Revenue Mavericks

Richard Petley wasn't supposed to end up in enterprise software.He comes from a family of academics. Teachers, educational psychologists, people who built careers in classrooms and lecture halls. He was studying English literature at university, surrounded by classmates headed toward journalism, creative writing, and law.But Richard had a secret.The summer before university, he needed work. Through a chain of connections he hadn't planned, he landed in IBM's pre-university employment program, a gap year scheme that brought together a wildly diverse group of young people, most of whom would go on to do something completely different with their lives.Richard was one of the 20% for whom it stuck.He finished his gap year a day before starting his degree. He finished his degree and walked back into IBM the next day. No gap. No hesitation. He had found the thing that lit him up, and he wasn't going to let it cool off.That clarity of direction carried him from IBM to Oracle to his current role as Chief Revenue Officer at Teradata, one of the foundational platforms powering the infrastructure behind today's AI revolution.But what makes Richard compelling as a leader isn't just the trajectory. It's the operating philosophy underneath it.Early in his career at IBM, Richard spent a year as an executive assistant to Larry Hearst, the country leader who went on to become chairman of IBM EMEA. The role wasn't glamorous. He wrote briefings, assembled presentations, and handled logistics. But he watched. He studied how Larry engaged with people, how he prepared for high-stakes moments, and how he carried himself when the pressure was on.That experience taught Richard something he still operates by today: your career isn't shaped by a single breakthrough moment. It's shaped by a series of set piece moments that you identify, prepare for, and deliver on, one after another, over the course of years.He also carries a leadership framework he picked up from a former military leader at Oracle, built on three pillars: integrity, organization, and success. People follow leaders they can trust, leaders who show up prepared, and leaders who win. All three matter. None of them work alone.And when it comes to running a global sales organization, Richard believes in something deceptively simple: build a management system at the beginning of the year, define the KPIs and the scorecard, and then run it with total consistency. No surprises in forecast calls. No unfamiliar data. No distractions. Just a clean operating rhythm that lets people do their best work because they always know what's expected.In this episode:How a gap year at IBM, taken completely by chance, set the course of Richard's entire careerWhat spending a year as an executive assistant taught him about leadership at the highest levelThe three-pillar framework (integrity, organization, success) he's used for decadesWhy "no surprises" is the operating philosophy behind the best enterprise sales teamsHow to identify and prepare for the set piece moments that define your career trajectoryWhy authenticity isn't optional, and why everyone can spot a fraud from a mile offRichard Petley is CRO of one of the most important data platforms in the world. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to lead at that level, and it starts with showing up the same way every single time.

Carl Borsody was watching a doctor work under pressure when something clicked.The situation was tense. The stakes were real. And this doctor never flinched. Not because they didn't care, but because they understood something most people miss: the room was already filled with enough urgency. Adding more panic to it wouldn't help anyone. What the moment needed was someone steady enough to think clearly while everyone else was reacting.Carl carried that lesson into his career in enterprise sales, and it became the foundation for how he leads. His heart might be racing. His brain might be running through a dozen scenarios at once. But his team never sees that, because they don't need more pressure injected into the system. They need a leader who absorbs the tension in the room instead of amplifying it.That quiet intensity has carried Carl through more than two decades at Cisco, Juniper Networks, and Palo Alto Networks, where he led the U.S. Major and Strategic Accounts business. Today, as Chief Revenue Officer at Uniphore, he's rebuilding a GTM organization around a focused AI platform, and doing it with the same steadiness that's defined his entire career.What makes Carl's perspective unusual is the path that got him here. After eight years in management, he made the rare decision to step back into an individual contributor role. Most people would see that as a step backward. Carl saw it as an accelerator. Those years in leadership had given him what he calls "cheat notes," a deep library of patterns around deal strategy, executive engagement, and objection handling that most sellers spend an entire career building one deal at a time. When he eventually moved back into leadership, he brought a seller's instincts with a leader's peripheral vision. It's a combination that's hard to find in a CRO.Carl also shares his approach to procurement negotiations, where he disarms tension by simply naming it out loud, and explains why the best sellers never use product names or technical jargon in front of a business buyer. One CIO put it to his team bluntly: "I guarantee you're smarter than me. But if you want my business, talk to me like I'm in fifth grade."What we cover:Why staying calm under pressure isn't passive, and why the best leaders never inject urgency into a room that already has enoughThe "cheat notes" advantage: how moving from leadership to IC and back gave Carl a pattern library most CROs never buildHis approach to procurement negotiations: name the dynamic, cut the posturing, and get to the real conversationWhy Carl hires for deal-finding capability over industry expertise, nine times out of tenThe language trap that kills executive conversations, and how to sell without ever saying a product nameHow Uniphore's pivot to a focused AI stack is reshaping what Carl looks for in his team and how he builds repeatable processCarl Borsody is a leader who believes the best revenue organizations are built on steadiness, not volume. This conversation is for sales leaders who know that the loudest voice in the room is rarely the one people follow.

Kiva Kolstein was sitting across from his CEO on his very first day as Head of Sales.He had spent the entire week before building a 30-slide deck. Business journal quotes. Leadership frameworks. Case studies from sports icons and Fortune 500 executives. Every slide was polished. Every slide was smart. Every slide was borrowed from someone else.After the presentation, the room applauded. Then his CEO pulled him aside."Those were some great stories from some great leaders. But we didn't hire any of the leaders you quoted. We hired you. I want to know who you are."It stung. But it was exactly right.Kiva had spent his first day as a leader hiding behind borrowed conviction, trying to sound like a leader instead of being one. That single conversation reset everything. It taught him that people don't follow slides. They don't follow quotes. They follow belief.Today, as President and Chief Revenue Officer at AlphaSense, a company he's helped scale from 50 people and $10M in ARR to over 2,000 employees and $500M in ARR, Kiva operates from a set of principles that are entirely his own.He calls the framework Four Ps: Purpose, Power, Precision, and Presence. And in this episode, he walks through exactly how that operating system drives durable, scalable growth.But the conversation goes much deeper than frameworks.Kiva also shares what step-parenting taught him about intentional leadership.Why he spent 18 months going back to making cold calls as the most junior person at a commercial real estate firm, and why he'd do it again.And the Rocky 3 scene that perfectly captures what happens when a leader "gets civilized" and loses touch with the grind.In this episode:Why great leaders build environments and then trust people to deliver resultsThe Four Ps framework: how Purpose, Power, Precision, and Presence drive organizational scaleWhat step-parenting taught Kiva about hyper-intentional leadershipThe "back to basics" chapter that regrounded him after years in leadershipWhy precision is the most underinvested lever in most sales organizationsHow AlphaSense has successfully integrated four acquisitions in four years, and what other CROs get wrongKiva Kolstein is one of the most thoughtful voices in enterprise revenue leadership. This one is worth your full attention.

John Allen was a freshman at BYU when he walked into an open tryout with 300 other hopefuls for a spot on the basketball team.He wasn't recruited. He had no guarantee of playing time. He just knew he wanted to be there, and spent the first 60 to 90 days of his college career training like it was his only job. Sprints at the track. Shots in the field house. Early mornings before anyone else showed up.When the final list went up on the Marriott Center door with one name on it, it was his.Then he showed up to his first practice and realized his new teammates were bigger, stronger, and faster than him. He showed up the next day anyway. And the day after that. Five weeks in, something shifted. He belonged.That same instinct, to just keep showing up even when you're not sure you belong, followed him to JP Morgan, where he spent his early career in the energy group in Houston. Then 2008 hit. Markets tanked, promotions lost their shine, and John found himself asking a question he hadn't expected: is this actually what I want? He called his dad, who happened to be the CEO of G&A Partners, a growing professional employer organization. One honest conversation led to another, and John made the jump. He left one of the most recognized banks in the country for a family-owned business with 80 employees, enrolled in the University of Texas MBA program at the same time, and figured he'd reassess in a few years. Seventeen years later, that bet has paid off in full: G&A Partners has grown to over 800 employees, and John sits in the Chief Revenue Officer seat.In this episode, John talks about what it takes to build a culture where accountability is earned through consistency, how curiosity separates good salespeople from great ones, and why the leaders who outlast everyone else are usually just the ones who refused to stop showing up.What we cover:Why showing up every day, even when you clearly don't belong yet, is still the most reliable path to earning your placeWhat the 2008 financial crisis revealed about what John actually wanted from his careerHow John went from "special projects manager" to Chief Revenue Officer by selling his own deals on the sideThe six-year accountability framework G&A Partners uses to keep every level of the org alignedWhy curiosity is the trait John looks for most in salespeople, and why it unlocks creativity that can't be taughtWhat it means to be accessible as a sales leader (and why John's wife thinks he takes it too far)John's take on what separates good sales leaders from great ones: "If you love something and you work really hard, there's a good chance you can achieve some pretty great things. And when someone tells you that you can't, that's the first sign that you're going to show them that you can."This conversation is for sales leaders who know that the most reliable competitive advantage isn't a methodology or a tech stack. It's the decision to keep showing up, long after most people would have walked away.

Navid Zolfaghari didn't learn his most important sales lesson in a boardroom.He learned it at a poker table in high school.Not the bluffing. Not the bravado. The math, the psychology, and what happens when you pair them together and commit to playing the long game.That early lesson became the operating system behind his entire career: if you make the right decisions consistently, variance sorts itself out. You will win long-term. And that same principle, what poker players call "plus EV" thinking, is how Navid manages deals, develops reps, and leads go-to-market organizations today as SVP of Sales and Success at Zapier.The best leaders don't panic when a quarter goes sideways. They ask one question: are we doing the right things every day?Navid's path ran through two startups he founded himself, then Google, Metronome, and Branch, each one sharpening his ability to connect the dots across an entire organization rather than just the revenue function. As a founder, he was the SDR, the AE, the product leader, and the people manager, often all in the same day. That altitude-shifting experience is what made him the kind of sales leader who doesn't just own a number. He owns the system.In this episode, Navid shares the frameworks that have carried him throughout his career in sales leadership, including two he's held onto for decades.What we cover:The poker principle and why "plus EV" thinking is the foundation of long-term sales leadershipWhy Navid stuck with his most expensive rep through two years of underperformance, and why it paid off with a near eight-figure deal in year threeThe startup vs. big company question and why it's harder to go from Google to a startup than the other way aroundSystems thinking as a leadership edge and why the best executives never stay exclusively in their laneThe Rule of 2x, a framework from sales trainer Skip Miller that cuts timelines in half by changing how you schedule the next meeting"There is no tomorrow," the Rocky 3-inspired urgency philosophy Navid still brings to his team todayNavid's take on what separates good sales leaders from great ones: "If you do the right things, I will run through the variance with you. Long-term, we're going to win together."This conversation is for sales leaders who understand that urgency and patience aren't opposites. Used together, they're the combination that compounds into outsized results.

Jennifer Brannigan wasn't supposed to end up in a corner office.She grew up on the south side of Chicago—blue collar, Irish Catholic, tight-knit. Her dad was a homicide detective. Her mom worked as a physical therapist at a school. The path forward looked familiar: something service-oriented, something close to home. Maybe speech pathology.Then her grandparents took her into Manhattan.Suits. Briefcases. Big shiny buildings. The energy of New York City hit her like a jolt—and something shifted. She didn't have the language for it yet, but she knew: the world was bigger than she'd been shown, and she wanted a piece of it.That one exposure didn't just spark ambition. It became a north star she spent decades building toward—and eventually, she moved there, met her husband, and had two of her kids in that city.But Jennifer's path to the C-suite wasn't a straight line. After studying psychology and spending nearly a decade in HR and human capital management—including GE's prestigious HR Leadership Development Program—she made the kind of decision that terrifies most people: she walked away from a defined, successful career path to start over in sales.Title step-down. Pay cut. No clear trajectory.She did it anyway.Because she understood early what most leaders learn too late: if you're doing something you're passionate about, the title and the money will catch up.That decision—made in her late twenties with more courage than certainty—set off a chain reaction that took her from NBC Universal to LinkedIn, where she led sales and success for Glint, to her current role as Chief Revenue Officer at Korn Ferry.And through all of it, she never stopped leading the same way she was raised: in service of other people.What we cover:How growing up on the south side of Chicago—surrounded by community, family, and her father's example as a homicide detective—wired her for servant leadershipWhy she said yes to a career pivot that required stepping back to eventually leap forwardThe "Teach Me" sessions: the single most powerful tool she uses when joining a new company or leading a large teamWhy quarterly listening sessions aren't a nice-to-have—they're how she stays connected to the field and earns the right to represent her team at the executive tableThe parallel between HR and go-to-market that most people miss—and why crossing that bridge made her a better revenue leaderWhat "you can't be what you can't see" really means—and how exposure to new environments changes the trajectory of a lifeJennifer's take on what separates good sales leaders from great ones: "If you can show the team that you're listening, that you're hearing them, and that you are moving those blockers—they will run through walls for you."This conversation is for sales leaders who know that the best results don't come from having all the answers—they come from building the kind of trust that makes your team want to give you everything they've got.

Evan Randall was sitting at his kitchen table as a kid when he started learning what real leadership looks like.His father—a Vietnam War veteran who'd served two tours before Harvard Business School—would come home with a briefcase full of papers and walk through the problems he'd faced that day. Who he talked to. What went wrong. How he thought it through.No laptop. No cell phone. Just strategy sessions between father and son.His dad had commanded 150 to 200 soldiers at age 21 on a forward artillery base in Vietnam—making life and death decisions surrounded by minefields with no way out except by helicopter.After that? Nothing at work ever stressed him out.Evan absorbed that lesson early: "It's not as bad as being in Vietnam. It's just work."That perspective shaped everything about how he operates today as SVP of Worldwide Revenue Strategy & Operations at Teradata—and why he's one of the most unflappable leaders in the RevOps discipline.Because when you learn early that not everything is urgent, you stop treating every problem like a crisis.Evan's inflection point came at Tableau Software over a decade ago. He joined as the first sales operations hire when the company was at $100 million in revenue with 400 employees. Four years later, his team had grown to nearly 100 people as the company scaled to just under $900 million.They were hiring 50 new sales reps every four to five weeks. Managers were training people who'd been there two weeks longer than them. Small planning errors meant tens of millions in missed opportunity.That's where Evan learned the hardest lesson in high-velocity environments: you can't put out every fire.The real skill? Knowing which fires will burn the company down—and which ones you can let smolder.In this episode, Evan shares the philosophy that's carried him from Tableau to VMware to Tenable to Teradata—and why he believes we're entering a Renaissance for the revenue operations discipline.What we cover:How his father's military leadership shaped his unflappable approach to business challengesThe Wharton lesson: understanding risk thresholds so you can make fast decisions with confidenceWhy "letting fires burn" is a discipline, not laziness—and how to prioritize the right three firesHis framework for building trust: deliver quick wins before you ask for anything in returnHow The Speed of Trust principles (integrity, intent, capability, results) build credibility faster than brillianceThe bold prediction: why RevOps leaders are the future profile for Chief Revenue OfficerEvan's honest about what separates effective operators from exceptional ones: "You can be the most brilliant person in the room, but if you have not built those relationships and that trust with the people around you, you're never going to get anything done."A reminder for all of us:RevOps leaders sit at the center of everything. The ones who build genuine relationships and understand which battles to fight will architect the next generation of revenue organizations.This conversation is for revenue leaders who know that moving fast requires knowing what to ignore—and are ready to stop treating every problem like it's equally important.

In this episode of Revenue Mavericks, Justin sat down with Jeff Perry, Chief Revenue Officer at Carta.Jeff was standing in his boss's office at Oracle when he was asked to sign an NDA.Young director. Managing database sales teams. Solid performer. But this moment? He had no idea if he was getting fired or promoted.Then Dan Freund told him about Oracle's plan to acquire Sun Microsystems—and asked Jeff to leave the world he knew and help rebuild hardware sales from scratch.Jeff didn't ask for time to think about it. He said yes.Not because the opportunity was obvious. Not because he had hardware experience. But because someone he respected opened a door—and Jeff learned early that when doors open, you walk through them.That single decision rewired his entire career trajectory.Before that moment, Jeff had been scaling teams, managing what already existed. After? He learned how to build organizations from the ground up. How to operate like a startup inside a massive company. How to create something new instead of just optimizing something old.Fifteen years later, those exact skills became the foundation for what he's built as Chief Revenue Officer at Carta, one of the most essential platforms in the startup ecosystem.But the through-line in Jeff's career isn't about seizing opportunities—it's about something he learned playing college baseball at Santa Clara University: find the person who's better than you, and work relentlessly to match their level.Career-defining opportunities rarely announce themselves with clarity. They show up as uncertain doors. The best leaders say yes anyway.In this episode, Jeff reveals the leadership philosophy that's carried him from the baseball diamond to the executive suite—and it's about balancing two things most people think are incompatible.What we cover:How college baseball taught him the mentor model: identify the best and work to reach their standardWhy the fear of failure (the same fear Larry Ellison openly admitted to) becomes fuel for excellenceThe inflection point: saying yes to an unclear opportunity opened every door that followedHis leadership framework: running the business operationally while staying deeply connected to your peopleWhy building genuine relationships with your team makes you stronger, not softerThe lesson he passes forward: unless it smells terrible, always raise your hand and say yesJeff's perspective on what separates effective leaders from exceptional ones: "You can do the operational mechanics of running the business, but also be a compassionate, open, accessible leader. They become more invested in what we're building together."This conversation is for revenue leaders who understand that saying yes to the unclear path—and investing in real human connection—unlocks what frameworks and processes never could.

Akira Mamizuka was in high school when he made a decision that would define everything that followed.While his friends coasted through private school with weekends free, Akira chose a brutal public technical program in Brazil—one that demanded Saturday classes, advanced physics, and a workload that left him exhausted and envious of everyone else's easier path.He didn't know it then, but choosing difficulty over comfort became his operating system.That mentality shaped everything about how he operates today as VP of Global Sales Operations at LinkedIn—and why he's spent nearly 12 years scaling one of tech's most iconic companies.Because when you learn early that hard work compounds, you don't chase shortcuts. You build for the long run.Akira's path took him through eight years at McKinsey, where he developed systems thinking, analytical rigor, and an obsession with measurable impact. He was on track to partner. The path was clear. The rewards were significant.But he walked away.Not because McKinsey wasn't working—but because he wanted to see the cause and effect of his work. He was tired of delivering recommendations and never knowing what happened next. And he wanted to be a present father.So he took the risk and joined LinkedIn when it was still a startup in Latin America—unproven in international markets, far from the juggernaut it is today.A reminder for all of us:The inflection points in our careers often require courage to leave behind what's working for what matters more.In this episode, Akira shares the deceptively simple principle that's driven his success across 12 years at LinkedIn—one his mentor Brian Frank taught him early on:"Hiring is the most important thing you do as a leader."What we cover:Why choosing the harder path early compounds into career advantageThe McKinsey gift: how consulting builds systems thinking and impact orientationThe courage to leave prestige behind—and why mission, culture, and talent matter moreHis framework for hiring: great people multiply your impact, wrong people sink your shipWhy surrounding yourself with exceptional talent is the only framework that mattersThe mindset shift: from building perfect processes to building people who build processesAkira's honest about what drives success: "If you hire great people, you can mess up your job and they're going to make it up for you." That's the mentality of someone who learned early that the standard you set determines everything that follows.This conversation is for revenue leaders who know their team matters more than their tech stack—and are ready to prioritize hiring above everything else.

Mike Ogden was 10 years old when he got his first job delivering newspapers. Not because his family was desperate—but because he knew that if he wanted a car as a teenager, he'd have to buy it himself.Raised by a single mom with no safety net, Mike learned early: there was no room to fail. You figure it out. You don't lose.That mentality shaped everything about how he operates today as VP of Worldwide Revenue Operations at Cloudflare—and why he's built one of the most thoughtful approaches to revenue operations I've encountered.Because when you can't afford to lose, you don't organize teams in ways that create unnecessary failure points.In this episode, Mike breaks down what he calls the "Revenue Map": a framework where you map revenue end-to-end first, then organize cross-functional teams around that reality—not around job titles.What we cover:Why functional silos create unnecessary points of failureHis Revenue Map framework: mapping revenue before organizing teamsHow "everyone owns pipeline" changes team dynamics completelyThe power of one dashboard: unified metrics force alignment faster than meetingsWhy the tech stack trap happens (and how to avoid it)The mindset shift: from "I'm a marketer" to "I'm a revenue delivery person"Mike's honest about the work being iterative: "We're better now than we were a year ago, and next year we'll be better than now." That's the mentality of someone who started saving at 10. Progress compounds. You figure it out.This conversation is for revenue leaders who know their current org structure creates too many failure points—and are ready to rebuild the foundation.

On this episode of Revenue Mavericks, Justin sat down with Esther Friend, VP of Revenue Operations at Udemy.What stood out wasn’t just her global experience or her track record of driving complex GTM transformations–it was the through-line behind it all: intentional learning, adaptability, and a marathoner’s mindset.Before Esther ever stepped into sales or RevOps, she lived abroad in Sevilla, Spain for a year and a half. Immersed in a culture with completely different rhythms, norms, and assumptions, she learned a lesson many leaders miss:There’s never just one “right” way to operate.That openness–to questioning existing processes, to challenging assumptions, and to seeing alternative paths–is a foundational RevOps skill. Her early international experience made her more adaptable, more curious, and more willing to ask why something is done a certain way.Her career took a turn during what she thought was a simple networking breakfast. The COO of Angie's List saw something in her she didn’t fully see in herself: a highly technical business leader who could translate vision into systems, processes, and engineering roadmaps.That conversation led to leading sales platform transformation, owning Sales Ops and PMO, and ultimately driving a major integration between Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor.A reminder for all of us:Career-defining opportunities often show up when we’re not “trying”–they show up when we simply show up.Esther’s superpower is her empathy for frontline teams–because she’s been one of them. She’s run outbound motions, saved at-risk customers, and led sales teams. That experience anchors how she designs systems:Talk to frontline sellers.Understand their day-in-the-life.Capture winning behaviors.Automate and scale them.One example: redesigning a contracting process so reps could draw a circle on a map to generate a quote–dramatically reducing time and improving customer experience.This is design thinking applied to RevOps:human input → repeatable workflow → scalable system.Esther embodies what today’s GTM orgs need:Leaders who are students of the gameOperators who listen before architecting solutionsBuilders who combine empathy with automationAthletes who play the long gameIf you want a masterclass in modern RevOps leadership, her episode is worth your time.