Dominic Gallello: Bridgepoint Operating Partner and Former Bumble CMO on His Journey and How to Swipe Right on Digital Success and an Inspiring Life

Interviewed by Linnéa Jungnelius

“A good operating partner should be an accelerant and, in many ways, a secret weapon for management,” says Dominic Gallello.

Dominic is Managing Director and Head of Digital & AI at Bridgepoint, Europe’s leading middle-market growth investor with €43 billion euro of assets under management. As part of the Operational Support Group, he is a force for advancing digital, dispersing collective wisdom, building brands, and driving growth.

His remarkable story also includes a chapter as Chief Marketing Officer at Bumble Inc., the parent company of Bumble and Badoo, two of the world's largest dating and social networking apps. He was instrumental in leading the company through a successful acquisition by Blackstone in 2020 and a NASDAQ IPO in 2021.

On this episode of the Brilliant People Podcast, Linnea Jungnelius, Global Head of Marketing & Strategy at Acertitude, sat down with Dominic to unpack his journeys and learnings on co-creating transformations with companies through digital and modern growth strategies.

They cover how to become an accelerant for value creation, how to pivot from operator to operating partner, and what AI is and isn’t doing today. Dominic also shares what keeps him inspired, including a particular “pizza run” through New York City.

Linnea: Dominic, let's start from the beginning. How did you get into the world of digital and growth marketing? And how did your early career on the agency side set you up for success at Airtime, which was Sean Parker's live social app, and subsequently Bumble, the dating app?

Dominic: I am half Japanese, half American, and grew up around the world, which really means I grew up on the internet. So, I always knew I wanted to be involved with the internet in some way.

I started by joining agencies as a digital strategist; someone to help companies think through how to go to market in a world where consumers live and breathe the internet and understand whether they want to engage with a brand as a result of the conversations happening online.

And so one of the first places that I entered was helping companies think through how to approach this question of engaging with online forums. For instance, early Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and what type of presence companies should have and how they should engage with consumers. What that puts into focus in my modern-day work with Bumble, or today with the portfolio of Bridgepoint, is understanding that brands stand naked in the eyes of the consumer on the Internet.

Brands stand naked in the eyes of the consumer on the internet.

And that means everything that a company does, not only in terms of what it says, but how it delivers that product or value to its customer and the experience that is created throughout, is all fundamental towards winning in an Internet driven era of consumption – whether it's a B2B business or a B2C business.

It was this exciting time where the Internet was really developing, and companies had to radically transform their thinking about the role of product and the role of marketing.

One of the agencies that I spent time at was West, which did brand and go-to-market strategy for technology companies. It was founded by the former CMO at Apple, who had built everything from iPod commercials to the iPad. And the way she always described how Apple thought about it was working backwards from the customer and from the product.

They didn’t start with a commercial the way a traditional marketing organization did. They started with the unboxing experience of the Apple iPhone, like the specific amount of suction that was required when opening the box to make it really feel magical. That type of thinking is critical to win in an era where customer experience wins above all, and that drives the advocacy from consumers within the Internet space.

That notion of how you connect a unified customer experience with the clear value proposition that you deliver to customers, and how you instigate advocacy through consumer Internet platforms is the model that I carry on in all of my work today.

Linnea: That’s fascinating – you are speaking to the perfectionist in me. So, talk us through that monumental transformation that you were part of at Bumble. What did the Blackstone acquisition and eventual IPO journey look like – from scaling it up to getting acquired to going public?

Dominic: Bumble was at a critical inflection point at the point of the Blackstone acquisition. We had a remarkable brand that was well-known in North America, but we needed to bring that around the world.

One of the things we saw as a key transformation lever for the business was our overall operating rigor and ability to more predictably replicate our success in North America. For instance, expanding our audiences in North America to smaller cities or more suburban areas of the United States and how we thought about doing that. We developed the launch playbook for expanding from a neighborhood to a city, then to multi-city, and finally to national coverage within new markets.

This period of transformation was about how to build a global, scaled infrastructure within marketing – one that could translate this brand around “women make the first move” into different cultural contexts, whether it was in Brazil, Israel, India, or Indonesia. We had to flex that brand.

Secondly, we had to think about the use of data. Despite being a brand-driven organization, we were lucky to have phenomenal amounts of data. One of the things that we implemented in the early days, post-Blackstone transaction, was creating enormous transparency around lessons learned.

Every time someone in the marketing organization executed a campaign, we published the results and the analysis of those results very publicly across the company. My favorite cultural artifact from that period was that if you were the one responsible for an unsuccessful campaign – which can be a lot of pressure to see broadcasted publicly – we engendered a culture where, as long as you posted the lesson on that analysis, we would “love bomb” you with reactions. This was a great way to engender a culture of learning. You gave a gift to the team by learning a lesson that now other people can take away.

As we expanded the team and the geographic footprint on a global scale, every time someone joined, they were able to learn from the collective wisdom of their predecessors’ actions. This made the hit rate of success progressively better every time we went into a new market. While standing up Brazil, we could learn from the successes of Germany and Mexico to figure out how to scale that market.

There was quite a lot of operational rewiring. And trying to accomplish that transformation during an IPO process, I will say, led to quite a few sleepless nights in the midst of working from home during Covid.

Linnea: Yes, I believe when we talked about this, you described it as quite the un-sexiest IPO that there may have been.

Dominic: Deeply. There were no fancy dinners, no traveling to New York. It was me locked away in my son's now bedroom, doing analyst day calls and trying to keep pace with the incredible work that the IPO team was focused on delivering.

Linnea: I love that philosophy, though, of failing forward, which a mentor of mine ingrained in me early on. One of the things he would say is, "The only thing I learned from winning is that I like to win. Everything else I’ve learned from my failures."

Dominic: Exactly. You know, I spent some time at Spotify and they had a value around "working out loud." That always resonated with me because when I joined, it was incredible to have access to the collective wisdom of the organization. Bumble had a track record of enormous success, but when I entered the business, it was very hard to determine things like, “how did we win in North America?” Most times, that intel was in a person's brain, and they may have left the company six months ago. That type of institutional knowledge is precious. It’s critical to create a culture around learning, around transparency, around enabling every person to benefit from collective wisdom. That is tenet number one for me.

It’s critical to create a culture around learning, around transparency, around enabling every person to benefit from collective wisdom. That is tenet number one for me.

Linnea: There’s incredible value in that. Let’s leap forward to Bridgepoint, where you joined the Operational Support Group as Managing Director, Digital & AI after your CMO gig at Bumble.

What inspired you to make the leap from operator to operating partner, and what was that transition like?

Dominic: I think after this period of trying to solve a specific problem with the company, which was how to grow and drive Bumble, what attracted me to the operating partner role was the ability to expand my skill sets and my visibility across different sectors and industries. From a personal growth standpoint, making that transition from a functional executive to someone that has transversal awareness and visibility was deeply attractive, and continues to be attractive today.

I think that transition from the operator to shareholder perspective has also engendered a new viewpoint around business that is exciting. Private equity has a start, middle, and end to its investment cycles. We work backwards from that destination to understand what the middle needs to look like and the steps we need to take in the beginning. It creates tremendous clarity, tremendous simplicity around what the most important things are to get right, whether we have the right people to lead those components and the resources and capability to deliver.

I’ve gone to business school and becoming an operating partner is business school on another level. You get to see different sectors, different challenges, and different opportunities — and you get to participate in the value creation process across each of those different thematics.

Linnea: That’s what I love about working with our clients in the private equity space too, the constant learning.

Something you touched on is this theme around focus. You described how when you were at Bumble as an operator you had this exhaustive, endless to do list and that it was quite refreshing that as an operating partner you now get to zone in on the few big things that drive returns. What’s the collective wisdom here around the power of essentialism?

Dominic: If I think about returning to an operator role after having seen the operating partner and shareholder perspective, it comes down to a lack of noise and a focus around the medium to long-term, and therefore what needs to get done today.

Oftentimes, in an operating role, you are trying to survive day to day. What is revenue outturn going to look like this month, this quarter? What are the knobs that I must tweak to deliver on the commitments that I have to my shareholders? Oftentimes, you can lose sight of the important transformations that you're trying to deliver.

All the efforts I described in transitioning Bumble into a more data-driven organization, particularly within the marketing organization, those types of things naturally occupied much of my focus. But I often got pulled away by the noise around things like a team member leaving, requesting a raise, or asking about their career development journey — all the typical things that come with management and that are fundamentally important.

That delineation between what is unfortunately the reality of having to manage an organization and what is required from leadership in terms of where you want to go and how you want to get there is the privilege of the operating partner. As an operating partner, as much of your time, mental bandwidth, and executional energy as possible can be focused on leadership and driving towards that medium to long-term outcome. I think, and particularly for myself, that mentality would benefit any operating executive if I were to return to that type of role.

As an operating partner, as much of your time, mental bandwidth, and executional energy as possible can be focused on leadership and driving towards that medium to long-term outcome. That mentality would benefit any operating executive.

Linnea: Great point and great reminder to cut the noise and focus on what matters most.

Continuing along, another topic we’ve examined are the archetypes of operating partners. What are the dominant ones and what are the pros and cons of these paths, in your view?

Dominic: Within the few years that I've been doing this, I've managed to build a solid network of operating partners, both generalists and specialists, and generally, there are a few different vectors.

There are those that are sector-specialized, in which they have deep track records based upon their own previous operating experience.

You have those that are generalist and may come in with more of a consulting mindset. "How do I really unpack what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, and establish a framework for how the company pursues it?"

And then you have individuals like me that are a bit more specialized in a functional practice and in my case, focused on the digital and AI topic for companies.

Despite these different operating partner roles that come in at potentially different times of the investment cycle, I think one of the key components is always really the EQ component of an operating partner.

This is an influence game, not a mandate game. It's a position where you have to act with significant humility.

This is an influence game, not a mandate game. It's a position where you have to act with significant humility. In many cases and in many ways, you do not understand their business at all. You are having to learn on the job and you are trying to connect experiences that you've had in the past in other sectors and other types of businesses, and relaying those lessons to the company that you're then working with.

And of course, you have seasoned executives that are in each one of these companies that lead their functions and have helped to drive the business to where it is today, which at the time that Bridgepoint invests is a really successful enterprise. So, despite these different archetypes —generalist versus specialist, sector-specialized versus agnostic — that EQ component weaves throughout.

Linnea: You are echoing something that we see as critical to succeeding in this role. Humility and intellect go hand in hand with thriving as an operating partner. Could you expand on what it takes to go – not just from good to great – but to become extraordinary at this work?

Dominic: I think the people that really succeed at this job are very good at partnering with management, simply translating where they are trying to get to, and what actions they need to take. Management has enough complexity in their lives and don’t need someone coming in and creating more.

A good operating partner should be an accelerant and, in many ways, a secret weapon for management.

A good operating partner should be an accelerant, and in many ways a secret weapon for management to get done what we as a collective – operating partners, investing team members, and management teams – have signed up for in terms of what we're trying to do with the business.

You need to become the secret weapon for the CEO, CMO, CPO, CTO, whoever, and become a strategic steward for them and a connective tissue to the outside world. Oftentimes, what I try to do is connect different executives together. If you're dealing with a marketing effectiveness question in one portfolio company, how can I connect you to executives in other portfolio companies that have done that, or a world of consultants and specialized advisors that can help accelerate that opportunity?

It's about being a partner to them, simplifying the actions to take, making available the experience of others, and providing the potential resources to accelerate progress. I think that’s the simple model for success here.

Linnea: I like that idea of thinking of yourself as an accelerant. Now, at Bridgepoint, what role do you play across the various phases of the investment cycle?

How do you work in lock step with all of the important stakeholders like the deal team, management team, and chief transformation officers, which I know is a role Bridgepoint executes for every company?

Dominic: Sure. When it comes to digital and AI topics, it depends on two types of deals.

One is companies that are active in the digital landscape. An industry like AdTech, where we have done a couple of deals more recently, is a good example of this. Here, you’re helping the deal team understand the market quite early in the investment cycle, really from the earliest throws of the idea around the potential investment opportunity.

Then you have companies that don't necessarily operate in a digital landscape but digital is a key value creation driver. In these cases, we get involved a little bit later in the due diligence process, where you’re doing less commercial DD and more operational DD. Within that operational DD, you are trying to benchmark general levels of maturity across several key operational levers and building a view around whether we should improve on a lever, whether it's commercial effectiveness, data and analytics, whatever it might be. What is the trade-off between impact and feasibility if we were to intervene on a specific lever?

We get involved throughout the due diligence process to help co-create the investment case around what we are trying to accomplish from a business perspective in a 4-5-year period. Between signing and closing, once we've aligned around what we're trying to do, then it's about putting the foundation in place to ensure that the value creation plan is deliverable.

One of the things that we implement is the recruitment of a chief transformation officer, PMO, chief of staff, whatever the appropriate archetype is, to lead the transversal transformation across the business, and make sure that we dig into the value creation plan in the early ownership period post-close. This way, we can go back around the core strategy that we're trying to deliver for the business. How do we scope out what types of interventions are required to accelerate that value creation plan?

At that point, it becomes about that partnership between the portfolio team and the management teams in terms of the strategic guidance to be able to deliver on the value creation plan. The process really is end to end, and it's one where we work in lockstep with the deal teams to make sure that we are all aligned around our perspective and the reality of what it means to deliver on this and that we have a consistent view around our progress against each one of those initiatives.

Linnea: You make an important point about feasibility. That is sometimes where we see CEO-OP partnerships break down, or where management teams don’t feel heard.

Dominic: Yes, with technology, in particular, that can be a real blind spot for executives. It’s critical to assess and be clear about the current technical state of the organization. In order to unlock any of the value levers that we want to deliver on, how much tech debt do we need to resolve? Do we need to do some type of migration or modernization work?

Oftentimes, if you don't account for that, you ultimately incur quite a lot of costs later down the road to be able to enable any of the things that you want to do. Whether it's creating a more data-driven sales organization with a revops function or whether it’s creating more sophisticated marketing analytics with personalization, that foundation is required.

That feasibility assessment often focuses on the general maturity state of technology of the team and of the operations and therefore, what the effort around the upgrade potentially looks like.

Linnea: I’m sure that understanding serves as a filter for how you prioritize your transformation journey.

Dominic: Deeply. It informs sequencing in particular. It's a short period of ownership that private equity ultimately has with the enterprise, but within the four to five years that you do have, you can sequence the costs and the transformations that are associated with the delivery towards that vision much more clearly if you're doing that feasibility assessment quite early.

Linnea: Fantastic insight. This is a good segue into Bridgepoint’s culture, which could be encapsulated by the statement “do what you say.” Could you share how you’ve codified that value and how this principle influences how you manage your portfolio?

Dominic: "Do what you say" is a fundamental cultural aspect for us. A lot of that originated in the early days of Bridgepoint’s creation, in this notion that when we talk about creating a deal situation with a management company or owner, that we were going to be true to our word. We were going to deliver on that deal in the contours of what was described rather than attempting anything less straightforward.

This mantra has cascaded into everything that we do, inclusive of how we work with management teams to create the vision, ensure that we have alignment around the resources and the timelines required, and that we can provide the appropriate support that helps accomplish that vision.

When it comes to the portfolio execution component, when we talk about "do what you say," it is about being upfront and having honest conversations with the management team about our perspectives on where the business is, our findings from due diligence, and our views around what we can transform this business into. That way, we come to a unified plan where there is joint responsibility and joint accountability.

When we talk about "do what you say," it is about being upfront and having honest conversations with the management team about our perspectives.

Typically, within each of these value creation initiatives, we set up charters where there is a board sponsor – and that could be myself or another member of Bridgepoint’s board helping sponsor the initiative. Then you have a management team member who is accountable and responsible for delivery.

We work together and meet regularly outside of the boardroom to consistently problem solve around how we are going to make progress on a given initiative. This idea of honesty permeates our dialogue, characterized by straightforward interactions without any hidden agendas. We're committed to being transparent with the management organization and upfront about our plans.

Linnea: Constructive candor is fundamental to building strong relationships. Is there anything else you do to put this idea of “co-creation” into practice?

Dominic: When we discuss our commitment to value creation with a portfolio company, a simple example would be recruiting in a chief transformation officer. This is something we get actively involved with and if we need to be creative about how we are going to fund it, we will get creative about how we are going to fund it.

When we talk about how we want to drive the value creation process, we want to remain aware that each of the operational leads are busy keeping the lights on of the business. We want to make sure they are fully supported to be able to deliver on the medium to long-term plan, hence the responsibility of that transformation officer. It is about being respectful of the realities of the management organization and making sure that they are equipped to deliver on the collaborative plan that we've put together.

Linnea: Let’s talk about this in the context of the European middle market now, which is where you focus. What are the challenges and themes you commonly find as you get into the trenches with your portfolio companies there?

Dominic: For the European middle market, we often find companies that are leaders in their niches or subsectors and have become national champions and are now encountering the need to go across continental Europe, and often, into the United States.

The types of companies that we see would be something like, let’s say, an organization that has established a regional commercial model with a managing director of France, of Germany, of Benelux, and so on. And now, as they become a more global organization, they need to do two things.

Become more data-driven: What's really working across these different geographies in terms of how they nurture, close, and maintain customer relationships?

Become more centralized: How do they establish a centralized function that can service a more global organization?

The transition from, in a pessimistic sense, a salesforce of regional fiefdoms into one where there is absolute maintenance of that local touch but serviced and underpinned by this global revenue operations function that brings to light what great looks like when the company succeeds. This is a typical type of transformation that we help enable.

And one of the things that I think Bridgepoint has a great track record in is the fact that we have such deep presence in all of these European markets, as well as in the United States, as well as in China. We can open many, many doors for that internationalization to be more successful.

Linnea: With increased scale comes increased complexity. I want to home in on the talent piece of that journey. How do you approach assessing talent and help CEOs think about the construction of their C-suite as they plan for growth and internationalization?

Dominic: There is often a dialogue with the CEO about whether their current team has the right skill sets skills and accountable individuals to deliver on the strategy. We don’t get heavily involved in terms of people assessments. It is the responsibility of the CEO to determine who are the star players that they want on their team.

But we do bring a perspective around the types of roles that we think a company should have. If you can imagine a services organization that is starting to digitize, and maybe moving from a historic consulting-led model into one where software is an increasing part of how customers with the business, well, you might want to start thinking about a centralized commercial organization, or you might want to start thinking about a chief technology officer or chief product officer.

We think about any near-term gaps that the company might have in terms of functional ownership and responsibility within that value creation plan, obviously, but also have an eye on any capabilities we are going to have to add medium to long-term.

Executive recruiting, onboarding, just takes time. It takes time to get the right person identified. They may have a non-compete or they may have, in Europe certainly, a long period in which they have their exit period from their old business. And so looking ahead in terms of design of the organization at the senior level for us is critical to make sure we can deliver on the strategy that we've set out and understand, at all times, whether we are fully resourced from a human capital perspective to deliver on the plans at hand.

Linnea: What is your view on the European investment landscape at the moment? Where are the sparks of optimism and opportunities and what are you going after?

Dominic: On a macro level, Europe is a tough comparison to the sort of Mustang of America. But, within Europe, there are specialized industries showing phenomenal growth and tremendous potential. That could be within the industrial space, like agriscience and energy transition technologies, or the services space, like information services.

There are a number of these areas where Europe does have unique and distinct talent pools, and an ecosystem of companies that have the potential to become amazing global organizations.

What I see as huge opportunities within the European landscape is elevating and internationalizing these national champions and ultimately digitizing them to make them more efficient and best in class in terms of customer experience. That, for me, is always exciting.

What I see as huge opportunities within the European landscape is elevating and internationalizing these national champions and ultimately digitizing them to make them more efficient and best in class in terms of customer experience. That, for me, is always exciting.

Oftentimes, the ability to help a European company hop borders is where you unlock these new waves of growth potential. Within the American market, that is actually quite tough, because you're in a single market in many ways, where the competitive boundaries are much clearer, and therefore it's harder to find growth if you're not competing at the highest level.

Linnea: Exactly. With my Swedish background, we’ll have to catch up later on the Swedish landscape specifically.

Dominic: A lot of Swedish national champions have managed to grow and we have great experiences with some of our Swedish portfolio. Vitamin Well, an incredible energy drink that has managed to grow, including into the United States, has been a phenomenal success story for us. So, there are always these gems within Europe that you can elevate to become real global champions.

Linnea: Love to hear that, and my favorite Vitamin Well flavor is the Defence Citrus Fläder, for the record.

Moving to what’s likely a more interesting topic for the audience. The words “artificial intelligence” are literally in the title of your job. How are you harnessing generative AI? Walk us through some real examples of where AI has been a game changer in paving the way for value creation.

Dominic: I think we achieved the first generative AI plateau following the unveiling of GPT 3.5 and GPT 4. Since, we've found incremental progress in terms of underlying models, but I’d say we’re midway through the first chapter of generative AI. For us at Bridgepoint, it's twofold:

1) How are we using generative AI internally?
2) How do we enable use cases within the enterprise and the portfolio?

We were one of the first 25 customers of OpenAI on ChatGPT Enterprise, so we've just crossed a year in terms of deploying it at the enterprise level internally.

On an internal basis, what we are finding is that it can accelerate a lot of manual tasks and quickly synthesize huge amounts of information. That could be synthesizing information that comes off a data room for a company; or as a result of our consulting firm's love of writing within commercial DD reports or tech DD reports; or to get to the essence of the question that we are trying to answer within our investment committee process.

Second use case is anything where there's a bit of a routine process. So, that could be in origination, company descriptions, within investor relations, or formulating the draft of DDQ responses. There are a number of these areas where we've been able to create custom applications that are now driving and automating our processes.

A good example would be for portfolio companies. As I get Board reports and consulting reports, I upload those into a portfolio specific app that is trained on the knowledge of that portfolio company. It makes the drafting of portfolio committee papers a bit easier when you can draft off all of that underlying knowledge.

What AI is not doing today is making significant decisions. What it's not doing is fully automating specific work streams. But I think that will come as the next steppingstone and the next chapter of the underlying starts to evolve. But we're all waiting with bated breath for the next great leap forward in the underlying architecture for these foundational models to unlock those use cases.

What AI is not doing today is making significant decisions. But we're all waiting with bated breath for the next great leap forward in the underlying architecture for these foundational models to unlock those use cases.

The portfolio is quite the same. We see a lot of great use cases in sales automation in terms of customer support, but for the real transformation of the enterprise, we're not quite there yet, unfortunately. So, a lot of the use cases show the potential for what the future will look like, but we need those models to improve a bit more in order for us to see massive transformations of accountancies or legal service firms or anything else like that. Software engineers haven't been fully automated out yet, so we're not quite there yet.

Linnea: We’re all also waiting with bated breath for the unveiling of DominicGPT.

Dominic: Yes, exactly, I was sharing earlier that I've managed to alleviate some of my own personal pain by training GPT internally on all of my own writing, and that makes the answering of questions a little bit easier.

Now we don't have, just yet, GPT 4.0 to go from text to voice, so I could have just stuck up my phone and had this interview through my GPT app, but maybe one day we'll get there. It might have better humor, so we'll see.

Linnea: Haha, in-person is much better. How are you personally using AI to enhance your every day?

Dominic: It’s a lot of small tasks right now. That could be as simple as, if I get raw data from a portfolio company, for instance, let's say it's marketing spend data by channel and by day, and I want to run Monte Carlo simulations off of that, right? ChatGPT's data analytics module is good for that. And so rather than giving that out to an analyst that I don't have, I now have the ability to quickly run analysis and be quick in my understanding of what's going on inside of portfolio company based upon raw data sets.

The second topic again revolves around that document ingestion. It goes beyond just summarizing a commercial due diligence report. It might be as I go through the development of a diligence report from phase one to phase two to phase three, trying to draw out the differences and insights that we have, where there has been a shift in understanding within that company. It allows you to identify that more clearly.

That's also true for our deal team partners, by the way. When they're looking at investment committee papers, our committee members are often referencing, what's the difference between IC one and two, and where has there been change?

And that's also true in our portfolio management committee process. So it's often where you have large amounts of either structured or unstructured data, and you are trying to get to the heart of what matters. It is becoming an accelerant to find answers quicker. It makes you focus on the actions more rather than spending too much time on the insights. It doesn't negate the need for human analysis, but certainly accelerates it.

It is becoming an accelerant to find answers quicker. It makes you focus on the actions more rather than spending too much time on the insights.

Linnea: Totally. Let’s pivot off the work topics now. What things do you do outside of work that allow you to show up as your best self every day?

Dominic: I am a runner and it is probably the most important thing that I do in my life. And I don’t always get to do it as often as I like. It is a way to moderate the self and create the well being that you need to be your best self every day.

And, actually, being that I’m visiting New York today, my favorite run in New York is cutting across 14th Street and then running around the peninsula of Manhattan. I call it the pizza run because it's shaped like a pizza. The run also happens to start and end at Joe's Pizza on 14th Street.

It is a way for me to circle the city and feel that I'm not overwhelmed by the grandness of New York City. It's a way for me to assert my control over the city, so to say. It's a critical way to moderate, through physical exercise, the emotional and mental self as much as possible. And I know you're a huge runner, so I don't know if you have a favorite run, but that's how I cope every day.

Linnea: That’s a great run, and nothing motivates quite like the carbs. My favorite run here is the Central Park loop. When you step foot into the 843 acres of the park, surrounded by greenery, you forget for a moment about the noise and bustle in Manhattan. And, similarly for me, the rhythm of running unlocks that flow state and quiets the mind.

What about any leaders that are inspiring you lately?

Dominic: One of the people that struck me as deeply inspiring is a guy nicknamed Hardest Geezer, an English endurance athlete who ran the entire length of Africa. What was inspiring for me about him was the transparency by which he documented his entire experience, the unwavering commitment to the mission, even when others called him insane, and the community that he built around him by broadcasting his everyday experiences. He ran for 360 days straight, covering around 40 to 50 kilometers each day.

For me it's always these people who do the unimaginable and show that it's both possible and really hard, and are more transparent around inspiring others.

Actually, when he had just finished running it, I happened to be in Disneyland Paris with my son and ran into him at the Disneyland Hotel. And for me it was like meeting an absolute celebrity. My son was excited to meet Goofy, and here I was, running up to this crazy English guy, being like, "I am such a huge fan of what you accomplished."

Linnea: I think the piece there that's so inspiring to me too is seeing these people continue to show up, even though they're all in pain at some point, and still with that sparkle in their eyes.

Any other sources where you draw inspiration from – books, podcasts, quotes?

Dominic: The journey of entrepreneurs is fascinating to watch and there are always so many lessons to be learned. I have a large network of friends who are entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, being from San Francisco, and for me it's exciting to learn from their perseverance.

Entrepreneurism is about survival every day. Is the business going to survive? While simultaneously being almost delusional in optimism around the change that you can create into the future. And I think that is a place that anyone in a company, whether you're at the mid-market level or the enterprise level, can learn from, because it's a relentless focus on execution. It's a focus on what matters. It's an emotional perseverance to deal with the really, really tough reality of creating a business. And for me, that's inspiring.

Sam Altman, before doing OpenAI, had a great YouTube series called How to Start a Startup, where he brought everyone from Peter Thiel to Brian Chesky to the Collison Brothers to talk about what's required to build a company. That inspired the "Blitzkrieg" book by Reid Hoffman and subsequent series at Stanford. Going back to the foundational tenants of entrepreneurialism is always a source of inspiration.

Linnea: Agree. We are nearing the end and, in each episode, we like to define brilliance in a few ways, so please fill in the blanks.

Dominic:

Purpose is… a gift you give to the world.

Leadership is… a focus on the long term in spite of the challenges of the short term.

Success is… the impact you make on people.

Brilliant leaders are… deep misfits.

Brilliant digital & AI leaders are… empathetic, not robots.

I perform at my best when… I've had a run and a hug from my son.

Linnea: Thank you to Dominic Gallello of Bridgepoint for joining us on today's episode. I hope all of you walk away as inspired as I am to focus on the few big things that truly matter. Spend time co-creating, enabling, and modernizing.

That's it for this episode of the Brilliant People Podcast. If you found this conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show, and follow Acertitude on LinkedIn for the latest insights on how to lead and perform at your best.

Until next time, stay brilliant at work. And hit the road for a run.

Defining Brilliance with Dominic Gallello

	Purpose is:	a gift you give to the world.
	Leadership is:	a focus ont he long term ins pite of the challenges of the short term.
	Success is:	the impact you make on people.
	Brilliant leaders are:	deep misfits.
	Brilliant digital & AI leaders are:	empathetic, not robots.
	I perform at my best when:	I've had a run and a hug from my son.