AMA: Databricks Director - Sales Strategy & Operations, Ken Liu on Influencing the C-Suite

Revenue operations provides utility to the C-suite in various capacities, ranging from revenue forecasting, to process optimization to data and analytics. These are all core functions of rev ops that drive value to CXOs. Regardless of core rev ops function, I've found these best practices to always hold true for my career: Identify the problem statement - never jump head first into the next big project until you align with stakeholders and management on what exactly is the problem or challenge y ...Read More

In my experience, the most successful way to convince leadership for more HC is by adopting one or more of the following best practices when submitting the ask: Show how the request will directly/indirectly improve the bottom line Quantify the impact of the incremental HC Demonstrate how the HC will positively impact your department or company's OKRs or priorities Improve the bottom line - you can frame most requests in terms of how it can either grow the top line or reduce savings. If your depa ...Read More

I was fortunate enough to have access to client C-suite early in my career at Google when I was part of their ad sales teams. Within the sales team, I specialized in marketing analytics, where my job was to help calculate and present to clients the digital media ROI they would receive from investing with Google ad products. While in this role, I used some best practices that helped grant me access to the client C-suite, including: Understand what keeps the CXO up at night, and have an innovative ...Read More

Having access to the C-suite can be helpful for your career from a learning, career growth and networking experience. Some ways to gain access to the C-suite include: Working on projects that have visibility to the C-suite Assisting with events that have C-suite attendance or sponsorship Attending all-hands, fireside chats or skip level meetings w/the C-suite Projects w/C-Suite Visibility - you can have exposure to the C-suite through a myriad of ways, either directly in meetings or via offline ...Read More

When you're facing this unenviable position, I recommend adopting these best practices: Ensure both execs' strategy is trying to solve the same problem statement Help the execs review how well their strategy aligns against a company and customer first principle Ensure there is a holistic evaluation of the pros and cons of each strategy Flesh out what needs to be true from a time, money and people requirement for each strategy, as well as what are the risks Align on problem statement - this might ...Read More