Leaders Unscripted

Conversations with leaders about the challenges they’ve faced and what they’ve learned.

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10: Being a 1st Time CEO at a Startup in a Highly Regulated Industry with David Jarvis

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Few industries pose the same regulatory challenges as finance - that’s a heck of a place to cut your teeth as a first-time CEO…

Griffin’s inception was born of CEO David Jarvis’ entrepreneurial ambitions, and he leads with a wonderful sense of honesty and authenticity.

In this episode of Leaders Unscripted, we hear the hefty challenges that the startup has overcome so far, what values are essential in those joining the team, the necessity for leaders with honesty & authenticity, and much more.

This Episode Covers:

  • Griffin’s inception and how David brought it to life alongside his Co-Founder, Allen
  • Turning entrepreneurial aspirations into a first-time CEO role in a startup
  • The ideal values in new hires
  • Solving long standing, systemic problems
  • Lessons from ‘sandbox’ leadership roles before becoming CEO
  • Leading with honesty and authenticity

Episode Highlights:

“When Monzo got authorised for a banking licence, I really perked up and said, this is super interesting. The CEO at Monzo, Tom Bloomfield, is the Founder of GoCardless, and I was like, ‘This guy's basically a nerd. If he can get a bank licence, I'm not that different from him’.” - 5:00 - David Jarvis
“I was so burnt out that trying to do anything else that involved answering to someone else was going to be a disaster. So there was really no choice other than to stop working entirely, or to work for myself.” - 12:10 - David Jarvis
“You want to make sure that you're bringing people in who don't think of conflict as the result of a hostile world, but rather arising from misunderstanding or lack of context, or any of the normal, healthy reasons that people engage in conflict. That doesn't mean anyone's a bad person.” - 20:10 - David Jarvis
“All problems are systemic. If something has gone wrong once, it's gone wrong many times. You just aren't aware of the other times it's gone wrong. So you need to start digging.” - 24:15 - David Jarvis
“If I was looking to hire my replacement, and someone showed up with my other leadership roles as the only things on their CV, I would be like, ‘This is a joke, right? These are sandbox leadership roles’. But that doesn't mean that there weren't really valuable lessons in them.” - 29:10 - David Jarvis
“I've realised that there's an epic amount of revisionism to all startups’ histories. Anyone who says, ‘Founded in 2018 and they just raised their Series B’, okay sure. But if you actually dig in, this guy has been working on this since 2015. There's an additional three years here that you're not seeing. ” - 44:15 - David Jarvis

Links & References:

Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/

Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/

David Jarvis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdavidjarvis/

Griffin: https://griffin.com/