Tom Fisher

Vice President, Cloud Computing

Born:
Charlotte, North Carolina

Prior Experience:
DriveCam – CIO and Senior Vice President of Engineering
QUALCOMM – Vice President, Information Technology
Chief Information Officer (CIO) for CDMA Technologies
eBay – Vice President, Architecture and Technology Strategy, Acting Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Gateway - Chief Architect, Vice President, Global Architecture, Security and Vendor Management
Exactium – Executive Vice President, Business Development

Education:
University of North Carolina, Charlotte – BA Political Science
Stanford University – Executive Management Training

What I like to do outside of work:
Family, family, family. I spend as much of my time as I can with my bride of more than 30 years and three awesome children – ages ranging from 8 to 23 - and visiting my extended family. My wife and I are both music lovers, especially jazz. We love going to concerts and jazz cruises. At one point in my life, I was a musician earning money to pay my way through college. I am also a college basketball fan, especially to watch my beloved UNC Tarheels. Go Heels!

I’m an avid morning exerciser and coffee lover – so beware, I can be really grumpy if I miss my morning workout or my cup of Kona!

Q: Where in your background did you learn the most?
A: My greatest technical learning experience was at eBay. I worked with a great team, led by Maynard Webb, and a group of world-class peers and technologists rebuilding the world's largest marketplace. We figured out how to re-architect the eBay platform to be able to scale without ever taking down the system, so that the eBay users were never inconvenienced. This was akin to changing the wheels on a race car while it's continuing to race. It was a privilege to work with such a creative and technically advanced team. We also started the eBay Developers Program, one of the largest developers programs on the planet, and provided engineering support as the company moved internationally.

I also received fantastic management preparation and training in the 80s and 90s at IBM. I used this training as an early employee in the IBM PC Business Unit in Boca Raton, Florida, and still draw upon it to this day.

Q: If you could meet one person in history, who would you meet and why?
A: Albert Einstein. I'd like to understand how he came up with his ideas and theories. This, in my mind, is one step beyond true innovation.

Q: What's been your biggest surprise during your time at SuccessFactors?
A:The culture – it's very open and extremely honest. Coming from a background of working in large companies, things tend to be a bit more 'politically correct' and bureaucratic – so this can be a bit disconcerting at first. At SuccessFactors, we all know the direction we should be rowing and we all row in that direction together thanks to the culture of open and direct communication. It also helps that we use our own product to ensure that everyone's goals are communicated and aligned.

Q: If you had 20 seconds to tell a new client about why they should use SuccessFactors, what would you say?
A:I've had the privilege of working with and using a number of the leading Cloud solutions over the years and I believe SuccessFactors is the best architected and developed Enterprise Cloud application in the world. This is an application designed with its customers in mind. It’s built to be easily adapted to your company – it's very simple to get started, safely secures your data and can scale to meet any customer's needs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small, 25-person organization or one of our mega-enterprise customers – we have a solution that will work for your situation.

Q: Why are you proud to work at SuccessFactors?
A:SuccessFactors represents the wave of the future, both functionally and technologically. The economic environment we are all living through is beginning to recede and a whole new way of doing things – operating as a company – is emerging. SuccessFactors represents the culmination of these world-class experiences in a system designed to help your employees succeed and ensure your company is completely aligned. SuccessFactors is the only system designed to address what typically is your largest budget item – labor - and the single greatest weapon to defeat your competition – your employees. I am proud to work at a company that prides itself on hiring world-class people to develop world-class products using state-of-the art technology and feel privileged to be working at SuccessFactors.