Tony Jamous’ Sustainable Leadership Revolution

(10 minute read)

Tony Jamous, the co-founder of the global employment platform, Oyster HR, has created a business that enables people to thrive and find great jobs anywhere. By living as a sustainable leader, he is not only putting his life and health first but also ensuring this for everyone who works with him.?

Interviewing Tony rocked my world because his company is a unicorn in many more ways than just having a valuation of over $1 billion. It has achieved the ‘holy grail’ of creating a workplace people love turning up to.

When Tony Jamous exited Nexmo, the Communications Platform-as-a-Service company he founded in 2010, he was broken. Acquired by Vonage in 2016 for $230 million in cash and stock, Tony had a huge reason to celebrate, but he was burned out.

Burnout hurts everyone

“It was very damaging to my mental health,” Tony tells me during my interview with him on The SaaS Revolution Show. “My coach at that time told me after we exited: ‘You could have done the same, if not better, by taxing yourself less and taxing the people around you less.’ That led me onto this concept of sustainable leadership.”

??In a world consumed by business growth and financial success, Tony’s concept of sustainable leadership inspires an epiphany.?

??What’s remarkable is that he has used a model of leadership that embraces extreme self-care to build Oyster, the global employment platform that became a $1 billion unicorn in 2022.

??Shaped by his upbringing in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon, Tony dreamed of enabling anyone living anywhere to access the best jobs available in the world.?

“Oyster is a mission-driven company on a mission to reverse brain-drain and reduce wealth inequality. I had to leave my home country to find better economic opportunities in the West,” he says.

But to build his new dream, Tony had to learn from the past. “What was important is that if I wanted to build another business, it had to be on my terms. I had to live where I want to live,” he told me. This is why he moved away from the polluted, congested cities that were home for the first 30 years of his life.

Building a sustainable business

“I moved to the island of Cyprus, where I live today, near the sea. I wanted to have flexibility in my work, to be there for my children when they need me, and to be there for myself.? I wanted to work in an environment that takes care of my mental health.” Meaning, flexibility, diversity, purpose, and health became the constellation he built into Oyster’s foundation.

Tony’s concept of sustainable leadership is to first take care of yourself as a leader, and from there, to build an organisation that thrives on being healthy. The big idea is to live your best life, do your best work, and ensure everyone in your team can do the same.

Co-founded with Jack Mardack in early 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns were starting, Oyster benefitted from the remote-working boom. Growth came quickly, but post-pandemic, the banks’ rates crisis brought the company’s first big test.

“Our challenge was that our vision was too big and too wide,” Tony says. Oyster pivoted from being a global HR platform to specialising in enabling companies to easily hire people from anywhere. “That enabled us to emerge as a best-of-best platform because the only thing we did was to solve this monster problem of cross-border employment.”

The big take-outs from Tony:

1. How to go from burnout to living your best life
2. Why purpose is the glue that brings people to work
3. During tough times, be transparent, kind and human
4. Diminish the ego and lead from the back is everything
5. Don’t overreact, or even react. Be Zen and let go
6. Radical self-care helps you lead healthy, happy teams
7. Healthy, happy people build remarkable companies

Transparency and kindness

The strategic refocus and global economic uncertainty realised the pain of cutting some team members. “It was very tough on the culture because this generates fear in people. But our people trusted the leadership because we were transparent.” Oyster also embraced rugged human centricity and took care of people who moved on.

The challenge was to remain sane as the CEO of an organisation facing a high level of uncertainty and volatility — while keeping the team motivated. “This experience enabled me to emerge as a less reactive human being, meaning that I could remain balanced internally,” Tony says in the podcast.

“I could stay disciplined and focus on taking care of myself and the people, despite whatever was happening around me. Some people use meditation to do this.” What Tony did was to reprogram his nervous system.

“When an emotion comes into my body, let's say fear, I'm with it. I'm not running away from it. And I'm consciously deciding not to react to it. Today I feel so amazing because it has made me more resilient. I now feel more confident to effect change in the organisation, despite what's happening around me, because I know that I can remain clear, focused, and non-reactive.”

Choosing to let go

How do you achieve this? Tony explains that it’s about mastering choice—choosing not to react impulsively, but instead staying self-connected and compassionate. Sustainable leadership, he says, means shrinking the ego while prioritising self-care: showing up for yourself, sleeping well, exercising, and nurturing your mental health.

The role of a leader is to be an enabler. “You are there creating a healthy system, and a healthy culture of collaboration that enables other people to be in the spotlight. This enables people to grow and to be successful. You are behind the scenes as an enabler of that ecosystem.”

“No matter what happens — if we miss a quarter or somebody quits, then you are not reactive. Instead, you remain always centred on your goals, on your values, and on your principles,” he explains. What’s central to sustainable leadership is acceptance of the journey, despite businesses being a series of highs and lows.

Health and happiness first

“What sustainable leadership means for me, is to first sustain yourself as a human being that enables you to sustain others. If I'm burning out, my team is going to burn out. If I'm working over the weekend, my team is going to work over the weekend. If I don't take a holiday, my team won't take a holiday.”

“If I show up on Zoom calls and bring all of my issues with me to the company, that negativity is going to spread into the organisation. So you have to clean your system. I focus a lot on discipline in how I deal with my body, how I exercise, and discipline in my mental health.”?

Tony adds that he stops negative thoughts that intervene with his ability to lead, like not assuming the best intent. “When I get these thoughts, I just stop them, and they stop being part of my world. And I come to a Zoom call working with my team where every word I say, every action, is about building trust.”

Teams love oyster

Oyster is a fully distributed company with 550 people in 70 countries. The people who work there love it. Oyster scores an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5, based on over 217 reviews left anonymously by employees on Glassdoor, a career community. 85% of employees would recommend working at Oyster to a friend, and 79% have a positive outlook for the business.

In a world where so many people don’t enjoy work, sustainable leadership is a revolution that brings out the best in everyone. Thank you, Tony Jamous, for showing that successful businesses create spaces for people, and the bottom line, to thrive. Your thinking has revolutionised my world. To every SaaS founder who is reading this — I hope it revolutionises your world too!