It’s always a sign of integrity and strategic sensibility when business founders take themselves out of the chief executive role as their company reaches a certain lifecycle stage. Historical examples include Howard Lerman at Yext, Dennis Crowley at Foursquare, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google.
Though these situations are each unique and nuanced, a common thread is a stage of growth that inherently changes the CEO role and requires different things. And in some cases, the founder’s greatest value – including technical backgrounds – may lie closer to the product level or business development.
There are also cautionary tales on the other side of the spectrum: founders who are more power-driven and won’t cede control when they should. They either stick around with detrimental effects (some may point to Mark Zuckerberg), or they’re forced out after bad things happen (think: Neuman and Kalanik).
Back to the “strategic sensibility” camp, the latest crossed our desks this week. Uberall co-founder and CEO Florian Hübner will pass the CEO baton to Anthony Foy and take over as President. The reason? Like some of the examples above, it’s all about lifecycle and strategic positioning, Hübner told Localogy.
Day-1 Thinking
So what does that lifecycle stage look like for Uberall? Hübner looks back on the past five years and notes 10x revenue growth – a humbling learning journey, he says. This involved adapting and learning how to run a business at larger and larger scales, not to mention unexpected curveballs like a pandemic.
But now it’s about positioning for the next stage of growth. And that requires rethinking where the company, and Hübner himself, is oriented. In that light, he found himself increasingly occupied in managerial work – something he admittedly enjoys… though it’s not where he’s optimally deployed.
“When you look at where we are sizewise, it’s very straightforward,” he told us. “I moved from founder, to founder & CEO, to CEO & founder… to CEO. For the next growth phase, we want to work on scaling the business. We’ve managed to grow efficiently and profitably and now it’s time to double down.”
That brings us to incoming CEO, Anthony Foy. Formerly CEO at Qredo and Workshare, he’s the right person to lead a SaaS business to the next inflection says Hübner, in addition to having an oft-overlooked x-factor: cultural fit. He also sticks out within an elite pool of candidates often encountered at this level.
“Uberall can benefit from two things,” said Hübner. “Someone who has been in this role in other tech businesses, and someone of that caliber who comes in and brings day-1 thinking: Our current status is just the beginning of the journey. He has to jump onto a fast-moving train and make it faster.”
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Position on the Field
Circling back to Hübner’s new role, which starts Tuesday, he’ll be closer to operational workings. For those unfamiliar, Hübner has the technical aptitude that germinated Uberall in the first place. And though he likes the managerial dynamics of the CEO role, his new positioning brings him closer to the product.
This is precisely where Hübner stood in Uberall’s early days. In fact, he and co-founder David Federhen split the CEO duties until 2019, when they decided Hübner would take over the role. That has since been a fruitful ride, given the revenue growth figures noted above, but it’s time to optimize for the next stage.
“I want to focus on the traits that make me the founder and the inventor of Uberall,” he said. “This means spending time with our largest partners and customers. It means making sure that we cover everything and are in step with the evolution of local marketing, and the role that Uberall has in that evolution.”
Lastly, it’s worth noting – and pre-empting speculation – that Hübner’s move isn’t about slowly unwinding and initiating a gradual retirement. He jokes that he doesn’t enjoy golf. Rather, he’s mostly grateful that he’s in the position to decide his own fate and engineer his next dream job at Uberall.
“The founder will always be the founder,” said Hübner. “No one can change that. Now I get the chance at this professional level of the game to design the position on the field that I get to play.”
