Board Director at Fastly, Kelly Wright: How She Went from Selling Door to Door to Board Director

Kelly Wright has had a remarkable career in sales, from her early days selling books door to door to joining Tableau as a developing startup and helping them grow into a multi-billion dollar company as a key member of their executive team. Today, she is board director at Fastly, a leading cloud services provider.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Kelly discuss Kelly’s incredible career path, including her decision to attend business school, how she landed at Tableau, and how she secured a position as board director.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover:

• Kelly’s thoughts on Tableau’s high profile acquisition by Salesforce.
• Kelly’s career journey, and how she ended up at Tableau as EVP of sales. Kelly also talks about her early experiences selling books door to door, and how she built up grit and resilience.
• Why Kelly went to business school, even though her calling was in sales.
• What Kelly saw in Tableau, and why she decided to take a leap of faith and join the company.
• How Kelly measured herself, as the first account executive at a developing startup without a formal tracking system in place.
• How Kelly dealt with change management during her early days at Tableau.
• The concept of hiring for culture fit, and why Kelly prioritizes this when searching for new team members. Kelly also talks about how interviewing quickly at scale, and how she determines whether interviewees have the potential to be successful.
• Kelly’s advice on how to get on a company board.
• Kelly’s definition of grit.

Links:

• Connect with Kelly Wright
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins