Pivot or Persevere? Being a Growth Company CEO with Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera

Our guest today is none other than Jeff Maggioncalda, a visionary leader whose journey spans not just one but two groundbreaking fields. For 18 years, Jeff worked side by side with Nobel Prize winner and economist Bill Sharpe, as the founding CEO of Financial Engines, one of the earliest pioneers in the world of robo-advisors and algorithm-driven investment strategies that became the largest independent online retirement advice platform with more than $100 billion under management. sold for you know, a casual $3 billion.

Fast forward to today, Jeff is at the helm of another HIGH IMPACT endeavor. As the CEO of Coursera, he’s leading the charge to redefine education for the digital age; since joining in June 2017 and has helped the company grow to over 120 million learners and 7,000+ institutions, served by high-quality learning content from 300+ of the world’s top universities and industry educators. From what a good CEO is and how a game of Monopoly really started Jeff on this journey, our power-packed conversation is a CEO masterclass you need to buckle up for.

Some notable quotables from Jeff:

1. Learn, Change, Grow.

Facing the great dilemma between pivoting and persevering, Jeff shared his basic philosophy – learn, change and grow. The key to decision making is rooted in the cycle of learning, changing and validating that you’re on the right track.

2.“What is our feedback loop?”

How do you know if you should pivot or not? What if you’re about to have that breakthrough? One way to answer these questions is to get as much feedback as possible. From customers, employees, competitors, to investors, gaining insight into different perspectives from the most valuable sources helps making more objective decisions.

3. 3 Basic Tools as CEO: Great Strategy, Team & Culture

The #1 job of a CEO is to build a company into a successful business entity. How to achieve that? Utilizing the 3 basic tools as CEO: strategy, team and culture. Great strategy is more than just execution, customers, opportunities and advantages are the essential pieces to a successful business strategy. Next, a team with good talents is another major piece to bring visions to reality. Last but not least, culture plays the role of gluing all these pieces together.

4.”…the future is about change driven by technology and globalization.”

“Making tools to solve problems is something humans are very very good at,” AI could be seen as another tool to automate physical and cognitive tasks; owing to that, it is going to have a profound impact on our society. Concerns were raised regarding job dislocation and potential societal disruption induced by adoption of AI in our society. However, this in turn highlighted the importance of organizational agility to cope with the inevitable waves of change across industries.  

5. “…I’d rather be us than anybody else.”

“I don’t think we got it right all the time,”, “sometimes we’re stuck with things for too long, sometimes we move on too quickly,” pivoting is important, but knowing when is difficult. Pivoting sometimes means making a decision differently from the majority you know, be it business model or problem solution. It’s not always easy but embracing the possibilities of both pivoting and persevering is what makes the ride worthwhile.