Wow – what a week! In fact, what a 6 months it’s been.
From closing off a record financial year with over 100% growth and amazing satisfaction scores across our customers and our culture; rolling over from a trust to a company; a big brand refresh across all our channels and touchpoints; an epic EOFY team celebration with our games night; and in parallel to all of this, going through detailed due diligence in an M&A process, that led to our announcement that Transpire is joining the global CI&T family.
It’s been so hectic, that the significance of it all only really clicked at 10pm last Thursday night, as I was laying on my couch, iPad in hand, watching the CI&T NYSE quarterly earnings call. The first update global CI&T CEO and founder Cesar Gon gave was about Transpire joining the CI&T family, and even some questions about the acquisition from analysts at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
13 years ago we were b2cloud, with just two employees in a shared office.
Two and a half years ago, as COVID-19 swept the world, our future looked uncertain.
To then see us on the world stage… This was huge!
Back in April 2020 I wrote a personal note to myself titled “My 10 year plan”. There are 2 things that stuck out.
- At the end of my life I want to be remembered for something good I do for society, for humanity. As cliche as this sounds, make a better world with the only tools I know how – with technology.
- I need a challenge again, the days feel repetitive and I’m losing my drive. I was having serious self doubt about being ‘smart’ enough to take things much bigger. (I haven’t shared this before).
Only a few weeks after writing this note, as we were all locked in our houses, I had a call from Luke, my co-founder. We met and went for a walk around Caulfield Park together, and he shared that he felt burnt out, and needed to step away from the day to day at Transpire as CEO. We’ve both had these moments over the years – usually one convincing the other to hold on. As much as I tried (and as convincing as I think I am), I knew that the best thing for Luke was to step back, for himself and his mental health.
I remember coming home, with mixed emotions. I opened my laptop, read back through my goals, then opened a fresh Google Slide and tapped out on the keyboard:
“Humanity is woven into technology. We won’t rest until everyone on earth benefits from the technology experiences we help create”
This felt right. It aligned with my personal goal of having an impact. By writing it from the lens of Transpire it felt like the start of something big – this was our why. As for the how, I honestly didn’t know, and began to think that I should step it back, be more realistic. Maybe we could be the leader in Australia… change humanity to Australians… Earth is too big, maybe Asia Pacific… I closed my laptop and left it.
A couple of weeks later I took the leadership team through my vision, what it would look like when we achieved it, some 5 year goals around geographic scale, culture, tech leadership and IP. Following these slides was a framework that looked like this:
We agreed on a plan of who in the leadership team would focus on which pillar, and go away and work independently to develop a roadmap. I made a decision to step aside here until towards the end of the process, and let the team take the lead on how we get there. The output would become our North Star strategy.
At the beginning of September 2020 we announced to the company that I would be CEO, with Luke stepping back into the Chair role.
By November 2020 the plan was complete, presented to the Transpire Advisory Board with the refined vision
“Weaving humanity into technology. For everyone in the world to benefit from the technology we help create”.
Fast forward to 2022… we’d got through the depths of COVID, our North Star strategy became our guiding light in everything we did, with detailed short term plans that took us towards our 5 and 10 year milestones. As you can see in the framework, we knew we needed some ‘rocket fuel’ to take us towards our vision, we simply couldn’t get there on our own. But it had to be the right fit. I’d received so many approaches over the years and the conversations never went far – unless it supported our vision, it was off the table.
So when I first met CI&T in January 2022, and over the many meetings we had over the following months, I began to see a pathway to take Transpire to the world. They have such a fantastic culture, with accomplishments I could only dream of, but it was in my conversations with CI&T founders Cesar, Leo, and Bruno that I knew this was the right move.
There are some experiences only founders share, and we connected immediately over our gratitude to still be leading our businesses after many years – 13 for us and 27 for them. We share values on how to treat people well and trust your team, value your customers and be a part of their world. Cesar, Leo and Bruno have built an extraordinary business that allows entrepreneurship to thrive even as they scale. They’ve nurtured a culture that celebrates people, moments and is built on trust. Their enduring passion and drive to make a true impact is tangible. In short, I trust them and I’m excited to go on this journey together.
I’m as passionate today as I was in 2020 when I wrote my vision. Joining the CI&T family is the rocket fuel to lead the Transpire team to even greater heights. It’s the culmination of my lifetime ambition to create an impact on the world. And it opens up a world of possibilities for our team, both professionally and personally. CI&T are the new owners, I’ll continue to lead Transpire to even greater heights, and I can’t wait for the journey ahead.
Let’s weave humanity into technology, together.
