#260 Product Marketing | Dave is joined by Matt De Vincentis, VP of Product Marketing at Atlassian. With a background that spans engineering, product marketing, and leadership at companies like VMware and Palo Alto Networks, Matt shares how Atlassian structures its product marketing team, prioritizes work, and stays tied to business outcomes, even at massive scale.

Dave and Matt cover:

How Atlassian connects product marketing to revenue and pipeline (and why PMMs need to “own the outcome”)
How to build high-trust, high-impact marketing teams, drawing on lessons from firefighting and enterprise leadership
The async work philosophy Atlassian uses to eliminate unnecessary meetings and increase productivity across a global team

Whether you lead a team or want a seat at the table, this episode breaks down how to structure, scale, and lead product marketing the Atlassian way.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro
(02:38) - – Matt’s path from engineer to Atlassian VP
(05:53) - – Why technical backgrounds can be both a strength and a curse in PMM
(09:38) - – What product marketing looks like at a $5B company
(10:38) - – “Own the outcome, not the task”: tying PMM to revenue
(12:58) - – Why product marketers should care about pipeline (even if they don’t own it)
(14:23) - – How brand and creative marketers can still align to business outcomes
(16:53) - – Measuring inputs vs. outcomes (and how to stay focused on the right one)
(17:38) - – How Matt applies firefighting lessons to leading marketing teams
(19:18) - – Triaging “fire drills” and protecting your team’s focus
(21:08) - – How to prioritize ruthlessly (and what real prioritization means)
(23:38) - – From IC to VP: how your mindset and responsibilities shift
(27:04) - – Why leaders should double down on strengths—not fix weaknesses
(29:19) - – How self-assurance became Matt’s superpower as a leader
(32:19) - – The StrengthsFinder approach Matt uses with his team
(34:19) - – The value of executive coaching for marketing leaders
(35:49) - – The goal: build the best marketing team anyone’s worked on
(37:19) - – Why trust and 10x thinking unlock great marketing work
(39:49) - – Where product marketing sits inside Atlassian’s org
(41:19) - – How Atlassian uses Loom and async work to eliminate unnecessary meetings
(43:49) - – What qualifies as a real meeting at Atlassian
(45:19) - – Why async work helps global teams move faster
(48:19) - – How Atlassian balances async with intentional in-person gatherings
(50:19) - – Why trust changes how Slack and email are interpreted
(51:04) - – How Atlassian thinks about AI’s role in marketing
(53:19) - – Why it’s hard to stand out in an “AI-washed” market
(54:34) - – Matt’s mission: help make work suck less
(55:49) - – Final thoughts and wrap-up

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.

Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.

It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.

But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.

That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.

Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.
Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.
Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.

And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.

See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Inside Atlassian’s Product Marketing Strategy: Team Structure, Metrics, and Execution with Matt De Vincentis

The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)