Shafqat Islam
Co-Founder and CEO
NewsCred
Shafqat Islam is the Co-Founder and CEO of NewsCred, the world’s leading content marketing and syndication platform. As CEO, Shafqat manages the strategic growth of the company, pioneering a new content ecosystem for brands and publishers. Prior to NewsCred, Shafqat was a Vice President at Merrill Lynch, running technology teams in NYC and Geneva.
Your company has recently integrated with Marketo, why was this partnership beneficial from your perspective? What advice do you have for companies that are hesitant to merge with other companies?
Our product vision is heavily focused on analytics, insights and proving ROI for our customers. In order to do that, we need to integrate with other parts of the marketing stack. Marketing automation systems like Marketo are important parts of that stack and integrating allows our joint customers to directly tie content to revenue. I think it’s important for companies to always have a strong integration strategy. It only helps make the ecosystem stronger and it’s important for customers for their technology investments to talk to each other.
Newscred has grown to a multinational company across seven nations and is functioning in seventy countries. What are the keys to running such a larger conglomerate?
For me, it’s all about hiring the best people, which often means hiring individuals who culturally fit our company best. I can only be in so many places at once so it’s really important to hire the right people that are not only trustworthy and intelligent but who also share the same vision and passion for your company and product as you do.
In addition to hiring great people, we also ensure that everyone at NewsCred has a clear understanding of what the core company goals are for each quarter. No matter an employee’s position within NewsCred, their individual objectives must be aligned with our top company goals. In fact, we just rolled out a new OKR Management System that allows for 100% transparency so everyone can see and track each other’s individual goals and company goals. Now, there is no excuse for me not to know what everyone is working on…from our team in Bangladesh to our folks in London and New York, I can truly say that the company as a whole is playing on the same team; working towards the same goals and at the end of every quarter we will either hit a homerun or strikeout TOGETHER.
“In addition to hiring great people, we also ensure that everyone at NewsCred has a clear understanding of what the core company goals are for each quarter. No matter an employee’s position within NewsCred, their individual objectives must be aligned with our top company goals.”
Fortune magazine has ranked Newscred as one of the ten best companies to work for. How do you maintain such a flourishing working environment? What are the strengths of your company? Is there any corporation that you emulate?
Our major strengths are the team, culture, and product we have built and continue to build. As mentioned already, you can’t be the leaders in an industry without having a team of rock stars behind you. A unique and authentic culture because it’s one of the hardest things to maintain as the company grows, but it’s what empowers us and keeps us going. Often our culture and values are what brings us our greatest successes and proudest moments. And finally, the product because it’s what differentiates us; our product can never stay stagnant. It must constantly be evolving. With every new feature and idea that we produce, our customers become that much more successful at Content Marketing. And lastly, a few of the companies that I admire, primarily because of their culture, are Netflix and SpaceX.
Content marketing was a very new idea when you first pitched it. Could you detail your journey and provide some advice to those seeking to generate an idea that is not so familiar with the masses?
NewsCred was founded by me and two other close friends in 2008. I was working for Merrill Lynch for almost 7 years when I decided to quit and build a startup. It took at least three years until the business started to see any movement and even during those years our business model kept pivoting and changing. Despite it all, we persevered and in the years following we raised over $90 million, went from a team of under ten to 200 people that spanned across 5 global offices and significantly increased our revenue and publisher network. My best advice would be to always believe in yourself. Never give up despite the obstacles you will face and the skeptics you will encounter. Each mistake is a lesson so never stop making changes. Hustle, have fun and never let go of the conviction you have for your idea/business – it’s this conviction that could take you on the most amazing, most terrifying and most rewarding journey of your life.
What is the process of finding the correct content for the respective company?
We always start with the why. It’s vital we understand our clients’ needs, target audience, product value and what defines and distinguishes them as a brand from the beginning. We cannot help our customers be successful at Content Marketing if we cannot help them identify their authentic voice or the true stories that connect them with their audience. From there, we develop a strategy and design content that allows them to tell stories in the most compelling way. There is already a ton of noise out there so it’s extremely important that the content coming from our brands is not only authentic, but it takes a unique perspective and is symbolic. Without these qualities, we just add more noise.
NewsCred shared a letter with ICE Business Times which Shafqat Islam had written for all their employees. The letter addressed the recent executive order on the immigration ban in the US.
We Are Not Just Pro-immigration.
We Exist Because of Immigration.
Team – thank you all for your comments, letters, and debates over the last few days. I treasure all of our conversations.
This is a personal note to my wonderful, supportive, brilliant colleagues. I wanted to share my thoughts on the immigration issue in more detail and close the loop. My goal is simply to ensure we all understand each other better and can build common empathy.
I am Bangladeshi. I have been fortunate to live in many different countries and have been an immigrant twice. The first time was in Switzerland, where I met my wife and eventually got Swiss citizenship. My second experience as an immigrant was in the U.S., where I chose to come to start this business that I am so lucky to build with all of you. I now have a green card.
My parents went through a similar experience. They arrived in London in 1972 with a couple of suitcases and the immigrant dream. My father received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and my mother taught at a public school. They endured many hardships (some which I can’t even write about) in an era fraught with racism and xenophobia. Yes, that was 40 years ago.
My cofounder Asif’s parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1974 after fighting in the Revolutionary War in Bangladesh. They both worked at Duane Reade as their first job. After very successful careers, they are incredibly active in their local community (as organizers, counselors, and politicians).
My other cofounder Iraj’s parents immigrated to Sweden. Also coming from humble backgrounds, they both eventually became some of the most well-regarded genetic scientists on the planet.
All of our parents exhibited a value that we live by at NewsCred: perseverance. Fiercely courageous, they had the will and tenacity required to endure hardships when the odds were stacked against them.
NewsCred was built by immigrants and the children of immigrants. But not just the three of us. We employ dozens of immigrants of all backgrounds and religions. Many of NewsCred’s early employees were immigrants. Kayvan Salmanpour, one of our first hires who built our sales team, currently lives in the U.S. on a green card and is from Iran, one of the seven countries on the list. Together, we all built this company that has hired hundreds of people here in the United States.
We are not just pro-immigration. We exist because of immigration.
But more than that, we as a company are guided by our values. Our path is illuminated by our morals. And our first value, compassion, is our compass. At NewsCred, we often say “it is sometimes better to be kind than right.” Coincidentally, the word “Shafqat” means “compassion” in Arabic.
This week’s executive order was not just an affront to our company’s pro-immigration stance. But it was a direct assault against our values. While protecting our national security is an important issue, broad-based immigration bans and discrimination based on religion is something we cannot tolerate. It was disrespectful to our current employees (immigrants and non-immigrants alike), and it marginalized the impact of our former employees, many of whom can no longer leave the country to see their families.
I believe this is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. We have built a wonderful culture of tolerance at NewsCred – we have members of both political parties, of every race, religion, and sexual orientation. Vigorous debate with respect is part of our culture. But as a company we will come down with intensity on anything that directly attacks our values. Even if that order comes from the President of the United States.
I have a two-year-old daughter at home, and she is by birth a U.S. citizen. That not only affords her all the rights and privileges of an American passport, but it also means that she can one day become President of this amazing country. In typical Asian dad fashion, I remind her of this every day. But even if she is President, she will still always be the daughter of immigrants. And I hope one day she will be proud of the company and the values we have all built together – every single one of us – regardless of origin.
In the immortal words of Dr. King, “we may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
CEO, NewsCred Inc.
