Zach Nelson, CEO NetSuite
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Zach Nelson is the CEO who sells.
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The NetSuite CEO spends three weeks a month on the road evangelizing
as a Service and, unlike many SaaS pioneers, devising ways solution providers might participate in the model. This year, he inked an unprecedented deal with CompUSA to sell NetSuite application services in its stores. NetSuite also has begun cutting partners in on services work for deals it has sold direct.
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"He thinks big," says Evan Goldberg, co-founder and CTO of NetSuite,
Mateo, Calif. Says Vispi Daver, a principal at Sierra Ventures who worked for Nelson at My- CIO.com, a dot-com
startup: "His passion is folklore with us."
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Nelson's outrageous marketing tactics are legendary: He shamelessly calls upon his beloved Oakland A's for any possible promotional opportunity and once covered the MyCIO building with a massive, multistory billboard, ignoring the little matter of zoning ordinances. NetSuite's top sales performers are known as "Club Evil" after the villain in the "Austin Powers" movies, and he rewards them with trips to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, and next year's Cricket World Cup in Barbados.
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Considering one of Nelson's recreational activities is abalone diving, this isn't exactly out of character. Pointing to his childhood as one of 10 children, the Omaha, Neb., native holds up his parents as role models who taught him to have a sense of perspective—and humor. Both will be important as he battles to outsell rivals Intuit and Microsoft in the business applications market.