#cro

Our CRO spent way to long in the meeting this morning talking about the courting period between him and Sassine Ghazi when he was recruited from Siemens EDA. The jokes seemed edgy, with Mike Ellow joking about their bromance.

It is Q4. It is the end of the year. Where are the SLT and a rallying cry for end of year business ??????? It appears they are stuck behind their spreadsheets and 40 page slide decks - no communication with sales, no customer visits, no “how can I help you win business in next 20 days”. Even our new Chief Revenue Officer and our new CMO who normally are on the final push can’t be bothered anymore. And then when the results are terrible it will be the peeps fault and nothing to do with them.

So with truly no CRO running sales these days, and Nasser the nightmare turning a blind eye to the people who matter, very curious if anyone is hearing is any impact to sales and sales leadership.

CROs for midmarket and public sector/enterprise

Saw it on a Reddit thread. Can anyone confirm

"Paramount Skydance has recruited Jay Askinasi, most recently Roku’s top advertising exec, as chief revenue officer.

Askinasi will start at Paramount Nov. 3, dual-reporting to CEO David Ellison and president Jeff Shell. According to the company, the CRO position is a newly created role “designed to lead the company’s monetization strategy and strengthen its long-term positioning as a next-generation media company” and to push toward a unified advertising platform. John Halley remains in his role as president of Paramount Advertising, reporting to Askinasi."

Oct 9th 2025 - Variety

Halfway through the quarter, and surprise! Nothing has changed. The team of unqualified leaders continues to expertly guide the regions straight into confusion.

The Head of Asia is still “getting up to speed” - an impressive 1.5yr onboarding process. Truly redefining patience and low expectations.

The head of Europe remains a model of underperformance proudly carrying the WFH banner as if it’s an Olympic sport. Congrats for being last place every year.

And the Head of Americas… where do I start? Well it’s like the old head of Americas is back - Deja Vu we might as well have rehired JB. “One Month In” and things are somehow worse than before. Land grabbing, confusion, and healthy dose of chaos on what to do - stellar leadership all around!

Rest of the SLT? A truly inspiring bunch of old school dudes pounding the pavement, achieving absolutely nothing. Another glorious year of mediocrity ahead.

And Sanoke, maybe take a look at this org and HR while you are at it. Apparently their biggest contribution is planning team get togethers in London! Great use of resources.

“#PathToo200”

There’s a lot of anger and frustration with the Matt and Mark across EMEA over how AM, our VP of Sales, has been treated. After hitting all his Q1 & Q2 targets this year and showing years of loyalty, he’s been sidelined by the CRO—sending the wrong message that success at Appian isn’t valued. It’s disheartening to see someone who was appointed by Matt himself now left out in the cold, especially after delivering such strong results. The CRO’s bullying behavior on forecast calls hasn’t helped morale, and it’s a real shame that Matt hasn’t stepped in to support someone who he appointed and delivered results and who’s done so much for this company. Employees now know that loyalty counts for nothing here, and I suspect Matt will come to regret not standing by Americo. On top of that, the CRO has now appointed what looks like two leaders for Northern EMEA—an VP and an AVP—completely undermining the promise of a flatter structure that Matt himself championed. And let’s not forget Matt’s assurances that we’d promote and hire from within the organization—that’s clearly gone out the window. It’s such a shame, and I’m truly disappointed in Matt’s lack of resolve and courage to stand by his word.