JAMF's new CEO makes a respectful transition

The first thing new JAMF Software CEO Dean Hager wanted to do last week was dispel the idea that he knows of any secrets of how to take over as CEO from the co-founders of a dynamic company.

"I'm day-to-day trying to figure it out just like everybody else," he said.

While he clearly meant it, Hager didn't give himself nearly enough credit. It's not so much that he knows the right thing to do as he knows what the wrong thing would be. That's why he explained that he won't be trying to put his mark on a thriving company he's only just getting to know.

"So often I have seen new leaders brought into a situation like this and say, 'Man, I have no idea how this company could have gotten this big, so I'll just fix all the things that are wrong with it,' " Hager said. "There's a different approach to take. How did the company get this much success and grow to the size it is? Because I want to tap into that thing that's special."

"I've never grown a company from zero to more than 400 employees," he continued. "I'm kind of in awe of anybody who has. So let's start there."

Since starting two months ago at JAMF's Minneapolis headquarters, he hasn't been looking for processes to improve, which he said would not be that hard to spot. He was doing the harder work of figuring out how JAMF Software, which makes tools to manage a fleet of Apple computers and other devices, grew to about 450 employees. That included spending time getting to know co-founders Zach Halmstad and Chip Pearson better.

This clearly looks like a smart way to start a leadership transition that's often very tricky, although it's quite common in the technology industry. A groundbreaking study some years ago of 212 American start-ups found that fewer than one in four founder CEOs still led their companies at the time of an initial public offering.

A new CEO can never catch up with a co-founder's comprehensive knowledge of the market and the technology, he argued in an influential 2010 essay. Only a founder really knows how the product came together, and how the company found the best way to sell it. And founder CEOs remain obsessed with what's best for the company. Short-term thinking of professional managers, hoping to turn stock options into cash, kills innovation.

With some luck, boards don't have to choose between these two options, tossing the founders and appointing a CEO or keeping the founders in top leadership roles. Even Horowitz hinted at it, and it's possible to combine the two.

In this scenario a new CEO comes from the outside but gets so immersed in the company's heritage that he or she starts to think a little like another founder, building a close partnership with the founders along the way.

This certainly looks like the path chosen by JAMF and Hager. He didn't need convincing that it would be a pleasure to work for a company controlled by co-founders who take a long-term view. He has worked for companies controlled by private equity firms, including most recently as CEO of the software and services firm Kroll Ontrack.

Last year, on the 25th anniversary of starting his first job out of college, Hager left Kroll. He planned to take a year to discover what he should do next.

Last year the co-founders, Halmstad and Pearson, told the board that the time was coming for them to step down as co-CEOs and bring in a new leader. As Pearson explained, "I love JAMF so much, both Zach and I do, that we wanted to have the best CEO we could have. But there's still a lot that we could bring and we can do."

Hager fit nicely with the two "must have" qualities they were looking for, Pearson said, as he had successfully led product development from an idea all the way to a product launch, as well as directed sales and marketing efforts.

He turned out to be a great cultural fit, too, Pearson said, adding that only later did the founders realize the wisdom of hiring a Midwesterner to lead a Midwestern company.

Hager said he found it easy to appreciate the heritage and mission of the company, describing growing up in Ormsby, a town of about 130 in southern Minnesota. He remembered when his high school got its first desktop computer, an Apple IIe. He quickly grew to love writing programs on it and found out from a teacher that writing programs was a real profession, something he could one day do for a living.

"When that device got rolled into this 16-year-old kid, it changed my life," he said. "We at JAMF have the opportunity to do that for other people, whether they are already working in their careers or still in school. We have the opportunity to deliver a solution … that in some small way transforms what they do in the world. That's pretty cool."

If the job candidate can't really appreciate the heritage of a founder-led company and embrace its culture, or can't seem to respect the hard work of the co-founders, he said, please spare all involved the pain of what will be a short and unhappy tenure as CEO.

As he put it, "it's not something that can be faked."