Pros
Good Social environment, nice offices
Cons
I started at Xero in late 2012 where i was hired as the first sales person for WorkflowMax, a product Xero acquired 10 months earlier. I was told during the final interview i would be reporting overseas and would be separate from the rest of the sales team as they wanted the team focussed on selling the accounting software, not distracted by other products, however I would be included in all meetings, activities etc. This was true to an extent but the following 3.5 years was an interesting experience. I was given opportunities to build out teams and grow revenue, which we did by 5 fold over that period. But there were far more negatives than positives. Over 3.5 years I was at Xero i was ‘reminded’ weekly from everyone from the MDs down to PDRs that ‘we didn’t count’, ‘we didn’t matter’, ‘we weren’t important’. This was told to me and my team, globally. Xero has a culture of excluding those who aren’t involved in the ‘core’ product, despite their ‘inclusive’ marketing. We were run in a silo, given little to no investment, no strategic direction from the executive, little to no support and as mentioned above, reminded consistently we didn’t belong. Xero has a value of ‘challenge’ which is about driving change so i hatched a little plan to lobby the executive for change. In addition to the cultural challenges due to the silo, WorkflowMax was showing signs of slowing, decreasing sales conversions and increasing churn. The plan involved the sales team to report regionally to break down the silo and align sales channels, marketing team to align with product marketing and my role to be made redundant (no need for a GM) and move in to helping fix the product, or, leave the business if there was no role available. The executive told us it wasn’t going to happen, without explanation and we were to stay in the silo. I left the business. Don’t get me wrong, I was young, misunderestimated how political Xero had become and there are a million things I would have done differently while I was there. However, looking back now, Xero is a siloed business with a culture of exclusion and bullying that impacted significantly on my mental wellbeing. If you’re not being hired to work on the accounting software, reconsider the role
