perspectives

CEOs Across Spectrum’s Portfolio Gather for Annual Summit in Sausalito, CA

April 2022

Spectrum Equity’s annual CEO Summit is one of our favorite events of the year, bringing together executives from across our portfolio. More than 85 CEOs, founders, and board members from our portfolio companies joined us in the Bay Area this year. We have a longstanding belief that extraordinary, Internet software and data service businesses can be built just about anywhere in the world. The group at this year’s event came from 35 different cities across the US, Canada and Europe.

This year we were honored to host an incredible group of speakers, who spoke to some of the operational and macro issues which are top of mind for our portfolio company leadership.

Nasdaq CEO, Adena Friedman, shared her perspective on the capital markets, fintech disruption, corporate board diversity, as well as her experience leading the acquisition of Spectrum portfolio company, Verafin, last year.
Evan Osnos, foreign affairs staff writer at The New Yorker, provided an update on the war in Ukraine and its political implications for US foreign policy and global trade.
Finally, Coley Florance, our Head of Talent, partnered with Charter’s Kevin Delaney to present on Managing During a Persistent Pandemic. In this session, we focused on evolving workplace cultures in the wake of the COVID pandemic and best practices for attracting and retaining top talent.

Sessions included Spectrum State of the Union, Comments and Conversation with Kevin Delaney, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Charter; Topic: Leading People During a Persistent Pandemic, Fireside Chat: Evan Osnos, Foreign Affairs Staff Writer, The New Yorker, Fireside Chat: Adena Friedman, President and CEO, Nasdaq, Inc.

One of the best parts about our CEO Summit is getting the chance to spend time with leaders across our portfolio who confront similar challenges and can share the lessons learned from scaling category-defining software and data service businesses. Many of those learnings come from deep personal relationships and connectivity across our portfolio, so we make sure to build in a lot of time for fun and informal opportunities to connect.

Whether we’re sailing, hiking, or kayaking, time together is invaluable for Spectrum Equity’s portfolio companies who confront similar challenges and opportunities as they scale

To paraphrase Coley’s presentation, if you look at all the research and data on workplace happiness and culture, there is one singular key ingredient to happiness, productivity, and contribution. That ingredient is Human Connection. It’s why we gathered for our CEO Summit this year and why this is such an important annual event for our firm!

We’re so grateful to all the CEOs, board members, and colleagues who joined us this year and cannot wait for next year. Until then, watch our highlight video from this year’s CEO Summit.

Content contained in this blog post is not intended to and does not constitute investment advice. Your use of the information in this blog post and materials linked is at your own risk. Spectrum Equity does not make any guarantee or other promise as to any results that may be obtained from using this content. No one should make any investment decision without first consulting his or her own financial advisor and conducting his or her own research and due diligence. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and there is a possibility of loss in connection with an investment in any Spectrum Fund. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Spectrum Equity disclaims any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, and/or opinions prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any investment or other losses. The specific companies identified above does not represent all of Spectrum’s investments, and no assumptions should be made that any investments identified were or will be profitable. View the complete list of our portfolio companies.