Is Slack's CEO ready for its IPO debut?
recently wrote about Slack’s colorful CEO, Stewart Butterfield, as the company prepares for its IPO debut later this month. The reporter, Erin Griffith, basically questioned Butterfield’s maturity fitness as a public company CEO. Griffith raises some fair points and questions about Butterfield’s “mouthiness,” irreverent commentary, proclivity to publicly poke at competitive beasts like Microsoft and his anti-Trump rants.
My company uses Slack and my staff love it. Me? Not so much but that doesn’t matter. Slack’s coming of age and upcoming IPO represents a major shift in the Millennial come Gen-Z marketplace. Butterfield’s ingenuity is a mere reflection of how we actually collaborate and will work in the future. Butterfield “franken-vented” a tool that takes the best of texting and emailing without the downsides of either.
Butterfield’s temperament should not scare us. Rather, it should excite us. He’s a proven, 46-year-old adult that’s created a near cult-like following for more than 600,000 users with countless more to follow. Being on Slack is productive and morale boosting for workers…and tells the world that your company is cool and hip by boasting three simple words, “We’re on Slack.”In the same way you can’t tame a wild animal, you can’t try to tame a CEO.
My advice to Mr. Butterfield? You do you and please listen carefully to your advisors. If there is any doubt, don’t step out. Especially listen to your new CMO, Julie Liegl. Coming fromand her CPG background prior to that will be very helpful as you up level your communications to the enterprise while at the same time staying resonant with the Millennial enterprise workplace zeitgeist.
Aaron is founder and CEO of KWT Global, a brand strategy agency formerly known as Kwittken, with offices in New York, London, Toronto and Singapore. Kwittken is a former...
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