Oct 5, 2026 · 39 min · 10 segments
Anna Kelk has spent her whole career inside rocket ships. She started out at Ask.com (the Ask Jeeves search engine) back in 2001, helped scale A Cloud Guru from around $20 million to $140 million ARR…
How do, how do you maintain that culture when you're going through those intense growth periods? Because naturally hiring goes from...
Well, n- hiring has to, there's more of a speed element that comes into it, isn't there? So, um, you know, you have to open up your parameters a little bit more sometimes as well to get the volume of staff in that you need to deliver the work.
So what's, how have you seen cultures being maintained in that real kind of growth period?
I think you have to be really deliberate about building culture and maintaining it.
It's not just a, something which is built and that you can walk away from and e- and expect it to flourish.
Hiring the right people in those environments, although it needs to be fast, you can't compromise on hiring the right people.
Hiring the wrong people can have such a negative impact both on culture, but also a negative impact on, on business and, and outcomes as well.
So you've got to be very deliberate about nurturing that culture and, and what that means in real terms is that you ensure that every hire coming in is aligned with the culture that you want to build.
You could have a, a brilliant person who's going to drive outcomes, but if that person alienates, um-
So there's the piece about hiring and making sure that you're getting the right people in, but I think the other piece is around it's top-down.
They all have to be reflecting the values and the culture and, and the things which everyone believes in for it to be meaningful as well.
How do, how do you maintain that culture when you're going through those intense growth periods? Because naturally hiring goes from...
Well, n- hiring has to, there's more of a speed element that comes into it, isn't there? So, um, you know, you have to open up your parameters a little bit more sometimes as well to get the volume of staff in that you need to deliver the work.
So what's, how have you seen cultures being maintained in that real kind of growth period?
I think you have to be really deliberate about building culture and maintaining it.
It's not just a, something which is built and that you can walk away from and e- and expect it to flourish.
Hiring the right people in those environments, although it needs to be fast, you can't compromise on hiring the right people.
Hiring the wrong people can have such a negative impact both on culture, but also a negative impact on, on business and, and outcomes as well.
So you've got to be very deliberate about nurturing that culture and, and what that means in real terms is that you ensure that every hire coming in is aligned with the culture that you want to build.
You could have a, a brilliant person who's going to drive outcomes, but if that person alienates, um-
So there's the piece about hiring and making sure that you're getting the right people in, but I think the other piece is around it's top-down.
They all have to be reflecting the values and the culture and, and the things which everyone believes in for it to be meaningful as well.
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