For most companies, promoting someone to president would be pretty straightforward, but few companies have had the history of the Nerdery.
First, and depending on when you count, the job of president seems pretty well covered already by the something like 462 co-presidents the company already has. Everyone who works at the place carries a business card that says "Co-President."
Beyond that, what made this more than a simple business decision is the memory of the last executive who held that job, and how the post came to be vacant. In 2010, the plane of co-founder Luke Bucklin went down in the mountains of Wyoming, and longtime employees had since come to assume that no one would ever have the title of president again.
With the recent appointment of company insider Tom O'Neill, however, the Nerdery seems to have made another step in putting that tragedy behind it. More important, what's very much alive at the company is Bucklin's approach to leadership.
Bucklin was becoming well-known in his industry even before news broke in October 2010 that his plane had gone missing. He was just one of three founders of the Bloomington-based software development firm, but he was the face of this growing company.
He was also the driving force behind the co-president concept. Here is how he described it in a 2010 all-company e-mail:
"I remember a day when there were no managers, no directors, no coordinators and no specialists. Well, maybe one president and a couple of co-presidents. Forget about your titles. Put your business card on the desk in front of you. Look at it. I am here to tell you that this is not your title. This card does not define you. You are a co-president. You are bigger than your defined role, and you are much more than your job title. Play your part, transcend your job title, be a hero."
His colleagues since his death took that idea and made it a fundamental part of working there. There is today an evergreen internal job posting for co-president, a job that reports to co-president(s). Business cards have the title, and so does an e-mail signature for most employees, with a link to a page on the website that explains what it's all about.