Shifting Career Altitudes: Insights from a CPO’s Journey Leading in Nearly Every Function | Anneka Gupta (Rubrik, ex-LiveRamp)
1Description
Anneka Gupta is the Chief Product Officer at Rubrik, a cloud management and data security company with a US$6B market cap. Before Rubrik, Anneka spent 11 years leading various teams at LiveRamp, including product, go-to-market, and operations.
In today’s episode, we discuss:
- How LiveRamp went from $30M to $200M ARR in 3 years
- Anneka’s jack-of-all-trades career
- Why specialist hires can backfire
- When leaders should get in the weeds
- One area every PM can improve in
- Rubrik’s approach to building product
- Much more
–
Referenced:
- Acxiom: https://www.acxiom.com/
- Acxiom’s acquisition of LiveRamp: https://tinyurl.com/2shm83de
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
- Auren Hoffman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/auren/
- Dentsu: https://www.dentsu.com/
- Dentsu’s acquisition of Merkle: https://tinyurl.com/yvxe6fws
- James Arra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-arra-a43a06/
- LiveRamp: https://liveramp.com/
- Merkle: https://www.merkle.com/
- Rubrik: https://www.rubrik.com/
- Slack: https://www.slack.com/
- Travis May: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stmay/
–
Where to find Anneka Gupta:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annekagupta/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/annekagupta
–
Where to find Brett Berson:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
–
Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
–
Timestamps:
(00:00 ) Introduction
(02:11 ) Inside LiveRamp’s unique growth journey
(12:18 ) Anneka’s first PM role
(14:20 ) Leading LiveRamp’s marketing function
(16:17 ) Why the best product doesn’t win
(21:06 ) Crafting products for different personas
(24:53 ) Transitioning Acxiom’s customers to LiveRamp
(33:54 ) Why Acxiom chose to buy not build
(36:40 ) Anneka's leap to GM and product leader
(38:22 ) How 17 diverse roles shaped Anneka’s CPO approach
(40:54 ) The hidden career growth hack
(43:15 ) Where domain experience is overrated
(50:33 ) Mastering the art of altitude shifting
(53:54 ) PMs should undergo the same training as sales reps
(59:37 ) Strategies for selling to new personas
(62:40 ) Lessons from Anneka’s mistake at LiveRamp
(67:56 ) Who had an outsized impact on Anneka
United States
