jameswpurvis.com

Early Life   

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   I grew up in Lakewood, Colorado in a household of entrepreneurs. My parents owned and operated a family jewelry business that they ran for over 40 years strong. Growing up in this environment taught me the ins and outs of business at a very young age. My mother was a sales ninja and generated roughly 70% of the store's revenue while my father designed and crafted the majority of the inventory. After witnessing how much customers loved my parents and the passion and hard work they put in to make them happy - I was inspired and destined to become a sales professional early on.

 

   In both middle school and high school, I was a student-athlete and worked at my parent's store part-time starting at 12 years old. My parents emphasized the importance of work ethic and taking responsibility financially from the very beginning which has paid huge dividends for my two siblings and me. Nothing was ever handed to us and we had to work for nearly everything on our own. Because of their teachings, I've had a very successful career in sales, am completely out of debt, and have a strong work ethic that carries over in everything I do.

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SALES CAREER

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   After high school, I went straight into college and graduated 4 years later from Colorado State University with a business degree. During my senior year, I took a dream internship selling premium seats for the Denver Broncos. I racked up enough revenue that year to be named the top sales rep in the organization for 2004 surpassing all the full-time employees. This solidified my decision to pursue sales as a career.   

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   Upon graduating from college in 2004, I began my technology sales career by taking a role with Hewlett-Packard. After spending several years there, I decided to stay put in the tech field and took roles at Symantec and then Dell. After my third year at Dell, I knew I wanted something much different as I spent my last 9 years working for well-established, publicly traded companies in territories I inherited. Coming from an entrepreneurial upbringing, I've had the "builder" mentality from the get-go so and knew it was time to enter the startup world. So, in 2013 I joined Okta, Inc. which was an early-stage startup at the time and would pave the way to my much brighter future. 

 

   At Okta, I quickly learned how to elevate my game and became a top 10% producer every single year. In 2015, I accomplished what might be my greatest achievement to date as I finished #1 in worldwide sales and received Okta's most prestigious award, "Rep of the Year." This award propelled my career and gave me a taste of what it truly takes to reach the top. After 3 President's Clubs and a successful IPO, I decided to leave Okta in 2017 and join Rubrik, Inc. which was making lots of noise in the startup world at the time.

 

   At Rubrik, I stuck to my process and was a consistent top performer which led to a company record, a 5-time "Beaver Award" winner (award given to the hardest working rep each quarter), and tickets to President's Club every year. In 2018, I achieved my greatest award thus far by finishing #1 in worldwide sales for new business by bringing in the most customers across the company. This is a Rubrik record I still hold today. 

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  In an effort to "swing for the fences," I joined data security startup Veza, Inc. in 2021. While there I helped the company launch out of stealth in early 2022 and assisted in building out the original sales team and go-to-market strategy over a 14-month period. We were able to snag up $110M in VC funding at a $500M valuation during my tenure there and led the organization in revenue attainment. 

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   Today, I'm back at Rubrik where I lead a team of Enterprise sellers in the "BBQ Region." I was tasked to rebuild the team and quickly develop new sellers into quota-crushing Rubrikans. It's so awesome to be back here as it feels like home. 

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PERSONAL Life

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   When I'm not working, I spend the majority of my time hanging out with my beautiful wife and two amazing children. I am very much a family man and love being involved in everything my kids do. I enjoy maintaining a healthy lifestyle, traveling, watching Denver Broncos and Notre Dame football, coaching my son's football team, sneaking in a round of golf here and there, and living the "lake life" here in Austin, TX.