Reltio Connect

Community spotlights are the foundation for Reltio's new community-building initiative. They provide insight into the world of Master Data Management through the people who make it possible.

This interview is with Chris Hylen, who joined Reltio as CEO in September 2020. He describes what brought him to Reltio and how his experience at Intuit and Imperva shaped his approach to leading the company. Read further to discover what drives the world's first cloud-native Master Data Management software-as-a-service platform.

@Chris Detzel: Tell us about your career journey to Reltio. What was the path you took to get where you are today? 

@Chris Hylen: I have really enjoyed answering this question as it forced me to think about my career in a way that I had not done before. Over the last 10 years, I have been in numerous industries over my career, including payments, video conferencing, enterprise security, home security, enterprise data, and banking. Looking for a pattern in that data was quite difficult. However, upon further reflection, I have been able to develop a framework that makes sense over time.

My career has evolved over these chapters:  Finding, Learning, and Sharing my Craft.  Finding My Craft was more about finding me. It involved moving companies, moving around the country, and quite frankly, often falling short in my own expectations of my capabilities. At one point in time, it became very clear to me that I could succeed under the following conditions:

•       Recurring revenue business (known today as subscription revenue)
•       Evidence of growth potential
•       A collaborative and supportive culture
•       The ability to have an impact
•       The ability to live in Southern California

The ability to articulate these principles clearly and to stand firm in them opened up the pathway to Intuit. Intuit is where I was able to invest in Learning My Craft. Intuit was a tremendous learning environment. It had leaders, such as Steve Bennett, Scott Cook, and Brad Smith who role-modeled the values and leadership traits of the culture and expected best-in-class outcomes. They supported their leaders, yet also were willing to have the tough conversations that led to personal and professional development. I was able to learn the craft of “Growth Through Leadership, Culture and Outcomes” at Intuit. I am forever grateful for the opportunity they provided me.

The Finding and Learning of One’s Craft never really ends. You must always continue to learn more about yourself, make mistakes, and learn new and different approaches to become even better. However, I have found myself over the last ten years or so focused on Sharing My Craft. “Growth Through Leadership, Culture and Outcomes” develops people by providing them with opportunities to build competencies, be involved in a cause larger than themselves, and find courage when faced with adversity. Developing people into the best version of themselves, whatever that may be as defined by them, is a passion for me.

This journey has brought me to Reltio. Reltio has such an amazing culture, that it felt and still feels like the place for me to continue my journey of Sharing My Craft. I am thrilled to be here.

Detzel: Why did you want to be the CEO of Reltio?

Hylen: I was attracted to Reltio for three reasons: Opportunity, solution, and culture. Reltio is in a big space that is only getting bigger every day. Every company needs good data to make the best decisions. Reltio plays a key role in helping our customers access unified, reliable data  in real-time to better manage every aspect of their businesses; from partner ecosystems to their customers. This capability is becoming more important every day as the number of digital interactions grows across channels and in frequency. In addition, our customers face a transition from on-premises and in-house systems to cloud platforms and services. Reltio provides a real-time, at-scale solution for these problems that is unique. Finally, I joined because of the culture as embodied by @Manish Sood Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Reltio. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Manish is the only employee of Reltio that I have met in person. It was once for dinner and then again at the Kickoff earlier this year. His humility, grace, and sense of decency sold me on the culture of the entire company. The combination of these three convinced me that Reltio met the conditions I referenced above in a way that I could be successful in my tenure.

Detzel: What is the best career advice a mentor has shared with you, or what is one piece of advice you would give to colleagues who want to grow in their careers?

Hylen: I am by nature quite shy and introverted. There are great strengths associated with those traits, but as with everything, they can bring challenges as well. One of those challenges is that at times when you do not speak up or you are in listening mode, people can develop attributions that are not accurate or place motive where it does not exist. I had a boss at Intuit who was constantly coaching me to speak up and share more in the moment, in addition to listening attentively. I have found and continue to find this to be challenging as I would much prefer to share my thoughts once they are well-formed and make sense to me. I explained this to him by sharing that it was hard for me to do so because I was reserved. His response was, “I don’t give a s**t about your personality, I care about your outcomes. The team needs you to speak up. Figure out how to do it in a way that is comfortable to you.”  While a bit harsh, that response crystallized for me, that I, first and foremost, serve the needs of others on the team. The day my personality or anything else gets in the way of my service to the team is the day I should find something else to do. 

Detzel: What is your vision for Reltio?

Hylen: We have worked hard as a team to capture this in The Reltio Way, “We as individuals and as a team strive every day to be a world-class, Rule of 40 growth company by executing on our Strategy, delivering on our Outcomes, living our Values, and developing as Leaders.” 

Detzel: What is the biggest challenge you have had to overcome?

Hylen: Life is a journey full of opportunities and challenges. My Grandfather always reminded me that life is not about what happens to you – be it good or bad – but how you deal with it. I have always focused my efforts on trying hard to understand what happened, why it might have happened, and what role I may have played. I find this approach helps me to appreciate the highs with gratitude and to battle my way through to the other side when challenges present themselves. One of the things I have learned over time is that I have grown more as a person, leader, partner, father, and friend during the tough times. I would never wish tough times on anyone, yet those situations appear to provide an opportunity to become and display the best version of ourselves.

The most recent example of this was the security breach at Imperva that I have shared with many of you. The breach did not occur on our watch, but we had to deal with the implications of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and other confidential data potentially being exposed to third-parties with malicious intent. Reliance on our values and leadership expectations enabled us to quickly develop a set of principles on how we would approach communications and decision making.  The use of these principles and the commitment of the team served us well as we led our employees, customers, partners, and shareholders through a very difficult and public situation.  

Detzel: What are your interests outside of Reltio?

Hylen: Let me start by sharing that I have a bit of an attention span issue, so I try many things. I love being Bita’s partner, a father, a family member, a friend, and mentor for others.  I enjoy walking, photography, listening to music, reading, cooking, making drinks, skiing, boogie boarding, doing puzzles, and listening to music. Bita often says that she knows I am happy when I am singing.  Finally, I am a loyal Pittsburgh sports fan to my core - Black & Gold Forever!

Reltio disrupted the master data management (MDM) software market when it launched the first cloud-native MDM software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform nearly a decade ago. The Reltio Connected Data Platform is a proven multi-tenant, multi-domain MDM solution that masters all data types in real-time and at-scale. Customers benefit from agility, scale, simplicity, security, and performance unmatched by Reltio’s competitors. Chris Hylen's leadership is integral to continuing innovation and expanding services, such as Reltio Identity 360 - a free service for mastering person data - and soon, Reltio Account 360..

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