Happy New Year, everyone. I'm excited to bring to you first All about data discussion for the year 2023. With me today I have Maha Pula, Vice President, Global pre-sales at Cloudflare. Maha, happy New Year and thank you for being on the show. Happy New Year, Barsha. Good to be here. It's great. Maha. And it's been a few years since we last met in person. I'm really happy to be having this discussion right now. As we start, I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of the Bidjigal people, where I'm hosting the today from and I pay my respects to the eldest past, present and emerging as I, as I said, very excited about today because I have worked under your leadership. You know, although there were a few levels of management between me as an individual contributor and you as vice president in my previous role, But I've witnessed how effective your leadership is. You know, you've been a disruptor and in a good way. Right. Because I also know that you're very passionate about data and you are data driven. So it's really exciting. And I can't wait for the conversation today. So welcome to the show again. Thank you. And I'm so proud of what you've been able to do. I want to say that right up front, and I'm very honored to be on this. Thank you. So as we kick off the conversation, could you share a little bit about yourself with us? Of course. I work for Cloudflare now. I run the global organization for Cloudflare and previously we work together. And I want to add all of those layers in between. We're not blockers and you just came up with me. You just told me exactly what you thought about things. So I remember that conversation or conversations we had prior to that. My I've been a career pre-sales person. I didn't stray outside of pre-sales or sales just and I realized that my passion is in sales. So I came right back and right back, if you may call it that. Yeah. So all of my career has been in supporting sales and selling directly as well. Yeah.It's a sweet spot, isn't it. It's,very effective role in pre-sales and where you are at is,even more effective because you're out where you make decisions and make things happen. So you know what? I guess talking about your role, what aspects of your work do you enjoy most and why? I enjoy all aspects of it, but I like winning the most. Yeah, but I mean, that is on the execution side. But more importantly, the part that I enjoy the most is future proofing organizations like a. I like the part about solving for the problems of today really enjoy the most is to be able to look ahead to three years down the line and to be able to build an organization that can match or that can meet the expectations of those. And sometimes it can be very confusing for people and my colleagues or my leaders as well as, look, really the pause and bring people along to see what I'm seeing or what I may potentially be around the corner and like to build that. The part I like is to solve the problems of today, but the one I enjoy is solving for the problems of tomorrow and the day after. Wow. Yeah, that'samazing because, I mean, you know, me being a presales engineer, I am solving problems for the customers right now. But, you know, I find it's more effective when I'm talking to them. And I'm actually selling the vision, not. Step one is here and in Europe. I think you're also looking at what customers are going through. But for your organization, what will make and as you say, like winning. So what will make you win, you know, andwin the hearts of customers and your partners, but also what will actually make you the money to. Right. Yeah, I mean it it's organizational design or whether it is investing in enablement or whether it is preparing for another new I'd say adjacency within the product like competencies, skills, these are all foundational to building for the future. It's not just hiring a lot of people. That's a very linear sort of an investment and you don't really need a lot of smart to do that. You I'm going to sell more, so I'm going to need more people. Is just a very linear route. But most organizations that have reached hypergrowth are not growing, not investing at the hypergrowth level. They find ways in which to build efficiencies into the process and to be able to do more with less. And sometimes you look at more with less and hear that and they think cost. But doing more with less is smart. Mm hmm. Agree. But preparing that for the future isabout all of that. And to be able to see how you can design in organizations like organization design is a competency that's being taught in business schools as well. Yeah. So I mean, you know, we are talking things about data, right? So I guess with everything you've said, you know what, bringing it back to the basic, you know, when we think about data, what comes to mind generally when you back down, you know, when you ask most people about data, they think spreadsheets and about whenwe were first chatting about this and this conversation is I think it's a lot of spreadsheets with a lot of numbers on it. And it's the number crunching and that's all that'smost people's view of data. And then sometimes there's an extension of that, which is reports like the is a way in which to view the data on data. Right. Andso that's just one way of looking at data. But the part that I find the most intriguing is patterns is it's so powerful, but it's powerful only if you're able to see the pattern in it. There's a conversation I had with one of my previous leaders. Is he or he would say, You connect all the dots, right? And you're seeing a racehorse. And I connect the dots and I see a rabbit. How can I make a rabbit into a racehorse? And I have to see that's where the connection is. So different. People see different things in data thatmakes sense to them. But that is also because the scope of their view, right? So the more broader scope you have, moredata points that you have, it gives you a different it shows you a different pattern and then you based those patterns and then make decisions based off that. You build organizations based on that, you invest based on that, you divest based on that. When you start to see pattern, if you make decisions based on the pattern you see today without extrapolate that for how it could be based on othercoordinates, thenyou may miss an opportunity. So it can be if you're purely using a two dimensional to the spreadsheet mechanism, then you're really doing a disservice to data. Yeah,absolutely. Rand just took us on a really,visual sort of journey there, right? Like, it depends on context, depends on how much scope of work does a person or that team has and then what is the vision that they create versus, you know, the higher up you go in levels in terms of decision making, I think you've got a broader picture and you can then create even broader sort of, you know, what's next, you know, And so, A, that's you know, if everything's working well and you've got a team of people, you've got experts like yourself and you're investing your time and resources and you've got your experience from what could be as well. And you've got, you know, you've set your path forward. And then, you know, for example, it happened, right? And then, of course, correct. And so how does, Donna, you know, in your role in the context of your role or Cloudflare or organization now, howdo you then incorporate data to course correct, especially when you're working infuture proofing? Yeah, it's a tough one. And that's why decision made database decisions are not. And you've got me saying that I know I can't get rid of, I can't say data anymore. Marcia So that's why we're making decisions based on data, which is just single dimension or which is very limited in its, in its scope is very dangerous. Or it could it may not allow you the flexibility that you need to be able to, you know, turn on a dime. And that's why people find themselves organizations even find themselves going straight down a path. And then they have to reverse all of the decisions so that they can take down another path. And so I find that whetherit was COVID or anything else with it the past few years, it was Corbett very unique because it was multi-dimensional impact on an organization or economy. But there have been smaller versions of these changes or challenges that have governed as whether it was Brexit, whether it was other challenges or political or economic. All those things are going to happen. That's the norm of the universe. This is an integral part of it. They say the only constant is change. These are going to be an integral part of how we need to make the best companies recover quickly from it. The ones that are making very strong, one dimensional decisions based on data that they see today are the ones that recover or sometimes not recover from. They are decisions that they may, even though if all things have gone right, they would have gone down the path and been quite successful. But what they are prepared for is these contingencies that have happened and do not allow organizing the design of whatever decisions that they've made did not allow them the flexibility to do so.as simple as that is, can we make decisions swiftly to respond to situations? And that and data plays a really,key role in supporting or supporting a decision one way or the other orproviding input that says, no, you don't want to do this product investments, right? That can also be a bank, you know, a decision that's made on data and that is it. That's consumer data, customer data and customer satisfaction data. So data is everywhere where we can leave the home with that data. That's right. Exactly. We carry these things with us, Right. If I had that conversation that I found, you know, I'm looking at the theme and I think, you know, definitely start with the data that you have decision making in creating future proofing sort of solutions. But I think if something doesn't go as planned, then you got to stop and pause and look at what additional information you have at that point to course. Correct? Right. And I think successful organizations are those who are very agile in that process. Make quick,changes happen asthings change. Thank you, Michael. That was such a great discussion. It's always a pleasure speaking with you. Before I let you go, last question. You know, you're your vice president. You know how that role in different organizations and from where I am looking at, it's like, wow, you know, I wish I get there one day with what's the next challenge for you?know, like where to next from here I am, as I told you before as well, I love data and I love what it can do to support decisions. I'd like to do something more in that space, like, you know, operational strategy, go to market decisions, type stuff. Those are things that motivate me, that challenge me. I love the that so maybe on this is I enjoyed this a lot but I like to do something in the future around operations. It seems like rev ops and has a significant role to play in the future of go to market decisions and starting to get a little bit of more traction. It has already been quite a bit attractions. We have something,along that space. I don't know and you never know. I'll thank you. My thank you so much for your time and I wish you a fantastic year ahead. I'm sure you'll be as successful and more so thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me on this call.