"Employee Engagement and Productivity: During the holiday party season (our busiest season) we’re able to see our culture manifest in real time as everyone pitches in and goes above and beyond to satisfy the high demand. Sure we ask it of them, but in reality, many of the things they don’t ‘have to do’ — but choose to do in order to extend a positive customer experience."

Every company has a corporate culture. This culture can foster innovation and a fresh exchange of ideas or it can promote selfishness and backbiting which will damage the bottom line of any business. Sensitivity to the culture of a business goes beyond mere awareness; it’s about actively adapting and responding to create the culture that you want to represent your brand. This is crucial for building successful, respectful, and inclusive working environments and for creating products and services that resonate with a diverse customer base. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Lee Rubin.

Lee Rubin, CEO and Founder of Confetti, is a visionary leader with over a decade of experience in B2B sales. In 2014, while tasked with planning an event for her team, Lee conceived the idea of helping companies plan better corporate events. This groundbreaking concept not only sparked the creation of Confetti but also ignited her journey as a pioneer in the virtual events space. Following the 2020 pandemic, Lee successfully pivoted Confetti from in-person to virtual team building, showcasing her deep expertise in excelling and adapting to changing landscapes. Her passion lies in leveraging her experience to help companies scale and enhance their company culture.

Confetti is loved by 8,000+ companies, including Google, Facebook, and Spotify. Lee has recently been featured in interviews with Authority Magazine and has been awarded #124 in the Inc. 5000 and also Inc. 200 Top Female Founders. She spearheads a company where every member of the team shares her unwavering passion for providing the best customer experience.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about Why Corporate Culture Matters in Business, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I started Confetti because I was in the shoes of many other office fun planners. I was tasked with planning an event for my team on top of my already very long to-do list. Many event organizers volunteer to help out only to realize how much work it is to put these things together. I thought to myself, there has to be a better way to put together truly fun experiences for your office with little work. When I found that the solution to that dream didn’t exist, I decided to build it myself.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The pandemic is something that happened to all of us, but it was probably by far my most interesting career story. Confetti originally helped companies plan events in the office, face-to-face. Everything from donut walls and happy hours to puppy parties in the office. When COVID hit and people couldn’t gather together, I initially felt like the spirit of what we do was being threatened, but it turned out to be a pivotal moment for us to reimagine and redefine how we create meaningful connections and experiences in a virtual world.

You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Tenacity: The temptation to give up occurred throughout my long journey as an entrepreneur. At first, I didn’t have my family’s full support — there was always a lot of pressure to take a more traditional route in life and get my Master’s Degree. The company wasn’t making a lot of money and I remember one time my uncle called me a “glorified event planner” and it hurt me that they didn’t see my larger vision for what I was building. Finding a technical co-founder was also a challenging and time-consuming process. Over 100 interviews and a few failed attempts, but eventually the roads led me to Eyal Hakim which has been my best decision yet. Raising money for both the seed and the Series A at the time felt impossible, but continued determination and a lot of hard work brought us one step forward.

Focus: There are so many great and wonderful opportunities that come up when you’re building a company. It’s tough to say no to many of them, but it’s a requirement to become really really good at one thing. For us, during 2022 there was a big question whether the company should move to in-person events. Looking back, we’re glad we didn’t try to do both hard things at once like our competitors did. Most of them ended up not doing either thing well and had to shut down. We’re now one of the “last men standing” in the space and from all I know, the solution leader.

Detail-Oriented: I don’t believe you can build a truly great product if you’re not deep in the details and speak and listen to your customers. The devil is in the details. The helpful data is in the details.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. How do you define corporate culture in the context of your business, and why is it important for your company’s success?

Corporate culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that characterize an organization. It encompasses how employees engage, collaborate, and assist one another, as well as their interactions with customers and stakeholders, along with the general ambiance and work environment within the company. Corporate culture is often reflected in an organization’s mission statement, vision, and core values, but it’s far beyond that — it’s the DNA, it’s the in-betweens, it’s the soul of an organization.

It’s important for any company’s success because a good culture ensures a solid foundation of employee satisfaction and retention. And that satisfaction leads to innovation, creativity, adaptability, resilience, customer satisfaction, etc. But more so, it evolves an employee beyond just the professional realm and makes the journey a spiritual and mental one too.

Can you share an experience where corporate culture impacted a business decision or client relationship (positive or negative)?

I’ll share one of many examples, but the reality is corporate culture impacts business decisions and client relationships in and out every day. One of the big company decisions we needed to make was around our commitment to inclusivity. We had a very sensitive debate within the organization about who could be a host for our DEI experiences. In one instance we had an Asian professor who studied Black history. Should they be allowed to host those experiences on Confetti’s platform? The team showed great courage in openly sharing their thoughts, and we ultimately decided to ensure representation by having individuals from the respective cultural backgrounds lead those cultural events. That gave birth to our cultural commitment policy.

What strategies do you employ to monitor and enhance corporate culture within your team or organization?

Culture isn’t just about fun and events, and while we do many of those experiences within Confetti, I’ll focus on other elements of culture for this question. The first thing that I’ll mention is the importance of having your company values and finding ways to reiterate those. One way we reiterate them is through our “gratitude channel” (a place on Slack where colleagues can give recognition to other colleagues) where our team shoutouts are tagged with company values. In challenging situations where empathy, one of our core company values, isn’t evident, we can emphasize its significance within our team.

The second thing I’ll mention is regular 1:1s. Employees need a place to regularly speak to their manager and for both of them to provide a stage for open questions, discussions, and feedback.

Lastly, 360-degree reviews. Manager to employee. Employee to manager. Peer to peer. This holds us all accountable for achieving greatness together.

How do you handle situations where the executives may not be aware of corporate culture in mid-management?

360-degree performance reviews help bring to surface issues of corporate culture in mid-management. But also investing in a truly people-first HR department gives employees a safe space to share their thoughts. Training and coaching, if the company can offer it, can go a long way. But if you don’t have that, the best free option is leading by example.

Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Reasons How Corporate Culture Helps the Bottom Line of a Business?”

1 . Employee Engagement and Productivity: During the holiday party season (our busiest season) we’re able to see our culture manifest in real time as everyone pitches in and goes above and beyond to satisfy the high demand. Sure we ask it of them, but in reality, many of the things they don’t ‘have to do’ — but choose to do in order to extend a positive customer experience.

2 . Talent Attraction and Retention: I haven’t put my finger on what it is yet that we’ve been able to make happen organically, but employees who never knew each other and started working together virtually became best friends and many of them now use their own PTO to travel and vacation together. It makes me so happy that they’ve not only found their virtual best friend at work, but then they’ve found that connection so important to them that they’ve decided to invest in it themselves.

3 . Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Some of our experiences involve kits and shipped goods. We have a ‘shipping-ops’ team that is responsible for tracking and monitoring those shipments and making sure everything arrives well and on time. But it’s amazing to see them become the hero when things go wonky. Helping find last-minute alternatives so participants can have a good time and bending over backward (even when most times the mistake is not our fault).

4 . Innovation and Adaptability: When the pandemic hit, many told us to just pause and lay off the team and hold on until this passes. But from the last invoice of our in-person events to the first invoice of the virtual event, the span was 10 days. This is a testament to our team’s innovation and adaptability. From then, it was only upwards and onwards.

5 . Reputation and Brand Equity: We have wonderful reviews and press releases about us online. 4.8/5 on Capterra, 4.5/5 on Trustpilot, etc. We also achieved #124 on the Inc. 5000, and none of this would have been possible without the collective effort of the team.

In what ways has focusing on Corporate Culture given your business a competitive edge?

We have a pretty easy time finding new candidates and interviewing them because people are really attracted to our values and what we stand for. They usually understand the business and connect to it quickly. Often they say things like “I wish I knew about you in my last company! You would have made my life a lot easier!”

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I will say that my movement would be centered around empathy.

This movement would aim to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation for the experiences, perspectives, and emotions of others, with the goal of fostering greater compassion, connection, and kindness in our communities and society as a whole.

Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person’s shoes, to truly listen and understand their thoughts and feelings, and to respond with care and concern. In a world where division, conflict, and misunderstanding are all too common, empathy has the power to bridge divides, heal wounds, and build stronger, more inclusive communities.

Through this movement, I would advocate for empathy to be taught and practiced in schools, workplaces, and other institutions, starting from a young age and continuing throughout life. I would encourage individuals to actively seek out opportunities to engage with people from different backgrounds and experiences, to challenge their own biases and assumptions, and to approach every interaction with an open heart and mind.

How can our readers further follow you online?

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn! You can also subscribe to my bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter, “Culture Corner,” where I share insights on corporate culture and employee engagement.

Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

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About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is an entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. She is best known as the founder of Enseo which she and her team grew into one of the largest out-of-home media and connected networks in the world, serving more than 100,000,000 people annually. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion resulted in amazing partnerships and customer relationships. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Dish Networks to bring innovative solutions to the hospitality industry. Enseo has also held an exclusive contract to provide movies to the entire U.S. armed forces for almost 15 years. Vanessa and her team’s relentless innovation resulted in120+ U.S. Patents. Her favorite product is the MadeSafe solution for hotel workers as well as students and children in their K-12 classrooms. Accolades include: #15 on FAST 100, 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned 2018–2020, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies 2018–2020, not to mention the Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year. Vanessa now spends her time enjoying her children, sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles and speaking engagements. entrepreneurs-to-be with her articles including her LinkedIN newsletter Unplugged. In her spare time she writes music with her husband Paul as the band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, and trains dogs.

Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack.

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