Mark Templeton, CEO of Citrix and an NC State alumnus, spoke about the importance of critical thinking and offered leadership advice to a crowd of about 300 students, faculty and professionals Wednesday evening as part of the Wells Fargo Lecture Series.
Citrix is a software company specializing in mobile, server, desktop virtualization and cloud technology, with $3.14 billion in revenue in 2014 and 10,000 employees. Templeton joined Citrix in 1995 as vice president of marketing right before the IPO and was appointed CEO in 2001.
“You don’t know this, but every one of you use Citrix technology every day, Templeton said. “When you go to eBay or Amazon to shop, you use Citrix technology that sits in front of those giant applications. Citrix is about securely delivering the world’s most important apps.”
The event started with a brief overview of Templeton’s history at NC State and at Citrix. Templeton graduated with a bachelor’s degree in product design from the College of Design.
“I originally started in the engineering school,” Templeton said. “I didn’t do too well. The bar for entry for the school of engineering was lower than for college for design.”
After overcoming some challenges, Templeton was able to get into the College of Design and complete his degree.
“The school has a really powerful process for helping you develop powerful critical thinking skills,” Templeton said. “We spent the two years of unhooking you from the linear thinking processes and really focusing on thinking differently. It’s that critical thinking that I think is the most powerful thing that I took away from the education.”
Inspiration is part of Citrix’s business, according to Templeton.
“Software and technology is about selling potential,” Templeton said. “It’s selling a new and better way for people to live and work. This is what binds 10,000 people together.”
Company culture of integrity, respect, humility and convictions were other major themes of the event.
“We have created a lot of wealth for shareholders, but we run the company for employees and customers,” Templeton said. “If you are an employee or customer, you are investing more than money. You are investing your career, your time, your reputation. You can’t get that back. You are investing a lot of things you can’t get back. These are the investors I would rather pay attention to.”
Templeton also heavily discussed leadership, listing five things that he considered the most important in a leader: leading from the front, owning up to your mistakes, delegating well, being a role model and seeing both the opportunities and the obstacles.
“First thing, own your mistakes,” Templeton said. “You will make many of them. There are opportunities to learn. Depending on the kind of mistake, they are an opportunity to build your character.”
Curiosity and asking questions was another aspect of leadership that Templeton discussed.
“The most devastating mistake I made in my career was not asking for advice,” Templeton said. “I thought as CEO I thought I would have all the answers, and I thought asking questions was a sign of a weakness. After the event, I realized that the most successful people are the ones that ask for advice. It shows you are curious, it shows confidence, it shows you are smart.”
During the presentation, Templeton showed images of himself while at NC State and spoke about how being part of a fraternity at NC State was another life-changing experience for him.
After the event, Templeton spoke about his decision to give his talk at NC State.
“[I want] to begin the process of giving back to the university that gave me a lot of roots and work lessons that steered my life in a powerful way,” Templeton said.
