Written by Gurdeep Dhillon

After nearly two and a half of the most fulfilling and fun years of my career at Marketo and Adobe, plus a very relaxing week of “funemployment,” I am so excited to announce that today I start my new role as Global VP of Growth at Zuora. 

Zuora is the market leader for subscription based Order to Revenue solutions, and has led the charge on the concept of a Subscription Economy for years. 

Here’s why I am so excited about my new gig:

The Vision

Zuora’s vision is to help create a world where every company can win in the Subscription Economy. It’s clear to me that the entire company has rallied around this vision and won’t stop until we’ve achieved it. The idea of a world subscribed may have been slightly far fetched 10 years ago, but today, it is an inevitability. 

Subscriptions have already changed business, and lives. It’s changed my life for sure. My printer orders ink for me when I run low, my kids have every Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel movie at their fingertips for $7 a month, I haven’t “purchased” music in what feels like forever, and I can’t remember the last time I bought an on-premise software license as a Marketing budget owner. 

The Team

In my conversations with the team at Zuora, I’ve been blown away by the passion, emotional intelligence, and culture that has bubbled to the surface. I’m inheriting an incredible team that has already changed the way B2B marketing delivers value for the business, with the chance to grow and scale it globally over the next few years. I have built my career around being the kind of person people enjoy working with and for, and I’m not going to do anything different this time around. 

I’m also feeling incredibly fortunate to be able to work closely with inspiring and downright good human beings like Tien Tzuo, Kyle Christensen, and Robbie Traube. I know what I can bring to this team, but what really excites me is what I’m going to learn from them.

The Opportunity

I’ve spent the last 6 years in the CX (Customer Experience) space. We’ve all positioned CX at the core of digital and business transformation stories and messaging. Here’s where I think things get really interesting: at the intersection of business transformation and CX is revenue. You’ve got to be able to monetize the transformation or the amazing experiences you create for your customers, and you’re going to have a hard time doing that on legacy or homegrown solutions.

History has proven that the only constant is disruption, and in this day and age disruption comes fast, furious and oftentimes without warning. No business wants to become the next eponym for “didn’t adapt in time and is now obsolete”. This presents one of the all-time most exciting challenges as a Growth Marketer: how to generate consistent and predictable demand when in many cases the business requirement for that demand hasn’t yet been solidified in your target accounts and industries. This is the kind of Marketing that is fun. It’s chasing new logos, in the Enterprise segment, with real transformation happening for both the customer and their customers. 

Those of you that know me know that I am a very competitive person. I hate to lose and I love to win (still trying to figure out which one wins out). So I say let’s do this thing. It’s going to be a fun ride!