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From bicycle sales to CIO: how a non-technical path accelerated leadership
Table of contents
About this episode
Bryan Wise didn't start in IT. He spent his 20s in sales, starting out selling bicycles, and didn't move into IT until his 30s. In 1996, after studying for his Microsoft certifications on his own, he landed a role at an early dot-com called Tamtron. He crushed the technical interview because he'd memorized everything. Then his new team asked him to build a real Exchange environment, something he'd only ever done in a lab. He stayed up for 24 hours straight with his books beside him, because there was no searching online for the answer.
That experience taught him that book smarts mean nothing until you've actually done the work. "Fake it till you make it" is real, he says, but it takes boldness and a willingness to grind through the discomfort.
"Accept that you will have imposter syndrome, and that's totally okay."
His sales background turned out to be what set him apart. Bryan has always been driven by revenue, so even as a director, when he talked to a CFO or CRO, he went straight to the financial outcome the business was trying to achieve. While other IT leaders were still learning to speak the language of business, he was already fluent. Nearly 30 years later, he's CIO at 6sense, having built his career through companies including DocuSign, Snowflake, and GitLab.
He believes that skill matters more now than ever, and not just for CIOs. Around 2000, when he was at Coherent, about 70% of IT work was simply keeping large systems running. Today, AI is lowering the technical barrier, and as agentic platforms write more of the code, even software developers need to translate their work into what the customer actually needs.
"Speak in business terms always. I don't care if you're an IC or an executive."
He walks Matt Peters through how he's running AI adoption at 6sense. His AI champions program goes function by function. Each executive nominates a frontline champion rather than putting themselves forward, the group meets regularly, and quarterly prizes go to the best initiatives, voted on by the champions themselves. Mandatory AI training is coming next.
"Nothing would make me happier than to change the workforce in a way that they're successful."
Bryan also explains a decision that breaks from what most companies do. Instead of buying a contract lifecycle management tool like everyone else, he told his legal team to ignore every existing CLM vendor and build a new process from scratch around agentic capabilities.
What you'll learn in this episode
- How a sales background can become an advantage in IT leadership
- Why book smarts mean nothing until you've done the work
- Why imposter syndrome is a normal part of learning
- Why every IT role, from IC to CIO, needs to speak in business terms
- How AI and agentic platforms are changing what technical roles require
- How to run an AI champions program across every function
- Why frontline champions, not executives, should lead AI adoption on each team
- Why rebuilding a process around agentic AI can beat buying legacy software
About Bryan Wise
Bryan Wise is CIO at 6sense. He began his career in sporting goods sales before studying for his Microsoft certifications on his own and moving into IT in the late 1990s. His career spans nearly 30 years across companies including Coherent, Facetime Communications, DocuSign, Snowflake, and GitLab.
He is known for bringing a revenue-oriented, business-first mindset to IT leadership and is currently leading workforce AI transformation at 6sense, including a structured AI champions program and mandatory AI literacy training across the organization.
Resources mentioned
About the host
Matt Peters is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fixify, where he's redefining the IT help desk for the AI era. Before founding Fixify, he was Chief Product Officer at Expel and held senior leadership roles at FireEye and Mandiant, where he helped pioneer some of the earliest managed detection and response services.
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