This is the 70th in a series of business tips from industry leaders that Enterprise Times has spoken to. Enterprise Times recently interviewed Clive Sirkin, Executive Chair of ScreenDragon. Sirkin first worked with Screendragon as a customer when he was Chief Growth Officer of Kellogg and then Chief Marketing Officer at Kimberley Clark. He then joined the company as Executive Chair and helped the leadership raise $25 million in its first funding round.
Sirkin has worked with several agency firms over the years as an advisor and observer. He has identified two differentiators for those companies that rise to the top. The first is relentless execution. He cited the example of Publicis, who have been “unbelievably relentlessly focused on execution. The strategy is not dramatically different, but their execution is unbelievable.”
The second is the ability to turn around corners. Sirkin himself is still learning how to do this. I asked him what his thinking is to date.
“I’m still trying to figure out how to do that. Talk to a lot of people understand pattern recognition, be humble and learn. Surround yourself with people who’ve done it and been there before. And people who haven’t been there for that, ask the questions that those who have been informed, don’t see because they only see the world that they are in. It’s that diversity of thinking around you. I’m trying to learn how to wrap my head around this.
“There’s a guy who I’ve worked with a long time, a guy called Rishad Tobaccowala. He is a dear, dear friend of mine, a former colleague of mine, and he’s like a Svengali innovation tech guy. I’ve given him that question to think about and come back to me as to how do you see around corners?”
Who can look around corners?
Are there any tech leaders you think have done that successfully?
“There’s a guy who I met recently who I’m wildly impressed with, Jonah Goodhart. He’s not at the level of an Elon (Musk) and the other guys. The most obvious person who is hot and heavy right now is our friend from Nvidia (Jensen Huang). People seem to forget that about Nvidia, which got hot all of a sudden; he’s been there for 35 years. There’s a lot to learn from him. I’ve started reading about him, so I’m really interested in him.”
“Jonah Goodhart has done some really interesting stuff in the tech space at a smaller level and with some meaningful exits. I’ve started spending time with him, he’s a really interesting guy. I’ve tried to hang out with smart people. I haven’t had an original thought in 35 years. If I hang out with smart people, I can take this stuff and re-aggregate it.”
