Simple, but HARD

About the Book

A gripping memoir of one person’s rise from poverty to leading sales organizations for five pioneering technology companies. This is a story of how eleven childhood jobs from age nine to eighteen provided the motivation and work ethic to rise through sales organizations to lead sales and channel teams around the world. In this collection of stories from his first sixty years, Strubel explores how his childhood shaped his adult life. His stories cover how his father became the first in his family to attend college, then lost his business and the family home after falling on hard times. And how his mom went back to work at minimum wage until a head-on collision ended her ability to work. Strubel put himself through college while hitchhiking home on weekends to spend time with his younger sisters. He joined the original Silicon Valley startup who allowed him to work as a co-op every other semester through college, and then joined them for twenty-seven years after he graduated from Indiana University. Simple, But Hard tells stories of love and loss, of pain and laughter. Stories of luck and hard work and how both led him from a restaurant dishwasher to become the chief commercial officer of a multi-billion-dollar company. This book will take the reader around the world in a wide range of topics told in short stories.

About the Author

Scott Strubel currently leads the Americas Partner Organization for Darktrace, a global leader in cybersecurity AI and is a member of the Deans Advisory Council for the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business at Purdue University. He joined Darktrace from Hitachi Vantara, where he was the chief commercial officer and led Hitachi Vantara’s worldwide commercial sales organization and the organizations in charge of Hitachi Vantara’s commercial customers, partners and ecosystem relationships. He also led the company’s support renewals organization and leads shared services organizations with call centers in 8 cities around the world. Strubel launched an inside sales organization for a lower cost way of selling to a growing set of smaller customers. Prior to Hitachi Vantara, Strubel was at Commvault where he led indirect channel revenues driven through reseller and distribution partners globally. In that role, Strubel’s teams drove partner revenue growth through joint solution offerings that increased value to both partners and customers. The reseller and distribution teams built and executed scalable partner programs that enabled Commvault’s data protection platform and solutions. Prior to Commvault, Strubel was the VP of the Americas Partner Organization for NetApp. In this capacity, he was responsible for a $2.5B indirect channel working with NetApp’s partners throughout the Americas. He also led the Americas Inside Sales organization and a $1.6B FlexPod converged infrastructure business for the Americas. Also, while at NetApp, he created and led worldwide field operations for management software. Over his time in this role, he grew software revenues from $20M to $150M. Strubel launched sales teams for software in Europe and Asia and had responsibility for NetApp’s global sales, presales, channel, and alliance teams channel selling storage management software via all routes to market. Before joining NetApp in 2010, Strubel was the Vice President of Channels and Alliances for the Americas and U.S. Public Sector at HP Software. In that role, he was responsible for HP’s software revenues via indirect channels. Strubel led the HP sales organizations responsible for all revenue through distribution, resellers, ISVs, OEMs, systems integrators and outsourcers for the HP Software business. He led the creation of a new partner program and was responsible for a partner-delivered professional services business. Prior to leading channels and alliances, Strubel was the Region Director for the West and Central regions of the U.S. for HP Software. He was part of a founding management team selected to launch HP Software and led all field operations for 34 states in the U.S. He began his career with HP in 1983 as part of a team that launched HP’s first personal computer. Strubel holds an International Executive MBA from Purdue University’s Daniels School of Business and a BS in Business from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.