When building a startup, co-founders who complement each other can spell success for a company. Co-founders often take on jack-of-all-trades positions during a startup’s earliest stages, but all startup leaders eventually assume a more-defined l job as the company grows.
Sometimes, that job is shared.
While the co-CEO model isn’t incredibly common, it can be highly effective. In fact, companies such as Oracle are run by two CEOs, despite skepticism around sharing executive leadership at larger corporates.
Celonis, a six-year-old B2B SaaS startup, is led by co-CEOs, and so far, it’s worked. The company, whose technology is creating a new subset of data mining, raised $27.5 million last year after bootstrapping its way to profitability during its first five years in business. We caught up with co-CEO Alex Rinke to find out how he makes the partnership work with co-CEO Bastian Nominacher.
Why did you make the decision to co-CEO?
The decision was less about having a co-CEO and more about starting a company, together. There have been many successful companies who have shared the CEO position, but ultimately, my co-CEO Bastian and I have very complementary skillsets and it just made sense to collaborate this closely. When we started down this road together we were already friends, and we knew we worked well together. Obviously as we scale, and with Celonis growing at more than three times per year and expanding globally at a very aggressive pace, this setup gives us a lot more bandwidth than we would have otherwise.
What's the most rewarding part of sharing the position?
The most rewarding part of sharing the CEO position is being able to rely on somebody else, sharing trust and loyalty, and knowing that together you can accomplish anything. You can essentially double your capacity to face challenges while leading an organization, and it’s even more exciting to face challenges as a team. You can trust that this other person is going to give the same answers to the same questions that you would give, and make the same decisions in the same situations. When you are able to rely on someone so completely it is very rewarding.
What's been a challenge of being a co-CEO and how did you overcome it?
Occasionally people will approach us individually and try to play us off each other. For instance, someone will approach Bastian to try and get a deal, and if their attempt is unsuccessful they will try to get me on board instead. The secret to overcoming these types of challenges is continual, effective communication, and staying very closely aligned. Fortunately for Celonis, Bastian and I are usually very closely aligned, and we communicate effectively and often.
What advice would you give to other leaders when deciding to co-CEO or not?
You must trust your co-CEO, maintain effective communication, and keep closely aligned on all major initiatives.
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