Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi picks five quarterly priorities and skips meetings that don't align with them. He shares the list with his team to stay focused.
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Ashraf Alkarmi, Dropbox's co-CEO, has a simple rule for deciding which meetings to skip: if it's not one of his five quarterly priorities, he doesn't go.
Alkarmi, who joined Dropbox in 2024 after leadership roles at Vimeo and Meta, became co-CEO in May alongside founder Drew Houston. He is set to become sole CEO eventually. Early on, he faced a wide range of tasks across business categories. He narrowed his focus to five key areas covering people, the business, and performance.
"I pick things that I can make significant progress on in that quarter," Alkarmi said. "And so it becomes a filter for how I prioritize my time."
He shares the list with his team, administration, and chief of staff so everyone knows where his attention goes. Those five priorities guide his weekly schedule. "They win at all times," he said, even when competing demands arise.
On the business side, Alkarmi said he examined data and identified reducing customer churn as a key priority, with the goal of making "meaningful progress" in the first quarter. He uses Trello to track the five items.
The list also tells him what is not worth his time. "Sometimes I get meetings that are not related to these things, and I don't go," Alkarmi said.
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