Mike Capone is CEO of Qlik. He grew up in the Bronx (not Chicago, although he is distantly related to that branch of the Capone family), which he credits with giving him resilience and grit. He says his dad–one of the first CIOs who worked for JCPenney–challenged him and is one of his greatest mentors. Mike claims he could have applied himself better is school, but was more street smart and interested in sports. In this episode, he discusses his path to the corner office after he was told that no CIO would ever become a CEO (spoiler: he made it happen) and his leadership evolution as he progressed from CIO to COO to CEO. He extolls the virtues of “leading from the front” by spending time with everyone on the team, clearly explaining your expectations, and never asking anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. Mike also shares what he looks for in a new hire–intelligence, passion, and someone who is “interesting”–and why he encourages others not to play it safe all the time by stepping up for the harder assignments. He gives an overview of Qlik and talks about the tech/social responsibility mix that he loves about the company, and its participation in C40 Cities.
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About Mike Capone: Capone leads Qlik’s mission to create a data-literate world, one where people, businesses, organizations and governments tackle their most complex challenges with data. Mike has first-hand experience in leveraging the power of data through analytics to transform businesses and entire industries. In addition to his extensive experience in high-growth SaaS companies, Mike was the COO of Medidata Solutions, a publicly-traded provider of SaaS analytics solutions to the Healthcare, Life Sciences and Pharma markets. There he played a significant role in the company’s product development, data science, professional services and go-to-market operations, accelerating its strategy to provide a comprehensive cloud platform that leverages data and analytics to transform clinical trials.
Prior to Medidata, Mike held senior leadership positions at ADP including Corporate Vice President of Product Development, CIO, and SVP & General Manager of ADP’s global outsourcing business. He was also head of product development and technology operations for ADP, one of the world’s largest B2B cloud services providers, delivering critical services to over 600,000 companies and 39 million of their staff members worldwide.
Capone holds a bachelor of science degree in computer science from Dickinson College and a master of business administration degree in finance from Pace University.
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