk CX described as a “visual slap in the face for the customer experience industry”, and an exciting follow-up called Punk XL at the end of 2021.

In this conversation, Adrian talks about why bad customer service inspired him to build a career exploring and improving customer experience. He also discusses what makes compelling stories and podcast guests, and the importance of thoughtful, relationship-driven collaboration between PR professionals and content creators.

For more episodes of Following Up and the wider Without Borders series, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S6 Ep1: Following Up with Stijn Goossens, BNR

Tyto — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

The second series of Following Up is designed to give PR leaders at global technology companies exactly that perspective.

In this episode, Pauline and Bastian are joined by Stijn Goossens, producer and editor for Science, Technology, and Innovation at Business News Radio

As the first media organisation to offer podcasts on on-demand audio, BNR has become a trailblazer in business broadcasting in the Netherlands. Every day, professionals and decision-makers tune in to stay up to date on the latest in technology, work, entrepreneurship, economics, and business.

Stijn oversees the presentation, editorial direction, and production of Op de zaak, a popular podcast that spotlights Dutch SMEs that have turned their businesses into real success stories. Before joining BNR, he was a presenter and editor of a weekly radio science show for NTR, where he and his co-host invited scientists to take a deep dive into their research.

In this conversation, Stijn discusses how to successfully engage with BNR’s C-level business audience, what makes a truly compelling spokesperson, and why PR teams should prioritise personal relationships over mass pitching. He also shares his view on how AI is affecting journalism, the fragmentation of media consumption, and why creating genuine trust matters more than simply generating “buzz.”

For more episodes of Following Up and the wider Without Borders series, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S5 Ep3: Policy Matters with Ben Lyons, Darktrace

Tyto — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:08:28 +0000

Welcome to Without Borders, the podcast from Tyto. As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we know that communicating effectively in this region is rarely as simple as it seems. Every market has its own dynamics, expectations and cultural nuances, and even the biggest, most established global brands can find Europe a challenging place to build visibility and sustain momentum at scale.

This podcast explores those challenges and offers practical insight for ambitious PR and comms teams. Across our different series, we look at what it really takes to drive an effective PR programme across Europe - from the lessons founders learn as they enter markets, to the way journalists and influencers shape the narrative, to the policy shifts that influence how technology is understood and regulated.

Our latest series, Policy Matters, examines the evolving relationship between policy, media and communications. It’s designed to give PR leaders a clearer view of how these forces interact, how political conversations take shape, and how organisations can engage thoughtfully and credibly in a landscape where the pace is accelerating and the stakes are rising.

In this episode, we’re joined by Ben Lyons, Senior Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Darktrace, a global leader in AI cybersecurity.

Previously, Ben led policy communications at Virgin Media and spent several years in the UK Government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, including as Head of External Affairs.

Ben discusses why technology companies need to be more present in policy conversations than ever before, as regulation and public expectations increasingly shape how the sector operates. He discusses the role communications can play in helping governments and wider audiences understand complex issues, and in building the kind of trust that supports responsible innovation.

This fascinating conversation also looks at what effective policy engagement involves in practice, focusing on the right issues, shaping narratives early, and communicating clearly across audiences and markets as influence evolves across a broader range of digital channels, forums, and media outlets.

For more episodes of Without Borders, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S5 Ep2: Policy Matters with Eve Novakovic, Google DeepMind

Tyto — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:08:14 +0000

In this episode, we’re joined by Eve Novakovic, Executive and Policy Communications, Senior Manager at the AI research lab, Google DeepMind.

Prior to her current role, Eve led corporate and policy communications at Vodafone, with a particular focus on building relationships with journalists in Brussels and across the European Union.

Eve discusses how technology firms can use communications to build trust and engage effectively in policy debates across rapidly evolving regulatory environments. She emphasises the growing importance of transparency, authenticity, and clear storytelling in shaping how innovation is understood by policymakers and the public.

She also reflects on the value of close alignment between comms and policy teams, the need to deploy the right spokespeople at key moments, and how digital channels and influencers are increasingly central to earning credibility and gaining influence.

For more episodes of Without Borders, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S5 Ep1: Policy Matters with Chris Hilton, Mozilla

Tyto — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:07:39 +0000

In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Hilton, Director of Global Communications at Mozilla. With more than twenty years of experience working at the intersection of policy and communications, including senior roles within the Canadian government, Chris brings a wealth of insight and a valuable perspective to the conversation.

Chris explores how comms leaders can navigate the contrasting policy landscapes of Europe and the US and maintain consistent messaging across jurisdictions. He argues that media should be seen not as stakeholders but as channels to the audiencesshaping policy and highlights how comms teams can add real strategic value by understanding the business and helping organisations move forward. Chris also discusses the need to be political while staying clear of partisan divides and reflects on the increasing influence big tech now holds over regulatory decisions.

For more episodes of Without Borders, visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay up to date.

S4 Ep6: Scaling Without Borders with Rob van den Heuvel, Sendcloud

Tyto — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 09:55:11 +0000

As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we understand the unique challenges of growing a business across the region, particularly when it comes to communications.

Our new podcast series, Scaling Without Borders, is designed to help ambitious entrepreneurs overcome common challenges and successfully expand into new markets across Europe. Each episode explores the high and lows of growing a tech business internationally, offering valuable insights from some of Europe's most inspiring tech leaders who have been there and done it.

In this first series, we take a close look at the journeys of scale-ups founded by Dutch entrepreneurs with Tyto’s local experts, Chantal Schepers and Erik van de Nadort. We uncover what it takes to thrive in today’s ultra-competitive international markets and share invaluable insights to take your business to the next level from inspiring tech leaders.

The final episode features Rob van den Heuvel, co-founder and CEO of Sendcloud, a leading European shipping software company that helps e-commerce organisations streamline and simplify their logistics processes.

Since founding Sendcloud in 2012 with his co-founders Bas and Sabi, Rob has helped build a highly successful company that now serves more than 30,000 e-commerce businesses across Europe.

From being bored at business school to becoming frustrated with outdated shipping systems, Rob shares how his entrepreneurial journey began and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

His experience scaling Sendcloud provides valuable insights into the challenges of entering a new market for the first time - navigating the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma of needing volume to secure partnerships while requiring partnerships to drive volume - and the complexities of raising funds to accelerate growth and expand capabilities through strategic acquisitions.

For more episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem, check out ourYouTube channel. And don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform to stay updated.

S4 Ep5: Scaling Without Borders with Haran Sold, Mentha Capital

Tyto — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 13:54:05 +0000

As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we understand the unique challenges of growing a business across the region, particularly when it comes to communications.

Our new podcast series, Scaling Without Borders, is designed to help ambitious entrepreneurs overcome common challenges and successfully expand into new markets across Europe. Each episode explores the high and lows of growing a tech business internationally, offering valuable insights from some of Europe's most inspiring tech leaders who have been there and done it.

In this first series, we take a close look at the journeys of scale-ups founded by Dutch entrepreneurs with Tyto’s local experts, Chantal Schepers and Erik van de Nadort. We uncover what it takes to thrive in today’s ultra-competitive international markets and share invaluable insights to take your business to the next level from inspiring tech leaders.

In this episode, we hear from Haran Sold, Partner and Head of Technology Investments at Mentha Capital, a leading European private equity firm headquartered in Amsterdam.

Haran began his career at PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle in 2005), and has since held various international roles at companies like Nokia, Alcatel Lucent, and SmartShift Technologies, working in both France and the US.

With extensive experience in scaling businesses internationally, Haran supports ambitious management teams at Mentha’s portfolio companies daily. Drawing on his years of expertise, he shares invaluable insights into the common challenges scale-ups face when expanding across borders, key considerations for raising funds domestically or abroad, and why a deep understanding of your target market is crucial for success.

New episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem will be released soon. Don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform or YouTube channel to stay updated.

S4 Ep4: Scaling Without Borders with Wibe Wagemans, Serial Entrepeneur

Tyto — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 16:36:21 +0000

Since moving to Silicon Valley two decades ago, Wibe has made a significant impact, leading startups to exits exceeding $500 million and IPOs surpassing $1 billion as a CEO, chairman, and advisor.

As the best-selling co-author of The Secret of Silicon Valley, Wibe spills the beans on successfully expanding into the US, the critical importance of speed when scaling, and key lessons European founders can learn from entrepreneurs in the valley.

New episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem will be released soon. Don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform or YouTube channel to stay updated.

S4 Ep3: Scaling Without Borders with Lieke Conijn, Startup Liaison for the Dutch Embassy in London

Tyto — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 12:04:56 +0000

As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we understand the unique challenges of growing a business across the region, particularly when it comes to communications.

Our new podcast series, Scaling Without Borders, is designed to help ambitious entrepreneurs overcome common challenges and successfully expand into new markets across Europe. Each episode explores the high and lows of growing a tech business internationally, offering valuable insights from some of Europe's most inspiring tech leaders who have been there and done it.

In this first series, we take a close look at the journeys of scale-ups founded by Dutch entrepreneurs with Tyto’s local experts Chantal Schepers and Erik van de Nadort. We uncover what it takes to thrive in today’s ultra-competitive international markets and share invaluable insights to take your business to the next level from inspiring tech leaders.

The third episode sees Lieke Conijn, Startup Liaison for the Dutch Embassy in London, share advice for scale-ups aiming to grow in post-Brexit Britain and offer her thoughts on the UK’s Autumn Budget, which was yet to be announced at the time of recording.

Plus, find out why Lieke urges founders to take inspiration from Dutch footballer, Virgil van Dijk, and work their way up to competing in the Premier League of business.

New episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem will be released soon. Don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform or YouTube channel to stay updated.

S4 Ep2: Scaling Without Borders with Martijn Hamann, Co-Owner and Partner at Endeit Capital

Tyto — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:13:36 +0000

As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we understand the unique challenges of growing a business across the region, particularly when it comes to communications.

Our new podcast series, Scaling Without Borders, is designed to help ambitious entrepreneurs overcome common challenges and successfully expand into new markets across Europe. Each episode explores the high and lows of growing a tech business internationally, offering valuable insights from some of Europe's most inspiring tech leaders who have been there and done it.

In this first series, we take a close look at the journeys of scale-ups founded by Dutch entrepreneurs with Tyto’s local experts Chantal Schepers and Erik van de Nadort. We uncover what it takes to thrive in today’s ultra-competitive international markets and share invaluable insights to take your business to the next level from inspiring tech leaders.

In this episode, Martijn Hamann, Co-Owner and Partner at Endeit Capital, shares what he learnt from guiding 50+ tech companies as they scaled internationally.

From leading Endemol to its IPO to unlocking opportunities in AI and tech, Martijn discusses the do’s, don’ts, and secrets to success for scale-ups growing across borders.

New episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem will be released soon. Don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform or YouTube channel to stay updated.

S4 Ep1: Scaling Without Borders with Matthijs Welle, CEO of Mews

Tyto — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:06:51 +0000

As the only PR and communications agency built to scale high-growth technology companies faster across Europe, we understand the unique challenges of growing a business across the region, particularly when it comes to communications.

Our new podcast series, Scaling Without Borders, is designed to help ambitious entrepreneurs overcome common challenges and successfully expand into new markets across Europe. Each episode explores the high and lows of growing a tech business internationally, offering valuable insights from some of Europe's most inspiring tech leaders who have been there and done it.

In this first series, we take a close look at the journeys of scale-ups founded by Dutch entrepreneurs with Tyto’s local experts Chantal Schepers and Erik van de Nadort. We uncover what it takes to thrive in today’s ultra-competitive international markets and share invaluable insights to take your business to the next level from inspiring tech leaders.

In this episode, Matthijs Welle, CEO of Mews, reveals how the cloud business was founded and overcame a rather challenging start in France.

With Mews now on its way to becoming the global leader in hospitality management tech, Matthijs shares his experience of leading the scale-up through nine acquisitions, seven funding rounds, and the inevitable challenges sparked by rapid international growth.

New episodes of Scaling Without Borders featuring inspiring stories from Europe’s scale-up ecosystem will be released soon. Don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform or YouTube channel to stay updated!

S3 Ep6: Following Up with Eva Schram, Editor Financial markets at Financieele Dagblad

Tyto — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:20:00 +0000

This is the sixth episode of our Following Up podcast series. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for today’s episode is Eva Schram, Editor Financial markets, the Financieele Dagblad (FD), the leading Dutch Financial newspaper. The FD has grown into a multimedia brand and reaches its audience using print, online and events published seven days a week. Before joining the FD, Eva was based in California, where she was Silicon Valley correspondent covering the tech sector from the very heart of it, for over seven years. Now, Eva is based in Amsterdam with a keen eye on the Dutch stock exchange.

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Erik van de Nadort and Bastian Meger, Eva shares her own experience and opinion about how journalism differs between Europe and the US.

Eva talks us through her process for identifying which stories are most interesting to her audience, and why it is so important to find a fresh take on a big hitting news story, to provide readers with a different insight than other media outlets. Being a digital first publication means it is crucial to find that angle as quickly as possible to keep readers informed in real-time.

We asked Eva to share her criteria for what makes a great spokesperson, to which she told us “I want to talk to people who know a lot more about a topic than I do, who can tell me everything I would like to know.” She also highlights the importance of availability, being able to ask someone a series of questions over the phone or video chat to find out what she needs to know is much more valuable. Finally, Eva shares her frustration with jargon, and explains why she looks to interview individuals who can explain their views in a simplified, low-key manner. In Eva’s words, “as you would explain it to your neighbors or your parents. That’s the best way.”

Are you interested in hearing more fascinating insights from other leading technology journalists? You can listen and subscribe to ‘Following Up’ on your preferred podcast platform and on our YouTube channel.

S3 Ep5: Following Up with Nadine Schimroszik, Technology Correspondent at Handelsblatt

Tyto — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:27:06 +0000

This is the fifth episode of our new podcast series, Following Up. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for this episode is Nadine Schimroszik, Technology Correspondent at Handelsblatt, one of Germany’s leading newspapers covering business and finance. Based in Berlin, Nadine covered the business sector for more than 10 years until 2017, when she switched her focus to the tech industry.

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Zoë Clark and Bastian Meger, Nadine shares what it was like making the move from fast-paced global news agency, Reuters, to Handelsblatt where her focus turned to the German startup scene.

Nadine’s passion for technology and startups began when she wrote a book during her maternity leave, which kick-started her switch towards business and technology as a focus topic. Naturally, Nadine loves to keep on top of the news agenda, and the tech sector specifically, but she also loves to write about topics such as sustainability, climate change and deep tech, all of which appeal to Handelsblatt’s audience of investors. Nadine talks us through what makes a great spokesperson, and why the best interviews don’t necessarily come from those big names or those who are the most rehearsed. Rather, it’s all about being authentic and having an interesting story to tell.

Nadine also shares her thoughts on how journalists and PRs can work well together. In her view, a mutual understanding of each other’s ways of working and the audience journalists are trying to target will enable PRs to be a valuable asset to the media, enabling more cooperation to find the best stories.

Nadine’s parting wisdom – “I don’t mind which paper you read – whether it’s Handelsblatt or another, but keep informed! That couldn’t be more important these days”.

S3 Ep4: Following Up with Thomas Seymat, Editorial Project and Development Manager at Euronews

Tyto — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 11:55:05 +0000

This is the fourth episode of our new podcast series, Following Up. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for this episode is Thomas Seymat, Editorial Project and Development Manager at European news network, Euronews. Thomas has been working in journalism for almost 20 years, and has participated in various roles within Euronews over the past twelve years.

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Sophie Banda and Pauline Delorme, Thomas talks us through the transformation that Euronews has experienced over the past few years, and how his role has changed as a result. We chat about his previous experience as Virtual Reality Editor and how the publication implemented VR into its coverage. Thomas shares his views on what the future of immersive journalism could look like, and why he believes it is both technology and human behaviour that is currently causing a barrier for its development.

Thomas’ dream of becoming a journalist began when he started a newspaper with his peers at high school, later going on to write for his local paper in Lyon, Le Progrès. He even spent some time as a skateboard journalist, reviewing skateboard games! Having always been curious, he finds journalism the perfect way to learn new things and tell complete strangers what is going on in the world.

S3 Ep3: Following Up with Roland Lindner, US Business Correspondent at FAZ

Tyto — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 11:32:57 +0000

This is the third episode of our new podcast series, Following Up. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for this episode is Roland Lindner, US Business Correspondent at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), one of Germany’s leading national newspapers. Roland has been a journalist for almost 30 years and has spent most of his career in New York covering the US business sector.

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Bastian Meger and Pauline Delorme, Roland takes us through a typical day in his life starting at 5am every morning, and the types of stories and companies he usually covers. Roland reveals how he decides whether a story is interesting, and that he doesn’t always know exactly how the storyline will evolve when he is speaking to people; the best stories are not planned and develop over time. He finds interviews go well when everyone feels at ease, so avoids unnecessary questioning that might make a spokesperson feel uncomfortable.

Over his years in the industry, Roland has interviewed many high-profile names such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Sheryl Sandberg. During his time as a journalist, he has experienced first-hand how the news agenda has changed to become faster paced and has had to learn to adapt to the changing media landscape. More than half of what he covers is technology, which is the area he finds most interesting, particularly the rise of AI, but the stories that stick with him are those with a strong human element.

S3 Ep2: Following Up with Thomas Macaulay, Senior Reporter at The Next Web

Tyto — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:52:39 +0000

This is the second episode of our new podcast series, Following Up. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for this episode is Thomas Macaulay, Senior Reporter at The Next Web,
a publication that covers technology and startup businesses in Europe. Thomas has been working in journalism for over a decade, and in his current role focuses on Europe’s tech ecosystem, particularly deep tech, startups and government policy. 

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Sophie Banda and Bastian Meger, Thomas talks us through a typical day in his life as a reporter for one of Europe’s largest online technology news outlets; from the European startup scene to paranormal grannies in Bosnia. We chat about his career journey, starting out as a postal clerk to teaching journalism, and how he eventually bit the bullet and decided to pursue his dream of being a journalist in his late 20’s.

Thomas is also a big fan of the European tech scene and shares his thoughts on why he believes the EU has become a world leader, especially when it comes to regulation.

When asked what he would like PRs to know about the role of the journalist, relevance is key, and he appreciates when PRs have taken the time to research his interests before sending him a story – and notices when they haven’t!

S3 Ep1: Following Up with Mike Moore, Deputy Editor, TechRadar Pro

Tyto — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:09:16 +0000

This is the first episode of our new podcast series, Following Up. In these conversations, we sit down with some of the leading journalists in the B2B technology industry and take a deep dive into their careers, unique ways of working and their attitudes towards the changing media landscape. We aim to uncover some of the biggest challenges journalists face in their day-to-day, their key priorities when it comes to delivering the most relevant news, ideas and features to their readers, best practices when pitching and how companies, PR professionals and journalists can work better together in partnership to achieve excellent media results.

Our guest for our first episode is Mike Moore, Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro, the business technology publication targeted specifically at B2B decision-makers. Mike has worked as a technology journalist for over a decade, covering everything from cybersecurity to VR at the Winter Olympics. 

In this episode hosted by Tyto’s Sophie Banda and Pauline Delorme, Mike talks us through his career journey and the changes he has seen, from starting out as a journalist to deputy editor. When every day looks different, Mike outlines what he looks out for in a good pitch, shares top tips for PR consultants and chats to us about his dream interviewee.

S2 Ep48: Scott Voigt, founder and CEO, FullStory

Tyto — Thu, 18 May 2023 08:13:58 +0000

Our guest in this 35th podcast episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the founder and CEO of FullStory, Scott Voigt.

FullStory is a technology company that focuses on creating the perfect digital experience. Their tech records the customer journey in a privacy friendly way, whether it's on a browser or a native device. The data is then reported back to the owners of those properties so they can understand exactly when, where and why their customers are receiving a lower level of digital experience, and how to rectify it.
Scott has been In the SaaS game for over 25 years. He worked at a number of companies over that time – but the FullStory story picked up in the early 2000’s when he was working on a startup (where he met his two co-founders) which was later acquired by Google. “The whole time we wanted to get the band back together, and so we finally got the courage, say, in 6 or 7 years after we had sold that company to Google to quit our day jobs, really to pursue this idea of perfecting digital experience by developing a very innovative piece of technology that didn't exist before”, says Voigt.

In 2021, the company achieved Unicorn status after securing an impressive $171 million in funding. Since then, it has continued to flourish, establishing a prominent foothold in Europe and Australia while also expanding its operations into Germany and Singapore.

When talking about his strengths as a leader, Scott said he is always sceptical of people who claim to know what their own strengths are, which is why it is important for people to communicate this to each other. Scott has always had the “gift of the gab” when it comes to talking in front of people, but revealed he has a weakness when it comes to writing: “For a long time I was very hesitant to put words on paper. And so, I think I probably would lean into to verbal communication. At some point I decided I wanted to go back to business school, university here in the States. And it turns out in order to get in, you had to learn how to write”, he jokes.

We asked Scott whether the culture at FullStory had changed since becoming a Unicorn. He made a conscious effort to ensure that it did not, and one way of doing this, he encouraged everyone to be proud and hungry to succeed, but not pay attention to the numbers. He says “nobody gives you a high five in the world when you refinance your house. That's just a financing event. And so, it is with FullStory.” Scott trusts that while it's gratifying to have some sort of recognition for their accomplishments, such as this big milestone, it's important not to become too fixated on that number since it is bound to fluctuate over time.

The FullStory founder and CEO believes that in order to be a successful leader, you must be genuine. He emulates this in every talk he gives to the company, by showing empathy and always encourages employees to “honour your inner sceptic”. In other words, questioning and testing that what he says is true so that the team can build real trust and be more aligned. Being genuine builds trust.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR.

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.

S2 Ep47: Jason Zintak, CEO, 6Sense

Tyto — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 08:32:12 +0000

Our guest in this 34th podcast episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO of 6Sense, Jason Zintak.

The B2B sales and marketing platform 6sense was founded in 2013, but Jason joined the company four years later. The company then achieved unicorn status in March 2021 and last year, after a Series E funding of $200 million, reached a valuation of $5.2 billion with over 1300 employees.

Jason shares what it was like joining a company as CEO, having previously been led by the founder, with the challenge of achieving unicorn status. “It’s been quite a journey", Jason admits. “I joined the company and the founders at roughly $5 million in ARR [Annual Recurring Revenue] and today we're $200 million plus or minus, and that's just five and a half years later. So, we have quite a lot of experience together”, he adds.

He goes on to talk about what it takes to build a successful management team, such as getting to know your team and how they work and complement your own skill set. “One of our values at the company is just a growth mindset, balanced with accountability, integrity, having fun, being one team, so to speak. And we've practiced that for the last six years.” These values have been a part of the company's DNA and play a significant role in their success formula.

We then got onto the topic of ChatGPT, and Jason revealed that 6Sense has had this technology within the product for the past two years, but they feel fortunate to be “riding the tailwind”. The whole company is built upon the ability for AI to drive modern applications. “I think AI is embedded in increasingly more and more things and part of our [reason for] founding the company is that there's just too much data for any human to really process.”

Jason has always loved communicating with people, it’s what got him into sales and marketing in his early career, but will also often sit back and observe, and even feels nervous sometimes. He finds it harder to connect with employees, especially new recruits, due to a remote structure and rapid growth, but will always make a conscious effort to get small groups together on “workerversaries” to reconnect and stay in touch.

In addition, he maintains an "open door policy" to encourage internal communication, inviting anyone who wishes to discuss anything at any time, regardless of location. Jason’s organization operates as a flat structure without any mandatory hierarchy, which he believes fosters this closeness and “helps keep it human.”

Talking about his leadership style and who has had the biggest influence throughout his career, interestingly, Jason believes that we shouldn’t be trying to emulate a leader that inspires us. Instead, he urges people to adopt small parts of what those leaders do well, but to focus primarily on being your own authentic self.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR.

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.

S2 Ep46: Larry Gadea, founder and CEO, Envoy

Tyto — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 14:52:50 +0000

Our guest in this 33rd podcast episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO and founder of Envoy, Larry Gadea.

Envoy is changing modern workplaces by making office life and work more meaningful, by redefining how people, places, and technology work together. Founded in 2013, the company reached unicorn status in January 2022 with a valuation of $1.4 billion.

Larry has been a keen engineer from a very young age, writing scripts and learning about reverse engineering whilst his friends were in school. This early skill came in use when he was headhunted by Google to build software for them at the age of 17. Four years later, Larry moved to Twitter, which is where he gained the inspiration to create the original version of Envoy’s visitor management product. This same software is now used in over 20,000 offices across the world.

Amongst the high points of Envoy’s journey, Larry also shares some of the challenges faced over the years, namely the COVID-19 pandemic which was a pivotal time for the company. “Visitor management products and COVID. Let me just tell you, not a great mix”, Larry reflects. Despite the hurdles put in its way, the company still continued to accelerate during this time by becoming even more thoughtful about the future needs of the workplace, adapting their offering and putting the spotlight on the humans behind the technology.

Larry trusts it’s essential to surround yourself with experienced and tenacious people who are excited about scaling the business and changing the world. He acknowledges “it’s very easy to give up on something, especially in Silicon Valley” as opportunities – or recruiters – can come up unexpectedly. He claims he has been “given the gift of resilience”, and he believes this, as a founder or an entrepreneur, is one of the most important qualities he can have.

Larry is a passionate leader, who believes the key elements of successful leadership are clearly communicating your expectations, being able and willing to admit when you have made a mistake, and consistently repeating yourself until you are told to stop.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR.

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.

S2 Ep45: Joshua Motta, co-founder and CEO, Coalition

Tyto — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Our guest in this 32nd interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO and Co-founder of Coalition, Joshua Motta.

Coalition is the world’s first Active Insurance company, designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes. The company combines the power of technology and insurance to help organisations identify, mitigate and respond to digital risks.

Coalition was co-founded in 2017 by Joshua Motta and John Hering and has since raised over $700M from leading global technology investors. Coalition reached unicorn status in 2021 with a current valuation of $5 billion, trusted by over 104,000 customers worldwide.

Joshua started his cybersecurity journey in two of the world's most prolific companies and organisations, Microsoft and the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Insurance, he jokes, is a very dangerous field and known for being ‘technologically adept’. But in some ways, this was the perfect preparation. Coalition is "what would happen if you combined a financial service - insurance - with a technology company and an intelligence community mindset." His previous experiences, including positions at companies like Cloudflare and Goldman Sachs, helped him bring disciplines together to tackle a problem in a novel way.
Coalition has reached unicorn status thanks to its focus on its customers. Joshua states “we’re really partnering with them to improve their cybersecurity to mitigate the risks that they face before the event happens,” he also mentions that they are not “just paying out a claim” but rather, they are “on the ground helping them to recover.”

The commitment to client protection further extends to Coalition’s communication, where Joshua believes that effective communication comes from ‘putting yourself in the shoes of the customer’ and simplifying the message to make it as accessible to the customer as possible. Joshua also explores leadership and hiring at Coalition, with their recruitment process being that of a “stars attract stars” philosophy – hiring talented, ambitious people who want to work with other talented and ambitious people. The second stage of this approach is embracing a ‘tribal’ philosophy, which means getting these top performers and talented individuals to work together in harmony. Loyalty, a sense of shared purpose and an egalitarian ethos are embedded into Coalition’s tribal culture and have helped them succeed.

Being deliberate about culture is incredibly important, states Coalition’s CEO. At the end of the day, “culture is not what you write down, it is what you practice.”

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR.

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.

S2 Ep44: Jeff Lunsford, CEO, Tealium

Tyto — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:38:26 +0000

Our guest in this 31st interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO of Tealium, Jeff Lunsford.

Tealium is a leading customer data platform (CDP), connecting you with your customers, through your data. For companies to better connect with their customers, Tealium combines customer data across web, mobile, offline, and IoT. With more than 1,300 built-in connections supported by Tealium's turnkey integration ecosystem, brands can build a complete and up-to-date consumer data framework.

The company was founded in 2008 by Mike Anderson and Ali Behnam, with Jeff Lunsford taking the position of CEO in 2013. The company reached unicorn status in February 2021, with a valuation of $1.2 billion. Today, more than a thousand top companies around the globe rely on Tealium to power their consumer data strategy.

Tealium have reached unicorn status thanks to their focus and care for their customers- with a company culture that is “one of winning”, Jeff states that they “win together as a team, holding each other accountable for performance,” acknowledging that although every deal can’t be won, you can still learn from these instances and keep improving. Thanks to this commitment to improvement, Tealium have built a culture of trust and an extensive portfolio of repeat customers.

Jeff Lunsford has more than two decades of experience as a technology and internet executive and leader. Jeff says “success in business is never a straight line. It is always ups and downs”, and highlights how important it is as leaders, to always have a “positive bounce” in your step. He also believes that the most important thing in business is not IPOs or unicorn statuses, but rather “building great solutions and taking great care of customers so they can deliver true business value.”

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR .

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.

S2 Ep43: Michael Gronager, co-founder and CEO, Chainalysis

Tyto — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 10:15:36 +0000

Our guest in this 30th interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO and co-founder of Chainalysis, Michael Gronager.

Founded in 2014, Chainalysis is a blockchain data platform. It provides data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 70 countries. Their Chainalysis’s data powers investigation, compliance, and its market intelligence software has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely. The company reached unicorn status in 2021 and is now valued at $8.6 billion.

Ever since Michel Gronager was a kid, he saw himself as an innovator. He started his entrepreneurial journey, before co-founding Chainalysis, as the co-founder of Kraken, a digital asset platform and prior to this, he had a decade of experience in working on big data projects. He points out that the first thing he looked at when finishing university was virtual reality, and distributed computing platforms to do virtual reality. That led him to data, which ended up being his passion, because at the end of the day “data is growing way faster than anything else, and the opportunity of analysing that is huge.”

Gronager analysed data for high-energy physics and big science projects such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. When he stopped working in the public sector, he was bitten by this innovation bug to build something himself and have a private company. At the same time, he stumbled upon crypto, and at a moment when the industry was transforming and growing rapidly, Kraken’s Jesse Powell asked him to join the team. It became clear to him that there was a path forward with his expertise in big data, so he created a company that didn’t exist at the time, with a fresh idea: indexing and understanding all the data that is in the crypto space as it is growing, and this is where Chainalysis began.

The cryptocurrency sector is a peculiar one, where everything changes constantly, says Chainalysis’s CEO. There is a vast amount of innovation happening around crypto, so it means that his company must be deep in the product side and be constantly innovating and spending their efforts in building the right tools and products around the DeFi space. At the same time, another peculiarity of the crypto space is that it’s global. As Michael states, “crypto is everywhere and was born being global”. This also means, for a company like his, that they need to focus not on one market or one jurisdiction but work and think globally.

One of the things that changed when the company reached unicorn status back in 2021 is that it allowed him to make certain high-profile hires that would have been hard to make otherwise. Unicorn status “opened the door for talent”, he says, and this is important in a quite crowded space as technology. But Chainalysis has a couple of unique aspects that have helped them differentiate over the years. First, what they’re building is unique, so they’re not one of many. They’re building the market for themselves and growing the TAM every day and working with new customers.

Secondly, their business is very mission driven. What joins their public sector clients, more than 150 in 35 countries around the world, is that they’re trying to keep society safe, keep nations-state safe, and protect these from terrorists and other negative actors. They need to ensure they’re gaining the trust of these institutions, and a huge part of their culture is believing in their work and delivering high-quality data while maintaining humility and building trustworthy relationships with all stakeholders and customers. Staff at Chainalysis have a purpose because they see that getting better at understanding crypto and indexing it, could make the world a better place.

Michael highlights that there are many individuals who have had an impact on him as a leader, including Todd Olson from Tyto-client Pendo, and Manny Medina at Outreach. His greatest strength, he says, has been prioritising empathy and “trying to understand the problems in a business, and the problems that the individuals are trying to solve.” He also believes that this skillset has a lot to do with communication, not about trying to understand all the different areas of the business, as he’s no expert in areas such as sales or in a product function at the scale that they have today. But he can talk to the people there and build relevant connections, and that’s a crucial asset in managing and leading a business.

He also points out that he has always enjoyed communicating, and admits has his own style. He’s much better at improvising than at preparing, as his communications style is best suited to improvisation rather than practice. If he were able to go back in time, he says, he would speak to his old self and tell himself that “when you communicate, you need to overcommunicate.” Looking at things from a different perspective is important, and in any communicational exchange you need to understand that the receiver might have a different viewpoint. “When you say it three times, you probably need to say it three times again after that”, states Michael. The company now has more than 700 employees, and he still does onboarding himself once a month and has weekly office hours where people can ask questions or simply come and chat to him. These types of strategies are vital to the successful growth of a company.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep42: Shane Happach, CEO, Mollie

Tyto — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:14:57 +0000

Our guest in this 29th interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO of Mollie, Shane Happach.

Founded in 2004, Mollie makes it easier for small businesses and start-ups across Europe when it comes to connecting payment systems, banks and other providers of payment services. As one of Europe's fastest-growing payment service providers, Mollie reached unicorn status in September 2020 and is now valued at $6.5 billion.

Shane Happach started his leadership journey in a quite un-entrepreneurial way, as he likes to point out. He joined as an early employee for Global Collect when the company only had 35 workers. By the time he left, the business had a staff of 500 people. When he arrived at Mollie, the job wasn’t about optimising, but rather building the business from top to bottom.

Unlike other successful startups where the CEO is also one of the founders, Shane came to Mollie after the company was already established as a unicorn. He had to find a way to complement with his skills the work that the founder and the rest of the leadership team had done for the company. Now both work efficiently to leverage each other's expectation, having in their best interests the growth of the company. With Mollie being one of the most valuable start-ups in Europe, Shane says that this is a huge validation of their business model, but it is not the top measure of success that they look at. Happach has big plans for Mollie, he wants to expand their financial services and fit their product into the Western Europe market, and finally go pan-European. But ultimately, he says: "We don't see any reason why this couldn't be a global category business as well.”

There is not a book that can teach you as much as experience does. Happach mentions that a lot of what he has learned comes from making mistakes and figuring out what you don’t want to become and how you don’t want to lead. For him, most of the achievements feel like team accomplishments, rather than taking and giving individual credit. Living in different countries allowed him to draw on from the American leadership style, Dutch style and even Latin American style: “I would say I'm a mutt, but only the best of breed.”

Understanding the complexity of their product as a payment service provider is key to getting it right for their clients, says Happach. There is no merit in pronouncing yourself as an expert and closing your mind to new ideas. “It's finding people that are really good at that and are willing to work at it incessantly in spite of personality differences, cultural differences, geographic and time zone differences that's always, I think, every leader's greatest challenge”, he points out.

“Be bold, be loved, be authentic” are Mollie’s values. Shane Happach says that the company wants to make sure people can express themselves in their work environment and feel there are opportunities to progress. The fact that the industry has developed over time does not mean that there will not continue to be disruptive developments, even if they have not yet occurred. “And those are likely to come from companies that allow people that kind of intellectual freedom”, says Mollie's CEO.

Shane says that to successfully communicate your views you have to respect that people consume information differently and you also need to make the leadership team more approachable. You will find Happach walking around the hallways at Mollie and having a casual coffee with workers. He explains that he’s not hard to find because “there's one coffee machine that serves at least 150 people”, and he drinks a lot of coffee.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep41: Romain Moulin, co-founder and CEO, Exotec

Tyto — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 06:30:00 +0000

Our guest in this 28th interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is Exotec CEO and co-founder, Romain Moulin.

Thanks to its fleets of robots, capable of moving in three dimensions, Exotec has revolutionized the way its customers organise their warehouses and how their logistics flows. Exotec offers a clear alternative to traditional warehouse automation solutions: elegant collaboration between human and robot workers that delivers sustainable warehouse productivity. Founded in 2015, the company has since secured $477m in funding reaching unicorn status in January 2022 with a valuation of $2bn. Moulin’s business now supports 50+ industry-leading brands spanning e-commerce, grocery, retail, manufacturing, and 3PL sectors, now employing over 300 people globally.

Romain’s journey began as an engineer in a heavy goods vehicle company, he then moved to General Electric Healthcare. Romain’s experience in these two areas is extremely relevant to understanding how Exotec was born. That first period helped both him and Renaud Heitz, CTO and co-founder – as they share these career highlights – learn what happens inside the warehouses. On top of this, moving on to GE allowed them both to experience first-hand how a company was developing advanced robotics. They built Exotec based on these two experiences while also using their “willingness to bring something new and disruptive to logistics.”

Romain recognises how becoming a unicorn has particularly changed the public perception of Exotec and created a lot of awareness around their brand. The company was the 25th unicorn founded in France, and that achievement was built while sticking to a plan made by the French government to establish 25 unicorns within a certain time period. This brought Exotec, the first industrial unicorn in France, a lot of attention as it made a lot of noise within European markets. Exotec has also managed to successfully establish a reputation for itself within the US market after Goldman-Sachs became an investor.

To describe the culture at Exotec, Romain says they work with "two brains." On the one hand, they have that quite typical software start-up mindset which focuses on going fast and delivering to the market on time. But that part, he recognises, will not work for a hardware company. If you deliver hardware, it means you are an install base and you cannot update it. That means you need, on the other side, perfect execution and an industrial grade quality whilst also being able to deploy this robot in the field that will last for at least ten years. Playing with both sides of their job is probably their biggest defining aspect as a company. They cannot only focus on the industrial quality grade, as it would slow them down but also cannot focus solely on innovation either, as it would create a depth on their install base and at some point interfere with their customer success. That balance between the two, for Romain, is key to understanding Exotec.

When asked about his approach to internal communications, Romain states that at Exotec transparency is imperative. It can come as an obvious asset when your company is small, but Romain believes that keeping transparency in mind when you're over 400 employees and growing allows you to move much faster in the right direction because everybody at your business understands where you are going. And, as your complexity and departments grow, having everyone on board can really help you. This, Romain explains, also works externally. Having the same stories for his team, investors and customers, makes his life easier. What he loves more than anything is talking to his end customers, and he's more of a "personal communicator than a broadcast communicator" because he likes to be close to the end customer to build a strong relationship.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep40: Ella McCann-Tomlin, DE&I consultant

Tyto — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 06:00:00 +0000

This is the fifth episode of our DE&I series. In these conversations, we want to explore issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and our hope is that these help to build a world in which people from all backgrounds and with different views can thrive. Our aim with these series is to chat with inspirational guests who can encourage us all to look at the industries we work in (media, comms and tech) from different perspectives.

Our guest for this episode is Ella McCann-Tomlin, a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consultant at Ardent with a passion for organisational change. She works with companies to transform their leadership cultures, the diversity of their teams, and their social mission. She spent almost a decade working in high-growth tech before setting up her own consultancy business. It was this experience in fast-paced environments that led her to want to work with other companies on how to get their culture right, and how to live by their values, as they scale.

In this interview hosted by Tyto’s Shamina Peerboccus, Ella discusses her incredible journey of starting her own consultancy supporting the leadership of organisations. In the interview, Ella challenges the performative nature of companies when it comes to DE&I and discusses the need for companies to be held accountable. She recognises that many companies may not know where to start when it comes to DE&I strategy and transforming management culture and therefore leaves practical tips in the interview for companies to adopt. Ella emphasises on “working from the inside out” and focusing on strong internal processes by means of building DE&I strategies that leverage the voices of people most excluded within organisations. Supporting companies empathetically and focusing on long term strategies will inevitably produce meaningful results and transform society in the process.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/mq6-flboZLY

S2 Ep39: Robert Wahbe, co-founder and CEO, Highspot

Tyto — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 09:43:55 +0000

Our guest in this 27th interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is Highspot CEO and co-founder Robert Wahbe.

Trusted by General Motors, Nestle, Twitter, Dow Jones and many more, Highspot helps companies worldwide improve the performance of their sales teams by turning strategic initiatives into business outcomes. Their unified sales enablement platform gives revenue teams a single solution to elevate customer conversations and drive repeatable revenue, bringing together native content and guidance, training and coaching, and engagement intelligence – all supported by actionable analytics. Founded in 2012, Highspot has raised a total of $648 million, with a valuation of $3.5 billion.

Robert's entrepreneurial journey began in 1993 when he founded his first startup, Colusa, which would be acquired by Microsoft just two years later. He then spent more than 16 years at Microsoft, working hand in hand with the current CEO, Satya Nadella, until he decided to create Highpost in 2012.

Robert acknowledges that the biggest challenge during the last ten years has been the initial stages of the company and the uncertainty of not knowing what will be next, but that he is now very proud of the company Highspot has become. According to him, Highspot is on a dual journey. On the one hand, the goal is to get people to understand the category and why it is a strategic lever for their business. To do this, they have created a society of sales enablement professionals that seeks to elevate the category and share best practices and methodologies. The other objective is to win the category and for that "we want to make sure we're doing everything we need to be doing from a product point of view and just as importantly, from a partnership and best practices point of view to be the very best partner to be in that category".

As Robert says, he has been fortunate to learn from great leaders with whom he has worked side by side over the years such as Satya Nadella, Eric Rudder or Bob Muglia. One of the things he has learned along the way is that there are never 100% right answers, there are always different ways to approach problems. For him, what differentiates successful companies is whether they are resilient, whether they are able to ride the tide and adapt to circumstances by making any relevant changes.

One of the aspects Robert emphasises the most is culture, "culture is everything. If you have the wrong culture, it's pretty hard to be successful." That's why he strongly recommends thinking deliberately about the company's culture from the moment it is founded. Inspired by Amazon and its 14 leadership principles, Highspot has created a list of its 11 guiding principles that define its corporate culture, something that Robert says works exceptionally well.

Google's internal communication playbook has also been an inspiration for Robert, which is why Highspot has been implementing weekly all hands from day one. This mechanism and the use of Highspot itself as an internal tool are two of the aspects that Robert highlights in this area.

One of the main communication tips that Robert points out in this episode is the importance of having a vision, a North Star to communicate, but that it is fundamental to meet people where they are and then build the bridge back to whatever vision you have. Leaders need to avoid being too blindsided by their own vision and put themselves in the shoes of whoever they are trying to communicate with.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep38: Doug Winter, co-founder and CEO, Seismic

Tyto — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 07:44:33 +0000

Our guest in this 26th interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader, is Seismic CEO and co-founder Doug Winter.

Seismic is the global leader in enablement, helping organizations engage customers, enable teams, and ignite revenue growth. The Seismic Enablement Cloud™️ is a unified enablement platform that equips customer-facing teams with the right skills, content, tools, and insights to grow and win. Founded in 2010, Seismic has since raised $440 million and now has a valuation of $3 billion. The company is headquartered in San Diego with offices across North America, Europe, and Australia.

Back in 2010, Doug got together with four other entrepreneurs to work from “basements, breweries and beaches”, leading to the eventual launch of Seismic in San Diego. Looking back, he says he is simply most proud of the ability that Seismic harnesses in providing growth opportunities to their customers. It has been especially rewarding watching a lot of the people who had faith in his early vision join this journey, progressing their careers moving up into more and more senior roles and growing along with the company. That part, according to Doug, is the most satisfying .

In this Without Borders episode, the Seismic CEO explains how they are helping “marketing both support sales better and give them visibility into what’s actually happening in those sales, so they can improve and get stronger”. Fast-moving industries that have many products and complex sales cycles is where Seismic does best, according to Doug. Currently, their biggest customers are tech giants Microsoft, Google and IBM.

Doug also explains how the unicorn title was a big honour and a milestone for him and his company. He says it was very exciting to get there, but “you still have to keep moving forward and setting that next target and going after that next target is really what matters.” For Doug, the fun part is figuring out the next mountain you are going to have to climb and setting those targets. In terms of future growth and investment, the Seismic CEO explains that right now there is a lot of capital available, but investors are sitting on it as they wait for the markets to stabilise and understand if valuations are reasonable or not. At Seismic, they are aware of this situation, and they continue to make growth-oriented investments as well as product-led investments, but at the same time they “try to keep a cushion” so that they can stay far away from the rocks.

In terms of raising awareness and differentiating themselves on the market, Doug admits that “being publicly showy and high profile” has never been his personality, and the company has reflected that over the years. Fortunately, he says he has great people on the team, and on the day of our interview he was proudly sporting the new logo and colours of their fresh rebranded image.

When asked about the culture in his organisation, Doug Winter tells us that initially, it was easy for them to develop a good culture that fed on itself as people like each other and like working there, and genuinely enjoy what they are doing. But recently, the leader of his People team notified him that more than half of the people at Seismic joined after March 2020, which means most of them never met anyone physically, and it’s easier to drift apart when working remotely. Seismic also acquired a company called Lessonly, and this emphasised the need to unify the work culture. Consequently, they recently went through an exercise of developing and formalising it, through the process of documenting their culture. Doug explains that as a team they came up with a goal that “brings the company together around things [they] all believe in, and [they] all believe are important”.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep37: Ritu Mohanka, EMEA MD at Syndio

Tyto — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000

This is the fourth episode of our DE&I series. In these conversations, we want to explore issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and our hope is that these help build a world in which people from all backgrounds and with different views can thrive. Our aim with these series is to chat with inspirational guests who can encourage us all to look at the industries we work in (media, comms and tech) from different perspectives.

Our guest for this episode is Ritu Mohanka, Managing Director for EMEA at Syndio, a technology company that helps companies measure, achieve, and sustain workplace equity. Ritu is passionate about making workplaces more diverse, inclusive, and fair. She joined Syndio with over 20 years of experience in senior leadership roles with HR and talent-focused businesses, including leading business development and strategic growth efforts in EMEA at Glint (now a LinkedIn company).

Prior to Glint, Ritu worked at Kenexa/IBM Smarter Workforce to drive rapid revenue growth across the EMEA region. At IBM she was a highly regarded and lauded Diversity Champion and an Executive Sponsor for several diversity groups. Winner of multiple awards, our guest has been recognised several times on the Empower Top 100 Ethnic Minority Senior Executive rankings.

Tune in to learn about Ritu Mohanka’s incredible journey from a conservative Indian background to having spent over 20 years in leadership roles in the tech industry. Syndio’s EMEA MD highlights the importance of representation and how to encourage businesses to make it happen, as well as what the company is doing to help others offer opportunity equity in the workplace. In the interview hosted by Tyto’s Associate Director Shamina Peerboccus, Ritu also discusses imposter syndrome in women and how to help overcome it by “identifying allies and advocates in the workplace who believe in you and who are supportive of your work.” Recognition is a powerful motivator, and breaking barriers for women and acknowledging the professional achievements of the BAME community is something Ritu is hugely passionate about.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/cFUdAhhtJgY

S2 Ep36: Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO, Chargebee

Tyto — Wed, 25 May 2022 07:44:39 +0000

Our guest in this 25th interview with a unicorn start-up leader is Chargebee CEO and co-founder Krish Subramanian.

Chargebee is a subscription management platform that automates the operations of over 4,000 high-growth subscription-based businesses. Founded in 2011, the company reached unicorn status in April 2021 and has now raised a total of $470 million in funding with a valuation of $3.5bn. Chargebee integrates with the leading payment gateways like Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal around the world to let you automate recurring payment collection along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS metrics and customer management.

Krish is a software engineer by training, and he had the idea of learning to build a good company and to "fall in love with some good boring problems." Subscription management is one of those problems that is now growing in complexity and infrastructure. His mission continues to be the same, even if he couldn’t have foreseen that so many businesses would embrace subscriptions the way they have today.

In this episode, Krish explains how he has seen the SaaS business evolve, and how companies like Netflix or Slack have been changing their subscription models based on customer experience and driving other companies to follow suit. Krish himself constantly thinks about how he can integrate his customer’s story to his product roadmap, and he admits that at Chargebee they "strongly lean on listening to customers and taking feedback very seriously to build and solve the right problems."

Krish also explains how they have built their culture at Chargebee around their employee’s experiences, and this led them to identify core values such as empathy, customer-centricity, bias to action and curiosity. They haven’t just been aspirational with their culture, they have built it around their rituals and habits, he explains. Now, Krish says, as he has a workforce of 1,200 people spread across the world, his job is "mainly focused on making sure that we are able to bring the right talent into the organisation and then communicating more often about what we are doing, and bringing that consistency internally and externally."

One of the biggest challenges he has faced, as the company continues to grow, is learning "to hire people who are extremely better than you, who have been executives in other companies, and manage them as well." That is a journey most first-time founders as himself did not go through, as he was always a developer before founding Chargebee.

The Chargebee founder also highlights the importance of authenticity as a communicator. He explains how he is very grateful for the number of people who put themselves out there in an authentic way, without trying to look or sound different, and how he has learnt by listening to figures like Brian Halligan (Hubspot CEO and founder). Finally, Krish shares a connecting piece of communications advice to those wanting to succeed in business: invest time in educating yourself. "Watch more podcasts, listen to others talk... There is so much to learn!"

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep35: Tom Livne, founder and CEO, Verbit

Tyto — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 15:03:55 +0000

Our guest in this 35th interview with a unicorn start-up leader is Verbit CEO and founder Tom Livne.

The Verbit Company serves as an essential partner to 2,000+ businesses and institutions. Verbit’s vertical-built voice AI transcription solution that provides its partners with the tools they need to offer engaging and equitable experiences that not only meet accessibility guidelines, but make verbal information searchable and actionable.

Tom started his career as a lawyer, so he was directly facing the transcription problem in his profession. Eventually, his eagerness to solve the problem came from being a frustrated customer, so he imagined there was a better way of doing things. In just a few years since its founding in 2017, Verbit has grown into a unicorn company with a $2B valuation and a global presence. Verbit employs the largest professional captioner workforce in the world and has emerged as the leader in the $30B transcription industry.

In this episode, Tom explains how Verbit, which has a workforce of 600 employees and +35,000 freelancers across the globe, approaches communications and engagement. According to Tom, one of the most important lessons he has learnt over the last five years is you cannot build a company alone: it’s all about the people. He says, “always hire people that you feel you could work for them too.”

Two of the most critical areas that Verbit’s culture focuses on are creating more jobs for people to work from home and accessibility. Tom is excited about the opportunity that his business generates for people with disabilities and, curiously, that’s where his company name comes from too. He thought about the process of looking for verbal information, just as a transcription is, and “just Verb-it!” came to him. And the rest is history, he says.

Finally, Tom shares a piece of communications advice for those who want to succeed in business: patience is key. When he was younger, he states, he didn’t have as much patience, and he believes this ability to choose balance over impulsiveness in communications is one of the key factors that affect the performance of the business. Tom also explains that especially when working remotely, “you need to make sure you’re investing in tools, and you know how to communicate as a professional.”

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep34: Tyto Tech 500 – The influencer POV on European tech

Tyto — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

In this special episode of Without Borders in collaboration with the csuite podcast we talk about influence and technology trends in Europe with a panel of experts including three key European influencers identified in our Tyto Tech 500 Power List: Sophie Proust (CTO of Atos), Dr. Andreas K. Maier (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), and Jonathan Symcox (Editor of BusinessCloud).

What does it take to have influence in today’s world? What trends will continue to shape the European tech landscape? What can we conclude about the representation of women in tech from this report? These and other questions are answered in this episode in which we look at the point of view from these three highly influential individuals featured in the Tyto Tech 500, our annual report on the tech sector, from our 3 focus countries: the UK, Germany and France.

Sophie Proust, our France business leader representative, has been the Chief Technology Officer of Atos since early 2019. Dr. Andreas Maier, our academic representative from the German Influencer list, is a researcher, professor and Head of the Pattern Recognition lab at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Jonathan Symcox is a journalist and our UK list representative. As an editor, he leads tech publications BusinessCloud and TechBlast UK. Sophie, Andreas and Jonathan are joined by our own Zoë Clark, Head of Media and Influence at Tyto.

As well as presenting their point of view with these relevant questions, our selected country experts share how COVID has changed their outlook on tech or has impacted their work, from a business, journalist or academic perspective. Sophie, Andreas and Jonathan also share their predictions on future technology that will change the tech landscape in France, Germany and the UK respectively.

The interview was hosted by Graham Barreth of the csuite podcast.

Interested in the 2021 edition of the Tech 500? Here you can see the top 50 influencers in each country and download the full report: https://tytopr.com/tyto-tech-500-power-list-2021/

S2 Ep33: Erez Galonska, co-founder and CEO, Infarm

Tyto — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 10:19:17 +0000

Our guest for the 23rd interview with unicorn start-up leaders is Erez Galonska, co-founder and CEO of Infarm.

Infarm is a global vertical farming company that revolutionises the food supply chain and helps make cities self-sufficient in their food production. It was founded in Berlin in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and the brothers Guy and Erez Galonska, who turned a 1955 Airstream trailer into the world's first mobile vertical farm. From this humble beginning, Infarm has since partnered with more than 30 of the world's top retail chains and is available in more than 1850 stores worldwide, servicing more than 2 million customers in 11 countries.

Infarm is the world's fastest-growing vertical farming company. By 2030, 20 countries in North America, Asia and the Middle East will enjoy Infarm's fresh, highly nutritious, chemical pesticide-free, locally-grown produce year-round, without fluctuation in quality or pricing. The company reached unicorn status in December 2021, having raised $200 million in Series D funding, and that took the total raised to more than $500 million from world-leading investors.

Erez believes that, for you and your business to excel in communications, you must build everything around transparency. Galonska says culture, for him and his company, is also about ownership clarity and helping people to build what they’ve been hired for. This is especially important in a start-up ecosystem, where rapid growth is a constant experience. This has led to Infarm to reorganise the business every half a year to create even more clarity around its needs. They are slowly structuring their culture and establishing a mission-oriented business that will also help them build a better farming network.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep32: Léa Lejeune, feminism washing expert

Tyto — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 08:52:53 +0000

This is the third episode of our DE&I series. In these conversations, we want to explore issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and our hope is that these help build a world in which people from all backgrounds and with different views can thrive. Our aim with these series is to chat with inspirational guests who can encourage us all to look at the industries we work in (media, comms and tech) from different perspectives.

Our guest for this episode is Léa Lejeune, a French business journalist engaged in topics around equality. Léa recently left a leading business title in France to launch her own media outlet called Plan Cash, where she aims to educate and raise awareness on financial management targeting a female audience. She has also just published a book on what she calls “feminism washing”, “Féminisme Washing: Quand les entreprises récupèrent la cause des femmes”.

In this interview hosted by Tyto’s Shamina Peerboccus, Léa summarises some of the main aspects of her book, such as what "feminism washing" really is. She also gives concrete examples of this practice from large multinationals such as Dior, Amazon Web Services, McDonald's, IBM and BNP Paribas. But Léa also talks about the progress that is being made to achieve equality and points to the case of L'Oréal in France as an example to follow. If you are interested in how to improve equality in your company, Léa also provides tips on practices and policies that can be implemented. Finally, Léa shares her motivation for leaving her job to create her own media, Plan Cash, which is currently a newsletter and will soon also be a podcast.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/iWXvxKPRbu0

S2 Ep31: James Taylor, co-founder and CEO, ELMS

Tyto — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 11:32:27 +0000

Our guest for the 23rd interview with unicorn start-up leaders is James Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMS).

ELMS is redefining the fleet transportation industry with its vertically-integrated approach to designing, manufacturing and customising electric last mile delivery vehicles. With proven technology, seasoned leadership and a vision of a sustainable future, they’re moving the needle when it comes to the expectations of fleet managers and business operators.

James Taylor is an experienced leader who co-founded ELMS in August 2020 and has served as ELMS’ Chief Executive Officer since its inception. Prior to co-founding ELMS, James served as Chief Executive Officer of SERES from May 2019 until August 2020. Prior to SERES, James served as an executive in various automotive companies, including positions of increasing responsibility at Karma Automotive, Dura Automotive Systems and General Motors Company (including with world-renowned General Motors’ brands Hummer and Cadillac).

Among his advice on how to excel in communication, James believes you must train your abilities like with any sport and always be ready for game day. Practice, practice, practice. He reveals why brand reputation is extremely important in the automotive industry, and, in many cases, the difference between making money and not making money. He also points out how you can invent some markets, but in the car business often if it doesn't exist, there might be a good reason for it. According to James, the biggest fundamental in his learnings is to make sure you're starting out with at least a shot by asking yourself: is this product sound, and is there a customer demand?

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep30: Tech 500: 2021 top influencers & trends

Tyto — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 14:30:00 +0000

Who were the most influential personalities in tech in 2021? What trends have shaped the sector? What role do journalists play in this area? Have we seen a greater representation of women in tech in the last twelve months? These and other questions are answered in this special episode of Without Borders in which we look at the key findings of the Tyto Tech 500, our annual report on the tech sector in the UK, Germany and France.

Sabrina Horn, award-winning CEO, tech communications expert, advisor/board member, and author of "Make It, Don't Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success", is in charge of moderating this discussion featuring a Tyto expert from each of the countries analysed: UK's Zoë Clark, Head of Media and Influence at Tyto, Germany's Silke Rossmann, Head of Practice, and France's representative, Shamina Peerboccus a Senior Consultant at the agency.

As well as presenting the highlights of the Tech 500, our Tyto experts share what a US communications person or marketer looking to bring their brand to Europe should take from the ranking, what an individual needs to do to be able to get onto this list, and what aspect from this year’s trends really caught their attention.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nQLHYmLcG0

Interested in the 2021 edition of the Tech 500? Here you can see the top 50 influencers in each country and download the full report: https://tytopr.com/tyto-tech-500-power-list-2021/

S2 Ep29: Rebecca Vincent, Director of International Campaigns at RSF (Reporters Without Borders)

Tyto — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 10:23:43 +0000

This is our second episode from our new series of interviews with inspiring individuals from across the globe. Our aim with these series is to chat with inspirational guests who can encourage us all to look at the industries we work in (media, comms and tech) from different perspectives.

Our guest for this episode is Rebecca Vincent, an American human rights activist and currently Director of International Campaigns and UK Bureau Director for our pro bono client Reporters Without Borders. Based in Paris, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is an independent NGO with consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF). Its foreign sections, its bureaus in ten cities, including Brussels, Washington, Berlin, Tunis, Rio de Janeiro, and Stockholm, and its network of correspondents in 130 countries give RSF the ability to mobilise support, challenge governments and wield influence both on the ground and in the ministries and precincts where media and Internet standards and legislation are drafted.

You should listen to Rebecca Vincent if you want to learn about the work Reporters Without Borders is doing across the world, their World Press Freedom index, the Julian Assange case, and how the state of press freedom stands today. In the interview hosted by Tyto’s CEO, Brendon Craigie, she explains why there is a worrying trend of violence against journalists in countries that are meant to be at peace, such as the UK, The Netherlands, Greece, Malta, and more. Countries seen as standard setters in terms of freedom of the press should be doing better, according to Vincent.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/M2nOIOFEOJI

S2 Ep28: Job van der Voort, co-founder and CEO, Remote

Tyto — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 17:13:12 +0000

Our guest for the 21st interview with unicorn start-up leaders is Job van de Voort, co-founder and CEO of Remote.

Remote helps companies of all sizes hire top talent all over the world, in full compliance with local laws. A global platform for distributed teams, Remote makes it easy to onboard, pay, and delight remote employees and contractors, anywhere in the world. The company was founded in 2019 by Job and his co-founder Marcelo Lebre, in what was their second venture together. 18 months later Remote raised $150m and became Portugal’s fifth unicorn.

A neuroscientist by training, Job admits that the scientific world was too slow for him so he left it to found his first startup and then work at GitLab to the point where he ran their product for five years. For him, GitLab is a role model of a fully remote company and inspired him to create Remote and help other companies overcome the challenges of setting a remote. According to Job, he does not need to convince companies to make this change because "the weight of the decision does not lie with the employers anymore". He adds, "it's either you go remote in some capacity or you're going to lose out on a lot of good talent." For him, South America and Africa will boom immensely and benefit most from a remote working world.

Among his advice on how to work efficiently remotely, he acknowledges that most meetings are a waste of time. He reveals that one of the best ways to make people productive is to teach them how to avoid meetings. Job also stresses that being brutally honest and open about any issue has been his life hack. For him, this is vital to successfully leading a company. He also points out that the biggest mistake an entrepreneur can make is not following up and fixing things, to just sit with that and let it be - you should always deal with the issue as fast as you can.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep27: Kabir Shahani, co-founder and CEO, Amperity

Tyto — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:09:50 +0000

Our guest in this 20th interview with a unicorn start-up leader is Amperity CEO and co-founder Kabir Shahani.

Amperity was born out of a poor customer experience he had with Alaska Airlines. At the time, Shahani and the company's other co-founder, Derek Slager, decided to create a platform to help consumer brands get a single, actionable view of their customers. Five years later, Amperity has become a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation.

In this episode, Shahani explains how that milestone has helped give them staying power credibility, attract talent and anchor on who they want to be and the kind of organisation they're trying to build. According to him, data is imperfect and will get messier and harder to wrangle so getting a single, actionable view should be a commodity for enterprises. Furthermore, Shahani points out that the pandemic has accelerated two trends: the push to digital customer relationships and the recognition that if you don't have a first party digital customer relationship with your consumer, then you will be obsolete as a brand, and the recognition that loyal customers move the needle.

Shahani confesses that during his career he has learned that the boldness of ambition and focusing on building a great team are the keys to success as an entrepreneur. According to him, it is impossible to have a point of view on everything, the hardest part of running a business is finding the balance between what to manage and what to delegate to the team and recruiting leaders who then have the autonomy to take charge of their roles and create the system so that everything runs smoothly.

Finally, here are Shahani's three pieces of advice for those who want to succeed in business: be incredibly self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses, seek feedback and mentorship aggressively - or as his friend Seahawk's QB Russell Wilson puts it 'You don't have to be sick to get better' -, and putting in the work.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep26: Mark Lee, co-founder and CEO, Splashtop

Tyto — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 08:12:27 +0000

In this 19th interview with a unicorn start-up leader, we are joined by Mark Lee, CEO and co-founder of Splashtop.

In 2006, Mark co-founded with Robert Ha, Thomas Deng, and Philip Sheu, three MIT colleagues, DeviceVM, designing and selling the industry's first browser OS that allowed PC users to get online, securely, in less than 5 seconds. That OS product was named Splashtop and, as of 2010, the company pivoted, changing its name to Splashtop and becoming the company it is today: a provider of Remote Access software.

In this episode, Mark highlights the importance of building a reliable team from the ground up and explains the trust relationship he has with those university colleagues he met over three decades ago who are, in large part, the key to the company's success. Several VCs have even demonstrated their blind trust in Mark and his fellows in his entrepreneurial journey, providing funding without even seeing a business plan, based solely on the experience they had working hand in hand with Mark, Robert, Thomas and Philip’s previous startup.

After years of bootstrapping, they decided to seek funding for Splashtop to achieve unicorn status. Not because they needed the money, as the company was generating millions of dollars of cash flow per month, but to position themselves in the market. For them, being a unicorn allowed the company to have greater visibility, attract talent and move towards an IPO. In fact, Mark says they have yet to touch a single dollar from that round.

However, Mark also acknowledges that one of the hardest moments of his career was having to lay off dozens of employees with whom he had close relationships when DeviceVM had to pivot at the start of the past decade.

Our guest also discusses the unstoppable evolution of the Remote Economy with remote becoming the new norm and how the pandemic accelerated the demand for its products by companies of all kinds, but also by educational and medical research institutions, to, among others, combat Covid-19.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep25: Zeb Evans, founder and CEO, ClickUp

Tyto — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 09:30:58 +0000

New episode of our series of interviews with unicorn leaders on Without Borders. This time our guest is Zeb Evans, founder and CEO of ClickUp.

Created in 2017, ClickUp is a customisable workplace productivity platform that has experienced tremendous growth in a brief period of time. In June 2020, the startup raised a Series A and in December 2020 it raised $100 million in Series B funding, reaching a valuation of over $1 billion. In this interview, Zeb explains how challenging it is to manage a company that has grown from 60 to 600 employees in just a few months and highlights the importance of hiring employees who match the company's culture. For Zeb, the ideal ClickUp employee is someone who is optimistic and wants to grow.

Our guest acknowledges that he is not a natural communicator and has learned the secrets of communication as he has progressed in his career, but that the most key thing to communicate successfully is to be authentic, really believe in what you are doing and get the passion across. He also points out that, simple as it sounds, the biggest communication mistake leaders make is assuming that people know what they are thinking. According to Zeb, it is necessary to over communicate and continually repeat the core messages and vision of the company in order for them to resonate, whether with employees or with any audience.

Zeb also recounts his meeting with Richard Branson, whom he considers his biggest entrepreneurial idol, and tells us the two main lessons he learned after several hours of talking about how to be a successful entrepreneur.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep24: Mariano Gomide de Faria, co-founder and co-CEO, VTEX

Tyto — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 14:37:22 +0000

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast as part of our series speaking to unicorn leaders, we are joined by the co-founder and co-CEO of VTEX, Mariano Gomide de Faria.

VTEX, a provider of fully integrated end-to-end omnichannel commerce platforms to major global brands, reached unicorn status in September 2020 at a $1.7 billion valuation, becoming one of the few existing Brazilian unicorns. Mariano speaks about how the Brazilian tech ecosystem compares to Europe and North America and how he believes there will be far more Brazilian unicorns in the short term as the country is transitioning “from being the country of the iron and the mill to the country of the digital commerce.”

Mariano is also very vocal about the need to transfer knowledge, not sell it, and has a real laser focus on education and the development and nurturing of the next generation of talent.

One key lesson from Mariano is that chaos crafts a very creative and productive environment and that companies should not try to control chaos, but instead try and put structures around it and harness it in order to drive the greatest benefit for the company.

Mariano shares the secret to long-lasting success and suggests that clients do not want support, they want guidance. He also talks about the trends that retailers need to look out for and how diversity is one of the biggest communications challenges in any business.

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep23: Molly Watt, tech accessibility evangelist

Tyto — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 10:43:26 +0000

We are kicking off a new series of interviews with inspiring individuals from across the globe. Our aim with these series is to chat with inspirational guests who can encourage us all to look at the industries we work in (media, comms and tech) from different perspectives.

Our first guest is Molly Watt, a passionate usability and accessibility consultant and motivational speaker, with a powerful personal story. Molly, who has Usher Syndrome, was born deaf and began to lose her sight at age 12. She credits technology with being the thing that transformed her experience of the world and enabled her to live a full and rich life. Molly specializes in assistive technology and design for those with sensory impairment and is the founder of the Molly Watt Trust, which raises awareness of Usher Syndrome. She is also an ambassador for Sense, the charity for people with complex disabilities, including deafblind people. Molly is considered one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK.

You should listen to Molly if you want to learn about accessibility in tech - what is it, why it matters and what you need to know about it. During the interview hosted by Tyto’s Senior Partner, Zoë Clark, she explains why accessibility must never be considered an add-on and highlights the importance of having an open mind, never assuming and of asking the right questions.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/wP7ZbJ31AbA

S2 Ep22: Pedro Bados, Co-Founder and CEO, Nexthink

Tyto — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 13:04:30 +0000

New episode of our unicorn leaders series on the Without Borders podcast. This time, we interview Pedro Bados, co-founder and CEO of Nexthink, a pioneer in digital employee experience.

Nexthink's story is one of resilience, something Pedro believes is key to any successful company and entrepreneur. Bados created the firm in 2004 as a result of his research project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and 17 years later it has reached unicorn status. As a football lover, he believes becoming a unicorn is equivalent to playing in the Champions League and that the next step should be to become the winner.

Bados's communication tips for successfully leading a start-up include the importance of letting people know that there is a solution to their problems and being mindful about the things you say and standing behind your words. He also acknowledges that being an engineer makes him more conservative in his promises but that to be successful it is necessary to take risks and sell the dream, especially when communicating internally.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep21: Vijay Tella, Founder and CEO, Workato

Tyto — Mon, 24 May 2021 16:15:00 +0000

The founder and CEO of Workato, Vijay Tella, joins us in this new episode of our unicorn leaders series on the Without Borders podcast.

Workato, the leading enterprise automation platform that helps organisations work faster and smarter without compromising security and governance, is Vijay Tella’s fourth start-up. After around three decades as an entrepreneur in the integration space, Vijay is able to share some great advice on how to build a successful company. He selects culture as the most important element and stresses the value of thinking deliberately about the founding team as it is going to establish the cultural cornerstones of the company. Vijay also suggests prioritising core guiding principles over values – having some guardrails for how things can operate in the company.

Another key lesson from Vijay is that communication and being connected is the hardest challenge a company faces. In his own words, ‘you can never communicate enough’. That is why for him it is so important to always be on the front foot looking for new ways to enhance the connectedness of the team and have everyone on the same page. Not for nothing, Workato has a highly engaged workforce – they are the number one computer software industry company for whose employees are amplifying their presence on social the most. Workato employees are consistently sharing their company's content within their own networks, increasing awareness, website traffic and generating new business.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep20: Mario Ciabarra, Founder and CEO, Quantum Metric

Tyto — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:30:00 +0000

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast as part of our series speaking to unicorn leaders, we are joined by Mario Ciabarra, Founder and CEO of Quantum Metric.

The CPD (Continuous Product Design) company claimed to be the first unicorn of 2021 after raising $200M in Series B financing in January, a unique achievement for a Colorado Springs-based company. Yet, Mario explains why he would rather be a dragon than a unicorn. Throughout this inspiring interview with Quantum Metric’s leader, Mario reiterates the importance of hiring the best talent wherever it is and the three attributes that he hires on: passion, persistence and integrity.

Mario elaborates on why ‘it’s mission-critical to have a mission’ -especially when your company grows at scale-, how his number one company objective is “happy people, healthy culture” and what his 13-year-old daughter taught him about friction points in eCommerce during the pandemic. We even had time to talk about Braveheart, carpentry and skiing on Colorado slopes.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep19: Felix Van de Maele, Founder and CEO, Collibra

Tyto — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 10:29:03 +0000

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast as part of our series speaking to unicorn leaders, we are joined by the founder and CEO of Collibra, Felix Van de Maele.

After creating the data governance category more than a decade ago, Collibra is now on a mission to make data more human and help people become data literate. Van de Maele reflects on the significant role communications plays in educating the market and standing out from the crowd.

Collibra’s CEO discusses how starting with your communications journey and putting a real focus on it early on will pay dividends and highlights the utter importance of surrounding yourself with a team of experts to be successful.

Listen today to hear why growing Collibra can be compared to a climb and why Van de Maele decided to move the company headquarters from Belgium to New York.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep18: Chen Amit, Co-Founder & CEO, Tipalti

Tyto — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:49:18 +0000

Chen Amit, Co-Founder and CEO of Tipalti joins Tyto CEO Brendon Craigie and csuite podcast host Russell Goldsmith in a new episode of our series of exclusive interviews with unicorn start-up CEOs.

Reaching unicorn status in October 2020 following a $150m Series E round, Chen analyzes the impact of becoming a unicorn company and Tipalti’s plans for the future. In this episode, we also chat about the importance of hiring the right people to have a consistent company culture and how ‘being yourself’ is key to demonstrating authenticity and gaining people’s trust.

Tune in to hear expert communications advice alongside a discussion about the future of the accounts payable software industry.

S2 Ep17: Clay Wilkes, CEO, Galileo

Tyto — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 15:24:56 +0000

This episode’s unicorn interview sees us joined from Utah by Clay Wilkes, CEO of Galileo.With Galileo being acquired by SoFi in April 2020, Clay talks about the successes Galileo has seen during the pandemic, and that working with SoFi has been an incredible opportunity for business.Clay also discusses the importance he places on reading regularly, outlining that learning from great minds is the key not only to personal success, but fostering a company wide culture of self-improvement.Listen to this episode for a fascinating insight into how a global payments company is run and how Galileo dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic.The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast

S2 Ep16: Mike Massaro, CEO, Flywire

Tyto — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 09:37:07 +0000

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast, we speak to the CEO of Flywire, Mike Massaro.

After raising $120 million in a Series E round of investment, led by Goldman Sachs, earlier in 2020, we discuss life as an American unicorn, communications challenges and the future of transactions.

This episode also covers what makes the high-value payments business a success and how it merges software with transactions in a fast and friction-free way to help organisations. Listen today to hear expert communications advice alongside a discussion about the future of payment tech.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast

S2 Ep15: Adrien Nussenbaum, Co-founder, Mirakl

Tyto — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 12:17:48 +0000

We speak to Mirakl Co-founder Adrien Nussenbaum in this episode of our Without Borders podcast episode – part of our series speaking to European unicorn leaders.

Following a recent $300 million funding round, the e-commerce marketplace platform is now using its advanced technology to revolutionise online B2B purchasing, helping companies to scale online.

Having recently become a unicorn, we discuss with Adrien the unique company culture, communication challenges and the future of e-commerce.

Listen to this instalment to find out the factors behind the company's recent success and what the phrase ‘platform pioneer’ means. Available now on your favourite podcast platform.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast

S2 Ep14: Charles McManus, CEO, ClearBank

Tyto — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 16:11:17 +0000

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast and part of our European unicorn series, we speak to Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank.

The UK's first clearing bank in more than 250 years, ClearBank eschews entrenched legacy platforms and instead utilises the cloud to make Banking-as-a-Service efficient, fast and cost-effective.

Founded in 2017, it now supports over 80 financial institutions on its payment platform and is close to unicorn status.

Listen to this instalment to find out about where ClearBank sits on passporting rights after the Brexit negotiations, a successful transition to remote working, communication challenges and why it took the UK so long to found a clearing bank.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep13: Avinash Rugoobur, President & Chief Strategy Officer, Arrival

Tyto — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 07:13:16 +0000

Part of our Without Borders podcast unicorn series, in this episode we speak to Avinash Rugoobur, President & Chief Strategy Officer of electric mobility provider, Arrival. We discuss partnerships, portfolio diversification and communication challenges.

Following a recent €100 million investment from Hyundai Motor Group earlier in 2020, Arrival remains a very agile company. With only 1,200 employees, it is pioneering a new way of manufacturing transport, decentralising what is traditionally a deeply centralised process thanks to vertical integration of key technologies and the use of micro-factories.

How are Avinash and the team avoiding Silicon Valley-esque hype circles and what effect does the current pandemic have on the business? Listen to our latest episode to find out more.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep12: Dr. Tim Sievers, CEO & Founder of Deposit Solutions

Tyto — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 15:23:50 +0000

Part of our Without Borders podcast unicorn series, in this episode we speak to CEO and founder of Deposit Solutions, Dr. Tim Sievers. The pioneering open banking platform recently reached unicorn status after receiving significant investment from Deutsche Bank.

Currently operating in 20 European countries, we ask if expansion into the USA is on the cards, how challenging the COVID-19 pandemic has been and what was the primary focus for the business was in the early years. In this enlightening interview, Dr. Tim Sievers provides clarity as to what he thinks the future holds for banking and how Deposit Solutions got its big break.

The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep11: Greg Jackson, CEO, Octopus Energy

Tyto — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Find out what it’s like to be a disruptive company in a sector many previously believed could not be disrupted – the energy sector. Tyto Co-Founder and Managing Partner Brendon Craigie speaks with Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, to find out how one of the UK’s most recent unicorn companies has used technology to drive down energy prices, improve customer service and help in the mission to decarbonise energy generation and transmission systems. Jackson also discusses the company’s unique company culture, flat structure (no org chart!) and shares some wise words for business from country Western legend Kenny Rogers. As always, the interview is co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast.

S2 Ep10: Arik Shtilman, CEO, Rapyd

Tyto — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 05:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Without Borders, Tyto co-founder and managing partner Brendon Craigie, along with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast are joined by Arik Shtilman, CEO of fintech company Rapyd.

Find out how Shtilman built and led this ‘fintech-as-a-service’ platform to recently reach the billion-dollar mark, cementing its unicorn status, and why the long-term vision is to go even bigger.

Coinciding with Rapyd’s UK launch, Shtilman shares his wisdom around why mistakes are super valuable and why a good company is a company that knows how to fix mistakes quickly, why it’s good to have investors, and why you always need to hire people who are smarter than you. Don’t miss this latest episode in the series, where we interview unicorn CEOs and founders.

S2 Ep9: Charles Towers-Clark - A new wave of automation - New Horizons Special 07

Tyto — Wed, 27 May 2020 08:32:52 +0000

The latest of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at how COVID-19 might be responsible for ushering in a new wave of automation in business and industry.

We speak to AI and 'future of work' expert, Charles Towers-Clark, about whether the uncertain times we are living in might provide the catalyst for a new wave of digital transformation.

Charles is Chairman of IoT specialist business, Pod Group, a regular Forbes contributor, international speaker, and author of 'The WEIRD CEO'. He is also an expert and regular contributor to the national and international press (BBC, Daily Express, City A.M.) about the future of work and the effects of AI.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep8: Gabriela Lungu - Creativity loves constraint - New Horizons Special 06

Tyto — Tue, 19 May 2020 14:16:58 +0000

The latest of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at how marketers can make the most of these times of more limited budgets and resources.

We speak to WINGS Creative Leadership founder and creative expert, Gabriela Lungu, about ‘why creativity loves constraint’. Here Gabriela explain why such limitations can create breeding grounds for the most innovative of ideas. WINGS Creative Leadership Lab supports both agency and client teams from the marketing and comms world to elevate their creativity through training, workshops, bespoke consultancy, and uplifting talks.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep7: Morten Brogger - Reimagining the future of work - New Horizons Special 05

Tyto — Mon, 04 May 2020 11:25:07 +0000

The latest of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at the future of work in a post COVID-19 world.

We speak to Morten Brøgger, CEO of Wire - the world’s most secure workplace messaging and collaboration platform that is transforming the way that organisations and people work. We will be talking to Morten about whether the acute coronavirus crisis may have changed the way we work forever, beginning a new era for the working world.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep4: S02E03: Martina King, CEO, Featurespace

Tyto — Fri, 01 May 2020 05:00:00 +0000

In our series of conversations with founders of European startups, we speak with Martina King of UK-based machine learning software company, Featurespace, which is well on its way to unicorn status. The world leader in fraud and financial crime prevention, Featurespace is the creator of the ARIC™ platform, a machine learning software system developed out of the University of Cambridge.

S2 Ep6: Andy Bryant - The end of money as we know it? - New Horizons Special 04

Tyto — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 16:33:30 +0000

The latest of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at how the global economic landscape is changing as a result of the uncertain times in which we are living.

We speak to finance expert, Andy Bryant, COO of the European arm of bitFlyer Group, the Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. A expert in all things finance and the economy, Andy speaks to us about the changing economic climate, how to weather it, and if it has the potential to signal the end of money as we know it.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep5: Stephen Kelly - Navigating Uncharted Waters - New Horizons Special 03

Tyto — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 15:09:53 +0000

The third of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at how businesses can navigate uncharted waters in this challenging times.

Join us as we speak with business veteran, Stephen Kelly, ex-CEO of Sage, MicroFocus and Chordiant, and ex-COO of the UK Government. Stephen has enjoyed an amazing career - leading three successful turnarounds as a ‘hands-on’ CEO and growing market value by approx. $10bn. In addition, he spent the early 2010s as Chief Operating Officer of the UK Government and has invested in over approximately 20 start-ups, where in some, he has been a Director and Mentor. He’s truly seen it all when it comes to business and offers invaluable advice for businesses and leaders when it comes to navigating the unprecedented situation in which we find ourselves today.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep4: Simon Clarkson - Authentic Optimism - New Horizons Special 02

Tyto — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 10:11:49 +0000

The second of Tyto's online New Horizons events looks at how can we be authentically optimistic at this time of crisis.

Join us as we speak with a mental skills coach working with one of England’s top Premier League football teams, Simon Clarkson. Translating learnings on the pitch to the business world.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep3: Dee Caffari MBE - Motivation in Isolation - New Horizons Special 01

Tyto — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 07:55:00 +0000

The first of Tyto's online New Horizons events is focused on ‘Motivation in Isolation’ with Dee Caffari MBE – the first woman to have sailed single-handed and non-stop around the world in both directions.

Having spent periods of months isolated at sea, Dee is able to provide valuable lessons and insights when it comes to coping with solitude as we isolate from each other both personally and professionally during in the COVID-19 outbreak.

Listen back to the live online webinar in podcast form via your favourite podcast app.

S2 Ep2: S02E02 – Sir Martin Sorrell

Tyto — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:07:00 +0000

In this episode, Brendon and Russell sit down with Sir Martin Sorrell, British businessman founder of WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, and current chair of S4Capital, a media company focused on building a modern digital advertising and marketing platform for global minded clients.

Direct from the offices of S4Capital, which as of this recording has reached US dollar unicorn status with a market cap of over $1.3 billion, the conversation with Sir Martin spanned topics ranging from mergers and acquisitions to unicorn valuations, to advertising in the age of the two-second ad.

A fascinating, uncensored conversation with one of the biggest influencers and legends within the advertising industry.

S2 Ep1: S02E01 - POPPY GUSTAFSSON, OBE

Tyto — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 06:00:00 +0000

Poppy Gustafsson, OBE, Co-CEO of Darktrace joins Tyto CEO Brendon Craigie and csuite podcast host Russell Goldsmith as the first guest in a new series of exclusive interviews with European unicorn start-up CEOs. This new series aims to find out about the key issues, pain points and challenges that European start-ups face, and how they can address them with a strategic approach to marketing and communications.

S1 Ep8: S01E08 – Andrew Bloch

Tyto — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Andrew Bloch, founder and managing partner of iconic and multi-award-winning agency, Frank, joins Brendon and Zoe in the studio to chat about creativity, the power of ‘talkability’ and working with amazing brands like gaming giant Call of Duty, as well as orchestrating cult campaigns like Compare The Meerkat.

Andrew reveals why he still believes in the enduring power of the “big idea”; discusses the ever-blurring lines of the industry; the importance of being present in the moment with family; why you’re still only as good as your last campaign and why, when it comes to keeping an agency on the radar and feeling fresh 18 years later, it all comes down to the work.

Part journey, part wisdom and part future-gazing; join us for a fascinating episode with one of the comms world’s greats.

S1 Ep7: S01E07 – Imogen Osborne

Tyto — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

In this enormously candid and generously open chat, Imogen Osborne - founder of research and insight house The Pulse Business - talks to hosts Brendon and Zoe about why truth and honesty should be celebrated at the heart of every business culture and how some of the most challenging events in our lives, be it death, divorce or debt can actually make us better and stronger people.

Imogen has had an illustrious, wide-ranging career in comms, spanning both in-house (inc. Skype, Cisco) and agency (inc. Edelman, AxiCom) before changing her focus to research and insights. Imogen shares her insights on the challenges of captaining your own ship; the truth about work/life balance and reveals why it’s vital for businesses to adopt an open culture that sees mistakes as a good and acceptable stop on the path to greatness.

S1 Ep6: S01E06 – Glenn Manoff

Tyto — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Glenn Manoff has made of a career working to build purposeful brands and believes shared value is intrinsic to creating strong brands that stand apart from the competition. He joins hosts Brendon and Zoe to chat about his role as Senior VP Comms at Trustpilot and why he’s passionate about rebuilding trust in the internet and why openness and transparency matters more than ever.

Glenn, who worked as an aid worker in Paraguay before transitioning into communications via a career in journalism, reveals why we’re hitting a seminal moment when it comes to the importance of establishing core business values that can act as a driver of positive change in society, not only for now but future generations to come.

We collectively ask ‘Is "good” business, good business?’ and the answer may surprise even the most cynical of you out there.

S1 Ep4: S01E04 - Peter Gillingwater

Tyto — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 07:30:00 +0000

Looking for the secrets to international expansion, building culture alongside recruitment and the ups and downs of the journey from launch to exit? Look no further.

With more than 25 years in technology recruitment and leadership as both a business owner, innovator and investor, Peter Gillingwater joins Brendon and Zoe in the studio to share his secrets for building winning teams and a few recruitment horror stories, of course.

Peter also reveals his top advice for expanding internationally and entering new markets; talks candidly about ambition and work life balance; the importance of culture for expanding businesses and why only around 8% of founders do the whole journey to an exit.

Peter Gillingwater is CEO of Radi8, Managing Director of Nexec Leaders, Business Mentor at London and Partners and UK Chairman and global board member of Kea: New Zealand’s Borderless Nation.

S1 Ep3: S01E03 - Notflix

Tyto — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 06:30:00 +0000

Sarah Spencer, Director and creator of Edinburgh Fringe sell-out, Notflix - the improvised musical comedy that turns audience suggested films into instant musicals - and two of her cast members, Holly Mallet and Ailis Duff, join hosts Brendon and Zoe for an inspirational and empowering pow-wow.

Discover the power of saying “yes, and” rather than “yes, but” if you want to foster an environment of creativity and innovation, and why accepting, celebrating and leaning into mistakes might be the secret ingredient to success.

For all the entrepreneurial souls out there that love a story of tenacity and bootstrapping - you’ll get a buzz out of Sarah’s tale of unflinching belief in her idea and not taking no for an answer when an all-female improvised musical comedy group was “anything but” a selling point. You’ll discover how Sarah overcame this, opened up a brand-new market for all-female musical comedy and how Notflix became an Edinburgh Festival sell-out hit three years running.

S1 Ep2: S01E02 – Alex Wood

Tyto — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Award-winning editor and broadcaster, Alex Wood, joins Brendon and Zoe in the studio to reveal how a tutor changed his life by sending him on his true path as a reporter, while studying in Japan; the entrepreneurial drive that led to him founding The Memo- acquired by Forbes Media last year – and what’s next for him as Europe Editor for Forbes.

Alex is a visiting lecturer at London City and advises that budding journalists spend more time listening and researching and less time broadcasting on social; you’ll hear how Alex overcame his smartphone addiction through posture theory and boundary setting, and why the PR industry is critical, when relevancy is made the priority.

Alex is passionate about the power of a considered, insightful point of view and shares his insights on why founders and spokespeople should worry less about product launches and business milestones and instead tap into their unique experiences and knowledge when it comes to building a name.

S1 Ep1: S01E01 - Jon Wilkins

Tyto — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 11:00:00 +0000

From founding iconic agency Naked, to his current role as Chairman of Karmarama, Jon Wilkins, has blazed a real trail through the advertising world over the last 20+ years. Jon joins hosts Brendon and Zoe to talk about his diverse experience in the world of media, advertising and comms - sharing his views on tech, culture, creativity and the ever-evolving agency landscape.

In this first episode of Without Borders you’ll discover what business leaders can learn from Gareth Southgate; why being clever isn’t enough to be successful in the world of marketing and media; what it takes to build a winning agency culture and why there’s probably a better way of doing just about everything in the agency landscape.