Mirror Review had an opportunity to talk with Enrico Palmerino, the CEO and Founder of Botkeeper. We started the conversation by asking him about his ideal leader. To this Enrico replied, “My ideal leader is someone whose vision and values are so closely intertwined that their decision-making appears effortless, clear, and concise despite the odds.”
According to Enrico, to turn an impossible idea into reality, a good leader motivates, inspires, and attracts the best talent. Enrico adds an intuitive thought, “Leaders turn problems into opportunities, junior employees into great managers and leaders, and encourage others to be their best selves.”
Personally, he idolizes Hap Klopp, the Founder of The North Face. His leadership was one of a kind. Klopp had offered a lifetime warranty on The North Face products and issued their replacements to people who mailed in non-The North Face jackets mistakenly. Others said such economics wouldn’t work, but Klopp stood strong and didn’t compromise on his vision and values. He also took great care of his employees working at The North Face, making it an internationally recognized brand as it is today.
In the upcoming article, Enrico answers our set of questions that uncovers his successful journey of enriching Botkeeper towards continued growth.
Empowering the Team to Conquer Challenges
As a leader, what are the challenges you have to face, and how do you conquer them?
There are numerous challenges that arise around marketing, growth, resource constraints, speed, stability, morale, and product, and knowing when to iterate vs. double down and push forward. I do not rely on myself to conquer the problems; instead I surround myself with a driven, passionate, and experienced team who can resolve these challenges. After all, a united team always wins the game, not an individual player. It is my responsibility to advise and guide but also trust those who are intimately involved in a given matter to execute the strategy and make the appropriate judgment calls. I find my greatest value is painting a picture of where I want to go, asking the tough questions, and lending a hand when someone is struggling. And most importantly, getting out of the way so as to not bottleneck or hold the team back. As a leader, I rarely conquer the challenges faced by the company but rather empower those on the team to defeat the challenges themselves.
It’s the Team that Turns Ideas into Reality
How’s your team? What is the importance of a team for a leader?
My team is aligned towards the same values of the company as I am. They possess an intense drive to thrive despite the odds. We proactively lend a hand to others even if it means more work for us personally. I consider my team as the lifeblood of Botkeeper. We are an extremely driven team that survives on execution, passion, and freedom. Everyone in the company has a strong sense of ownership over their departments or functions, and can easily see and measure how their individual contribution rolls up into the company’s success or failure. This tightly-woven dynamics between an individual, team, and company goals creates a family-like bond internally and also instills accountability and feeling of working towards the whole vs. individual success. I am just a person with an idea to make bookkeeping better for our clients; it is our team that has converted that idea into reality which stands tall by the name—Botkeeper.
Botkeeper’s Automated Bookkeeping with Insightful Financials and Reporting
Introduce us to Botkeeper.
Botkeeper is a global company with offices, employees, and clients in several countries. Our company represents the future of bookkeeping. We provide effortless and accurate bookkeeping for businesses and accountants with insightful financials and reporting at the lowest cost possible. Our skilled and experienced team of super-accountants are powered by software and AI to deliver exceptional customer service while delivering robust, accurate, and timely financials possible. We help our clients to focus on growing and scaling their businesses as our software automates many of the tedious and manual tasks associated with bookkeeping. Likewise, a unified Financial Hub oversees and manages the financial health of your company. This enables us to deliver an effortless bookkeeping solution with insightful dashboards and reporting that provides fast, consistent, and accurate financials to our clients.
Helping Clients to Increase Profitability
How do you see the future of your venture over the next decade?
We want to help our clients increase profitability and reduce the failure rate of businesses, ultimately making them worry-free and happier. Over the next decade, our goal is to become the largest provider of bookkeeping services on the planet. Thereby, delivering accurate, timely financials, and reporting to 10s of thousands of companies and accounting firms at affordable price points. Following our mission, we aim to enable business owners and accountants alike to do more with fewer resources, make better business decisions, and be more successful as a result.
It’s a Leader’s Role to Motivate, Inspire, Attract, and Retain the Best People Possible
What advise you would like to offer to the aspiring leaders?
As a young leader, you are supposed to be inspirational, helpful, and surround yourself with individuals who are smarter and better than you at every given task and function. It is your role to motivate, inspire, attract, and retain the best people possible and point them in the direction that you want to head and then encourage them to utilize their skills to get you there. Thus, once you identify the mountain you want to climb, recruit the best team to get you to the top, and build a greater future together.
