Brandon Newman | Founder & CEO | Xevant

What advice do you have for your younger self?

First, it’s OK to be vulnerable and not have all the answers. Your team, board and even your customers do not expect you to have perfected the role of CEO. They want you to be you. They want you to laugh at yourself and admit you have flaws and make mistakes. They want you to be real and authentic while doing your best to learn from your mistakes and remain committed to progress. Second, people are all that matter. All the products, systems, software and solutions combined pale in comparison to the “power of we.” By empowering and trusting your people to create and execute a plan, your business will take on an unquantifiable power that achieves exponentially more than you could ever imagine on your own.

If you weren’t a CEO, what would you do?

The only role that is more challenging, time-consuming, gut-wrenching and impossible to perfect is the role of dad. If I weren’t a CEO, I would pour every second into my wife and five kids. Nothing is more rewarding than raising five kids, from diapers to wedding rings, with all the challenges of human development, self-discovery and eventual independence. Our family motto is “suck less,” which works well for us when heckling wakesurfing kids from the helm of the boat, but it sets the tone in our home that it is ok to suck at things (even if we try to suck just a little less).