Inside the Ohana
/ Episode
22

Inside the Ohana: The Value of Fearless Resilience

Shannon Duffy, CMO at Asana, shares her journey from leading marketing efforts at Salesforce to transforming the way people work at Asana. In this episode, she emphasizes the importance of fearlessness and resilience in pursuing big ideas and learning from mistakes.

Asana helps teams orchestrate their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Asana has more than 131,000 paying customers and millions of free organizations across 190 countries. Global customers such as Amazon, Japan Airlines, Sky, and Affirm rely on Asana to manage everything from company objectives to digital transformation to product launches and marketing campaigns.

Industry
Software Development
Founded
2008
Shannon Duffy

Guest Bio

Shannon Duffy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Asana, a leading work management platform for organizations. Shannon leads Asana's global marketing efforts, including corporate, product, growth, revenue, and engagement. Prior to Asana, Shannon was Executive Vice President Cloud & Industry Marketing at Salesforce, where she guided messaging, experiences, and go-to-market strategy for their flagship products. 

A technology marketing veteran, Shannon has held leadership positions in the industry since 2003, when she was Director of Marketing at SourceForge. She joined Salesforce in 2010 as Senior Director of Marketing; and after a time spent as Facebook’s Head of Marketing for direct response products, Shannon returned to Salesforce in 2014. 

Shannon graduated from Boston College with a B.A. in Communications. She is the proud mother of two children, and splits what free time she has between Britney Spears and 90 Day Fiancé.

Guest Bio

Shannon Duffy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Asana, a leading work management platform for organizations. Shannon leads Asana's global marketing efforts, including corporate, product, growth, revenue, and engagement. Prior to Asana, Shannon was Executive Vice President Cloud & Industry Marketing at Salesforce, where she guided messaging, experiences, and go-to-market strategy for their flagship products. 

A technology marketing veteran, Shannon has held leadership positions in the industry since 2003, when she was Director of Marketing at SourceForge. She joined Salesforce in 2010 as Senior Director of Marketing; and after a time spent as Facebook’s Head of Marketing for direct response products, Shannon returned to Salesforce in 2014. 

Shannon graduated from Boston College with a B.A. in Communications. She is the proud mother of two children, and splits what free time she has between Britney Spears and 90 Day Fiancé.

Episode Summary

Join Shannon Duffy, the CMO at Asana, as she takes us on her journey from pioneering the cloud, CRM, and software revolution at Salesforce to spearheading a remarkable transformation in the way people work at Asana. Shannon's expertise as a technology marketing veteran shines through this episode, and you'll gain invaluable insights on the power of fearlessness in pursuing big ideas and the resilience needed to learn from mistakes.

Key Takeaways

Quotes

“Be fearless. I think I was so in my own head like, ‘Oh, I’m different. I came from an acquisition, I don’t know.’ What I learned throughout my tenure at Salesforce is that people wanted different things. Salesforce supports bold ideas and doing things differently, not the status quo.” –Shannon Duffy

Episode Highlights

*(02:00) - Ohana Origins: Shannon’s introduction to Salesforce 

*(6:30) -  What does the Ohana mean to Shannon?

*(10:00) - What’s Cooking: Shannon’s career post-Salesforce

*(13:30) - Future Forecast: What’s in store for the Salesforce ecosystem?

*(15:00) - Advice for aspiring CMOs

*(16:00) - Lightning Round!

Episodes Transcript

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