ONWARD
BY CHRIS BARBIN
Filter by topic category:
Lieutenants Series | Team Building | Cloud Insights | Entrepreneurship | Leadership | Company Culture
Mental Health Requires More Than a Hotline
The thing about mental illness and what makes it so hard is it’s all too often hidden from view. As employees continue to face residual stressors from the pandemic and uncertain economic times, among many other world issues, it’s essential business leaders take real action.
The Best Leaders Turn Crisis Into Opportunity
Business leaders are wading through uncertain economic times — again. Here are five action steps to take for your customers, employees, and partners before hitting the panic button.
Why Salesforce is Acquiring Traction On Demand
For those like us that follow the Salesforce ecosystem closely, the news probably wasn’t much of a surprise. But what does this mean to Salesforce’s partners? Is Salesforce getting into the services game? I boil Salesforce’s decision down to 7 primary things.
Why You Should Avoid Overcapitalization (and How to Get Fundraising Right)
If you take too much capital and accept a valuation that drifts too far from reality, you can find your business someplace you never wanted to be.
Focus on the Long Game
Dara has had a fascinating journey within the entertainment and media industry, from a tough lead negotiator at HBO to her current role as an empathetic people leader at a multi-billion dollar, publicly-traded company. In this interview, Dara talks about her transition from law to HR, how she successfully navigated the infamous 18-month long Sirius and XM merger, and why it pays to get personal with your team.
CEOs Vs. Lieutenants: Why All Leaders Aren't Built The Same
CEOs and lieutenants share many foundational leadership qualities, but their characters play distinctly different roles. That’s the magic of the CEO-lieutenant relationship.
Write Your Own Rules
After seven years at Peoplesoft, Heidi left the HR tech giant at its height to co-found her own HR consultancy, Knowledge Infusion, with no consulting experience whatsoever and sold it to Appirio in 2012. In this Q&A, she describes how representation in the workplace is essential to cultivating innovation and why every leader should embrace their unique strengths early in their career.
Your Attitude Determines Your Direction
After a brief hiatus to focus on a few other endeavors, we're back with the latest installment of our Lieutenants Series. Hiral spent more than 14 years at one of the largest IT services firms on the planet where he led a $3B portfolio but wasn’t afraid to write himself into an active role on a customer contract or take career inspiration from a gym poster.
The Importance of Versatility
In our newest Lieutenant’s Q&A we interview John Cowan, who is currently the VP of finance at the technology company Tile. We discuss his professional curiosity, why it’s important to make mistakes and learn from them, and how his "healthy sense of paranoia" and growth mindset has served him over the years.
At the Intersection of Success and Happiness
Cat is the SVP of global education at ServiceNow and has had an incredible career in learning, leadership development and organizational change. She's redefined what training and learning programs look like in the enterprise.
The Market Opportunity You Just Might Be Missing
SMB Tech is expected to be a $676B market by 2021 and small businesses represent 44% of the US GDP, yet until recently, it’s been relatively ignored by venture firms. This blog highlights a recent keynote by Jeff Richards and Tiffany Luck from GGV Capital, who recognized the trend early on, and talk about why the market is taking off.
You Can't Half-Ass 2020, Especially as the Head of HR
Zoë Harte is the Chief People Officer at Upwork. In this Q&A she talks about how Upwork manages its own hybrid and remote workforce, her role guiding talent innovation at the company, how HR can be a guidepost for culture, and why speaking the truth is so important.
Breaking Down Problems and Being a Full Human
Paula-Jo (PJ) Oleksak, the chief business officer at Slice, talks about her transition from finance to operations, how she builds successful teams by keeping things simple, and the need to empower people while allowing them to be full humans, especially in today’s world.
A Quest to Prove, Once Again, That Services Businesses Don't Suck
Tomorrow marks the four year anniversary of Wipro's acquisition of Appirio, and I’m now beginning the next chapter of my professional career with Tercera. Tercera is our new company focused 100% on identifying and building the next generation of cloud professional service providers.
The Art of Balance
This Q&A with Jennifer Taylor, VP of ThousandEyes’ Global People Team, talks about what it's like to lead the HR function through the perfect storm of a global pandemic, a social justice movement and a fast-paced acquisition, and why balance is more important than ever (but not always easy).
10 Things Great Leaders Do In Challenging Times
In the months since the global pandemic has taken hold, I’ve had the opportunity to work with dozens of leaders across multiple industries who are grappling with how to respond to the crisis.
The Shift From Achievement to Legacy
Mike Epner is one of those quiet warriors. A guy whose humble confidence and ability to listen and guide have impacted me personally as well as hundreds of other leaders.
When Radical Candor Meets Radical Compassion
I had the privilege to work with Yamini Rangan, Chief Customer Officer at HubSpot, during our early days of Appirio, where she held multiple roles including a year stint as my head of development and Chief of Staff.
The Power of No
No role screams the word "lieutenant" like Chief of Staff -- a position that CEOs (and many other C-level execs) lean on to execute (aka: get it done) and form strategies to help grow the organization.
Nurturing Connections with Approachable Leadership
Angela Grady, EVP and Chief of Staff at Okta, a cloud company known for its Identity Management platform, is playing a big role in the transition to a digital and globally distributed workforce.