Catherine Kniker has been at PTC for almost five years, starting as the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of the Internet of Things (IoT) & Augmented Reality (AR) businesses – which at the time was less than 10% of PTC’s booking. By the time she transferred out of that role, IoT and AR was greater than 25% of the bookings and are now sustainable, fast-growing businesses at PTC. “A core part of the IoT and AR go to market approach was to build the partner ecosystem. I strongly believe in fostering and leveraging a partner ecosystem so that customers can get to value quickly” she says. “During that time, we forged a big partnership with Microsoft, and for the last three years, we’ve won numerous partner of the year awards for IoT, Mixed Reality and Manufacturing. We also launched robust strategic partnerships with Rockwell Automation and Ansys.” Seeing the early success, Jim Heppelmann, PTC’s CEO, then asked Catherine to ‘double down on the strategic and technology partners.’ Under Catherine’s leadership, PTC expanded the relationships with global systems integrators significantly. PTC committed technical and partner management resources at both the corporate level as well as in region to activate these partnerships. PTC also expanded our Technology partner “Ready” program so that we a broad range of pre-validated integrations and solutions available for customer implementations “We’ve executed very well on this strategy - co-developing and co-selling with all of these partners. This year, our new sales which are a result of working with these partners will be 30%+ of our total bookings. This is a massive business transformation which is great for our customers, partners and PTC.” In addition to the impact that her partner first approach has had on PTC’s go to market strategy, her expertise and beliefs on emphasizing a market forward understanding is also having a tremendous impact on PTC’s transformation. Having a deep understanding of market segments is helping PTC be very targeted and focused on market trends and signals, to drive our strategic decisions.
One such strategic area is PTC’s transition the Product development community of industrial companies to Software as a Service(SaaS). While well over 50% of the software being sold across the globe today is SaaS, product development and industrial software has been a laggard. PTC is now leading the market to move to SaaS. To advance this mission, in 2020 Catherine spearheaded the acquisition of Arena Solutions, the largest acquisition in PTC’s history.
“PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) unleashes industrial innovation with award-winning, market-proven solutions that enable companies to differentiate their products and services, improve operational excellence, and increase workforce productivity. With PTC, and its partner ecosystem, manufacturers can capitalize on the promise of today’s new technology to drive digital transformation.”
“The ability to lead by always being curious, while taking a fact-based approach, and using a straightforward communication approach to align everyone on a specific mission is critical for successful outcomes,” says Catherine.
In addition to driving PTC strategy, Catherine is spear heading some initiatives to develop the talent within PTC and across the industry. Catherine is the executive sponsor for our PTC Lifts Program –The goal of PTC Lifts is to increase the organizational opportunities for PTC’s underrepresented minorities by investing in the strong technical and leadership talent within PTC. The program focuses on developing strategic and business acumen, leadership lessons, and provides external leadership networking opportunities. It also provides mentorship and sponsorship opportunities by working with different leaders based on specific aspirational tracks like product development, customer success, sales and marketing, finance and operations, product and Strategy based on the participants’ career goals.”
Catherine also serves as a board member on the Massachusetts High Technology Council and is a champion contributor to their Women in Leadership Initiates. This initiative is a strong example of impactful collaboration among leaders from Massachusetts businesses, professional services, and academic centers. Its ‘leaders helping leaders’ model to identify and expand effective employer practices presents a uniquely promising opportunity for employers to participate in helping solve an important challenge: closing the leadership gap between men and women in the workplace. Armed with such pioneering qualities, Catherine has been leading the company to new heights. PTC has a long history of technology innovation – all with a focus on helping manufacturers improve the way they create, manufacture and service the products they bring to market. Today, they describe their purpose as the “Power to Create” (the convenient acronym PTC). They create digital with purpose—to transform the physical world—a 30+-year-old company that originally provided cutting edge solutions in CAD and PLM, and over time, they have grown to be an innovative tech company that provides solutions to engineering, manufacture, and service products across technology categories such as IoT and AR. PTC continues to be an innovative company for industrial manufacturers to enhance their power to create. “By no means are we done in the areas we’re currently working in. There’s always room for us to grow and we’re constantly looking to explore new areas,” says Catherine.
Posted in CLF | Successful CSOs Magazine 2021, CATHERINE KNIKER, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of PTC Profile