Jul 21, 2022
“Things will always go wrong; my engineering background taught me to remain calm, avoid blame and just work through the problem.”
In this episode of The Inner Chief podcast, we speak to telecommunications industry disruptor, Alex West, CEO of Swoop, on being the calm in the chaos, trust and vulnerability, and building a high performing culture through metrics.
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Alex is currently the CEO of Swoop, a telecommunications company backed by Andrew Forrest’s Tattarang, and which has had a stellar year, including listing on the ASX followed by six acquisitions.
Alex has been involved in around 50 company acquisitions while in senior roles with some of Australia’s leading telcos, including Superloop and PIPE Networks (now TPG), and has also raised more than $66 million in equity in his 20-year career.
He cut his teeth as a graduate engineer at Telstra, before climbing the ranks to Chief Operating Officer at Vocus Group.
Alex holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from the University of Newcastle, and a Master of Engineering Management from the University of Technology, Sydney.
In this episode we talk about:
✅ How remaining calm, even when things go wrong, is his superpower;
✅ The shift from executive to CEO when you’ve spent two decades in the same industry;
✅ Leading a high-performing team through trust and vulnerability; and
✅ Cultivating a strong company culture of using metrics and dashboards.
Connecting with Alex West
You can connect with Alex via LinkedIn
Books and resources
Start with Why - by Simon Sinek