DataGrail’s Employee Spotlight series highlights the person behind the professional, digging deep and discovering what drives our team members.
Josh recently joined the DataGrail team as the Vice President of Customer Success. Prior to DataGrail, he was the Vice President of Customer Success at People.ai, helping guide the company from $0 in revenue to north of $10M over three years. Before People.ai, Josh built the Customer Success function at Mixpanel and helped scale the business from $25M to $65M in revenue. He received his MBA from UC Berkeley.
What excites you about joining the DataGrail team?
Ever since Daniel Barber and I worked together at Responsys, we’ve been looking for a way to join forces again. I’ve already been helping support the DataGrail leadership team since 2018, so when the opportunity arose to join full-time, of course, I jumped at it.
Privacy compliance is a nascent space with an incredible amount of upside, and as an early leader in the industry, DataGrail is uniquely positioned to grow into a massive company. Also, the company culture has been thoughtfully built and is a natural fit for me.
What has been your favorite project or challenge you’ve worked on in your career?
I’m most proud of my time at People.ai, joining as the 2nd business employee and rapidly scaling the company to more than 160 employees. During my stay, I overtook the challenges of defining company cultural pillars, finding product-market fit and determining GTM strategies, and also helping hire our leadership team and the majority of employees.
How would you describe your leadership style? How has it impacted your work, and has it changed over time?
As a servant leader, I’m most successful when hiring great people who compliment my skill set and supporting them to be the best version of themselves. This approach has helped me effectively scale multiple companies and make hundreds of life-long friends, mentors, and mentees. I’ve experienced a great deal of success with this style of leading, so while my general philosophy has stayed the same, I’m always looking for ways to improve.
If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?
I discovered a real passion for water sports over the last 10 years. I’ve taught myself to surf and paddleboard. Next on my list of life goals is to teach myself to sail and to earn my captain’s license.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Family is the center of my universe, so I spend most of my time with my son and wife. I also make sure to stay in touch with friends and meet up with them whenever I have the chance. In addition to my fascination with water sports I enjoy running, cycling, and swimming in Lake Tahoe.
Enjoy this piece? Check out our previous spotlight, featuring Aisling Grogan, Strategy & Operations Manager