SaaStr 146: Why Management Upgrade Is The Most Important Thing A CEO Can Do, Why You Must Hire More Generalists with Scale & How To Hire People with 3-4 Years Runway with Chris Caren, CEO @ Turnitin

Chris Caren is the CEO @ Turnitin, the company revolutionising the experience of writing to learn with backing from the likes of IVP, Norwest Venture Partners and GIC. Chris has scaled the company to serve over 25m students and 2m teachers across 15,000 institutions. Prior to joining Turnitin in 2009, Chris spent 4 years with Microsoft as a General Manager and before that 3 years at Business Objects as a VP of Product Marketing.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How Chris made his way into the world of SaaS and came to be CEO @ Turnitin?
• What were Chris’ biggest takeaways from watching both Business Objects and Microsoft as they scaled into hyper growth mode? What were his big lessons in management from Bernard Liautaud? What marketing takeaways did he have from working with Dave Kellogg?
• Why does Chris believe management team upgrade is the most important role a CEO can perform? What are the core characteristics that upgrade candidates must have for them to be an attractive hire? What culture must be built into the fibre of the leadership team?
• How does Chris look to manage internal discontent when bringing in external managers? How does Chris look to involve internal candidates for the role in the search for their next boss? What are the benefits of this?   
• When is a stretch VP a stretch too far? What are the signs of potential strain? How does the team convey this? Once identified, what is the right post-mortem chain to take place?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What should founders consider before selling their company?
2. What does Chris know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
3. What is Chris’ favourite SaaS reading material and why?

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Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr