What's in a name?
Job titles that are breaking the business mould are a triumph of creativity.
What’s in a name? Plenty if you work in Wellington. Bubble blower, doer of things and benevolent dictator may sound like characters in a children’s book, but are in fact job titles used by a new generation of Wellington business leaders. Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency’s destination and marketing general manager
Adele Fitzpatrick said the city’s new breed of business leaders were doing things their way.
Increasingly, many in the city’s creative business community were choosing to adopt descriptive job titles to help show their businesses were not only agile but sit outside a ‘‘traditional’’ corporate entity.
‘‘They realise that quirky titles put a smile on those that see them and establishing good vibes can only help with business success.’’ Tuatara Brewery head boy,
Richard Shirtcliffe. The outgoing brewery chief executive had an ‘‘abject aversion’’ to titles in general and preferred something less big: ‘‘Chief executive isn’t necessary reflective of either the [craft brewing] sector or the Tuatara brand which is a little more light-hearted. I think if you can have a bit of irreverence hardwired into the title then it’s a good thing, it says the right things about the business and the brand.’’
Yeastie Boys brewery, formerly head boy, now benevolent dictator, Stu McKinlay. Currently based in the UK as his company expands globally, McKinlay claims first use of head boy. He liked unusual job titles because the roles – as is the case with many small companies – were so much more diverse than a traditional job title can ever convey. ‘‘In the UK, for example, I am working across half a dozen roles or more: chief executive, national sales manager, business development officer, operations manager, data administrator, and tea boy.’’
PledgeMe founder/chief bubble
blower Anna Gunther. Gunther read The Founders Dilemma, by author Noam Wasserman, which surveyed more than 200 US startups, to see why they succeeded or failed. ‘‘One thing they found was companies setting excessively serious and structured titles too early in the startup phase could indicate later failure. I decided to counter that by joking and thought chief bubble blower made sense as our logo was a bubble. Then we did a bubble blowing flash mob, and I got a photo of me actually blowing bubbles, so the title stuck and gets me lots of positive attention.’’ SuchCrowd co-founder/chief validator, Abbe Hyde. ‘‘The criteria of a startup weekend comes in three parts. Validation which means proving customers want what you are building, execution, or building it, and the business model, or how you make money. Our team naturally fell into those three roles and we decided to keep them rather than have formal roles.’’ SuchCrowd team member, co-founder and chief financial officer Jacob Manning, is known as chief hustler. One Percent Collective chief doer of things, Pat Shepherd. Setting up One Percent Collective in 2012, Shepherd realised the need to learn skills other than those he already had. ‘‘As a one-man charity band, with a wonderful board and a small group of volunteers, I realised it was down to me to make things happen. Chief director or director didn’t really suit the vibe of our creative approach to giving, so it was time to say it as it is – chief doer of things. It has certainly spawned a lot of interesting conversations. I feel that using language that matches our brand, style and honest approach to giving, has really helped people feel they can approach us in a human way with honest chats. A creative title has led to human connections and positive changes in the world.’’