The 26-year-old boss of a $730 million startup says young CEOs need this personality trait to manage older people successfully

Oscar Pierre, CEO of Glovo

Oscar Pierre is the 26-year-old CEO and cofounder of Glovo, a European delivery app valued at $730 million.
Based in Barcelona, Spain, Pierre oversees a workforce of 1,200 people and manages employees who are often more than twice his age.
In a conversation with Business Insider, Pierre said young CEOs need to have humility when managing older employees. "Staying humble all the time is the key," he adds.
Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Oscar Pierre is the cofounder and CEO of Glovo, a delivery app worth up to $730 million that is currently beating Uber Eats and Deliveroo in some of the world's biggest markets.

Pierre founded his Barcelona-based company in 2015 and is aged just 26. With a workforce of 1,200 people, it means his job involves managing people older than him — often more than twice his age, in fact.

Speaking to Business Insider about his leadership style, Pierre revealed the personality trait he believes all young CEOs must possess if they want to handle these relationships successfully and avoid awkward conflict.

Sacha Michaud and Oscar Pierre, co founders of delivery app Glovo

"Staying humble all the time is the key," he says. "There are good and bad [things about being a young CEO], but the most important things are to be humble and to hire people who are a lot better than you. You need to have humility. You need to be very conscious of all the weaknesses that you have or that your company has."

Pierre continues: "I also think you need to be very conscious of how little you know. Thanks to my grandfather and my family, I knew from day one the importance of bringing [in] people who are very, very strong; being very humble with leading senior people, and giving them a lot of ownership."

This isn't to say Pierre never does things his own way, though. Indeed, he thinks his relative inexperience helps him stay flexible in his thinking.

"Something good about being a CEO so young is that you aren't biased," he says. "Everything is natural. For example, when we were still just 20 people as a company, we didn't have company computers for a couple of years.

"Everyone has a computer at home, so [my thinking was] 'why don't you just bring it into work?' People said 'but that's not how companies work!' I said 'but [those companies] have money, right!'"

'I always ask people if they're brave'

Jeff Bezos

As well as demanding humility from himself, Pierre also demands humility from the people he hires.

"We expect everyone to become a manager one day, because of the growth rate of the company. So we always look for humility, because [humility] is very important as a manager and as a leader," he explains.

"Last year, the team grew from 200 to 1,200 people. Anyone that joins Glovo today will have opportunities to become a manager if they do well."

Pierre also looks for another specific character trait when choosing who to employ.

"You also really need to make sure [people are] brave because some people aren't used to ups and downs, and they don't like them," he says. "I've read a lot about Jeff Bezos. Sometimes he might be a bit too aggressive, but his ambition is great. If you read the Amazon story, they had these ups and downs all the time. I always ask people if they're brave because I really believe Glovo is going to be a rollercoaster."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here are the best updates coming to your iPhone this fall