Navigating Change and Amping it Up: Lessons from Vivek Kundra

I recently had the pleasure of hosting Vivek Kundra, President and COO of project44, as the keynote speaker at our G2 Kickoff in Chicago. This event gathers our global team of G2ers to kick off the new fiscal year – reflecting on the prior year, sharing goals, and discussing plans for the year ahead. 

As the theme of our Kickoff was “Amp it Up” — inspired by the book and leadership philosophy from tech exec Frank Slootman — there was no one more fitting than Vivek to help us all get into the right mindset to amp it up. His impressive career path has taken him from the White House as the first CIO of the United States to leading Industries at Salesforce to successfully taking companies like Sprinklr public. His experience navigating both the public and private sectors through times of rapid change offered our team valuable insights.

Vivek began our discussion by reflecting on project44's journey over the past two years. Like many tech companies, they experienced tremendous growth fueled by investor demand. However, the market shift required a cultural and strategic reset to focus on efficiency and profitability. Vivek emphasized the importance of frontloading the pain to emerge stronger.

His lessons from this experience and overseeing $80 billion in government spending offer takeaways for any leader aiming to amp it up in the year ahead:

1. Narrow your focus. Vivek used a V2MOM model (like we do at G2, adopted from Salesforce) to clearly define project44’s top priorities around vision, values, metrics, and obstacles they needed to overcome. Taking the time to identify only the most important goals and KPIs helps ensure resources are concentrated where they will make the biggest impact.
2. Bring in strong operators. He also recruited executives with proven experience optimizing operations at scale. Their expertise in driving profitable growth through restructuring and process improvements helped project44 navigate turbulent market conditions.
3. Center everything on the customer. From integrating customer feedback directly into product roadmaps to ensuring executives and engineers understand customer pain points firsthand (insights that can be found via G2 reviews!), Vivek makes certain the company’s decisions are guided by creating value for those they serve.
4. Make tough changes fast. He also advised being willing to make difficult personnel or strategic decisions sooner rather than later to avoid greater challenges down the line. Leaders must have the courage to address obstacles proactively through restructuring rather than ignoring problems.
5. Learn from both successes and failures. With experience transforming industries at some of the largest companies, Vivek has seen what works and where missteps can occur. Maintaining a growth mindset helps apply those lessons to continuously improve one's approach.

I'm grateful for Vivek sharing his wisdom generously. In uncertain times, leadership makes all the difference. May we all strive to thoughtfully yet nimbly amp it up, navigate change, and stay centered on serving our customers in the year ahead.