The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Follow 2020

Vol 01 | Issue 04 | 2020 Attributes of a Good Leader

Women Empower Dynamics of Women: Participation in the Ever-changing Modern Workforce

10 Most Inspiring The

The Art of Leading

CEO s

IAN WATSON WITH THE CHALLENGE OF LEADING THE DIGITALISATION OF CAMBODIA

Editor’s Desk

Dew of INSPIRATION in a Flask of Success!

Call them misfits, but they define exceptional in a beautiful way.

T

he ‘one’ who walk with others, only comprehends the prerequisite knowledge to follow an already existing trail. But ‘one’ who walk for others not only forms a new path to follow but sets an example for an individual to step out of the traditional orthodox practises in every evolving sector.

These ‘ones’ possess a unique quality which took many years of experiences to get polished as shining string.

They aren’t and weren’t born with such abilities but proved themselves worthy of attaining such skills and have inspired many.

‘There is a great man who makes every man feel small.

But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.’

-G.K. Chesterton The above statement precisely states that the leader with a glimpse of a compassion ignites a spark in the people’s gut to take initiatives and make a difference. He/she must be decisive enough to surpass complex situations and wise enough to maintain a supportive environment in the workplaces. He/she should act as a driving force for others to rejuvenate the idle vibes of aridness in order to produce more creativity and productivity. Thus, leading to the inception of any inspiration.

Inspiring people is quite a tough task to implicate. Yet, the great leaders have exceptionally put forth examples of how one can be inspired and inspire others. They say that the inspiration comes from the smaller place, they are quite right. If we look around, we might find

ourselves with some real-life stories that initiated with a struggle and ended with a massive success.

The protagonist of these stories starts from the scratch and presents a beautiful journey for various to get admired from.

People often tend to get inspire by those, who achieve success in their respective field. In this special edition, presented by Insights Success, we are trying to emphasizes on those impeccable CEOs who are basically trying to make a dent in the universe. As CEO is a forefront player of an organization, he/she is, and has to be, responsible for all the endeavours and processes including the in-house and outsource of the company.

Let’s unveil such alike, inspiring stories and interviews of many such passionate leaders in this special edition and spread a word about their contribution in making this world a better place.

Also, while flipping the pages, don’t forget to go through the articles and CXOs written by our in-house editorial team and industry experts respectively.

Bhushan Ghate

08

IAN Watson

COVER STORY

With the challenge of leading the Digitalisation of Cambodia

ARTICLES

34

22 The Art of Leading

Women Empower

Attributes of a Good Leader

Dynamics of Women: Participation in the Ever-changing Modern Workforce

18

ANDREW APPEL Leading the Charge On Innovative, 1:1 Personalized Marketing at IRI

24

Karsten Boehrs Revolutionizing Education and Communication through Simple Accessible Resources

16

Integrated Approach How to do your best work when you’re not actually working: Maintaining a personal and professional life balance

C O N T E N T S

32

Kirsi Ekberg RedeďŹ ning the Meaning of Learning

38

Steve Cowan A Born Leader Driving Growth with Insight and Experience

28

Tech-Know Insights What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Kaustav Roy

Jenny Fernandes Rohit Chaturvedi

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Kartik Balapurkar

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Shweta Ambilwade

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Manish

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Prathamesh

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Database Management Stella Andrew

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com January , 2020

Follow us on :

www.facebook.com/insightssuccess/

www.twitter.com/insightssuccess

We are also available on : Copyright Š 2020 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success.

Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.

Ian Watson With the challenge of leading the Digitalisation of Cambodia

T

here is quite a need of implementing new ideologies as well as technologies with a touch of a healthy environment in order to flourish one’s business. When it comes to running a business such as a telco operation, implementing technological advancements becomes a need rather than a want. No organization would prefer to dwell on previous traditional methodologies in order to attain a firm stature in the market.

Meet Ian Watson, Chief Executive Officer of Cellcard, who understands market demands and effectively leads his team to achieve the desired goals.

He manages the company in Cambodia with an entrepreneurial mindset often driving his team to think and plan well ahead into the future. His unique ideologies helped the company to pave strong business structure for others to march on.

Cover Story Ian Watson CEO

Being Customer-centric

“Its not the biggest who survive, it’s those who adapt the quickest, And this very important in the digital age.”

By providing reliable products and services, Ian and his team try to meet the demands and expectations of their customers effectively. When the clients engage with Cellcard through one of the touchpoints, the company strives to provide a seamless customer experience across all channels whether they are managed by Customer Service, Sales or the distribution partners. Hence, Ian and his team, do not view this as a providing a product but rather as giving a full customer experience from Cellcard.

The Driving Force Ian Watson is driven by the idea of building Cellcard into the leading digital service provider in Cambodia.

By quoting, “It’s not about the CEO. It’s about the team” he emphasizes his great enjoyment in working with his

team. He believes that he can only be as good as the team he works with and builds. He and his company are on a journey to deliver, to all Cambodians, the best data network in Southeast Asia with relevant products and services to make their lives easier, to communicate whoever, wherever, and whenever they want or feels to. This has driven him and his company to achieve many milestones in their path.

Over the past three years, since the company launched its award-winning data network, Cellcard has won 26 awards from leading global bodies such as Ooka, Opensignal, International Finance Magazine, IDG ASEAN and International Business Magazine. His company gained all these achievements by proving themselves as one of the best teams in delivering a world-class digital network in Asia. Ian and his team sees digitalization as the next stage to

1 e

Th

advance the Cambodian economy and improve lives through education, entertainment, and commerce.

An Employee-centric Work Culture Ian states that the company has a very open and transparent management team and is proud of the diversity it holds making it an international team consisting of professionals from the UK, Hungary, El Salvador, Chile, Australia, Netherlands, Malaysia, Philippines and the Middle East. “It is very open and transparent culture where we share professional experiences from all over the world ”, says the CEO. Being a CEO, Ian’s job is to lead the team as if commanding a ship at sea. He is humble in nature and states that all the hard work and day-to-day running is carried out by his team while he sets the direction. He believes in unique ideologies and a mantra of ‘It’s not the biggest who survive, it’s those who adapt the quickest’ and this is very important in the digital age, he said.

INSPIRING

Most

CEOS

TO FOLLOW 2020

Embracing Technological Facets In such as fast-paced and evolving industry such as telco, Ian and his team are innovators with using new technologies such as chatbots, VR and AR, and AI in their automated services, digital tools and platforms and digital marketing. He is actively working with his HR department to evolve the organizational culture to drive and deliver digital transformation, including onboarding new resources with the needed digital skillsets.

“We might have won 26 awards. But it’s not the accolades which concern us rather they show us that people are recognizing what we’re doing as a company to change this country. We class ourselves as one of the pioneers of the digital revolution here in Cambodia. And as a such, we’re looking at building a world-class innovation and experience center next year to showcase our technologies from AR and VR to smart cities, connected homes and virtual classrooms,” says Ian.

He also states that the company is one of the first in the world to complete 5G testing with speeds reaching an impressive 1.6 gigabits per second. These are the types of speeds customers of the near future will demand to live their digital lifestyles, as we move into the fourth industrial revolution.

A Glorified Vision Ian’s vision and mission is to build the best digital lifestyle services company in Southeast Asia, which encompasses both technology and people – the individuals who will take the businesses forward. Because, when it comes to technology, possessing skilled individuals is necessary in order to push the business towards a better path. He believes in his team and maintaining compassion with each of them. He takes a walk across all departments every single day from customer service, to technical, sales and distribution in order to create a healthy and free-to-talk environment in the offices. He also talks to customers and hosts a Breakfast with the CEO once a month. He states that any member of the team from the cleaner to one of the senior directors can come and talk to him and other C-level executives. This kind of harmonious workforce which is also the driving force, has had helped Cellcard to achieve continued success in Cambodia.

One Must Never Stop Learning Ian explains that there is no room for arrogance in his style of doing business. He says he does not presume that he is always right and respects and appreciates feedback from others, always believing that one must continue to learn and grow - even at the most senior of levels.

He states that being an open CEO was the right way to build, re-engineer, and take the company into the digital society of the future. He does not imply that it is the only right way, but suggests that one must find his or her own way to lead and flourish the business. “I benchmark with the CEOs, other people in the industry and outside the industry to make sure our vision and my working mantra is good enough to drive this company to the next stage,” addresses Ian. He feels grateful for his role as Chief Executive Officer of both the Royal Group ICT Division

and Cellcard, and that he and the Chairman share the single vision of a fully digitalized Cambodia. As part of a large conglomerate, they work very closely together driving collaboration and synergies across all of Royal Group which consist of more than 30 operating companies. Ian says it’s all about partnerships, relationships, and making sure the communication channels are open so people know what their targets are, what the vision is, and to make sure they share and contribute to that.

A Glimpse into the Future Being in his mid-50s, Ian believes it is critical for him as the leader of such an innovative company to empower his team, mentor them strongly and prepare them for when he steps towards his retirement. He has a very young and dynamic management team consisting mostly of mid-30s professionals with more than half being women.

Ian and his HR team are aiming to achieve similar levels of diversity across the entire Royal Group and have recently appointed the group’s first woman CEO for the Internet Service Provider company Ezecom.

An Advice to Rely On “Well, I think my advice is, ‘Build a good team’. You’re only as good as the team that you have. Make sure every day you spend time mentoring and building team spirit and a good rapport. To guide them, to help them, and also to learn from them. I’m not some guy who knows the answer to everything. I learn new stuff every day from the team.

They come to me with new ideas, new ways of doing things.

So what I give as a takeaway is the key to building a successful company is bonding and working with the right people around you.”

Global Subscription $250.00

$130.00

$70.00

$25.00

1 Year

6 Months

3 Months

1 Month

(12 Issues)

(06 Issues)

(03 Issues)

(01 Issue)

Stay in touch.

Subscribe to Insightssuccess Get Insightssuccess Magazine in print, & digital on www.insightssuccess.com

Choose E xc e l l e n t, Choose Insights

I

Tessa Clarke Co-founder & CEO

OLIO

n my role as chief evangeliser for OLIO – the world’s only neighbour-to-neighbour food sharing app – I speak about our work and journey at a lot of events. And without fail I’m almost always asked something along the lines of “How do you juggle having a family with a start-up?” Whilst this is an extremely valid question – and it touches on a topic that’s very close to my heart, it really frustrates me because I never hear the same question levelled at male peers. As a result, this seemingly innocuous question is laden with an enormous amount of gender bias, generally to the exclusion of men. I would suggest that if we want to achieve a fulfilled balanced life for all – male and female – we have to ensure that we’re all participating in this debate about work/life balance, and that inclusivity needs to be the starting point.

Another challenge in this area is, funnily enough, the gender bias experienced by men who choose to be the “stay at home Dad”! Several years ago my husband and I decided that given our respective career paths and motivations in life, it made sense for me to be the “bread winner” and for him to look after our two kids and home, whilst developing property in his remaining time. This has given me the flexibility to pursue the opportunities for OLIO with full vigour, and has been absolutely invaluable in terms of helping me to achieve a balanced life. However, sadly, my husband experiences more than the occasional disparaging passing comment and has even been asked “When are you going to get a proper job?” Thankfully he has no self-

16 | January 2020

www.insightssuccess.com

Integrated Approach

esteem issues, and thinks he has the best job in the world!

But I highly doubt that in this day and age anyone would ever dare say this to a woman; and so why to a man? If women are to be truly equal in the workplace – and to achieve a balanced life, then we need to adjust our perceptions of what it means to be a male in a modern society, and accept that this will require men to taking on an increasingly prominent role in the delivery of childcare – which is to the benefit of all involved, not least the children!

Gender issues aside, I spend a considerable amount of mental energy working towards achieving a ‘balanced life’.

I prefer the terminology of a ‘balanced life’ rather than ‘work/life balance’, because when you’re an entrepreneur (and especially an entrepreneur working from home), the two can become very mixed! And to suggest that ‘work’ and ‘life’ are the antithesis of one another surely isn’t what we should aspire to. In the very early days of setting up OLIO, it was pretty much impossible to lead a balanced life because we had to achieve so much, in so little time, and with virtually no resources. As we’ve grown the business and the team however, both Saasha my Co-founder and I have achieved a much more balanced life – which is important, because the start-up journey is a series of marathons, not a sprint, and so it’s essential to avoid burnout. We find that working predominantly from home is extremely helpful in achieving balance (5-10 hours per week gained back through not having to commute!), and we both carve out time during our working days to exercise. In the early days we used to feel quite guilty about exercising when we ‘should’ be working, but now we recognise that if we’re to perform at our best then we need to be mentally and physically fit and exercise is absolutely critical for this.

Plus, I find that I have many of my best insights and inspirations for OLIO when working out, so it really is killing two birds with one stone!

As well as working towards a balanced life for ourselves, we’ve really baked this into the DNA of the company too.

And this has manifested itself in a couple of important company policies. The first is our holiday policy – we have no cap on the number of day’s holiday an employee can take; however we do have a minimum and insist that everybody has at least 20 days off. This is because we saw research from other companies who had adopted a limitless holidays policy, and it actually showed that the number of days worked by employees increased, not decreased! We also think it’s really important for the team to have a collective break over the Christmas holidays so everyone can really relax, confident in the knowledge that their email inbox isn’t rapidly filling up! We also ensure that in every www.insightssuccess.com

employee’s induction, we talk about the importance of a balanced life, and in our line manager training, we stress that the line manager is responsible for working with their direct reports to ensure that they are achieving a balanced life. What this means is that on a day to day basis our team chat will often show someone walking the dog at mid-day, someone else with their kids at 3pm and others heading off to swim or yoga. Each team member is responsible for ensuring that their work is done, according to whatever schedule best suits them, and as a result, we have an incredibly motivated and productive team, the majority of who say that working for OLIO is the best job they’ve ever had! If you aren’t already talking about how you can achieve a balanced life as individuals and as a company, then I can highly recommend spending some time on it, as the rewards will be enormous!

Tessa Clarke is the Co-founder and CEO of OLIO, a free app tackling the problem of food waste by connecting neighbours with each other, and volunteers with local businesses, so that surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. Since its inception in 2016, 850,000 people have joined OLIO and have together shared over 1.2 million portions of food.

OLIO also publishes ZeroWasteWeekly.com, a website and newsletter that aggregates all the best zero waste news from around the world.

Prior to founding OLIO, Tessa spent 10 years as a digital Managing Director in the media, retail and financial services sectors, and gained her MBA from Stanford. Tessa is passionate about the sharing economy as a solution for a sustainable world, and is equally passionate about the importance of leading a ‘balanced life’.

January 2020 | 17

1 e

Th

INSPIRING

Most

CEOs

TO FOLLOW 2020

ANDREW APPEL Leading the Charge On Innovative, 1:1 Personalized Marketing at IRI

W

ith today’s media consumption fragmenting at an unprecedented pace, marketers can choose from any number of exciting new platforms to reach their audience, but consumers are being inundated with an endless stream of random ads and promotions. IRI, a leading big data, analytics and insights firm, argues that companies need to become more personalized and precise in how they communicate with consumers and measure how their communications impact consumer behaviors and sales over time. IRI President and CEO Andrew Appel, one of our 30 Most Innovative CEOs to Watch, recognized that the complexity of the advertising ecosystem was creating messaging chaos – companies were spending hundreds of billions of dollars on ads that were poorly targeted, irrelevant and annoying to consumers.

To combat this problem, IRI launched the Personalization Suite, a game-changing capability that enables companies to target their marketing and promotions on a more granular, personalized level. The Suite’s three core solutions are layered on top of IRI’s unparalleled trove of data assets and can optimize the effectiveness of advertising spend on sales by up to 70 percent. “The answer is personalization,” Appel told Insights Success. “At IRI, we are helping companies reach the people who are most interested in their messaging and most likely to buy their products,” said Appel.

The launch of the IRI Personalization Suite demonstrates Appel’s mission to help IRI's clients navigate a dynamic and changing consumer landscape. Since Appel joined IRI in 2012, the company has transformed into a leading technology-focused big data insights provider, helping consumer packaged goods, over-the-counter health care

18 | January 2020

organizations, retailers, financial services and media companies grow their businesses.

Leading One of the Original Innovators in Big Data Whether analyzing how to make clients’ assortment, pricing and promotions more profitable, tailoring media strategies, or guiding them through new product or market planning, IRI aims to turn data into unique consumer insights that lead to actions.

In turn, IRI leaders are experts in understanding the ways in which the consumer experience is evolving and creating capabilities to help clients navigate it. IRI’s Appel is at his best in the company’s innovative, forward-looking culture – his deep leadership and advisory experience was honed in environments where data-driven decision making and innovation were valued. Appel joined IRI from Aon, where as Chief Operating Officer he led the team responsible for the $5 billion acquisition and integration of Hewitt, solidifying Aon’s leading position in human resource consulting and outsourcing. Earlier in his career, Appel was a senior partner at McKinsey and Company. As a founding member of McKinsey’s Global Business Technology and Operations Practice, Appel led the practice as it grew from 50 to 300 consultants.

This combination of vision, forward thinking and deep industry expertise is critical for IRI, a company at the nexus of raw data, advanced technological analysis and actionable insights.

Collaboration is Key At IRI, collaboration is one of the company’s core values.

Appel and his team are dedicated to working closely with a www.insightssuccess.com

range of industry and retail leaders to deliver joint solutions, services and access to capabilities, and in turn, expand the breadth of data and insights IRI provides its clients. As a result, IRI clients have unprecedented access to real-time analysis of granular retailer data at scale, which gives marketers a new level of precision and accuracy in advertising.

“IRI’s expansive Partner Ecosystem is one of our greatest assets,” Appel says. “We are differentiated by our state-ofthe-art technology and capabilities, powered by industry partnerships with companies like Adobe, comScore, Experian, GfK and Kantar Shopcom, and our unparalleled trove of data assets, harvested in collaboration with several of the world’s top retailers, including Ahold USA and Delhaize America, The Kroger Co., Rite Aid, and Walgreens Boots Alliance.”

Appel’s tremendous momentum in signing up retail partnerships shows no signs of slowing down. IRI recently announced major strategic partnerships with Ahold USA, Delhaize America, and Boots UK, three leading retailers with over 4,400 combined stores. IRI is now the preferred partner of choice for 7 of the top 10 global retailers.

Leadership for a “Re-startup” IRI describes itself as a “re-startup” in that, despite its 35year history, it is both technologically advanced and nimble.

Maintaining that momentum across a global organization takes strong leadership, and, Appel believes, a leader who encourages forward thinking, sets the pace for continuous innovation, and leads by example. “At IRI, we have consistently pushed the boundaries of data science and explored new frontiers, but keeping up that momentum and drive to compete with our own best work can be challenging,” Appel says. “It would be easy to rest on our laurels, but I try to model the high energy, flexibility and market awareness that companies focused on innovation need to succeed.”

Positioning IRI for Continued Success In the midst of historic changes in consumers’ buying behaviors, driven by an explosion of technology and new media formats, one of the most acute issues that IRI’s clients face is the impact of marketing campaigns.

Confident that the shift toward personalized marketing is key for CPG and OTC healthcare companies, Appel attests that “as the dynamic marketing environment continues to evolve, IRI will carry on leading the charge toward 1:1 personalized marketing with unmatched data, proprietary algorithms, leading technology and groundbreaking solutions.” In the years to come, Appel and his team will continue to provide clients with a roadmap to navigate the changing consumer landscape, and the Company will continue to push boundaries in the insights and analysis space to help their clients achieve growth. www.insightssuccess.com

Andrew Appel

President & CEO IRI

As IRI’s President and CEO, my goal is to ensure that our organization remains relentlessly relevant to our clients by leveraging the best and the brightest minds and the most advanced technologies to not only detail how consumer behavior has changed, but also predict how it will change in the future.

January 2020 | 19

Attributes of a Good

Leader

22 | January 2020

www.insightssuccess.com

The Art of Leading

L

eadership is about using the power of a position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A leader’s task is to implement the plans that usually look good on paper, through a delegated team, in a specific time with an ongoing motion. She/he may use the traditional method or may think out of the box. It depends on the leader as how to do it; the ultimate motive is to get the job done.

Although, each and every individual has a different approach on leadership, some might say it is about setting examples, some might say it is about sharing the authority; what matters is, taking the right decision when it is most needed.

Leadership varies from one organization to another. An organization is a dynamic body and creates new probabilities every now and then. And with new probabilities, come new challenges.

Although, it is impossible to overcome every challenge, the business environment has adopted certain leadership styles for the efficiency of business:

more detail oriented managers to successfully implement their strategies.

Transformational Leadership is considered among the most effective employees of the organization. One of the examples of this type of leadership is when a leader is assigned on a higher level for effective environment.

The Transactional leader The transactional leadership, as the name suggests, enables the leader to incentivize the team corresponding to their performance. The team gets rewarded when it attains the goals and the Leader has the power to review the results and act accordingly when the team fails to do the same. The goals and the strategy to attain them are decided by the leader and the team itself.

The Situational leader Situational leadership is a theory that the best leader will adapt to the required leadership style according to need of the hour. A Situational leader may adopt democratic style while discussion business with senior executive, but may switch to transactional at the time of team review. However every individual has a natural style of leadership and it may be difficult to switch roles at a certain point of time.

The Participative Leader Participative Leadership is the process of sharing authority with the work force in order to get optimum efficiency. The team, after getting access to certain powers, works responsibly to accomplish the goals set by its leader. The shared leadership also helps in case of any requirement of change, as the employees adapt quickly in such environment.

Incidentally, this style of leadership fits best in a scenario when there is a limitation of time.

Qualities of a good leader There is an old proverb that says, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.” So is the case with leadership. One of the basic qualities of a Leader is to pass on the leadership skills.

The Transformational Leader A transformational leader inspires the team through effective communication and an intellectual environment.

However, these individuals require

Communication Skills Communication is the basic requirement for efficiency in a business. As the level of hierarchy elevates, the requirement of

www.insightssuccess.com

Following are some of the qualities of a good leader:

communication grows. Especially, when it comes to leadership, there is no scope for lack of communication. A Leader who fails to develop this skill is looked up as incompetent, because it is his job to send the message loud and clear. Although, it is also important to listen as it is an integral part of communication.

Integrity C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Be it giving credit to one of the team members or be it admitting a mistake, a leader wears integrity as a badge of honor. They do what is right, no matter what. Ÿ

Empowerment As mentioned earlier, Leadership is about using the power of one’s position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A good leader shares his authority with the team in order to get the job done. By doing this, he shows confidence in the team and obliged by the gesture, the team works with full enthusiasm to accomplish the goal. Ÿ

Decision making There is risk in decision to making.

Great leaders take great decisions when the stake is high and it is the success of those decisions that make them great. To add up, a good leader takes right decision at the right time.

In conclusion, a good leader can be defined by the dynamics of his style in leadership, the values that he brings to the organization, the methods he uses to make the best of the resources, and the kind of decision he makes in the given situations. At the end it is about the attitude of an individual to bring the change for good. Ÿ

Ÿ

January 2020 | 23

1 e

Th

INSPIRING

Most

CEOs

TO FOLLOW 2020

Karsten Boehrs Revolutionizing Education and Communication through Simple Accessible Resources

T

echnological innovations take time to enter the growing market. For an entrepreneur, monitoring and providing the best user experience is a quest that can’t be achieved over night. Open conservations about setting goals and defining timelines for the product development, paves a creative way towards success.

Besides, learning, adapting, and improving are the keys for becoming a successful CEO of an organization.

One such agile personality, having a focused vision to achieve his goals is Karsten Boehrs. While helping his children in studies, Karsten realized that education and learning processes are continually witnessing changes. His son’s passion for gaining knowledge through online videos inspired Karsten tremendously. This advent of technology in the education sector and its rapid digital transformation motivated him to become a Co-investor and CEO of simpleshow.

Karsten started his career working in the logistics and sales industry. He has an excellent experience of working at management positions with various multinationals including Axel Springer and Otto Group for over two decades. Now, in his role at simpleshow his focus is on the strategic expansion of the company’s market position through internationalization and focused technology development.

About simpleshow simpleshow is the leading professional explainer video production with several thousands of videos produced in the global market. The company with its production team delivers services essential in creating videos and interactive eLearning courses for corporate customers in a variety of

24 | January 2020

different styles and formats. With the mission to provide simple and effective explanations for everyone and anytime, the company is developing intelligent solutions for wide target groups, such as the online DIY video maker mysimpleshow.com offers business and enterprise plans with premium features directed across all small-scale and large-scale companies. The intelligence behind the application includes text inputs running through a semantic analysis, a natural language processing stack, and an integrated world knowledge database to produce iconic visuals. These are then arranged and animated by an intelligent layout algorithm resulting in a video, which the user can individualize, download, and share.

With over offices in ten countries, the company builds on a universal and scientifically proven methodology that blends simple messages with visuals that stay in mind. Under Karsten’s guidance all of the company’s offerings follow this approach, focusing on five fundamental elements: Context— An effective explanation ,looks at the topic from the target group’s perspective, providing a context the audience can refer to.

Simplification— An effective explanation focuses on the essentials. This entails reducing the topic to its core messages and simplifying the language.

Storytelling— An effective explanation is embedded in a story, as stories help to create identification and are easy to remember.

Visualization— An effective explanation uses the power of visuals. www.insightssuccess.com

Multisensory— An effective explanation stimulated several senses.

A Visionary Leader Karsten’s love for the sports made him an enthusiastic cyclist as it combines all the qualities and values mandatory for understanding the roles of a CEO. He believes, the key enablers for his achievements are passion, perseverance, strategic thinking, smartly adapting with changes, constant learning and improvement. With the vision that the people are the most valuable resources of a company he states “I always try and develop my corporate family to be the best they can be”.

An example of his leadership style that focuses on empowering others, Karsten recalled a meeting in New York, where he was really impressed meeting a young freelance creative writer. He kept supporting him throughout the years that made the writer a confident and a trusted decision-maker. Today the former concept writer co- leads the company’s 50 people operations in the US.

Karsten Boehrs CEO & Co-investor simpleshow

Besides, leading and nurturing a smart and loyal team, he states “We have so much potential to seize opportunities, tackle challenges, and grow our business”.

Under the leadership of Karsten, his team has created an online browser-based tool ‘mysimpleshow’. This tool allows its users to create their own simple explainer videos, transforming the way people communicate. The company has integrated AI into this tool, which is referred to as its ‘Explainer Engine’.

Karsten’s entrepreneurial vision is to change the world for the better. With simpleshow his idea is to revolutionize communication and learning through simple and accessible resources.

Catalyzing the Market Change Karsten’s idea of creating learning and communication resources is changing day-by-day with the growing digitalization. simpleshow is investing time and resources into creating amazing tools, products, and content resources to catalyze to this evolving change. They are constantly improving mysimpleshow.com as a software product and establishing brand awareness to be the go-to DIY explainer video creation tool.

As simple as possible, but as complex as necessary.

Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs Karsten’s advice to new-age entrepreneurs is to stay focused. Defining the goals with agility will help them to achieve milestones. In addition to produce a business model, he adds, “Decide how your product and methodology will stand out from your competitors and make those distinctions your unique selling points”.

www.insightssuccess.com

January 2020 | 25

What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital About the Author Pam Bateson is an expert coach and mentor in business, training others to Masters level qualiďŹ cations and supervising coaches. She has worked within the healthcare, retail, hotels, construction, media, agencies, education and public sector. She specialises in Coaching, Mentoring, Employee Engagement, Change Management, Learning and Development and Organisational Design. She has worked with all levels in organisations from graduates to the CEO. She has designed change programmes that connect projects, outcomes, training and coaching. The performance outcomes have been outstanding. She is CEO and Co-founder at Thrive Partners.

28 | January 2020

www.insightssuccess.com

Tech-Know Insights

Pam Bateson CEO & Co-founder

Thrive Partners

P

am Bateson set up Thrive Partners, an on-demand coaching company, three years ago. In this article, she shares her point of view on how important humans are in a more digital world, what she’s learned as a tech CEO, and what this means when you’re looking to use tech in a way that’s both disruptive and works for customers. www.insightssuccess.com

January 2020 | 29

In October 2015, I gave up a successful career as a management consultant and coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I was approaching 50, with two children still at home. But for the decade running up to that decision, I’d been thinking about a better way to deliver coaching – supported by digital, to share more widely the coaching tools I’d used to help clients for many years.

This was the business I set out to build three years ago. Today, we’re working with 25 clients on five continents – delivering our own brand of on-demand coaching, backed with insights for the whole business. The learning curve has been steep – particularly for someone who, by their own confession, didn’t have a lot of experience in learning technology. So here, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve learned – and what it might mean for your business.

Dream big I didn’t really set out to build a business that would be considered disruptive, but my background as a lean engineer and coach did mean that we ripped up the rulebook when it came to the coaching industry. We scrapped the idea that you needed to meet face to face, and that sessions had to last an hour, or even two hours. And we made it a lot easier for people to access a coach to answer the questions they had there and then – increasing access so people could chat to an expert within an hour.

Working with my co-founder, we then rebuilt the industry by asking the biggest questions we could imaging.

What if we could make coaching available to whole organisations? What if we could get listening as valued as speaking? And what if we could help organisations learn as quickly as individuals?

I found these questions irresistible: I wanted to do for coaching what Uber had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had done for home entertainment, and

30 | January 2020

Tinder had done for dating. It’s these big dreams that have galvanised our success in the last few years – and which has set us in the right direction for the future.

The whole-system insights we produced has helped to make sales processes smoother, improved communications and created more opportunities for people to learn.

Build for modern users Despite big dreams, we’ve also made our fair share of mistakes! A lot of them mistakes happened when we took our attention away from our end customers. It sounds obvious to see it there on the page. But it can be easy to lose sight of the customers that matter most, especially when, as a tech CEO, sometime we get preoccupied with a shiny piece of new technology.

Keep it human With suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45, loneliness sweeping through developed economies in epidemic proportions and a third of all young people suffering from anxiety, I strongly believe that we have a duty to keep talking to each other as a society.

So, what to consider first when it comes to users? The main thing to bear in mind is that they expect experiences that are easy and fast to access – a shift brought about by what we call the ‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era, clunky user experiences reduce the chances of uptake of services. In short, if your technology can’t match or exceed the quality of digital experience people get in their everyday lives, then you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Create wins for the many So, if users come first – who else can we harness the power of technology for?

Our answer? Everyone else in the system.

Early on in the development of our MyThrive platform, we realised that delivering digitally would enable us to do more than just scale and facilitate coaching in global organisations; it would also mean we could spot trends and patterns within communities of users, in organisations or society at large. Just as carefully listening has a powerful and transformative role in one-to-one coaching conversations, carefully listening to and analysing anonymised version of the conversations we host has a powerful and transformative role within whole organisations.

We believe that keeping the art of conversation alive in this digital age is essential; only humans can master creativity, empathy, humour and imagination in a way that’s compelling.

Information is everywhere, so we’re using technology differently – to offer real human experiences at scale, at any time of the day, whenever our clients need a conversation, for everything you can’t Google.

And what of the future? Curiously, even the structures of artificial intelligence and machine learning look set to mimic human patterns. It’s still early days, but leaders in this space talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by layering up different tools that connect in the same way as our brain’s neural networks.

And so, the next three years?

My recent experiences have led us to ask even bigger questions than we did to begin with – which I suspect will lead to our next irresistible set of adventures! What if we could transform learning management systems into learning ecosystems?

What if any community of learners could connect with any community of teachers? And what if a better understanding of outcomes from learning could help both individuals, organisations and society to thrive?

I for one believe there are exciting times ahead.

www.insightssuccess.com

1 e

Th

INSPIRING

Most

CEOs

TO FOLLOW 2020

Kirsi Ekberg Redefining the Meaning of Learning

Y

ou can be creative in anything - in math, science, engineering, and philosophy - as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” - Sir Kenneth Robinson, author, speaker and educationalist.

Creativity is an essential part in all areas of human life.

Science, Arts, Math, Technology, Cuisine, Education, Family life, Politics, Business.... You name it. In many fields, that role is undervalued yet very, very important; a balanced combination of creativity and academics or entrepreneurial tasks enables us to be innovative and encourages to learn and do new things. Many companies are providing web-based services, applications, solutions and games to boost the learner’s or customers interest.

Only imagination is the limit of how we can harness the possibilities of technology by remaining true to our nature. Technology is a good servant yet a bad master.

In education, teachers are keen to add new technologies along pedagogical methods to learning process. And yes, Children as most adults as well, have more interest in game based learning than traditional classroom studies in school.

In modern classrooms, gamification and technology can be used to enhance student engagement, participation and skyrocket the research to dimensions. Even definition of classroom can reach totally new spaces that aren’t limited to school buildings anymore. For that VILIKE was founded

by Kirsi Ekberg. Company has been developing digital tool for preschool education to support children’s kinetic learning skills growth and elevate evolution of education with technology and gamification. Solution is for parents, schools and educational institutes.

32 | January 2020

Kirsi is also working for Dutch Explect.com which was founded in 2015 by Bart and Martijn de Ruiter. Explect is a forwarding company that provides digital platform for international trade to help SME’s to export and import their products globally. Apart from this, she is working with Moiko.fi, a Finnish design company producing reflective accessories. Kirsi is also part of Mymeeko,com, a company designing and producing electric kickbikes.

Kirsi Ekberg is a mother, an entrepreneur, and passionate towards sports and arts. She studied physical education and art management and played various sports including soccer for more than a decade. Sport education studies was the starting point which lead her to the path of startup entrepreneur.

She played the role of single mother beautifully and witnessed the growth of children in her life and with her work. She also studied ICT and software development that give her better understanding on technologies and software which can be used in new-age education.

The Light Bulb Moment It all started out from her interest to have digital tool to support work with children’s physical exercise (P.E.) education. She believes that physical activity and art are as important as academics for children. Kirsi was inspired by Arja Sääkslahti, Ph.D. in Physical Education from Faculty of Sport and Health Science in University of Jyväskylä: In her lecture she told about APM

www.insightssuccess.com

inventory, a method to assess pre-school children’s perceptual and basic motor skills. Arja also told her about the impact of physical activities i.e., the more children move, the better they can perceive their bodies.

This was the time Kirsi decided to figure out how to digitalise this tool.

Problems Faced During Early Phase Initially, she learned about algorithms, how the analysis needs to be coded and ways software development along gamification can be utilized. Along the way, another challenge along big mistake at the backend of the first version, was and is the money. She ran out of savings to finalise to product and is walking in so called “valley of death”. But still after the obstacles, she is being encouraged by the people around and that faith keeps her trusting on intuition. With that support, the strong determination stays alive and keeps her thriving forward to accomplish the desired goals. Also grit to learn new things and seeing the golden lining in very storm cloud helps Kirsi to overcome the hussles and hurdles, every day.

Kirsi’s Definitions of Success “Be the change you wish to see in the world” quotation by Mahatma Gandhi is something that keeps her motivated to achieve her goals. According to Kirsi, it is vital to keep your feet on the ground, heart with the people and head creatively open to the future. To go forward in business by generating growth with the pace of people are even more important than money. True success is made by and with the people. Always give priority to well-being of one making the vision happen and take care of yourself along others. If you wish to make your vision come true, you need to be hands on part of the change and truly work for it.

Kirsi Ekberg Founder & CEO Vilike

Follow your heart and never give up on your dreams, real success can only be achieved by following your heart.

Her Next Move for Future For VILIKE.fi, she is raising seed capital for further developments, she is helping Explect with Growth Hacking. For Moiko.fi and Mymeeko.com, she will start international sales and Marketing to grow the companies globally. She has dreams for more innovative products for global markets. Kirsi will continue doing what she has been doing with the addition of getting back to development side and finalising the products for launch. www.insightssuccess.com

January 2020 | 33

Dynamics of

Participation in the Ever-changing Modern Workforce

34 | January 2020

www.insightssuccess.com

Women Empower

G

one are the days when women were stereotyped to a certain set of skills and professions, restricting them from exploring the world of endless opportunities. Today, women have announced their arrival in many fields of the business world. Therefore, it seems more important than ever before to recognize female contributions in every profession.

Fighting through biased work culture in favour of male dominance, women have conquered the unconquered on the account of their distinct calibre and predilections. In the times when the world female participation rate is to the dispiriting levels of around 67% and pay-off rate of about 63%, achievements by women go-getters are praiseworthy.

Listening capabilities is one of the distinguishing aspects of feminine species as compared to their male counterparts. Instilling and pursuing ones thoughts is undoubtedly important for effective working.

But being a better listener is something that can make a difference as studies show that the customer values and trusts the firms if they perceive that they are being listened to by the firms. With inherent caring and affectionate traits, women outclass men when it comes to understanding critical demands of the customers.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) - the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others - is an essential skill when it comes to dealing with a diverse class of consumers. Women are naturally gifted with higher EI making them better suited for pressure situations and avoiding counter-productive decisions while keeping emotions in check.

Emotional Intelligence encompasses two major dimensions – awareness of one’s self and awareness of others. Both the attributes are very much significant for the survival and success of any organisation. Self-awareness involves being familiar with trigger points and behavioural traits when put to the test. This, in turn, helps to modulate impulses avoiding conclusions which are harmful for the welfare of business. In addition to self-awareness, an awareness of others is equally critical in business. Analysing and decoding non-verbal communication – that amounts to 93% of the message – eventually benefits in convincing and converting a lead into a client.

Collaboration, and not the cutthroat competition, is the modern era’s principle virtue to achieve success. Many endeavours which seem to be beyond the bounds of

www.insightssuccess.com

possibility can be attained by combining efforts from different resources, channels and departments. Further, collaborating products with consumer experience are enormously important. It leads to crafting the best solutions for customer’s pain points and compelling value propositions that reflect their overall business objectives.

Multiple studies have found that women prefer to work in teams, while men prefer to work alone. An unfaltering affinity towards collaboration primes women to garner success in different fields of business which gives them an edge over others.

Increased profitability can be a motivating factor for many firms to hire more pool of female talents as many studies support the fact. Statistical research shows that Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on boards financially outperform companies with the lowest representation of women on boards. Moreover, genderdiverse teams have higher sales and profits compared to male-dominated teams, and a recent Gallup study found that gender-diverse business units have higher average revenue than less diverse business units.

Trust over female leaders is an attribute which needs to be reciprocated while making the choice. More American workers perceive female executives as honest and ethical than male executives. Pew’s “Women and Leadership” surveyed Americans in 2015 and found that 34% say women are better at this, while only 3% say men are better at it (64% say there’s no difference).

While it’s unclear whether this means women are actually more honest, it’s a subtle reminder of how tangled some business decisions can be. Leaders are often tasked with choosing between options that aren’t black and white, ethically speaking, and the capacity to lead honestly is important to the entire company’s success and job satisfaction.

Not to mention, increased job satisfaction and organizational dedication to cite positive and meaningful business culture are the added advantages feminine employees carry to the organisation.

However, the journey is not all merry go round every time.

Hindrances – seen, unseen – are there to check the unrelenting zeal of women aspirants to thrive in the industry. These obstructions need to be pointed out and rectified to create an environment that fuels women empowerment.

January 2020 | 35

Lack of confidence, according to many experts, is one prime reason women tend to question themselves and doubt their worthiness. In order to advance, they must coach their inner critics.

Out-speak and define what women want professionally if they want to get succeeded. Too often they don’t know or rely upon others to define it for them.

“Building relationships with those in positions of leadership is critical,” Susan Brady, executive vice president of Linkage Inc. says. “Put down the to-do list long enough to connect with decision makers across the organization, and help them understand who you are and what you bring to the table.”

Women are generally uneasy about asking for what they want. They must stop thinking about what they need as a self-serving request. They must develop the courage and fortitude to stand up and ask for what they want.

36 | January 2020

While proving value, women tend to overcompensate in order to demonstrate that they are adding value. Instead of doing it all alone, change the paradigm and track to encourage others to take on more responsibility, thus enabling them to scale and multiply their own impact.

Not to forget, biased work culture and regional barriers are the crucial obstacles in the road of women work participation. But, today women are breaking these shackles and coming out boldly to be a part of economic processes shouldering their male counterparts.

There has been obvious progress in achieving gender equality around the world over the past two decades: more girls are attending school, more women are working and are being elected to public offices, more women hold management positions, and the situation involving women’s legal as well as social rights have also improved.

However, a great deal still remains to be done to achieve equal outcomes for women and men. Recognizing women’s abilities, the values they bring to the organisation, the transformation they achieve as far as work environment is concerned, and considering monetary benefits associated with the female work participation, corporate sector need to welcome their emergence with open arms. No future is far where maledominated workplaces will be a tale of extinct, we believe.

www.insightssuccess.com

1 e

Th

INSPIRING

Most

CEOs

TO FOLLOW 2020

Steve Cowan A Born Leader Driving Growth with Insight and Experience

A

leader is expected to be a lot of things. More often than not, he is the epitome of all the expectations that everyone else cannot be, held accountable often by the same people. Human expectations are not fair and neither is the undue pressure that accompanies it as baggage. However, some people are born to turn expectations into opportunities and the pressure into unparalleled fervor. Such leaders navigate the sea of expectations successfully to sail the boat of life towards the boundless horizon of a perfect future. At the end of a long and hard working day, these people are cherished and valued no matter what. These leaders are treasured regardless of whether anyone on their team realizes what lies ahead in the big blue ocean – because they know they can always count on someone to lead.

A Business Philosophy That Drives the Raw Instinct

A Natural Instinct Sharpened By Education

Steve has learned from his many challenging experiences as a professional to gain useful insights at every step of his career. He found a job as a business analyst in the software industry after his graduation. Steve overturned what may have seemed like a pure coincidence of fate to others, into a priceless opportunity. He made himself at home in the software industry and worked relentlessly to build the foundations of great software products. He worked at software companies that aided telecommunications, payroll management and ultimately at the Jonas Group, which at the time, built websites for golf courses. That opportunity came his way 12 years ago, and today, Steve leads the Jonas Group as the CEO to steer the company’s ship towards a prosperous future.

Steve Cowan is one such natural born leader. His seamless energy and positive attitude makes him an instant favorite among business leaders. Steve understood at an early age that he wanted to lead and followed his gut instinct with the most applicable degree of Bachelors and Masters in Business Administration. He studied at Wilfrid Laurier University during his undergraduate degree and attended the prestigious Schulich School of Business for his postgraduate education. It was always clear to Steve that his place in life was carved out to be a leader and he never fell short of his own expectations.

38 | January 2020

Steve built his professional life with a rock solid philosophy. His focus has always been to put forth the best effort and get things done the right way. He is currently the President and CEO of Jonas Construction Group, which offers a top-of-the-line business management and accounting software to clients. At Jonas Construction, Steve drives his team with positivity to achieve the main goal of continually growing and improving the business. His feat is exceptional as his education did not carve out a straightforward path for him to lead a team of technology experts.

A Glimpse of Success is All that is Ever Needed

www.insightssuccess.com

A Vision that Unleashes Passion

Steve Cowan President & CEO

Jonas Construction Software

The Jonas Construction Group today offers a software suite that helps construction companies perform job costing, accounting, project management, service management, as well as document and drawing management. This software can be used on any device. In order to build such a comprehensive product, Steve took an unconventional path.

He allowed his team of members to experiment and take risks. He selected an outstanding bunch of people and put in place processes that granted his team full autonomy in good faith. Steve believes that this is the way forward to meet the competitive software industry head-on. Software can easily become outdated in a highly innovative market, which is why Steve guides and mentors employees to adopt a fearless attitude towards failure.

A Road of Certain Uncertainties That Lies Ahead Today, Jonas Construction Software offers two main product lines. These product lines are: Enterprise and Premier. These products are designed to help businesses improve productivity and increase profitability. Over a thousand companies across North America leverage Jonas Construction Software to manage their day-to-day operations. Steve led the company through one of their most successful years in 2017, which is an impressive feat, especially within the construction industry. Steve continues to learn and keep an open mind, and is focused on continually surrounding himself with a group of strong individuals at all times. At the top of his career success, Steve understands and remembers that a good leader is as good as his ability to spot and eliminate a weakness time and again, every day.

www.insightssuccess.com

The core value that has helped me overcome any roadblocks or challenges in my career is not being afraid to take risks.

January 2020 | 39