Facing the COVID-19 struggle: A message from Our CEO, Hande Cilingir to the Insider team, our partners, and the larger community
Hande Cilingir
Mar 23, 2020
Hande Cilingir
Mar 23, 2020
Hande Cilingir
Mar 23, 2020
Hande Cilingir
Mar 23, 2020
“Hard times create strong [people]. Strong [people] create good times.
Good times create weak [people]. And, weak [people] create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain
Dear Insider Family, the Fighters and the True Believers of the World,
We often face various challenges in our daily lives as entrepreneurs. Anyone who thrives in the face of adversity learns how to embrace struggle and to carve out learnings in the midst of chaos. The only way we can overcome hardships is to become truly committed to a purpose, never quit being persistent and push forward with a relentless drive. The recent COVID-19 crisis is the challenge we are facing now, and this time on a global scale. We are going through times where we need to become more collaborative than ever and stand in solidarity with each other.
In the light of these extraordinary circumstances, I would like to share with you the measures we are taking to ensure the safety of our team, continuity of our support to our partners, and our assistance to the larger community:
Strengthening our Work From Home (WFH) Muscles: Health and Safety
Technical Sustainability & Business Continuity: Seamlessly Maintaining All Operations
Using Our Strongest Muscle, Care. Care for Our People, for Our Partners and for the Larger Community
In order to help slow down the spread of the pandemic, we have been continuing our operations in self-isolation mode, by working 100% from home since March 13, 2020. We’ve delivered vital training and playbooks on health and safety measures as well as on creating the best WFH experience to our global community of 550+ team members spread across 24 cities in Europe, APAC, LATAM and MENA. Our onboarding programs, meetings, daily check-ins, update meetings, and events are now taking place online, as all travel has been restrained.
While we practice social distancing, we feel more united than ever, as we experienced in a recent update meeting with over 500 people on Zoom. Kudos to Eric Yuan for building such a powerful product helping to keep us united. We love Zoom.
As a large team spread across 24 cities around the world, we are experienced and fully equipped to work remotely. We’ll be sharing our WFH Playbook with the larger community in the upcoming days.
Insiders around the globe are continuing to be “always-on”, fully committed to supporting our partners, helping them during this challenging period and ensuring business continuity.
Our Customer Success and Sales teams are able to provide 100% remote support in local time zones to ensure our partners receive the help they need. To assist our eCommerce partners during this time we have created playbooks to help them meet the increasing demand.
Our engineering and development teams quickly created crisis response teams to support operations globally. Our response teams are working 24/7 ready to problem shoot and boost support, especially for our customers facing increased demand.
At Insider, care is one of our integral values. We care deeply about the well-being of our team members, partners and community. We have established COVID-19 response teams in every department to foresee the potential impact in the near future and to take action proactively.
We extend our gratitude to healthcare professionals all around the globe, including my sister who sends me messages about her challenges and the situation in hospitals every day. We thank them for going beyond their limits to stay mentally and physically fit, for all their hard work, sacrifice, care and relentless dedication during this time.
The entire world is going through a very steep and challenging learning curve. As do all hardships, this one also teaches us how to embrace struggle and overcome challenges with a united approach. And, from a business perspective, it is evident that we will all face the struggle. Yet, I am confident that things will get back to normal sooner or later, and what matters is to be ready and steady when that day comes.
As we go through this period together, we will continue to closely monitor the situation, and share COVID-19 related information, blogs, reports and useful resources with you. So stay tuned, do not panic, and stay safe.
Written by
Hande Cilingir
Co-founder and CEO at Insider, Hande Cilingir is one of the few women leaders to have found and led a B2B SaaS company to a one billion dollar valuation. Responsible for building the world’s most progressive technology company, with 1000+ team members, representing 51 different nationalities. Under Hande’s leadership, Insider has unlocked #1 leader status everywhere with a platform loved by analysts like Forrester, Gartner, and IDC, trusted by 1,200+ of the world’s leading brands and voted ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ by G2 users. Insider recently unlocked unicorn status and NASDAQ congratulated the company for becoming one of the few woman-founded, women-led B2B SaaS unicorns worldwide. CrunchBase recently ranked Insider’s co-founder and CEO Hande Cilingir as one of the top women CEOs.
