Huw Slater
CEO & co-founder, Oli (formerly Oliva)
Performance = alignment x speed x behaviours
I build operating systems inside companies that are trying to scale fast.
NOW
Oli | CEO & co-founder (2025–present)
Joined Oliva as COO; became CEO in 2025 and led the pivot to Oli, an AI co-pilot for managers in Slack and Teams.
Last updated: 3 March 2026.
Right now: shipping AI fast, staying customer focused, investing in Oli having a world class team
CAREER
Box | international finance and operations leadership (joined pre-IPO)
TravelPerk | CFO/COO through hypergrowth and COVID
Typeform | CFO, growth through to series B and US expansion
FTSE 10 | finance leadership for a large division
HOW I THINK
The Five Practices of High Performing Teams
Design customer proximity into the org. As you grow, distance from the customer becomes the default.
Force ownership, kill dependency. Shift people from “tell me what to do” to “here’s what I propose.”
Increase execution speed without losing direction. Most decisions are reversible.
Build an idea meritocracy. Psychological safety and accountability must come together.
Build a team that doesn’t need you. If everything routes through you, the system is weak.
HOW I OPERATE
Write more. Show your workings.
Do the work required to have an opinion.
Transparency creates autonomy.
Impact > ego.
Company > team > self.
BUILDING IN PUBLIC
PMF Research speed/effort vs decision discipline.
Go-to-market timing vs buyer readiness.
Taxonomy precedes insight.
FUNDRAISING
Involved in multiple fundraising rounds across Typeform and TravelPerk.
Always be raising
CONTACT
If you are an investor, an operator, or someone building something hard, email me.
huw@meetoli.ai LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huw-slater/
Being a European based exec for Box, a US HQ’d Enterprise SaaS company, was an experience like no other.
Always out of sight of HQ, things are just harder to get done, but the goals no less lofty.
What a celebration the Box IPO was after a long slog to get it over the line.
Typeform has the most incredible viral adoption so we had a fantastic tailwind for growth. But virality only gets you so far.
With a “prosumer”/SME customer base, managing retention and then finding new go-to-market routes was critical
At Typeform our offsites were a little different ;)
A black swan event like Covid can be pretty life-changing as an exec. Years of work, evaporating overnight.
Leading through a crisis isn’t something I chose, but the amount I learnt in those 18 months was incredible.
Growth isn’t always up and to the right, no matter how great the product market fit