Top 5 CEOs ‘show’ the business leadership of the future

By Steven Bertoni

The job of a journalist also has its fortunes. We see face to face the most influential people in our field – sometimes, and the most influential on the planet. We get paid to learn – and share with you – the most useful tips. In 2021, interviews with leading figures in the business world brought us closer to the top US employers, in a complicated, uncertain – but unforgettable – year.

Here are five tips from an equal number of creative and outstanding business leaders: practical lessons for starting or growing any company from 2022 onwards – equally useful in times of recession or recovery.

Do not let a crisis go to waste

In March 2020, along with covid-19 came the lockdowns around the world. The Americans were dressed well, but they had nowhere to go. Jennifer Hyman, co-founder and CEO of fashion giant Rent The Runway, saw her business “swamp” as customers walked away. The special events section, which rented dresses for big events and gala, ceased to operate. Subscribers, who accounted for about 75% of Rent the Runway’s commercial activity (enjoying services for their “business” outfit), canceled or suspended their accounts en masse. By May 2020, only 30% of subscribers remained active.

It was difficult, but Hyman took advantage of the “freeze” of her company to proceed with upgrades that could not be done until Rent The Runway “had run out of gas”. “We would not let 2020 go to waste. The pandemic was a terrible event, but also an opportunity to get creative,” Hyman told Forbes in June. “Looking at things from the positive side, we would never have the opportunity to make changes in our operation while we were in a phase of rapid growth.”

With its “boat temporarily landed”, Hyman reshaped Rent The Runway pricing model, while upgrading and automating its units in New Jersey and Texas. It has invested in artificial intelligence, wireless identification tags and robotics and achieved better results in sorting and shipping its products. Thanks to these upgrades, Rent the Runway avoided setting up a third – and costly – distribution hub, and laid the groundwork for future growth.

So Rent The Runway quickly found itself on a total recovery trajectory last spring, when the vaccination campaign allowed society and businesses to reopen. Rent The Runway has been trading on the Nasdaq since October.

Goal, focus, specialization

To build his superstreamer music, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had to design an elegant technology that would give listeners a superior piracy experience. And he had to convince both the musicians and the record companies that the future of music is not property, but online streaming.

And he did it. In the process, he created a large fortune for himself and his original financiers and revived the collapsing music industry.

Most strikingly, Spotify retained its lead even when a trillion-dollar giant – Apple, Alphabet, Amazon – launched competing products. How; Spotify is obsessed with digital audio. “We are extremely good at saying a lot of ‘no,'” Ek told Forbes in October. If the answer is yes, we will consider it. “We have a unique view of what needs to be done.”

Ek believes that Spotify has managed to have the top talents in the industry in its ranks, because it focuses exclusively on music and sound. “The best audio professionals come to Spotify because we are the best in the field. For Apple, music is the 27th priority,” says Ek. “If you want to build a self-driving vehicle, do not come to us.”

Users are your friends

When Anjali Sud became marketing director at Vimeo digital video service, the company believed it could create a subscription service that would compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO. But Sud noted that small business owners were using the service to upload videos to their sites and to send e-mail ads.

“Everyone was in it, from moms and dads to tech start-ups and marketing departments of big companies,” Sud told Forbes in April. “They were so different users that we had to follow a trend.”

She had a premonition that the future of Vimeo was not Hollywood hits but the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Its plan: To turn the company from entertainment to entrepreneurs. “There was another, much bigger market: businesses,” Sud said. “What Squarespace and GoDaddy did for the sites, we could do with the videos.”

The IAC, then owner of Vimeo, gave Sud a small team to set up the service. And the service was launched – to such an extent that Sud became Vimeo CEO in 2017. It has since transformed Vimeo from a “dusty” web application into the most powerful paper in the IAC technology portfolio. In May, Vimeo split from the IAC, making Sud one of the few female CEOs of a listed technology company. “As a woman, mother and technology CEO, I’m unique in software,” she told Forbes. “I look forward to contributing my perspective and style to the industry. It will be fun.”

Dive into the data

When launching couch-surfing, the founders of Airbnb were unsure if they should focus on growing customers or home listings. So computer expert Nate Blecharczyk processed data on Airbnb’s top markets – New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles – looking for patterns and correlations.

And he discovered two vital pieces of information. First, housing registrations guided demand. Second, as soon as a city listed more than 300 listings, it was essentially reaching a milestone and the market was launching on its own. “By looking at the data very carefully, we have redefined the problem,” Blecharczyk told Forbes in December. “We have simplified the goal: from the development of the company throughout the country we have moved to acquire from 300 properties in the top tourist cities.”

With the data in their hands, the founders of Airbnb developed a targeted strategy to acquire 300 homes for rent in critical locations – the city-by-city approach soon expanded nationally (and globally) to the home-sharing market. Today, Airbnb’s market capitalization exceeds $ 100 billion.

Do the opposite

The “giants” dominate the world of retail. Amazon, Walmart and Target are among the largest and most valuable companies. But Josh Silverman, CEO of handicraft and vintage products company Etsy, saw a gap in the market. As the coronavirus turned all of our homes into offices, classrooms and playgrounds, Silverman bet that people would want to be surrounded by more unique, handmade objects. “Our mission is to keep trade human,” Silverman told Forbes in October.

His plan: let Amazon, Walmart and Target compete with each other to deliver mass-produced items as cheaply and quickly as possible – Etsy will leverage technology to deliver unique, handmade products. Silverman has enabled an eclectic (and mostly female) craft community to use the same groundbreaking artificial intelligence, data, and marketing tools used by retail giants. In this way, Etsy sales in 2020 skyrocketed by 111% to $ 1.7 billion, selling unique furniture, artwork and toys to quarantined customers. At the same time, Etsy gave income – and purpose – to millions of people who did a second job, in a time of turmoil, lockdown and an unprecedented number of layoffs. The Etsy share has jumped 275% from the low levels of the pandemic in 2020.

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