9:25 - Netcentric’s focus
23:17 - Growing your headcount
26:45 - Choosing holacracy
38:36 - Getting acquired
49:08 - Building a wine marketplace
Elian Kool is the co-founder and former CEO at Netcentric, a Zurich based company that develops CX marketing solutions. He previously worked at companies like Acommit AG, Namics and Logica Deutschland.
Elian co-founded Netcentric in 2012, right around the time that Adobe Experience Cloud (the focus of their business) was first emerging. They were quite precocious, in the sense that they always competed at eye level with big consultants like Deloitte and Accenture, and very early on set up an office in Barcelona. They were also quick to take on a holacratic organizational method, in order to create a work environment that was both extremely efficient and attractive to its employees.
In 2017 they were acquired by cognizant in order to grow more quickly at an international level.
"In my view it’s much better to stay focused and know what you’re good at than trying to mitigate every potential risk."