Alison Wagonfeld, CMO, Google Cloud | @wagonfeld sits down with John Furrier and Stu Miniman for Google Cloud Next 2019 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA #GoogleNext19 #theCUBE #WomenInTech https://siliconangle.com/2019/04/15/google-cloud-cmo-shares-tech-journey-anthos-insights-googlenext19/ Google Cloud CMO shares her tech journey and insights on Anthos Google LLC’s Cloud Services Platform always seemed a prosaic name, especially alongside a product pantheon that includes the container-orchestration system Kubernetes (meaning in Greek: helmsman) and microservice mesh Istio (meaning: sail). This changed at the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco last week, when CSP was reborn as an open, hybrid platform under the name Anthos (meaning: flower). “Anthos … is a cloud like no other,” said Alison Wagonfeld (pictured), chief marketing officer at Google Cloud. “[It] really enables the multicloud strategy, so it enables Google to be at the center of that multicloud and provide the services … [and] the best technology in the business.” Those who know Wagonfeld know that she thrives on “the excitement of tackling new challenges; the allure of riding the innovation wave; the anticipation of the unknown,” as she stated in a blog post marking her move to Google Cloud in 2016. So it’s no surprise to find her at the forefront of Google Cloud as the company makes a renewed challenge to Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Azure for supremacy in the cloud services market. When Diane Greene, then chief executive officer at Google Cloud, approached Wagonfeld to head up the Google Cloud marketing team, the marketer was conflicted. Although excited about the opportunities at Google, she was unsure about leaving a position she loved and nervous about the potential impact on her family. Then, the entrepreneur and mother of three realized four things about herself: She has always loved marketing, she’s an operator at heart, she has a supportive family and she was always on the lookout for opportunities to make an impact. It was then that she knew “this was the right role at the right company at the right time.” Wagonfeld’s diverse resume includes co-founder of Quicken Loans Inc., financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, board chair at the nonprofit My New Red Shoes and executive director of the Harvard Business School California Research Center. Her role at Google Cloud marketing draws on all these experiences and brings her back to her true love: marketing. Wagonfeld spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco (see the full interview with transcript here). This week, the CUBE spotlights Alison Wagonfeld in its Women in Tech feature. Rebranding Google Cloud Services Google has been the “dark horse” in the cloud market, trailing behind industry leaders Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Azure. Under Wagonfeld’s leadership, the marketing team is driving a rebranding to match the dynamism of Anthos and the company’s new multicloud strategy. Far from feeling like Google Cloud needs to play catch-up, Wagonfeld feels Google is really well positioned in the multicloud marketplace. “Eighty percent of workloads are still in data centers at these big enterprises … and most companies are choosing a multicloud strategy,” she said. Infrastructure, applications, and industry solutions are three key areas where Google Cloud aims to beat its competition. “First and foremost is … ensuring that we have the world’s best infrastructure,” Wagonfeld said. “Then, on top of that is ensuring that we have all the right applications to help with digital transformation. And then, as part of that, further, are the industry solutions.” But while technology is important, Wagonfeld makes sure the customer stays at the very top of the priority list. “We want our customers to be successful with their customers … to make sure we’re delivering the cloud technology so that [our] customers can really serve everyone they want to serve,” she stated. Anthos is enterprise-ready When Wagonfeld joined Google, customers were still “dabbling” with cloud, and the company itself had some work to do. “We still had some holes in some of our technology stack, and we were still really building the go-to-market teams,” she stated. ... Rebranding Google Cloud Services to Anthos marks a milestone in the evolution of Google Cloud. The company is taking a bold step into the future, making “a clear play for the hearts and minds of next-generation developers,” according to Wikibon analyst James Kobielus.