With host Darrell Alfonso
I started my career in management consulting right out of college before going back to get my MBA.
My interest has always been in the go-to-market space, especially at enterprise tech companies. I’ve spent a lot of my career on corporate strategy teams helping companies think through their longer-term strategy across go-to-market functions.
I wanted to explore a different part of go-to-market, and the marketing chief of staff role was the perfect entryway.
I love learning or doing something new. Every day and with every project, I’m learning a new aspect of marketing.
I’ve been in this role for about six months and that sense of newness hasn’t worn off. There are so many different areas that marketing encompasses, and working with all the different teams within the marketing organization at Splunk has been a series of continued discoveries.
There’s a difference between being a leader and being a people manager. You can be an individual contributor and still be a leader.
So many of us work in cross-functional settings that require lots of communication and coordination to bring people together toward a common goal. And that’s a very important aspect of leadership that you can start to gain experience with—whether you’re currently managing a team or not.
There’s an aspect of trade-offs with budgets and with programs. We can’t ask our teams to do 1,000 things and do all of them perfectly. We’re doing fewer programs, but we’re focused on the most critical initiatives and projects that support our priorities this year.
Those key programs are guiding our planning efforts and helping us prioritize where we need to allocate spend. Strategically, there are areas where we are bolstering our investments because it’s the right investment to make in this environment.
I’m thankful that my team hasn’t been impacted by a lot of the budget scrutiny. But we are focused on how we can be more intentional about the way we manage our budget.
Be ready for a wild ride. Your idea of what the future holds can’t possibly contain all the exciting and amazing things headed your way. The journey is a huge part of the fun.
Keep an open mind. There are so many paths to your end goal, and you don’t have to travel in a straight line.
Be patient. I’m no stranger to instant gratification, but building your career takes time. It can take a decade—or more—to gain that level of richness and expertise.
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