 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Informatica World 2019. Brought to you by Informatica. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Informatica World 2019. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Furrier. We are joined by Tracy Newell. She is the President of Global Field Operations at Informatica. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, for coming back on theCUBE. Coming back on theCUBE is great to be here. So the last time you were on, you had just taken over as the President of Global Field Operations. Tell a give our viewers a catch up on exactly what you've been doing over these past two years and what the journey's been like. Yeah, I know, that's great. Thanks so much. Yeah, as a reminder, the last time we were together, I had just joined the company. I was literally two weeks in, and yet I actually did join Informatica three years ago. So I joined on the board of directors and I was on the board for two years and the company was doing so extremely well that after a couple of years, we all agreed that I would step off the board and join the management team. I got to get in on this. I know, exactly. I got to get off the sidelines and get into the game. My table, literally. Exactly. So that's really interesting that you were on the board watching this growth and seeing, I mean, obviously participating in it too as a board member, but then you said, I want to be here. I want to be doing this. What was it about the opportunity that so excited you that you felt that way? Well, you know, so it's funny because when I did join the management team, I spent two months on a listening tour and the first question from all the employees and our partners, why did you do that? Usually goes the other way around. You know, you go from the management team to the board and the answer was really simple in that my hypothesis in joining the board was that digital transformation is an enterprise, board of directors decision that governments and large organizations are trying to figure this out with the CEO, the board, the management team because it's critical. And yet it's also really hard. It's complicated. The data is everywhere. And so when you have something that's important and really complicated, you need a thought leader. And so my belief was that Informatica should be that thought leader. And two years in, we were doing so phenomenally well with the platform play that we had been driving from an R&D standpoint. It just seems like such an amazing opportunity to literally get off the sidelines and get into the game. It's just been fabulous. And you have experience, obviously in doing field organizations. So you've been there, done that. Also you have some public sector experience. So also being on the board was a time when Informatica went private. And that was a good call because they don't have to see what the shot clock of the public markets and doing all those mandatory filings and a lot of energy, management energy goes into being a public company. At the time where they could get product development and reposition some of the assets. And the thing that was interesting is you guys, they had customers already. So they didn't have to go out and get new customers to test new thesis. They had existing customers. Yeah, oh no, we serve the biggest companies and governments on the planet globally. Very large percentage of the global 2000 is kind of our sweet spot. And yet thousands and thousands of customers in the mid-market. And so to your point, John, exactly. We had built out this platform that included all things on premise. We're almost synonymous power center and ETL. That's kind of been our sweet spot. And MDM data quality, but adding in all the focus on big data, all the area of iPads, all the work that everybody's doing with AWS, with Azure, with Salesforce.com, with Google Cloud. And suddenly we've got this platform play backed by AI and machine learning. And it's a huge differentiator. So it's- So you've seen a lot of experience. Again, you work in the industry for a long time. You know what the field playbook is. Everyone in the VC say. The enterprise playbook, it's changing though. You're seeing some shifts in, Bruce and I were talking to me yesterday about this. There's a shift back to technology advantage and openness. It used to be technology advantage, protect it. You know, that's your competitive advantage. Hold it, lock in. But it's changing from that to technology, but open. This is the new equation that he was talking about. What's your take on that? Yeah, so our strategy's been really simple. That we want to be best agreed in everything that we do. And Gartner seems to agree with us. In all five categories we play in, we are up and to the right. And yet we want you to get a benefit if you do decide to buy one product and then add a second or a third or a fourth family, you're going to get the benefit of all that being backed by platform play and by AI and machine learning. And so this concept of we'll work with everybody. We're very, you know, a customer called a Switzerland of data and that's certainly true. We partner with everybody, but where you do see synergies to leverage your entire data platform, you're going to get a real advantage that no one else will have. A lot of customers, she has a very intimate conference here in Formatica was our fourth year covering it. It's been great to watch the journey, but also the evolution and the tailwinds that you guys have. What are some of the customer conversations you're having? You're in all the top meetings here. I know you guys are busy running around. I see you doing meetings and all teams here. What are some of the top level priorities and challenges and opportunities that your customers have? Yeah, so we literally have thousands of people at the conference here as you know, and it's just been phenomenal. So I've been in back to back meetings, meeting with some of the largest companies in retail that are trying to figure out how do I serve my customer base online? And yet when they walk into one of my stores, I want to know that. My salesperson needs to know exactly what that person's been shopping for and looking on the internet for if they're on my site or perhaps what they've been tweeting about. So they want to know everything about their customer that there is, the banks want to know who their high wealth clients are and they want to make sure that if they call in on a checking account or have a bad customer service experience, they want to know that. If it's a hospitality company, they want to understand what's going on every time you check into a hotel. If you look for a quote and you don't actually follow through, they want to understand that. And so there's this kind of theme of understanding everything that there is to know about a customer. And yet at the same time, a huge requirement for governance in the California Privacy Act, the CCPA and GDPR are changing everything. I had a large bank once say, this was years ago. Well, how can I forget you? Which is what GDPR says they have. You have the right to be forgotten in Europe. How can I forget you if I don't know where you are? Again, that's because data's everywhere. And so again, we're enabling that. And so it's pretty exciting time. It literally is about companies transforming themselves. Now remember the industry when search engines came out, when the web came out, you had Google and those clean, you know, the green field opportunities. They were excellent. You type in a keyword, you get results. When people try to do enterprise search, there's like all these different databases. So you had constraints and you had legacy. Similar today, right? So how has that changed? What's different about it now? And again, you had compliance and regulation coming over the top. How does an enterprise unlock those constraints? It's funny what you say, unlock the power of data is one of our catchphrases. I'm meeting with CIOs around the planet who sound like they're CMOs. Because they're using these phrases. They're saying things like, I need to disrupt myself or someone disrupts me. Or I need, when it was a large oil and energy as a CIO for this massive company said, data is the new gold mine and I need a shovel. And so they're using these phrases. And so to your point, well, how do you do that? Again, we do think it is about getting the right platform that plays both on-premise and ties in everything the customers are doing in cloud. So we see partnerships as being critical here. But at the same time, one of our fastest growing solutions has been our enterprise data catalog, which is operating at the metadata level. Our, my peer in products, while he likes to say, how come you can ask the internet anything at all? You know, you're so used to it with your kids ask you a question, you just get online, I don't know, and you get the answer. But you can't do that in your own enterprise. And suddenly, because of what we're doing at the metadata level, working with all of the different companies around the globe through open APIs, you can now do that inside your enterprise. And that is really unlocking the capabilities for companies around their businesses. You're giving us so much great insight into the kinds of conversations you're having about this deep desire to know the customer and understand his wants and needs at every moment. And yet, the technology is so often the easy part and the hard part of the implementation are the people and the processes. Can you talk a little bit about the stumbling blocks and the challenges that you're seeing with the customers as they are embarking on their digital transformations? Yeah, no, it's a great question because one of the things I caution our clients about is companies get so focused on, I've got to pick the right technology. And we agree with that. Again, that's why we focus so much. We got to be best in reading every decision. We're not going to lock you into something that doesn't make sense. And yet, half of the battle, if you would, in these projects, it's not about the technology, it's a people process issue. So think about to have a comprehensive view of your data. If you're a large CPG company or a large bank, you might have 10 CIOs, 50 CIOs. We have customers that have 10 ERP systems. We have folks that talk about 50 ERP systems. These are very cross-functional complex projects. And so our focus is on customer success and customer for a life. I have more people and customer success than I do in sales by design. Literally thousands of people around the world, this is all that we do that are focused on business outcomes. And so we really give an extra guarantee, if you would, to our customers to make sure that they know that we're in this to make sure that they're successful. And when we start running into challenges, we're going to raise those high so that both organizations can make sure that we get to that promise that everybody is committed to. Talk about the ecosystem, because if you continue to get success with the catalog, which is looking good, great, by the way, we cover that on theCUBE. Some of those conversations, like it was yesterday, that really enables a lot. So you're seeing some buzz here around, obviously the big clouds here, the Google announcement, Amazon, and Microsoft are all here on premise, you got that covered. But the ecosystem partners have a huge economic opportunity because with the value proposition that you guys are putting forth, that's rolling out with a huge customer base, the value to economic shift has changed so that the economics are changing for the better for the customer and the value is increasing. That's kind of an Amazon-like effect if you think about that flywheel. That's attracting a lot of people into your ecosystem because it's a money-making opportunity. That's right. Talk about that dynamic. Yeah, so it's been humbling. I'm really pleased with Informatica World and how things are shaping up because we've had some amazing speakers here, as you mentioned, from Amazon. Thomas Kurian here from Google Cloud, AWS sending their CMO, it's just been a phenomenal event. Yet if you go to the show floor, literally dozens and dozens of other providers that are critical to our customers that we want to partner with, and when we say partner, we actually do deep R&D together so that there's a true value proposition where the customer gets more and a better together solution when they choose Informatica and their critical partners. But there's another category of partners that I think you're hinting at, which is the large GSIs. The global systems integrators, yeah. The global systems integrators. Accenture, Deloitte, they were here. Accenture, Deloitte, Cognizant have been phenomenal partners to us. And so again, when you talk about this being a board level discussion, which literally I've met with so many CIOs who say, I just presented to my board last week. Let me tell you about this journey that we're on. Of course the large global systems integrators are in the middle of that. And we are very clear, we don't want to compete with those folks that are so good at both the vision and also really good at arms and legs and execution to help drive massive workflow change for our clients. And so we work together brilliantly with those folks. And these are meaty projects too. So it's not like they're used to, back in the old days when these projects were massive, they're rolling out these big ERP systems, the CRMs, back when people were instrumenting their operation of businesses. Similar now with data, these are massive, lucrative, profitable opportunities. These are really strategic for the client, the global system integrator, and for us for all of the same reasons. This drives massive change in a good way for our clients to keep ahead of whoever's nipping at their heels. But certainly it's a tremendous service opportunity for the large integrators. There's no question. Being humble. One of the things that's really coming through here is Informatica's commitment to solving the skills gap, especially with the next 25 program. And this is something your company's been really thoughtful about. I'm interested from your perspective, particularly as someone who's been in the technology industry and was on the board for a while, how do you see the skills gap and what the technology industry is doing as a whole to combat it? And then your advice from your vantage point in terms of what you think are the next things that kids should be studying in schools. This reminds me, and it's very, you're talking about the old days, so I'm going to date myself. It reminds me a lot of when the internet first started to occur. This is a very similar type change. People have been, companies have been trying to make these changes, and they're starting to realize that it does start, they've got to have a good grasp of the data in order to run all of these strategic initiatives that they've got. And so it's a tremendous opportunity to your point for young people. So how do we think about that? Certainly we do our fair share hiring at interns trying to get them early in life when there are sophomores, juniors coming into their junior year and then hiring those folks. So we see an opportunity for our own company to bring in those young people, if you would. And then the GSIs, the global systems integrators, we partner quite a bit with them because we see them as massive scale. They have hundreds of thousands of people. How about people specialized in majors? Any areas of interest that someone might want to specialize in to be a great contributor in the data world? Is it, obviously stats and math are clear on machine learning and stats side, but this ethics, this societal, business outcome challenges that have not yet been figured out. What areas do you see that someone can go after, have a career around? So it literally is a business and a technical problem that we're solving. And so there's going to be career opportunities for everyone that's on school. And whether it be on the business side, whether it's business, management, marketing, sales. Because again, think about, when you talk about change management, it is a CMO trying to rethink how do they reach their clients? It is a sales leader thinking, how do I get better analytics as to what's working and what's not working? And then of course it crosses over into computer science and engineering as well, where you're actually developing these products and developing these AI applications that are just beginning to take off. But it's in the early days, so for young folks coming out of school, this is a tremendous opportunity. Well next you have to find what's up with the field and the customers and then next year, next event. Yeah, I can't wait. No, it's great. I really enjoy spending time with y'all and we look forward to seeing you soon. Indeed, well thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, Tracy. Okay, thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. You've been watching the Cube's live coverage of Informatica World. Stay tuned.