After 5+ Years with Zscaler, 3 key lessons I'm taking with me....

After 5+ years, my journey with Zscaler has come to an end.  And while I don’t consider myself terribly sentimental (or an author for that matter), I did want to share a few thoughts.

Gratitude:  The past 5+ years have been the most rewarding of my adult life, both personally and professionally.  I learned and grew; both as a sales leader, as well as a father, husband, and friend.  I had my fair share of successes and failures, but as I reflect on my journey, the lasting impression will always be the people.  I believe that in business, as in life, it’s always about people.  I especially want to thank Jay Chaudhry and Bill Welch for bringing me into the organization. To Pete Amirkhan and KJ Trivedi who challenged me to take a larger leadership role, for mentoring me, and for always keeping me grounded.  I want to thank my team.  Thank you for trusting me, for taking a leap of faith, in following me to Zscaler, and dedicating yourselves to getting better every day. 

Growth:  Whenever I interviewed a potential candidate, I would always tell them, “Zscaler will be the most difficult job you’ve ever had, but also the most enjoyable”.  My intent was two-fold.  I wanted people to appreciate how incredibly difficult it is to build, to create a market, and to create momentum out of nothing but sheer will power.  But I also wanted people to understand the immense satisfaction and self-empowerment that comes from accomplishing hard things. Here’s the hard truth:  Unless you’ve walked that path, challenged yourself and failed.  Until you’ve felt the depths of despair and persevered, you have no idea what you can accomplish.  And in reaching that goal, you’re a different person.  A better person.  You’ve grown.  I’ve grown so much over the past 5 years and am confident I’m a better person because of Zscaler.  Find something that forces you to grow.   

Do:  If you speak with anyone who’s had the unfortunate distinction of working for me, I’m confident they’ll give you “the wickets” speech.  In my experience, the problem is never not understanding what one’s goals are.  Goal setting is easy; figuring out how to get there is hard.  In most cases, there is no well-groomed path to follow.  There will be obstacles, “wickets”, that you need to go through.  It could be 20 wickets or 200.  Start simply, and with the end in mind.  Break that goal down into however many wickets you see.  And as you progress, some wickets may fall away, and new ones might arise.  The only thing you can’t do is nothing. Be a doer.  Step-by-step, wicket-by-wicket.  Being a doer doesn’t take intelligence, skill, or charm. It’s waking up every day with a sense of purpose, and simply doing.  You can’t grow if you don’t “do”… Again, be a doer.       

As I start my next adventure, I can’t share too many details as we are in stealth mode; however, I am very fortunate to tag team with Tarun Thakur on this journey.  Thank you for putting your faith in me.  Secure cloud transformation is still in the early innings and new leaders are born every day.  I saw the market disruption first-hand.  I cannot wait to build a market defining data platform for the multi-cloud era.  The enterprise data ecosystem is ripe for disruption.  

Let’s get to work!