CEO Summit 2023
JMI brought together 40 CEOs for our 2023 CEO Summit in Houston
CEO performance is the primary ingredient to value creation and JMI is committed to helping our company leaders succeed in all market environments. JMI CEO Summits feature leading thinkers on the key issues affecting software companies today combined with peer-to-peer sharing of experiences and practical advice.
Randy Street, Vice Chairman of leadership advisory firm ghSMART, opened the 2023 CEO Summit with a dynamic keynote on “Full Power Leadership: How Winning CEOs Thrive Amidst Uncertainty.” Against the backdrop of today’s political, economic, and social challenges, Randy charted a path to success based on proven best practices from 20 years of research on successful CEOs. He shared that all leaders, including CEOs are 20x more likely to succeed if they ruthlessly prioritize, constantly evaluate their team members’ abilities to execute against those priorities, and are able to build effective relationships with their teams through enabling the right structures (e.g., clear expectation setting, metrics and dashboards, rules of engagement) and ways of working (e.g., communication, motivation, accountability, constructive debate). He shared that CEOs must master four critical skills: Decide with conviction and speed; Adapt proactively; (Reliably) Deliver; and Engage for impact. Randy provided participants diagnostic scorecards and frameworks to evaluate their own ongoing performance as well as the performance of their teams.
Given the importance of AI and its rapid pace of change, the group participated in a two-part session entitled, “AI and Your Software Business: Existential Threat, Opportunity, or Overhyped FOMO.” The session delivered insights on and advice surrounding AI developments likely to impact software companies and their markets, including, 1) invest in experiential capital (as important as financial capital), 2) waste some time on frivolous things (to spur serendipitous innovation), 3) make more mistakes, and 4) guard against the ugly (with security and privacy frameworks). Participants were urged to Think Big, Start Small, and Scale Fast.
This big-picture AI presentation was followed by a facilitated session in which multiple portfolio company CEOs discussed how they are using AI, where they have been and where they are going. The group shared practical advice on how to get started, prioritize, build teams, and identify next steps to capitalize on AI-enabled innovation in software products and processes.
Chris Todd, CEO of UKG, and Luke Dembosky, Co-Chair of Debevoise & Plimpton shared candid advice and real-world experience in an eye-popping session on cybersecurity. Other participants also shared details and advice about ransomware attacks. The group spent valuable time on what to do before, during, and after a potential event to put the company in the best position. Recommendations included having a plan and crisis team in place, practicing bringing entire systems down and then back up, having a prompt and transparent communication plan for customers, and working with partner companies in the event of a breach.
Participants also received cyber security recommendations from JMI’s experts which included expectations and best practices for cybersecurity – one of the many resources in JMI’s recently introduced Knowledge Sharing Library, available to all our portfolio companies.
Sessions on “For All” leadership culture and its link to superior results – how to create an environment of equity for all employees in terms of representation, opportunity, compensation, and well-being – and an economic update from JP Morgan on macro-trends and implications for software business valuations – rounded out the 2023 program.
JMI’s next Roundtable will be held October 25-26th. This Go-To-Market Roundtable will take place in San Diego for the benefit of sales, marketing, and customer success leaders.
