KAYA Global 'Inside Voices' Series: Senior Manager of Business Development Andrew Christensen on Culture Driven Valuation

This article is part of our KAYA Global Inside Voices series, which presents the perspectives of our team on topics such as AI/ML, our platform, recruiting, tech jobs, etc. Our Senior Manager of Business Development, Andrew Christensen , was the main contributor to this piece. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his partner and enjoys backpacking, photography and reading - preferably with a glass of pinot noir.

Andrew's Background

Like many entertaining stories, mine begins in an unassuming, mundane setting. To be more specific, in the lower middle class struggle of suburban Wisconsin - where joining the bourgeoisie was considered the pinnacle of upward class mobility. After a trip west to the Rocky Mountains when I was 8, I was imbibed with an explorer's undying thirst for discovery. I dreamed big but lacked the ingredients and skill needed to weave the threads of fantasy into the fabric of reality. I joined the Marine Corps to attain both the education and the discipline that a trajectory change fundamentally requires.

After 5 years in the Marines, I attended the University of San Diego, where I graduated with a degree in Finance. My interest in startups was initiated by a venture capital internship that covered my junior and senior year.

The internship was a unique model that gave students the opportunity to deploy real investment dollars into some of the world's fasted growing companies. I was lucky enough to perform diligence on companies such as Airbnb, 23andMe, Lyft, and FlexPort in 2018 - 2019.

Why Culture Shouldn't be a Buzzword

My VC internship ignited fascination about company culture and its contribution to a firm's success. It's astounding how little mission, vision and culture is emphasized in undergraduate studies. A company's vision and mission shape a firm's culture, culture dictates a firm's organizational structure, thus driving the firm's valuation.

One of my big lessons I learned in the Marines is that the world's most successful organizations have the strongest cultures. It's not a secret that Marines view themselves as the best of the 6 branches (a view rooted in both arrogance and reality). They foster this idea by filtering for recruits that are looking for the intangible. They raise their standards while offering the same financial benefits as the other branches. The message: if your reason for joining isn't to earn the title of Marine, then you don't belong here.

In the corporate world, Apple, HubSpot, and Adobe offer great examples. Apple's culture of flawless design and user experience manifests in its building architecture and hyper-employee specialization. HubSpot's 'no-door' policy is meant to encourage the flow of knowledge throughout the organization. Creativity is so essential to Adobe's success that it has a vice-president position dedicated to fostering it.

Transitioning from Stalwart to Startup

After college, Andrew spent a year in equity research before joining Silicon Valley Bank. He spent 18 months doing credit underwriting and portfolio management before transitioning to a more client facing role in the Startup Banking team. It was here that he worked within customer success, sales and business development. He got a knack for landing outbound leads, which lead to over $15M dollars in deposits while maintaining a growing portfolio of around 500 clients.

His passion for learning combined with his close work in early stage companies helped keep him ready for the perfect opportunity. When SVB collapsed in March 2022, he came across a Pre-Series A company that afforded him the opportunity to learn new skills in a different industry while allowing him to shape his position into whatever he wants it to be.

Doing Business Development

Business Development (or BD) is a relatively new field. Essentially, it stemmed from companies trying to increase their inbound leads and brand presence via partnerships and networking. The objective is to 'warm up' prospects before they interact with an SDR. It's a blend of sales and marketing roles that requires the employees to understand their customers and finding a way to use other brands to offer a more complete experience than competitors. You have to be in-tune with industry trends and a master networker.

At KAYA, Andrew started off with BD and Sales but quickly put on marketing, product, and operations hats. He's currently taking the lead for the candidate experience process, helping a scrum team with prompting KAYA's AI, and heading a small team to establish KAYA's social media presence.

Working at a Startup

Andrew is hoping to be able to continue to develop his leadership skills at KAYA. He believes that working within the different departments will built the organizational, technical, and people skills needed to be an effective leader.

Startups are exciting and they all seem sexy on the surface level, but below the surface they are deceivingly complicated. One thing he learned is that building from scratch is not always up and to the right. Building a blueprint and executing a design is much more complex in a startup because all of the departments are figuring it out. The limited human resources make priority differences between teams much more pronounced.

People give larger companies flak for bureaucracy, but they don't realize that bureaucracy grants unappreciated luxuries. The employees benefit from streamlined inter-departmental communication, specialization and a 'next-person' up depth chart. These pre-established frameworks allow people to step into roles and be successful. At a startup, every time change happens, the departments need to reorganize their priorities instantly and in unison to be continue being productive.