Rendezvous with digital leadership @ Cornerstone Ondemand

I meet Mark Goldin, Chief Technology Officer and Pratik Savai, SVP Digital at Cornerstone OnDemand in an intimate executive connect session with five lucky students from UCLA EMBA2019 this month. Cornerstone OnDemand is a cloud-based learning and talent management solutions provider headquartered in Santa Monica, California. It is a publicly traded US company employing over 2000 people globally with ~$500M annual revenue. I'm sharing key highlights, stories and advise from the session here.

Back in the day, Mark become CTO through entrepreneurial ventures and moved from UK to California back in the day to join Cornerstone. He believes in hiring really good talented people and investing in their careers. At Cornerstone, they adherently practice what they preach on talent and performance management practices. They have record high retention rates even in geographies with historically high attrition.

"My goal is my employees in India, Israel, Ukraine and other locations have the same working experiences with the company as someone in Santa Monica Headquarters. " -Mark Goldin, CTO

Mark shared that the individual contributor track is as lucrative as the leadership track in the company. Employees are empowered to have career paths they desire. Every now and then they will fly everyone in the company across levels to Santa Monica to meet and learn from each other. They continue to hire globally to attract top talent to meet growing demands. Cornerstone also acquires companies for burst of distilled talent infusion into the mother ship. They have been challenged in ways, learnt, pivoted and continue to innovate. Expansions in new geographies are strategic, organic and purposeful.

Each of location has a core unique function/specialty to deliver. Their global strategy is not outsourcing but partnership based where local leaders drive agenda and productivity. Key to success for a Cornerstone employee is how well they can work and maneuver in a devOps environment. As company they are moving away from monolith architecture to more micro services based at rapid pace to bring best in breed solutions for their clients and increase agility. They are organized as squad with all-inclusive skill sets to address business problems. Once the team is formed, they try to keep the team intact. Many employees have had a good team experience and want to extend it into the next project.

"There are relationships you have built, domain you have gotten deep into, projects you know everything about, sense of belonging and pride of ownership. As team you stay together." - Mark Goldin, CTO

Pratik also shared his journey and experiences at Cornerstone. Pratik started as an engineer when the company was just 40 people. He believed in the mission, leadership and spoke highly about mentorship received in the company. Being a UCLA FEMBA Alum, he had UCLA memorabilia in his office which made us feel even more connected.

Pratik advised us to have a personal story ready to share and not be afraid to show vulnerability. He insisted on stop wondering why you weren't picked for next level role and instead observe what the leader put in charge was doing differently. Learn by observing, modelling good behavior and see how people react and what gets them excited and motivated. Good leaders have a way of showing vulnerability, sharing vision of a brighter future, clearly articulating why the current problem at hand is important and seeking solutions & collaboration. There is just no shortcut to success. He also spoke about the value of doing the right thing, being content with less and buying for purpose. The next big bonus or increment in salary doesn't mean you splurge. Learn how to invest and practice disciplined spending.

"I feel very excited about my work every morning and look forward to coming to office. This feeling has kept me with Cornerstone for 13 years and running." -Pratik Savai, SVP Digital

We also had a chance to tour the campus started with Peter Renault, Talent Acquisition Leader who gave us tour of the Cornerstone campus in Santa Monica- very modern office in state of the art building overlooking two lakes, jogging tracks, shops and restaurants. The office had a fun vibe with brightly painted walls, conference rooms named after Cornerstone office locations worldwide, different gaming rooms, open office space, snack bars, exercise and massage rooms. He spoke about the spike in demand for top tech talent and new roles in the company. For him, its also about growing talent in the company as much as hiring. At Cornerstone, they have monthly session were employees teach each on subjects they are passionate about e.g. spelling bees, dancing, wine mixing, story telling, tech sessions.

What an evening with Vikash Jhunjhunwala, Jaydev Thakkar, Jim Smith, Saivur Bhadwar and Shant Margidian. We have come back inspired and in awe hearing from such hard working and passionate LA Tech leaders.