Reflecting on 11 Years at Netskope with CMO Scott Hogrefe

Scott Hogrefe first joined Netskope in August of 2013 and in the eleven years since he has worn nearly every hat in the marketing organization. Most recently he became Netskope’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) so we took the opportunity to chat with him to find out what his experience has been, and what has made him want to keep working at Netskope for all these years.

Max: What drew you to Netskope back in 2013?

Scott: I had a great former boss at a previous company, and we had a pact that if we found a company that had a great culture, people, and market opportunity, we would both join it together. In 2013, she reached out to recommend I sit down with a company founder.  She said, “If you like him then we’ll both go.” That company was Netskope, the founder was Sanjay Beri, and my former boss, Jamie Barnett, wound up being Netskope’s first CMO. So, I met Sanjay for coffee and he was everything she had described; someone who leads with culture, wickedly smart, and clearly on the precipice of a great market opportunity. We both agreed we would start on August 5, 2013, but we actually started stealthily working on our plan together earlier than that, because we were so keen to hit the ground running. Together with the rest of the early Netskope team we helped Sanjay take the company out of stealth and officially launch in October 2013.

Max: Why do you feel like Netskope has been the right fit for you?

Scott: The short answer is its people, but it’s also the passion, the innovation, and the market. You gotta have the right combination of a bunch of different things, and I think Netskope has that. We’ve got a culture that has always been a major component of the company; it’s something we talk about at all-hands meetings, and both customers and investors note it early on. The promise of our opportunity has always been very invigorating too. There’s a bit of a “pinch me” feeling that we’ve created and led multiple categories, and that the longer term vision has now become a huge market.

Max: You briefly left Netskope and then came back. What was that experience like?

Scott: Each of us has a notion of what our career looks like, and you gotta go out and pursue that. But it’s really nice to come back, and it says a lot to boomerang back into a company and then remain for a long time. With any change like that, you learn a lot about yourself, gain some more tools, and the company learns a lot about you and the value you can bring. I was welcomed back with open arms. It felt like a, “We’re glad you went out and explored the wilderness, but we’re glad you’re back” sort of thing.

Max: What are some factors that have made you want to stay working at Netskope?

Scott: Outside of the people, it’s probably because we are addressing a real and monumental challenge. Each evolution of technology has become more intrinsically linked to the success and productivity of humankind. Not to be hyperbolic, but if technology isn’t working, then we’re not functioning as a society. You can’t extract technology from the water we drink. So, the threats to that technology are a threat to humankind. Therefore it feels good to be working to optimize and secure such a vital, critical aspect of our everyday lives. The other part that I’ve really enjoyed is that Netskope has always focused on being an enabler as opposed to a blocker. For example, “Allow Is The New Block” was one of our original taglines, and that’s still true today. The world wants to go fast, and we’ve always positioned ourselves on the side of that kind of enablement, rather than telling a defensive story, and I’ve always appreciated that.

Max: Is there anything that’s surprised you about your time at Netskope?

Scott: One thing that’s surprised me is that Sanjay’s–and the company’s–appetite for innovation is always oriented around how we are going to solve a problem. And we never take a shortcut that creates future problems or defers the solution finding. It’s an admirable approach to take and really creates a sense of pride in the products we make. Another thing, and maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by it, but the pace of change really surprised me. It’s what led to our tagline “Ready For Anything.” Our customers started to realize that there was always going to be another thing, like what we’ve seen with genAI. Are you building a system that acknowledges that the pace of change will always increase? That kind of mindset changes the way you think about solving problems. I’m excited to see what the ongoing pace of changes puts in front of us next and how we’ll yet again solve that problem the right way, and lead to value for our customers.