Matt Tebbe Transcript
Clint Betts
I'm pleased to introduce Matt Tebbe, President and CEO of Cartus. Cartus delivers the full spectrum of strategic talent and corporate relocation services to organizations of all services, in all sizes worldwide. These include more than a third of Fortune 100 companies, as well as hundreds of global clients with small to midsize programs. Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show, an honor to have you.
Matt Tebbe
Great. Thank you for having me.
Clint Betts
Tell us how you became the president and CEO of Cartus. What led to you being here with us today?
Matt Tebbe
Sure. I wish it was some great bold story. Ultimately, a recruiter reached out, the prior CEO of Cartus had retired after a number of years. And Cartus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Anywhere Real Estate. So Anywhere is the largest publicly traded residential real estate company in the country. Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby's, those are some of our brands.
But I bring that up because Anywhere leadership really was interested in bringing somebody from outside the industry, such as somebody from outside real estate, somebody from outside of mobility, and executive relocation into the role. My combination of experience with growth and experience with operations were the two core skill sets that Anywhere was looking at with regard to their new leader. So, I went through a traditional interview process and ultimately came out on the other side as the selection.
Clint Betts
Oh, that's incredible. That's a great story. Yeah, and it kind of matches with what you're doing, which means it worked. So give us a sense of what you do. I know I kind of laid it out in the full spectrum of strategic talent mobility and corporate relocation services for organizations of all sizes worldwide. What does that mean? Give us that in layman's terms.
Matt Tebbe
Sure. So we're the global leader in corporate relocation services. So that's everything from a traditional executive relocation. A company has a new CEO, and they live in California, but their new job is in New York, so they need to move that person to New York. But then all the way down there's a lot of companies that will provide support for their interns moving out for a summer program. We provide the full spectrum of support for those services.
So that can be household good moves, home sale and home purchase, intercultural language services if you're moving overseas, tax assistance, immigration assistance. Everything that's required to get somebody into a new location, operating effectively in their new role, Cartus provides those services. And this is actually our 70th year, so we were founded back in 1955, and so we've been doing this for a very long time.
Clint Betts
That's incredible. What have you learned since you've been the CEO and president?
Matt Tebbe
I've learned a lot. It's interesting because mobility traditionally rolls up under human resources. But ultimately, it's an enabling function. What we're doing is supporting talent management. And it's interesting the different ranges of some companies that really embrace their talent management, some that don't.
So it is a real learning experience for me, just the different ways that companies think about their talent, the way they think about where their talent is, and ultimately how they can enable it. And even more so in the sort of environment we're in where companies are scaling back on DE&I programs, really being thoughtful about what they do, what they say, and how they do it. Regardless of that, there's still a need to get the best talent and have them in the right locations. So, I am just learning an enormous amount about that and how we can support it.
Clint Betts
What have you learned, and what are you seeing in terms of this whole work-from-home that everybody did during COVID, then came out of COVID, it seemed like hybrid was really popular. It now seems like people are leaning towards a full return to the office. How are the clients and companies that you work with landing on that issue?
Matt Tebbe
It is a really good question. A lot of it is industry-specific. You hear the banks obviously really want their people. JP Morgan Jamie Dimon is very vocal about his opinions on what he wants. There are a lot of other companies, though, that are very comfortable with hybrid and others that are very comfortable with remote. Cartus ourselves are fully remote. We're a global company, we have offices in eight different countries. And yet, we downsized most of our real estate footprint before I joined, and we work very effectively remotely. I think the biggest thing is, did companies during COVID and coming out of COVID put all the necessary processes and procedures in place so that they could be effective? As an example, part of the reason I think that companies worked so well during COVID is because of the relationships. Clint, you and I worked together for 10 years. I could just pick up the phone and call you, we could get stuff done. As more and more new hires come into that environment, they don't have those relationships; they don't know who to call. So if a company doesn't have the right processes in place to really enable that new hire and make them a success, they're not going to be.
So I think the companies that really embraced that mindset and changed the way they did business have embraced hybrid and remote work and are very, very successful with it. The ones who didn't, where hybrid was a placeholder until we could get them back in, they're definitely going to be more biased towards, we want to see people in the office and in that environment.
So I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to it. I think it's really about how a given company is structured and whether or not they're able to support whatever model they've chosen.
Clint Betts
Okay, now the question is AI. And I feel like it should be the only question and the only thing we're ever talking about. All of my guests, I feel like we should just spend the whole time of our interview talking about this thing, even though none of us know the answers. It's very fascinating, and it's a good idea to talk it out and get a sense of how everyone's thinking about it.
So, I have two questions about AI for you. First, how are you using it within Cartus? And two, how are you thinking about it more broadly and particularly with the clients and companies that you're working with?
Matt Tebbe
Sure. I'm actually going to answer the questions in reverse if that's okay.
Clint Betts
Okay. Of course.
Matt Tebbe
The way we're thinking about it, there's two different lenses given the work we do. There's the back-end Cartus operations, our consultants who engage with transferees, our supply chain. And then there's the actual transfer experience, the front end and the clients and transferees who would be using it.
We're very focused and the way we're using it is on the back end, and there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that there's a lot of efficiencies that can be gained, a lot of administrative work that can be taken off our consultants' plates. So we're looking for, it's almost like the low-hanging fruit.
But the other piece of that is, I'll call it not safety per se, but there's still a lot that's being worked out with AI, and you hear about hallucinations. When you think about going through a move, it's stressful as it is. Things go wrong. Even more so now, it's magnified in a corporate environment where you are trying to take on a new role in a new location, potentially moving your family and your kids and getting to school. So the last thing we want is for something to go wrong and that transferee to then be getting wrong information from AI. Literally, I've heard stories about somebody's cargo container falling off the ship. When all your possessions sink to the bottom of the ocean, you don't want to engage with a bot; you want to talk to a human.
So we look very carefully at the demographics of who's being moved and who our clients are moving, especially at the executive level. It still skews in a way that there's more comfort in talking to a person than necessarily doing everything through mobility or through an app. But that's shifting, and so that's the other way that we're thinking about it: What are the demographics? What are the channels that our transferees want to work through us? And how can we be as flexible as possible to meet those?
Clint Betts
Yeah. And how are you using it within the company? And I know you kind of just touched on it there, but is it automating workflows? Is it helping you be more productive? Is it something you don't use that much currently?
Matt Tebbe
So, I really focused on productivity. So, a specific example is when a transferee is authorized, our consultant gets on the phone and explains all their benefits to them and what the given company's policy allows or doesn't allow, and that could be an hour or two phone call. We then take the summary of that phone call because it's not a copy and paste; it's specific to that transferee's circumstances. So it's a different conversation if you're moving a family of five with two dogs versus you're a solo 20-something.
So that call traditionally would be summarized by the consultant, and that takes a lot of time. Now through AI, that whole process can be automated such that it's just a matter of minutes, still capturing... We do a once over, again, to make sure that the accuracy is there. But for the most part, when it comes to that type of summarization, it is. So that's an example of the productivity gains.
And as you can imagine, we do thousands of those, tens of thousands of those calls a year. So it may only be a little bit for given call, but then magnified by thousands, you get a lot of productivity savings.
Clint Betts
Right. How are you thinking about it? Is it just general? Do you think it's going... Five or 10 years from now, what are we looking at? What does a job even mean in 10 years?
Matt Tebbe
When you look at the rate of acceleration and how ChatGPT-1 versus four and now all these other new providers, just how quickly it's progressed in a matter of years, I'm extremely bullish about what can come next. Whether or not we're going to the Terminator and self-awareness, Skynet's going to get its self-awareness remains to be seen. But I think that it is going to continue to accelerate, and I don't see this as a fad, kind of like the Metaverse has ultimately come out to be, where that was the big thing a couple of years ago. I think there are enough tangible benefits, and the ways that companies think about and use it are only going to build on themselves.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's really interesting. You mentioned DEI before, and I don't want to turn it into a political thing because I know it's become a political thing, but how is that affecting companies? And how are people thinking about it now that the winds have shifted and people are cutting back on DEI programs and roles and things like that within their company?
Matt Tebbe
Well, it's funny; we're just talking about this on an all-hands with the Cartus team today, and especially from our perspective, there are two lenses. One lens is the same as any other company. What are our hiring practices? And how are we going to do them? I'm of the belief that we want to get the best talent and diverse voices that benefit a company. If you have one lens on a company, you're not going to get the best thinking. So in that regard, we're going to certainly align with the law and what's mandated, but we believe in... Basically, we believe in DEI and bringing in the best talent.
But then the other lens, and this is one of the offerings Cartus has; we offer consulting services on DE&I and talent management because, again, mobility is a piece of where you put your best people in the right places so that you can maximize the returns for the company. And it's that same lens. If Company X is only looking at, say, white males between the ages of 40 and 50, whereas Company Y is looking at the breadth of talent they have available to them, company Y is going to be more successful. So it's almost changing the conversation from just thinking about it in terms of diversity and all the baggage that comes with that to look at the best way for us to manage our talent and achieve the returns that are expected.
Clint Betts
Yeah, and it's really interesting that it's become such a hot topic, huh? That must be fascinating for business leaders because I remember when DEI was being talked about in 2010. And it wasn't even a political thing, it was just, "Hey, how do we..." And now it really is. We're talking about the day after the president of the United States literally mentioned this in his State of the Union speech. So it's reached all the way to there.
Matt Tebbe
Yeah, it's, like you said, without getting political, but it's interesting how different topics have taken on outsized importance. Prior to coming to Cartus, I worked at a company called Riverside Insights, and we sold assessments to schools the kindergarten through grade 12. It's another area where education has taken on this; I'm going to say, outsized importance. Education is incredibly important, but in terms of the political spectrum and how it is or isn't woke or how different things are being taught or not being taught have created real dividing lines between whether it's red states-blue states, liberals-conservatives, whatever lens you want to use.
Try to stay out or make an opinion call on who's right or who's wrong, but these are just things that are fundamental. Talent management and making your business success, that's fundamental to being successful in business. Education and what we teach our kids is fundamental to how successful they're going to be as individuals and how successful we as Americans are going to be in the long-term and grand scheme of things. So it's one thing to make it an issue the way it has, but the more that we fight over it, the less likely anybody's going to turn out to be successful.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's an interesting way to put it. What does a typical day look like for you?
Matt Tebbe
I get up very early at a macro level. I'm an avid cyclist. I've been a competitive athlete most of my life, so there's a small group of us who are out on our bikes by about 5:30 in the morning several days a week, all with the intent of getting back before kids have to be off for school. So start the day with exercise. Once they are, as I mentioned, Cartus is remote first, so my office, where I'm speaking to you right now, is just one of the rooms in my house. So I don't have to deal with the commute, so it's get through the working day. And I work generally traditional hours, which allows me then to do soccer games and basketball games in the evening. And then Cartus is a global company, so typically I am back on my computer just checking emails, checking Teams, seeing if there's anything that requires my input to support the people on the other side of the globe before then going to bed.
Clint Betts
What do you read? And what reading recommendations would you have for us?
Matt Tebbe
I am an avid reader. I love science fiction. I love a very narrow genre of running fiction, such as Once a Runner by John Parker and The Olympian by Brian Granville. And then I like a real mix of nonfiction, exploration, and other things. The one that I recommend, which I just finished a few weeks ago, is called The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. It's been out for a number of years, but essentially it's about the rise of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden leading up to 9/11. And it's very, very approachable, despite a lot of getting specific about the different names and the different people who are involved.
And someone my age, having lived through 9/11, and I was actually living in the DC area when that took place. And it was just a fascinating book about... And unfortunately, knowing all the things that could have been done differently such that 9/11 didn't happen, but I'd strongly recommend that. And then more immediately, I'm reading the Nobody People by Bob Proehl, which is science fiction and basically like an X-Men grounded in reality. So, it kind of runs the spectrum.
Clint Betts
Oh, that's cool. That's way cool. Who's a leader that you admire or look up to or see as a great example of what a leader should be?
Matt Tebbe
There are lots of stereotypical answers I could give to that, but again, a little more grounded. I feel like I've been extremely blessed in almost every job I've ever had; I've had strong leaders, managers, and especially mentors. It's one thing to have the CEO of your company as a great leader and get great results, but you have no interaction with them, versus they're taking a personal interest in your development and your growth.
So my answer to that is actually some of the leaders that I've worked for within my career. So specific names are like Andy Bodea, who is the chief operating officer at Equifax and who really gave me my first opportunity to take on a very senior leadership role. Rajib Roy, who is also an Equifax executive but was my CEO at Riverside Insights, was also a great mentor and gave me great opportunities to take on new responsibilities and have a chance to deliver on them.
But again, using the word at a macro level, the fact that they were willing to invest their personal time and energy to mentor me and to make me better at what I did, you don't often see that. And to me, that's a sign of a great leader.
Clint Betts
What do you know now that you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?
Matt Tebbe
One of the biggest lessons learned I've learned is, and it's maybe a bit of a cliche, not being afraid to just quickly take decisive action. So again, as a specific example, I had a sales leader several jobs ago who, when you got him in front of clients, he knew them backward and forwards, and they were buddies, and he was so good. But then, on the back end, back in the office, he was, to use the word bluntly, a bit of cancer in terms of the culture. But because he was so good with clients, I waited way too long to make a change. And once I did, I realized crap; I should have done this a long time ago.
So that's been a real learning for me is that you'll almost never look back, when you take decisive action like that, and say, "Oh, that was the wrong move," or, "I should have waited longer." Inevitably, when you know there's a problem, the quicker you move to solve it, the better off you and your team is going to be.
Clint Betts
Being a remote-first company, how do you build and define culture within Cartus?
Matt Tebbe
It's a great question. One of the things that was really wonderful about coming into this role is that Cartus has a tremendous amount of tenure. As I've met different members of the team, I introduce myself and, "Tell me about your role and how long you've been with Cartus." 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. I met somebody who, and this was a year and a half ago, who'd been with the company for 52 and a half years and was only 70 years old.
So, part of it is that I haven't had to create a new culture from scratch because it's so embedded. People love their colleagues, and they love what they do to support the transferees. Because I ask, "What keeps you here that long?" And it's that. So really, my focus is on not screwing it up and making sure that bringing transparency so that people understand what we're doing and why we're doing it.
The downside of that is there are a lot of times when it's why we are doing something. Well, because that's how we've always done it. Well, the market has shifted, and our client's needs have shifted, so we can't keep doing it that way. So, making sure that there's visibility into what we're changing, why we're changing, and why it's important helps balance the facts so that we're not upsetting the culture. But more than anything, just continue to make Cartus a great place to work because the people here have been here a long time and love what they're doing.
Clint Betts
Yeah. Yeah. That's super interesting. Do you find you have to over-communicate in a remote environment? How do you manage it versus being able to talk to that person around the water cooler?
Matt Tebbe
So I'm definitely an advocate of over-communication. And it's funny, though, because you try to communicate messages through different channels, Teams, videos, emails, live all-hands, and then you get the feedback that it's still not enough. And then you get other people communicating like, "You're hitting us over the head with a hammer." So there's no hard and fast way to do it right, but just in general, the way you said it, Clint, I'm definitely an advocate of over-communicating, doing it through different channels, and I would rather somebody hear things two or three times than only say it once and somebody potentially misses it.
Clint Betts
What's your sense for? We're, I guess, 1/4 of a way into 2025 at this point, but what do you think about the economic outlook of 2025, particularly versus 2024, which had so much uncertainty? It does seem like there's a little bit more certainty here in 2025, although we'll see what the tariffs add to that. So, how are you thinking about this year's economic outlook?
Matt Tebbe
I'd actually say that there's still as much uncertainty this year as last year. So last year, it was the threat of recession, it was rising interest rates, it was Wall Street rewarding companies for cuts, and Mark Zuckerberg's Meta's year of efficiency. That was causing a lot of companies to be cautious, to retrench, to focus on cutting costs.
Now, going into 2025, there was the initial optimism with the Trump administration being elected, thinking that that was going to create a lot of opportunities, take away some of perhaps the barriers that the Biden administration had put up. But as you just said, uncertainty around tariffs and uncertainty around, call it the global war in Ukraine, and so how we're engaging with different countries and leaders.
What we're seeing, especially across certain industries, you think government, you think defense, that [inaudible 00:21:02] retrenching. And it's, more than anything, it's the uncertainty. So, as we've even seen in the last couple of days with tariffs, they're on, they're off. Well, maybe we're going to have a deal, and they'll be off. So, it is the fact that there's no definitive path forward, and things seem to be oscillating back and forth. That's what's making it hard for anybody to feel comfortable making firm decisions. I think there's still general optimism that the administration is going to be business-friendly, but I think there needs to be a little more stability before companies feel comfortable that whatever they're experiencing will stick versus now it's going to be different a week later.
Clint Betts
Finally, we end every interview with the same question, and that is at CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Matt Tebbe
So I actually mentioned him earlier. I would say Andy Bodea. I was an individual contributor on his team at Equifax. When my manager moved into a new role, I think he really did take a chance in selecting me to be his backfill. So the specific role was leading, we called it enterprise growth initiatives, but it was the program management arm of Equifax. We were responsible on executing on the strategic plan and growth playbook.
This made me a direct report to the chief operating officer and brought a lot of visibility with it. So I think he went out on a limb a little bit in that I'd only been with the company for a year. He saw potential in me and gave me that chance, and that really, call it skyrocketed everything I've done since then, because of the visibility, because of the opportunities, and again, because of his direct involvement in my career with his mentorship. He's still somebody that I reach out and talk to today, and I'm really grateful for that continued support.
Clint Betts
Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show, really means a lot to have you here. Let's have you back again soon. Thank you so much, appreciate you coming on.
Matt Tebbe
Thank you for having me, Clint. This was awesome. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Clint Betts
Thanks, Matt.
Edited for readability.