In this edition of Marketer of the Week, Ignite Visibility spotlights Archana Agrawal, Chief Marketing Officer at Airtable.
Ignite Visibility applauds her and the Airtable team for democratizing software development so that business leaders can quickly build the tools that fit their needs.
Archana Agrawal
Archana Agrawal started with Airtable as CMO about a year and a half ago. And she brought plenty of marketing experience with her.
A graduate from the University of Illinois, she received her Master of Science in Computer Science. And to top off her education, she headed to Harvard Business School for her MBA.
On October 10, 2006, Agrawal received a Patent for a storage system and method for pre-staging data in a cache to improve performance.
Additionally, she is a published author. In 2012 she co-authored the publication: Navigating the Black Hole: Explicating Layers of Job Search Context and Adaptation Resources.
Atlassian – Head of Enterprise and Cloud Marketing
Prior to her current role, Agrawal served as Head of Enterprise and Cloud Marketing at Atlassian. While there, she led global marketing initiatives for all products and helped build and scale the company’s distribution model.
If you’re unfamiliar with Atlassian, it produces the Rolls Royce of software development tools: Jira.
Jira helps developers track bugs and feature requests. Managers also use it so they can get a bird’s-eye view of how the whole development process is unfolding.
Atlassian also produces two other tools useful to software developers:
- BitBucket – stores source code and enables developers to collaborate on projects
- Confluence – enables team members to share info via dynamic pages
In addition to those products, Atlassian also produces OpsGenie, Trello, and Statuspage.
Since Agrawal stayed with Atlassian for seven years prior to joining Airtable, she clearly played a role in making Jira a household word within the software development community. That’s just more evidence that she knows how to promote products in a high-tech environment.
Atlassian – Head of Data and Science Growth Marketing
Agrawal started off with Atlassian as Head of Data and Science Growth Marketing. She managed online marketing analytics across Atlassian’s entire portfolio of products and web properties in this role.
She blended online marketing, website optimization, predictive analytics, and in-product activity to generate more product demand and increase brand loyalty among existing users.
After serving in that role for three years, the company promoted Agrawal to Head of Enterprise and Cloud marketing. That’s when she managed marketing for all Atlassian products.
TheLadders.com
Before working for Atlassian, Agrawal worked with TheLadders.com for six years.
During four of those years, she served as Vice President, Analytics. In that role, she led the company in gathering analytics related to all areas of operations, including product utilization, financial planning, marketing, and operations.
The subject-matter expert also conducted budgeting, headcount planning, and commission process for B2C, B2B and Services business units.
Finally, Agrawal spearheaded corporate development efforts through international expansion when a new business opportunity was spotted.
MongoDB
Additionally, Agrawal serves on the board of MongoDB.
MongoDB isn’t new tech. But it’s cool tech.
It represents the “next wave” of database solutions. That’s because MongoDB is document-focused instead of table-focused.
Developers store data in a MongoDB database as documents (think of it as a virtual file cabinet) instead of storing data as a bunch of interrelated rows in a series of tables (like with Oracle).
So Agrawal not only knows how to promote products, but she also knows how to spot trends. And she knows how to become a key player in shaping those trends.
Airtable
Millions of marketers across 250,000 organizations use Airtable solutions to streamline their product delivery efforts.
The company boasts a customer list that includes well-known brands such as Equinox, Netflix, IBM, Nike, Red Bull, and Under Armour.
Agrawal leads the Airtable marketing effort to build awareness, increase demand, and generate brand loyalty across all product channels.
But it all started with a challenge. A big challenge.
Agrawal joined Airtable at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like all great leaders, though, she didn’t let circumstances prevent her from succeeding.
She built and scaled much of her team remotely. Some folks on the team still haven’t met each other in person.
But that hasn’t stopped Agrawal from helping her team connect with each other. She developed a weekly newsletter and hosted an Airbnb experience to help fill the gaps left by a lack of in-office meetings.
Wrapping It Up
Airtable offers a great product. And now it’s got a great marketer to help take that product to the next level.
I look forward to seeing where Archana Agrawal takes the company from here.
