While there’s no magic formula for an effective sales pitch, Mark Settle, 7x CIO (most recently CIO at Okta), has developed a proven method for startups to break through the noise, efficiently define their value, and close the deal. Mark will walk through how he advises startups to interact with executive buyers and nail the customer courtship process. He'll include a shortlist of questions startups can use to best message their value, methods for leveraging case studies, and the most common pitfalls when pitching a CIO to avoid.

Mark Settle is a 7x CIO, formerly at Okta, IHS, BMC Software, and others. He is also a 3x CIO 100 award winner, and a 2x book author. His most recent book is Truth from the Valley, A Practical Primer on IT Management for the Next Decade. Mark also writes a series on the Work-Bench blog called “CIO Perspectives” that explores the top-of-mind technical issues confronting today’s CIOs and IT leaders.