I was in equal parts appalled and enthralled by a Rolling Stone article I stumbled upon in May, counting down the world’s 200 best singers of all time.
Appalled because I disagreed with so many of their choices. But enthralled because I thoroughly enjoyed reading it nevertheless, and learned something along the way.
It got me thinking: could something similar be done for tech leaders?
Considering IT Channel Oxygen just published our Century’s 30 Greatest Vendor Leaders, Powered by QBS Software, the conclusion I came to clearly turned out to be ‘yes’.
What I learned
I certainly boosted my own patchy knowledge of tech CEOs by compiling the countdown, which was crowdsourced based on the views of 60 partner leaders, analysts and independent experts (see here for more on who was involved).
I didn’t know, for example, that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint presentations, or that market giants such AMD and NVIDIA both nearly went bust at the lowest points in their journeys.
But I also wasn’t that familiar with a lot of the leaders nominated themselves. This includes Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, who was characterised as the hidden dynamo behind the software’ giant’s cloud and AI reinvention, or Jayshree Ullal, who has quietly built Arista Networks into an $8bn-revenue monster.
But perhaps my biggest blindspot was Diane Greene, an inspirational leader who on review would have been my number one (had I given myself a vote!).
Why? Because, referring back to the five criteria we invited the 60 channel leaders to consider when picking their top five (financial success and technology leadership; leadership qualities; the culture instilled; longevity and stability; and channel advocacy), she simply ticks all the boxes.
This is a tech visionary who – unlike most of the 12 Founder-CEOs who made the top 30 – was involved in the creation and growth of three uber-successfull tech firms.
VMware is the one most people know about. Having co-founded the virtualisation goliath in 2003, she built it to $2bn in revenue, in the process ushering in a new era of computing.
But she also sold her streaming media outfit VXtreme to Microsoft for $75m in 1997 and her enterprise development platform start-up, Bebop, to Google for $380m in 2015 (thus becoming the CEO of Google Cloud).
Since leaving Google Cloud in 2019 she has focused on her passion for mentoring and education, including investing in and helping female founder CEOs who have engineering and science backgrounds.
And when it comes to channel advocacy, Greene helped build a vendor in VMware that was the poster child for “the last era in infrastructure where partners were clear winners”, according to Canalys VP of Channels Alex Smith (Smith was actually giving credit to Greene’s successor but one Pat Gelsinger, but the point stands).
I hope I’ve put up a strong argument for Greene, who only finished 20th in the countdown. Susan Wojcicki, the former YouTube CEO who tragically passed away earlier this month (after the publication of this report), also deserves an honourable mention. Ranked 23rd by our panellists, Wojcicki had been a vocal advocate of gender equality and diversity, telling the Guardian in 2019 that YouTube’s female staff had risen from a quarter to a third on her watch. She used her clout to speak up for increasing paid maternity leave.
Our panellists, however, put forward passionate arguments for a range of vendor leaders (see here for some of the best comments). And the beauty of the feature is it that it reflects the views of not one reporter, but an entire industry.
Reading the Century’s 30 Greatest Vendor Leaders, you may disagree with some of the choices or where they are positioned. But I hope, like me, you were inspired by at least some of those featured.
Who is your number one?
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
