Maher: Rapid CEO replacement restored partner stability after Cosgrave's exit
Katherine Maher · Can companies survive a leadership crisis? (with Web Summit’s Katherine Maher) | Masters of Scale · Nov 30, 2023 · at 8:31
Katherine Maher discusses stabilizing Web Summit's corporate partnerships and re-opening commercial discussions for future events following founder Paddy Cosgrave's resignation.
0:00 / 0:33exact quote · 33.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And we were successful in having conversations with partners and bringing them back to the table, and the thing that we heard was that the decision to Move quickly for Patty's resignation to find a new CEO brought some degree of stability and certainty, and once I'd sort of been clear about the tone, the tenor, the purpose of what this event is, and how we would move to the future, we started to hear, okay, let's start talking about the next event, whether that is our event in Doha, our event in Rio, our event in Toronto, or, you know, Lisbon in twenty-twenty-four.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Katherine Maher
Maher: Cosgrave's comments caused harm, but Web Summit welcomes tough topics
“One of the things that I said on my opening night remarks were that we need to find a way, of course, to recognize that, you know, Patty's comments really did create harm and hurt for members of this Web Summit community, and also we need to find ways to ensur…”
Maher: OpenAI turmoil stemmed from nonprofit mission clashing with commercialization
“And I think there's a fundamental tension here in that sort of misalignment of the governance structure, the corporate structure, the mission, integrity, and purpose. All of that feels like that was a fundamental disconnect.”
Maher: Google and Amazon publicly withdrew before she became CEO
“Yeah, when I stepped in, we'd already heard from some of the larger partners, such as Amazon and Google, that they weren't going to be coming. They were public about that.”
Maher: Wikipedia only spoke publicly to defend its mission or staff
“When I was in my last role at Wikipedia, we were very clear that we would speak about anything that potentially could harm our mission whether that was censorship or freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, and the like. And then we were very clear that we w…”