Manageable Conversations

Pieter is an entrepreneur with a proven track record in tech start-ups and corporate venturing. He's currently Founding Partner at Ninepointfive, a venture capital firm that co-invests with Europe's top-tier corporations to take tech-based startups to maturity.

In this episode, Pieter talks about:

• how leadership evolves with the scale of the organisation
• the benefits of diversity in the leadership team
• managers as sources of energy for teams
• the way mentorship helped him overcome fear and become commercial
• balancing long-term vision with step-by-step implementation

• how her life circumstances have shaped her leadership style
• the importance of self-awareness and how she's changed over time
• how she’s been helped by not being afraid to try things out and fail
• the importance of setting clear expectations of others and giving candid feedback
• the need for managers to take personal responsibility for team performance

Stuart Connolly is CEO of CloudMargin, a fast-growing FinTech founded in 2014 to enhance collateral management solutions for the financial services industry. Stuart was previously Group CEO for TriOptima and a Managing Director in the Securities Division of Goldman Sachs in London and New York.

In this episode, Stuart talks about:

• Learning from failure that was a consequence of over-confidence in his abilities
• His experience of successfully transitioning from Goldman Sachs, where he spent 18 years, to leading much smaller firms
• How he reins in his tendency to want to be a "control freak"
• Ways he stays motivated and gets the best out of others
• How he's fostering a collaborative culture

Ian Trenholm is CEO of the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Ian emphasises the value of leading with curiosity, consistency and “relentless personal dissatisfaction”. He also talks about hiring people who scare him and the opportunity that comes from investing in those who aren’t performing as well as they could, rather than those who are already doing well.