On today's episode of Revenue Mavericks, I sat down with Ed McDonnell, Chief Revenue Officer at Braze, the leading customer engagement platform. Ed has held CRO roles at both Braze and Asana, spent more than a decade helping build the marketing practice at Salesforce, and got his start in enterprise software at Eloqua before its acquisition by Oracle. But what stood out in our conversation wasn't the trajectory. It was the thread running through all of it: a belief that the best leaders don't manage from a distance. They stay in the work, stay accessible, and let their people watch them do it.
1. Three High Schools, Four Years, and a Crash Course in Leading Through Change
Ed grew up in Port Chester, New York, a small village between Rye and Greenwich. His mom was a nurse, his dad was a cop. Three weeks into ninth grade at an all-boys Catholic high school, his mother took a director of nursing education role in Denver, and the family moved cross-country. Ed enrolled in a new school, built new friendships, and found his footing in a completely different culture. Then, midway through junior year, his mother accepted a VP of nursing position back in New York, and they moved again.
The result was three high schools in four years and a teenager learning resilience in real time. Ed credits those transitions with building the skill set he still draws on today: the ability to walk into unfamiliar rooms, connect with people quickly, and lead through change instead of resisting it. His father, a New York police officer, reinforced that instinct with a piece of advice Ed still carries: "Be the USA Today." Know enough about a lot of things to hold a conversation with anyone. Find the thing that's relatable, the shared experience, and build from there. It wasn't about authority. It was about approachability. His dad's most powerful tool, Ed says, wasn't his badge. It was his smile.
2. Getting Let Go Was the Launchpad, Not the Setback
After spending the first 15 years of his career in financial information and technology, anchored by a long run at what is now Thomson Reuters, Ed found himself at a crossroads. A role at Edgar Online didn't work out, and in mid-November, with young children and a mortgage, he was let go.
Rather than scrambling to find the next version of what he'd already been doing, Ed paused. He wrote down the companies he admired most and what specifically he admired about them. He asked himself whether he knew anyone at those companies. That exercise pointed him toward high-growth software, and through a mutual connection, he landed at Eloqua when it was still a $30 million startup. He showed up to his first sales kickoff in Toronto wearing a sports coat and tie. His new CEO walked out in an untucked shirt, cufflinks, and cowboy boots. It was a different world, and Ed was all in.
Eloqua led to Oracle, which led to Salesforce when it was a $2 billion company, which led to Asana, which led to Braze. Ed's point isn't that getting fired was a gift. It's that the moment forced him to stop running on autopilot and actually decide what he wanted. That intentionality changed the entire second act of his career.
3. The 6P's: A Framework for Running the Revenue Engine
At Braze, Ed operates from a framework he calls the 6P's: People, Pipeline, Programs, Process, Performance, and Possibilities. It's how he structures his quarterly operating plans, how he communicates with his organization, and how he runs the rhythm of the business.
People is about acquiring, leading, and creating movement so that individuals see real career trajectories. Pipeline is the fuel, specifically annual contract value, and how the engine performs from top of funnel through close. Programs covers field readiness, certifications, and internal learning environments. Process is the operating cadence itself: what meetings exist, what they accomplish, and how information flows across the organization. Ed writes a quarterly operating plan, shares it with his directs and their direct reports, invites feedback, reviews it at mid-quarter, and revisits it at the end. Full transparency, full accountability.
Performance, for Ed, is less about dashboards and more about mindset. He believes a performance culture starts with the leader being present in the work. Taking customer calls. Sitting in on deals. Being accessible when someone is grinding on a problem. Not heroics, but showing people that leadership isn't watching from an Ivory Tower. It's being part of the story. And Possibilities is about painting the picture of where the organization is going and what it takes to get there together.
Why This Matters
Braze recently posted an $821 million quarterly revenue run rate with nearly 30% year-over-year growth and rising net dollar retention. Those numbers don't come from one leader. Ed is the first to say that. They come from an environment where people believe they can do the best work of their careers, and where leadership is close enough to the ground to help them do it. For sales leaders looking to build that kind of culture, Ed's playbook is worth studying: write it down, share it transparently, hold yourself accountable first, and never stop shaking the nest.
Listen to the full conversation on the Revenue Mavericks podcast.