In a constantly changing world, it's impossible for leaders to provide employees with the assurance they want, says Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud. Her solution: lead with humanity and flexibility. In conversation with veteran journalist Stephanie Mehta, Sud discusses her experience connecting remote employees worldwide, addressing burnout and adapting company practices for the needs of the next generation. Hear her vision for the future of work and ideas on how to be a leader that empowers others.

Welcome Anjali, I'm so glad you're here with us today.

At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1, 300 people worldwide.

You have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists.

So I'm going to start with a really easy question.

What was it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning, and a very fraught return to office?

You know, I think the only constant has been change.

And as a leader, you obviously have a workforce that's looking for certainty, and they're looking to control what's happening around them.

And I think what we all found as leaders, no matter what company you were responsible for was that you couldn't offer certainty and you couldn't always control the environment and the things around you.

And so, for me, it was really about agility.

How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed as we try and move through things?

And then also just how do we lead with more humanity?

For Vimeo, 1 of the things I've really learned over the last few years is we each experience the world so differently.

These are people who, employees who are on the front lines, who are literally at war.

And the other hand, you have people in different parts of the world who are experiencing mental health challenges or burnout.

And so I think it was really just the hardest part was not being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone.

But I ultimately think it forced us as a company to build more trust, because to be agile and flexible and to lead with humanity, you have to trust each other.

And so I'm sort of optimistic that actually what we're emerging from this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble and also hopefully has more trust.

Can you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense of community or even to communicate that there is no certainty that is a muscle that you think you'll continue to use in the organization far into the future.

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things that we did.

1, and we are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely.

1 of the hardest parts when you're all sort of disparate is you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate.

And we did make a concerted effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication as much as possible.

And actually try, particularly for our leadership team when we were communicating, to do it with your face and your hands and your body and your emotions.

And we did that through live streaming, a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos.

So I send, like I record my screen and just send a note out to people.

Every new hire, you know, does a video to welcome and introduce themselves.

A lot of our meetings we've actually replaced with just quick video presentations.

And actually what that really did was allow the humanity and the context to come through.

And I think that helped us a lot kind of stay close.

So that was 1, I think, really important thing.

Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to talk about when things aren't working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn't working.

And so 1 of the things that we do at Vimeo is we try, I do this in all of my town halls, we do in a lot of meetings, is always talk about what's working, what are our top 3 things, and what isn't working yet.

And we've kind of created, I think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma away from talking about what's not working.

And when you make that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it's allowed us to be more open as an organization about what do we need to change?

And both of those, sort of being more video first in our communication and being more transparent and normalizing what's not working, I think this has been really helpful and certainly something we're carrying forward.

I love that advice about being video first.

So many of our members of our workforce live in a video world.

They're used to video as a means of communication.

You've talked about how the organization has changed.

What is different with the young millennials and even now the first wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?

And, you know, 1 of the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they're really antiquated.

They were designed for a totally different environment and a totally different generation.

1 of them I think is the line between your personal life and work life is definitely blending and we're used to, if you think about your personal life, look at TikTok.

This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging in a very specific way.

And if they then have to come to work and to be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual, it's not going to happen.

Or if you miss the meeting and you have to watch the Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting, that's just not going to happen.

And so I think that there is definitely sort of this, we talk about the consumerization of enterprise and those are just fancy words for saying the way that things that way we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to translate to work.

And so I definitely think that's an area of opportunity.

The other thing I see from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce is sort of, of course, mission driven, but I think there's a desire to really understand the why behind things.

And 1 of our sort of communication mantras is we never talk about the what without the why.

And I think there's just a desire to, you know, the idea of like, well, there's a hierarchy or, you know, my boss told me that this is what we're going to do or, you know, that I think is increasingly moving away and people, They don't want to just do something because someone with a sort of formal authority told them to do it.

They want to do it because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission.

And I think that that forces, you know, leaders to really bring more of the why into how we communicate and motivate people.

And then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility, right?

I think, and this is true of all of us, but particularly the younger generation, I think they're looking for flexibility and they want options and choices.

And you know, it's not always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and orient it more to agility.

It's like, how can we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also know when to question and when to actually pivot.

Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility?

Are there programs or processes you've put in place that really speak to this big sea change we're seeing in terms of values from the workforce?

I mean, I think firstly, of course, It's all about listening, right?

And I think like many organizations, the way we've tried to listen and understand our workforce, it's very similar.

It's Q and A's and engagement surveys and things like that.

And some of the things that we've done, you know, we have a people and culture NPS, sort of net promoter score, the same way we have for our users, for our internal teams.

But I would say 1 of the things that we've really tried to do is appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1, 300 employees, you can't look at the averages.

You can't look at it all in totality and try and pull out like an obvious, oh, this is how everybody's feeling.

Because what you actually, when you really dig into it and truly listen and do focus groups and talk to people, what you'll find is actually there's very different experiences and desires among your employees.

And so I think for us, what we've really just tried to do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to like conveniently pull, like, oh, this is what everyone's feeling.

And it's hard and we're still kind of figuring it out.

But I will tell you some of the things that we've heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel, or even things like our approach to compensation or our approach to DE&I.

And so I think it's more just, like I said, that agile listening, like constantly really understanding what's happening, but not treating everything as like an average or the same.

And for us, it's been particularly stark because we have offices and teams in so many different countries.

And the difference is, they're substantial.

They're really substantial about the way we solve different things.

And we used to have a very sort of 1 Vimeo global approach in the name of consistency and fairness.

And what we found is we have to be more localized.

We have to design mechanisms to support our teams in a very different way because their experiences and the world around them is quite different.

And I will tell you, it has involved a lot of, as an executive team and leadership team, it's involved a lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them.

I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on whether they do open Q&A or anonymous Q&A or real-time Q&A.

We've changed our approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, because we're still figuring out the right way to listen and have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.

I want to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment because another thing I hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and the wisdom that comes oftentimes from being in close proximity to a mentor or to somebody who's done the job for many more years.

What is your philosophy and take on making sure that that knowledge transfer is happening?

I think it's a major challenge that I don't know that everyone will sort of have a solution for.

We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo.

My executive team is entirely distributed.

So I've really realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive.

On the flip side, There's definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are entering the workforce.

1 of the approaches that we've been taking is, and what's sort of nice is we're modeling it at the top.

So if my entire executive team is distributed, that means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship, and development for a whole set of new executives who've just joined my, We have sort of changed up the executive team almost entirely in the last 12 months.

So I've had to deal with the same challenges.

And we've had to literally, we call it our operating system, we've had to design an operating system as an executive team for how we're going to work together in that environment.

How do we create sort of the right communication loops?

And so I think from my perspective, it's more we have to be able to do it ourselves and model it.

And then I think it's a more proven mechanism for young people.

I will say, like many companies, I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important for learning.

We do have, you know, we bring people into an office.

If you're remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time in a room with their team, do social activities, all of those things.

I don't think they will go away, nor do I think they should.

But you know, candidly, it's an area that I don't think we've really figured out perfectly.

And I think it's really critical that as leaders, we do that so that this next generation is able to get the same growth opportunities that we all have.

Well, and it's interesting, the tools that you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation around video can be really helpful there.

I've heard of a number of organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present as a way of having to go out and find the information they need.

And then because we have video tools available to us now, they have an opportunity to share their ideas with a large group of people.

But first, kind of going through the fact finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas.

In an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mental wellness and the different things that people are bringing to work, whether it is exhaustion, burnout.

During the Black Lives Matter protests, We had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma and feeling, you know, really personal issues bubble to the surface.

I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about how you deal with this increasing personal, you know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes they bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think I've always thought, you know, it's The responsibility of a leader is to empower people to do their best work and the responsibility of a company is to empower our people to do their best work.

And so of course we have a real role to play in supporting things like mental health issues or burnout.

And the way I think, like many companies, the way we initially probably sought to do that was more that you're seeing a problem and you're reacting by trying to provide mental health resources or support or time off.

And I always say to so many of our managers, like, just care.

If we just care, a lot of things get easier.

You don't have to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care.

At the same time, I will say what we're realizing now in sort of this next phase is that that's a reactive approach.

And actually the root cause that we can control of Vimeo, the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don't have enough, we don't have enough focus, right?

There's, we're being, asking people to do too many things or they don't have, they don't feel like they're supported in doing those things.

And that I think is actually where we should be spending more time is how do we actually set the right prioritization and focus?

There's a root cause there that's A0I feel like I'm stressed because there's too much going on and I don't feel equipped to solve it, then we should get into the what is the detail there and do we need to do things differently.

And 1 of our themes at Vimeo this year was, do less, better.

to maybe move sideways, do you think that there are going to be stakeholders who say, you know, out with all of this touchy-feely, you know, the workplace as a family stuff, where are my results?

Absolutely, I think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly.

I mean, I work in SaaS, software as a service, so we already went from the growth at all cost to profitability, pendulum swing.

My perspective on this, and it hasn't changed, I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well.

And I actually think if you treat people well with kindness and empathy, you will get better results.

And so, you know, for me, I think what I observed over the last few years is that part, I think, hasn't changed and shouldn't change.

There were, I think, a lot of times when companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured.

But that's not what ultimately, that's not what people need in any case.

So I sort of see it as the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees and how you are empathetic always should be in service of helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line.

And you have to believe that And you have to be committed to that.

And if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off.

been taking care of yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth?

How as a leader do you practice some self-care or how do you make sure that you're getting the balance you need to be the most effective leader you can be?

I think recently the phrase I use a lot to myself is, is 2 things can be true, both, both can be true.

And for me, you know, I think of it as like, this job is hard and It's gotten harder, you know.

We went public at the height of the pandemic.

Last year, market volatility has been tremendous.

We're obviously going through a ton with this pandemic.

We have a team in Ukraine going through a war, all these things that have happened.

And so it's a hard job, and it's an incredibly privileged job.

And so I think for me, it's sort of acknowledging both of those things has helped me a lot.

The way I've tried to kind of lead has been, it's always been this way, which is for me, it's I have to have passion.

I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world.

And if I have passion, I have energy, and then I can kind of move through anything.

I feel like especially in hard times, I look back at my career and actually some of my most fulfilling times in work were when in the hardest business situations.

But it's because it brought a group of people together all on 1 team.

And so I think that's been a really big part of it.

And then, yeah, you have to be a little selfish sometimes and take care of yourself.

I think I have a great support network around me.

I always say my husband and I have a deal where on Sundays I disappear for a couple hours.

I just disappear and I walk around the city and I listen to my music and I do whatever I need to do and that's really important.

So you talked about how hybrid work is going to look very different in the future than how we describe it today.

It's basically in office a couple days, work from home a couple of other days.

Tell us a little bit more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.

I mean, I think the idea of an office as a time and place completely goes away, Right?

And I think it's really going to be people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world, even the concept of like where you're located is going to change.

And then the idea of like I'm going to work on this time zone or I'm going to attend this meeting that's scheduled on this date.

And I think what you're going to find is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime.

Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously.

And we will be using tools and technology, whether it's video, whether it's AI, to basically enable that at scale among many people anywhere in the world.

And then I think leadership, leaders are going to look different, right?

Because I think it's going to require, if you think about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require now.

I think in the future, you're going to have to be the skill sets going to be like, how do you communicate with diverse, you know, global audiences and employees across time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale?

How do you organize programs, whether it's compensation, whether it's training, all of that is gonna look very different.

But I think the ultimate thing you'll see is just this, there were these constraints that we've lived with, whether it was time or place or budget in some cases.

And I think those constraints are going to go away.

And the promise is that if we are flexible and smart and we use technology in the right way that will actually come away a much more evolved and efficient workforce.

Well, I think you just showed us some of the passion that you've talked about as being the thing that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1300 people worldwide.

Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.

What issue did the video highlight and what did it require to solve it

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