Career Path of a Chief Marketing Officer at Protecto
Shekar's career began in 2001 at Oracle Corporation's engineering team, progressing through quality engineering, solutions management, and eventually product marketing over 15 years; this experience, coupled with an Executive MBA from UCLA, propelled Shekar into a chief marketing officer role, demonstrating a career trajectory built on "understanding a lot about products...how products work together" and a deliberate shift into marketing.
Career Path, Marketing, Product Management, Technology, Executive MBA
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Shekar Hariharan
Chief Marketing Officer
Protecto
MSRIT (Bengaluru, India), 1993-1997
Louisiana State university, M.S. in Industrial Engineering
Engineering - Mechanical
Technology
Communication and Marketing
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Shekar's career started in engineering at Oracle, highlighting the value of a technical foundation in a marketing role.
2. His progression from engineering to product management to marketing demonstrates a versatile career path.
3. He emphasizes the importance of understanding how products work and deliver value to customers, a key aspect of successful marketing
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Did you have any internships or jobs before your current role?
Absolutely. Happy to go through that. My career path started back in 2001 in the engineering team at Oracle Corporation. I began in quality engineering, where I understood a lot about how products work together in terms of software, because ultimately people have to use it and get value from it, right?
I did that for about three and a half years and by then, I had essentially mastered the domain of customer relationship management. Then I was hired into one of the larger industry solutions teams at Oracle as a Solutions Manager, which was essentially a product management role.
I did that for about five to six years, building a lot of solutions and then helping market them. I was in a channel marketing role and eventually moved into product marketing at Oracle. In those 15 years, I did a lot of things: engineering, product management, and then marketing.
Around that time, I went to UCLA to get my Executive MBA, which confirmed that marketing was going to be my career. I then stepped into product marketing roles at two companies and eventually grew into a Chief Marketing Officer role. So, that's my journey in two minutes.