The Anywhere CEO

“Life is what happens while we are making other plans” is a well-worn cliche, but it’s absolutely true. Whatever you’ve planned for your career, life often crashes in and upends it.?

My career took a radical turn a few years ago, and it’s taught me a fundamental lesson about how we work today.

I’ve been very lucky to pursue a fulfilling career working for exciting and fast moving companies while travelling the world. My family followed me to each new assignment - from Ireland, to the Netherlands, to Australia, to Japan and Singapore and to the US. Fortunately, my wife was very supportive and we both wanted our kids to be students and citizens of the world.?

But then something unexpected happened that forced a hard decision for me and for us as a family.?

My 13-year old football-mad son was offered the opportunity of playing for BoaVista FC’s youth academy in Portugal, a country recognized globally for their football talent. This was of course completely incompatible with me continuing to live and work in Singapore. It was time to make a choice - and it was time to choose my family.

Having decided to put my family and son’s passion ahead of my career for the first time in my career, we moved to Portugal. As it happened, I wanted some more balance in my life deep down, but I fully expected my career to take a back seat. I assumed it would be inevitable that I wouldn’t be able to contribute in the same way - living in a country that, while able to provide a wonderful standard of living, is somewhat remote from the international tech start-up centres such as London, New York, and San Francisco.

But that is when the Pandemic hit, and the world of work was turned upside down. Remote work moved from being a very niche option to far more mainstream. At around the same time, I was introduced to a very interesting and fast-moving company called Paddle, which had a different approach to what work should be.?

Today I have the great privilege to lead that company and because of that different approach, I like to think of myself as “The Anywhere CEO”.

At Paddle, we think of location differently, liberated by the way technology can enable quality collaboration from almost anywhere. This makes us confident we are always driving the optimal business outcomes and a sense of connectedness, and always building and maintaining trust.?

Two of our policies , in particular, demonstrate this mindset: we have an unlimited leave policy, and we make it possible for Paddlers to work anywhere in the world for limited periods to discover new cultures and broaden their horizons.?

That said, in the background we nurture a culture of excellence and a customer-first focus so both these policies are applied with mutual trust at their core.

Today, in fact, three of my sons now are footballers - my oldest, Cristiano is a professional; while my middle son, Dean, is heading to University this summer but will continue to play football at a high level while studying. My youngest Julian is part of BoaVista’s academy just like his older brothers were. You can say football runs in the family!

So, even as CEO, this ‘Anywhere’ mindset means I can base myself out of Portugal, supporting my sons’ ambitions and dreams while still being fully absorbed in leading Paddle.?

Let me explain how I’ve made that work…

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The Remote CEO

When I’m home, routine is my friend. My day is strictly structured with the gym very early, with some meeting-free work time in the morning before the back-to-back Zoom meetings begin. Then, a short lunch and/or walk with my wife before more afternoon zooms. With Zoom, Google Suite, and WhatsApp, I have the main collaboration tools, and they make working with people worldwide quite seamless.

In this, I’m primarily involved in how we look to ‘change the business’ (CTB) to help us scale, and how we ‘run the business’ (RTB) to ensure outstanding operating performance.

All of our Operational KPIs are tracked through our “RTB governance framework”. They are reviewed routinely in Zoom calls that are fairly structured in approach: the same participants, the same set of materials for pre-reading and running the meetings, the same way to track actions, and so on.

All of our CTB initiatives are also tracked using a similar structure approach: defining the problem, what success looks like, how we measure success, who needs to be involved, and so on. Our CTB working team meets on a regular basis, and most have a “SteerCo” to help steer the initiative to success. I will sit on several of these SteerCo’s along with other Paddle leaders.??

Despite being hundreds of miles from HQ, I can collaborate with anyone and everyone seamlessly, but I can also control the focus and concentration needed to reflect on and direct the momentum of the business. It’s incredibly liberating!

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The On-Site CEO

I travel to London regularly, and while there, I don’t hide behind a desk. Instead, I make the most of the time to connect with people one-on-one because this time is all about people. This makes it imperative for me to be more present and mindful in my meetings and encounters, which gives me a very different focus.

When I’m in London, flexibility is my friend. I make sure my calendar is much less structured by design to allow the agility and freedom to engage with people organically. When I’m there, meetings in the calendar are designed to engender more collaboration, brainstorming, and creative development and innovation.

During these visits, I aim to spend more time with teams (in formal and informal settings, working and socially). I find the best learning opportunities are over the water cooler, having coffee, and over lunch or dinner.

Most importantly, when we have our executive Quarterly Business Reviews where we gather teams together for two-to-three days, the energy that we generate through our on-site togetherness is powerful.

But I find that we are able to do enough to build a sense of “company” when we’re together in the same room to make the time when we’re dispersed just as constructive.

The Customer CEO

But what’s important to remember is that our customers are everywhere. Ever-ry-where. So being too focussed on your location is actually kind of unhelpful. Regardless of the setting, it's important to keep customers front of mind because they aren’t too interested in where you are—just in how you can help.

Collaboration with your team regardless of location is essential to being customer-focused and customer-responsive. Combining the two worlds of rigour and discipline, with flexibility and fluidity, gives you the necessary agility to perform wherever you are.

The truth is, I’m so regularly on the road seeing customers and collaborating with partners that location or setting is becoming entirely moot - it's more a question of which mindset I need to meet the demands of the moment.

We’re living in a work revolution, and as our working world changes, it is far more helpful to think about what mode your mind is in rather than the physical place where you are.?

The point is this: I see a lot of leaders obsessed with where people are and what I say to them is: location is irrelevant in 2024.?

You need to be present in whatever it is you’re doing, and suiting that task to your locations makes sense. But today’s technology makes a mosaic of locations possible - and work is much richer for that!

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