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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we

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Speaker 1: ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sean Almer. Last week we spoke to Jason Pellogrino,

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Speaker 1: the president of Domain, about the acquisition of Domain by

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Speaker 1: US property giant co Star. Last year we looked at

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Speaker 1: what it meant for the platform for Australians who use

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Speaker 1: it for buying and selling and renting and more. We

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Speaker 1: talked about commercial real estate, all sorts of things. This

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Speaker 1: week something a little bit different. We're getting an insight

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Speaker 1: into what it takes to lead a company through major

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Speaker 1: change and how to bring two different company cultures together.

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Speaker 1: Of course, Domain is a great supporter of our podcast.

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Speaker 1: Here Jason Pelogreno joins me again in the studio. Jason,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with your own story. And you were a

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Speaker 1: CEO of Domain from twenty eighteen until February last year.

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Speaker 1: You had a few months off, then you returned again,

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Speaker 1: but even before that you had time at Fairfax at Google. Like,

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Speaker 1: just give me a snapshot of your journey to lead

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Speaker 1: Domain and then leave and come back.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I joined Domain. After ten years at Google. I

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Speaker 3: was the country manager at Google. I had worked with

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Speaker 3: Google through an extraordinary expansion from fifty people in Australia

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Speaker 3: sixteen hundred and I had the privilege of seeing that journey.

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Speaker 3: My decision to join Domain was really about so moving

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Speaker 3: and challenging myself to take on a leadership role of

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Speaker 3: an Australian business, Australian technology business, whereas where my passion

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Speaker 3: and skill sets live.

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to jump. Was that hard though, to

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Speaker 1: go from Google, which was kind of king of the universe,

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Speaker 1: or is you know, at the time, certainly king of

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Speaker 1: the universe, to what people would say as a more

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Speaker 1: traditional organization.

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Speaker 3: It was hard, but probably not the way that people think.

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Speaker 3: So I had earlier in my career. I'd worked at Pepsi,

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Speaker 3: so I'd been a number two player, and I actually

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Speaker 3: like the competitive intensity of jumping into something that's that

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Speaker 3: is actually deeply competitive and maybe you don't have.

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Speaker 2: The number one platform.

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Speaker 3: So for me that it wasn't the moving from everything

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Speaker 3: up and to the right towards a much more challenging environment.

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Speaker 3: It was really the cultural change was quite interesting. It

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Speaker 3: was a business that had only recently been separated from

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Speaker 3: and listed separately from Fairfax, and so the cultural and

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Speaker 3: the leadership challenge of actually setting up that business and

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Speaker 3: maturing it to the necessary requirements to match that was

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Speaker 3: very complex. But I probably learned more in a very

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Speaker 3: short period.

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Speaker 2: Of time that I had previously.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and then you left domain for six months or so?

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Speaker 2: Was it?

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Speaker 1: And then in coming back? What was it like to

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Speaker 1: come back to it?

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Speaker 3: The six months was fantastic in that it gave me

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Speaker 3: an ability to reflect and really understand, and part way

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Speaker 3: through that journey, I knew that I was coming back,

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Speaker 3: and that gave me the time and space to really

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Speaker 3: think about my role. I knew that Domain was changing,

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Speaker 3: strategy was changing, context, and not just degrees to the

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Speaker 3: left or to the right. You know, this is essentially

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Speaker 3: enormous change. And I also had sufficient self awareness to

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Speaker 3: sort of run.

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Speaker 2: Through the view.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's really difficult for the guy that was in

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Speaker 3: before to stand up on a stage and tell everyone

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Speaker 3: that everything's changed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what was my role in driving that change?

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Speaker 3: And so I need to really understand how do I

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Speaker 3: message that change, how do I describe that change, and

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Speaker 3: how do I get people to walk through the gates

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Speaker 3: with me of that change, and that comes down to confidence.

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Speaker 3: That comes down to the confidence in the strategy. It

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Speaker 3: comes down the confidence and the leadership. And what are

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Speaker 3: the actions, what are the words, what are the broad

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Speaker 3: based what we call leadership shadow all the actions when

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Speaker 3: people are looking to me as a leader, that reinforce

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Speaker 3: and support the words that I'm actually talking about with change.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So those who didn't hear it last week's show,

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Speaker 1: you can find that on a playlist fearinggreed dot com

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Speaker 1: dot are you. Jason was talking about the shift in

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Speaker 1: main obviously we know it for residential, pushing harder into commercial,

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Speaker 1: much harder into data. When you're coming back and talking,

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Speaker 1: you know, and Jason, I've known you for a long

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Speaker 1: time that you are a nice person, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: everyone's gonna like Jason Pelergrena no problems there. But you're

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Speaker 1: actually telling people kind of hard news in some ways

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Speaker 1: that you've got to do your work, your job differently

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Speaker 1: next Monday. It's that type of thing.

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Speaker 2: How do you do that?

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Speaker 3: I was under no misapprehension that this was not a

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Speaker 3: simple story of chapter two.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we were writing a completely different novel.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that required fundamental change on my behalf. That

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Speaker 3: required change in the basics of how I operated, and

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Speaker 3: it couldn't mean changing to an inauthentic approach, but it

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Speaker 3: did mean referencing different areas of strength that I have

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Speaker 3: as a leader and also waiting into areas that maybe

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Speaker 3: I hadn't flexed muscles as a leader before. We are

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Speaker 3: joining a US founder led business as a division. That's

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Speaker 3: a big step away from a locally listed corporate organization

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Speaker 3: within a deep Australian culture, and so I need to

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Speaker 3: actually lean into that change and drive that and so

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Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time thinking through The other

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Speaker 3: piece that's quite interesting is I'm going out to the

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Speaker 3: same customers and telling them that everything is different, and

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Speaker 3: I again have the sufficient self awareness that it needs

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Speaker 3: to be more than a message. When the same guy

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Speaker 3: turns up and tells customers that everything is different, there

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Speaker 3: needs to be substance behind it. And so I had

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Speaker 3: to step in with different approaches, different challenges and make

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Speaker 3: some really tough decisions around people, around strategy, around unwinding

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Speaker 3: previous strategy that I actually set in place, and that

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Speaker 3: had to be done incredibly quickly.

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Speaker 1: Was it a matter of bringing two cultures together or not.

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Speaker 3: I think realistically you would love to say it's about

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Speaker 3: merging in, it's a merger of equals and you doing

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Speaker 3: everything nice, and you know, the roses smell really good.

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Speaker 3: But I think ultimately you're in a situation where we

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Speaker 3: have been one hundred percent acquired by an enormously large

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Speaker 3: and enormously successful US commercial data business with a growing

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Speaker 3: residential platform. This is a business that I think is

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Speaker 3: about to record or close to recording fifty nine consecutive

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Speaker 3: quarters of double digit revenue growth. This is a business

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Speaker 3: that has has just exceeded everyone's expectations in the performance

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Speaker 3: of what it's been delivered.

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Speaker 2: So for us to say at the.

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Speaker 3: Beginning of this journey together that you need to meet

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Speaker 3: us halfway, I think it's just unrealistic. And I think

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Speaker 3: we will get the best out of domain and we'll

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Speaker 3: get the best for our employees, the best for our leaders,

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Speaker 3: and the best for our customers by really understanding what

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Speaker 3: is the best of co Star that we can actually

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Speaker 3: rapidly adopt and be very introspective and self assessing and

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Speaker 3: a self critical around the areas that we can do

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Speaker 3: better and how we can get there faster.

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Speaker 2: Through this greater level of support.

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Speaker 1: But I'm guessing coast I hasn't said to you, Jason,

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Speaker 1: that you can have a couple of years to work

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Speaker 1: this out, bed yourself in and then take off. I'd

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Speaker 1: imagine that you've actually got to run the day to

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Speaker 1: day business as well as do all this change that

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Speaker 1: you're talking about.

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Speaker 3: I had the absolute privilege of a decade at Google

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Speaker 3: and working with a founder led business. In that instance,

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Speaker 3: it was two founders, and so I know what good

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Speaker 3: looks like, and I know the upside and the benefits

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Speaker 3: of a founder led business where you can get decisions

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Speaker 3: made rapidly. You know, people are focused on the right

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Speaker 3: outcomes of the right objectives and working through So I've

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Speaker 3: seen the other side of the good. I've got an

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Speaker 3: organization that many people within that haven't experienced that, and

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Speaker 3: so the change is enormous, and so they I have

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Speaker 3: to get a level of trust, and I also have

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Speaker 3: to identify the people who we're just not going to

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Speaker 3: make it through that gate and the people who are.

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Speaker 3: And so there are people who will be new champions

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Speaker 3: have changed, and there are people who maybe will slow

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Speaker 3: down that change. And it's my job to make sure

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Speaker 3: that we are celebrating change and moving that forward and

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Speaker 3: providing them with the confidence that what's over the other

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Speaker 3: side is absolutely worth the pain of the journey. But

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Speaker 3: I got to tell you the one thing I do know,

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Speaker 3: and this is my time at Google or my time

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Speaker 3: now at co Star, is it's not an either or.

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Speaker 3: You don't get a free pass of you know, you

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Speaker 3: can go out and play in the field and make

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Speaker 3: this happen and then we'll come back to you in

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Speaker 3: two years time and then we'll start moving. We are

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Speaker 3: moving from day one, and we're moving fast. So in

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Speaker 3: the five months of ownership, we are now delivering our

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Speaker 3: largest audience ever, the most inquiries we've ever delivered. It's

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Speaker 3: the fastest growth we've ever experienced. So we are doing

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Speaker 3: that as well as fundamentally repivoting our strategy, our approach,

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Speaker 3: our leadership structures, and even the talent that we have

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Speaker 3: on board.

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Speaker 1: Is it easier or harder operating for a final led

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Speaker 1: business than a listed business? Now, obviously debureaucracy, but let's

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Speaker 1: go beyond just the red tape and that you know

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Speaker 1: everything you've got to fill in for the ax. Like

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there were the downside of a foundal led business. Also,

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Speaker 1: I mean one thing about being listed on an assex

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Speaker 1: it keeps you in check. You know, there are certain

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Speaker 1: processes all the time.

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Speaker 2: The government structures.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, which is better?

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure it's better or worse. It's just different,

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Speaker 3: and it's recognizing that points of difference and emphasizing the

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Speaker 3: benefits of some of the parts that are easier, and

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Speaker 3: just really understanding that. So I don't see it as

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Speaker 3: better or worse. I just see it as an inevitable

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Speaker 3: progression of where we want to get to and how

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Speaker 3: do we use the assets. So a good example is

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Speaker 3: we may have, as a local listed entity, had much

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Speaker 3: more control over our entire strategy and outcome. That doesn't

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Speaker 3: necessarily means it delivers to a better outcome. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 3: I'm trading off full control and full decision make looking

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Speaker 3: for opening up the Pandora's box of opportunity and capital

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Speaker 3: and technology that I never had access to before. So

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Speaker 3: you could look at that as glass is half empty,

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Speaker 3: which is our choices are being restricted and shared overseas.

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Speaker 3: The glasses half full view is to say, well I

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Speaker 3: now have way more choices than I ever had available before.

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Speaker 1: What will success be for you? What was your KPI

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Speaker 1: for two or three years time.

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Speaker 3: I've got core corporate KPIs which has transformed the residential

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Speaker 3: industry in Australia to launch the commercial industry in Australia.

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Speaker 3: And they're fairly simple to measure, I would say, Andy,

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Speaker 3: founder of Costar, and even the way I assess myself,

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Speaker 3: I've got a critical role to play in the transformation

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Speaker 3: of Domain, the integration culturally, the alignment culturally. We are

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Speaker 3: lining up you know, thousands of product and technolology resources,

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Speaker 3: hundreds of marketers, you know, several thousand salespeople globally in

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Speaker 3: a way that we just never had to do before.

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Speaker 3: And so my role at making sure that I'm an

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Speaker 3: ambassador for Australia, that I'm deeply connected into the global

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Speaker 3: strategy and global capabilities, and that Australia is contributing to

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Speaker 3: co Stars success globally as much as co Star is

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Speaker 3: contributing to Domain success within the Australian market.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic Jason, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: That was Jason Pelagrino, President of Domain, which is a

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Speaker 1: terrific support of this podcast. I'm Chanelmer, And this is

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Speaker 1: feer and greed. You're and da