Michelle Bove didn't start in enterprise software – she started as a soccer referee in seventh grade, hustling for an extra $10 per game, then moved into door-to-door sales at a three-person startup where she learned rejection quickly and loved it even more. That hunger never left. Today, as an AVP of East Sales at Wiz, she's built her career at some of the sharpest sales cultures in software history (PTC, AppDynamics, Zscaler), closed deals nobody else could get into, and turned around entire teams by replacing broken managers instead of blaming reps. In this conversation, she breaks down the real mechanics of winning: why likability is underrated, how to hire people better than you, why skip levels work when done transparently, and what it actually costs to prove yourself as a young female leader in cybersecurity. Her philosophy is simple: science plus art. Discipline and processes without human connection will only get you halfway there.
Michelle Bove is an AVP of East Sales at Wiz and has built her career at PTC, AppDynamics, and Zscaler – some of the sharpest sales cultures in enterprise software. She's known for closing deals nobody else could get into and turning underperforming teams into world-class organizations.