Most CEOs Prize Growth, But Other Priorities Vary… What Do You Think?

George Roberts

April 18, 2011

There was an article in this Monday’s WSJ by Joe Light titled “Most CEOs Prize Growth, But Other Priorities Vary” that I thought I would share with you. The article references a survey of 704 Global CEOs across various industries by The Conference Board.

Since all of you are founders and or CEOs or members of the management teams of early or expansion stage software companies and I am a partner at OpenView, a venture capital company that invests growth capital in expansion stage software companies, I think I can comfortably state that we would all unanimously choose growth as our top priority.

Making sure you go through the process of thinking about and ranking these priorities with your management team as part of defining your strategy will help you align your resources, hire the right talent needed at this point in time and enhance your focus and execution. It will also help frame and guide your ongoing discussions about goals within your company during the year as you make hard decisions.

Revisiting this on at least an annual basis is something every CEO should do with their team since change is the only constant you face and adapting is one of the keys to success.

I am curious, once you get beyond growth, how would you rank these other priorities from the survey?

All the best!

G

Venture Partner

<strong>George Roberts</strong> is a Venture Partner at OpenView. He enjoys partnering with companies and helping them achieve their goals through strategy, focus and operational execution. From 1990 to 2003, George spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, most recently having served as Executive Vice President of North American Sales. While at Oracle, George was responsible for over $1 billion in revenue and more than 2,000 employees, reporting directly to the company’s CEO and Chairman, Larry Ellison.