Way back in early 2007, my previous business Trovus was only a few months old.
We ran an event in partnership with a small distribution company VADition. One of the team running VADition was charismatic entrepreneur Barrie Desmond. I think back then we had 30 or so people in the room to talk about the power of communities.
Fast forward 10 years and VADition has become part of the stunning success story of Exclusive Networks. The super high growth company you’ve probably never heard of growing at 50% plus each year and this year hitting over 1.2 billion Euro’s in revenue.
I’ve just come back from Cannes where they were kicking off 2017 in style at The Palais des Festivals. In excess of 800 people, packed full of energy and ideas and as entrepreneurial as ever to drive stellar growth again over the coming year.
Some insights I reflected on from my couple of days with the Exclusive Team:
Think like an Entrepreneur. Even when you are a large organisation, there is always room to be entrepreneurial, to innovate and continually find ways to disrupt the ways that things are done;
Make sure if’s fun. The whole event was packed with surprises and fun. I remember in corporate world, things always seemed to be so serious. Focusing on enjoying what you do in my experience means you’ll probably do a lot more good stuff;
Aim high and have the belief you can do it. A big one in my world. Whether you think you can do it or whether you think you can’t do it, you’re right. These guys have belief in spades and then go and deliver on it.
Celebrate and reward. Something we did on every leg of our sailing. Focus on all the things that have gone well. Talk about them. Focus on them. Celebrate them. Great to see the positive energy created from focusing on all the great things happening.
For me, it was great to be involved and to be able to share my story and learning with over 800 people from the stage used for the Cannes Film Festival was pretty special. Equally rewarding was all the feedback and the conversations with so many people over the course of the evening.
The theme was pretty awesome too. Played to both versions of the song (both Bowie and Alesso), the theme was #wecanbeheroes and the song is still vibrating in my head.
An amazing event and an even bigger success story.
“Caspar spoke at WPPStream Africa - Incredible insight, guidance and that rare quality of openness to sharing his story with others. He is a brilliant speaker, author and handled the flow of conversation with a group in a most constructive way. Superb human, inspiring.”