OpenView

Puppet CEO, Yvonne Wassenaar, credits three fundamental attributes for becoming a CEO: curiosity, connection, and agility. Whether it’s her path from CIO to CEO, how Puppet has evolved its go-to-market strategy, or why it’s so important to have professional role models, Yvonne has a story for it and is sharing it today. And, don’t miss the advice she gives founders looking to use open source as part of their business.&nbsp;

Yvonne Wassenaar is a seasoned C-level executive with broad experience scaling, diversifying, and transforming businesses throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. She has led numerous company transformations focused on unleashing new areas of organic and inorganic growth. Yvonne is a sought after thought leader in IoT, machine learning/AI, and business digitization. Her experience spans F1000 companies and start-ups in marketplaces, consumer products, utilities, retail, professional services and technology with deep expertise in software/cloud and enterprise go-to-market acceleration. Yvonne thrives working with other talented leaders who share her commitment to delivering impact.

Yvonne currently serves on the board and audit committee for both Forrester [FORR] and Harvey Mudd College along with being an advisor to Snyk and a Sapphire Ventures Fellow. Previously Yvonne served as a board director for Airware (exit to Delair in 2018), MuleSoft [MULE] (exit to Salesforce in 2018), Bitium (exit to Google in 2017), and the Athena Alliance.

Yvonne's corporate experience includes: Airware where she was CEO and proved the value of drone analytics; New Relic where she was a key player in taking the company public and later CIO; VMware where she held numerous senior leadership roles scaling and diversifying the company; and Accenture where for over 17 years she enabled clients around the globe to lead in their industries leveraging technology.

Yvonne holds a BA in economics with a specialization in computing from UCLA and an MBA in strategy and operations from the university’s Anderson School of Business. Her market impact earned her recognition as a Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley; theBoardlist Top 20, SF Business Times Public Company CIO Award Winner, and as a WSJ Woman of Note.

Yvonne is an avid traveler and uses her experiences abroad to deepen her understanding of human interaction and experience.

Yvonne Wassenaar

CEO of Puppet

Puppet CEO, Yvonne Wassenaar, credits three fundamental attributes for becoming a CEO: curiosity, connection, and agility. Whether it’s her path from CIO to CEO, how Puppet has evolved its go-to-market strategy, or why it’s so important to have professional role models, Yvonne has a story for it and is sharing it today. And, don’t miss the advice she gives founders looking to use open source as part of their business.  


Yvonne Wassenaar (Puppet): The Unconventional Path To CEO 

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It takes 3 ingredients to build a software startup in today’s wild market: people, product and growth. Easier said than done. BUILD is here to help by featuring conversations between venture capitalist Blake Bartlett and the smartest folks in software. OpenView is a VC firm that invests in amazing companies like Datadog, Expensify and Calendly. Visit ov.vc for more details.

Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, and his journey with each company has been wildly different. Clearbit took more of a “classic” startup approach and now he’s building his new company Reflect in with a totally different way—building a fully remote &amp; asynchronous “lifestyle” company that decidedly eschews VC money and the other common hallmarks of a tech startup.&nbsp;Alex shares everything he’s learned as a founder and why he believes building startups should not be one-size-fits-all.

Alex MacCaw (Clearbit & Reflect): Everything I’ve Learned as Startup Founder

BUILD with Blake Bartlett

Puppet

Anne's path to CEO 

How software buying has changed since Yvonne was CIO

Commercial versus open-source investments

Puppet's go-to-market strategy 

Using open source as part of your business

How to quantify your customer's experience

Why it's so important to align your personal and professional values

What the software industry can be doing to improve diversity and inclusion 

Bringing more voices to the software industry

Advice for the next generation of enterprise software CEOs

How to build for the future, while living in the present

Driving the next 10 years of growth for SaaS businesses

The future of technology 

Reinforcing your overarching purpose

Yvonne's female role model

Yvonne's first job

Yvonne's pick for actress who would play her 

Yvonne's most important quality in a leader