 Hello everyone Wow, it's really exciting for me to be here and And yeah, my name is Nicola Perra. I am co-founder of play and our company is around seven and a half years old and If I think back eight years ago actually before We started play with my co-founder. Yeah, but I remember one day sitting in my living room and we We we make each other a promise and we said whatever thing we're going to do together Whatever we want to start whatever is the idea the product? Let's promise each other that we want to do something first thing We are proud of proud of as a company the product that we do the type of healthy Organization that we want to build but also like let's promise each other that Every day when we wake up we want to go to work and be happy almost every day almost every day and That's what we've been doing. We we started a company. We started to Work on the deal work on the product and when we started to hire our first employees We held each other and called Accountable for that and we still do it and as is been presented our company is a fintech we have credit cards we Allow our customers that are businesses in order they can do invoices on running voices on our platform, but also in doing that and creating the product that can support all the use cases of a small organization up to 500 plus employees organization and support the experience of everyone that has a play app and a play of card, but also the experience of a CFO that needs to have a piece of mind about What's been spent in my organization who is doing what and also like that everything that gets spent in In in play also needs to be reconciled In an accounting system also needs to be filed to the tax authority There has been a lot of work in in the background and the company has been growing quite a lot We've been now serving 12 countries. We have offices in seven Capitals we have employees around the world and we grew a lot in order to serve our customers and give them the best The best experience and if now I look back seven and a half years I can see that our company culture has changed quite a lot and There is the way this the company culture changes all the time actually changes every day it's a very dynamic thing and of course like when you start the company and when you have you know Handful of Employees and you are the one running the whole hiring process or you are the one sitting at the stand-up every day It's something that you can see daily and control and of course more and more the company grows More realize that the the culture is changing in a very dynamic way and The beauty of it is actually it is changing and it's a good thing Because if I think about the culture that yep, and I had in a co-working space on the first days I feel that what our culture was catering towards is quite different than the company that we are right now 850 people spread around the world And so the culture changes But what you want to look at and what to actually want to focus is That you want the culture to evolve you as a company You as a leader and also your company is getting more mature. It's handling more and more complex environment and more different type of customers and then therefore you need to hire different people so in the same way as your company is evolving as as an organization of course the culture has to evolve and The culture the culture evolves and it takes quite a lot of work as you as a co-founder But also for the leaders every employee to actually nurture it and make it grow in the way we want and That's actually what this all up. What is all about it is As a boat that gets bigger and bigger That's your organization and what you want to to do You want to steer it in the best possible way towards something that you're proud of someone something that makes you happy to go to work every day and As a boat the bigger it gets the harder it gets actually gets to steer you you have a small Organization where actually it takes a couple of one-to-ones with with your colleagues around you to actually discuss a hard topic if you have an organization that gets in the hundreds and Then you need to be much more proactive about How do you want to address its culture or how do I want to address is they day-to-day events and Myself my co-founder yep our leadership everyone in the organization has a role in to stay in the culture and We make it very clear and explicit in our organization to say like this is an active role and it's an active role for a reason because everything in the universe also culture in a company actually tends to entropy and The reason why he does so well first thing is actually culture itself has been an excuse for centuries for humanity in order actually to divide people more than actually unite them, but also like a complexity of culture is that something that is so intangible and In in a situation where the organization grows so much and there is so much uncertainty about what is happening there is a tendency of People employees to to use culture or like this is not company culture or this is company culture as a way actually to To divide actually more than build to build upon So yeah, I'm I kind of paint you know a bit of a gloomy picture about you know Like there is a culture is changing quite a lot if you don't do anything about it. They're actually going to go quite south but Fortunately, there is actually a way to hold yourself accountable to what you want your culture to be and This is true your values So first thing what are what are values? Let's start actually with player values Player values is trust. It is Being human is his Entrapment entrepreneurship and it is transparency Each one of those values quite loaded and they actually takes quite a bit in order to explain what exactly means but it is at least For everyone in the company in the organization. It is a no start something to actually aim aim to and If you know your values If you understand what he means what this value means in general But also what he means in the company in the state where there is now Well, then actually what you can do you can run your company Using them around them So I make an example like Let's say that Okay, a person comes to me and say like look Nico I'm a bit concerned about this because we have this release and they're really pushing about having this really Happened next week and this means that probably like the team will have to work. Let's say in in the weekend and this is This is I guess our our culture and Then like as a leader as a co-worker then you can think okay like what what is our culture? Okay, what are our values and our values have For sure being human so it means like I'm open about the way I feel my feelings and also like the fact that as a human being I have my limitations like am I being close to go burn out or like am I getting pushed so much Towards you know this deadline and this is stressing me. That is something But it also like the the value of trust and I've actually trusted trusted to take the right decision about If this should happen throughout the weekend or even like if this deadline should happen that exact day And then there is like another values that is Entrepreneurship when I feel okay, why are we having this deadline this day is what is the effect that what we are releasing? towards Our customers what what are we doing in order to solve a challenge them? But for example, they have actually they have a bug it is the bug that is in production that it affected them and the sum of Of those values is able to actually give us an understanding of if this is something that we should do or something That we should actually stop that maybe we should not have that release that day and again Like this is just a small example But this happens all the time it should happen all the time to everything that you do in your Get is in your organization you have a meeting and you take a decision in this meeting well, how was this decision taken is it a decision that Fulfills our value or is something that actually doesn't I know it sounds quite complex and actually it is but for us That we care so much about how we want our company to be right now But also to become it is a daily constant Work into looking around what's happening around us what we can feel what we can hear what Is the feedback that we get and try to understand is this run? in our values and This happens for things that are The day-to-day for happy events happy moments and also hard events everything should run around them and When you think about All the initiatives that happen in organization when you have like 50 people hundred people 200 300 500 You realize that it's just so much that happens around you and on top of that and that has been the The past year in play. Oh When you had so many new people to the organization and in our case in Into a 2022 we hired more than 50 percent of our organization So now we are at 150 you also can realize and think like how much Change are you bringing to your day-to-day life? But also in general to the organization and in its culture every single person Changes the culture and if you have at certain in center months We hire more than hundred people if you have hundred people at the same time the joint that organization What is going to be the impact that they're going to give to the company? Is it an impact that you can control and? The the answer is yes, we think it is possible to actually control this this impact And this applies for everyone that you hire But especially applies for the leaders that you have or the leaders of leaders because their role as they hire for is to Be multipliers so they're multipliers and enablers for decisions for Expertise but they are in the same way also for culture so the way they're going to run teams the way the way that's going to run projects or Be the owners of big part of the organization is going is going to dramatically impact The way that the culture is shaped therefore in play one of the most important thing is actually to Evaluate the values of everyone that gets hired and when I say everyone I mean everyone you could be like start as a junior but still as part of your challenge interview or when you have like a follow-up with your new leader you actually get evaluated on on what excites you what value excites you and When you speak when you have an interview with us and you describe about your passion in life your past experience in work That is actually part of the process to try to map what you say and what you discuss with us into our values and see what if if you're if you're ready to rally for for for those values and if you are a leader of a big organization that actually becomes an interview by itself and What we do in that case we actually have someone that could be a co-founder could be a senior leader a leader from a different area that actually evaluates on players value and The moment hopefully that you know you as a leader, you know or our engineer or the market here are deemed to be a Great candidate for play and we hire you that actually the job doesn't stop actually the job starts because yes You have these expertise. Yes, you're going to bring an impact in play You seems to be Excited and someone that is going to carry our value values forward But also we need to make sure that you get also get properly on boarded into the organization and on boarding goes from of course You know understand the type of business that we have our challenges and that's fine and probably you know already About that but another very important thing that we do in play is also that that on boarding itself carries quite explicit presentation about our values, but also in the way it's run it's a showcase to how values are a play or how do embrace for example being human and For example, how do we have? Trust or transparency as our one of our key value and you actually can touch and Have a proper tangible experience about that in your own boarding On top of that, of course, you know, there is support that happens throughout but For leaders and leaders or leaders. We also have extra on boarding That is actually only catered about that we have for example sessions where Myself and the rest of the lighthouse our C-suite actually has one hour Session where actually each one of us give our own Idea our own opinion of what a great great company means to us So for example for myself I speak quite a lot about this about our values and and the way we run the company But as well as other people show how they embody their values into for example the area could be sales or My co-founder yep as a as a CEO in the strategy. So there is Especially when you join the company a very important setting of what are you expected to do as as a manager and there is also like a quite strong expectation that You as a leader have probably tons of experience. You have seen this before and you know You know how to run a team how to grow a team But there is also an expectation that you don't really know us You don't really know the team that you're joining. You don't really know the challenges that we have and and we tried it in the past and that's why you know now we approach it this way we Realize that there is no such a thing as that that person is so experienced. They will go and figure out They will probably do but what is going to be the cost of that? How much time is actually going to be spent for them to try and fail? What type of situations that the leader will encounter they will probably break the trust? with with the people for example that that the leaders going to manage and from the past we realized that Everyone deserves proper onboarding and leaders of leader deserve even more time spent with them in order to make sure that Their experience and their interaction with the team is the best possible One thing that with that we do for example for our for our leaders is that they go for five days to Authentic leadership training and authentic leadership training is Gives the opportunity to to every leader to actually Separate for a minute over their professional skill set the strengths and weaknesses, but actually to get and understand more What happens underneath the professional layer to understand the way the they handle? Relationships with each other the way that their personal Could be an uprising could be past experiences How that personal feelings actually affect the way they relate with others and also in the end the way they work as professional and I can say myself. I done it. I've been one of the first one to do it For me has been like a life-changing experience because for example from from there I realized that I actually wanted to do personal therapy to understand more myself and Actually to personal therapy and then realize that I have ADHD and then like I had the opportunity to actually get in touch to myself and see how Having ADHD and not be aware of it was actually affecting people around me and Yeah, this is like And that's why I'm saying it For you as well, you know like and giving you context like this is myself and this is also my my way of being human I can also say that I forgot my medication in Denmark and and today I don't have made ADHD medication So it's a bit late on on it. That's a blame. You know that but In the way, I'm like speaking with you are giving you context I'm giving you context about myself I've even the context about what is the baggage that the carrying together with me. I can give you context about What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses how you should read the way and interact to whatever me and I'm doing that because if you don't have that context You're going to feel those gaps the things that you don't know with something that is actually a worry like okay, that person is not addressing me and in this way or maybe that person is just you know doesn't give me the right level of attention and Me I know yes, I have a DHT So for me is actually a bit hard to keep my tension high for a while But what you can actually think is like, okay, there's maybe something about the way I'm actually interacting with you or the fact that you don't hold me to a specific to a certain level that you want to give me your time and if we don't give if you don't give context if we don't open our self if you're not start being human if you're not transparent in the way we are Then we start a slippery slope and the slippery slope is gonna create an us versus them attitude And it's an us versus them everywhere in the organization and especially the moment you add so many people You create so many occasion opportunities to people to think us versus them And you can do it like across teams you have in player for example We have a cross competence teams so you can have an engineer sitting together with someone from sales and Yes, they are in the situation where they're getting challenged a bit about their expertise as an engineer Do I actually know about the sales process? Probably not that is actually find something that it's quite challenging me to to tackle and you as a sales person you probably get to challenge about the product development process and This is quite something that is complicated That's something that challenge your status quo and the for like that is a natural tendency to actually Start to see the other side as a potential Enemy or someone that actually is trying to do something that is is having an impact that is against me You can have it, you know in different different scenario You can have it when I say like with different expertise and what you bring on the table But you can also have it if you just have people that are doing the same Let's say that I'm an engineer into this team and they're thinking about the challenge that I have versus for example an engineer that is sitting somewhere else and maybe like We we only bet once so we never met so actually it cannot really picture you who you are and How you are as a person and then I see that you introduce a bug into my code and Again, if left untreated you're handling of that is gonna be okay That's person is is is it's a person that is different for me That person maybe doesn't have the same attention for quality that I have and again you start to divide and If you think about it you actually do this all the time we evaluate each one around us and We try to understand that this comes from very basic natural needs. We try to understand Okay, are this person a potential challenge for us? Are they a protection? enemy predator if you go to the to to back into into beginning of humanity and That's what in the end we need to cater for we need to understand That we are all human beings with our feelings with our baggage that we bring together with you To better with us every day and that's there is a natural tendency Especially where the company grows so much and there are so many challenges around us and so many things changing about us that we have a natural tendency about being afraid and skeptical of everything that goes around us and This starts with awareness. This starts with transparency about this awareness this starts with a communication to all the company to actually Ask for people to be open about their feeling in the way they work every day It comes from training to everyone in the organization and especially of the leaders and also counts with assumption that While this at times can be quite uncomfortable and painful. This is also a great thing For the company, but also great great thing for each one of us We all have the opportunity to actually grow so much into getting more aware about our strength at our businesses getting more aware about The way we think what is our baggage that we bring every day and It's really like, you know, that's what I really want to to to leave you with is that Change is challenging change sometimes can be overwhelming But change is also great. That's also what has made us the company that we are There's also is the ambition that has brought so many great people to join this company and We need to embrace it. We need to embrace change. We probably embrace change more into in the product that we have or in the way like we We market it to to other and that's why we innovate All the time, but also the same change has to happen also inside us as people as human being we need to embrace the change embrace this awareness and Use the values that we have as a company as a way of a no-star Something that is going to help us navigate sometimes the uncertainty or sometimes the challenges so embrace charge and let your values lead the ways and Thank you so much for your time