In this photo illustration, a vital is noticed in entrance of a laptop or computer monitor displaying the Airbnb symbol in Ankara, Turkiye on November 22, 2023.
Dilara Irem Sancar | Anadolu | Getty Photographs
As Airbnb’s not too long ago appointed chief business enterprise officer, Dave Stephenson is playing a important job in the company’s long term development designs.
He is also filling another function that is essential to that advancement: an Airbnb host.
Stephenson, who has served as Airbnb‘s chief fiscal officer since 2019 immediately after signing up for the organization from Amazon, has hosted a mountain cabin outside of Seattle, Washington, for the past a number of a long time. When these who stay in his cabin may well not be knowledgeable of his position in just the business, Stephenson’s strategy is indicative of what he sees ahead for Airbnb.
An avid skier and hiker, Stephenson is brief to share particulars of the finest trails with his visitors. The cabin is outfitted with a pizza oven, and Stephenson shares his pizza dough recipe with guests as nicely, along with espresso shop tips and nearly anything else they could need to have.
“I delight in sharing what is an essential position for me with other folks,” he reported. “I feel they appreciate that regional information and they variety of know how much I care, and that feels fantastic as a guest, imagining ‘Wow, this host definitely cares about me and the encounter.'”
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky advised personnel in a memo that Stephenson’s changeover into his new CBO job at the start off of the yr marked an “inflection stage” for the enterprise and a target on advancement throughout present and new organizations.
“As we extend past our main, it will be paramount to have an executive focused to our extended-term progress plans, and there’s no one better than Dave to do this,” Chesky wrote in the memo.
For Stephenson, those prolonged-term progress strategies middle on 3 key buckets: driving international growth, increasing the variety of hosts on the platform and building out further encounters and products and services.
International enlargement is crucial for Airbnb, and Stephenson is shelling out a lot of time on the road encouraging facilitate that, whether or not that is in Germany, South Korea or Brazil. Aspect of that is producing sure that “all of the capabilities are operating properly alongside one another to deliver the outcomes that we’d count on,” he reported, no matter whether that suggests the region-specific advertising approach resonates, or if there are other unique neighborhood elements that need to have to be tweaked to access achievements. For instance, Stephenson said, in Germany there is a local accreditation that makes buyers far more relaxed, a little something the organization ensured it received. It also had the Weissenstein Palace — an 18th-century castle in Bavaria showcased in the Netflix series “The Empress” —available for distinctive stays on Airbnb.
“It’s just producing positive that we are being very deliberate in how we demonstrate up in a place,” he said.
As considerably as activities go, it is a lot of what Stephenson assisted deliver his attendees in Washington: a reason to come back again, not only to that assets but to Airbnb.
“We’re heading to continue to target on the variety of one of a kind things that we can do to make a guest encounter much better,” he mentioned.
Airbnb is also seeking to grow its expert services, earning it easier to be a host as nicely as a guest. That could involve assisting hosts aid check out-ins or helping them get the items they have to have for visitors, like linens. For attendees, that could be transportation to airports or even a thoroughly stocked fridge on arrival, he claimed.
“The deeper the marriage we build with the friends and with the hosts, the much better we can recognize what each of their needs are, and then the superior we can do to match them up,” he explained. “The much more glad they are, the superior practical experience they both of those have and the far more probably the host is to keep [on Airbnb] and the a lot more very likely a visitor needs to arrive back again and test Airbnb in another spot.”
Connecting finance with small business final results
When Stephenson joined Airbnb as its CFO in 2019, one particular of the items he explained he attempted to provide to the corporation was a “more operationally demanding finance group.”
In many methods, that meant operating considerably like a main working officer would, he explained. “As CFOs, we assume about the business metrics, the buyer metrics, income metrics all of these components, how we essentially run the enterprise is just as crucial as the financials.”
The CFO part has progressed properly beyond the regular finance perform to involve a aim on operations, source chain, and, progressively, cybersecurity. A CFO part using on further responsibilities was accurate for Stephenson at Airbnb, who was also appointed head of worker experience in 2021, overseeing expertise and leadership advancement, as very well as recruiting and payment.
Stephenson took on this new CBO function at the start off of the calendar year, when Ellie Mertz, beforehand Airbnb’s vice president of finance, began transitioning to substitute him as CFO next the company’s quarterly earnings call in February.
“Finance is variety of Switzerland in terms of how it performs and functions already,” Stephenson mentioned. “The chief business enterprise officer in some techniques is an extension of that, a neutral operate that would make guaranteed that all the other features are doing the job properly with each other and are working actually perfectly.”
Correction: Dave Stephenson begun as Airbnb’s main financial officer in 2019. An earlier variation misstated the year.
