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Our ecosystem carries strong logos, but what matters most is the community behind them.

From The USA To Building Cultures That Commit

This week, Kevin Ertell, Senior advisor and former global VP operations Nike and I hosted Matt Marcotte in the EVOLVE Commerce Club and I’m still thinking about what unfolded in that room.

We had Jean (former president of Adyen in LATAM), Ludovica (ex-Rocket Internet and J.P. Morgan), Hawan, and many other EVOLVE Club members who’ve built and rebuilt companies across continents.

It was one of those sessions where you could feel the collective weight of experience in the room and yet, we ended up talking about something most companies still struggle to name: belief.

Matt has led at Apple, Bergdorf Goodman, and Salesforce.

He’s been trusted to protect heritage brands and to accelerate tech companies and what struck me was how calm he was.

Not trying to impress anyone. Just deeply clear on what matters.

He opened with a line that reset the whole conversation:

And for the next hour, we explored what that really means when you’re inside the grind

Most companies talk about culture, but operate from compliance.They set targets, enforce processes, measure dashboards, and call it performance.
And it works until it doesn’t.

Matt made me see how fragile compliance really is.
It depends on supervision. It dies the moment you walk out of the room.

Belief is different. Belief creates commitment.
When people believe, they give you their imagination, their energy, their courage.
And they do it even when no one is watching.

It sounds obvious but if we’re honest, most of us were raised in systems that reward compliance, not belief.

That’s why so many leaders struggle to build trust: they try to manage people like processes.

Matt flipped that on its head.
He said no company has ever operated its way to greatness.
Great leaders lead people and manage processes. Not the other way around.

It made me stop and think about how often I’ve seen leaders confuse the two, myself included.

Heart, head, hands: in that order

Matt shared a framework he’s used his entire career: heart, head, hands.

True leadership begins with emotional connection (heart), then shared understanding (head), and only then execution (hands).

He contrasted this with the traditional corporate approach data decks, rational plans, then a motivational speech tacked on at the end.

Curiosity as a superpower

We talked about leading across cultures a reality for our community.
I asked him how belief travels across borders, given that cultural expressions vary so widely.

Then he reframed empathy in a way that stuck with everyone:

Kevin noted that most people stop being truly curious in their late teens once they think they’ve seen enough to solve future problems with old patterns.Matt sees curiosity as one of the rarest and most powerful qualities in leaders today.

Questions from the Room

The questions from the room were sharp and honest.

Jean asked how to preserve belief when companies scale or go public.
Matt said at Apple they hired for attitude and aptitude during hypergrowth because skills can be taught, but belief can’t.
That reminded me how often companies vet CVs more thoroughly than values and then wonder why their culture fractures.

Juan asked how to be human while making tough calls.
Matt’s answer was deceptively simple: be clear.
He talked about making his standards “impossibly high, but explicit” so people always knew what great looked like.
It’s something we forget: clarity is a form of kindness.

Alexis asked how to keep people engaged in remote teams.
Matt said connection doesn’t just happen you have to design for it.
And if people are disengaged, look inward.
Maybe it’s the meeting. Maybe it’s the leadership.
Belief doesn’t survive in places that waste people’s time.

Ludovica asked how to spot healthy cultures during interviews.
Matt said to ask what they reward, how they handle failure, how they invest in people and insist on examples.
What he was really saying: don’t settle for surface.

Watch the full session

We’ve been using Airmeet since our club was just 90 members. They believed in our vision early on, and we couldn’t be prouder to call them a partner. For us, there’s no better platform to bring community and online events together.

Why This Session mattered

It reminded me why we built EVOLVE.
We’re not here to collect logos or chase hype.
We’re here to create a space where leaders can be curious again where belief comes before performance, and where people commit because they want to, not because they’re told to.

Commerce is community.
And the more we connect, the stronger we all grow.
See you in the sessions or inside

—
Carlos Monteiro
Founder, EVOLVE Commerce Club

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