CEO Conversations with Brett Hurt & Mark McClain

Join the Austin technology community in a fireside chat with Brett Hurt & Mark McClain. Brett and Mark will dive into what it means to build culture for a scaling company in 2021 and beyond. Ripe with experience and humor, they will give tech CEO's and Founders a lot to think about as they steer their companies to success.

Brett Hurt - Brett is the CEO and co-founder of data.world, a Public Benefit Corporation (and Certified B Corporation®) that is the platform for modern data teamwork and the world’s largest collaborative data community, including public COVID-19 datasets. data.world makes it easy for everyone—not just the “data people”—to get clear, accurate, fast answers to any business question. data.world’s cloud-native data catalog maps its customers siloed, distributed data to familiar and consistent business concepts, creating a unified body of knowledge anyone can find, understand, and use. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, data.world was honored on the “Best for the World” list by B Lab, placing the company in the top 10% of all B Corps globally. Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. HFI are involved in 85 startups, 27 VC funds, and multiple philanthropic endeavors. 

Brett co-founded and led Bazaarvoice as CEO, through its IPO, follow-on offering, and two acquisitions. Bazaarvoice became the largest public SaaS (Software as a Service) business in social commerce and was named by the WSJ as one of the top IPOs of 2012. Brett also founded and led Coremetrics, which was rated the #1 Web analytics solution by Forrester Research and, like Bazaarvoice, expanded into a global company and leader. Coremetrics was acquired by IBM in 2010 for around $300m. 

In 2017, Brett was given the Best CEO Legacy Award by the Austin Business Journal. He is a Henry Crown Fellow and Braddock Scholar at the Aspen Institute. Brett began programming at age seven and doing so on the Internet at age eighteen. He finished his book, “The Entrepreneur’s Essentials”, in August 2019 (available at medium.com/@databrett for free).

Mark McClain - In his role as CEO and Founder of SailPoint (NYSE:SAIL), Mark brings almost 35 years of experience in technology, with over 20 years as a founder and leader of innovative identity management companies. Under Mark’s direction, the company has grown into a publicly recognized leader in its market. Mark directs and drives the overall vision and strategy for SailPoint, which is underpinned by his commitment and passion for building top-performing teams, creating a collaborative and innovative work environment, and focusing continuously on the needs of customers.

Teaming is a concept that Mark promotes throughout the company: teaming with forward-thinking customers to understand their needs, with partners to ensure customer success, and ultimately within SailPoint to develop innovative, market-leading solutions. Mark is passionate about maintaining the spirit of teamwork, even as SailPoint grows its employee base and its global presence to offices around the world.

Prior to SailPoint, he co-founded Waveset Technologies, which was ultimately acquired by Sun Microsystems. Mark’s career also includes diverse experience in international sales and marketing with Hewlett-Packard and IBM/Tivoli Systems.