In this episode, Avanish and Mike discuss:
- Mike's journey from his early tech roots in Silicon Valley to his role as CRO at Zscaler, including his transformative work growing ServiceNow from $500M to $6B in the Americas region
- The importance of always viewing platform strategy through the customer's lens - helping them achieve outcomes rather than managing multiple point solutions
- How a successful platform requires breaking down silos not just within your own organization, but often within your customer's organization
- The "one team" concept of the three-legged stool: customer, vendor, and partner, all working together toward shared success
- Why ecosystem partners are mission-critical, providing industry expertise and customer insights that vendors can't replicate
- The role of security in enabling productive AI adoption, with Zscaler helping customers leverage generative AI safely at scale
- How to develop meaningful metrics with partners beyond just pipeline generation, focusing on mutual success plans and regular reviews
- The importance of playing the long game with partners - "It's not how you behave when things are going great, it's how you behave when things hit the fan"
Host: Avanish Sahai
Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.
About Mike Rich
Mike Rich is a highly accomplished technology sales professional with a career spanning more than 30 years.
During his tenure as President, Americas at ServiceNow from 2011–2023, Mike played a pivotal role in the company's success. Under his leadership, the AMS region experienced unprecedented revenue growth, catapulting from $500 million to $6 billion+.
Mike focused on initiatives like vertical industries that enabled customer-facing teams to partner closely with customers. During his time, the company's overall growth skyrocketed from $80 million to $8 billion. Throughout his career, Mike has kept customer satisfaction as the north star, ensuring that every business decision aligns with the goal of providing unparalleled value to clients and career advancement for employees.
Before ServiceNow, Mike held leadership roles at enterprise software companies Borland, Rational Software, and Kana.
Mike's leadership philosophy revolves around building diverse teams that prioritize achieving desired mutual outcomes. His passion is fostering environments where collaboration, mutual respect, and teamwork are paramount.
About Tidemark
Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.
Links
- Follow our guest, Mike Rich
- Follow our host, Avanish Sahai
- Learn more about Tidemark