Peter Riccio

VP of Sales Mid-Market Team

Born:
New Haven, Connecticut

Prior Experience:
Document Sciences – Sr. VP of Sales
Saba – VP of Sales
PeopleSoft – RVP of Sales
Informix – Sales Director
American Data – VP of Sales
Hewlett Packard – Account Executive

Education:
Yale University – B.S. Administrative Science

What I like to do outside of work:
Played baseball in college and still am passionate about the sport. Love fine jazz music and theatre. My daughter was a competitive equestrian and was deeply involved in her passion for horses. Finally, truly enjoy reading any good history, biography or fiction.

Q: Where in your background did you learn the most?
A: I learned different things at a number of companies and experiences. At an early age, I was captain of many sports teams and was exposed to many leadership opportunities. At Hewlett-Packard, it was the importance of corporate culture, i.e., focusing on the value of the employee will drive extraordinary results. American Data was my first experience with an early stage company and the challenges to make payroll, and successfully building a company and sales team. PeopleSoft was a high achievement culture where many rewards were received. Saba was my first IPO experience.

At SuccessFactors, this is the fastest growing, most dynamic organization where I learn every day to continuously grow, develop and add value to the organization.

Q: If you could meet one person in history, who would you meet and why?
A: Thomas Jefferson. In today's media-packaged society probably would have been the least likely to become President. Jefferson made two public speeches in his two terms as President and those were his inaugural addresses. Brilliant mind, writer and revolutionary born at the right time in our history who changed the world. Q: What's been your biggest surprise during your time at SuccessFactors?
A: The focus on customer success as the main driver of our business. We measure user adoption of our solution. This is a metric that goes beyond customer reference ability. In many software companies customer success is measured in the number of support calls resolved in a period of time. This is not an ROI indicator for our customers.

Rather, all areas of the company are driven to make sure our customers gain strategic value from our solution. Our reference base as a result is the best I have seen in my career in the software business.

Q: If you had 20 seconds to tell a new client about why they should use SuccessFactors, what would you say?
A: Our solution helps manage the most important asset in any organization i.e, employees. We truly help drive performance improvement throughout an organization. We improve businesses strategically and operationally in their planning and goal setting processes. Managers become better communicators and leaders of their people. Employees become more accountable in their jobs and are recognized for their contributions in an organization.

Our business model is a key differentiator for us. We implement our solution faster and more cost-effective than most enterprise solutions in the market. Our customers gain immediate results in their investment by taking advantage of best practice business processes, can and will experience no disruption as they implement new product capabilities.

This works and our customers would support this position.

Q: Why do you believe in the promise of Performance & Talent Management?
A: I believe in a corporate culture that expects a high level of accountability and recognizes their employees that make contributions on a daily basis. People want to do a good job. That is my belief and as a result need clear direction, motivation and recognition when results are achieved. This is what we offer companies today. If companies don't deliver on this premise they will eventually lose their people to competition or other opportunities. Retaining employees that make a difference will sustain business growth and shareholder value.

This basic principle drives my passion for our solution.

Q: Do you have a story or memory of how P&TM has helped you in your career?
A: Hewlett-Packard at one time, was an excellent example of a corporate culture that valued their employees and recognized their people for good work. The "HP Way" was exemplary of the emphasis on culture and employee retention and recognition.

We clearly understood the goals of the organization and our personal role in the success of the overall mission. Career development discussions as a result were on-going and a path was set for those that wanted to advance in their careers at HP. As a result employee satisfaction was high and the company reflected that in their pace of innovation and growth.

Q: Why are you proud to work at SuccessFactors?
A: We "walk the talk" and deliver on our promises both to our customers and internally to our people as well. The leadership here is without a doubt the finest I have ever worked with in my career.