Venture-backed startups and innovation-focused companies are often contrasted with the conventional business or corporate workplace settings in three areas. The pace of change and growth is faster. Work scopes are more flexible. The budgets are smaller (relative to the growth being targeted).

For many founders, especially seasoned venture-backed entrepreneurs, such aspects of building a startup are par for the course. But for professionals who are coming from a career in corporate, government, or more conventional business settings, the shift can still cause whiplash, regardless if your expectations are met or not.

The adjustment can be even more challenging if you are joining the startup in an executive or C-level leadership capacity. How do you navigate professional growth in a startup as an executive?

Over the course of the On Call with Insignia podcast, we’ve had on call several non-founding team executives who shared their perspective on joining a fast growing company and taking these businesses to the next level.

We share learnings from some of the leaders who have gone on call with us in Season 6.

(1) Early on, optimize for business goals and growth beyond your role.

Mila Bedrenets had already experienced C-level and executive roles in prior startups as well as banks throughout her marketing and growth career in fintech and banking. In joining Tonik as Chief Growth Hacker, she defined her role less by tasks and more by the goals she needed to help drive for the digital bank, especially in the context of a challenger industry and category-defining business.

“In modern digital, app-first organizations, there is no such hundred percent clear, black-and-white split between what different functions do…because your growth will come from many different details…that will help you eventually reach your business targets.” – Mila Bedrenets, Tonik Chief Growth Hacker

(2) Connect the dots between today’s challenges and yesterday’s successes.

While Cassandra had spent the latter part of her time in IHH interacting with startups like Intellect, working in the fast-growing global mental healthcare provider was different environment altogether. At the same time, she was able to quickly leverage her time spent at IHH to bridge a strategic partnership and provide Intellect’s products and services to all 20,000 employees at IHH, a significant milestone for Intellect in its global expansion journey.

While these full circle moments may not be as obvious for everyone, there is a reason you are in the team for the role you have, and the network, experiences, and skills you have gained throughout your career, long or short, play a large part in that.

“Thinking about why IHH should invest in Intellect, and then explaining to the team…why we should have IHH on board as a strategic investor…building that connection and bridge, and then finally being able…to also provide Intellect to all 20,000 employees across IHH markets…I had been with IHH for 10 years, and to see them embrace this… makes me very proud.” – Cassandra Loh, Intellect VP of Partnerships & Solutions

(3) Drive internal innovation. Take the company beyond its comfort zone.

Nadira joined SuperApp coming from an FMCG background, tasked to unlock innovative revenue streams that would help the social commerce company reach its goals of profitability more effectively. The company had already embarked on developing its private label business when she joined, and she took this business to the forefront of the company’s growth and profitability story. Since she joined, SuperApp now counts 15+ brands in its private label business.

But this has meant going beyond their core focus (as well as her own background) on FMCG, launching and growing brands in F&B or health and beauty. In driving internal innovation, she has also had to go out of her comfort zone.

“One of the biggest things I’ve learned is how to grow the market share of each brand. It’s quite different for each product category, whether it’s F&B, FMCG, or health and beauty. We’ve seen great growth through TikTok Shop, but we’re also trying to tap and grow the offline channel for our skincare products, [for example].” – Nadira Zahiruddin, SuperApp VP of Innovation

(4) Being jack-of-all-trades should lead towards maturity and professionalization.

As mentioned in the first learning, startup execs should optimize for company goals as opposed to formal work scopes. But as the company grows and matures, this can no longer be the case for all functions. There are certain areas where departments and focused teams need to be brought in to ensure the company runs more efficiently and executives can focus on internal innovation (the third learning).

Mark Hew experienced this throughout his journey in Fazz, as his Chief of Staff role evolved with the company’s growth, and he has since focused on more specific roles within the company’s various payments businesses.

“It used to be a jack-of-all-trades role…we’ve since professionalized and established a strategy department and an IR function within the finance department. Today I usually gravitate towards situational or crisis management…cross-functional coordination until a clear owner is identified.” – Mark Hew, StraitsX Head of Regional Payments, Fazz Former Chief of Staff

(5) Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and do the job yourself.

For professionals and executives coming from companies with massive spends and organizations, the shift to a working at a startup can be a culture shock in terms of the resources available. An important skill, as Shilpa realized joining AwanTunai from her career in banking, is to be able to take on gaps in the team as the need arises. And more importantly, be able to find the right people to solve these gaps long-term as well.

Taking on these, sometimes menial roles, like filing reports, can be tedious for anyone. This is why Shilpa emphasizes the importance of joining a startup that is meaningful to you personally, and can tap into skills and experience you have.

“I didn’t have my army of analysts and associates in AwanTunai that I used to have in banking…join a startup, which appeals to you and can put your past experience into the right practical use…as finance professionals in startups, it’s not just about the company, but it’s also about the founders, the solid investors, the mission that the startup is looking to bring.” – Shilpa Gautam, AwanTunai CFO

(6) Embrace the cycles.

Ernest Chew, CFO at Carro, has seen market cycles through his career in investment banking. While joining Carro amidst the pandemic brought on fleeting thoughts of doubt, his past experience brought much needed long-term perspective on how to manage and embrace the inevitability of market cycles. This is best illustrated by his own growth as CFO through the past four years and how this has shaped the company’s finance function:

Ernest on a 2020 episode of our podcast:

“But really because almost immediately after I joined, there were Covid19 lockdowns across all our core countries. Of course, there were fleeting thoughts: “Had I joined a start-up at an awful time?”, “Could this lockdown last for a year or longer?” and more crucially “Will we run out of cash?”.

So even during the global financial crisis almost a decade plus ago, economies don’t come to a grinding halt – so it was a rather unprecedented period. I leaned back on what I’ve learned from the GFC, from businesses that failed because they ran out of cash and from the used car auction business which we advised our PE client to purchase in the midst of an economic crisis.”

Ernest on a 2022 episode of our podcast:

“I dare say that we are one of very few high growth tech startups that is even profitable. And it’s across all metrics, EBITDA, operating profit, and adjusted net profits. We are amongst the first to pivot towards optimizing to achieve positive EBITDA and profitability, whilst maintaining strong, reasonable revenue growth. I would highlight that we’ve been very focused on so number one increasing unit economics…

Secondly optimizing productivity. We took a very long hard look at whether every part of our business and OPEX structure is creating or destroying value. Number three, I’ll say building up our ancillary and recurring income streams. In the last few quarters, nearly 60% of our gross profit comes from ancillaries, which are mostly very sticky recurring income. Number four, I would say building liquidity war chests.”

Ernest in 2024 in a LinkedIn post on the awards Carro bagged in the GBS Asia Awards 2024*:

“We started centralising finance functions 2+ years ago. Today, I do think we have assembled one of the strongest multi-function finance teams around, capable of dealing with the most complex technical accounting (according to our auditor), structuring unique / landmark corporate finance solutions and financings, digital treasury / fin ops, to FP&A, tax, internal controls and more recently procurement…

We leveraged data and AI to process transactions, detect frauds / collusions and defective vehicles. Today, we’re one of very few (if not the only platform) in the region who can transact whole vehicles, entirely online via payment gateways.”

*Carro won Regional GBS Company of the Year (Winner), Operational Excellence in Finance & Accounting (Winner), Overall GBS Corporate Achievement Award (Runner-Up), and Operational Excellence in Human Resource (Special Mention)

(7) Focus on the bigger picture.

In a 2022 podcast episode, Shipper CTO Marvinus Arif talked about how his role has evolved since he joined the company. Having an eye on how to take the company’s tech stack and infrastructure to the next level is a key part in this.

“So I think in hindsight, there were three main day-to-day jobs: coding software, setting decision frameworks, managing daily operations. This was a vertical approach, but today I focus on the horizontal IT plans and research…

the second is researching new technology stack. Like I mentioned before, having the tech stack is really important. So I’m researching on new cloud infrastructure, which we call the just-in-time environment. So the engineers can spawn the entire Shipper environment in a single click so we can move the infrastructure closer to our users, so they get a better experience.”

This approach of focusing on the big picture in tech has extended to levelling up the company’s AI capabilities.

Most recently, Shipper collaborated with NVIDIA through the latter’s Inception program, to develop AI-driven solutions specifically around optimizing warehouse space utilization, advancing route optimization for smarter deliveries, and streamlining marketplace customer support with generative AI. It started with a workshop Insignia Ventures put together with NVIDIA for CTOs, which Marvinus attended, and later on evolved into a deeper conversation with the NVIDIA team through the Inception program.

They also showcased these solutions at the Indonesia AI Day 2024, attended by Jensen Huang.

(8) Find the right mentors to maximize your working environments.

Jui’s experience having already worked with Greg on prior ventures presented an advantage of her joining Tonik and leading its strategic development team. She had not only previously worked with him but he also become a mentor for her even after leaving the venture builder where they worked together.

As she shares in a 2023 podcast episode: “I worked with Greg before and stayed in touch with him even after leaving the venture builder. When I had another opportunity at hand, I called Greg to consult him. He offered to consider Tonik, as they were building and scaling at the time, and he has always given me the freedom to think outside the box. I also believe that the Philippines has untapped potential that can be scaled with sizable bank deposits and not wholesale liabilities…

…if I had to pick out a few key things, it’s definitely thinking outside the box and being solution-oriented in whatever we do, as well as working effectively as a team. These are values that I still implement in my work today.”

(9) Break the barriers of siloed thinking.

Frank Ng joined Intellect to lead and mature the company’s marketing function. Part of this was more definitively tying together marketing efforts with commercial and financial gains.

As he shares in a 2023 podcast episode, “So essentially, the way I look at things is that you create the demand and you capture the demand. Both need to be done by marketing, right? Sales also captures demand, but marketing starts that process. So in traditional thinking, if you want to reduce the budget, you decrease creating the demand and increase capturing the demand, you get more leads, and you get more sales.

But that’s what I find a very short-term way of thinking, especially in an industry like ours, where creating the demand and capturing the demand are actually not that far apart. And the mechanisms, if you have the right flows and CRM and retargeting processes, are actually quite easy to manage.

So personally, I always see the importance of ensuring your creating-the-demand budget is well preserved. And if anything, for cost challenges, I think I’ll look more at the processes that can be changed. So, for example, two systems, do we need them right now? For example, companies invest a huge amount into data and attribution, which is a huge part of growth marketing, but really, which are important to a business right now at this time? Especially in the growth stage. 

And those are the questions to ask ourselves as marketing leaders. So for me, in short, I think the broad way is very much preserving that building the pie segment of creating the demand and also ensuring a very strong tie-in that we can share with the business about how that relates to the ROI, the capturing demand piece.”

He has since evolved in his role as VP Growth & Strategy for the company, bringing his marketing experience to more directly deliver growth in revenue/sales for the company.

(10) Ensure structure is in place for you to unlock more value from your contributions.

In the documentary Against All Odds, we covered the story of Bryan Tan, Carro’s Chief Scientist turned also CEO of Carro Indonesia. Leading the Indonesia business would not have been as effective as it had been if not for the structure Carro had already built throughout the years with its ecosystem-based business model and the data-driven technology Bryan had developed in the company initially.

To quote the book version, “Creating this tech-based structure around Carro’s pricing, not just in the form of algorithms, but also as a function within the organization (i.e., an entire data science team), also made it possible for Carro to more confidently replicate a differentiated value proposition across markets. 

For example, in the acquisition of a local used car marketplace in a specific market Carro expands to, that supply becomes part of a larger data set. It is a global data set that ultimately improves the experience of those using that local used car marketplace as well…

…Bryan’s work on the heart of Carro’s business would eventually pay dividends in his next role as CEO of Carro Indonesia. It is a role he interestingly volunteered for, and one that Aaron also saw that would be beneficial for their presence in the market.”

“A year after Bryan became CEO, Carro Indonesia saw 5x growth. This would not have been possible had there not been an existing structure to guide Carro Indonesia’s growth (groundwork laid by Aaron and management of Carro Indonesia early on) and a leader like Bryan who came into the picture at an opportune time, understood this structure inside out, and took steps to adapt it better to Indonesia.”