S2E4 - Al Zollar, Board Member IBM, NASDAQ, BNY Mellon - CEO of the Product

Al Zollar has had a distinguished 34-year career at IBM where he held several important roles across the entire software stack, including General Manager of IBM Tivoli Software, General Manager IBM iSeries (AS/400) server product line, and President of IBM Lotus Software. He spent the first 9 years in customer facing roles in pre-sales and post-sales engineering, before becoming a product manager for DB2, and later, OS2.  Al is currently an Executive Advisor with Siris Capital Group and serves on the Boards of IBM, NASDAQ, BNY Mellon, as well as non-profits.  

Key Highlights:

In this down to earth, candid and wide ranging conversation, Al shares the following key takeaways:

* Mindset of every job being the last job you'll ever have
* The downside of a company becoming very large and successful
* Building credibility as a Product Manager with engineers having PhDs
* How to be the CEO of the Product
* Mastering the four dimensions of product 
* Approach to having tough conversations
* Key responsibilities of Board members
* How will IBM differentiate itself in AI
* #newwhitemen - A challenge and a call for Allyship
* Impressive women leaders Al has had the fortune of working for and with

Connect with Al Zollar:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/al-zollar-9b20ba10/

Connect with Rahul Abhyankar:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulabhyankar

Resources:

- IBM
- Lou Gerstner, xCEO of IBM
- Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov
- IBM Watson & Jeopardy
- WatsonX
- #NewWhiteMen, Al's post on the challenge of allyship
- Guide to Allyship
- Janet Perna, xGM at IBM
- Adena Friedman, Chair and CEO of NASDAQ
- Rosa Parks, Activist (National Womens History Museum)
- Pierre de Fermat (Famous Mathematicians)
- Fermat's Last Theorem