{"id":615291,"date":"2026-09-24T05:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.olympiajournal.com\/news\/story\/615291\/hire-people-better-than-you-messengerco-ceo-says-founder-ego-is-the-real-ceiling-on-growth.html"},"modified":"2026-09-24T05:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:42:29","slug":"hire-people-better-than-you-messengerco-ceo-says-founder-ego-is-the-real-ceiling-on-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olympiajournal.com\/news\/story\/615291\/hire-people-better-than-you-messengerco-ceo-says-founder-ego-is-the-real-ceiling-on-growth.html","title":{"rendered":"“Hire People Better Than You”: MessengerCo CEO Says Founder Ego Is the Real Ceiling on Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
Heaster Andrea Hilary, Co-Founder and CEO of B2B corporate gifting platform MessengerCo, told CEO Masterclass Sabah 2026 that she deliberately hires specialists stronger than herself and gives them authority to run their own areas without her sign-off.<\/div>\n

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KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia – 24 September, 2026 – <\/strong>MessengerCo<\/a>, a Malaysian business-to-business corporate gifting platform, grew by hiring people who were better than its founder at their jobs, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Heaster Andrea Hilary said at CEO Masterclass Sabah 2026.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the CEO Masterclass Podcast Live session, themed “Conversations that Matter,” at the Sabah International Convention Centre, Hilary said she built the company around her own gaps rather than around her own strengths.<\/p>\n

“I knew from the start that I needed co-founders who complemented my own gaps, a chief technology officer (CTO) to handle the product and a chief operating officer (COO) to run daily operations, because my own strength lies in finance, funding and strategy rather than in technology,” she said.<\/p>\n

Now in her 11th year as an entrepreneur and her fifth year running MessengerCo, Hilary was direct about the trade-off that approach demands from a founder.<\/p>\n

“We hire people who are better than us. My head of sales is a better salesperson than me, my CTO is obviously a better coder. My job is to make sure they have the resources and the vision is clear. From day one, I told my COO, your job is to make me redundant, because if I am needed for every decision, we cannot scale,” she said.<\/p>\n

Delegation as a growth constraint, not a management style<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hilary framed the willingness to be outperformed as a structural growth issue rather than a matter of temperament.<\/p>\n

“It takes a lot of ego management to admit that people are better than you at their jobs. But if the vision depends only on you, it is a weak vision. It has to be able to live on its own,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said she looked for hires who could interrogate the business, not simply execute against it.<\/p>\n

“I do not want to just hire people who get a customer inquiry, fulfil it and deliver it. I need someone who can also help us think about what is wrong, how we can improve, how we can automate some processes,” she said.<\/p>\n

Team came first, she said, and process followed. After building the leadership bench, she moved on to building processes, goals and achievable outcomes around them.<\/p>\n

Investor scepticism and the case for an unfashionable category<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hilary said the same trust in her team carried the company through investor pushback on both her age and her chosen sector.<\/p>\n

“When I spoke to investors, they told me that gifting is a tradition business, ‘Why should I invest in you?’ or ‘You are too young.’ Those are the moments where you double question yourself,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But then I look at my team, I see my CTO, I see my COO, and I see the customers using MessengerCo and I realise that the mission is bigger than my fear.”<\/p>\n

Her hardest stretch, she said, was technical rather than commercial.<\/p>\n

“My darkest moment was probably when we were building the Minimum Viable Product and it kept failing. Tech is hard. But my CTO kept saying, trust the process. And I did,” said Hilary, who is in her 30s.<\/p>\n

Advice to founders: Do not wait!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked what she would tell early-stage founders, Hilary said the most common mistake is waiting for conditions to improve.<\/p>\n

“A lot of people wait for the perfect economy or the perfect idea. There is no such thing. The best time to start was yesterday, the second best time is now. And do not be afraid of failure,” she said.<\/p>\n

“In my 11 years, I have failed so many times, but each failure was just a lesson that helped me build MessengerCo. Just start small, test your idea, and if it fails, pivot fast. Grit is more important than a PhD in business.”<\/p>\n

CEO Masterclass Sabah 2026 was organised by the Sabah Young Business and Industry Leaders (SYBIL) in collaboration with the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sabah, with support from the State Industry, Entrepreneurship and Transport Ministry.<\/p>\n

About MessengerCo<\/strong><\/p>\n

MessengerCo is a business-to-business corporate gifting<\/a> platform headquartered in Malaysia, serving corporate clients across more than 17 countries. The platform handles sourcing, quotation, customisation and fulfilment for corporate gifting programmes, and operates Merchy, its enterprise private-label merchandise brand. More information is available at messengerco.ai.<\/p>\n

Source reference:<\/strong> Daily Express Malaysia, “Hire those better than you: CEO’s advice on growing a successful business,” by Sherell Jeffrey, published 29 August 2026.<\/p>\n

Media Contact<\/span>
Company Name:<\/strong> Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, MessengerCo<\/a>
Contact Person:<\/strong> Heaster Andrea Hilary
Email:<\/strong> Send Email<\/a>
Country:<\/strong> Malaysia
Website:<\/strong> messengerco.gift<\/a><\/p>\n

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