29Sep2025
At Nordic Business Forum 2025, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO of Xero and former president of StubHub, took the stage to share ten big ideas on how to evolve company culture without sacrificing purpose or soul.
Drawing from her experience as a tech executive, entrepreneur, investor, and board member, Sukhinder offered a blueprint for decisive, opportunity-driven leadership. Her advice was direct, honest, and deeply practical, urging leaders to take ownership and embrace action.
Understanding the Soul of a Company
Sukhinder began her talk with a personal journey spanning three decades, using it as a metaphor to distinguish between behaviors, aspirations, values, and soul. Drawing on Gary Zukav’s Seat of the Soul, she explained that while our behaviors and aspirations evolve, our values often remain semi-constant, and our soul is something deeper and more enduring. The same is true for organizations. “Soul does not equal values, does not equal culture,” she said.
Sukhinder proposed a four-part system that applies to both individuals and companies:
- Purpose (Soul) — the enduring ‘why’ of the organization.
- Values — the shared ‘who’ that binds people together.
- Aspirations — the evolving ‘what’ a company aims to achieve.
- Behaviors — the ‘how’ expressed through daily actions and company culture.
She emphasized the importance of congruence across this system: aligning purpose, values, aspirations, and behaviors to prevent cultural stagnation and disconnection.
“We are most dissatisfied, personally, when our own behaviors don’t match our values and our aspirations, and don’t fulfill a purpose.”
Culture Must Evolve to Remain Aligned with Purpose
While many leaders want to preserve their “great culture,” Sukhinder argued that culture must evolve in order to stay aligned with the organization’s purpose and external changes—especially in fast-moving environments.
Using her own experience at Xero, she illustrated how companies with beloved cultures sometimes underperform or resist necessary change. “The greater the culture, the greater the shadow”, she said. As an example, she mentioned that the culture at Xero emphasized being “#human”. This strongly inclusive culture led to an enlarged headcount and Sukhinder had to tackle a 900-person layoff in her sixth week as CEO to realign performance with purpose.
So how does one go about changing a culture without losing your purpose and soul? Sukhinder drew from LEGO’s transformation story to reinforce that cultural evolution can include both big strategic moves (like executive changes or layoffs) and small tactical habits (like celebrating adult fans or inviting employees to build AI tools).
Where the Magic Happens: Going Beyond the C-Suite
Sukhinder stressed the importance of avoiding hierarchical bottlenecks when driving cultural change. Rather than relying solely on executive teams, she goes directly to mid-level and front-line employees, as these are the people doing “the atomic work of value creation.”
“Everywhere I’ve been, the key for me to change in culture has been to go where the magic happens.”
At both StubHub and at Xero, she initiated direct relationships with 100–200 key contributors early in her tenure and launched an open Slack channel to share ideas and foster two-way communication. In her words, “Trickle-down takes too long. I want to hear directly what’s going on.”
Find (and Be) the Agitators
Sukhinder encouraged leaders to identify constructive agitators, who she defined as those employees who challenge the status quo because they care deeply about improvement. These people may not be the easiest to manage, but they are often the clearest signal of what needs to change.
More importantly, she urged everyone in the room to consider how they themselves can become agitators for progress. This could be as simple as replacing scripted all-hands meetings with live Q&A sessions, or encouraging transparency by answering difficult employee questions in real time.
Update Your Values – Yes, Even the ‘Sacred’ Ones
Sukhinder pointed out that purpose must remain stable, but values occasionally need to change, “Every five, six years, you want to look at your company values and say, do these fit?.”
She used ChatGPT to explore the most common company values: words like integrity, teamwork, respect. She then questioned whether these traditional terms were solid enough to build resilient, future-ready organizations.
But, if companies expect cultures to stay strong, they need to intentionally recruit for traits like grit, agility, and growth mindset, all of which are strongly correlated with high performance in rapidly changing environments.
Soulful Work Is a Strategic Advantage
Sukhinder concluded by returning to the theme of soul, arguing that companies thrive when employees can connect their personal sense of purpose to the company’s mission.
She shared the story of two UK-based founders of a small business called The Biscay, who left marketing careers to start a bakery because, to them, “baking means love.” They now serve corporate clients, including Xero. Now, Biscay embodies the idea of scaling with impact.
Sukhinder urged leaders to find soul in their work and help their employees find them too, citing one of her favourite Barack Obama’s quotes: “If not you, then who? If not now, then when? We are the change. We are the change we have been waiting for.”
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy keynote visual summary by Linda Saukko-Rauta
Key Points and Questions for Reflection
Key Points
- Purpose, Values, Aspirations, and Behaviors must be aligned. Misalignment leads to disconnection and cultural stagnation.
- Culture must evolve: Rather than preserving “great culture” as a static asset, culture must adapt to stay in sync with purpose and business needs. Combine big moves that set direction; with small moves build momentum.
- Go directly to where work and change happen: Leaders must engage those doing the atomic work of value creation.
- Find the agitators and be agitators: Support high-performing, value-driven employees who challenge the status quo, and ask tough questions, replace scripted meetings with real dialogue, and become stewards of meaningful change.
- Find soul at work: Make work meaningful for yourself and others.
Questions for Reflection
- In what ways is your current culture aligned or misaligned with your company’s purpose?
- Are there areas in your organization where small cultural shifts could yield big outcomes?
- Who are the constructive agitators in your company, and how are you enabling them?
- How often do you reexamine your company values? Do they reflect what’s needed to thrive in the next 5–10 years?
- What would it look like for you and your team to do work that feels soulful and purpose-driven?
