Given the demanding nature of your role, how do you strike a balance between your work and personal life?
Being a CEO in a fast-growth company with multiple business units can be demanding. No day or week is the same. When business calls for it, you need to be there, but when it does not, you should go home—both physically and mentally. I strive to be 100 percent present in both places, and I try to have fun in both places.
At work I gain energy from meeting different people during the day, from solving business problems, from winning contracts, and from talking with our customers, our investors, and our partners. Most of all, I really love working together with my team members. Having a tough business problem, being with the team in our war room, scribbling on the whiteboard, debating vividly, agreeing and disagreeing—that is fun.
When at home, I love to spend time with my wife and four boys. The moment I cross the threshold, I am 100 percent present with them. I play soccer in the backyard like there’s no tomorrow, I go for a hike in the woods with no Teams meeting scheduled, I join in for a video game fight with a plan to crush my (11-year-old) opponents. I don’t spend time with my kids because it’s required; I do it because it’s fun.
As a family, we love to spend time together outdoor. All seasons have its charm. Summer is great for sea activities such as sailing or fishing. Fall is great for hiking or bicycle riding while the winter is of course all about skating, skiing and snowboarding. It has admittedly been quite a journey to teach four boys how to bicycle, how to skate, how to ski and so on, but it’s definitely worth it when we can spend weekends as a family and have fun all together.
