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BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – November/December 2017
business administration degree at the Indiana University Kelley School
of Business on the IUPUI campus, McCorkle and classmates heard
from guest speaker Scott Webber. Webber was CEO of Software
Artistry, the first publicly-traded software company in Indiana.
Webber, who enjoyed a lengthy career with a number of
entrepreneurial ventures in central Indiana, recalls, “After the class,
where I talked about Software Artistry and our culture and how we
aggressively moved toward achieving things, he came up and said,
‘This is exactly the kind of place I want to be.’ We interviewed and he
was a fit. I hired him to run IT initially. He did a good job there, then
we needed someone to manage development. We decided to move
him to that role and it was a great move.”
From McCorkle’s perspective, “I was excited to join a company
where computers were the product. I wanted to be directly building
the product. In this start-up company, I was able to move orders of
magnitude faster, executing on ideas. The speed at which a company
like that moves is very different.”
Case in point: The company’s largest customer, in the logistics
business, was having some performance issues. A massive effort –
code-named parcel – required placing a special team off-site in order
to dramatically advance the platform. McCorkle was the leader of
the group.
“That was probably the first project that I managed that it
had
to
be successful. There are many projects where you want it to work,
you expect it to work, but if it doesn’t, nothing terrible happens. This
was life and death. This
had
to be successful. It was the first time I felt
that kind of weight or pressure.”
Webber believes McCorkle has an “unusual set of talents. I always
find the hardest role to fill in any software company is the person
running technology and development because they’re almost contrary
skill sets. Really good technologists love being in front of a screen
building technology. In terms of social skills and management skills,
(that’s) generally not as much their way. Scott is very, very good
technologically, but what is amazing (is that) he blends that with an
incredible set of social skills and great strategic thinking.”
About 18 months before Software Artistry was sold to IBM, the
company was restructured into business units with McCorkle leading
one of those. “Even back then,” Webber says, “we saw general
management capabilities in Scott that obviously led to chief operating
officer at ExactTarget and his role at Salesforce.”
Career advancement
McCorkle shares a lesson on clear communication and teamwork
from his IBM days, when he was focused on trying to break down
product siloes.
“I remember learning, and I carry to this day: Don’t just assume
everyone knows what they are doing and are executing a plan that they
think is the right plan. It’s tempting to assume that, but people must
understand why they are doing what they are doing.”
A “skunkworks initiative” titled Blowfish resulted in McCorkle
and Webber presenting in front of IBM CEO Lou Gerstner. The
program was approved and McCorkle was chief technology officer
across 100 or so products.
In 1999, McCorkle and two co-founders started Mezzia, which
had a health care focus and was a SaaS company to manage large capital
spending initiatives. Although ultimately sold to a firm in Boston,
Congratulations!
Your leadership and support have been key pillars of our success.
Dynamic Leader of the Year
Scott McCorkle
Indiana Vision 2025