In this episode, Vladan sits down with Patrick Wittenberg — VP of Sales for EMEA & APAC at Docker. Patrick started his sales career in 2004 and worked for notable companies like Comodo, Siteimprove, Elastic and Chargebee before joining Docker, where he grew his commercial team from 5 to 70 FTE. Topics: how Docker changed software development, running “rest of world” revenue, hiring for curiosity, culture and trust as motivators, performance management, and being a bridge builder between regional teams and US headquarters.
Vladan: Welcome to the Nobel Podcast. Today’s guest is Patrick Wittenberg. Patrick started his sales career in 2004 and worked for notable companies like Comodo, Siteimprove, Elastic and Chargebee, and is currently the VP of Sales for EMEA and APAC at Docker. In his role he grew his commercial team from 5 to 70 FTE, with driving revenue growth and global expansion as his main mission. Welcome, Patrick.
Patrick: Thank you.
Vladan: So for our context — what kind of company is Docker, in terms of the problems they solve and the market they’re in?
Patrick: Docker is a tech company. The best way to describe what we do — and what we use internally as well — is to compare it to shipping. The reason we call what we do “containers”: if you compare this to 50, 60, 70 years ago, before the advent of physical metal containers on ships, ships would dock for about 50–60% of the time, because there were no standards. You would come with your bag of potatoes and put it on the ship, I would come with my bag of onions and put it next to it. It was very illogical, it took a lot of time — and when the ship was at sea going to its next location, my onions would go bad and affect your potatoes. By the time you arrived at your destination, both would be gone. It was time-consuming, expensive, and not efficient for global trade. Then somebody decided: why don’t we standardize? We come up with this metal box, this metal container — everything is the same size. Instead of taking days to offload ships, they could do it in an hour or two. All of a sudden trade was booming, new possibilities opened, and there was also security: if my goods went bad, it stayed within my container.
If we compare that to Docker, that’s exactly what we do as well. Before Docker, if you were a software developer, you would write a line of code and it would work on your machine. But when it was time for testing, you’d hand it over to your colleague — who’d have a different laptop, a different OS, a different database, different versions — and it wouldn’t work. A lot of manual configuration was needed to make what you’d written work on somebody else’s laptop. Then it would go to staging, then production, and the same problem kept happening. Docker didn’t invent containers, but we democratized them — we made them available, and it became the de facto standard globally. Keeping the same analogy: it’s a box, this time a virtual one, with all the packages and dependencies that belong to that piece of code already prepackaged. So what you write will work on somebody else’s machine, and no more manual config is needed.
Vladan: Interesting — and I love the metaphor. And how big is Docker? When was it founded, what’s the funding situation?
Patrick: We were founded in 2013 — slightly before, under a different name, dotCloud, but as Docker since 2013. We’re currently at Series C, about 700–750 employees right now, with a global presence.
Vladan: And where does most of the business come from — US, EMEA, APAC?
Patrick: Typically what you see in tech is that roughly 70% of the revenue comes out of North America, with 30% coming from the rest of the world. I run rest of world — everything but North America — which is approximately that 30%.
Vladan: Interesting — a big responsibility on your shoulders. And what is the commercial model? Is it product-led growth, an enterprise sales motion?
Patrick: It’s a combination. We have tens of thousands of customers, and about 20-something million monthly active users. Obviously you can’t give everyone the same level of attention — nor should you want to. So there’s a lot of self-serve happening, a lot of PLG. And when you look at the top 2,000 companies worldwide, those are the ones we actively go to — the ones we engage with, the ones we have account plans for.
Vladan: So very much an account-based sales approach for the top 2,000 companies. And what does your role as VP of Sales for EMEA and APAC entail exactly, day to day or week to week?
Patrick: The reason I love it so much is because it’s so varied. This week is all about QBRs — later today I’m presenting my own QBR to leadership. Next week is completely different: we’re rolling out a new partner program, which means I’ll be speaking with a lot of our partners, and we’re acquiring some new ones. Things change per week. Ultimately I’m responsible for revenue growth within my territory, my geos — but the demands of the region differ per day. There’s a lot of enablement happening, a lot of change because of AI and the impact it has on how we enable our teams, and a lot of product updates. We’re going to market right now with a new product called Docker Hardened Images, which is extremely impactful, but also means there’s a lot of learning to do: how do we sell this, what’s the best playbook to roll it out successfully across different geos? Because the way you sell in North America is vastly different from how you sell in Japan, for example.
Vladan: That makes total sense. So your responsibility is revenue — from marketing to lead generation to closing deals, but also existing accounts, expanding those, preventing churn — and on top of that, projects like new product introductions and QBRs.
Patrick: QBRs happen every quarter, of course — nothing new for anyone who’s worked in sales for more than a couple of years. And they trickle down: at my level the QBRs are slightly different from how individual contributors have theirs, but they’re no less and no more important — what we discuss obviously impacts the teams further down the line as well.
Vladan: And how are you held accountable? Do you have an annual quota to hit and overachieve?
Patrick: Yeah, I have an annual quota, which is revenue based — and a bit churn based: if there’s churn of a particular size, you may get penalized on it. But ultimately it’s about revenue.
Vladan: And how are you performing against that quota, this year and last year?
Patrick: This year is going really well — we just finished Q2 three weeks ago at 130%.
Vladan: Congrats!
Patrick: Thank you — it’s going to be a nice QBR today. Last year was more difficult; we didn’t hit quota, we ended at about 88%. That wasn’t great, but we know the reasons — and the reason we’re doing so well right now is that we took those learnings and adjusted.
Vladan: And that quota, just for reference — 1 million, 10 million, 100 million?
Patrick: It’s between 10 and 100.
Vladan: Fair enough — I understand you can’t disclose exact numbers. And you mentioned Q2 at 130% — that sounds like a great overachievement. What led to this?
Patrick: A couple of things. As I mentioned, we’re currently going to market with a new product. It’s still fairly new, so we’re waiting to see the long-term revenue attribution, but it’s already yielding — that’s fantastic. Another thing: because of our efforts over the last couple of years, the relationships with our customers have grown to the point where we’re closing site licenses — all-you-can-eat licenses, which are typically bigger. Docker Desktop, our flagship product, is a seat-based product: seats times price per seat. The more adoption you see of our technology, the more developers need a Docker license. Our biggest customers have dev populations of 20 to 80 thousand developers who’d need licenses. So at some point, when adoption reaches critical mass and you’re considered a critical piece of their tech stack — site licenses come.
AI and the developer ecosystem
Vladan: While we’re on the topic — I’m reading more and more in the news about AI adoption and what that means for the number of developers companies employ. I’m hearing everywhere that it could be drastically cut in the future. Will that affect these pricing models, and how do you see that evolving for Docker?
Patrick: First of all, I think it’s a bit premature to say the number of developers is going to change drastically. I think the scope of a developer’s day-to-day is going to change. AI is not going to replace people per se, but change the way they work — hopefully make them more effective, more productive, which is what we all want. It’s how I’m using AI myself. But yes, it could fundamentally change the way we do business, and it’s also why we — just like any other company out there — are focusing very hard on AI products.
And because of the position we have within the SDLC — the software development life cycle — we have Docker Hub, which is basically the largest open-source image repository in the world. If you’re a developer, you’re using Docker Hub about 95 out of 100 times. What we’re doing right now is building AI propositions that aren’t necessarily monetized, to make sure that whenever developers across the world are working on AI products, they’re doing it through Docker.
“Sales is not about selling — it’s about solving problems.”
Hiring: the buck stops at curiosity
Vladan: In the last few years we’ve spoken to countless sales leaders, and what we discovered is that there are basically six main pillars to the success of a sales leader. The first is hiring, retention and rewards. The second is inspiring and motivating. The third is training, coaching and performance management — these three are all around managing a team. Then there are three more focused on your individual contributions as a leader: strategic vision, operational excellence, and internal collaboration and alignment. For us, the human and team part is the most relevant, so I’d like to focus on the first three pillars. On the front of hiring, retention and rewards — what is your number one tip for the listener today?
Patrick: There’s one thing I personally value more than any other skill or character trait when it comes to anyone in go-to-market, or anyone in a customer-facing role — and that’s curiosity. For me, the buck stops at curiosity. If you’re not interested in learning, if you’re not interested in asking questions, you can never be successful. You may get lucky, but long-term you never will be.
Sales is not about selling — weird as that may sound. It’s not about me convincing you that you need my products. I can do that — shoving it down your throat — and it works sometimes, but it doesn’t make my business successful long-term, because I’ll probably overpromise and underdeliver, which means that when you’re up for renewal in 12 months, you’re going to churn — which means I’m not going to be successful. Sales is not about selling, it’s about solving problems. If I can attach my solution to one of your key challenges and show you how I can solve it, then you’re leaning in — then you’re buying a solution that’s going to help you not just for a year but over the course of time. The customer life cycle is going to be longer, which means you’ll be successful long-term, and so will I.
Vladan: I love that. So selling is not about convincing somebody they need your product — it’s about understanding the business problems and challenges and how your solution fits.
Patrick: It’s about solving problems. I often compare it to this: when I was 15, 16, I needed a part-time job. As soon as I outgrew my paperboy days, my next part-time job was as a telemarketer. I’m giving away my age, but I was one of those guys that would call you up in the evening in the ’90s to sell you a paper newspaper subscription — three weeks for a tenner. It was a good deal! But that was all about convincing. It wasn’t about solving problems — it was “I’m convincing you to buy my product, pull out your credit card and pay.” And that results in a lot of churn, obviously.
Vladan: So that curiosity is one of the traits you look for in your salespeople. To make that very practical — how do you uncover somebody’s curiosity in an interview process? How do you get to that checkmark of “this person has the level of curiosity I want in my team”?
Patrick: I want to see people actually own a meeting. The people that typically impress me — that get past me — are the ones that make it a conversation, and that don’t just wait for me to prompt them with “by the way, do you have any questions?” in the last three minutes. If that happens, then it’s basically over. It doesn’t mean you need to lead it or show that you’re the boss — there are things I need to know and want to ask — but make it a conversation. Don’t make it an interview.
Vladan: Interesting. So your criteria is basically seeing how somebody behaves during the interview — whether they ask a lot of questions and take ownership of that interview.
Patrick: And in that way showing me that you can do the job — because it’s just like a discovery call. Show, instead of tell.
“In the absence of trust, culture becomes toxic.”
Inspiring and motivating: culture, trust, stability
Vladan: That’s a great tip. Then, around inspiring and motivating your team — a difficult topic but super important. Are there specific things you do to inspire and motivate the people working for and with you?
Patrick: I think the main thing that motivates people is culture. Sales is a tough job, and it can be tough — if you don’t hit your number, sometimes it feels like everything is going badly for you. The thing that typically motivates people and keeps them with you much longer than comp by itself does, is culture. Are the people I work with fun? Does leadership believe in me, do they understand me? Can I make mistakes? Can I try out new things, and do I feel the security to raise my hand and say, “look, I tried this thing, it didn’t work, this is what I learned from it” — without being afraid someone’s going to bite my head off?
Vladan: Interesting. You say culture, but when you explain it, it feels more like trust, actually — if somebody can try new things, fail, and not be afraid of the consequences, I can imagine that’s a huge motivator.
Patrick: Trust is a super important part of culture — it’s not the only thing, but in the absence of trust, culture becomes toxic. Obviously I don’t want you to make the same mistake three or four times — that’s going to be a problem. But I also don’t want you to play it safe. We’re not in the business of playing it safe. We need to try out new things, we need to be creative. And I realize you can only do that when the internal culture is such that people feel enabled and empowered to do so.
Vladan: And are there specific things you do to make sure they feel empowered to make those mistakes?
Patrick: Lead by example. When I make mistakes, I call them out — because I make just as many mistakes as anyone else. But it’s also about being stable: stable in your responses, in the way you respond to situations and to people, so people know what they can expect. If you’re unpredictable, people don’t know how you’re going to respond to a certain situation — then doubt creeps in. And when doubt creeps in, people are going to play it safe.
Everything we do is based on trust. When I hire you, you have 150% trust from me. We make clear agreements: this is how we’re going to do it, this is our playbook, this is how we collectively as a go-to-market organization agree is our road to success. If we consistently deliver on these steps, we’re going to be successful. But it also means that if, for whatever reason, we don’t have a successful year — like last year, when we missed our number but consistently did what we set out to do — that’s still part of performance management. You can not hit your number, but still have done a good job given the circumstances. And if we do that, it also means we can give that trust to people. We don’t need to micromanage, because people are doing what we collectively agreed.
Vladan: That’s a very interesting point — that trust is ingrained from the onboarding process by having a super clear playbook: this is what we set out to do as an organization, this is how we collaborate, how we treat each other, how we expect you to perform — and if not, this is how we handle it and set you back on track.
Patrick: For me, culture is non-negotiable. When I hire individual contributors, one of the interviews is a peer interview — if you’re an AE, you’ll interview with somebody from your team. Because as much as I may like you as a candidate, or another leader may like you, I also want to make sure there’s buy-in towards you within your team, within your pod. The example I gave earlier — you can miss your number but still have had a good year because you did the right things at the right time, consistently — also goes the other way. You can do 120%, but if that 120% comes at the cost of those around you, because you’re toxic, because you’re unbearable — that’s not a job well done. I’m still not going to be happy with you, because your 120% maybe results in five times 90% from the other people.
Vladan: That makes total sense — and I guess that’s one of the reasons you have a positive culture where people can collaborate. One question around that: is the person doing the peer interview an influencer or a decision-maker in whether somebody proceeds to the next round?
Patrick: They’re an influencer. They don’t make the decision — but depending on the feedback, if the feedback is so negative, then obviously you cannot proceed.
Vladan: So it can be a break, but not a make.
Patrick: Make or break, yeah. But it also depends on the interviewer. There are a couple of people within my org that I’ve had interview candidates — some of them are really precise, maybe even spend too much time writing scorecards; as a recruiter you’d love that, and as a leader I do too. And there are people who are a bit more shooting from the hip, or who see it as an admin task they want to get over with as soon as possible — where you don’t get as much information. But I haven’t had too many rejections from peer interviews.
“You can do 120% — but if that 120% comes at the cost of those around you, that’s not a job well done.”
Training, coaching and performance management
Vladan: Interesting to take note of — definitely a great step to have in an interview process. You already touched upon performance management, but that was the third pillar: training, coaching and performance management. Any specific tips, tricks or secrets?
Patrick: Something that I started doing — about 18 years into my career, so I started late, and that’s a lesson if I could go back to my early days — is investing in self-paced learning. As an employer, as a leader, I can feed you as much enablement and content as I want, but there’s also a responsibility you have yourself: to stay up to date with industry trends, and to learn new skills. As a contributor that can be a new sales methodology, or listening to podcasts like this one. As a leader it can be around those same topics, but also: how do I manage teams, how do I inspire? What I could have done more in the beginning was invest more in myself. When I finally woke up to that and started doing it consistently, I would block one hour of my week — always Friday morning, half past eight to half past nine — to work on this. No agenda: something I’d run into during the week, something I wanted to learn more about. That was my time. I would shut off Slack, shut off email, everything, and just focus that one hour on learning something.
Vladan: Nice — a great takeaway for your personal development. But how do you translate that to the people in your team? Do you ask them to do the same, or how do they take ownership of their training and coaching?
Patrick: I recommend it, absolutely. I don’t force it upon them — because your career is your responsibility, not mine. I will help you if you want help, as much as I’m able to. But I’m not going to hold your hand. If you’re ambitious, and if you’re curious and want to know more, you will do it. I’m not going to be the one to kick you into it.
Vladan: Fair enough. And what about when somebody is not performing to the standards that you, or Docker, want them to? Do you have a specific approach or methodology?
Patrick: Performance management is a constant thing. We have weekly one-to-ones between a manager and their direct reports. That’s about feedback — 360-degree feedback: the feedback I have towards my direct reports, and the feedback they have towards me, which I proactively ask for. There are QBRs, where we look into past performance. And another thing I’ve introduced in my organization: everyone has a development plan, which changes per quarter. If I see, or my leaders see, that there’s something this person can do better based on what they’ve done in the last three months, we adjust the development plan.
When it comes to performance management, when things don’t go well — it should never come as a surprise. You’re laughing, but it still happens that one-to-ones are too much of a catch-up, and not enough about “these are the expectations, and you’re not living up to them in certain ways.” That sounds really bad, but sometimes it needs to be said — just like I sometimes need to hear from my boss that there are things I can do better. That’s what’s going to make me grow.
Vladan: That’s also part of a performance culture, right? We’re not in business only to have fun — we want to achieve results.
Patrick: And to have that continuously, you need to be able to discuss these things. The only way we can have fun is if we’re that high-performance team we set out to be, and if we have buy-in on “this is how we’re going to do it.” If somebody doesn’t deliver on that — whether that’s me or somebody else — we need to hear about it, and then we need to adjust.
For me, performance management has three pillars. One is performance — your attainment; this is a very measurable business. Two is doing the right things at the right time, consistently — the quality of your work, not just as a one-off, but every day, every week. The third is how you behave and operate within your team, within your pod. Obviously numbers are the most important one, but they’re not the end-all be-all.
Navigating HQ and the region: be a bridge builder
Vladan: Thanks for those insights. Final question, Patrick. I can imagine that in your role it must be very difficult: on the one hand you need to report into the US, where they have certain expectations and goals; on the other hand you have these 50, 60, 70 employees that roll up to you. There must be a lot of things you need to mitigate, a lot of things that are out of your direct span of control but still your responsibility. Is there anything you do specifically to navigate those challenges — and what advice can you give to somebody stepping into that kind of role?
Patrick: Perhaps one tiny correction before I answer: my org itself isn’t 50 — it’s the entire go-to-market organization, so sales, customer success. They don’t all report directly to me; there are dotted lines because of the role I have, but the entire go-to-market team in my territories is that number.
To answer your question: in any leadership role — actually in any role, period — it’s all about relationships. Sales is a team sport. You cannot do it by yourself. When silos occur — between sales and success, sales and marketing, sales and pre-sales — that’s when things go wrong, because there’s a breakdown in communication. So I see it as my job to be a bridge builder: to speak with my peers in other teams, to understand them, to understand what success looks like for them. Because these are my KPIs — but if yours are different, if there’s a clash between goals, that’s when silos occur. All of a sudden, what I’m trying to achieve is counterproductive towards what you’re trying to achieve.
I’ll give you an example — not one we experience at Docker, thankfully, but one I’ve seen in the past — between sales and marketing. Marketing is measured purely on MQLs: “I just need to get as many of them as possible, and quality doesn’t really matter.” Then sales gets them and rejects all of them, because they’re not measured on MQLs — they’re measured on SALs, sales-accepted leads. So marketing has done a fantastic job at 200%, but sales doesn’t have the pipeline.
Vladan: A classical example — and a great one to round our conversation up with today. Thanks a lot, Patrick — a lot of insights unpacked today. If you’re interested in following Patrick, he’s of course findable on LinkedIn. And if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to see more of it, please like and subscribe. Hopefully see you on the next episode — take care. Thanks, Patrick.
Patrick: Thank you.
