Each Friday we feature someone doing something cool in Canada's business or tech space. This week we're chatting with Cedric Mathieu, Vice President and Head of
Turo in Canada. Turo is the fastest growing car sharing company in the country.
The Peak: Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
Cedric Mathieu: I have the privilege of heading Turo in Canada, the fastest growing car sharing platform in the country. I joined Turo in San Francisco six years ago, when it was still a small startup with less than 30 employees - we've scaled the business 50x since. I initially ran Finance for the company and then spearheaded Turo's first international expansion into Canada June 2016. Since then I have been on a mission to reinvent the way Canadians think about their cars, and to bring peer-to-peer car sharing to all Canadians. We’ve since grown to have over 900,000 members and have 40,000 vehicles listed across Canada.
I'm originally from France and started my career there in consulting, but caught the entrepreneurial/international bug and moved to the U.S. in 2013 to co-found a tech startup with my brother in Los Angeles. The startup failed but gave me a foothold in the North American tech scene.
Why are you passionate about car sharing?
CM: There are about 1.5 billion cars on the planet and these cars sit idle more than 95% of the time! The environmental and economic waste resulting from the private, individual car model that has prevailed over the past 100 years is truly mind-blowing, and I'm excited to offer a concrete solution to that problem. Peer-to-peer car sharing has the potential to cut the number of cars on the planet in half while unlocking billions of dollars of economic value for local communities. Who wouldn't be passionate about such an important mission?
One of our major priorities recently has been to encourage car sharing as a way to increase zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption in Canada. Car sharing can play a meaningful role in addressing two of the biggest barriers to adoption: the high cost of ownership, and the lack of knowledge that many Canadians have about ZEVs. Based on the trends we’re seeing, we believe that by 2025, ZEVs could make up more than 50 per cent of Turo’s new listings.
What's one book that has taught you a lesson that you apply to your daily business life? What's that lesson?
CM: The Everything Store by Brad Stone is a fascinating look at the emergence and success of Amazon and its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos. The three lessons that I took away from this book and try to apply in my daily decision-making are:
- Be truly customer obsessed and prioritize your customers' needs over everything else;
- Think in years, not in weeks or months;
- Embrace technological change, even if it appears detrimental to your own business at first.
From a corporate culture standpoint though, I am building my team on principles opposite to that of Amazon: I believe humility, transparency and empathy are very underrated in business.
What evening and/or morning routines do you have that set you up for success?
CM: I've slowly come to accept the fact that my bedtime is a key driver of my productivity and general wellness… particularly since I became a father and the quality of my sleep got less predictable! Every night I try to get at least 7.5 hours of sleep and to do 30-60 min of reading before turning off the lights.
What advice do you have for students or young professionals who are trying to position themselves in a competitive job market. What can they do to make themselves stand out?
CM: Take the time to identify your strengths and what you're passionate about. If you find an organization whose values/mission you're excited about, pursue it relentlessly and connect with everyone who might get you a foot in the door. Bring your true self to the interview, being sure of your strengths but also aware of the potential gaps against the job requirements and how you'll address it. There's no such thing as a 'perfect candidate' for a job, so you don't need to pretend that you're it!
What's one app or another piece of technology that improves your productivity and you couldn't live without?
CM: Although I'm a very data-driven person, I never caught on to the "quantified-self" craze - that I find somewhat depressing and dehumanizing - and rely on very few apps to drive my day to day productivity beyond my calendar, email and Slack. I don’t take a lot of notes during meetings and try to rely on my brain and memorize as much as possible. The exception in that framework and the one app I end up always going back to is Evernote, which I use to write memos, prepare for meetings or capture complex frameworks, all of which is synchronized across all my devices.
