Jonathan Corr is my guest on this episode of Scaling Up. Jonathan is the current CEO of Ellie Mae. This episode is a wonderful deep dive into the world of a highly experienced CEO who has had the benefit of seeing the full spectrum of the growth curve. Ellie listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011, relatively early in its journey. Jonathan oversaw and came through all the common scaling challenges – re-platforming of their technology stack, changes in their business model, and by far the biggest challenge, scaling the people and culture of the business. All the while being a listed public company and facing the volatility that that brings. Jonathan gives great insight into all these challenges and was incredibly transparent in relation to the take over of Ellie by Thoma Bravo, a leading Private Equity technology company, for US$3.7b. Ellie Mae sells software to the mortgage industry, streamlining and automating the process of originating and funding new mortgage loans as well as facilitating regulatory compliance. As you can imagine, mortgage brokers and banks love this software, and this is reflected in Ellie’s 35% market share This is an episode for the business purists – a phenomenal growth story, unsurprisingly wrapped up in the importance of great people, all working under a common mission.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.