Welcome back, I'm your host Maia Morgan Wells. On today's episode of the Marketing Hero podcast, we're bringing you Peter Wheeler, senior marketing manager for social impact, startups, and self-service at Auth0.org. Now that's a corporate social impact startup within the Auth0 product unit of Okta and we will get into that in the interview to help us get situated here, but you may have heard of Okta as an enterprise identity management service. There's a lot of layers here and Peter is here to unpack what it means to be running social impact from the marketing side. Peter Wheeler, welcome to the show.
Peter Wheeler:
Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it honored to be called a hero.
Maia Wells:
Yeah, well, we're honored to have a marketing hero like yourself here on the podcast and hope that all of our listeners will gain a lot from it today. Let's start off with a question I like to ask all of our guests, what is your favorite part of your career and how did you figure that out?
Peter Wheeler:
Career is a tough answer for me, I've been a serial entrepreneur most of my life, and it's given me a really fun journey. People have joked that I'm Gaston on with the life path of Forrest Gump and it's true. I've been in many industries. I've been philately, I worked for the world's largest stamp collection auction house. Did consumer facing campaign for Dolby. The first one, since the 1950s, you can't make anything Dolby buys, but we did a consumer facing campaign. Gave birth to a beer for Blue Moon and MillerCoors. Did some lifestyle launches for BMW. I've just been all over the place in many different industries and it's allowed me to have kind of this really unique, fun perspective that I like to take one thing to another and develop relationships and partnerships and really get there. And in my current role, I'm kind of treated as an intrapreneur, building something out in this organization. And that gives me all the security of working for a real company with all the freedoms and green space of being self-driven.
Maia Wells:
Excellent. Well, I would like to set us up with a bit more of an explanation of what you do and where you sit in the Okta organization, because it is unique and like you just mentioned, it's sort of a startup within a company. Can you talk a little bit more just about the lay of the land there on where you sit, what you do?
Peter Wheeler:
Yes, I'm going to step back a couple years on this. In 2020 Auth0 joined the pledge 1% program and the pledge 1%, if you're not familiar with it is where companies pledge 1% of their equity to corporate social responsibility or ESG or some other program that aligns with that, over a certain period of time. You can look up pledge 1% for more details, but we had joined that. And part of it was that we were doing a product offering, a grant portfolio out of a DAF and employee engagement with VTO that was stood up by a gentleman named Ari Shapiro and led by Alex Slum, he developed the program and I was brought in to manage the whole product impact side and marketing side of it. And what that means is, like product donations or marketing product to the nonprofits, what our end solution is.
When Auth0 merged with Okta in earlier last year, 2021. Wow, it's been a long time. They had an existing venture called Okta for Good, which was a similar pledge. The organization had been around a lot longer than Auth0.org had. And they had big ESG initiatives, big Tech for Good initiatives. They had their own product offering, and it was really nice to have counterparts that we're doing the same thing. Now in many areas, we've merged those items. So like volunteering is done from the greater Okta organization and the portfolio grant is done from the greater Okta organization, but with the Okta workforce SSO platform, that's managed from Okta for Good, their product impact offering is managed there. And I got to maintain the product impact offering of Auth0.org and our customer identity product.
Maia Wells:
Okay. That all makes sense. Thank you for walking us through that. It does seem like there is a big focus on giving back, and I would love to know your thoughts on why that is important for a business like Okta or specifically within Auth0.org?
Peter Wheeler:
It's a cultural thing and organizations are getting to a point. I mean, there's investor influences and getting contracts and different countries and things that I would even call brolanthropy, where they're checking a box to satisfy some sort of need in a business case. But when you look at what Okta's doing, and this is my opinion, I'm not speaking as an official opinion of the company or previous or current employers, how I view it and how it really appeals to me is, the people inside have a strong culture. And we have desires that are beyond the business case and the company creating opportunities to provide Tech for Good to provide volunteer opportunities when you wouldn't normally be able to find them and provide volunteer time off, as well as writing grants to organizations and initiatives that are important to people in the company. I don't necessarily think that's a business move in general. I think that is a huge cultural shift globally, that many organizations are trying to focus on. And it's really nice to be in an organization. That's doing it in a very ethical, transparent and positive way.
Maia Wells:
Tell us a little bit more detail about this social impact initiative. How does it work and what can nonprofits or other types of businesses get from it?
Peter Wheeler:
So I'll speak specifically to what I'm doing right now, as opposed to the organization at large. I focus in product impact and what that means is all over the place and the category I'm in is Tech for Good and that kind of is all over the place. In our usage of it, it is that we either donate or give discounted product to nonprofit organizations to secure their digital environments. That's the simplest way of putting it. We have certain criteria that we uphold for the nonprofits to be able to work with them. And we do it in a way that we're making sure that it's the best possible solution.
Maia Wells:
So Peter, what exactly is a social impact team? And is it unique to have social impact led by a marketing and salesperson?
Peter Wheeler:
I'll start with the latter over the former. It is very unique for a social impact team to have marketing and sales involved, much less leading it. Many times a social impact team is rooted in a company culture element. It might be DEI, it might be what they call ESG, which is environmental, societal, and corporate governance items, which are very people team-centric. And it's somewhat new to have these larger blended teams. I keep joking about this startup mindset, but having a sovereign entity inside of the organization where they maybe have solutions engineers, marketers, sales people, HR and DEI people, all these elements are very important to make sure that your programming is where you want it to be. It's very hard to switch between roles and be someone that's awesome at volunteer programs and be someone that's awesome at selling product and being someone that's awesome at evaluating and setting up donations through your DAF or your portfolio fund. So yes, it's rare and I hope it becomes less rare.
Maia Wells:
And let's get into the nitty gritty about that just for a moment, because I know that you're leading that from a marketing and a sales perspective are the campaigns that you run or the outreach that you do different from maybe that traditional environment of trying to sell a software, for example, at full price?
Peter Wheeler:
It's well... Leading with the discount is never a smart move or a fun move, especially for a sales team. And with our audience, we do have somewhat of an ethical obligation. I never want to be in that scenario where we're donating things that people won't use and they're incurring tech debt, or some level of true debt. So in traditional marketing, it's always approached as everybody on the call knows, that there's different formulas and ways of approaching it, with nonprofits there is truly a nonprofit version of everything. Every industry has some sort of nonprofit version, and what's sad about the nonprofit industry, it's the only one that goes by the one thing it doesn't do. So interpreting is pretty difficult. They have scenarios where funds are reserved. If they receive a donation, it might be specifically for one element or one item, so they don't have the discretion in spending that enterprise organizations would have.
And developing personas is very difficult. These organizations are usually run in a more bootstrapped, smaller headcount fashion, where people are juggling many balls and wearing many hats. And so the focus that I like to take with it is, becoming a member of the community and focusing on what the needs are in more of like a jobs-to-be-done format, what's the solution or the end game? What are the things that are important to the individual? Not necessarily like, what is this persona looking for? It's, what is this job we're looking to get done?
Maia Wells:
And you were mentioning that in a lot of cases, a nonprofit will be operating with a leaner team, for example. And so I wonder this is kind of a devil's advocate question, but do small teams like that need a solution like Auth0?
Peter Wheeler:
Well, anytime you have a digital environment, it's good to have security. We hear about different types of breaches and hacks and lost information Auth0, the customer identity product that we have at Okta is wonderful for any environment. You could use it on your personal website or your headless CMS, just for your own login to log in with one of your single sign on accounts. In the case of nonprofits, if they're dealing with healthcare information, if they're dealing with payment, information banking, whatever it may be, there are a lot of laws around compliance that are very important, that we help support. There are things about security and safeguarding of that information that we support. And there's also the accessibility aspect. We make access for the people that are supposed to have that information easier while also making it more difficult for what we would call, "The bad guys." So regardless of the size of the organization, if they have a digital environment, we are a really good fit.
Maia Wells:
Wonderful. And I love how that fits in with what you said earlier about culture. And I'm wondering, how does creating a culture where you are supporting positive initiatives in the world, how does that impact your program's success? How does that impact your internal team? Do you think that's different when you're just selling a widget or a software of some kind and not having this eye towards social impact? How does company and team culture really impact you?
Peter Wheeler:
Impacting me personally, is one thing impacting the work... It makes work a lot easier, a win report on a standard enterprise customer, hoorah, we made this much money, it's this big, it's this great of a deal is one thing. But seeing tools you make used in a positive fashion and how they're changing the world, or how they're assisting someone, I don't want to own someone else's narrative, how they're assisting another organization in solving a problem is really cool to see. And it's really cool to share internally. And it's awesome at motivating. There's so many technologists I know that are moving out of the private sector and into the NGO and nonprofit space, because they want to put their talents to work and being able to provide that to people that stay in the public sector and give them fellowship opportunities, pro bono opportunities, and make them aware of customers of ours, or even just organizations that we're fond of, is a huge culture move. It's just very motivating. It's very inspiring to have customers that are doing awesome things.
Maia Wells:
I wonder Peter, if you think social media and the increased access for everyone to publish anything and read anything from anyone else has a big impact on enterprises and other big businesses, looking towards things like social responsibility, social impact, do you feel like it's changed in, let's say the last 15 years or so, as everybody's on social and sharing about what they do or don't respect about certain brands?
Peter Wheeler:
I'm sure it does, but I personally think it shouldn't. I do think that social used in that kind of context of calling someone out is not necessarily a productive fashion. One of the ways that I'm really enjoying social being used especially in the corporate social responsibility space is not defending who you are as a company, it's becoming a steward in a space it's becoming a community member. There are lots of nonprofit organizations and tangential to nonprofit organization platforms that we work with, not just in portfolio writing, so not... Beyond endowment and beyond being a benefactor, but being someone that puts people out there to volunteer, to donate their time, to give product, to support. That's the fun social. I just don't have much experience with what I would consider just trolling social, but I do see it as an opportunity for businesses to keep more feet on the ground and out of, I guess the ivory tower.
Maia Wells:
Right? It's like getting down there with the rest of us and making a difference. I think that many more people nowadays respect that from companies that they'd like to work with, even if they are not in the nonprofit sector, do you feel like they may see what Okta and Auth0.org are doing and as an enterprise customer or a quote-unquote "normal customer", do you think that has any impact on their decision to work with you or to work with the wider organization?
Peter Wheeler:
I would hope so. I love keeping friends that have the same positive intent that I do. So in with our own customers, having them go, "Hey, I saw that case study where we saw how the product was utilized in this bigger picture element to support this nonprofit, we have a similar use case." It was very cool. Okay, that's just a face value thing, but if feel like, "Hey, I'm a board member at..." or "I participate with..." Or "I volunteered at..." "And I really enjoyed using your product as that member." Someone that's from a more unaware audience and they want to become a customer. They want to improve their own enterprise environment. That's awesome too. And sometimes you can just be like, like I was saying before, I want to work with somebody that has the same mindset as me. I want to work with another good person, another hero, so to speak. So all three of those are great effects of having a good corporate social impact program.
Maia Wells:
Right. I mean, it's like, you can't go wrong doing good.
Peter Wheeler:
I would totally believe that. Yes. That I endorse. That is a great statement.
Maia Wells:
I love it. Well, before we close out today, I want to know what are you most excited about that's on the horizon, either for you personally in your career or for Auth0.org or the wider organization at Okta, what's coming up for you, Peter, that you want to share about?
Peter Wheeler:
I really want to talk about the space. This corporate social responsibility space. A lot of people that I talk to who have been in for a long time, still refer to the space as nascent, and that there's plenty of room for innovators to move in. That there's plenty of room for change for new ideas. And that is so cool to me. I love that as time's going on the gap between corporations and people that work for them and nonprofits and the people that work for them are closing. And they're becoming a lot more co-mingled and intertwined. There are many facilitators in the space, whether they be marketplaces or apps that help corporations work with nonprofits in a more controlled fashion is awesome. I just love how the space is growing and I'm hoping that we can stay trendsetters and leaders in that movement.
Maia Wells:
While Peter, that was a wonderful answer to end the interview with. I definitely appreciate your time today, and I hope we've inspired a few of you listeners out there to start looking at the responsibility and what you might be able to inspire within your own organization. Peter Wheeler, thanks for joining us on the Marketing Hero podcast.
Peter Wheeler:
Thanks for having me.
