My ongoing series in partnership with Entrepreneur, If I Knew Then: Leadership Lessons, is a unique platform for hosting virtual fireside chats with high-profile CEOs of major brands, from Indeed and Nextdoor, to GoDaddy and DocuSign. These insightful sessions spotlight the minds of successful leaders as they share one-of-a kind advice and lessons for both current and future entrepreneurs.
For our 16th episode, I spoke with Ben Chestnut, the CEO of Mailchimp, a company he co-founded with Dan Kurzius in 2001 as a side project to their web design agency. Together, they designed Mailchimp to be a delightful, yet powerful email marketing tool that gives small businesses access to technology that was once reserved for larger enterprises. The company has now evolved into a platform that helps small businesses with everything from buying a domain name and setting up a website, to creating an online store and setting up eCommerce marketing automation.
Headquartered in Atlanta, where Chestnut received his bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Georgia Tech, Mailchimp has impressively scaled in growth over the past two decades, but its mission remains the same: to empower the underdog. Chestnut leads a team of 1,200 employees across six offices, including in Atlanta, Brooklyn, Oakland, Santa Monica, Seattle and Vancouver. Mailchimp helps empower millions of businesses and entrepreneurs globally with savvy marketing, commerce tools and award-winning customer support.
Source: Entrepreneur.com