As Airbnb’s not too long ago appointed chief enterprise officer, Dave Stephenson is enjoying an important position within the firm’s future development plans.

He is additionally filling one other position that’s vital to that development: an Airbnb host.

Stephenson, who has served as Airbnb‘s CFO since 2018 after becoming a member of the corporate from Amazon, has hosted a mountain cabin outdoors of Seattle, Washington, for the final a number of years. Whereas those who keep in his cabin may not concentrate on his place throughout the firm, Stephenson’s strategy is indicative of what he sees forward for Airbnb.

An avid skier and hiker, Stephenson is fast to share particulars of the very best trails together with his visitors. The cabin is provided with a pizza oven, and Stephenson shares his pizza dough recipe as properly, together with espresso store suggestions and anything the visitors want.

“I get pleasure from sharing what is a crucial place for me with others,” he stated. “I feel they admire that native information and so they sort of know the way a lot I care, and that feels good as a visitor, pondering ‘Wow, this host actually cares about me and the expertise.'”

When Stephenson was transitioned into this new CBO position at first of the 12 months, Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky advised workers in a memo that it marked an “inflection level” for the corporate, and a deal with development throughout present and new companies.

“As we increase past our core, will probably be paramount to have an government devoted to our long-term development plans, and there is no person higher than Dave to do that,” Chesky wrote within the memo.

For Stephenson, these long-term development plans heart on three key buckets: driving worldwide enlargement, rising the variety of hosts on the platform, and constructing out extra experiences and companies.

Worldwide enlargement is vital for Airbnb, and Stephenson is spending loads of time on the street serving to to facilitate that, whether or not that is in Germany, South Korea or Brazil. A part of that’s guaranteeing that “all the capabilities are working properly collectively to ship the outcomes that we might count on,” he stated, whether or not that is guaranteeing the country-specific advertising and marketing plan resonates, or if there are different particular native elements that must be tweaked to have success. For instance, Stephenson stated, in Germany there’s a native accreditation that makes shoppers extra snug, one thing the corporate ensured it obtained. It additionally had the Weissenstein Palace — an 18th century citadel in Bavaria featured within the Netflix sequence “The Empress” —out there for unique stays on Airbnb.

“It is simply ensuring that we’re being very deliberate in how we present up in a rustic,” he stated.

So far as experiences go, it is a lot of what Stephenson helped present his visitors in Washington: a cause to come back again, not solely to that property however to Airbnb. “We’ll proceed to deal with the sort of distinctive issues that we are able to do to make a visitor expertise higher,” he stated.

Airbnb can be trying to increase its companies, making it simpler to be a bunch in addition to a visitor. That might embrace serving to hosts facilitate check-ins or serving to them get the objects they want for visitors, like linens. For visitors, that may very well be transportation to airports or perhaps a totally stocked fridge, he stated.

“The deeper the connection we construct with the visitors and with the hosts, the higher we are able to perceive what every of their wants are, after which the higher we are able to do to match them up,” he stated. “The extra happy they’re, the higher expertise they each have, and the extra seemingly the host is to remain [on Airbnb] and the extra seemingly a visitor desires to come back again and check out Airbnb in one other place.”

When Stephenson joined Airbnb as its CFO from Amazon in 2018, one of many issues he stated he tried to carry to the corporate was a “extra operationally rigorous finance group.”

In some ways, that meant working very similar to a COO would, he stated. “As CFOs, we take into consideration the enterprise metrics, the client metrics, income metrics; all of those components, how we truly run the enterprise is simply as necessary because the financials.”

The CFO position has developed properly past the normal finance perform to incorporate a deal with operations, provide chain and more and more cybersecurity. A CFO position taking over loads of extra tasks was true for Stephenson at Airbnb, who was additionally appointed head of worker expertise in 2021, overseeing expertise and management improvement, in addition to recruiting and compensation.

Stephenson took on this new CBO position at first of the 12 months, whereas Ellie Mertz, beforehand Airbnb’s vice chairman of finance, started transitioning to switch him as CFO following the corporate’s quarterly earnings name in February.

“Finance is sort of Switzerland when it comes to the way it works and capabilities already,” Stephenson stated. “The chief enterprise officer in some methods is an extension of that, a impartial perform that makes certain that every one the opposite capabilities are working successfully collectively and are working very well.”