7 Business Lessons from Google's Diane Greene
Head of Google Cloud Platform Diane Greene has learned a lot over her technology career, during which she spent a decade as CEO and founder of VMware.
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Google's head of cloud platform Diane Greene
Head of Google Cloud Platform Diane Greene has learned a lot over her technology career, during which she spent a decade as CEO of VMware. Now she's charged with bringing more enterprises into the Google Cloud ecosystem. Click through the slideshow to learn more about her leadership approach and her recipe for success.
Diane Greene does not like the spotlight and instead prefers Google and its cloud accomplishments to take center stage. According to Business Insider, this mentality even extends to her office – a “tiny, windowless room, big enough to hold an ordinary desk and two chairs.”
Depending on the corporate culture, meetings can be a death sentence for productivity. But the way you approach meetings can change this. When was the last time you left a meeting feeling inspired? Why not try holding regular meetings where different teams can share ideas and debate? Greene has done this since joining Google and it seems to be working.
Greene told Business Insider that the cloud teams meet on a weekly basis to “share, discuss and debate” – something that was impossible before since sales and marketing were in a different division than cloud.
Since Greene came on board, Google’s cloud division has been hiring aggressively, in particular hiring experienced sales and support personnel.
Hiring too many people at once can be overwhelming, so make sure to have proper training in place, but don't hesitate to add more people if the time is right and the need is there.
You never know when the next great executive for your company may walk into your life. Google’s Urs Holzle talked Greene into taking the job as they walked their dogs together.
Greene has come out in multiple media interviews unmoved by the threat of AWS or Microsoft’s cloud businesses as Google works to attract more enterprises to its cloud. A strategy to “lure several large enterprise customers from Amazon” with free cloud computing seems to be working, according to Forbes.
“All of a sudden, we’re talking to pretty much every top-1,000 company,” Greene said.
Greene says that her outlook on life is to continuously look at what’s interesting and keep your sense of curiosity. If you’ve lost interest in something, or “if your mind doesn’t want to think about it, it’s not a good use of your time,” she tells Business Insider.
Dreams and goals are nothing without an action plan to make them reality. Creating shorter-term goals and milestones, they must be aligned with your long-term vision.
Dreams and goals are nothing without an action plan to make them reality. Creating shorter-term goals and milestones, they must be aligned with your long-term vision.
Head of Google Cloud Platform Diane Greene has learned a lot over her technology career, during which she spent a decade as CEO of VMware, the company she co-founded with her husband Mendel Rosenblum, Scott Devine, Edward Wang and Edouard Bugnion in 1998.
Most recently, in November, she sold her startup Bebop Technologies to Google. Now she’s hit the ground running in Google’s cloud division, with the tall order of attracting more enterprises to its platform.
So what can you learn from Greene? Plenty – she’s got a number of strategies and tools that have helped build up her career, and that may help you too.
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