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What they have on the website: * Chief Executive Officer * Chief Medical Officer * Senior Vice President, Human Resources * Chief Customer Offi

What they have on the website: * Chief Executive Officer * Chief Medical Officer * Senior Vice President, Human Resources * Chief Customer Officer * Chief Legal & Strategic Solutions Officer * Chief Financial Officer * President and Chief Operating Officer * Chief Compliance Officer * Chief Technology Officer * Chief Growth Officer In addition their board has 8 members.

pdimitar 7y ago
What the hell is even "Chief Growth Officer"? Asking for real. Growth is either achieved organically or you are just forcing your way to a lucrative exit without bringing any value. Artificial and forced growth is toxic for the economy at large. The rest of the roles mostly make sense although I believe some of them can be merged so further savings can be accomplished.
- shalmanese 7y ago
  "Growth" is one of the most misnamed and misunderstood roles because, as you correctly noted, everyone in the company should be responsible for growth. I explain to everyone about my role that it's not the responsibility of the Growth team to deliver Growth, it's our responsibility to put Growth more under the companies control. We act like a team of scientists to empirically try and understand what drives our growth and then build out systems, tools and processes to measure & improve those factors. YC has a good guide on what kinds of roles a Growth team is responsible for and what good Growth people do: https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth-guide2017/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth-guide2017/
  - pdimitar 7y ago
    What you say softens it a little but IMO growth still should be organically achieved first and foremost and not chased after to please investors. Bringing real value for customers should weigh much more than the approval of a bunch of golfers. "Growth" in the terms you describe should be more like "marketing": what other market niches can we fill, are our prices reasonable, can we expand to country X, etc.
- oldjokes 7y ago
  Yes, but investors don't care about profit or sustainability anymore, always just this perpetual, artificial growth. A million years ago when I was young the IPO market used to be the end of the bullshit, you actually had to make money and have a long term plan. That is no longer true, the fictional growth narrative is demanded over actual money now.
  - lixtra 7y ago
    As a counter example to your good old times consider the financing of the Suez Canal.
- cosmie 7y ago
  You have the definition that shalmanese mentioned, which is one potential org structure that might be what the Chief Growth Officer is in charge of. I've also seen it used as a a C-level title for head of sales (along with Chief Revenue Officer). In the cases where I've seen the role be a head of sales, it usually indicated that the sales org took a very active role in dictating the rest of the companies priorities. It's sort of like data science teams - some data science teams are truly data science teams in the traditional sense of the word, doing advanced statistical and machine learning work. While other data science teams are just doing basic reporting but under a more politically valuable moniker.
tomp 7y ago
I wonder how many of these are legally mandated... * Chief Executive Officer - someone shareholders can sue * Chief Medical Officer - someone patients can sue * HR - someone employees can sue * Chief Legal Officer & Chief Compliance Officer - someone anyone can sue * Chief Financial Officer - someone the IRS can sue * Chief Technology Officer - someone that can be sued in case of a hack
- anticensor 7y ago
  None. You could even require board decions for each expense but it will gridlock the company.
throwaway55554 7y ago
That's a lot of chiefs. What are they achiefing by having that many?

pdimitar 7y ago

What the hell is even "Chief Growth Officer"? Asking for real. Growth is either achieved organically or you are just forcing your way to a lucrative exit without bringing any value. Artificial and forced growth is toxic for the economy at large. The rest of the roles mostly make sense although I believe some of them can be merged so further savings can be accomplished.

shalmanese 7y ago
"Growth" is one of the most misnamed and misunderstood roles because, as you correctly noted, everyone in the company should be responsible for growth. I explain to everyone about my role that it's not the responsibility of the Growth team to deliver Growth, it's our responsibility to put Growth more under the companies control. We act like a team of scientists to empirically try and understand what drives our growth and then build out systems, tools and processes to measure & improve those factors. YC has a good guide on what kinds of roles a Growth team is responsible for and what good Growth people do: https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth-guide2017/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth-guide2017/
- pdimitar 7y ago
  What you say softens it a little but IMO growth still should be organically achieved first and foremost and not chased after to please investors. Bringing real value for customers should weigh much more than the approval of a bunch of golfers. "Growth" in the terms you describe should be more like "marketing": what other market niches can we fill, are our prices reasonable, can we expand to country X, etc.
oldjokes 7y ago
Yes, but investors don't care about profit or sustainability anymore, always just this perpetual, artificial growth. A million years ago when I was young the IPO market used to be the end of the bullshit, you actually had to make money and have a long term plan. That is no longer true, the fictional growth narrative is demanded over actual money now.
- lixtra 7y ago
  As a counter example to your good old times consider the financing of the Suez Canal.
cosmie 7y ago
You have the definition that shalmanese mentioned, which is one potential org structure that might be what the Chief Growth Officer is in charge of. I've also seen it used as a a C-level title for head of sales (along with Chief Revenue Officer). In the cases where I've seen the role be a head of sales, it usually indicated that the sales org took a very active role in dictating the rest of the companies priorities. It's sort of like data science teams - some data science teams are truly data science teams in the traditional sense of the word, doing advanced statistical and machine learning work. While other data science teams are just doing basic reporting but under a more politically valuable moniker.

tomp 7y ago

I wonder how many of these are legally mandated... * Chief Executive Officer - someone shareholders can sue * Chief Medical Officer - someone patients can sue * HR - someone employees can sue * Chief Legal Officer & Chief Compliance Officer - someone anyone can sue * Chief Financial Officer - someone the IRS can sue * Chief Technology Officer - someone that can be sued in case of a hack

anticensor 7y ago
None. You could even require board decions for each expense but it will gridlock the company.

throwaway55554 7y ago

That's a lot of chiefs. What are they achiefing by having that many?