Growth and Innovation | Mailchimp COO, Sheldon Cummings (Podcast 240)

One of the key pieces that customers are asking for is help me grow. How do I grow? How do I engage with my customers that are here, how do I get more revenue? And then that's where mailchimp came in. So it provides sort of both ends of the need, both how we help customers grow every day as well as how we help them run their businesses more effectively.

Our guest today is mailchimp's Chief Operating Officer, Sheldon Cummings. Before stepping into his leadership role at mailchimp, Sheldon had a dual role as vp, Intuit Sales, in addition to serving as Intuit's Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer. Since Joining Intuit in 2017, Sheldon has led a number of leadership positions across Intuit Sales, marketing, global partnerships, and global operations teams. Prior to Intuit, Sheldon had a number of roles across industries and countries, including leading a European business for six years. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, Sheldon, a native of New York City, graduated with a BA from Wesleyan University and received his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in finance, marketing, and strategy. Sheldon, welcome to the Second In Command podcast.

Thank you so much, Cameron. Great to be here.

Yeah, you are one of the smart guys. I've got a lot I want to dive into, so I want to find out kind of how you got here. I want to talk to you a little bit about Zurich, Switzerland. I want to talk to you about, you know, what it was like kind of working with mailchimp inside of a bigger organization. So we'll kind of let the conversation happen. Organ, but why don't you give us a little bit of your background and what got you into your role today.

Really happy to be here. So as you mentioned, I'm a native of New York City. The born and raised in Cyprus, Brooklyn. My family now lives in Queens. When I was growing up in New York, there was a program called the Albert Galler program. And I'm going to go way back because I think it all building blocks, right? And so the Alba Oliver program, which took kids within the inner city public schools and sort of gave them opportunity and exposure to prep schools. And so I didn't even know what that was in New York. And I had an opportunity to go to a school called George School, which was in a Quaker school in Pennsylvania for high school. And that sort of was one of those first building blocks, if you will, for prioritizing opportunity. Right. And my mother is from an immigrant from Trinidad. My dad's from New York City. And I think, well, what's true in my household is the focus on Education and the focus on opportunity. And so went to high school in Pennsylvania, as I mentioned, then went on to Western University in Connecticut, as you talked about, and there again, focused on how I was building that toolkit, then move on to Chicago. So I worked at a company that had a general management track called MasterCard. And I like to equate that to kind of like a Home Depot for businesses, if you will, small manufacturing firms, and work there for a number of years. Got my MBA when I was in Chicago and then moved on to my CPG career, consumer packaged goods. And why I picked that path was it was a path where you had increasing levels of responsibility, but very much around that general management lens, that. That combination between, you know, sort of strategy and finance and marketing, how they came together around the consumer and that consumer insight. So move to Kimberly Clark. Worked on the Huggies business in Neenah, Wisconsin, for those that might know the northern Wisconsin area. So was it was in Neenah and then moved on to Kraft Foods in New York. Had a variety of different roles there through bigger, bigger pieces of the portfolio. So my. My last role in the US Was managing the risk cracker business. So go Big Red. And I really wanted an international experience. I wanted an international experience that was from outside of the US Labs. I think many, many people typically, you know, manage global businesses, but I wanted to do so in a different context where I can see and run an international business from an international location. So that took me over to Zurich, Switzerland, where Kraftools, or what became Mondelez at that time was tech work. And I had teams on the ground in a variety of different countries within Germany, Austria, Sweden, et cetera. And. And basically was. Had a portfolio from a general management perspective. So even though I was there for six years, my Deutsche Nicks have been. My German is not very good even for being there that long. But I pivoted at one point and said, okay, do I want to become European or do I want my kids to grow up, you know, sort of in the States, your family and grandparents, et cetera, and made the move to tech and moved to it in California back in 2017. What's interesting is people might think that the chasm between packaged goods and sort of tech is a large space. I think often within consumer tech, you're obviously engaged with consumers all the time. And so that's triple tax if we think about people who are doing their taxes every day. And. And even with many of the small businesses, often they are, you know, consumers. They're very small business, small businesses. But Consumers with a skill. Right. They have a skill set, they have a dream, they have a passion. And that was a relatively. So moved over to Intuit had a variety of roles within that time. I can talk to you more about the diversity, equity, inclusion lead role before I moved over to COO because that was also an interesting sort of building block and then became the chief operating officer at Mailchimp before the acquisition back in 2021.

So you just gave me a whole bunch and it's funny that you almost answered a bunch of my questions as you were even talking too. And you said that the leap from these bigger brands into tech, it seemed like oil and water to me. Let's go back to the. You said something about prioritizing opportunity at the Quaker school. What did you mean by that?

Yeah, great question. So I think often you either are really focused on as you're building a career, you're potentially going to be geolocated and so saying I'll take whatever the opportunities are that might happen within a certain location or you might be focused on the opportunity, wherever the location might be. And, and so as I've been looking at building my career and my education, it's been very focused on what's the opportunity, wherever the location might be. So that's what took me from, you know, New York to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Chicago, you know, Switzerland, California and then now Atlanta, Georgia. So all those things is when I really looked at kind of prioritizing where that opportunity was and how that could help sort of build that toolkit.

Build that toolkit off.

What do you think?

Some of you mentioned this, the GM track that you were in and was it, did you call it Mastercar?

Oh, so there was. The company was called McMaster Car. If you are in the manufacturing space and you look for a solution of a catalog that has anything and everything in it, that's the company. And they had a general management program where you spent time since right out of undergrad, where you spent time in, in marketing and accounting and the warehouse and sales. So it was a great foundation. Before that I went on to B school and then went on to packaged goods.

That's amazing. That was what I was curious about was what was that GM track? So it was really giving you the exposure to all these different business areas.

Correct. And then, and then at a very young age having some level of supervisory kind of experience and that component of how important the people are, whether these you're leading and managing individuals is key and that cross functional nature is critical. So all my years that I spent in Kraft Foods and Mondolini. I don't know how to make an Oreo, can't make a rich cracker to save my life. But it's how you work with the teams, with the consumer, always at the center, right, Building the innovation to bring forward.

It's interesting Starbucks at their head office level does that with their management as well. They move their management around often every two or three years. They kind of take you out of a role and they move you on purpose to give you more exposure to kind of create that, that real top line leadership. Do you do that now within Mailchimp, within Intuit or.

Yeah, I would say that there is, there is this notion of how are you building, you know, your box, right. How are you building that experience? That. I wouldn't say that it's a structured rotational program, but it is where, you know, when we think about mobility and into more broadly, we don't think about mobility of someone's career, only being, you know, up. It is also a cross. How are you building those experiences from a variety of different lenses? Because when you have those different perspectives, you'll have an outsized inability.

So you've got kind of the skills from there, you've got the cross training. And then did something happen with you at the private school? Did you see anything and learn anything from that that you still carry with you today?

The truth I would say is not immediately so and let me break that down. So when you first get out of school, whether that be high school, whether that be undergrad and even graduate school, for me it wasn't an immediate impact of the network. As you progress through your career, then you find connection points as you are potentially interviewing with a company. And now it's the oh so and so I used to work with is also at that organization and then you're building that connection where you can learn more about it and what really is happening at that organization. I would say the benefit that is immediate when you're going through the private school and the college, etc. Is this notion of resiliency, this notion of putting yourself into environments where you're not comfortable and sort of relying on yourself and quickly building a network and quickly building trust to then navigate and have an impact. And so didn't know what that high school was, never heard of prep school, never lived outside, you know, overseas, you know, before in the US and when people hear about my background, they would think about me being born a military family. But the reality is, is now my, my parents are still in the same hole that I was in, you know, when I was a kid.

I love the fact that you get to live in Switzerland too. Like, you couldn't have picked a more perfect country, right?

It's absolutely amazing. And one of the things about Switzerland, which is fascinating, is just how the society works so smoothly. Like, you know, there's the stereotype and. But it's actually true.

It does. Like, it's crazy. They say that the trains, like, leave, leave. Exactly. They just leave on time. Like, everything works like a Swiss clock. It just functions.

It just. I'll give you one quick aside. So in my time there, there was, in the city of Zurich, there was a literally app that you would have on your phone. It's called the ZVV app. And with this app, you can pick any location you are in the city of Zurich and any location that you want to go to. And the app would map out the amount of time it would take to walk to the bus. The time the bus would arrive, the time the train would arrive, the time it would take you to walk to the final destination. And I tell you, it literally worked perfectly like that. So could you imagine how much from a clockwork perspective it needs to be to make that type of system work? And it did.

Do you ever try to bring any of that into the business?

Oh, well, I think that what you try to bring in is that user experience, showing those magic moments. As we are digging into our customer insights, as we're thinking about the overall experiences, it's really about how you are, one, from a UI perspective, how simple is that, how engaging is that? And then two, how do you leverage AI and all the machine learning to make it even easier to bring that magic to the hands of the customers? We want to support and continue to support that underdog, right? We want to support that person that has that dream of the small business and they're willing to put that into action. And when you think about the importance of what small businesses know, mean, you know, in the US for example, there are a million, 61 million small businesses across. They are truly the ones that are driving a key chunk of the economy. And so being a tool that not only helps them sort of with their books and obviously their taxes and QuickBooks into a QuickBooks into a TurboTax, etc. But also how with Intuit Mailchimp, we're helping you grow your business. What we do is try to bring the power of the platforms together to make magic for the customers and help them deliver against their dreams.

I love that I love that you just gave a data point of the 64 million US small companies, too. That's crazy town. Okay, I want to ask you about. Everybody tells me about, you know, their. Their experiences and what they've learned out of their MBA program. Program. So I'm not going to ask you about that. I've always been kind of enamored with the CPG space, the consumer packaged goods. When I was graduating from university, I really go wanted to go work for Procter and Gamble, and I wasn't the smart kid, so I just didn't get to do that. And I was running my own business at that time anyway, I guess. But what do you think you pulled from the CPG experience? Because for me, it seemed like you were kind of running a business, you know, entrepreneurial in a way that you were kind of running a business or a business unit. But what skills did you pull from that that you carry with you today?

Great question. I like the way you just like, yeah, I was actually running a business at that time, so you just.

I had 12 employees when I was 20 years old, so I really was.

That's awesome. One thing that you learn is how to decipher and tell a narrative from numbers. So before you ever do a commercial or mess with marketing or any of that, you need to be able to understand the fundamentals of the business. And so every week when we started out, we had to say, this is what happened last week from Nielsen. This is what happened across the competitive set, our share, what was happening across the overall business. And you had to, in essence, is that on plan? Is it not on plan? And be able to tell a narrative off of the numbers. So that was a great sort of foundation because you literally rolled up your sleeves, got into the data, but not only sort of reported the data, but had to pull a narrative, pull a story, and say, what do we do next? The second key foundational component that you bring forward today is this notion of that consumer obsession or that customer obsession. When you're thinking about the brands that have been around for a long time, you say, well, how can you innovate anymore and how can you drive any more impact? But this notion of that customer and that consumer is at the heart of everything that you do and you're not able to sort of build more broadly without them. Is something that's true. Was true within cpg. It's something that's true. Adding to it today, we have processes, design for delight. We actually look at how we're getting the insights for the customer that we have and how we can bring that through our products. The third one is that cross functional nature that I touched on. And it's even more complex when you think about the level of functions that need to be included. So that's both the people that are doing the marketing, the people that are doing the manufacturing, the supply chain, the quality assurance, the customer. Right. So now you're bringing in another intermediary in the process and how are you going to sell and give that co benefit? And that's another thing that you can bring forward in your career is as you think about partnerships and how you're leveraging partnerships, it needs to be that win, win, win a win for the organization you work for, waiting for the partner and then the win for the joint customer. So that notion of how you bring that through is another critical piece. And then lastly I would say is the sort of the, the vision and setting the strategies, initiatives. How are you setting the vision for this brand and business as we move forward and then how does that translate into the strategies and initiatives that we have and how we have accountability every single week? So those are great foundational skill that you have and can take anywhere.

Tell us what mailchimp is and how did that kind of acquisition of Intuit of mailchimp go?

Yeah, so mailchimp, basically what's interesting about us and the company is we are one that is an email marketing automations platform. Mailchimp focuses on how we drive for that underdog and how we're looking for growing businesses. And so we're empowering millions of customers around the world to build and grow their businesses. And we are putting sort of data back recommendations at the heart of our customers marketing. So we talked a little bit earlier about how you can leverage data information to help the end customer. And that's what we're doing sort of every day across whether it be email, social media, the landing pages, the advertising, et cetera and how that can be powered by the AI. Talked about the company is a global organization. So from a globalization perspective, half the business is in the US and half is outside. And so that when you think about that mix, it's amazing and how we're able to engage customers truly around the world. The acquisition piece so from an acquisition perspective, as I mentioned earlier, Intuit is very, very strong in sort of those back end components working on people's books, their accounting, their taxes, as well as all the other necessary components of how to run payroll, intuit payments, etc. So all those core building blocks running a business but one of the key pieces that customers are asking for is help me grow. How do I grow? How do I engage with my customers that are here? How do I get more revenue? And then that's where mailchimp came in. So it provides sort of both ends of the need, both how we help customers grow every day, as well as how we help them run their businesses more effectively. The acquisition closed back in November of 2011. And through that time, what was interesting was if you take a step back, it's different today because obviously many of us have gone back to our daily lives. But back in November, we were still very much in the throes of COVID if you will. And so going through that from a engagement perspective and how you're engaging teams and how you're engaging people that you haven't met yet, but yet you've acquired through Zoho was a huge learning, you know, for me. How do you keep that? How do you make sure that they know who Intuit is and understand that organization? How do they make sure that you build those bonds and connections through a screen? And so we take that for granted of how to do that, how to build those relationships. And I think that that's one of the interesting parts and unique parts about this acquisition versus typically many others. There were a number of people who started Intuit mailchimp who never met their peers, live right, much less have gone through and meeting other people within Intuit. So one of the ways that we worked through that was not only sort of the constant connection via zone, but then once things started opening back up, forging ways to build the connective tissue between the two organizations.

I love that. My question, though, around mailchimp is, was it an acquisition that was a strategic acquisition? Like, were you doing it as a way to what. Like, what was the strategic part? Because it. It doesn't necessarily make sense from the outside looking in as to why Intuit would buy it. What was the strategic reasons?

Yeah, so. So from a strategic reason, that's a change of pillars, right. It truly is foundational around that, that growth component. So I'll give you an example. So one of the things that mailchimp towers in is how that engagement component for, say, emails. Right. So email marketing and that customer relationship piece. So now, as you think about leveraging that as a platform, we could do and leverage multiple tools within the Intuit, you know, sort of family for things like, you know, receiving payment through that method. And then that's something that makes it easier for our end customer because they're used to both sides of this, but they're used to how they're leveraging the email. And now they're also used to how creating that email to have more power with things like being pay enabled and then how that then links back to the overall books and it helps them run their business better. And then they can see the effectiveness of the marketing and so you can see how it's this, you know, virtuous cycle of both the growth, growing one's business and running one's business and how they work and interact together.

Question just on the product side of things is how do you stay lean as an organization when you have the opportunity to continue to, you know, ad features, right? When every customer has, oh, I would love it even more if it did this or, you know, we could use your software if it only did that.

A lot of that is about the product roadmap, right? So I now have a product roadmap that is again, still grounded in the insight and what our consumers and customers are saying. But that's where the discipline comes in, right? Because in essence, when you have your product roadmap and how that ties into your strategic plan and the initiatives that you're trying to bring forth for the customers, you're doing that rugged prioritization process as a team and as a cross functional team, you're understanding what the impact is of the various product launches that we have. You're aligning with everything from your marketing side. Your engineers, your product managers, your customer success component, like they all have to be aligned and know what's happening and then that gives you that magnified impact. If you're just constantly running and just launching things. One, you're never going to break through the noise in terms of the communication. There's not going to be the clear awareness. Your customer is going to get flooded with a variety of different messaging and so it becomes dilutive versus accretive. So it's that, it's that rigorous prioritization and that cross functional connection that's needed in order to have the impact, the desired impact that you want.

Back to the data for a second. You kind of mentioned earlier about, you know, you had to be able to tell the story from the data and really looking to interpret the data. It's kind of like in any organization there's almost an infinite amount of data, right? I guess as the organization scales, you've got every business area, all their data sets as well. How do you know at the COO level what data to look at and what data to Hide.

My role within COO is very much focused on our go to market. So our marketing, our sales, our customer success, our care strategically, where do we go as an organization and our operations and then working close functionally with our engineering team and our product management team. And then obviously we're supported by legal hr, et cetera. So as we're looking at that growth component, it's the end to end customer funnel for the key metrics. And so when I say the end to end the key metrics looking at is how are we doing from an acquisition perspective and are we acquiring the customers at the clip that we intend based on our media spending, et cetera? The second piece is a mailchimp is very much a product led growth organization. Right. So you can start and join mailchimp for free and then work your way through the various features that we have. And so looking at that discovery and active use of our customers, how are they engaging with the products and features that we have? And then how is that translating to a book, how is that translating to a paid customer and what is the experience that they're having from that lens around? You know, again, looking at activities of features and then the retention component, Right. So how are we retaining and is it just, you know, sort of a leaky bucket or not? Those are some of the main ones that we're looking at because it gives you a lot of information from the acquisition side to the use and that is a key indicator to what the retention will look like. You have a number of other KPIs that we do look at and that we measure, but the health of the business for you to say from a snapshot perspective, holding costs relatively equal. Right. That will give you some of the most important critical metric.

I'm curious, are you able to see which features or which functions of the software customers are using and which ones are just kind of laying idle?

Correct. You can see. And that instrumentation is an important point. Right? So not only the instrumentation in terms of what are people using from features, et cetera, or not, but then also looking at the funnel. So when people are landing, where are they hovering? Who is engaging with the sales team, who's engaging with chat, those that are going through the rest of the funnel, where are they getting hung up and where do we have sort of drop off that will help you optimize to have the impact that you want so that they have a smooth and easy experience.

I often think about, you know, something like Microsoft Excel and how many gazillion features and functions there are within that software. And there's probably like 50 that we use.

Right.

And then there's like 5,000 that seven people use. And I always wonder why. Or do companies try to eliminate some of those to try to bring the products back to something that's simpler? Or is it just. You just keep building out something and if people use it, it's there. And how does that work on the product side?

Yeah, so we definitely. So one, your point is true. There's always going to be a curve in the long tail. So that. That is always that true about every product that exists. Going back to your earlier point around, do you just build things? Well, the goal of that ruthless prioritization and the testing is to ensure that when you build, it will have that desired impact and have that use that we're looking for with our customers so that it's not just adding to that long tail. Understanding what you sunset is important too. Right. So it's not just what you build, and there's also what you sunset. Now, the goal will be as you are doing your testing for a launch and as you're iterating, because speed is critically important of continuing to learn and test as you go. The goal would be to do as much learning as you can before you, let's say, do a full roll up so you're understanding that level of engagement with the cohorts so that you are knowing which will land the way you intend. Those are all the things that we put in place. One is the rigorous prioritization and testing. Two is you're testing along the way and pivoting through that journey to ensure that you have the optimal experience so you prevent, as much as you can, that long tail, which could be confusing to customers and sort of muddy down the experience, but also be willing to sunset things when needed.

I love that. All right. Curious about when you came in as the COO for mailchimp. I mean, so there's an acquisition. How many employees were in or at Mailchimp when you joined?

Yeah, so Mailchimp, you know, roughly has 1500 plus employees. And so, you know, what we've done, you know, throughout that time is inside that ballpark, we're a few hundred more than we were, you know, when we started. And again, we started that within. In the COVID context, we are predominantly within the US from an office location perspective. And the headquarters that we have in Atlanta. So it's been in Atlanta for a few decades and really has a sort of unique space and presence in the Atlanta market. One of the things that's been very welcoming and different is I used to be in San Jose, as I talked about, into its headquarters is in Mountain View. And there are. Obviously, it's Silicon Valley, it's the Bay Area that we know of. And so the number of tech companies you can. You can't count. What's great about Atlanta is not only is it a strong tech scene and a growing tech scene, but then because, you know, mailchimp has had such a presence for so long, both within a tech scene and within the community. The number of people that you connect with that you might say, hey, you know, Shiva mailchimp. Oh, and you'll get a story, right? And it's not just a story from a tech lens, but also the impact of the community, because throughout that time, there's been a lot of corporate, social, giving, et cetera. It's been not only the tech, but also the impact on the community and organizations. It's something that we are building on from an Intuit perspective, and we're lucky to continue that. I think that's one of the questions that I received, you know, when I started is, well, now that mailchimp has been acquired by Intuit, does that mean that we're going to be less invested in the Atlanta area? And actually, is the contrary. One of the programs that we support, Clayton State has its technology program. And what we've done since the acquisition is taken that mailchimp foundation from a funding perspective and then tripled it. So that's one of those types of examples where we're really invested in the Atlanta community.

So question I've got related to that was when you came in as the COO, there was, you know, 1500 ish people that were already there before you. How did you navigate that whole, like, well, who is he? Like, why is he at the job that I didn't get? And now I'm reporting to this new guy, you know, at least you're likable, but, you know, it'd be hard for somebody who is a jerk. You seem like a good guy. How did you. How do you move into an organization above everybody else and build a relationship? What is the first 90 days like? Can you give us any lessons there?

One is really starting off with being human first. I know it sounds cliche and those things, but being vulnerable with the teams and the people to say there's a lot that I don't know there's about mailchimp. There's a lot that I'm looking to learn from all of you. And there's an opportunity and excitement to work together. People know and they can tell whether someone's coming in thinking that they know everything. And I try to be more of a learn it all than all. And so asking questions of the team, asking questions of the leadership, and again doing this over zoom, not doing this in person. Right. Where it's a lot easier to build those connections by asking those questions and then. And then playing back that what we've heard then linking the overall insights that are being presented to strategies and initiatives that they see later. They see their voices in the outcomes that are driving in total three, I would say is ensuring that they know that the missions of the organization are the same. Intuit is focused on power and prosperity around the world. That is truly what it's about and how we are championing the underdog. That same language is used in Intuit and has been in terms of how to champion that underdog, that focus on small businesses and the resiliency that's required in an hour ahead of help. So that's another sort of tick point where people can say, okay, I'm being heard and I can see how my voice is included in some of the direction and I understand the why. And that why is the same for both organizations. So I know that where I've invested my time for the last few years, I know that this new organization is similarly minded, have similar passions and interests and outcomes that they're striving for for the customers. And so those are some of the things that we put together to win the hearts and minds, if you will, of the employee.

I like that. I'm not thinking of your direct reports because I would imagine your direct reports are fairly seasoned, solid executives already. I'm thinking of one layer below them. Not to say that this next group is not seasoned or solid, but what kind of skills are you trying to impart on that kind of mid level management group? And my question is because I launched a course recently called Invest in your leaders and I have these 12 skills. I'm curious what you're working with those kind of mid level managers. What are you trying to skill them up on the leadership side? So less about your product and software, more like the skills and leadership, where do you focus with them? Where are you trying to grow them?

So one thing that especially as you're going through change and we're all going through change at rapid paces and again, I know it sounds cliche, but it's true. Especially when you think about how to navigate and lead through Covid. That's something that people have not seen before. And this notion of leading through change, leading at a speed and a rate through change because often the middle managers can be frozen and they are critical to the success of how messages and how key strategies get implemented across the whole organization, their buy in and their leadership. Right. It's not only about kind of being on the sidelines, but it's also about being there in the game with the leaders to help continue to drive and put forth push through change. When, yes, there's a lot of uncertainty, yes, there might be concern about what about me? Yes, there might be some unknowns about how we navigate this because we haven't seen it before. And so that notion of leading through change, I think is one that we are continuing to work with and continuing to reinforce. The second piece is around how the teams are continuing to assess and sort of push talent on their teams because that is a. Is a key component as we think about that acceleration, how we accelerate that team assessment, that team development, that team leadership. That's something that's a skill like every other one. Right. It's not something that just happens. We have to be intentional about it. So there's a lot of foundational learning that we have within the Intuit structure that we have or across Intuit mailchimp to focus on development and development of our managers, development of skills, those types of things. Because it's a critical piece for how we move forward. So leading through change, the development of the team and then how we cascade that information down and have that listening loop. We do engagement surveys a few times a year because we want to know where the employee base is, we want to know how they're doing and then how are we going to be actual OP of insights. So it's not just listening for listening sake. It's truly about the here's what we're hearing with our various cohorts and then now how are we going to address it? The same way we would with our customers.

I love this. All right, how about yourself? Where are you working on your skill sets?

I'm continually working on being that bridge and effective bridge between sort of the Matrix organization and the Intuit organization. Right. Because in essence, I know both. How do we ensure that we are moving with speed both of those organizations? So that's one thing that I'm working on is being that not only that connective tissue, but then finding ways to leverage the strength of the mothership, if you will, to then accelerate the Intuit mailchimp division. The other thing that we're focused on is how can we ensure that from a technology capability perspective, we're leveraging a great wealth of everything from the engineering skills and capabilities, the marketing skills and capabilities, and taking that power and bringing it to life to drive the intuit business harder and so faster. So looking at ways that we are doing that are things that I continue to work on. And then to be honest, how now that we are open, just really I've been working on how I'm engaging with those next level down, right what that next level down is because for the first few months when we were all closed and it was Covid, I didn't have that, you know, that similar opportunity. But now that we do have that opportunity to get together at work, how we're creating that community because there is power that comes from those hallway conversations and so driving that encouragement to having people come in, having that conversation, having the workshops together, the whiteboard, you know, is a powerful thing to write on together collectively, I'm trying to continue to build that sense of community.

Are you having people come back into the office now? Is it a requirement? Is it more optional?

We're hybrid in the way that we approach it. I think that's similar to lots of other companies. We are not mandating people are in their office five days a week or anything like that. But it's more about within that hybrid space and in that hybrid opportunity, it's more about how we're creating those moments of connection that honestly people value. Once they are in a few times they're like, oh, I missed this. Oh, I missed these conversations.

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing and seeing as well. All right, I want to go Back to the 21, 22 year old Sheldon. You're just kind of graduating college. You're going to go off and start in your first career job. What advice would you give the young Sheldon?

So often I've been very driven by the result, if you will. So whether that result be that grade, you know, within school and I kind of blame my mom because she was always one that was on me. But the grade within school or, or the impact, you know, on the business. And I think one of the things that I would encourage the younger me is to sort of pick your head up from time to time and what else can you absorb, right? Are you truly getting as much as possible from the various cities that you're living in or the various people that you're bumping up sort of against? And are you maintaining a lot of those connections and relationships over time I would push him to do that because there's a robustness of the collection of experiences that I've had over time where I've been so focused on the outcomes, whether it be career or also business marketing. So that's why I would push him on.

I love that. Sheldon Cummings, the COO or chief operating officer for Intuit mailchimp. Really appreciate the time today on the Second Command podcast.

Thanks so much, Cameron.

And when I came in, of course there's going to be people that are happy but are not happy. There's no situation where everyone's happy. Just have to be very clear about the changes are coming, when it's going to come, what's going to change, and then just kind of over communicate that you can't please everyone. There's always some people please don't want to change and if they'll leave on their own, they're going to get them out.