How WithYouWithMe amplifies diversity in tech talent
On this episode of The CMO Show we talk to Cia Kouparitsas, Chief Marketing Officer at WithYouWithMe.
WithYouWithMe is a social enterprise that’s designed to help organisations solve their digital skills shortage by identifying and growing talent in the places people don’t always look.
Cia chats with Mark about how WithYouWithMe works to change organisations one at a time, and the marketing strategies they’ve used to do so.
Our workplaces are increasingly dependent on digital technologies and organisations are seeking tech-savvy people with the skills to manage them.
At the same time, the call for more diverse and inclusive organisations has never been louder, but it’s a call the talent pool has often failed to answer – particularly in the tech industry.
Cia Kouparitsas is the Chief Marketing Officer at WithYouWithMe, an organisation that allows underrepresented groups in society, such as veterans, neurodivergent individuals, and indigenous communities to fill that talent pool gap. Moving beyond just recruitment, the team at WithYouWithMe offer end-to-end social impact backed upskilling and assessment.
“The point of difference that our business has is that it’s end-to-end. We map out how skills can translate into jobs, training courses, learning style assessments – the list goes on. Underpinning everything that we do is social impact. We don’t just want to build skills frameworks, we want to do it in a socially responsible way.”
Cia discusses how the vision at WithYouWithMe is at the core of everything they do. Their fresh approach to recruitment and training lines up nicely with their vision of partnerships with organisations who align.
“Vision is absolutely critical in everything that we do. So making sure everyone is aligned in what we ultimately want to achieve is so important. We want to promote change at scale, so we really make sure we remain human at the core of it all. Our partners are the same – I would say they’re a large part of our success in our global markets, especially with establishing our credibility.”
Curious to learn more? We don’t blame you! Dive in and listen to how exactly WithYouWithMe uses their marketing tactics to drive a real change.
Credits
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The CMO Show production team
Producers – Rian Newman & Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
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Transcript:
Mark Jones
Hello, Mark Jones here – you're listening to The CMO Show, a marketing podcast made for and by marketing professionals here at ImpactInstitute.
Our workplaces are increasingly dependent on digital technologies and organisations are seeking tech-savvy people with the skills to manage them.
At the same time, the call for more diverse and inclusive organisations has never been louder, but it’s a call the talent pool has often failed to answer – particularly in the tech industry.
So if you’re a leader looking to build diverse, digitally literate teams where do you start? My guest today might just have the answer for you.
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Mark Jones
In today’s episode of The CMO Show, we’re chatting to Cia Kouparitsas, Chief Marketing Officer at WithYouWithMe.
WithYouWithMe is a social enterprise that's designed to help organisations solve their digital skills shortage by identifying and growing talent in the places people don’t always look.
We’re talking underrepresented groups in society such as veterans, neurodivergent individuals, and Indigenous communities, just to name a few.
I spoke with Cia about giving the recruitment business model a bit of a shake-up and the marketing strategies and tactics they’re using to put themselves in front of customers.
We had a great chat, so let’s get into it.
Mark Jones
Hello, and welcome to the CMO Show. My guest today is Cia Kouparitsas, who is the chief marketing officer at WithYouWithMe. Thanks for joining me.
Cia Kouparitsas
Thanks for having me, Mark. Great to be here.
Mark Jones
First question has to be, what do you guys do? What's this name all about?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yes. So we obviously have a bit of an elevator pitch, but I am a fan of storytelling. So in this case, I think it may help if I paint a bit of a picture as to who we are in the background. So WithYouWithMe is a tech company that's all about solving underemployment, which is when someone is employed but not working to their full potential. So we see underemployment everywhere in society and in most workplaces, but most commonly it's in underrepresented communities and groups. So people who may not have been afforded the same opportunities to get a foot in the door. And we do a lot of work in particular with groups including neurodivergent individuals, indigenous communities, youth refugees, and increasingly women in tech as well.
Mark Jones
I saw on your website also there's a defense part of your story working with veterans, right?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yes, so our founder was a veteran who saw his former comrades really struggle with transition as they were often overlooked for roles in the corporate world because they didn't have the right experience. So CB bots would often block these guys from even qualifying for an interview. And as you can imagine, the repercussions of that, of not being able to get a job or find meaningful employment, it's pretty serious and often led to some pretty tragic outcomes.
So at the time, there was a significant demand for tech skills in the market, which, of course, we're still seeing today. And we thought if we can make veterans technologists, then they have a path to a fulfilling and frankly, a future-proof career. Everyone needs tech skills.
So that's what we did. We created a tech platform that draws on an approach honed by the country's biggest employer, which is defence, the military. And we decided if the military can use aptitude testing, skills mapping, and specialised training to get ordinary people doing extraordinary things, then other organisations can as well. So that's what the tech does. It tests a person's aptitude and temperament to understand their potential and work out the skills that we know they'd be great at. And then we match those skills to jobs and careers.
Mark Jones
Hmm. So yeah, it's the classic career coaching, which is, I don't actually know what I'm good at. Survey says defence or any industry, right-
Cia Kouparitsas
Exactly. Totally. And I often think of it like we get asked this question, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it's such a big question that no one really knows the answer to. And part of what we're trying to do with our program is give people the data and the insights to find what they'd be good at to help make that decision. It's this idea of data-driven decision-making that we all do in many aspects of our life, and why not do that when it comes to a career?
Mark Jones
Okay. Now, what about the name itself? Where did that come from?
Cia Kouparitsas
So again, defence and military background, it's a term that a lot of people use in combat when they're about to sort of go into a room they say with you and the other person says with me, and this whole idea that I've got your back, you've got mine. And I think when we started off on this journey, it was very much something that we wanted to say to those people who were embarking on their careers and trusting us with this crazy idea at the time to sort of jump into a tech career that we've got your back, you've got ours.
Cia Kouparitsas
It's also a name that has become quite distinctive over time. We're often referred to as WYWM. And when we went through our rebranding exercise last year, we actually went through the process of creating a new logo. So the old WithYouWithMe logo was just our name, WithYouWithMe.
And part of what we wanted to do, apart from creating a unique aspect so it was not able to be easily imitated, was introduce the WYWM to that logo to start to popularise and to bring some meaning into what that is and how it related to our business. And the idea over time is as we become more well-known and more recognised that the WYWM and the logo will be able to stand by itself a little bit more. Almost like the Apple symbol without apple. But yeah, I think when you are talking about a company like WithYouWithMe that is disruptive and it's doing everything differently. The fact that our name is disruptive and it's not what people would normally think to call a business, has kind of worked in our favour as well. It's memorable in that it's not a normal business name. It's different, and so are we.
Mark Jones
And I do like that 'cause it forces you to get it into your head. And particularly with repetition, you'd be like, "What are they? Okay. Oh, I get it now." Right? So there is a valid strategy behind that, or in shorthand, you can get away with it.
Cia Kouparitsas
Yes.
Mark Jones
So there's an interesting social aspect to this. On the website, it says your social impact company. You've also got a really interesting tech piece and a business model. In your own background, you've got a pretty interesting career across multiple countries and different roles in PR, and comms, and brand. What's the appeal for you? And clearly, this is a company that's big enough for CMO, so that's interesting in and of itself.
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. Look. I think the initial appeal to me was the opportunity, one to work at a tech startup, which I think is really exciting to be able to help build a company from the ground up. But two, the area that this business operates in is so important for a number of reasons. You mentioned the social impact side. That, to me, is such a rare opportunity to be able to contribute to an organisation that isn't solely about making a profit. It is about doing good in the world. And the impact that this business has been able to make is extraordinary. It's been running for seven years. We have more than a hundred thousand users on our platform and have grown from Australia into Canada, into the UK, and soon the US.
So for me as a marketer, seeing the opportunity that that would provide both professionally in my craft but also just to give back and to make a difference was something that really drew me to the role. And it's certainly been a wild ride from a marketing perspective. You have a startup that had exponential growth and did a great job of just going from this tiny little organisation to sort of multiple continents. But with that comes unique challenges because they did a lot of that with a brand that hadn't fully been evolved. And we're still trying to work out the narrative and what the value proposition is for various customers at various times in the journey, the fact that we work across both B2B, B2C. So yeah, it's been a privilege, I guess, to be able to contribute to that and certainly a career highlight for me.
Mark Jones
I want to get into the business side a bit more in a second, but before we do that, just on you and your own journey, tell me about your mindset. One of the things that we battle with in this space is long-term versus short-term thinking. You want to make a difference now. Maybe it's going to take a bit longer than I thought. That's like a home renovation takes twice as long, twice as much as you thought.
Cia Kouparitsas
It is. Yeah.
Mark Jones
Is that true to your experience or something else?
Cia Kouparitsas
No. It's great, and it is true. I very much have sort of two hats that I wear. One is the business as usual, the steadying the ship, delivering the core strategy and capability that we need for our business today. And we work in one-year, three-year, and five-year programs.
The other side is the fact that we have to have that long-term view. We want this company to be around for a very long time and to completely reshape a sector, essentially. So balancing that day-to-day with what we see strategically as growth opportunities is a challenge. And I personally, as a leader, make sure that I carve out time in my week. I won't say every single day, but in my week to keep stoking those fires for those longer term opportunities. And that's the US is a great example of that. It's a new market for us. It's definitely somewhere I see the future of this business, but it's got to be balanced with the existing markets, customers, users that we have, which is predominantly Australia, Canada, and UK at the moment.
Mark Jones
From a leadership point of view, tell me about the group, the team of people on your leadership team, and also your founders and board of directors. It's actually, I'm not going to say, a cast of thousands, maybe a cast of a dozen, but at a pretty interesting set of experiences there. As a marketer, how are you approaching that dynamic?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah, great question. So we are very lucky in that we have a very diverse leadership team, and that again speaks to the heart of who we are as a business, and we practice what we preach. So this idea of needing cognitive diversity in teams, you can't have all of the same people from all of the same background. You're just not going to get the diversity of thought that you need to thrive and to innovate.
Our CEO, Tom Larter, has been with this company from the start. So Tom brings an incredible institutional knowledge of what we do. He's also got a military background, and that is extraordinary for when, in particular, we're working with our defence customers. We have an incredible panel of advisors as well. So this has been one of our very deliberate strategies to give our brand the advocacy and the reach that we need, particularly in new markets.
And a great example of one of those is a person called Sally Walker, who is the former director of cyber for GCHQ, which is the UK cyber intelligence agency. And Sally essentially built the UK cyber force for Boris Johnson, like an absolutely brilliant person. And we work with Sally to basically connect us into government, to businesses who are trying to build a cyber force. And she helps advocate that we can build cyber skills from scratch. You don't need to look to those traditional places that they may have come from.
Mark Jones
The insight here is that for a startup, and I don't know if seven years technically is still a startup, but let's go with it, still new, growing, emerging company, credibility is a big deal, and trust, likewise. So sort of parallel tracks, if you like. So the advisors bringing in these people with impressive credentials is a pretty clever strategy, but how do you market that? So I imagine at the point of sale, it's a really good thing. Who are these people again? Should we trust them, right? So it's useful there, but what about up at the awareness level? What's your thoughts on that as a strategy?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. So Sally... I'll use another great example from Sally because she was actually just recently at in Australia because we essentially needed help building advocacy at more senior levels in government. So we're not an unknown brand here in Australia, but we do need people advocating and helping to see the value. And Sally is someone who has built a cyber force from the ground up.
So we brought Sally over here and did a road roadshow with her through Sydney and Canberra, where she essentially met with senior leaders in government in the commercial sector. We complimented that with having a program of high-profile events that Sally keynoted because she was a visiting international delegate. We had a big media outreach and a media blitz. She spoke to ABC. She was in the AFR. There was a whole range of media. And for me, that really demonstrated the end-to-end value that you get because, for those who hadn't heard of us, the awareness phase that you mentioned, it was the Sally Walker show. She was everywhere. And it actually did generate a lot of inbound leads.
But for the longer-term customers or opportunities where we were looking for endorsement perhaps at a more senior level or to build some kind of urgency or just that trust that you spoke about, she certainly helped move those opportunities much further into the funnel, which was great.
Mark Jones
That sounds a bit like an influencer strategy. Did you borrow something from that space?
Cia Kouparitsas
Well, it is. It's not like one of the trendy TikTok influencer strategies, but I guess it's the concept applied to the B2B world, and it's one that I would highly recommend. A challenge is finding these people who genuinely believe in you and your product and making sure that you've got a values alignment. We're very lucky in that the space we play in is something that resonates with a lot of people. There are a lot of people who are looking to improve the employment landscape and to bring greater diversity into workplaces. So for us, it's been a very natural transition.
Mark Jones
I'm just thinking about the listener who's like, "See? That's a great idea. How do I do that?" Obviously, you've got to pay these people, right? So how does it work? If somebody wanted to replicate that story of Sally Walker, what would they do?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. Look. So there's many different models that you can apply here. We have our advisors either on a retainer or we pay them on a project basis. And as I said, it really is, for us, it was meeting these people organically, building connections over time. It's not something that necessarily happens overnight because this person needs to believe in the business, as I said, but just being very open in terms of what are your values, what do you want to get from this, and what do we want to get from it. So I would recommend sitting down at the table, working out a mutual strategy, and building it from there. But I do think, again, for a business like ours, and you're right, it's not quite a startup anymore. I'd certainly say it's a scale-up. Having access to the brains trust of people like this is wonderful as well, because these are people who are leaders in their field who can not only support us from that customer side or from the user side, but who can also help shape our business and give us feedback on ideas and strategies.
Mark Jones
If we connect that story then to the company more broadly, is it about 300 people? Is that right?
Cia Kouparitsas
So it is. Globally speaking, we have around 300 people who are either operational staff or deployed into our partner organisations.
Mark Jones
Hmm. And tell me about the story then, because I think the story or the narrative that we touched on at the beginning, which is underemployment, making a difference, creating opportunities using data, that whole piece really, I would imagine, is the thread that holds together the team, the thread of people, and this board, right? Or the advisors. So yeah, they don't just join a random startup. There's got to be the just cause that greater vision.
Mark Jones
I guess the question would be, how did you go about refining that and creating narratives that appeal to those two different stakeholder groups?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. Look. Vision is absolutely critical in everything that we do. So making sure everyone is aligned in what we ultimately want to achieve is important. I think the other aspect of it is the human component. So we want to affect change at scale. To do that, we need to have organisations come on board, and we need to provide a value proposition that speaks to them. But to do that, we need to have the human element as well. So really capturing the people whose lives we're changing and the impact that we're making is critical for getting all of our stakeholders on the same page. So we do a lot of engagement of our user community to understand their backstory, how our program has changed their world, and then the difference that's making into their employment with organisations around the world.
And yeah, I think making sure that each of our advocates, whether it's one of our senior advisors who's championing us or if it's our salespeople, having a very clear picture as to how that story translates the whole way through. It's about the individual, it's about better outcomes, and it's about changing the landscape of the employment sector to enable these people to have access to the careers that they deserve.
[STING]
Mark Jones
Now, a couple of nuts and bolts things we probably should also cover off for the listener, which is point of difference. Now there's... I don't know how many thousands of recruiting companies out there. We've discussed your market space and the approach that you bring, but how do you tell the story in a way that instantly grabs hold of the right people?
Cia Kouparitsas
So recruitment is not the space that we play in. It's one aspect of it. And I think what makes us different is we have different streams, but no one offers that end-to-end like we do. So you have aptitude tests in the market. You have psychometric. You have learning style assessment. You have training courses where people are able to upskill and learn skills. You have recruitment. You have workforce management, where you can go into an organisation and actually map out how skills translate to roles. The point of difference that our business has is it's that end-to-end piece, and underpinning all of it is that social impact. So it's not just about finding tech talent, filling digital skills gaps. It's not just about building skills frameworks and enabling workforce strategy. It's about doing it in a socially responsible way, and that's something that's quite unique in the market. And I think it's why we've had such rapid traction because different players are doing different parts of it, but no one's doing the end-to-end like we are.
Mark Jones
So what are the indicators of success for you, then? How are you getting a sense of progress because it's no secret to us, particularly at ImpactInstitute, that measuring social impact is not for the faint-hearted?
Cia Kouparitsas
No, it's not. As a whole, part of what we're trying to do is change one organisation at a time. So on the user side of the piece, the B2C, we have very clear metrics that we are charting, and that is user growth. So how many people are signing up to our platform? Of those who sign up, how many are graduating from a course? How many are going into meaningful careers? So that's one very important metric that we can say this is how many people we're actually helping.
From the organisational side, we're very much focusing on embedding ourselves in major organisations that can be the early adopters to bring forward a shift in the industry. So we are working with every defence force, every government, and a lot of big commercials in each of our markets. We're not working with everyone, but we need to be really enforcing what we're doing with those early adopters.
Mark Jones
So what are the biggest problems you've got then?
Cia Kouparitsas
That's a big question.
Mark Jones
I know, but as a marketer, just through the marketing lens. I'm not talking about work-life balance. I'm talking about what are the challenges you face in a growth market. You've got global operations. You've got multiple parts of people's lives where you can make an impact. So I imagine within that sort of broad canvas, there's a question of focus, doing the bits you're good at and maybe leaving some other parts of it.
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. Definitely. I would say that's part of the challenge that there is so much opportunity, and we need to be very laser-focused in terms of what it is that we're chasing down. Because we are actually, from an operational perspective, quite a small team.
Budget is always going to be an issue. Every market always wants more budget. And a lot of the time, we're challenged to be really creative in terms of how we can generate greatest impact or bang for buck, so to speak. So that's something that we're constantly trying to do.
And yeah, I think the other side of the piece is knowing that when you have a social impact program and a free product essentially because the social impact side of our business provides access to our technology training and job placement for free to those underrepresented communities, there's an element of it's too good to be true and is this real.
So to the points that I've raised previously around the importance of building credibility, that's something that's constantly in focus. We want our user community to absolutely trust our product and trust the journey with us, and that's very important for us to get right.
Mark Jones
Sounds like you're leaving some money on the table. You probably should charge them 50 bucks so they feel better.
Cia Kouparitsas
Defeats the purpose of social impact, Mark.
Mark Jones
Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry. That was my CEO brain that just came through there for a second. Right. Back to being a podcast host. What lessons have you learned from that low-budget, high-impact dilemma?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. So I would say one of the most valuable things has been looking internally at what we have that could be of value. An example of that that's worked really well for our business is developing research and reports. In some cases, we have partnered with respected groups like YouGov. But from a low-budget, high-impact kind of perspective, what has driven more value is pulling together our own reports. So as a business, we are very fortunate we're sitting on a gold mine of data. Our tech platform has more than a hundred thousand people who are testing and training, and we can anonymize the data and identify important trends and insights. And one that comes to mind is research that we've done around neurodivergent talent, so autistic, dyslexic, and ADHD individuals, and how valuable their cognitive diversity is in the workplace.
So we have this data. We create the report. It positions us as experts and thought leaders, but it's also really topical. This is information that organisations need and the industry needs. So it generates media interest. It creates MQL's inbound traffic. And also, because often it is a social impact angle, we'll get interest from industry awards, which extends the reach and credibility further. And then there's the whole annual schedule of content. Having these reports, you can just carve them up and keep using them to reengage the audiences over time. So I would recommend something like that.
Mark Jones
Quick jargon check. MQL.
Cia Kouparitsas
Oh, marketing qualified lead. Sorry.
Mark Jones
Just for those playing at home, we might have a little question. So reports are interesting. All right. They've been around a long time as an idea, as a tool, how do you make them work even at a very simple level? And I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole, but I didn't know they were still hot in that way in terms of being able to generate the amount of leads you're talking about because there are a lot of gates or barriers to success in that strategy.
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. So the earlier report I was talking about in terms of neurodivergent talent, that is one where many organisations are actually looking to bring neurodivergent talent into their organisations because they do recognise that cognitive diversity is an important thing. So the research that we have is enough to pique their interest in terms of the skills and abilities these individuals could bring. But we also then complement that with case studies, how to practical guides, tips for the workplace.
The other thing that's been really valuable is diversity, equity, and inclusion reports. So we try every 12 to 18 months to do what's the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Australian workforce, for example. And that is one that we do with YouGov, where it assesses 500 organisations to understand where they're currently at in terms of their practices in that space. And then we introduce a benchmarking element. So not only can you see how the industry is performing, but how does your organisation stack up against that? And often that ability to put yourself in the picture and to see how and where you stack up in regards to a best practice approach is enough to generate the interest for someone to actually want to download that report.
Mark Jones
Somebody a little while ago introduced the phrase to me, "Are you a thought leader, or are you a thought follower?" And we pay a lot of attention to this idea of being a thought leader, but actually to come up with new ideas takes the sort of research that you are talking about. For some, it can be done if you have the right resources. For others, if you don't have the resources, it's just sort of a bit of a nice pipe driven, and they'll just sort of stick to digital marketing. Is there sort of a way into assessing whether or not the strategy, the approach we're talking about is right for you?
Cia Kouparitsas
Yeah. I think it's really important if you're going into the report space to actually be an expert or be a leader in that space. I know a lot of organisations might want to use it as a tactic, but unless you're actually the one who has the data or the experts to back it up, I probably wouldn't necessarily go down that path.
I think for us, the idea of being a thought leader is something we really need to stay on top of. When we launched this business eight years ago, it was a disruption to market, nothing existed like it. And there was a lot of pushback initially as well because the employment market in particular was used to hiring office CV or acquiring a university degree, and that's a really difficult pattern of behaviour to shake. So for us, being a disruptive business, having reports and research and leading that conversation is really important because it's very specific to our business strategy in terms of what we need to do to steer the conversation to where we need it to go. So I think if it fits the long-term business strategy, it's definitely an avenue worth exploring.
Mark Jones
Hmm. Okay. Yeah. I'm fascinated about that because, when we think about the conversations we've had with many guests on the CMO show over the years, this is probably where things get most pointy around your point of difference, around what makes you different, and whether or not you are just a follower looking to catch a small segment of the pie or are actually, whether you have these broader global ambitions. So I think, yeah, your experience is a really interesting one to reflect on. What's the future, then? What's on your radar? What are the big hills to climb? How are you carving up your budgets for next year? What else is on your mind?
Cia Kouparitsas
Look. Again, another big question, but I think for me personally, the most exciting opportunity for our business is the go-to-market in the United States. So I mentioned the global markets we operate in last year was all about launching in the UK, which was a really successful endeavour. I think within 24 months, we're on track to become profitable in that market, which is quite extraordinary. And I would say a large part of the success in that market has been through partners. So I mentioned the influencers and lending on that credibility.
We also established a network of other partners in that market, people who we could go to market with. There's a great group called Capita that bring us into many business opportunities that they have, industry associations like techUK, and then technology partners like Microsoft as well. So we kind of worked out the formula for entering a market in the UK, and we are doing that again in the US but taking a slightly different approach.
This time, we've formed a strategic partnership with the GED testing service. And for those who don't know the GED, it's this iconic American institution that's essentially the high school equivalency diploma in the states. So I think they see around 700,000 students go through the GED each year. And initially, we worked with them to sort of support their learners through that journey by providing some of our assessments at the front-end and in particular learning preference so that they could find out how they best learn to inform their study and hopefully help them graduate the GED. That has now evolved, and we're looking to support them further through what we're calling the GED Tech Apprenticeship.
And essentially, it's this idea, this model that we have that you can build talent from the ground up. It can come from underrepresented diverse talent pools like GED graduates who may not have had the traditional education but who have grit, resilience, and a desire to step into a meaningful career. And that's how we're launching in the US. And for us as a tiny business, it makes a lot of sense because we don't have that brand. We don't have that network or that presence in the United States, but we can support the GED and helping them achieve their vision to support their learners, and they can support us in helping expand our footprint in the United States.
Mark Jones
Partnering is always clever. And you've shown that you've already done that in other markets, as you say, but where did the idea come from for GED?
Cia Kouparitsas
So we're very fortunate in that. One of our investors is Pearson, which is a global edutech company, huge, incredible company. And we also have one of our board directors who is based in the US and has been involved in the GED in the past. So getting to know these groups, these technologies that they have, the educational institution, our board put two and two together and realised that it would be a really nice alignment of value. So it was right place, right time, and now we're looking at right execution to make sure that we can realise the full potential of that. Because for anyone who knows the US market, it is exciting, dynamic, but very hairy for a little Australian company to be trying to navigate the waters of, and to have an organisation like GED, who genuinely wants to help people just like we do, but who has the brand, the recognition, the reach to be able to do that at scale, is very exciting.
Mark Jones
What advice do you give yourself? And I'm asking on behalf of everyone else who's wanting to learn from your journey going into that space. You've had the experience with the UK, but what do you think is going to give you the best shot as a CMO going into that space? What's the right mindset and the right approach?
Cia Kouparitsas
I think you touched on it earlier. So it's really important to keep your eye on the vision and the long-term plan, but it's imperative that we have small, short-term horizons to help us get there. And it's just constantly working out, what do we need to do in the next three months to make this model viable and to prove that it works? What do we then do to scale that to the next step, and to the next, and to the next?
I think if you look at the vision of what we want to do, it's big, and it freaks a lot of people out. But if you break that down into those bite-sized bits, it becomes a lot more manageable, and everyone can come along for the ride. We've got vast stakeholders across multiple geographies at different levels. We've got different partners, as you've mentioned, and it's really important that we can articulate a plan and a programme that makes sense, that's considered, and that is very easy to follow so that it helps make sure that we are making the right inroads towards getting to that big, crazy dream.
Mark Jones
Well, I'm all about big, crazy dreams, big, crazy ideas, as anybody on my team will know, not short of them. So I love the visionary stuff, but you've also, in your role, being able to translate that to a lot of practical strategies and programs, such as the advisors and these other activities with partners, so it's really good to see the sort of mix there. So look, fascinating journey. Thank you so much for joining me on the CMO Show. No doubt, people can Google you and find WithYouWithMe on the web. And again, all the best with the road ahead.
Cia Kouparitsas
Thank you so much, Mark. It's been great.
Mark Jones:
That was Cia Kouparitsas from WithYouWithMe. I really liked how the company is staying true to their vision of reshaping the global employment landscape, and using a fresh approach to recruitment and training to make a real change.
Our conversation was a fresh reminder of how important it is to look for solutions in places you might not otherwise look when trying to solve a problem.
In this case, it’s the perfect way to find yourself with an untapped talent pool of potential.
Thank you for joining me on today’s episode – we'll see you next time.