If you would like to subscribe to the Learning to Lead podcast through iTunes, click here!
To listen to past interviews, go to my podcast page. In addition to the monthly interview podcast, I will be teaching one leadership lesson as well as sending out two e-newsletters. The newsletter will be published 1-2 times a month with new leadership content not found on my blog, leadership quotes, leadership resources, and interviews with leaders. Subscribe to the newsletter by clicking here.
Episode #13: Dave Profozich
Dave’s Bio: With more than 23 years experience leading global sales, marketing, and professional services organizations in the software industry, Dave Profozich now leads Oracle’s Security Software business across the US and Canada. Prior to the Oracle/Sun merger, Dave was responsible fo leading all field operations (sales, pre-sales, expert services, and alliances) for Sun’s entire North American software business.
Before joining Sun, Profozich was instrumental in spearheading the extreme growth of an established tech company from $100M to greater than $1B in revenues in only three years and also led the successful creation and growth of 2 start-up organizations addressing enterprise applications.
At Rearden Commerce, a leading provider of the “Services on Demand” web services-based SOA platform, Profozich served as Vice President of Global Field Operations. During his tenure with this San Mateo-based start-up, he helped raise substantial venture funding, signed many charter clients, and helped Rearden gain prominence in the market.
At the leading supply chain optimization provider, i2, Profozich was Senior Vice President of High Tech and Telecom, where he was responsible for managing the overall P&L for the company’s largest business unit and revenue source.
Prior to i2, Profozich served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Systems Modeling, a privately held firm that was acquired by Rockwell Software in 1998. In this capacity, he was responsible for building a national sales force and managing international marketing through global distributors.
David Profozich earned a BA in Communications from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from the Joseph Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the book Managing Change With Business Process Simulation (Prentice Hall, 1998), on business process modeling as a method to enable change management in corporations.
Questions:
Tell us about yourself, your family, your passions, and your position at Oracle.
Personal Leadership:
Walk us through your leadership journey . . . did you always aspire to be a leader wherever you were? How did you learn leadership? Did someone teach you?
Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?
What leadership experiences have you had that have shaped you as a leader outside of the work world?
What are you doing and what have you done to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?
How do you structure your days and your life so that you are as productive as possible?
Could you talk about one or two of your greatest leadership failures? What did you learn from them?
What advice would you give to leaders when it comes to failure and making mistakes?
A previous co-worker of yours said that you have an “unshakable moral compass”. Talk to us about that and how you have both developed and manged your character and integrity.
You’re an executive with a family, how do you balance life and work?
You work in a secular environment and yet you are a strong believer, how do you manage that tension at work?
Can you talk for a minute about how your faith effects your life and what you’re actively doing outside of your career to make an impact on our community for the Kingdom?
Oracle – Sales
You’ve been in sales your whole life and have always seemed to go to the top . . . what has set you apart from your competition?
How have you been able to stay at the top and constantly achieve high performance year after year?
How do you sell to people with different personalities?
What advice do you have for someone starting out in sales?
How do train people to overcome or push through the fear of rejection?
Talk to us about your thoughts on networking. What advice would you give to people looking to build their network, develop more leads, etc.
What questions am I not asking about sales that I should be?
Organizational Leadership:
What were and are the most important decisions you make as a leader in your organization?
In your leadership experience, what have you learned about building a great team?
Talk to us about motivating and mentoring your team as a leader…
As you build and develop your team, what characteristics do you look for in the people that you promote and want to keep on your team? What can young leaders do to stand out from their peers?
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?
What is one mistake you witness leaders making more frequently than others?
Is there any other advice you’d give when it comes to organizational leadership?
Closing Questions:
What do you want your legacy to be?
What books have you read that have made a great impact on you that you would recommend?
Where is Dave Profozich in 15 years?
If you could give any advice you wanted to young leaders, what would it be?
Is there anyone in the Pittsburgh area that you think would be interested in being interviewed for my podcast that would be worth me connecting with?
If this post helped you and you believe it could help others, please recommend it on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, and the other social media sites listed below. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Leave a comment below! Thank you!
I would also encourage you to subscribe to this blog via RSS feed or e-mail! You can sign-up for e-mail by typing your e-mail address in the box on the left hand side of this site that says “E-mail updates”.
