Scaling Tech Companies, and Exciting Markets: Q&A with Mike McGuinness, Chief Commercial Officer

From his time as the first sales rep hired at PTC, to scaling up sales and customer success functions at high growth companies, Mike McGuinness has quite the resume. For his newest move, he has joined Quickbase as the Chief Commercial Officer. We sat down with him to talk all things low-code, and this opportunity for him.

Mike—tell us a bit about your background and what brought you to Quickbase?

Well, I built my career in sales, specifically tech sales. I was very lucky to be at a great company in the late 80’s/early 90’s, PTC. I was the first sales rep hired, and I held many different positions there and was able to see the operation scale and grow. I eventually became the SVP of Global Sales and was able to oversee the full global operation. I then went on to be the CEO of a couple of startups that were successfully sold to bigger companies. I found my way back into sales and customer success leadership at Sophos. There we were able to double the sales over 3.5 years before selling the company. Most recently I was at Veracode, where we also over doubled sales in about 4 years.

What brought me to Quickbase is the size, growth and potential for impact the market has as well as the stage of the company. The market for low-code is very big already yet it’s in the early stages of development. I really like talking to businesses about problems they have and helping to solve them, and that’s what Quickbase does. I have learned a great deal working in information security for the last decade of my career, but I’m excited to work with different parts of the business now.

Now, tell us a bit about your role, CCO is a new role for the organization what are you hoping to accomplish?

In terms of the role as chief commercial officer, I really like having a relationship with the customer on both sides of a transaction. If you aren’t a customer today you will talk with sales, and then as you become a customer you work with customer success and account managers. I don’t like to just be here for the initial sale, this is more of a holistic approach. We are here to help people meet their business objectives with our software and expertise and help them get to their outcomes quickly. No one buys software with the idea that it will sit on a shelf, I want our customers to get value out of what they buy.

Quickbase is in a unique position to really change the way businesses think about digital transformation, what is your perspective on the impact we can make?

Ultimately for me it’s all about velocity. One of the things I like about Quickbase is that I am also a customer in my role. I am able to understand how to reduce friction in my own organization and be better able to meet objectives of the business and help our customers reach their objectives.

There is only so much time and so many resources to address all the projects companies need to complete. Some get deprioritized even though they are really important! That is where dual-track transformation comes in—where grand scale transformation is partnered with rapid-cycle innovation and the business achieves velocity from the core to the edge. That’s where we are positioned to make a huge impact.

What are you most excited about in your new role?

I’m excited to engage with the team and learn the business, while having an impact as a fresh set of eyes. Most importantly, I expect to engage with customers to help them achieve business success. Whether a customer needs to make more widgets, or they are making enough but need to distribute them faster/better, or the quality isn’t where it needs to be—I’m excited to be in those conversations because I believe we can help them solve problems in real-time and contribute to the success of their business.