In Depth

Shifting Career Altitudes: Insights from a CPO’s Journey Leading in Nearly Every Function | Anneka Gupta (Rubrik, ex-LiveRamp)


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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

            ...more
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