Today is a big day at Brightspot. I am handing off the CEO role to a new executive (more on that in a bit) and taking on a new role as President and Chief Customer Officer. I am excited to continue my work at the company, building on our strong foundation as we move forward into the next decade.
When Lisa and I started talking about the company in 2007, our vision was to build an enduring brand that would be the bright spot in the hearts and minds of our customers, coworkers and society. We wanted to build a platform that could grow and adapt to our customers’ evolving business requirements as quickly as they needed. We never thought about building a large company. We were just focused on doing great work, having an impact and working with a wonderful group of people every day.
Fifteen years later, Brightspot is every bit the company we dreamed it would be. Today, we power thousands of digital experiences and have a 97% net retention rate. We service the top global brands in several industries in over 100 different languages. We have 40 coworkers who have stayed together for more than 10 years and another 200 who have joined us over time. We have completed over 600 customer projects and impacted over 8,000 lives in the community. The opportunity to serve customers in our space is larger than ever. The pace of change and increasing complexity makes our product and services more valuable each year.
In the last three years, the excitement of starting a company and the roller coaster of running it was replaced by the need to focus on learning a new way of working, communicating and teaching. The challenge of servicing new customers and finding ways to share lives, laughs and learnings became a hurdle in 2020. I am proud to say that we have succeeded as a company in this environment and in many ways have a closer bond with our teams and coworkers. The fear of losing our ability to execute has been replaced with a strong belief that we have the foundation of a great organization and a great brand. We are heading into the next stage with an increased focus on developing methods to measure performance, improve communication and build careers. We are finding new ways to connect with our customers and will be working over the coming months to be better stewards of their digital strategies and their ability to execute with Brightspot at their side.
All that leads me to this: it’s time. It’s time for me to spend more time with our teams and work with our product and delivery organizations to elevate our platform and fine-tune our performance. It’s time for me to have the time to develop a closer connection to our customers and my coworkers to understand what they need to be successful. It’s time for me to take more time to teach what I have learned about success through decades of hard work and life lessons. It’s time to turn the CEO title over to a new executive who can take our idea from 2007 and help make it even stronger as we head into the next 15 years of being a bright spot in people’s lives.
Raleigh McClayton starts as CEO of Brightspot today; I will be working by his side. Raleigh joins Brightspot having led both B2B and B2C technology firms over the past decade.
I love what we do, and I love the impact we have been able to make on our coworkers, our customers and our community. In my new role, I can enjoy it as a fellow passenger. I can admire the scenery and listen to the music without worrying about taking my eyes off the road.
See you on the journey. It should be more fun and brighter than ever.
DG
