Alludo's Christa Quarles on Fostering a Culture of Innovation

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:18:08

Ben Hillman

Before we get into the episode, I'd like to personally shout out Nazim and Arlie, Kid. Arlie specifically hooked us up with some stellar guests that will be on the show soon. If you'd like to suggest a guest for the show and subsequently get a shout out, fill out the five question Google form in the episode Description. It'll just take 60 seconds.

00:00:18:13 - 00:00:43:21

Ben Hillman

Thanks again, Arlie and Nazim. Now let's get into the episode. You're on a ship crossing the vast, unpredictable ocean. The success of your journey depends heavily on the captain at the helm and the crew maintaining the ship's operations. The captain must be competent, yet cautious, strategic, yet adaptable, keeping the vessel on course amid the surging waves and the changing winds.

00:00:44:07 - 00:01:05:17

Ben Hillman

The crew that the captain surrounds himself with must be well coordinated and able to anticipate challenges. The harmony of leadership and governance in this context is essential for the safety and successful outcome of the voyage. The journey is not just about reaching the destination, but also about navigating through difficulties as well as learning and growing along the way.

00:01:06:20 - 00:01:30:12

Ben Hillman

Now let's shift our attention from the sea to the dynamic, fast paced world of B2B SaaS. Much like the captain and crew of a ship, a SaaS company must also navigate through the often choppy waters of the tech industry. They must not only steer the company towards its strategic objectives, but also manage the operations and anticipate challenges from changes in technology trends to shifts in customer needs.

00:01:30:15 - 00:01:53:11

Ben Hillman

The harmony of leadership and governance in a SaaS company is key to its survival, its growth and its ability to deliver value to its customers as well as innovate when needed. Today, we're privileged to have with us Christa Quarles, captain of the Alludo, a tech vessel with a portfolio of brands that help you enable, ideate, create and share on any device anywhere.

00:01:53:16 - 00:02:15:19

Ben Hillman

With a track record of successful C-suite ventures at OpenTable next door and the Walt Disney Company. Christa has navigated her ship through fair weather and storms alike. She's mastered the art of leadership and the importance of solid governance structures. She is the one to learn from. If you're looking to keep your ship steady and heading toward success and the tumultuous sea of B2B SaaS.

00:02:17:01 - 00:02:49:11

Ben Hillman

In today's episode, we'll dive deep into the world of leadership and governance, exploring how the right leadership styles can positively impact a company's direction. We'll explore how Christa leverages her experience, her curiosity and her relentless question, asking to drive her companies toward success. Strap in as we set sail on this enlightening journey into the heart of effective leadership and governance on the B2B South Seas from Paddle, it's Protect the Hustle, where we explore the truth behind the strategy and tactics of B2B SaaS growth to make you an outstanding operator.

00:02:49:19 - 00:03:13:10

Ben Hillman

I'm Ben Hillman, and on today's episode, Christa Quarles speaks with Andrew Davies about leadership and governance. They talk about Chris, his experience as a Disney executive, the attributes of a successful CFO sales pitch, fostering a culture of innovation while focusing on financial targets, dismantling the divide between leaders and people they manage, and creating systems to encourage the uncorrupted to seek power.

00:03:13:18 - 00:03:23:04

Ben Hillman

After you finish the episode, check out the show notes for a field guide from today's episode. Then, while you're leaving your five star review of this podcast, tell us what resonated most about Chris's advice.

00:03:29:20 - 00:03:34:01

Ben Hillman

First up, Christa talks about her early experience as a Disney executive.

00:03:37:15 - 00:03:47:12

Andrew Davies

But if it's okay, I'll start off with that just so we can get talking. And I'd love it if you just give me a quick pricy of your background and moving into this role as a CEO at a column in Toledo.

00:03:47:13 - 00:04:06:07

Christa Quarles

Yeah, yeah. So I joined Ludo two years ago now, which feels like both a long time and a short time in some ways. But prior to that I was the CEO at Open Table, and prior to that I was at a company called Next Door as the Chief Business Officer. And prior to that I was at the Walt Disney Company where I was building mobile games.

00:04:06:07 - 00:04:12:17

Christa Quarles

And part of that I had a long career in Wall Street, so I take the nonlinear path, as it were, Fantastic.

00:04:12:17 - 00:04:18:21

Andrew Davies

So two years adds a Ludo, but it hasn't always been called that. So you've been through a rebrand over the last year or so, is that correct?

00:04:18:22 - 00:05:00:12

Christa Quarles

That's correct. We used to be called Corral Corp, which was a technology company based in Ottawa, Canada, and Corral was really the namesake of CorelDraw, which is a graphics software offering out there in the market. But the reality of the business was that we had grown a lot and we had added new and additional brands and it didn't necessarily feel that name was representative of all we did, which is one of the reasons why we moved to a Ludo to really, you know, the way I describe it is, you know, we've got workspaces on workflow, on the work inside is our parallels business, which many people know it as, you know, being able to run

00:05:00:20 - 00:05:20:03

Christa Quarles

Windows on a mac, but it's bigger and more than that. You know, we've server and cloud products within that and really enabling remote work to occur. And so we've really leaned into this post-pandemic work life. And then on the other side we have our applications business. And so things like Corral or Mindmanager and Windsor, Fantastic.

00:05:20:03 - 00:05:41:09

Andrew Davies

Well, I know there's a whole bunch of topics we want to dive into because, you know, we've got thousands of SaaS SaaS found dozen SaaS leaders who listen to this podcast and then a we've got about 3000 SaaS customers who are often, you know, a lot of them or one of our big, big verticals is design. And many of the apps that you run would be in the same space or similar spaces or partner spaces to them.

00:05:41:13 - 00:05:56:03

Andrew Davies

So there's a whole bunch of topics we're going to have to cross over here. So let's just dive in. I mean, it would be really interesting to hear. Firstly, this bridge you've done, you mentioned a non-linear career, so you've gone from a background in banking, I think, and then into being a CFO and now into being a CEO.

00:05:56:07 - 00:06:02:20

Andrew Davies

Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the changes you've experienced, particularly in that that bridge from CFO into CEO of a tech company?

00:06:03:02 - 00:06:18:11

Christa Quarles

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the only reason I became a CFO in the first place, though, was just, you know, part of it was just you sort of had to see it to be it. And so I had seen other people go from my specific career in Wall Street to the CFO job. So I was like, Alright, I guess I could do that.

00:06:18:11 - 00:06:42:14

Christa Quarles

So I had I had gone to the CFO of a company called Plato, which was in the burgeoning social gaming space, and it was actually during my time at Disney where they transition me from being a divisional CFO to being a general manager. So what that just meant was that you had your own PNL inside of, of the company and it really was like a mini CEO job.

00:06:42:14 - 00:07:05:20

Christa Quarles

And I, you know, I had all of the different functions reporting into me and I really liked it. I mean, I think that was the biggest thing was I really, you know, enjoyed having purview of the entire organization at that time. You know, we were a slice of a much, much, much bigger company. And so there were elements of the job of the CEO that I didn't I wasn't in charge of necessarily, which was defining the culture of Disney.

00:07:05:20 - 00:07:16:00

Christa Quarles

That was very well defined for me. But and so then when I moved to the CEO job at OpenTable, that element of culture and understanding culture was part of the education process for me.

00:07:16:12 - 00:07:30:19

Andrew Davies

Super interesting. And I didn't know when I was reading a bit about your background that yes, So you came in with played them in into Disney, I think you were CFO of playtime, is that correct. Right. And then and that was what a social games developer is that right?

00:07:30:19 - 00:07:54:08

Christa Quarles

Yeah, we were if you think about it, it was like it was a crazy time because his prior to that, all games were, you know, consumer packaged goods essentially. So they were a rap piece of software that you sold through a distributor or functionally. And you know, playtime comes around. And as you know, there is a bunch of other companies at the time and we were distributing games online primarily through Facebook.

00:07:54:08 - 00:08:12:22

Christa Quarles

And so we were the early, early days of, you know, you know, figuring out how to build Facebook's almost ad business to some degree. I mean, I do remember working with the early folks at Facebook, trying to, you know, understand what our data was and putting it over there. But it really was a confluence of games as a service of cloud.

00:08:12:22 - 00:08:28:09

Christa Quarles

We were cloud native when nobody was cloud native. You know, we were doing free to play. So we had the freemium, so trying to get somebody to use our product and then try to get them to pay for it later. So there are a bunch of countervailing trends that I didn't realize at the time because they kind of multiplied risk.

00:08:28:09 - 00:08:35:15

Christa Quarles

But it was a really interesting time because it was just a lot of new technologies coming together at once in that gaming contract.

00:08:35:20 - 00:08:53:03

Andrew Davies

And then when you got bought by Disney, you said you came into a more of a general manager role at Disney Interactive, and your profile says that one of your kind of accomplishments there was taking them profitable. So what was that process of being bought in to Disney running Disney Interactive and then going through the process of making that whole division profitable?

00:08:53:04 - 00:09:14:18

Christa Quarles

Yeah, I mean, I think I think when you realize is that there's a difference in a, you know, being a venture backed company, you know, and in Silicon Valley, which was grow at all costs, I mean, there's a lot a lot of overlap with what's happened in the last couple of years and where in your mind you this was 2009, 2010 was a little bit little bit of time ago.

00:09:14:18 - 00:09:35:10

Christa Quarles

We were just, you know, on the tail end of the Great Recession. But but, you know, I think there was appetite to and, you know, I really give Bob Iger a lot of credit because he had been and continue to and, you know, I guess now he's back at Disney. But he he was really leading into modern ways of media consumption.

00:09:35:19 - 00:10:00:13

Christa Quarles

And we were in many cases, you know, taking up more of the the mindshare, the time share of people because they were playing more games and he wanted to understand it. And so, you know, really, you know, kind of made that transition. But but, you know, I think as a venture backed company where we were to some degree growing at all costs, Disney is a public company and they have to report numbers to investors.

00:10:00:13 - 00:10:20:11

Christa Quarles

And at some point, you know, the profligate ways. So we were going about the business needed to be reversed. And so we had to make some really, really tough decisions, honestly, about the business and, you know, restructure and change. And, you know, I see a lot of parallels, honestly, with, you know, what a lot of companies are having to go through today in this current macro macro economic climate.

00:10:20:11 - 00:10:34:19

Christa Quarles

And they just get back into like, do you understand the unit economics for your business and are they functioning well? And if yes, great. But most companies don't really have that handle and are not necessarily operating in a way that sustainable.

00:10:38:10 - 00:10:42:22

Ben Hillman

Next, Chrystia talks about the attributes of a successful CFO sales pitch.

00:10:46:13 - 00:11:10:19

Andrew Davies

And that that experience, as you said, must be hugely influential on your future career, but also must be hugely beneficial for other founders. We're facing into exactly that same shift they're having to make now, not via acquisition, but because the markets have changed. So what else are you telling those people you're advising about how they can bring their companies from a growth at all costs mindset into one that's a bit more balanced and sustainable in today's market?

00:11:10:21 - 00:11:34:09

Christa Quarles

First of all, I just acknowledge that it's difficult. I mean, the way I usually characterize it is that these companies have incurred cultural debt, meaning that the one way they knew how to solve a problem was to throw bodies at it. And or they didn't know how to focus their decision making. So, you know, it was like, well, we have ten different, you know, market adjacencies.

00:11:34:09 - 00:12:02:23

Christa Quarles

We could investigate. Well, let's do them all. Hey, and now, now they maybe get one or, you know, and so it's you better choose wisely. And so I think building the muscle around really, truly, you know, understanding, you know, what are the assumptions going in here? How big is the market really putting on more of a, you know, the business operations mindset to say, you know, because the reality is, by the way, your assumptions are always going to be wrong.

00:12:03:12 - 00:12:30:13

Christa Quarles

But it is fascinating to me that going through the exercise of it forces a depth of your thinking that you wouldn't have otherwise done. And by virtue of that depth of thinking you've now seen around more corners than you otherwise would have been able to see around. And so I think forcing that discipline around that is something that organizations need to get going around and some of the culture is going to smack you in the face and say, Well, we don't want to do that.

00:12:30:19 - 00:12:43:10

Christa Quarles

We want to solve the problem that way because it's harder. Is it different? And that's not how the DNA of the organization has been designed. And as a leader, now you're confronted with the, oh gosh, you know that I've got to shift this culture. How do I do that?

00:12:43:19 - 00:13:09:14

Andrew Davies

Super interesting. And one topic that's come up time and time again with our audience of growth stage SaaS founders is this idea that everybody is now selling to the CFO, whatever that previous buying persona was, they've now got to convince the CFO before they can get their software sold. So how are you thinking about that as your business and how would you advise founders and heads of sales and heads of marketing that have got to now target a CFO persona to get the job done?

00:13:09:16 - 00:13:32:22

Christa Quarles

Yeah, you're right that I think the CFO has become the ultimate gatekeeper on a lot of these purchases. And, you know, no longer I mean, it used to be tough to sell to the CFO because, you know, they're going to have so much scrutiny around it. And I think that's a little bit of a misnomer. I think there's well, there's a major bifurcation you're going to have to understand, which is like, are we here to drive more revenue for the business?

00:13:32:22 - 00:13:50:15

Christa Quarles

Ultimately, are we here to have lower costs for the overall business? And and I think what a CFO wants to hear more than yes, of course, we want lower costs at some level. But the bigger thing you want to hear is, yeah, we have a mechanism to drive more revenue into the business and here's how we're going to demonstrate the ROI.

00:13:50:23 - 00:14:14:15

Christa Quarles

So at the end of the day, you know, I think sometimes people kind of look at the finance role and think it's like a bunch of nudge theory. But I think the reality is it's about allocation of capital risk understanding. And if there's good to our role, I always say like even in marketing, I mean, you know, many people don't realize this, you know, but OpenTable was a part of booking booking with the largest advertiser in the world on Google.

00:14:14:23 - 00:14:41:22

Christa Quarles

And, you know, we spend $5 billion a year. And so, you know, and and it was a very smart financial decision because you could very plainly see the ROI associated with it. And but but I think it gets then into the question is like, is your product a vitamin or is it a pain pill? Right. I mean, or is it you know, is it like is it a nice to have and if it's a nice to have, you are probably in your situation because you know, the nice to haves are all getting cut out right now.

00:14:41:22 - 00:14:59:03

Andrew Davies

So maybe let's try and dig into an example here. Now, you don't have to be specific, but can you remember the attributes of characteristics of of the pitch that really ticked your boxes as a CFO? What were the ways that a a vendor or supplier managed to really do all of those things? And how did they do that in order to win your customer?

00:14:59:07 - 00:15:18:13

Christa Quarles

I mean, I think first of all, it starts out with just a genuine desire for partnership, you know, which is, you know, you know, like there's the service vendor mentality, but then there is the, you know, we are actually to spend the time to understand your business and we understand how this piece of software in this case fits into your business.

00:15:18:23 - 00:15:37:12

Christa Quarles

And moreover, we have a good belief that it's going to drive this X, Y or Z outcome for the business. And so I think it it's just a an understanding of, you know, what are the needs that we ultimately have and how do we become more successful. I mean, I think, you know, I'm trying to think of various, you know, very large.

00:15:37:12 - 00:15:56:01

Christa Quarles

I mean, a lot of times it was, you know, the things we were spending time on were, you know, like an open table was like snowflake or, you know, we were one of the early buyers there of that. And, you know, again, it was just oh, you know, it's instead of taking 12 hours to run that Tableau query, it's going to take 4 minutes.

00:15:56:01 - 00:16:06:22

Christa Quarles

Well, jeez, that's a that's a pretty material productivity gain. And so we're going to need to. Yeah, like, I think that's an important thing to maybe think about when we're trying to move faster in the business.

00:16:07:04 - 00:16:25:04

Andrew Davies

I know alongside your your CEO role, you've got extensive experience on boards. So with this economic climate in 2023, what do you think board members need to be most focused on and what are you leaning on your board members for? What are people leaning on you for? What? What's the balance of growth versus sustainability? Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

00:16:25:06 - 00:17:00:15

Christa Quarles

Well, I think first of all, if you're in a situation where you're, you know, massively unprofitable as a company, you have to understand that, you know, the money just got a whole lot more expensive over the last year. And money is no longer just going to fall off in trees and it's not in as great supply. And so if you're going to require more money in order to sustainably run your business, you better be thinking quickly about what that right sizing is so you can get yourself at least to break even in a meaningful, you know, Sure enough period of time.

00:17:00:15 - 00:17:19:22

Christa Quarles

And can the balance sheet support it? Because at the end of the day, the duration of these downturns is the thing that is most uncertain. You know, when we went into Kobe and everybody, you know, braced and, you know, buckled up and then we then proceeded to have the greatest bull market run, certainly in my lifetime. And so the are unpredictable.

00:17:19:22 - 00:17:42:03

Christa Quarles

But I think in this one, if if the duration you know, so it feels to me a lot like com 1.0 so the Nasdaq was in bear territory for I think three years and you know I hear a lot of people like oh one this is is up in the fall or you know, when things ease up and the remainder of 2023 and I'm like you better not plan for that or assume if that happens fantastic, great.

00:17:42:03 - 00:18:06:15

Christa Quarles

We'll all be in a great position on the other side of it. But I think it's it's being very mindful of the duration. So maintain liquidity, get liquidity, be understanding of where where your balance sheet ultimately is, but then also go on the offense. There's a lot of companies that are going to be in a defensive mode. You know, we our business parallels competes directly with Citrix and VMware and both of those companies just got taken private by private equity.

00:18:06:15 - 00:18:30:20

Christa Quarles

And so we're looking I look at it and say my gosh, a swath of blue ocean just opened up right in front of us. This is super exciting. We're going to take this opportunity where they're contracting to expand. And so I think it's really important to figure out where you're going to place your bets. You can't place a hundred bets, but you could place a few of them, and you better be figuring out where you can be aggressive maybe, and take market share in an environment where people are struggling or contracting.

00:18:34:14 - 00:18:40:03

Ben Hillman

And now, Chris, it talks about fostering a culture of innovation while focusing on financial targets.

00:18:43:18 - 00:19:02:04

Andrew Davies

I love that. And so how you mentioned this word culture when you're talking about the journey into Disney. So how have your experiences as a CFO where I assume you know, although you're in a leadership position, most of the world of finance operations is your gamut. Has how has that experience shaped your approach to the now leading the company's strategic vision and culture?

00:19:02:07 - 00:19:23:00

Christa Quarles

You know, the reality is it didn't help. But I mean, if you did but I mean, I think I so I'll just kind of give you two sides of the coin right? So before I was the CEO as the CFO, I spent all of this time, effort and energy, you know, convincing the CEO or like presenting information to make the CEO understand.

00:19:23:00 - 00:19:43:18

Christa Quarles

And, you know, I would look at CEOs who would you know, they'd be over there going, gosh, I just need more time to think. And I was like, But these dilettantes, you know, their time to think and whatnot. And then I got into the role and it's just a different because the reality is a company looks at its leader and everything that flows from it.

00:19:43:18 - 00:20:12:13

Christa Quarles

And I probably beat my head against the wall for about a year and a half at OpenTable, trying to get a culture that was very afraid to move fast and innovate. And I then became a student of corporate cultures because I was like, What do I need to understand here? And there's an anthropology around it where you basically are studying this strange society of people where they have a bunch of rules.

00:20:12:17 - 00:20:34:11

Christa Quarles

None of them are written down, but all of them are known and they're, you know, there's there's these myths and legends that exist that define how people proceed, because at the end of the day, every culture is a self-preservation game. And you go to the streets as I do, you go, how do how do I survive here? And as the leader, I realized that I was not the culture.

00:20:34:11 - 00:20:58:16

Christa Quarles

I was the I basically was the steward of it. And so I you know, the only tool that I found was just what do you reward and what do you not reward, essentially? And so essentially, at urban table over time, I had to make it unsafe, not to take risk. And that, you know, it was like the people who were trying you're failing were getting more resources that are getting more engineers promoted.

00:20:59:02 - 00:21:22:06

Christa Quarles

And all these people were just sitting there, you know, in their box, you know, basically hibernating. Really What's happening? What what the thing that I used to do that I knew that was going to make me successful here isn't working anymore. And and I think that's and by being very categorical about the approach and being conscious of of what you're trying to do, in fact.

00:21:23:02 - 00:21:33:06

Andrew Davies

That's fascinating. So how do you foster that culture of innovation over the long term within a company whilst also needing to remain focused on the financial targets in front of you?

00:21:33:09 - 00:21:55:02

Christa Quarles

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question because I always tell people maybe, well, you can't get to Horizon three if you actually don't cross Horizon one. So you know, but yet your Horizon three, you know, in the way I usually put it in my head, you know, Horizon one is, you know, the next 6 to 12 months, maybe not even the line is probably 3 to 9 months.

00:21:55:12 - 00:22:11:17

Christa Quarles

And it's what are we doing right here, right now? What are the operations of the business, you know, and teams? You know, I always say the CEO should be thinking three plus years out, my team should be thinking, you know, 12 to 3 years, their team should be, you know, zero or, you know, you know, six months to 12 months.

00:22:11:17 - 00:22:27:12

Christa Quarles

And then, you know, the war on the ground should be thinking next quarter. But my job as CEO, though, is, you know, if you don't make any of those three plus year bets, you wake up three years from now with nothing. You know, people made a lot of comments around Twitter and I was like, oh, like, look how very Twitter.

00:22:27:12 - 00:22:46:08

Christa Quarles

I'm like, You don't know the implications of these things for years some time. And we won't know how many of these long range battles, like if they if they cut their entire I don't know, bet like there's going to come a point where the investment in that thing. So as the CEO, you've got to make those long range bads.

00:22:46:08 - 00:23:12:15

Christa Quarles

And the other thing I've observed is you better protect those with your body, meaning the organization will want to steal resources out of the things that are not generate getting profit today. But you can't have ten of those. You get probably one, maybe two. In our case, you know, we're we're making a big bet in the cloud where our parallels business and how that is going to interface.

00:23:12:15 - 00:23:32:18

Christa Quarles

And it's not going to pay off in 2023. But I think it's important when I look at, you know, the world according to Citrix and VMware circa 2015 and then the world according to parallels circa 2025. And and I'm, you know, thinking about where we're headed as an organization, and I better have that future vision and plan there.

00:23:32:18 - 00:23:37:13

Christa Quarles

But I also acknowledge that the organization wants to, you know, the white blood cells, how to come in and get rid of it.

00:23:38:01 - 00:24:02:18

Andrew Davies

You know, let's talk a little bit about that. So a little as far as I can see from the outside is, you know, it's a portfolio business with a lot of different business units inside of it, all selling under their own brand to their own customers. So you mentioned a little bit about this just before we started recording, but can you talk to us a little bit more about the different types of apps and the different types of offerings you have there and why they're all grouped under your company, why they're all grouped under a Ludo and the different markets they serve?

00:24:02:19 - 00:24:22:12

Christa Quarles

Yeah, and I think we have a lot of, a lot, a lot of different brands. And again, when I arrived two years ago, one of my primary intentions was to create focus and to really appreciate. Do you know why should these things be together? I think that was the first question to ask. What unifies these things? And some things may be less unifying than others.

00:24:22:12 - 00:24:44:06

Christa Quarles

So let's make sure we're really clear about where we're putting our focus. We have bifurcated the company in the technology and applications, but at its heart, you know, parallels enables you to work from anywhere, corral draw and, you know, creates you know, it helps you to create in your daily life. And these are you know, oftentimes this is not a casual career.

00:24:44:14 - 00:25:07:03

Christa Quarles

This is somebody who does it for their job. You know, my manager, you know, helps you idiot. You know, as soon as you're thinking through business problems, you know, and then winds up and enables you to share. So we talk about, you know, create in share. And if you think about workflow in knowledge work, would the thing that unifies all of our products at the end of the day is who uses them.

00:25:07:03 - 00:25:30:08

Christa Quarles

So for us, you know, it's really about can we deliver value to a customer for, you know, we're SMB, SMB, so we're not big, big, big enterprise. We're sometimes individual knowledge workers toy being a credit card. Sometimes we are small businesses, but we're, you know, we always say, you know, when you work better, you live better. So if we get enable anybody to work more efficiently, that's really the centering premise for a company.

00:25:30:12 - 00:25:47:03

Andrew Davies

I can see, you know, through offering that you obviously have that split of consumer or prosumer and then your business customers, SMB or maybe some mid-market there too. Have you seen a big difference in the health of those customers and what they need from you in this, you know, challenging economic situation?

00:25:47:03 - 00:26:18:01

Christa Quarles

I mean, I think the there's scrutiny everywhere, honestly. And, you know, it's funny, I've wrestled with the word prosumer, but I was like, oh, what is that exactly? You know, I think we get you know, we try to think through our routes to market in very broad terms. And one of the things and I said this when I was at Disney and I'll say and here is I hate it when a company shows you their org chart, meaning our divisions, the way we sell, the way we communicate is, you know, is I.

00:26:18:01 - 00:26:35:02

Christa Quarles

And so, you know, I think we want to enable anybody to buy with us in any way that makes sense for them. And, you know, create automation pathways don't involve humans unless you need to, but also, you know, be there to offer value to these customers. I think they're you know, there's a lot of scrutiny that we're seeing.

00:26:35:02 - 00:26:57:02

Christa Quarles

We also see a lot of geographic difference. We're a very global company. We sell in 80 countries. And, you know, we did see a European slowdown, for example, faster than we saw in North America. And I think it makes sense based on, you know, the Ukraine and Russian war. That's going on and oil and can Germany even figure out how to heat itself this winter?

00:26:57:02 - 00:27:06:19

Christa Quarles

And you've probably seen a little bit of that very early. So, I mean, it's really hard in Europe right now. And I think, you know, we've seen that more acutely than than we have in the States.

00:27:10:14 - 00:27:15:14

Ben Hillman

Next press. It talks about dismantling the divide between leaders and the people they manage.

00:27:19:05 - 00:27:39:04

Andrew Davies

Yeah, that makes total sense if we dig into. So the idea to create and share, you know, clearly there's a massive implication on your business and I assume a big growth has come from the COVID lockdowns and the huge shift to remote. And I know you've talked with great eloquence about this shift to remote and the leadership burden that now is on leaders who are now managing remote teams, promising.

00:27:39:04 - 00:27:50:19

Andrew Davies

Just talk to me a little bit about, you know, Yeah. What do you think is still to come? Is that trend continuing? Are you seeing companies go back into the office and and maybe a couple of the principals about that shift to remote and how leaders can make sense of it?

00:27:51:00 - 00:28:15:08

Christa Quarles

Yeah. So we are a remote first company and I if you'd asked me in 2019 whether or not I would lean into something like this, I would be like, absolutely not. And yet I've been I've completely upended my bias around it. I observe how much time got wasted in what I would characterize as performative acts by employees that didn't necessarily drive anything forward.

00:28:15:08 - 00:28:40:13

Christa Quarles

And when you hold people accountable for output versus observing them sitting at their desk, are these imperfect sets of inputs you get. You start to realize, Oh, so much of work is performative and if we could, you know, so much of work is getting us to this space and back from that space. But I, I also, you know, say like you've got to acknowledge the differences of your businesses, too.

00:28:40:13 - 00:29:08:04

Christa Quarles

So, you know, I would say we're in the bits business and not the atoms business because we ship software and it's just easier. And if you're building a car or you know, if you're, you know, creating a medical device, that equation changes quite a bit. But I think it just the the leadership shared I mean, I heard this really interesting stat from the CEO of LinkedIn who said, you know, the first interesting stat was that 2% of job postings used to be remote, now it's 14%.

00:29:08:12 - 00:29:34:07

Christa Quarles

But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that over half of all applicants on LinkedIn are going to the 14% that are remote. They're punching three and a half times above their weight, these remote jobs. And you kind of go, why is that? Is it that every worker of their, you know, I mean, there's one and I hear this sometimes on some of the boards that I said, and usually honestly, it's older males and it's like, well, these are just lazy people who don't want to work.

00:29:34:18 - 00:29:52:22

Christa Quarles

And and that's just not been my experience. I mean, having been at every level of a company, you know, I came in wanting to do good work. I came in wanting to drive a business forward. Yes, of course. There's always going to be your outliers. You know, I hear about this mythical person who works three jobs. I'm like, that's like the same guy who's married to three women.

00:29:52:22 - 00:30:14:04

Christa Quarles

And difference. I'm like, I'm sure it happens. It's just that like Six Sigma, my math, I do like, is this really like a regular and what people are doing everyday. But on the other side it forces you as leaders to embed culture. If you just create a transactional relationship with your employees, yeah, they could quit tomorrow and not feel a darn thing.

00:30:14:04 - 00:30:33:17

Christa Quarles

In fact, they just, you know, go into a newsroom on the next day and, you know, let it go. So our job gets harder in many ways. And so I think this has been an identity crisis for leaders right now, because you've had to change what you thought you knew about leadership and really adapt to what the workers are telling you.

00:30:33:21 - 00:30:49:14

Andrew Davies

In a recent article, I think you're writing in Fast Company, you were talking about the divide between leaders or managers and the people being managed, and perhaps they are different perspectives on this. And I think what I was reading there was it was talking about how leadership isn't a product of getting everyone back in the room or in whether virtual or physical.

00:30:49:14 - 00:30:57:13

Andrew Davies

It's about dismantling that divide so that people have a new way of working together. Can you talk a bit more about that divide that you saw in the research and what you're doing about it?

00:30:57:13 - 00:31:26:14

Christa Quarles

Yeah, I mean, essentially the divide that we saw was, first of all, the rules for remote work seem to be different for leaders and individual contributors, which I think is quite interesting. So individual contributors are meant to come in and be observed and to honestly just punch a time clock. And and, you know, I have friends at Apple that are now being, you know, quote unquote, forced to go in three days a week and they hate it and then go in and then they sit on a zoom for eight or 9 hours.

00:31:26:14 - 00:31:45:03

Christa Quarles

Is that really effective work? And just because somebody decides that that's the way that it needs to be. And, you know, look, the reality is like, you know, I'm not CEO at home. And so it's harder for some people in the leadership ranks, whereas you go into the office, you're treated differently. And so we've just seen this divide.

00:31:45:03 - 00:32:08:19

Christa Quarles

So managers love to preside over. But if you think about it, you're a symbol, right? I mean, does somebody create a better marketing plan because somebody staring over their shoulder the whole time or, you know, and how long does it take to create a great marketing plan? Is it 5 hours, 10 hours, 100 hours? I don't know. But it doesn't it's to me, the like, knowledge work is not piecework.

00:32:09:03 - 00:32:26:20

Christa Quarles

And I think so often when we get into like keystroke monitoring or other things like, well, what are the I mean, again, if you're in a business where you've got, you know, like, well, if you're in the legal profession and you've got to go through contracts and documents, there is a certain amount of, you know, I got to just get through the work load.

00:32:26:20 - 00:32:49:14

Christa Quarles

And I appreciate that there is, but there is a lot of knowledge work that's super creative and it doesn't just happen in a formulaic fashion. And we're trying to create a company. I mean, even our colors of the Ludo were designed around. We have like Morning Ludo, which is yellow, and we have midday, which is teal, and then we have nighttime because it's like the ideas are going to inspire you at all times of the day.

00:32:49:14 - 00:33:09:06

Christa Quarles

Well, we want our emotionally connected employees who understand the impact that they can have on their job and work. When you work best now does that that doesn't mean we're here on a lifestyle thing either. Like I want output, I want to win. You know, this is all designed around what can we set up the conditions for winning in a company more?

00:33:09:06 - 00:33:09:13

Christa Quarles

In fact.

00:33:09:14 - 00:33:26:05

Andrew Davies

I think it's really interesting that, you know, you talk about this divide that's being broken down so that you can win together between managers and between people who are on their teams. I think it's super interesting that in an equal parallel, you're selling to individuals, not just to their managers. You've got probably individual plans as well as team plans.

00:33:26:05 - 00:33:34:04

Andrew Davies

Are there any other kind of merging of what was previously led to silos or to that divide that you're seeing across the business or across the marketplace?

00:33:34:06 - 00:33:53:22

Christa Quarles

Yeah, I mean, your ideas are right. I mean, we are a driver and a beneficiary of almost the shadow i.t world right there, you know, I mean it's and you know, I think imagine going into a company nowadays and they say you must only use a PC, for example, like you don't get the choice of a mac or you must license.

00:33:54:00 - 00:34:16:09

Christa Quarles

So we're no longer dictating operating systems increasingly company you know like individuals were saying like I need this kind of software to be more productive. Now this gets back into, you know, the divide, maybe back into selling into the CFO. And so, I mean, there's whole companies devoted to understanding software that's getting purchased that isn't getting used. And IT companies, I think, wanting to use these things.

00:34:16:09 - 00:34:35:07

Christa Quarles

I mean, so that goes back to our view, which is, you know, we made a big shift from being essentially a perpetual driven company to a subscription driven company because and I said, look, all sorts of things are going to change, you know, even how we respond and customer support, because at the end of the day, we will not be successful if we cannot deliver value on a daily basis to you.

00:34:35:13 - 00:34:53:22

Christa Quarles

And that is the mantra I want everybody thinking about. It's not like sell you something. I'm like, Well, we sold you it now. We never have to care or think about you again. Absolutely not. And so pushing the whole organization to think about retention as the number one driver of our business, If you buy the product, you keep coming back and keep buying it.

00:34:53:22 - 00:35:00:04

Christa Quarles

To me, that requires the, you know, the sitting on that treadmill and making sure we're delivering value each and every day.

00:35:03:20 - 00:35:08:23

Ben Hillman

And now, Chris, it talks about creating systems to encourage the uncorrupted to seek power.

00:35:12:14 - 00:35:36:11

Andrew Davies

It's interesting. You've come back to kind of what is the watchword of many, many such leaders right now, which is retention, but making sure their cultures, not just their, you know, processes and that teams are supporting that retention goal. And I know there's a huge number of companies facing increased churn as they go into this market. Very specific things that you're doing to make sure that you're getting close to your customers and reducing churn in an environment that probably means it will go up.

00:35:36:11 - 00:36:03:02

Christa Quarles

Otherwise, we Yeah, I mean, I think that I mean, what is the precursor to churn? It's lack of engagement. And so you just think about the whole lifecycle journey of the customer. You know, you know, they, they learn about your product, they think about your product, then they might buy your product, then they get to onboard your product and then they get to engage with your product and and through that whole cycle, there are, you know, it's a funnel, right?

00:36:03:02 - 00:36:29:06

Christa Quarles

And so you're constantly seeing where people are dropping off on the funnel. Are, you know, are we not getting engagement. I wish people not using you know, when I was at OpenTable, we had a churn predictor for restaurants and would go in preemptively and make sure that they understood that's around the product. So I think it is about knowing all those metrics so that you can get in front of where your biggest churn tips are going to be.

00:36:29:06 - 00:36:59:23

Christa Quarles

And it really requires, you know, companies to really instrument every aspect of their business to know where these things are falling off and empower your employees to go in and giving them data. I mean, I think the other thing companies make sure that, you know, they're in tip top shape around and we were not when I first joined which was data and you know we hired a chief data officer this spring and just really being able to understand and making sure, you know, we were putting as much of our own first party data on it to understand like, how can we serve customers better?

00:36:59:23 - 00:37:01:23

Christa Quarles

Because that's really why we exist.

00:37:01:23 - 00:37:07:02

Andrew Davies

Very, very cool. The open data is often the first thing that takes more than a couple of quick months to invest in as well.

00:37:07:02 - 00:37:18:02

Christa Quarles

Unfortunately But that's since the and it's like don't, don't not invest in those things. And everything that's working is like is like don't cut the thing that is eventually going to provide you oxygen obsolete.

00:37:18:10 - 00:37:27:09

Andrew Davies

Just as we come into L.A. I've noticed on LinkedIn you're a bookworm often out walking your dog. I think coconut is it or listening and listening to an audiobook wants to multiple your book.

00:37:27:17 - 00:37:31:12

Christa Quarles

I highlight and but they don't count as much.

00:37:32:21 - 00:37:40:18

Andrew Davies

Fire it up. Give me a few book recommendations, particularly prompts along some of the themes we've been talking around today, things that our readers and I should go and have a read of now.

00:37:40:19 - 00:38:02:18

Christa Quarles

One of my favorite books of the Last year to Corruptible by Brian Koss and what he set out to do in that book. He did his Ph.D. on despots and dictators, but really set out to understand was does leadership corrupt the fundamental formation or question? And one of the interesting areas that they did confirm was that corruptible people seek power more readily than incorruptible do.

00:38:03:02 - 00:38:22:21

Christa Quarles

And what we need to do, you know, one of my other favorite books is, Comic Habits by James Clear. Yeah. And one of the things he talks about is you don't rise to the level of your goal. You sink to the level of your systems. And you know, if you think about corruptible, an atomic II was like the system, you know, spits out the incorruptible.

00:38:22:21 - 00:38:39:06

Christa Quarles

As in many cases I feel like I'm an accidental CEO. I didn't go wake up in the morning. I didn't have a lemonade stand at the age of four and was like, you know, I wasn't you know, we we hear about, you know, Richard Branson. You think like that guy was inclined to go about a business. I feel like I was a bit accidental.

00:38:39:06 - 00:39:05:00

Christa Quarles

And we need more people who think holistically with empathy. And so how do we create systems and structures to encourage the incorruptible to seek power more readily? You know, look at American government. You know, the disaster right now, not the British government, is great either. Not navigable. Right? I mean, it's kind of about political power. Is the most, you know, obvious, you know, in terms of just the power associated.

00:39:05:00 - 00:39:22:10

Christa Quarles

Why are people making decisions? I bet if we cornered a lot of these people right down to their fundamental values and beliefs, they would not as soon to do the things that they do. So why do they do these things? So I just think it's super interesting to get into the evolutionary psychology of some of these, you know, seeming decisions just recently read.

00:39:22:10 - 00:39:50:19

Christa Quarles

I've got in fact, I told my team, I said, if you look at my book list right now, you might think something's really wrong with me because I do. I just finished Bittersweet by Susan Cain, which is super interesting. I'm reading Joe Becoming Supernatural by Joe Spence. I just read that Frankenstein again because I. I had written my kid, my son is in high school right now, and I had written a thesis in English on Frankenstein, and it was being referenced and all these other ways.

00:39:50:19 - 00:40:14:23

Christa Quarles

And I was like, I don't remember that book. I better reread that book. And it seems like an maybe appropriate time. So you Guns, Germs and Steel, the Jared Diamond. I've got a lot of guns of near but and I'm all over the place like you know from, you know human psychology evolutionary psychology. I went down that rabbit hole for a little while to just, you know, overall self-improvement to, you know, just things that are enjoyable or interesting.

00:40:14:23 - 00:40:37:21

Christa Quarles

And, you know, I read a book recently on how trees talk to each other. That's like and I think all of these things are well, drawing the fire analogy, too, I think it's about, you know, just stay so in your box, you're just going to not have the level of creativity that you need to solve problems effectively. Problems are hard and flawed and messy.

00:40:37:21 - 00:40:43:12

Christa Quarles

And so I kind of like to bring from all sorts of different domains ideas around how to get through problem solving.

00:40:43:12 - 00:41:03:04

Andrew Davies

That's cool. And I think the here sort of with corruptible, then I think that's super interesting that we are seeing some corrupted leaders where perhaps the boards were not playing the role they should of the system that was in place perhaps wasn't, you know, in the previous economic environment where growth was at all costs, weren't playing the role that that system and governance should have played.

00:41:03:04 - 00:41:07:20

Andrew Davies

So maybe we'll see some of that rebalance as we as we build more sustainable businesses now.

00:41:08:09 - 00:41:26:19

Christa Quarles

But. Well, and that's I mean, that's exactly the right solution, which is at the end of the day, you know, we were chatting a little bit about, you know, keystroke monitoring and, you know, seeing that workers the reality is individual workers never really take it company down. It's the leader who takes the company down and we need to watch our leaders.

00:41:26:19 - 00:41:49:06

Christa Quarles

That's it. So it is really about creating governance. And, you know, people believe they're being watched. They behave differently. I always tell my team I'm like, I assume every ask, you know, I live my life like every aspect can be played out on the front page of the you know, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the you know, the Guardian, whatever I live my life is as if that is going to be the case.

00:41:49:06 - 00:42:08:01

Christa Quarles

I write every email assuming that if the world thought would I be proud of it? And I think there's an element of thinking about how you govern yourself in addition to that, how governance structures that sit around you, that lead ultimately better and more consistent outcomes, you know, you can be a jerk and do you know bad things?

00:42:08:01 - 00:42:16:02

Christa Quarles

Eventually people get caught, you know, And so, you know, create a system or a structure that is designed to create better outcomes.

00:42:16:03 - 00:42:28:22

Andrew Davies

Yeah, love it. So let's end on one. You know, given the the mixed motivations you've just referenced, what's contributed to your success? What's been the motivating factors for you in this super interesting nonlinear rise through multiple CEO roles?

00:42:28:22 - 00:42:54:17

Christa Quarles

I think is this relentless seeking and curiosity. I just I just want to understand how something works. And so it kind of doesn't matter what the problem is. You know, I think about my early career as a research analyst. I'm and Wall Street and what I learned to do there was just ask a good question. And being completely unafraid about asking that question so often people were like, well, is only a dumb question.

00:42:54:17 - 00:43:17:22

Christa Quarles

And I'm like, and I think just and I ask this to my kids, you know, when they come home from school today, I'm like, Did you ask a good question today? It's not about knowing all the answers. It's about asking a good question. And I am relentless about that. I'm constantly learning, seeking, understanding out of these things put together and then putting, you know, just so I think there's that and then study of self.

00:43:17:22 - 00:43:44:10

Christa Quarles

Not everybody can be amazing at everything. So if you understand where you're strong and spiky and where you're weak or where you need, you know, I one of my favorite reference questions to ask people is who would make a great number two for this person? And it's not designed to be like what is this person's weaknesses like, But if you understand, you know like I know the people around me, my general counsel, you know, she dots every I and cross.

00:43:44:11 - 00:44:08:12

Christa Quarles

I move it a thousand miles an hour like. But she's like, I know that I got to surround myself with people who tell me, time out. You got to pay to this. And I know that my weakness is I'm going to go too fast sometimes and I need people around me are going to question things differently. And to appreciate that about means that your whole structure can move more effectively forward than you could as you just as an individual.

00:44:08:14 - 00:44:18:18

Andrew Davies

Fantastic. Christa, Will we'll we're coming up against time, so we'll leave it there and the team will cut a really nice outro. That was super. I really appreciate the conversation. You've obviously done this a million times before because it flowed super easily.

00:44:18:19 - 00:44:31:13

Christa Quarles

Well, awesome. It was easy. Lots of great questions. Andrew, it's been lovely to meet you. We interface again, maybe on terra firma. I don't know. You never know. Although I feel like I'm able to get out of syndrome without it, so who knows?

00:44:33:23 - 00:44:57:02

Ben Hillman

Shout out to Christa for being on the show. Now you have a better understanding of leadership and governance. Today, we talked about Christa's experience as a Disney executive, the attributes of a successful CFO sales pitch, fostering a culture of innovation while focusing on financial targets, dismantling the divide between leaders and the people they manage, and creating systems to encourage the uncorrupted to seek power.

00:44:57:06 - 00:45:10:19

Ben Hillman

Make sure you can protect the hustle a five star review and tell us what lesson from today's episode was your favorite. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to and tell your friends about Protect the Hustle, a podcast from Battle Studios dedicated to helping you build better SaaS.