At ICONIQ, we believe building enduring companies takes more than breakthrough products – it takes leaders who can translate vision into durable scale. We see that quality clearly in Chris Degnan, Snowflake’s former Chief Revenue Officer, and we’re thrilled to welcome him as our newest go-to-market advisor.
Our relationship with Chris and Snowflake goes back nearly a decade. When we led Snowflake’s Series D in 2017, the company was early in its journey, but our conviction was clear: this was a team and a platform with the potential to build a generational business.
As Snowflake grew from a disruptive cloud data warehouse to the global leader in data and AI cloud, Chris played a pivotal role. He joined as the first sales hire, when the company had no customers and the product was in its infancy. Over the next twelve years, he built and scaled a world-class, admired go-to-market organization of more than 3,000 people and helped serve over 12,000 customers.
Now, as Chris joins ICONIQ, he brings unparalleled experience in building and scaling world-class sales organizations. His deep, customer-centric ethos and proven ability to architect repeatable, durable go-to-market models will be invaluable to the next generation of founders in our community.
In a recent conversation, Chris reflected on his journey at Snowflake, the lessons learned along the way, and the guidance he’s most excited to share with founders.
You were Snowflake’s first sales hire and helped build one of the most admired go-to-market organizations in enterprise software. Looking back, what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned about scaling GTM from the ground up?
When we were just getting started, we looked for sales reps who had experience turning prospects into customers at mediocre companies. We weren’t interested in people coming from big incumbents where the product sold itself – we wanted sellers who knew how to hustle. If they’d sold something hard before, we knew they could sell Snowflake.
We also looked for people who were smart, competitive, and had something to prove. That created an activity-based culture – reps who were out there making things happen. And as a leadership team, we set the tone. I believed every leader needed to be able to sell Snowflake and lead from the front. That’s what I’m most proud of about the org we built – a culture where leadership earned respect by doing the work.
Snowflake is known for its deep customer-centric culture. How did you and your team instill that mindset into the GTM motion?
Snowflake was one of the first real consumption-based models, and that forced us to focus on what mattered: serving the customer. We didn’t go out trying to maximize our first deal. We knew that if we could just get the customer using the product, the rest would take care of itself.
We focused on quick wins. We celebrated usage, not just bookings. And we worked across teams – with product and marketing – to make sure customers actually got value. That mindset became part of how we sold, how we hired, and how we scaled.
AI is reshaping how companies build and sell software. From your perspective, how will AI transform go-to-market models in the next decade?
I look at AI as a task automator. And for reps, that’s a good thing. There’s so much day-to-day work that slows them down, like prospecting, call notes, and follow-up emails. All that admin stuff is going to get easier, faster, or move out of the way completely.
But there’s a flip side. The more automated things become, the harder it gets to build real relationships. And at the end of the day, people ultimately still buy from people. So reps are going to have to work even harder to get in the room, meet face-to-face, build trust, and stay top of mind. That’s what will truly separate good from great.
For founders building their first sales motion today, what advice would you give on how to balance human touch with AI-driven automation?
Insist your reps get in front of customers. Don’t just accept that everyone is remote now. Push for in-person meetings. There’s so much that happens in the hallways – small talk, side conversations, and real-time feedback – that you just can’t capture over Zoom.
And for early-stage founders especially, those moments are gold. You need to hear what customers aren’t saying. You need to feel their energy, see how their teams respond, and watch how they’re actually using your product. That’s where insight comes from, and you can’t automate that.
Why did you decide to partner with ICONIQ as a go-to-market advisor, and what excites you most about working with our portfolio companies?
Every career decision I’ve made has been based on people, and ICONIQ has consistently impressed me as a partner – thoughtful, founder-first, and focused on long-term growth. I got to see that day in and day out at Snowflake.
What excites me most is getting to work directly with the next generation of leaders in ICONIQ’s community. I know how tough it is to build a sales motion from scratch, to figure out who to hire first, how to land those early customers, and how to build trust in the market. I’ve lived all of it.
I’m excited to help others do it faster, hopefully with fewer missteps. Whether it’s advising on early-stage GTM strategy, helping scale teams, or just being a sounding board when things get messy, I’m excited to support founders in the moments that matter most.
Published:
October 20, 2025
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