Congratulations, G! Ex-Zuora CPO Guillaume Vives Joins 360Learning as Chief Product and Technology Officer

At 360Learning, we’re enabling L&D teams everywhere to upskill from within through the power of collaborative learning. This radical large-scale transformation is a huge task, and it takes the right team with the right vision.

For the past two years, Guillaume has been supporting our leadership team to build this vision. Now, it’s time to take this movement to the enterprise level.

That’s why we’re so thrilled to announce that Guillaume is joining the team as our new Chief Product and Technology Officer!

A proven track record of driving market shifts

As a 20+ year veteran in Silicon Valley, particularly in the enterprise software industry, Guillaume has an impressive track record of creating new categories for startups, notably for the subscription-based software outfit Zuora. He helped drive the wider market shift from a focus on products to customer relationships: the Subscription Economy.

Zuora is well-known for being the first company with a go-to-market strategy built on the concept of the Subscription Economy, rather than a software category like Billing Management or CRM. Guillaume was instrumental in building a powerful strategic narrative around this concept.

Zuora’s Subscription Economy playbook won acclaim throughout the startup scene via Andy Raskin’s viral blog post, The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen. Now, this playbook has become one of the most revered go-to-market playbooks for hyper-growth startups like Gong and Drift. It has also won Zuora an impressive number of leading brand logos. As a product marketer, I return to Zuora’s deck as a North Star for my own work.

Guillaume joined Zuora as a Vice President of Customer Success in 2011. The company had just 40 employees and $8M in Annual Recurring Revenue. Nine months later he took responsibility for the product team and then the marketing team as Zuora’s Chief Product Marketing Officer. Zuora went on to IPO in 2018 at a $1.44B valuation.

In leading the charge for Zuora’s playbook, it’s no exaggeration to say Guillaume changed the way startups think about the Subscription Economy and strategic narratives more broadly.

Changing the way startups think about the Subscription Economy

Driving this change didn’t just happen overnight. From 2012 to 2016, Guillaume and Tien Tzuo, Zuora’s CEO, focused on building the subscription space slowly and surely.

At first, nobody seemed to care or understand how subscription models could transform B2B businesses. But Guillaume and Tien’s marketing efforts really started to take off from 2014 onwards, when big names like Audi started selling subscriptions to their fleets, or when Michelin started selling tires by the kilometer.

In these cases, these companies used Zuora not only as their billing platform, but as a source of business model inspiration. They needed a way to prepare for a future in which customers expect goods and services to be delivered via a subscription model. Zuora delivered.

We’re excited to see how Guillaume will continue to apply his spirit of invention to the learning space.

Taking collaborative learning to the enterprise level

Our CEO Nick Hernandez first met Guillaume Vives through 360Learning investor XAnge and Stephan Dietrich in 2020. Since then, they’ve been working closely together on new ways to reinvent the learning space.

For the past two years, Guillaume has been supporting the 360Learning leadership team to build a powerful strategic narrative, showing organizations everywhere the promise of upskilling from within through collaborative learning. Now, it’s time to take this movement to the enterprise level.

As Guillaume points out, there’s plenty of room for bold new thinking. “The learning space is screaming for a reinvention,” he says. “And with its unique vision for collaborative learning, 360Learning is on point.”

“That’s why I’m so delighted to be stepping up as the company’s new CPTO. Nick and the team have built an amazing business that is transforming organizations by helping them to embrace collaborative learning and upskill from within. I am excited to join the team and help create a new category leader. I look forward to enhancing our mission and delivering even greater value to our customers worldwide.”

360Learning CEO and Co-Founder Nick Hernandez shares Guillaume’s enthusiasm. “G is a legend of the software industry, with the creativity and passion to shape businesses to help them become global leaders. It’s a pleasure to have him on board the 360Learning team and I look forward to working closely with him as we continue to transform the rapidly evolving L&D industry.”

Welcome to your next phase at 360Learning, Guillaume!