Four Pillars Gin cofounder Matt Jones on how to co-CEO

Every business starts with a decision. In the case of Four Pillars, it was the decision to make gin.

And from that first decision flowed a cascade of dozens, then hundreds, of other decisions to be made.

At its simplest, all business is just decision making, and those decisions come at you thick and fast when you’re getting started. There’s a temptation to prioritise action and believe that all momentum is good momentum.

But to think that way is to fail to see both the preciousness and the fragility of these early (or even pre-launch) days. And that means, too often, failing to value the thinking and the clarity that helps you get those early decisions right.

There are so many sliding doors moments that could take your business, your idea, down a very different path. In the case of Four Pillars, although we appeared to have locked in most of the big decisions after Stu and Cam returned from their original fact-finding trip to USA, the reality is that those decisions were just the tip of the decision-making iceberg.

The next big decision we made (and could, frankly, have ignored until it became an issue) was how we were going to work together. One of the most exciting things about the Four Pillars business (apart from the gin, which is really the only thing that matters) is that, from day one, I have had the privilege of partnering with two people who are completely at the top of their game – and now we had to choose who was going to captain this gin-powered ship.

Some of the Four Pillars range

Stu was the natural leader of the group, as he is in any room he enters. He definitely has big leader energy and is quite possibly the most charismatic and connected human in Australian business. He’s also an extraordinarily intelligent, incisive thinker with a rare combination of commercial acumen, communications expertise and genuine creativity.

Cam was also an obvious choice, as he was the one who was going to be building the distillery and making the gin, while Stu and I contributed from the sidelines (at least until the business was making enough money to be able to pay for some of our time too).

But to elevate either of them to be the sole managing director or CEO of our start-up would have missed the power of the trio. It would have made it that much harder to get the best out of our trio of superpowers (or, at least, our diverse skills and mindsets).

We sat down early on and agreed we would be co-CEOs. This raised two challenging questions.

The first was, will anyone take us seriously if we put a three co-CEO model into our investor memorandum? That was an easy concern to dismiss, considering that the Lowy family had successfully grown the Westfield empire under the same model.

The second, more material, question was, if we are all co-CEOs, how will we decide what to do in the event of disagreement? How we answered this question is, I believe, key to the success we’ve had with Four Pillars.

My view was clear: we had made the decision to make gin unanimously, and every decision we had made so far had been made unanimously. So, why shouldn’t we continue in the same way? To require unanimity on all major decisions moving forward would do two things.

First, it would require us all to be more rigorous in our thinking. Only having to pick off and persuade one of your two partners of the rightness of your approach, catching them in a weak moment or talking to their personal biases, would allow much more faulty thinking to prevail. Requiring every major decision to be supported by both your partners required a much higher standard of thinking.

Second, it would require us all to be reasonable grown-ups capable of compromise, understanding when to dig in on a major point of strategy, and when to bow to the expertise or leadership of your partners on a point of nuance or subjectivity.

With the co-CEO model locked in (and enshrined in our shareholders’ agreement), the next thing was to agree how we would work together. If I’m honest, I don’t remember how much we talked about it explicitly, but it became very clear very fast what areas each of us would take the lead in. Possibly more by luck than judgement we landed on a perfect balance of overlapping empathy and distinctive specialism in how we divided and conquered.

First, the overlaps: Stu and Cam both have exceptional palates, but, ultimately, it was Cameron who threw himself into learning how to become a world-class gin distiller with the same level of focus, commitment and bloody-minded determination that had got him to the Olympics. So it was Cam who would make the final calls on flavour.

Meanwhile, Stu and I were both working in the marketing space: me coming at things from a brand strategy and brand experience point of view; Stu from the point of view of public relations and earned media, with the added bonus of having ten times my experience when it came to actually building and running a business.

So our roles and responsibilities were becoming crystal clear. Cam would make gin and make things happen – and make sure we didn’t blow ourselves up while we did it. Stu would make friends and make noise in the media, in the drinks industry, with our customers and with our partners. And I would make sense and make things look good.

All three of us contributed to all aspects of the business, but the understanding was there from very early on that we each had areas of absolute expertise and we would take ownership and lead in those areas. The areas of overlap between our experience and expertise also helped us make better decisions.

For ten years, the three of us acted as co-CEOs of Four Pillars Gin, each ultimately responsible for the growth and strength of the whole business, but each with a unique set of accountabilities that relate to that our personal passion and expertise.

What made it work so well was we all understood and committed to what we were personally responsible for, but we also all had a deep respect for each other’s areas of effort and expertise.