S2 Ep44: Jeff Lunsford, CEO, Tealium

Our guest in this 31st interview episode with a unicorn start-up leader is the CEO of Tealium, Jeff Lunsford. 

Tealium is a leading customer data platform (CDP), connecting you with your customers, through your data. For companies to better connect with their customers, Tealium combines customer data across web, mobile, offline, and IoT. With more than 1,300 built-in connections supported by Tealium's turnkey integration ecosystem, brands can build a complete and up-to-date consumer data framework. 
  
The company was founded in 2008 by Mike Anderson and Ali Behnam, with Jeff Lunsford taking the position of CEO in 2013.  The company reached unicorn status in February 2021, with a valuation of $1.2 billion. Today, more than a thousand top companies around the globe rely on Tealium to power their consumer data strategy. 

Tealium have reached unicorn status thanks to their focus and care for their customers- with a company culture that is “one of winning”, Jeff states that they “win together as a team, holding each other accountable for performance,” acknowledging that although every deal can’t be won, you can still learn from these instances and keep improving. Thanks to this commitment to improvement, Tealium have built a culture of trust and an extensive portfolio of repeat customers. 

Jeff Lunsford has more than two decades of experience as a technology and internet executive and leader. Jeff says “success in business is never a straight line. It is always ups and downs”, and highlights how important it is as leaders, to always have a “positive bounce” in your step. He also believes that the most important thing in business is not IPOs or unicorn statuses, but rather “building great solutions and taking great care of customers so they can deliver true business value.”  

The interview, as usual, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith of the csuite podcast. Alongside Holly Justice, Senior Partner at Tyto PR .  

We have distilled the most valuable, actionable insights from our first 15 interviews with leaders of unicorn companies and bottled them in our book ‘Growing without borders: The unicorn CEO guide to communication and culture’. You can download it here.