Building Organizational Culture Amidst Transitions and Layoffs

Emily Sander talks with Yorm Ackuaku about building visibility as a Chief of Staff, especially in marketing-led organizations like Vista and Weight Watchers. Yorm shares practical tactics, such as highlighting team achievements on Slack, running engaging all-hands meetings, and managing culture during layoffs. She also gives advice for Chiefs of Staff working with new principals and for those navigating global teams.

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Time Stamps:
00:47 Making the CoS Role Visible

02:34 First 30 Days Relationship Map

06:30 Culture Rituals and Recognition

10:09 Leading Through Layoffs

13:34 Partnering With Your Principal

16:17 Adapting to a New CMO Style

21:09 Global Career and Culture Lessons

35:36 Final Advice and Wrap Up

Transcript

0:06

Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 0:25

My guest today is Yorm Akueakue, and she was an associate chief of staff at Vista, and then a chief of staff at Weight Watchers, both to CMO principals. So I wanna hear all about that, but first of all, welcome to the show, Yorm

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 0:42

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 0:44

Beautiful.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 0:45

forward to our conversation

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 0:46

as well.

Making the CoS Role Visible

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 0:47

you were in these chief of staff positions, and I know you and I have talked about how you built the, built visibility of the chief of staff role through some marketing campaigns and through some marketing initiatives. So can you kick us off with how you do that? 'Cause loads of chiefs of staff are like, "I'm in a chief of staff role. I kind of do this thing over here, and not a lot of people know what I do," but you've built up visibility in both of your chief of staff roles.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 1:14

Yeah, I think, um, so I think when I think about the differences between a CEO principal, who by virtue of the, of just being the CEO chief of staff, you are at the center of the enterprise, you have that visibility by default, and the impact that you have is also then visible by default. I think when you support, um, a CMO or any kind of functional leader, then you have to think about how do you build your own visibility given kind of the function that you're sitting in. think you also have to think about your business literacy tied to that specific function, because when you start to raise your visibility, then that's the credibility people are... That's the lens through which people are gonna look at you and your chief of staff role. So that's also important. And then I think what's also important, and was very clear at Vistaprint and then also at Weight Watchers, is the importance of that function to the broader enterprise, right? So at Vistaprint and then also at Weight Watchers, like marketing was the center of the enterprise business. We drove a large portion of our, um, underlying, you know, demand revenue engine, um, Vistaprint very clearly so. And so from that perspective, you could, you could almost argue that there was also an auto de-default there, being the chief of staff or associate chief of staff to the CMO in that marketing was critical to driving the business.

First 30 Days Relationship Map

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 2:34

Um, and I would say at Weight Watchers specifically, and in particular, first step thing that I did was just building those foundational relationships. So first 30 days, spending that time leaning very heavily on your, "I'm new here, I don't know anything," talking to as many people as possible, and then asking, asking each person who's a good person to talk to next. So starting to build the, the relationships from the ground up would be my advice in terms of the beginning of that visibility. And then as you think about programs down the road, you have kind of the political capital, the relationship capital, and then also the support across functions to help you to be able to do that.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 3:16

So you're building it from the ground up with your first 30 days. But also it's a good point that the marketing in these organizations in particular were emphasized and were a big deal, so they almost drove the business in different ways than other organizations might.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 3:31

Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I think you had started to talk about culture a little bit, and I, I can give you a very clear example because I just had this conversation with someone just even about how we drove culture at WeightWatchers specifically. So when I first came on, um, our CMO, her initial mandate to me was we need to build a high-performing team like that. She... 'cause her background was in startups. This was gonna be her first big corporate role, and she wanted to bring kind of that ethos into that corporate environment. And so pa-part of my early mandate was we need to build a high-performing culture. People need to understand what being recognized looks like, what being really good your job looks like, what, what, what being accountable to each other looks like. and then also the idea of being okay to, um, it being okay to fail, right? And so even before the org kind of nailed down culture and values, we started doing that within the marketing team. So specific things we did, we did, and I also-- let me also point out that we were at, um, an inflection point at WeightWatchers when I joined, moving from more of a regional distributed organization to one that was global, with North America being kind of the center and headquart-quarters of the organization. And so really thinking then about how do we build culture for an organization that's used to kind of just being like, "We're the European business, we're the Australian business." Now we are truly a global team, was how my CMO was thinking about it. And so one of the first things we did was in a leadership offsite, having that first like line of defense, our senior leadership team coming together and really thinking about what are the key things that we want this this global team, to feel in terms of belonging, um, in terms of getting their work done, in terms of their identity as a global marketing team. And we landed on three principles that we were then going to share with the broader team. I hope I'm about to remember this now that I'm say-saying this out loud. Um, One of the things we really wanted to do was embed the idea of who our consumer persona is. So I think we called it... We went through so many iterations. I think we called it a life flavor. So really thinking about who the consumer persona and putting ourselves in their shoes. So if you're in a meeting making a decision, put yourself in the consumer's shoes versus, um, the research and the data. Like, really combine those two things in thinking about how you make decisions. Um, another principle was just making big bets, being okay to fail, 'cause that wasn't a true principle or core principle at that time that we were putting this organization together. And then the final, um, principle, I can't think of it off the top of my head. But either way, those three principles, we set them up, and then we came back to the organizat- to the marketing team and said, "Hey, the leadership team met. These are the things we think is what's gonna make, um, our culture great and help us do the kind of real high impactful work we want to do." Um- And this is how we're going

Culture Rituals and Recognition

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 6:30

to implement it. So low-hanging fruit, we're gonna do this on Slack every Thursday. We're going to, um, highlight people who are sh- you know, who are displaying these principles. So if someone was in a meeting and they were able to s- sort of step into the consumer's shoes, we shout that person out. Bring an insight that was able to help drive a campaign, we, we shout that person out. If you failed at something, big or small and you're able to like share that and then the lesson that you learned from it. So it was super low-hanging fruit, and it was something that we did right away that st- started to coalesce the team around culture principles. Then we pulled that into our monthly all-hands meeting. So started to interview, um, Weight Watchers members as part of our, just the marketing team. We brought in Weight Watchers members and talked to them about their experience as a Weight Watchers member, and really brought work that we were doing every day to life for the team. then ultimately, um, because marketing was so core to the organization, we had... We invite, um, cross, cross-functional partners to our all-hands. Um, as the chief of staff to the CEO at the time would pop in every once in a while, and then she was just coming regularly and was telling everybody, "You have to go to the marketing team all-hands." And so one, people got to see how we ran our all-hands in terms of culture recognition, the three principles that we talked about, 'cause we tried to bring that to life in our all-hands. And then by the time the organization was ready to roll out a glob- global kind of enterprise values, this is who we are, this is what we stand for, um, took some of the principles that we had created and had already started to implement and used that. And so by the time that that became kind of coded into the enterprise organization and the sort of values that we were standing for, the marketing team was already, "This is what we do. This is, this is who we are." And so that was kind of a way that, you know, we led the way in terms of, one, being core to the organization, and then doing the things that we thought needed to happen without waiting for the organization to, to catch up, so to speak.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 8:34

Marketing was leading the way at Weight Watchers, uh, at that time especially. What, um... And was that initiative or being proactive, proactivity, was that driven by the CMO? Was that driven by the CEO going like, "Marketing, we need you to step up"? Was that you?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 8:51

was all us. This was all us. 'Cause remember, my mandate coming in was, "You're gonna be the people culture person. Like, your first 12 to 18 months, this is what's important to me as a CMO, that this team feels connected, engaged, motivated, energized to come to work every day and do the big things that we need to get done." And so it wasn't a C- CEO mandate at all, which is why the C- the chief of s- the c- the chief of staff to the CEO coming in and seeing what was happening and telling people about it, to the point where our all-hands became, like, the thing to, to attend on a monthly basis. We had to kind of shut it down in terms of having, uh, too many people join. Um, but it was us just taking that initiative, starting with our leadership team, really crystallizing what those principles would be, and then having those principles come alive for our team in, like, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, um, and then just making it part of who we were as, as our, um, culture versus a thing you put up on a Post-it note and say, "Oh, those are our values over

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 9:55

and go on the wayside, and then a year later we revisit them again.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 9:58

Yes

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 9:58

so you were mandated with create this engaging culture, and it sounds like you were doing that in spades, and you gave a lot of tactical and practical pieces and advice there.

Leading Through Layoffs

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 10:09

And then you also had to balance that with, um, y- you know, adjustments to staff and potential rounds of people not being there anymore, so RIFs and layoffs and things like this. So how do you hold both of those things at the same time? Where as a chief of staff, that is absolutely part of your job. You gotta drive the culture, and sometimes you have to make adjustments to staffing.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 10:32

absolutely. And I think it was a really, really hard chapter, um, even sub-chapters, I would say, at, at WeedWatchers at the time, 'cause we went through multiple rounds of resizing, um, the org, right? Right-sizing the org, as they would say. Um, I think- I actually think setting those principles up right away really helpful. One of the things that we didn't explicitly call out, but our CMO made sure to, to, to live in our all hands was transparency. One value of, one value of hers was transparency. And so as we went through that f- the first round of changes that happened, I remember her saying, "We're gonna be as transparent as possible. We're gonna share what we can sh- what we can share, we're gonna say that we can, but be very, very open about why we are make- making these changes, who it's going to impact and why, and what that looks like going forward." And so it's funny because sometimes you think leaders give lip service, and you don't know how that will actually show up in real life. so yeah. So we, you know, we, we, um, we were really thoughtful the conversations we had with people who were, who were impacted by those changes. Then we also thought about how are we going to then manage the, um, kind of emotions of people who, who, who survived, right? There's survivor remorse, there's kind of survivor even shock sometimes, like, "I'm still here." Um, so we held multiple forums where we, we spoke to different people, especially the bigger teams that were impacted, what that would mean to them. Kept kind of virtual doors open for people to connect with either me or the CMO. Um, we also held Q&A sessions we did a pre, pre-collection of forms or pre, a pre-survey, excuse me, where we collected questions ahead of time, and I live shared the Google... Like, we did not sanitize anything. We shared questions as they came in, as difficult as some of that sounded. Again, just going back to that value of transparency and just wanting to make sure that we're not hiding any quest- everything you shared, everything you asked, we're going to try to address. We may not be able to answer it for legal reasons or because we don't know the answer quite yet, but I want to show you that I've, I've heard you, I've seen you, I'm listening. Um, I can do something about it, I will. If I, if I can answer it directly, I will. But in the cases that I can't, um, I'm just not going to be able to. And I thought that was incredibly helpful because as we continue to do more of those and leadership shifted, just and how people chose to approach that post-RIF period, um, I just... It was clearer and clearer to me how s- how very strategic and then also value-oriented my, my first CMO was in that very, very clear about what her values were and, and lived them and, and it was very refreshing to see, especially in, in really challenging times.

Partnering With Your Principal

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 13:34

And how did you and your first CMO partner together? So it sounds like you went through transformational times and highs and lows and difficult periods and things like that. How were you working with her? How were you partnering together through all this?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 13:47

Yeah, I think partnership started during the interview process, to be quite honest. I think it was one of those things where I was, um, I was sourced. I wasn't actively looking, and so they found me, and I wasn't quite convinced initially, and so we had a lot... She was very open to having a lot of conversations. I would send questions, she would follow up. She had s- couple of conversations with me, was very, very clear about what was important to her and her values, and wanting to really build something special. And so I think setting that kind of foundation early on in terms of being very clear about what we were each going to get from this experience was really helpful in setting the tone from the onset. and then of that, we were also very honest, with each other. Um, and obviously, or maybe not obviously, in public forums, I always had her back, right? Like, we were very clear that we are a team, you know. go together like peanut butter and jelly, we always said. and so, like, I, you know, publicly we would ha- we would show up together as a, as a force, but in private, I could, I could, I could push back and ask questions even, even in riffs like, h- how and why are we making decisions about X team? Like, I have a perspective based on my kind of working closer with teams, how this team maybe could potentially shift into something else.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 15:09

Mm-hmm.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 15:10

And she, you know, we didn't always agree, but I would always un- at least try to understand where she was coming from. Um, and that was really helpful. One of the things that she pushed me into doing, which I hadn't gotten a lot of experience with at that point in time, was having difficult conversations. And so, um, whether it was through the riffs or something else, um, she really, really pushed me into whether... And whether it was with our leadership team or broader cross-functionally with other leaders across the organization, if we made a decision that wasn't particularly, um, popular, I was the one that would ultimately have conversations with, uh, B2B marketing folks or people in product, and marketing wasn't going to XYZ. And so she was very, um, clear on where I needed to grow and provided those opportunities for me. And she ha- she had a lot of trust in me, which also then gave me kind of the, um, the... to think of the right word. I also had her back in that way, right? Because, because of the deep trust that she had in me to be able to do, to do the things that we had talked about, so.

Adapting to a New CMO Style

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 16:17

And then what about your second CMO?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 16:21

Oh gosh. So my second CMO came in after a couple of transitions. So we had interim chief brand officers, interim marketing. There were d- we tried different sorts of things before the second CMO came in, and we had a different kind of working relationship, um He, I think initially wasn't sure how to use me as a chief of staff, and so we kind of had to have some growing pains in terms of where I could add value. Um, and especially given where the business was at that time we were coming, if I remember this correctly, we were working our way out of bankruptcy at this point, so there was a lot of pressure to perform, especially again, as marketing being the engine of Weidwatch as there was real pressure to perform. Um, and he had come in with a background in growth marketing, really subscription businesses, and had a significant mandate to, to, to quickly turn around

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 17:17

Yeah

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 17:17

And so with that pressure, really looking at his team and saying, "I've never really had a chief of staff before. I'm looking for the performance marketers. Who are the media people?" You know, "Who are the product growth people that can actually help me do the job?" Versus really think- thinking and taking a step back and thinking, "What is the operating system here that needs to work so that the, the, the priorities that I have will actually get to where they need to go?" And so we had our own kind of growing pains, and I didn't... After having done this for so long, I didn't take it personally at all. Uh, in fact, by the time he left, we had a great relationship. Um, got me a really nice gift, sent me a really nice card, um, about, you know, our experience together. But it was definitely growing pains. And it's one of those things where you have to, one, not take it personally, but then also understand that there are diff- different personal styles. so always coming back to, I, I'm, I own the operating system. I own the operating rhythm, and that stays the same. What you need to adjust to is the different personal styles of your leaders. Is it who wants a full detailed debrief? Like my first CMO just kind of let me run things. The second one was more I had to give almost always, like an update on things that I was doing, which was fine, right? It's just an adjustment of style. But the underlying operator- operating rhythm, system is what I call it, sh- stays the same. And so then the team, in spite of kind of the rotating leadership door, the team feels grounded in something because the thing that helps them move from a day-to-day basis is still there, um, and it's just adjustment that needs to happen to the leader versus everything just kind of, "Oh my gosh, the

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 18:59

Swirling

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 19:00

we have..." Yeah. Right? "Now we don't have the all hands anymore," or like the, the brief- the briefing meeting moved from Tuesday to Thursdays and nobody told me. So just making sure that those foundational things are strong, and then working with leaders as they come, you know, come in and out, um, to figure out their styles and then how you can help them plug into it so that for the, the underlying team, feel as se- seamless as you can make them feel.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 19:26

Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, it's interesting having two principals where you're in the same chief of staff role, and the first principal hired you and said, "You know, I'm gonna take time to answer your questions. I really want you on board," and you had one type of relationship with them. And then a second principal comes on board, and they're under a lot of pressure to turn this thing around, like make stuff happen now. Um, and I've, I've been around leaders in that position. I've been a leader in that position. It's not the most pleasant. So I can, I can tell even from how you're describing it, it was like, it was, it was different. We had some getting to know each other and growing pains, but it sounded like you got to a good spot. And it's, I think it's interesting that you maintained the rhythm of business or operating, um, rhythm under both principals. It was like, "Hey, this needs to happen. This cadence and touchpoints and communication still need to happen and are still part of my job as chief of staff."

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 20:22

Yeah, and I, and we definitely made change, some changes under the, um, the new CMO, but the team understanding that, like, one, I owned that, and they could come to me if they had questions on, like, what was changing and all of that. And then also understanding that it, you know, if we removed a form, it's, it's because it was gonna be folded into something else or it was gonna be done async, because new CMO likes to see things written versus in a meeting, for example. And so the foundational things stayed the same. How they looked might be slightly different, um, but for the most part, like, the, what's, what was kind of holding the team together in terms of the system or how things worked, um, tried to keep us as similar as possible.

Global Career and Culture Lessons

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 21:09

And earlier in the, in the conversation, you mentioned kind of the international flavor of some of the transition that was happening. You actually have a, a background in ex- in life experience and professional experience of being in international teams and companies and locations. Can you just maybe give the personal backdrop for your personal journey and then how that came to the, your career?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 21:34

I was born and raised in Ghana, um, and moved to the US for college at 18 or 19, I never remember. Um, and for me, I thought, "I'm gonna do this for four years and go back home." The plan was never to stay. Um, all my family was back home, a lot of my friends were back home. I didn't think... And especially 'cause I to Wisconsin and so shock to my system and I was like, "Okay, I'm doing this for four years, and then I'm done." Um,

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 22:02

Ghana to Wisconsin, that's a story all in itself.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 22:06

that's a whole other story. Um, but at Marquette, is where I went, um, I took on accounting and as my majors, and back then, it was, uh, an emerging major combination, an emerging double major combination. Um, and the Big Four accounting firms were eager 'cause um, systems were becoming more important to financial, financial audits, and financial systems in general, and so they were looking for people with that dual skill set. So by the time I was graduating, I had already interned at one of the Big Four. I had offers to choose from essentially, and so decided to do that. And it was kind of the... In hindsight, sometimes I think my career path wasn't linear, but in hindsight it all kind of connects in a lot of ways. Because at Deloitte you have to kind of, there's so much to do, you kind of have to pick your path and do it. But I chose to do, kind of lean into both of my majors, and so I spent the first half of the year doing financial audits, and then the second half of the year doing business process, consulting projects, helping to implement systems. And so it gave me the broad spectrum of like all of the things that a bus- I had such a complex and varied experience across industries and at different levels of the organization very early on. When I interned, not even my full-time job, my first intern with internship at Deloitte, my first meeting, first ever business meeting ever was with the CFO of a Fi- Fortune 500 company. I was just given the template for the interview I was gonna have with him, just go do it. And so since that early career, I've just always learned to figure out stuff, and I think looking back now, that was really foundational to ultimately being a chief of staff, being able to wear different hats, going into situations that were not clear, more ambiguous than not, and figuring it out. Um, and then after Deloitte, I did a couple of things, went to business school, and then chose to go to Citi. So just in terms of the global business background, I chose to go to Citi because Citi the promise of taking me back to the African continent. They had offices around the world. I was in a leadership development program that would, was ultimately trying to build leaders for the different Citi franchises around the world. And so for two years, I lived in New York, in London, in Frankfurt, in Dubai, in Toronto, and, and did I say Johannesburg? 'Cause Johannesburg was the last, yeah, one of the last places that I lived. And I didn't do a traditional... It's funny, I st- I stepped into that program to do corporate banking, and I did for the first few months. Then there was, um, a regional crisis, let's just call it that, and so there was a cross-functional task force that was put together in London. My manager at the time pulled me into that meeting to help, to help support him, and through that process, someone just said, "Oh my God, you're connecting dots that, you know, someone at this level typically doesn't connect." Um, and so then I was kind of handpicked to go to the Middle... to go to Dubai and then to Joburg to be, um, it wasn't called a chief of staff, it was a business manager at the time, but it was essentially that, helping the e- the managing director of the Middle East and Africa business, um, run the business. So everything from HR to finance to compliance, especially in that region. Legal and compliance in that region was pretty complex. Um, so yeah. And so then on any given day, I was talking to someone in Jordan, to someone in Nigeria, and just figuring out, um, what they needed, because as you know, the cultural nuances can be different. There's, there are cultures that will be pretty direct with you, and then there are other people that you kind of have to read between the lines in terms of what they're asking for, what they are frustrated with. And then collecting all of that for a re- that complex region, and then using that to drive different initiatives across the region was a really interesting, um, really interesting time in terms of the things that I learned outside of the core business.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 26:17

Yeah, that's a, a worldwide tour you went on there at Citi. And, and you talked about culture before, as in, like, the company culture, team culture, and all those, and then you also have this gl- global culture perspective, and those are layered on top of within each other, um, as you go. Is there anything else you learned in terms of, okay, um, when I'm... You know, I don't wanna make sweeping generalizations, but generally speaking, like, if I'm in the US and I'm speaking with a Middle Eastern company, or I'm in Joburg and I'm speaking with a European country, like, here's the things you gotta keep in mind and remember to be successful

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 26:52

I think that my own lived experiences outside of what I, I, I did the workplace actually helped inform that, right? So one, my own experience moving to a country at 18 or 19, having to navigate being in a different country, and I think, I think this still happens. Most international students come to college campuses about a week or so before the, you know, everybody else. And so that first couple of weeks I already started to figure out, you know, oh, you know, I really... my really, really best friends were from Turkey, Kuwait, and, um, Korea, right? And so just already, and then my lived experience with them all four years of college in terms of the different cultural nuances. So by the time I get to Deloitte, surprisingly in Milwaukee, very diverse. Yeah, I mean, it's true at the time, very diverse team. Like, I worked with people from Philippines, India, Thailand, um, and I don't know if it was because of the specific business unit I was in, but my specific, um, functional business unit was very, very, very diverse. And so, and then the time we were getting out of the 08 recession, and so in terms of efficiencies, we were outsourcing a lot to India, right? So I was managing teams, I would manage one person in the US and then like 10 people

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 28:12

Yes.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 28:13

Um, and so very, very early on in my career too, I was combination of the lived experience and then also managing team- you know, working within teams that were incredibly globally diverse, and then mag- managing offshore teams, I think also kind of set the stage for how I was able to navigate that through Citi and, and beyond

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 28:33

Gotcha. Interesting, yeah. How do you, um, when you were traveling to all these different locations and we talk about culture, you're almost like a, you're the carrier of culture, the, the cultural carrier, and you have to flex and evolve and morph into these different geographic locations and know where you are, but also wave the banner and be an ambassador for the company culture. How do you kind of approach that?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 29:03

I that's a really good question, and the, the, how I think of- I think about it in two concrete examples of my time in Johannesburg and then my time in Germany. Um, very, very different cultures in terms of, one, just initial, like, warmth, And so, um, Frankfurt in the beginning, I, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, it was really, really tough. I- in, and Citi did a great job of, you know, preparing you for these expat careers. I had someone I had a tutor. Like, th- there was a full surround sound package in terms of getting acclimated. it wasn't really. I arrived, I remember the night before, couldn't read any of the signs. Thank God for Uber. Um, but then couldn't reach the, the person that was responsible for my corporate apartment, and it was just And so by the first, by the time I walked into the office, I was already very disoriented. And then, you know, p- we talk about the different fruits when we talk about global cultural, um, communication. So Germans are the coconuts with the harder outer shell and then the softer inside. So it takes a while for them to, like, warm up to you, and then once they embrace you, they embrace you for life. those first couple of months were really tough in that, like, you're coming from headquarters, but you're not really American, right? And so, like, we're not quite sure where to place you in all of this. And then what is really your role, here? And so just- Being able to take the again, not taking things personally, and I think that that's one of the things that really has helped me. It's, it's one of probably the through lines for me, not taking things personally, understanding that people have different agendas, and you eventually learn what those are. Um, and coming into work every day, doing your best work, and that ultimately is the language that speaks, speaks the best. Um, starting and having to send out emails 'cause we were in a distributed environment, sending out emails to the broader Western Europe team, and my manager at the time had to read every email. She was transparent. It was... And this is post-MBA. I just- it felt like I would go home and just emotionally just be down. But by the end of the first three months, like, she took me to London to go do this thing that ultimately ended up being. So

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 31:27

Ah, okay

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 31:28

so it's, it's, it's the persistence, not taking things personally, understanding, and ultimately I understood that she was her own path to a different kind of job and needed everything that was going out through her office to look as, to look and feel a certain way. So then you don't take it personally. This is not about me. This is about this person and their career ambition and what they want to do. And so then reframe. Once you understand that, going into every conversation with, "Hey, how can I help you? How can I help you look better for this role that you're trying to get?" Right? And so that wa- that was it. Versus in a South Africa, b- again, because I'm f- I'm, I'm not necessarily South African, but I end up, because I lived, lived on the continent, I have a better sense of cultural norms, you walk into a meeting, it's not business first. You need to say hi, hello, what did you do over the week? And it's a long thing before you get to, like, why are we actually sitting here? Versus Germans are like, we sit down, okay, let's, let's go. Right? So really understanding those contexts using that to be able to do, to do your work and do it all. But I will say, 'cause this just came to me, it's not taking it personally, but it's also doing, doing a very, very good job at what you do. Like that, all of the cultural nuances layers away once people know that you're really, really good at what you do

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 32:41

Bottom line, any culture you're in, do a good job and that'll speak for itself. Yes. Good, good reminder. Good advice. Good reminder. And it's, it's so funny 'cause even in America, as you know, America's so vast and there's different cultures and subcultures, and I had people on my team, um, and one of them was from the South, and I'm sure there's people from the South who are different, but she was from the South, and you had to ask about the weekend, and the kids, and the cousins,

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 33:07

yeah.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 33:07

and her cat's best friend, and then you could start to get into, like, the actual topic around work. And then some other people I worked with were like, "Boom, boom, boom. I speak in bullet points. I think in bullet points. Give it to me in bullet points. Don't, like, waste my time." And I was like, "Okay." So yeah.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 33:22

You're right. Like, liv- working, um, in our city New York office versus in Milwaukee, Fort White, like completely different cultures for sure.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 33:31

Yes. Yes. Gotcha. What are, what, what would your advice be to a chief of staff who's maybe at a multinational corporation or maybe has a headquarters in one continent and then satellite offices in another? What advice would you give them in terms of culture or, or anything else at operating those types of organizations?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 33:50

Um, I, I wouldn't make assumptions about the contri- contributions, especially of the non-headquarter located offices. Um, I think because I've had the experience of both, um, one of the things I was able to bring to Weight Watchers in particular was that, that viewpoint of having worked in, um, locations that were not the headquarters, right? So I under- I understood intimately from a head- headquarter perspective the pressures they were under, the strategic kind of focus they were trying to push for and drive forward. But then I also understood from a local context perspective how some of that stuff didn't fully translate. And so really taking the time, I always say to build those relationships, relationships first because that no matter what culture you're in, relationships matter. Um, so that as, as initiatives come down or are distributed, you're able to tap into the people that you're connected with to get an understanding of how does this

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 34:49

Yeah.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 34:50

on a global basis? How will this work in your context versus how New York or London is thinking about it? Um, so those relationships are first, and then just also make, not making assumptions that, um, the local... And I ca- I say local meaning that the, the locations that are not headquarters that don't have anything to contribute, no matter how small the Excel sheet says their pis- their contribution to revenue, to revenue is. There is insight there that could help unlock, um, things for the organization, and I think it's really important not to underestimate, um, locations, teams or people based on their si- their relative size to the overall, um, P&L.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 35:32

Small things can come in, or good things come in small packages.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 35:35

Yes,

Final Advice and Wrap Up

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 35:36

absolutely

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 35:36

as we wind down here, what advice would you give to a chief of staff who is inheriting a new principal? So maybe they had one principal and they're getting a n- like a reorg happened, but that does, that does occur, and it wasn't, you know, the chief of- it wasn't the chief of staff and principal pairing you had built the thing on, but yet this is your new principal, and you've gotta build the best relationship you can. What advice would you give there?

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 35:58

one thing I've always done and I encourage people to do, one is to have your kind of about me, um, and people call it different things. Your about me one pager, how I work, how I think, how I structure all of that. I do... I help my principals do that all the time, and then I also have mine. So that initial conversation, whether we share it async and talk about it, I think is really important. So one, I would say establish what your working style is off the bat. Like what are the things that are important to them? How do they prefer to be communicated with? Um, and then also understanding right away what their priorities and mandates are, right? So that second CMO that I talked about, the context in which he was

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 36:41

Yeah

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 36:42

was really helpful in me, again, one, again, one, not taking things personally, knowing that he had tremendous pressure to perform. And so as he was sh- making shifts within the organization, I didn't see it. I, I understood the context and so really being clear with the incoming leader on what are your priorities and how can I help you kind of get there? This is what I do and do well. How, how does this fit into the bigger picture of the things that you're coming in here to do, um, I think is important. So it might seem like a thing to do down the road, but I would say if you're a strong ch- strong chief of staff, it's something that you push very early on. What are your priorities? How, how do I work well with you? And it might seem like the soft thing, you don't want to get to the messy middle of things where you're now trying to figure out, "Oh, I don't understand what he meant by that in that meeting." Or, "He's texting me at 10:00 PM." Like, "Oh no, I'm with my..." You know, like really understanding what those boundaries and communication styles are so, so, so key. Knowing that before things start to move too fast where you can't, like pull that back.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 37:44

Good advice. That's good advice. Final call, Yoram. Anything else you would want a chief of staff to know? Anything else on your mind

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 37:52

Um, would say to not necessarily follow the title. The, the one place that I fully got the chief of staff title, I think was first at VISTA Print with associate chief of staff, and then ultimately at WeedWatchers. But I've been a chief of staff for so long. At CityYear I was essentially a chief of staff, right? And so if you're doing the work, if you're creating leverage for a leader, if you're helping to move things from strategy to execution and you, and you want that title, think about then how you frame that, um, for leaders so that you get the title in terms of how you're thinking about your career progression. But don't, don't think that because you don't have the title, you're not a chief of staff. I always tell people, if you're doing the work and you want the title, you can, you can make a case for it. So, yeah, that, that's, that's one thing I lead with people. I know there's a lot of chief of staff type, um, floating around about the right chief of staff role, the EA chief of staff, the AI chief of staff. Um, but if you're doing th- that work that sits at the intersection of culture, operations, and strategy, and you want that title because it's becoming a thing now, um, you can make the case for it by, by showing the work that you're actually doing

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 39:04

Beautiful. That's a good note to end on. Jorm, thank you so much. Really appreciate you being on

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 39:08

Yeah. Thank you. This gave, took me back so many memories.

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 39:12

I get that a lot. It's like I, memory lane and now I can see a new perspective.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 39:16

took

emily-sander_1_07-02-2026_110405 39:17

happy to help on that front, so thank you.

yorm_1_07-02-2026_140405 39:19

Thank you.

39:23

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