Bloom Guest Speaker Series: Davis Smith, CEO & Founder of Cotopaxi

Saying we were excited for our latest guest speaker at Bloom would be an understatement. Davis Smith is the CEO & Founder of Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear company that’s on a mission to do good around the world. He took time out of his busy schedule to share life principles with our global team and his advice is helpful for anyone striving to grow personally and professionally.

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Here are the lessons Davis shared — he even made the time to put these into an awesome slide deck for his visit with Bloom: 

Start small, but dream big. Davis shared stories from his first venture, PoolTables.com, and how he and his business partner started small by bootstrapping it from the ground up. Through grit and hard work they made it a success. This lesson in dreaming big is exactly what we’re trying to help our team do through our Guest Speaker Series. 

Manage up and manage down. Davis advises that as an individual contributor it’s important to go above and beyond in understanding our manager’s goals, helping our manager achieve them, and having the courage to communicate openly with those above us. And he says that if you’re a manager, be a leader who listens to and invests in individuals and shows them genuine love and concern.

Invest in your education. Speaking of investing, Davis says that the more you know, the more you earn, and that formal and informal education is incredibly important for personal and professional growth. This is huge for our global workforce at Bloom and is the reason why we partner with global universities. 

Budget carefully, especially during the good times. Davis acknowledges that this piece of advice is easier said than done, but is so worth it. At Bloom, we have some exciting things in the works on this same principle for our global team that we’ll be sharing more on soon.

Give outside of work. Davis practiced what he preaches in generously giving his time to meet with our team. He invited us all to look for someone in our sphere of influence whom we could lift and serve.

We couldn’t be more grateful for the stories and words of advice that Davis Smith shared with our team, and in reminding us that doing well in business — at the personal, team, and company-wide level, is synonymous with doing good in the world. Thank you, Davis!

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