Culture Champions by CultureX
Most corporate cultures are average or worse, but a rare handful walk the talk and produce outstanding outcomes. This podcast series shares lessons from senior executives at "Culture Champion" companies that produce both exceptional business results and a world-class employee experience.
Culture Champions by CultureX
Kunal Kapoor, CEO, Morningstar
Kunal Kapoor is the CEO of Morningstar.
In 1984, Morningstar was founded out of a Chicago apartment, named after a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. The company aimed to empower investors to make more successful decisions by providing them with high quality insights. Ten years later, Morningstar had about 200 employees, and around that time Kunal became one of them.
Since then, the company has indeed transcended, albeit in a direction more NASDAQ than Walden Pond. In 2005, the company went public. Over the next twenty years, the company’s revenue and headcount grew more than tenfold, to $2.3 billion and 11,000 employees. Along the way, the company broadened its customer base, global footprint, and product line.
Core to Morningstar’s success is its distinctive culture, which works both for employees and stakeholders. On Glassdoor, employees are significantly more likely to positively mention the culture than employees from peer firms. Its culture excels on specific targeted dimensions; employees are also off the charts more positive about educational opportunities (“growth mindset” Morningstar core value) and cross silo collaboration (“one team”), for instance.
In this episode, Kunal walks us through why culture matters so much to Morningstar and how he and his fellow leaders crafted such an excellent one as the company rapidly grew by two orders of magnitude.