If you aren’t the CEO or president of your company, have you ever wondered what it feels like to be in that role? In most situations, CEOs say it’s kind of lonely at the top. For example, Rana el Kaliouby, co-founder and CEO of Affectiva, discovered that as one of only a few female CEOs in the AI space, she also experienced feelings of separation and distance. To combat this, she began to write in a journal about her feelings and experiences as a CEO. In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we’ll share some of her insights.
The CEO is chief evangelist. Kaliouby said she underestimated the role of CEO as chief evangelist and chief motivator; she later learned that her commitment and passion for her business was contagious with her team. For example, when she showed enthusiasm at internal meetings, so did the team. When she demonstrated her excitement on stage as a speaker, the audience reacted in the same way. This shared vision made it possible for her to gain partners for her business.
Prioritize culture. She also noted that, as CEO, there are a plethora of things that must get done—from building and shipping products, to growing the user base, driving sales and raising money. Thus, it is easy to deprioritize all things that are culture-related. But culture is the heart and soul of a company; it is the blueprint that depicts how the team interacts and how things get done.
As CEO, Kaliouby made recharging the company’s culture a top goal. Her focus for the company was to “get things done,” and she emphasized transparency and ownership as key drivers of that. Prior to her transition into CEO, information was not always transparent; it was shared on a limited basis from the top down.
Kaliouby started the Wednesday Check-in, a weekly company-wide meeting where everyone, including remote team members, joined in and shared updates. While it had a slow start, this weekly meeting is now very popular. It’s a time when team members review product updates and conduct live demos. They highlight key sales opportunities and accounts, and inform the company of any delay in product development or loss of a business opportunity.
Be deliberate about your goals. She discovered that writing down her goals was also critical to success as a CEO. For example, writing the goal to become CEO was the first step to her success. Once in written form, she could internalize this goal, and begin planning for it. Becoming CEO no longer felt as daunting. She also surrounded herself with others who supported her goals, and provided encouragement and support.
You don’t have to aspire to be CEO to adopt these practices and be successful in your own role. Good luck!
Source: Rana el Kaliouby is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva, the pioneer in artificial emotional intelligence, or Emotion AI, the next frontier of AI. Prior to founding Affectiva, as a research scientist at MIT Media Lab, she spearheaded the applications of emotion technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism research. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, Wired, Forbes,Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. A TED speaker, she was recognized by TechCrunch as a women founder who crushed it in 2016. Entrepreneur Magazine named her as one of the “7 Most Powerful Women To Watch In 2014”.
