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In Conversation with
John Hurley
A Techronicler interview with John Hurley, Chief Revenue Officer, Optiv
Techronicler: Thank you for joining us, John! A lot of careers look like straight lines on LinkedIn. How was yours different? Was there a pivotal moment or ‘happy accident’ that actually steered you toward your current role or niche?
John Hurley:
My career was defined by deliberate curiosity. Early on, I made a conscious decision to resist the pull of specialization. I intentionally rotated through different go-to-market areas (i.e., Commercial, Enterprise, and Service Provider) because I understood that depth in one market segment could come at the cost of breadth. I wanted to see how different customers thought, how different buying cycles worked, and how different competitive pressures shaped strategy.
That intentionality compounded over time. Each market gave me a new lens, and eventually those lenses stacked into something rare: a genuinely panoramic view of the revenue landscape. That’s what ultimately positioned me for the Chief Revenue Officer role at Optiv.
Techronicler: What is the one problem or project that is taking up 80% of your brain space this month?
John Hurley:
Right now, I’m consumed by one question: how do we use AI not just as a tool, but as a genuine competitive advantage?
Specifically, I’m focused on three angles. First, how do I help my team use AI to manage their business more efficiently. This includes building better pipeline visibility, achieving smarter forecasting, and spending less time on administrative friction. Second, how do we serve clients more deeply. I’m not just referring to faster response times here. The goal is to deliver personalized engagements that strengthen relationships. And third, how do we get better information, faster, so that our investment decisions are sharper.
Cybersecurity is one of the most crowded and competitive markets in technology. Everyone is selling urgency. AI gives us a chance to cut through the noise and work smarter, move faster, and show up to every client interaction better prepared than the competition.
Techronicler: If you were given $10M to start a company today in a niche outside of your current field, what problem would you solve?
John Hurley:
I’d sit at the intersection of cybersecurity and physical security and build a drone-based home protection system.
Here’s the vision: the moment an unwanted visitor approaches your property, a swarm of compact, autonomous drones deploys from a home base unit. The goal would be to deter the visitor from any further action. The drone presence alone would be enough to change behavior. Once the perimeter is clear, they return and recharge automatically.
Most home protection is reactive. It records what happened. This system would be proactive, preventing what could happen. In a world where both digital and physical threats are escalating, that shift from surveillance to deterrence feels like the right problem to solve.
Techronicler: What specific ‘quality gates’ or documented pathways have you built to help individual contributors make their first leap into leadership?
John Hurley:
I start with a structured self-assessment conversation. I ask emerging leaders to rate themselves on a scale of one to five across three dimensions: leadership traits, operational capabilities, and comfort with crucial conversations. That part is straightforward. But then I ask the harder question: how do you think your peers would rate you?
The gap between self-perception and peer perception is where the real coaching begins. If someone rates themselves a four on communication but suspects their peers would say two, that’s a conversation worth having before they step into a leadership role. It’s better to surface gaps now than after a promotion creates new pressure.
From there, we build a tailored leadership development plan. My job is to give people an honest map of where they are and a clear path to where they want to go.
Techronicler: What is the single best piece of advice you’ve ever received about negotiating—whether for salary, headcount, or project timelines?
John Hurley:
Never emotionally attach yourself to a predetermined outcome.
This sounds simple, but it’s one of the hardest disciplines to master. Most people walk into negotiations with a number in their head that they’ve already started spending, or a timeline they’ve already committed to mentally. When reality diverges from that expectation, the emotional reaction becomes the biggest obstacle to a good deal.
The best negotiators have mastered emotional stability. They recognize a good deal even when it doesn’t look exactly like the one they imagined.
Techronicler: What is the one book every leader in tech should read this year?
John Hurley:
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal.
At the end of the day, the best team wins. This book is your blueprint for building one.
McChrystal challenges traditional top-down leadership and shows how to unlock the full potential of a team by leveraging the unique strengths of every individual.
Great leaders don’t just assign roles. They align talent with purpose. This book pushes you to ask: how are you optimizing your team’s capabilities? Are you creating an environment where communication is seamless, decisions are faster, and accountability is shared?
For tech leaders especially, where speed and complexity are constant, Team of Teams offers a practical framework for building more adaptive, connected, and high-performing organizations.
Techronicler: What is a piece of ‘common wisdom’ in the tech industry that you completely disagree with?
John Hurley:
“AI will make everything faster and less expensive.”
I understand the appeal of this narrative. When AI works well, it’s genuinely transformative. But the blanket assumption that AI deployment automatically reduces cost and accelerates timelines is dangerous.
The reality is more nuanced. AI can create significant complexity, require substantial upfront investment, and introduce new failure modes that legacy systems never had. The organizations winning with AI right now aren’t the ones who applied it everywhere. They’re the ones who asked the harder question first: where does this actually make sense? Disciplined use case evaluation is what separates AI as a genuine differentiator from AI as an expensive distraction.
Techronicler: How do you create ‘leadership moments’ for junior team members before they officially have a title?
John Hurley:
I give them a real problem, a real team, and a real deadline, and then I get out of the way.
Specifically, I’ll assemble a small cross-functional group, hand them a genuine challenge or obstacle facing the business, and give them two weeks to come back with a recommendation.
What this exercise reveals is remarkable. Within a few days, you can see who gravitates toward coordination, who drives toward clarity when the group stalls, who listens before they speak. Leadership isn’t something people suddenly develop when they get a title. It’s a pattern of behavior that shows up long before the org chart acknowledges it. This approach lets me spot it early, name it, and start investing in it intentionally.
Techronicler: As a leader, how do you architect workflows to reduce the ‘mental load’ and cognitive burnout of your team in a 24/7 digital environment?
John Hurley:
Optiv has built a formal recharge program that stands apart from your typical PTO. It’s dedicated time off that isn’t just encouraged on paper but actively protected in practice.
My personal commitment as a leader is straightforward: when someone on my team is on recharge, I don’t call, text, or email them. Unless there is a genuine emergency, the message waits. Beyond the obvious benefit of actual rest, this approach signals that it’s safe to disconnect here. That psychological safety is what most “unlimited PTO” policies fail to deliver, because the policy exists but the culture says otherwise.
The return on this investment is real and measurable. People come back more focused, more motivated, and more capable. Burnout is a wellness issue as well as a performance issue. Protecting recovery time is one of the highest-leverage things a leader can do.
Techronicler: How do you evaluate ‘potential over polish’ during the hiring process to ensure a more equitable team?
John Hurley:
I lean heavily on scenario-based questions, and I pay close attention not just to what candidates say but how they arrive at their answer.
A candidate who has lived through a situation will answer differently than one who hasn’t. There’s a texture and specificity to genuine experience that’s hard to fake. But I don’t automatically penalize someone who’s working through a scenario in real time. Improvisation can reveal raw problem-solving instincts, intellectual honesty, and self-awareness, all of which matter enormously in leadership roles.
By running candidates through several different scenarios, I get a multi-dimensional picture that a polished résumé or rehearsed elevator pitch can never provide.
John Hurley has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry driving success for global, commercial, and enterprise organizations. As chief revenue officer (CRO) for Optiv, he is responsible for the company’s revenue-generation strategy and go-to-market approach to drive sustainable growth.
Hurley is active in the community and committed to helping foster the next generation of leadership. He serves and has served as a board member or executive sponsor for a number of philanthropic organizations including the University of Michigan Mott Classic, American Hospital Association Dallas, Cystic Fibrosis of Michigan and Van Andel Institute and Connected Women’s Group of Midwest Technology Leaders.