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Waverly Deutsch

👤 Speaker
1050 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I went on to experience a growth company with the entrepreneur, founder, CEO still in place. We were less than $10 million in revenue. We were 20 people. I was employee number 27. There had been a little bit of modest churn, and we went on our rocket ship.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I went on to experience a growth company with the entrepreneur, founder, CEO still in place. We were less than $10 million in revenue. We were 20 people. I was employee number 27. There had been a little bit of modest churn, and we went on our rocket ship.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We had hired a new VP of sales out of IBM, and he revolutionized the approach to go to market and sales, and the company took off, and we were the first company to tell people Fortune 1000 chief technology officers, chief information officers, you have to pay attention to the internet. And that was what put us on the map.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We had hired a new VP of sales out of IBM, and he revolutionized the approach to go to market and sales, and the company took off, and we were the first company to tell people Fortune 1000 chief technology officers, chief information officers, you have to pay attention to the internet. And that was what put us on the map.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We were working in the early days that I joined with their transition from big mainframe computing to client server computing and the PC and the role that the PC would play. And we were establishing ourselves as a leader in technology market research, but it was really our call around the internet that led took Forrester to the public company that it became and is today.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We were working in the early days that I joined with their transition from big mainframe computing to client server computing and the PC and the role that the PC would play. And we were establishing ourselves as a leader in technology market research, but it was really our call around the internet that led took Forrester to the public company that it became and is today.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

The founder CEO, still the CEO, personal friend, lifelong relationship. But I got to work very closely with him, see his journey, see what it means to scale a company, see what it means to take a product idea and turn it into reality. And that's where I fell in love with the entrepreneurial process.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

The founder CEO, still the CEO, personal friend, lifelong relationship. But I got to work very closely with him, see his journey, see what it means to scale a company, see what it means to take a product idea and turn it into reality. And that's where I fell in love with the entrepreneurial process.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I love that question and I think that for me it changed very much over time. The moment in my life, I was 29 years old when I graduated with my PhD, the moment in my life where I had the opportunity to join Forrester, no analysis was involved. No examination of the job, the market size, the career potential, no analysis.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I love that question and I think that for me it changed very much over time. The moment in my life, I was 29 years old when I graduated with my PhD, the moment in my life where I had the opportunity to join Forrester, no analysis was involved. No examination of the job, the market size, the career potential, no analysis.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

It was a gut feeling that this was an entry back into the world of technology that I wanted to get into. And a real sense that I could learn a ton from the people I met in my interview process. I could learn about business. It's not that I hadn't been working before. I had only been doing a PhD. I actually taught for Stanley Kaplan test prep for 15 years. Was it 15 years? Oh, my goodness.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

It was a gut feeling that this was an entry back into the world of technology that I wanted to get into. And a real sense that I could learn a ton from the people I met in my interview process. I could learn about business. It's not that I hadn't been working before. I had only been doing a PhD. I actually taught for Stanley Kaplan test prep for 15 years. Was it 15 years? Oh, my goodness.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

No, I guess it was about 15 years. From about 18 to about 29 to 11 years teaching people to prepare for the GRE, the GMAT, the SAT exam. I had been working in the office at Stanley Kaplan, so I had been in the world of business education. But this was an entry back into technology, and there was no, is this the right job for me? Let me look at the market size, due diligence on the company.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

No, I guess it was about 15 years. From about 18 to about 29 to 11 years teaching people to prepare for the GRE, the GMAT, the SAT exam. I had been working in the office at Stanley Kaplan, so I had been in the world of business education. But this was an entry back into technology, and there was no, is this the right job for me? Let me look at the market size, due diligence on the company.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

This was, I am so lucky to have this opportunity presenting itself to me. Fast forward... I leave Full Rooster in 1999, and I take a much more strategic approach, a much more logical, thoughtful approach to what I want to do next. I see a career coach, get some skills assessments done.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

This was, I am so lucky to have this opportunity presenting itself to me. Fast forward... I leave Full Rooster in 1999, and I take a much more strategic approach, a much more logical, thoughtful approach to what I want to do next. I see a career coach, get some skills assessments done.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I evaluate some jobs and realize that I don't want any of them as full-time jobs, but I enjoy the people that are coming to me. So rather than take another full-time job after recovering from my stint at Forrester, and I say recovering because we were growing so fast. We were working 50, 60 hour weeks. It was very stressful. We had gone through an IPO.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

I evaluate some jobs and realize that I don't want any of them as full-time jobs, but I enjoy the people that are coming to me. So rather than take another full-time job after recovering from my stint at Forrester, and I say recovering because we were growing so fast. We were working 50, 60 hour weeks. It was very stressful. We had gone through an IPO.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We had reached 200 million in sales and 400 people in the company all in the seven and a half years I was there. So I took a little break after I left Forrester.

Chief Change Officer
#123 From Curtain Calls to Business Cases: Waverly Deutsch’s Path from Theatre Historian to Chicago Booth Professor

We had reached 200 million in sales and 400 people in the company all in the seven and a half years I was there. So I took a little break after I left Forrester.