As Founder and CEO of The Sneakers Agency, Christopher White is enabling businesses to stay ahead of the competition by helping them deliver outstanding mobile experiences to their customers.
Biography
A leader in the mobile industry, Christopher White is founder and CEO of The Sneakers Agency, aka Sneakers. Responsible for the long-term strategic vision of Sneakers from their home-base in NYC, he is helping enterprises and startups navigate the complex world of mobile strategy, design, and development so that they can boost efficiencies and increase revenues.
He recently coordinated the launch of Sneakers Agency Asia based in Singapore to help serve companies in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, China, India, and Australia. He holds a M.S.E. from Princeton University and a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Q&A
What defines a successful leader?
A successful leader is someone who takes responsibility for themselves and their actions along with those of their company and employees. It’s akin to a “the buck stops here” mentality. Even more so though, a leader is a visionary who is able to communicate their vision and inspire others to want to share in their vision for the future.
Culture and talent are important to any company’s success. How do you engage and inspire your workforce?
This is something that we have started working on as a company, because we see how important it is. We make sure to share company and individual success with our employees via our weekly meetings and our internal slack channels. We find that people really love to show support for their coworkers and it also inspires them to achieve great things themselves. We conduct monthly meetings to get feedback from everyone at the company and we are planning our first major company half-day or all-day outing.
Innovation and disruption are reshaping industries every day. What do you see as the number one game-changer facing businesses today?
The number one game-changer facing businesses today is the speed with which innovation and disruption are happening. Things can change drastically within a 6 month to 2 year period for almost any industry and so it’s crucial that company leaders and CEOs stay up-to-date on where things are going in their industry and what their current and potential future competitors are doing.
Challenges abound in today’s fast-changing business environment. What keeps you up at night?
The breadth and depth of competition in our space is astounding and so that definitely keeps me up at night a little bit. But more so, what keeps me up at night is trying to figure out what our customers’ needs are and how we can deliver them the most value for their businesses.
Why did you join Bloomberg Breakaway?
I joined Bloomberg Breakaway to gain exposure to ideas and insights outside of my industry and to create lasting friendships and possibly business relationships with other CEOs.
Even CEOs need downtime. How do you recharge?
As a CEO, I have definitely learned the importance of downtime so that you can mentally recharge. I like to do one big trip a year for a few weeks and take some smaller one week breaks here and there throughout the year. I love to read on my downtime and I also love to snow board and roller skate.
About Bloomberg Breakaway
Membership in Bloomberg Breakaway combines exclusive, one-of-a-kind peer networking with insight from industry experts, innovators and global leaders.
Membership details