Shellye Archambeau
Shellye has spent over 30 years in the tech industry building and scaling businesses. Most recently she was the CEO of MetricStream for over 14 years, building the company into a global leader in GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance.) Prior to MetricStream she held CMO and EVP positions at two public companies as well as global senior executive roles at IBM. She was also the first President of Blockbuster.com.
Currently, Shellye serves on the board of directors for Verizon and Nordstrom. She advises CEOs and growing companies and is a sought after speaker on topics of leadership, innovation, risk management and strategic marketing.
1. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you get through it?
It’s early in 2008, and MetricStream has just been named a market leader by Gartner in the new field of Governance, Risk and Compliance. Finally, all the hard work was paying off. Our phones were ringing, the demand was real. We decided to scale up our sales and delivery capability right away with plans to raise additional capital in 2009 with a strong 2008 growth to support it.
Well, you know the story. The markets crashed in the second half of 2008. We had a choice. Close up shop, like many other companies or fight it out. We chose to fight. We tightened our belt, agreed as a team to “never say die” and planned on surviving on almost no cash until the markets opened. We did everything we could to manage our cashflow. I didn’t pay myself or several of the execs for a year. We encouraged up front payments from customers, leveraged credit cards, you name it.
An interesting thing happened. Our company culture strengthened as we fought through this battle together. Without new customers, we were dead. So our customer focus was intense, and customers felt it. We ended up not just surviving, but growing 50% year over year in 2009. We raised money when the market opened and became the largest independent market leader in the GRC space.
2. What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
My goal was to be a CEO. As I approached 40, I’d done what I needed to do. I’d built the experience, track record and a good reputation. The only problem? It was 2002 and, the tech bubble had burst. There were many companies failing, so fewer startup CEO jobs. In addition, there were plenty of seasoned CEOs looking for jobs as the companies failed. I wasn’t even living in Silicon Valley yet. I’d been commuting from Dallas for the prior 3 years. I didn’t have all the network connections and visibility of CEO candidates based in the Valley. But I was ready for the job and I wanted it.
So I did what I’ve always done, which is to put a plan in place to get what I want. I decided to target roles that were “fixit” roles. I’d done plenty of “fixit” jobs in the past. I figured there would be less competition, thus increasing my odds of success. I also decided I wanted a top-tier VC firm invested in the company I targeted. A top-tier firm could help attract employees, future funding and had networks that I could leverage. All of which should help me increase my odds of success. I then used my network to get introduced to these VC firms, and I did indeed land my CEO role. Zaplet was indeed broken. But, after years of hard work, the team and I built a market leading company with an internationally recognized brand in GRC. The company is now called MetricStream.
3. What’s something that’s been on your mind this Black History Month?
There is so much talent out there, and yet, if you ask any CEO in the Valley, they will list a talent shortage among their top challenges. We need to work harder at making opportunities available to all professionals of all backgrounds.
