John Purcell always seems to find the major tech trends. In 1998, he was working in Dublin at a company enhancing what was then an early version of text messaging.
Now, as the senior director of product management at CloudHealth by VMware, he’s helping build an industry-leading SaaS product in a market that touches virtually every tech professional.
We spoke with John about what brought him to the company, his strategies for hiring “smarter people” and his colorful past as a community theater actor.
What’s your professional background, and what brought you to CloudHealth?
I’ve worked for technology companies since I started my career back in 1998, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with customers pioneering the earliest uses of SMS and text messaging, mobile device management, API management, and obviously cloud management most recently. Over the years, I’ve held a variety of operational and leadership roles at six great companies, helping customers manage product problems and had a chance to run tech support at LogicaCMG (now Mavenir).
From there, I followed the same path that many people take, switching to pre-sales engineering, and joined Red Bend Software (now Harman, a Samsung company). I spent some time in sales and business development before I took my first true product management job at LogMeIn in 2010.
In the time between LogMeIn and CloudHealth, I joined the executive team at SmartBear, which builds tools for application performance monitoring, software development, software testing, and API management. I had just helped sell SmartBear to a private equity firm, and the company was poised for continued growth and success. That’s when I met CloudHealth’s founder and CTO, Joe Kinsella. Joe described his vision for the company to be the global leader in cloud management and help drive one of the most significant technological transformations of our time, the move to cloud computing. Joe had a compelling vision, had assembled a world class team, was backed by leading investors, and was a clear leader in an explosive market. I was sold.
What was your first impression of CloudHealth’s product team, and how has it measured up since?
From the very beginning of the interview process, Joe was eager that I be absolutely clear on the challenges I’d be taking on at CloudHealth. He talked about a culture of absolute transparency and collaboration, and that culture came alive for me as I got to know the executives I’d be working alongside, the teams I’d be collaborating with, and of course the people I’d be managing.
Joe had instilled a strong product culture in everyone he worked with, across all departments. Admittedly I was taken aback at just how high everyone’s “product IQ” was, and well beyond the core product team. I must admit, it was a daunting task to join this team as the first head of product and take the reins from Joe. To this day, I’m grateful he placed his trust in me to take over, reinforce and support the expression of ideas, and continue growing with our customers.
Since then, the product team and the company itself has increased in size several times over and gone through an acquisition (we were bought by VMware in October 2018). The passion that fueled us initially is still there, and we carefully look for it in every candidate we talk to, and everyone we hire. That passion, adaptability and willingness to push hard against supposed boundaries is exactly why I love working with this product team every day.
We are still the same extremely fast paced, innovative, and collaborative software product company.”
How is working at CloudHealth different from working at other tech companies? What is the number one difference?
Any candidate who is assessing a company’s potential should look at a variety of factors: the people who work there, the business model, the market, the product and what people say about it, and where they are in their lifecycle. These are the factors that convinced me that CloudHealth was way more than “just another startup.” I mentioned before that I thought CloudHealth represented a unique opportunity when I did my diligence back in early 2017.
But the story became even more compelling when we were acquired in 2018. In VMware we found a company that shares many of the same core philosophies as CloudHealth. From culture to vision, from strategy to ambition, we found we were aligned at every level.
Simply put, it’s incredibly exciting and unique time in our company’s evolution. We are still the same extremely fast paced, innovative, and collaborative software product company. We just happen to be backed by a 70-billion-dollar organization that wants to accelerate the innovation and value we bring to our customers.
Tell us about your role. What's your favorite part?
I’ve been managing teams for a long time, but within the last seven or eight years my sense of fulfillment has shifted. I now get my biggest thrills from watching people take calculated risks, succeed and fail, but accomplish things for our customers that are immensely challenging. Supporting people as they grow and gain confidence is profoundly rewarding. Nothing makes me happier than when a colleague approaches me to tell me that a person on my team did a great job.
You’re probably hearing that and thinking, “Wow, he’s so selfless,” or you’re rolling your eyes and I wouldn’t blame you! But I should probably confess that there are additional motives to consider. I learned early in my career that any manager’s success is contingent on their team — you have to demonstrate that you hire and nurture strong performers. So it’s no coincidence that my favorite part of the role is also the part most critical to its success.
What’s your leadership philosophy?
I believe you can find and exhibit leadership at every level of an organization, no matter your role. It requires maturity in thought and action, clarity of focus on mission, and a willingness to organize and take action. I’m always on the lookout for it and, when I find it, I make it my priority to protect and encourage it.
After 20 years in the industry, I think I’m pretty aware of where my strengths and weaknesses lie. That’s allowed me to surround myself with people who are super smart, ambitious, and driven…frankly, people who are smarter than me. I need to delegate, and that requires trust. Frankly, I don’t care that a candidate appears to lack the “right” experience. Bring the right attitude, aptitude, and leadership instincts, and we’ll teach the rest!
Nothing makes me happier than when a colleague approaches me to tell me that a person on my team did a great job.”
What's one trait that everyone on your team needs to have to be successful? Why?
Like most product teams, we are always dealing with surprises, unexpected twists, important goals, and pressure-filled expectations. That comes with the territory I suppose. To thrive in this environment, we’re trying to promote a culture defined by consistent and mutual respect, support of ideas and actions from anywhere, intellectual curiosity and openness, and attention to detail. We’re not perfect, but we’re working hard to get better. Oh, and humor always helps!
What’s one surprising fact about you?
I’m an Irishman and former community theater stage actor. When I graduated college, I started working in Dublin for a company that was doing some very cool work around text messaging (keep in mind that it was 1998). I got an opportunity to transfer to Phoenix, Arizona, and my stage career has been on hold since.
