The Power of Authentic Leadership

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Power of Authentic Leadership" on Marketing Trends

Episode Details:

• Title: The Power of Authentic Leadership
• Host: Jeremy Bergeron
• Guest: Mandy Dhaliwal, Chief Marketing Officer of Nutanix
• Release Date: October 30, 2024

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of Marketing Trends, host Jeremy Bergeron engages in a deep conversation with Mandy Dhaliwal, the Chief Marketing Officer at Nutanix. The discussion delves into Mandy's remarkable career trajectory, the challenges she faced, and her strategic approach to modern marketing. The episode highlights the essence of authentic leadership and its pivotal role in navigating the dynamic landscape of cloud and enterprise technologies.

Mandy Dhaliwal’s Career Journey

Mandy begins by sharing her professional journey, highlighting a significant seven-year hiatus from marketing due to a severe health issue. She reflects on her return to the industry, emphasizing that the core philosophy of marketing as a growth lever for businesses remained unchanged despite technological and tactical evolutions.

“This is philosophically how I think about marketing. We are that growth lever for business, so that doesn't change.” [00:28]

Upon her return, Mandy swiftly adapted to the new marketing paradigms, immersing herself in contemporary strategies and collaborating closely with the sales team to redefine Nutanix's blueprint for success.

Overcoming Adversity and Embracing Authentic Leadership

Mandy candidly discusses the personal challenges that shaped her leadership style. She recounts a traumatic health crisis that forced her to prioritize her well-being and family over her burgeoning career. This period of introspection and recovery was transformative, instilling resilience and a profound understanding of work-life balance.

“I chose me, I chose my family. I got my health back. It took me seven years.” [02:14]

She emphasizes the importance of self-care and strategic prioritization, lessons that have become integral to her role as a CMO. Mandy’s experience underscores the significance of mental and physical well-being in sustaining long-term professional success.

Strategic Collaboration with Executive Teams

A cornerstone of Mandy’s strategy is fostering robust collaboration across executive teams. She highlights the necessity of aligning marketing initiatives with sales, finance, and product development to drive cohesive business growth. Mandy illustrates this through Nutanix’s user conference, where cross-functional teamwork was crucial in launching new products and solidifying the company's market presence.

“Business is a team sport... we are business people first and then we represent our domains.” [16:24]

This holistic approach ensures that all departments work in unison towards common objectives, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and maximizing return on investment.

Marketing as a Strategic Growth Driver

Mandy passionately advocates for marketing's role beyond traditional tactics. She positions marketing as a strategic growth driver, integral to business development and customer engagement. Her focus on data-driven, digital-centric marketing underscores the shift from conventional advertising to more sophisticated, ROI-focused strategies.

“Marketing is not a group of tacticians. We're strategic growth drivers for business.” [10:04]

This perspective is pivotal in steering Nutanix towards innovative marketing solutions that align with broader business goals.

Problem-Solving and Strategic Initiatives

One of the significant challenges Mandy faced was positioning Nutanix as a leading alternative to major competitors like VMware and Broadcom. She orchestrated a comprehensive, integrated marketing strategy that included collaboration with analysts, refining the company’s messaging, and securing incremental funding to enhance market penetration.

“We routed it into the market in early March. By May, we were known as the number one alternative.” [24:03]

This strategic initiative not only bolstered Nutanix’s brand recognition but also galvanized the entire sales and marketing teams to push a unified message, demonstrating the efficacy of collaborative problem-solving.

Future of Cloud Marketing

Looking ahead, Mandy identifies Generative AI as a disruptive force poised to revolutionize cloud marketing. She anticipates a fundamental shift in how brands interact with consumers, moving towards more personalized and dynamic engagement models.

“The whole way we operate and drive and interact with brands is about to change.” [33:47]

Her foresight underscores the importance of staying adaptable and embracing technological advancements to maintain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving market landscape.

Conclusion

Mandy Dhaliwal’s journey encapsulates the essence of authentic leadership—resilience, strategic collaboration, and a relentless focus on growth and innovation. Her insights offer invaluable lessons for current and aspiring CMOs, emphasizing the importance of balancing personal well-being with professional ambition and leveraging authentic leadership to drive meaningful business outcomes.

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Notable Quotes:

• “This is philosophically how I think about marketing. We are that growth lever for business, so that doesn't change.” [00:28]
• “I chose me, I chose my family. I got my health back. It took me seven years.” [02:14]
• “Business is a team sport... we are business people first and then we represent our domains.” [16:24]
• “Marketing is not a group of tacticians. We're strategic growth drivers for business.” [10:04]
• “We routed it into the market in early March. By May, we were known as the number one alternative.” [24:03]
• “The whole way we operate and drive and interact with brands is about to change.” [33:47]

Transcript

[Jeremy Bergeron]

How many years were you in marketing before you took a break?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Roughly about a dozen years.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay. And then you took how many years off?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I round up to seven.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay. What was it like kind of coming back? Did you feel after the seven years that you stepped back in and you were pulling out the tools and the strategies and the approaches that were working before, did you feel like all of that stuff is still very relevant to this, or did you jump back in and say, holy, like this? The whole game has changed ultimately, and.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

This is philosophically how I think about marketing. We are that growth lever for business, so that doesn't change. Yeah, the tech changed, the tactics changed. That's all learnable. There was folks that I worked with that had all of the latest and greatest and were up to speed on the new things because, yes, it had changed. We're not mad men. We're not just writing ads anymore as marketers. So I immersed myself in that, and within a couple of quarters, I had our blueprint figured out, had the partnership with the inside sales team going. Some of that stuff never changes. Foreign.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Welcome to Marketing Trends, your absolute favorite show. This is your host, Jeremy Bergeron. I'm exceptionally excited today. Mandy Dhaliwal has built a pretty remarkable career in the tech industry as the chief marketing officer of Nutanix. She's not only shaping the company's global brand, but also influencing how enterprises embrace the multi cloud cloud era, which I want to get into today. Mandy, welcome to the show.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Hi, Jeremy. So great to be here. Thank you.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Super excited to have you again. Like you, you, you've got a ton of experience and perspective in the space, and I'm learning a little bit about the things that you care about as a marketing leader, which, which I want to get into right away. I'm fascinated by how people grow through adversity.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

And so I want you to think about your career and think about, you know, things that you've already gone through. And is there a particular challenge either at Nutanix or somewhere else that really pushed you, Mandy, to redefine how you lead or how you market?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Wow, that's a great question right off the bat and really a meaty one. Jeremy. I think, you know, if I look back kind of in the, the, the arc of my life, right. The, the biggest adverse moment that I had was a traumatizing health issue.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

That caused me to pause my tech career and that was, you know, me hard charging a type personality. All of a sudden. Bodi said, no more. You've got to focus on yourself. You've burnt yourself out. You owe me, basically, was the message my body gave me. I have now the, the presence of mind to understand that in hindsight and, but I still tried to push through and then eventually I had to take time off and I took a really significant chunk of time off. And back in those days, it wasn't really appropriate to talk about breaks in your career because that meant you, you were broken, right? There was something wrong with you. And so I chose me, I chose my family. I got my health back. It took me seven years. I also birthed a baby in, in that time frame who's now about to be 17. But in hindsight, it was the best thing I could have done for Mandy and for the human I am and the leader I am today, because it really shaped the next chapter.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Wow, that's huge. I mean, I'm reminded of a recent interview I did with Carla Pinero, sublet, who is the former CMO of IBM and a Beautiful Soul and amazing. Do you know Carla, by the way? I do you have a connection with her?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I'd love to meet her.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Side note, side note, I definitely want to connect you to specifically, but you know, she, she mentioned some of this as well. Of like these, these moments in our careers that, you know, it's almost like there's this unplanned initiation. It's like the, the, you know, the group, this huge challenge that is not just a marketing growth challenge, but like a personal challenge that literally pushes pause on everything and, you know, takes, perhaps takes you off of this path into a whole different world. And so that's incredible. I want to hear about one, like, how did you recover after that? Like, and look, you also, you know, you're stepping back into a fast moving industry, you're competing with some major players. I would imagine that you're still responsible for a whole heck of a lot when it comes to the brand and growth and the culture and the teams and everything. How do you balance that now? How do you, how did you recover then? And then, how do you ensure that you're taking care of yourself now? Because this is the things that CMOs want to hear about and don't always talk about is like, how do I do this? How do I. I can feel my body redlining, I can feel my relationship suffering. I can see things changing and all of a sudden I'm responsible for the board and the stakeholders and my team and all of a sudden now I'm out and I can't work. Right. So give us a little bit More of that. That's amazing.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah. I really frame this and how I think about it is two chapters of my career. One was the really kind of building, you know, learning and immersing myself in as much as I could. I came to Silicon Valley from Canada and I came here to play in the big leagues of tech. So I, I've always been a very mission driven, ambitious person. And so when I got here, I just soaked it all in, right? Which ultimately cost me because I spent too much time, too much energy, and did not know when to pull back because I was so passionate and excited about it. So that the learning number one is right? And make sure you're measured, do all the good things, throw yourself into it, but also save time for yourself on top of it. I decided to go back to grad school. So while I'm immersing myself, moved into a whole new country, whole new industry, right? Just why not extremist, right? It's zero or 60 every day. And so lessons learned, can't do that all the time. You can do it in your 20s, but you don't do it in your later years, right? So, so I think there was a lot of, in hindsight, the reflection is, is that yes, go do it, but find ways to growth, hack yourself, right? And optimize your own productivity, your own investment into yourself and your personal time and me time, self care, like all these things aren't the woo, woo. I live in California, right? And so there's a lot of that that happens, but there, there's, there's methodology behind it and there's science behind why recovery is critically important. And I think we're starting to realize that more in life and in career. So I think that was really important, the fact that I didn't do it, I had to pay for it because I depleted the account, right? And so I went in and I took the, the charge of the health condition and surrounded myself with folks that could teach me, right? I treated it like a project. It became my consulting project and I was a subject. And so I went in, dug deep, dug into all sorts of types of medicine, Eastern, Western, tried all sorts of things, met with great professionals in the healthcare space and was able to really network my way into a recovery, really got the level of attention that I needed and also took control of my own health and made it my business to know more, right? Versus just being a recipient of it. So put myself in the center of the problem, got through it. I was told I'd never have a child and that to Me was a non starter. Like we're not taking that for an answer.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

So again, right. Mindset, resilience, building that up, grit, tenacity, all those things that we use in business today, using that in arguably the most important role in my life is being a mother.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

So to get to that, did it, did it right, did it in a way that was an a class project, world class delivery.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Candidly. And now all of a sudden coming, stepping back in. And the other piece of this was I was in a big corporation when I went out on medical leave and really had some insight around where I wanted to be. I came to Silicon Valley to work in Silicon Valley to work in startups. So I paused the big company track, the enterprise track and went in. And as my son Roshan went back to school, as he got into kindergarten, that was the other thing. We wanted to raise our child ourselves because we knew it was just one and we wanted to make sure that we had those special moments, bonding. I was fortunate enough that we were able to do that as a family. So I got to be front and center with our child. But at the same time, once he was ready to go off into the world and get into school, I decided it was time for me to go back into next chapter of my career. And I was very purposeful and deliberate in that. Like I need to be in a startup, I need to go figure out what this is all about and really immerse myself. So in classic Mandy style, did kind of the, the mid mid growth startup kind of series CD. Did the series A 0 to 1 bring a company out of stealth, Did a scale out startup within the behemoth that is Dell Technologies.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And so started to hit these levels and really expand my knowledge not only of company size and space but also in terms of the functional areas within marketing and what the strategies are that are required for each of those stages. And so wow, you know, I got a ton of clarity and again brought discipline and brought self care but also brought the ability to just go drive excellence. And the last piece and I'll stop talking to give you an answer or to give you an opportunity to chime in. The last piece is really the passion was around. Marketing is not a group of tacticians. We're strategic growth drivers for business. And so that's the energy that I brought to this last chapter of my career.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

So much in that, I mean I want to touch on this a little bit more and then I want to move to other things. But I know that, I know For a fact that in the high stakes world of being a modern day cmo, and not just cmo, but I mean in high stakes leadership roles, burnout can be a very real challenge and it's a very real thing. Can you, can you double click on some of the non negotiable self care practices that you've built into your routine? Like how is Mandy the mom, you know, maintaining energy, creativity and resilience. Now again back at an epic brand growing and not slowing down. What are the things that now are on your self care tool belt?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Great question. I think it really starts with, you know, fierce prioritization. Saying no a lot, right. And saying yes to the things that really matter. So top of the list is family, right. Making sure that that is still the number one priority. Yes, I'm an executive, I have responsibility to corporation. But at the same time I'm a human and I'm a parent. So how do I balance those two things first? So that to me is number one, family time. Carving out time. If you have any tips on how to get rid of mobile devices from in person time with teenagers, I'm all ears.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Gosh, that's a big topic, right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

But in all sincerity, I think, right. Just making sure that you're purposeful and also social time. And you know, having been at Nutanix now for two and a half years, right. That first year on the job, I didn't see my social network as much.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

You have to, you, you have to make trade offs. I needed to put all of my energy that I could that was available into this new job to make sure that we set the right foundation.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And so I'm not here to preach on, you know, thou shalt, you must do a massage every week. Right. Although that would be amazing.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And so there's things like that, but now I've gotten smarter and so you can build in time, friend time, social time, meal time.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And so just re architecting your life for the situation that you're in and the stage you're in. I think really being mindful of that, you know. And the message to the friends was I still love you guys. I just don't have as much time right now because I'm in a new job, I'm traveling, I'm trying to get my arms around this thing and you know, let's get together for quality versus quantity.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

So people in your life understand they're a huge part of your network, your support system. But at the same time there's another priority in my Life. And it's not a knock against them. It's just, I have to go do this right now.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

How many years were you in marketing before you took a break?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Roughly about a dozen years.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay. And then you took how many. How many years off?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

It was a little over six. I round up to seven.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay. So you. So you took that time off and this. I just want to speak to the, you know, to the. Maybe the fractional marketing executive or the person who. Or maybe it's the mom that's home right now that is like, hey, like, okay, this is me. Like, okay, so what was it like kind of coming back? Like, did you feel after the seven years that you stepped back in and you were pulling out the tools and the strategies and the approaches that were working before, did you feel like, hey, wait a second, like, I still got this. Like, all of that stuff is still very relevant to this? Or did you jump back in and say, holy, like this. The whole game has changed, and now I've got to retool and relearn. And, you know, there's so many things that I just am not aware of. Because you took almost a decade off. What was that like? And then, yeah, I know you worked with lots of various brands and companies, but did you feel confident? Like, hey, wait a second, like, actually, not much has changed. And I got this.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah, I love this question. Nobody's ever asked me this before, Jeremy. And it. At first, it's a little unnerving. Right. And it's also liberating because you're like, hey, I got something to do, you know, in. In the outside world with adults. Not that I don't love being a parent, but, you know, the moms groups and the. And the playgroups and whatnot, after a while, like, they were awesome. But you. I wanted to get back into my business career, so I really made a conscious effort. And for me, ultimately, and this is philosophically how I think about marketing, we. We are that growth lever for business. So that doesn't change.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I align with sales. That is a number one mindset for me. You know, top of the. Top of the list. And so that's not going to change. Sales is servicing a customer.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

So the fundamentals are still there. I have business acumen that I bring to bear. Yeah. The tech changed, the tactics changed.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

That's all learnable. And so for me, I did not feel like a fish out of water. I loved doing it. I like the pursuit of the deal. The growth side of business is something I'M fiercely passionate about. So for me, it was getting my own product market fit into the right company that I would be able to go make a difference in was the mindset. And so walking in, I was at a startup, I met with the CEO, we had a really good conversation before my, you know, my final, in my final interview. And it was like, hey, you know how to read a deal? That's your superpower. And I'm like, okay, thank you. I, you know, thank you for helping me learn that. And so I walked in pretty confident, knowing what they needed, knowing what I could deliver. And really it was about turning on a go to market in a way that was scalable. And so for me, there was folks that I worked with, right, that had all of the latest and greatest and were up to speed on the new things because yes, it had changed. We're not mad men, we're not just writing ads anymore. As marketers, we're getting very data driven, we're digital focused. So I immersed myself in that and within a couple of quarters I had our blueprint figured out, had the partnership with the inside sales team going, was able to really go demonstrate that we could start to win in select markets, run a segmentation strategy. Some of that stuff never changes, right? So it's a balance.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

How do you find yourself collaborating differently with other executives now? How do you ensure that you have this alignment across the aisle now? How important is it? What's working well for you now in, you know, 2024 as we wrap up this year?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I love this question too. Collaboration is again, another fierce, kind of non negotiable principle of mine.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Business is a team sport and I come from a family of folks that have been athletes. And I was a tomboy growing up because my brother and my cousins were the only good, you know, people I hung out with. And so that mindset of being in a large family in a farming community as well, we all chipped in. We were child labor in many respects, right? But we all chipped in to go make a living for, for ourselves and grow our family business. So that was a mindset I came with and I've always had it within business, whether I was in a functional area or as part of a team or leading a project. You know, throughout my career, I think at this level I realized, and I think everybody in the room realizes this as well. We never really talk about it, but we are business people first and then we represent our domains. So one of the things I like to say is I'm a business Person with a passion for marketing. So I have a seat at the table with the executive team. We're driving a business, but we're unpacking a business challenge and bringing our capabilities to bear in concert with the other. So whether that's finance to go run a massive compete campaign that we did this year.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And being able to go get incremental funding and prove out ROI and share results in a continuous way, that's incredibly important. That's a strong partnership with the finance team. It's also a strong partnership with the sales team because we have to push into the market, they have to pull out of the market, the outcomes of that investment. So we take I, as the leader of the marketing organization, take that responsibility very seriously. And on top of that, the product message has to be aligned with the way the technical teams, the engineering and the product teams are thinking about the journey of the product.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

We did our, our user conference this year in May in Barcelona, and after the pandemic, we're finally back at scale. We had over 4,000 people in the room. We launched new products, new capabilities, a bigger vision for ourselves. That was done in concert not only with our CEO, but with every member of that executive team. We had partners in the room with customers and prospects, obviously, industry analysts, press, media. It was incredible. But that shows you the teaming required at the executive level to get all of our functions to work together, to align around the single message that we were trying to deliver the capabilities of our modernized platform and come out the other end with resonance in the market that requires unification and collaboration. Without it, it's, it's not possible.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Is there a particular role in the ELT that you found? Like, maybe in the past, like wasn't as important to collaborate with, but like now, very, very much is based on the way the world is. Is there, is there a particular role? Maybe it's just at Nutanix where you're like, no, I actually talk to the CTO quite a bit or, you know, or something like that. Is there a role where you're spending more time, you know, connecting with that person on the ELT versus maybe in past experiences?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah, I think, I think for me that's our Right. Marketing and strategy go pretty, pretty well, you know, in terms of hand. Hand in hand, in terms of the investments that we, we vend out into the market or the name we're trying to build for ourselves. But the team that we have here really has their finger on the pulse. And so as we become very data driven and very outcome and ROI focused, right. There's a lot of collaboration with that team to ensure a work, working on the right things, trying to get the, the highest ROI for. Because we can't do everything. So which bets are we placing and how are we measuring the output so they become a really important business partner to us on the execution side and on the, on the vending of the.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Resources side, I want to understand also kind of a little bit of like how Mandy thinks. And this is just, you know, I'm assuming that there are lots of problems that come across your desk and what are your favorite types of things to solve and maybe give us an example of like something that happened recently where you had to, you know, really put on, on the hat and actually help to solve a problem, whether it was high level, strategic or, you know, interpersonal, whatever it was. I want to understand kind of how you think about solving problems. What did you, what was the issue? How did you tackle it from a problem perspective?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

We ran into a very real problem earlier this year. We are a challenger brand, right? We don't have deep advertising budgets or dollars to deploy on getting our name out there, right. I'm not running just billboards with our name plastered across them. That's just not part, it's not been part of our strategy. We're, we're a technology company, right? And we've come across into the market because we invented a certain technology, HCI and built a name for ourselves. And now we've modernized ourselves into a hybrid multi cloud player across virtualized and modernized apps. And so how do you go tell the story in a way that's purposeful and not wasteful and yet still hits the bullseye, right? So that's the challenge. Market Dynamics, our number one competitor, gets bought last fall. The, the deal closes. It's game on time in the market, right? Because this competitor has raised prices, cut off support, is redefining the business that they've acquired to make it accretive to them, right? Which is all great stuff. So you understand their business strategy, but at the end of the day, the customer's gonna pay one way or another. Either they have to go out and migrate off of it or pay the exorbitant upcharges that they're facing or figure out alternative paths. And so we understand the market problem. We're working with the analysts to really understand customer issues. In the boardroom, in the ELT meetings, our head of sales is like, we're just not known enough. Nobody knows us as the alternative. We need to become the number one alternative to VMware, Broadcom marketing. What can you do? I think it's a solvable problem. I think we've got all the, all the levers in place to go do it. We need incremental investment, right? This is the real conversation that happened in elt and we have to figure out a good, better best scenario to start to go build Mindshare. The strategy needs to be leveraged. It's integrated marketing. So we have to work across all the elements within marketing. The product guys got to go put together the appropriate migration strategies, et cetera, et cetera. The digital teams have to figure out where we're going to go run the placements. The comms team have to figure out who the thought leaders and the influencers are that have to know about us in order to get air cover. It's more than just throwing an ad out on a website.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

So brought the team together within marketing, brought my leaders together, started a weekly standup on here's the challenge. What do we need to do? Here are the roles and responsibilities. Who's on first for each of these aspects of what we need to get done. Brought that together very quickly in a proposal, talked about what we could do, got the incremental funding. Thank you to our CFO and CEO for believing in us and really building a plan that was suitable for us and right sized for us. We routed it into the market in early March. By May, we were known as the number one alternative. We hit it hard. The entire team was galvanized across sales and marketing to be able to go push that message into the market.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

And we're still riding that wave as a challenger brand. It. I know that of course, like there's, there's, you're a challenger brand, like you said, like you're that in and of itself, it says a lot about, you know, what's, what's possible, what the angle you want to take as the brand challenging, you know, the big boys, et cetera. But in terms of balancing the need to, you know, challenge the status quo with the practicalities of running a large, fast growing company, is there ever tension between like taking these bold risks and maintaining stability? How do you balance that?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Yeah, we have, I could get into campaign hierarchies and all sorts of things. Right. But we have, we have really good clarity around where we harvest and where we seed. And I think that's really important. So again, going back to the interlock with the strategy team, right, Having the presence of mind to pause for a minute to really understand why you're doing what you're doing. That helps tremendously. And so once you figure that out, you're like, okay, team, I cleared the decks for you. Now here's, here's your mission. Here's the target. Go get it.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay. I also want to ask a layer of how did you galvanize it? How did everyone come together? It also sounds like there was like, you know, agreement, maybe not a lot of, like, we shouldn't, we shouldn't. Like there was a quick like, okay, we're accelerating. Now is the time to move. Let's move.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Y.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

What worked well to galvanize everyone to was it just, hey, we understand we're a challenger brand, so we're all fighters and let's go. Or, or was there a particular angle or narrative or story that you know that you or others were telling to say, hey, we got it, we got to get this right and we got to go now.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

It started with our CEO.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Okay.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

We spend a lot of time in communication with, with our teams as well in our quarterly company wide meetings, et cetera, et cetera. But really, it was the sense of our time is now that became our rally crime, right? And if you take a step back and look at it from a marketer's lens, it's like, great. We all have something that we can focus on. We know we have a technology that's modernized. It's. We're investing in it, we're innovating. We know this is. And the other piece of this was this company is very customer focused. Our NPS is 90 plus continually for the last decade. And so what it became is let's do what's right for the customer. But we also know our time is now because there's a better way. And we all believe that. And that's why we're here. That's the culture of the company. And so that became the underpinning of what we were doing. So marketing had the privilege of building out the messaging. Again, we didn't do this with an ad agency in a vacuum. We had our head of channels, our head of sales, our head of product looking at this stuff. The ELT had their fingerprints on it. Had an opportunity to go, no, I don't know if this is right. Tagline was pretty simple, right? The punchline was, we're here to help. That's who we are as a company. It wasn't a go, download this or pick a white paper, et cetera. It was having trouble navigating the storm. We're here to help. That was the message that went out. And so it was bold and it was punchy, but at the same time it was human and it connected with that reptilian brain center that we all want as advertisers and marketers.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

It emoted warm and fuzzy, which is entirely authentic and genuine to who we are as a company.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

You talked about hci, which I didn't know a ton about. Is it hybrid cloud infrastructure, is that right?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

It's one of them. So it started out as hyper converged infrastructure, which is the amalgamation of storage, networking and compute to get rid of footprints in the data center with storage. And so again I started my career in the valley in disaster recovery and in storage. So having understood that HCI was an innovation to become more efficient and drive more cost efficiencies in a simple, elegant, flexible platform that was open to be able to go do the to run infrastructure. And so that was wave one of this company. We were a hardware appliance company. We have now transitioned to become a software and most recently a subscription company. So that's the underpinning of our business. We also now look at HCI as hybrid cloud infrastructure because the advent of the cloud and all the public cloud players, we have technology that can help people get to the cloud quickly and cost effectively as well. So we've taken the HCI to mean obviously our heritage, but also hybrid cloud infrastructure. And then on top of it, hybrid multi cloud, which is yet another expansion. You can run workloads and do dynamic shifting across the major cloud vendors and hyperscalers. So across aws, across Microsoft, et cetera. So that's our bigger, bolder vision. And ultimately the way I think about this, this is how I explain it to my non technical friends and family. We're the underpinning of how modern businesses run. You can trust us to run your mission, mission critical apps, your new customer facing apps, whatever it is, we're the platform that you can rely on to go run this stuff that you need to go work on your business. Let us handle that piece of it. We're the experts.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

I mean obviously you know, you're competing against a lot of big brands. We've talked about that, we don't have to mention them. Do you yourself pay attention to those brands? Like, do you find yourself like looking under their hood as much as you can and looking at their approach and their messaging and do you even pay attention as much to what these other large brands are doing?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I don't obsess about them at all. Okay, but okay, I'm Smart about it, Right? I'm aware of the strategy. We obviously were competitors. We're formidable competitors at that. So you, you keep an eye on strategy and what's happening. You have your ear to the ground with the field organizations to determine what's happening at the blogging and talk tackling level. You understand their top line messages. The other interesting nuance of what we do, and this has been, you know, as long as tech has been around, we've got partners, we've got competitors, and at some level we got a lot of coopetition. So in certain aspects we partner. In other aspects, we compete. And really our, our mantra and our focus is it's customer led. Let's go do right by the customer and the rest will take care of itself.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

When in doubt, go back to the customer voice and what the most important voice in the room arguably. And that seems to be an important and a critical one. You are very inspiring. It's incredible, especially your story about the things that you did, the risks you took. I mean, I just can't wait to connect you with other epic people that I know. But we often look to others for inspiration. I know I do. And I'm curious just who inspires you? Who inspires, Mandy? How do you stay inspired as a leader when facing such long term challenges in the industry and the things that you're facing?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I find inspiration everywhere. And I think it started early in my childhood, right? As a firstborn grandchild on both sides of the family, right. I was the one that got all the attention. And so for me, I think, you know, growing up first, I had a lot of adult time, right? And so I think that gave me the grounding and the presence of mind to really value the inspiration. So whether it is family members, grandparents, like, I still fight my grandfather sometimes I'll have a conversation with my mom and go, remember what he used to say, right? And so, so there's that. So I think some of that is nurture. Definitely. I find inspiration with my kids, friends. The football team comes over for a swim, right? And all of a sudden I'm like, what are you guys doing? Or how are you going to manage junior year, right? And so it's like, oh my gosh, you guys are 16, 17 years old and you're juggling everything and you're having fun, right? And so take something from that, take something from somebody that works for me that comes up with this great idea. I'm like, wow, that's really, really impressive. I can't believe you did that. And so for me, I look for it and I channel it.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

For those aspiring CMOs who are not just seeking success, but also, like, meaning in their careers and purpose in their careers, what would you share, what advice would you share to those aspiring CMOs?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Get out from behind yourself, behind your desk. Get out there. There's a lot that happens in your brain. Some of it is not even valid, right? The imposter syndrome, the, oh, what are they going to think of me?

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

And particularly within marketing, we. We have a lot of women in. In marketing, and so we come with all these preconceived notions. The end of the day, know to turn that off, that, that little voice and go get the information. Be data driven, lean in, ask smart questions, do your homework.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

But also be. Be a part of something. Don't sit there and wait. If you really want to rise up in an organization, go solve hard problems. It's worked for me my entire career.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Incredible. As we're at the final 60 seconds of the conversation that I truly wish was much, much longer, let's kind of think about the future of cloud marketing. And if we're having this conversation five years from now, in your opinion, in your perspective, what will have fundamentally changed about how we market cloud and enterprise technologies? What trends or shifts do you see on the horizon that are getting less attention but maybe have enormous potential?

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

I think for us, we are most definitely being disrupted by generative AI. I keep talking about our websites not even being needed anymore. Who needs a flat file directory of things that you navigate? This is probably part two of our conversation. I'm giving you a teaser, Jeremy, but honestly, like, the whole way we operate and drive and interact with brands is about to change. It's exciting.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Fully, fully agree with you there. This has been exceptional. Mandy. I'm so honored that we had time made it happen. Your people and our people, we love you all. Thank you for making space. And Mandy, I mean, you're just. You're the type of executive that I know I'll be paying attention to, and Nutanix I know is not slowing down. So shout out to the whole squad there. I'm sure there's a dream team that's supporting the vision there, but just really grateful you took time today. Thank you so much for being a part of this opportunity in this show.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

It was an absolute pleasure. Jeremy, you made it so easy. Thank you. I'm happy to come back again whenever you want.

[Jeremy Bergeron]

Let's do a round two for sure.

[Mandy Dhaliwal]

Absolutely.

[Unknown]

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