S. Zachariah Sprackett

Product-centric CTO/CPO with 30 years leading product strategy, technology strategy, platform modernization, and high-scale operations.

Phone: 831-888-6189
Address: San Francisco Bay Area
Website: https://zac.sprackett.com/
Email:

Built and led hybrid product/engineering organizations shipping multi-tenant SaaS to mid-market and enterprise customers. Proven record growing ARR, accelerating roadmap velocity, improving reliability at 60M+ MAU scale, and driving cost efficiency through cloud-native architectures and data-informed decisions.

Core Competencies

Product Strategy and Portfolio Management • Platform Modernization • Cloud/SaaS/Microservices • AI/ML Productization • Data Platforms/Analytics • Site Reliability Engineering • Security/Compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001) • GTM Partnership • Enterprise SaaS • Budgeting and Org Design • M&A/Integration • Board/Exec Communication

Experience

SugarCRM

Chief Technology Officer

Mar 2024 - Present
  • Lead globally distributed Engineering, Quality Assurance, Release Management, and Cloud Operations functions.
  • Own end-to-end technology strategy.
  • Launched AI-assisted features (summarization, forecasting, next-best-actions) leveraging LLMs and first-party data.
  • Optimized cloud spend with capacity modeling, FinOps guardrails, and right-sizing.
  • Partnered with sales and customer success as executive sponsor for enterprise customers.
  • Presented strategy and KPI progress to Board; aligned technology roadmap to revenue targets and gross margin model.
  • Led end-to-end technology due diligence for multiple M&A opportunities, informing valuation, risk, and integration plans.

SugarCRM

Chief Product and Technology Officer

Feb 2022 to Mar 2004
  • Led Product Management, Knowledge, User Experience, Engineering, Quality Assurance, Release Management, and Cloud Operations functions.
  • Own end-to-end product strategy and technology vision across CRM suite serving enterprise and mid-market customers.
  • Launched AI-assisted features (summarization, forecasting, next-best-actions) leveraging LLMs and first-party data.
  • Scaled org to 200 across product, engineering, design, data, security; hired and developed leadership; instituted career ladders and succession plans.
  • Rebuilt SDLC and SRE practices (service level objectives, error budgets, problem and incident management).
  • Shifted monolith towards services-first architecture.
  • Partnered with sales and customer success as executive sponsor for enterprise customers.
  • Led end-to-end product and technology due diligence for multiple M&A opportunities, informing valuation, risk, and integration plans.

SugarCRM

SVP, Product

Nov 2018 to Feb 2022
  • Owned execution and strategy across Product Management, UX, and Knowledge teams.
  • Built an 18 month roadmap aligned to ICP pain points and win/loss insights.
  • Standardized PRDs and discovery.
  • Built and implemented the strategy to expand SugarCRM's product offering from a single product with two editions into discreet Marketing, Sales, and Service products with a suite of add-on products.
  • Shipped ML-assisted lead and opportunity prioritization features.
  • Participated in the due diligence, acquisition and integration of Collabspot, Salesfusion, and Corvana.

SugarCRM

VP, DevOps

Jul 2016 to Nov 2018
  • Prepared and positioned SugarCRM for outside investment by private equity firm Accel-KKR.
  • In addition to SugarCloud responsibilities, took on release management, cloud software engineering and engineering tools functions.
  • Transformed the products organization from waterfall to agile development.
  • Moved the company from releases every 18 to 24 months to quarterly releases.
  • Improved product quality and ease of upgrade while simultaneously reducing cost of quality assurance by 60% while increasing product quality.
  • Successfully architected and migrated IBM from on-premise installation to SugarCloud.

SugarCRM

VP, Cloud Operations

Aug 2011 to Jul 2016
  • Hired and managed the team responsible for the availability of external facing corporate services, including our SaaS environment Sugar Cloud.
  • Oversaw in-service ground up rebuild of network, hardware and services using repeatable methodologies and processes including configuration as code.
  • Architected and implemented no-downtime, in service migration for SugarCloud environment from data center to AWS public cloud.
  • Significantly improved performance by building out a much more reliable and performant environment.
  • Designed and implemented policies and procedures for certifications including SSAE16 and ISO27001.

Geeknet

Director of Network Operations

Jan 2009 to Aug 2011
  • Designed and managed network infrastructure and security systems for SourceForge, Slashdot, Freshmeat and Thinkgeek.
  • Directly responsible for Network Operations and IT groups.
  • Created budgets for IT spending throughout the organization.
  • Managed policies and procedures for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and was active in the audit process.
  • Successfully brought on two new branch offices and moved corporate headquarters from Mountain View, CA to Fairfax, VA.

Mitel Networks

Software Development Prime - Operating Systems

Aug 2006 to Jan 2009
  • Managed and directed the day to day activities of a team of senior developers.
  • Directly responsible for the roadmap and maintenance of the Linux platform used as the base for our entire applications portfolio.
  • Involved in the development of the NuPoint Messenger, Mitel Application Suite, Teleworker, Mobile Extension, Advanced Web Conferencing and Linux Call Server product lines.
  • Responsible for implementing and managing timelines as well as instituting and documenting development policies.
  • Acted as primary liaison with other groups to ensure expectations were set appropriately and then met.
  • Successfully designed, prototyped and managed the implementation of highly available, technically complex solutions for internal customers such as a geographically distributed clustering suite.
  • Demonstrated the ability to deliver product on time and on budget while managing and reacting to changing requirements.

Mitel Networks

Senior Sales Engineer

Dec 2001 to Oct 2004
  • Recruited major accounts and carrier partners.
  • Successfully presented solution portfolio to audiences with varied levels of technical expertise.
  • Performed business development throughout Asia Pacific region to bring new localized business offices into service.
  • Coached and delivered sales and technical training seminars for both internal and external audiences.
  • Worked with customers and independent labs supporting field trials and evaluations.
  • Acted as liaison to channel customer requirements through product marketing and engineering.
  • Developed custom software applications leveraging Mitel technologies to meet customer demands.
  • Demonstrated and deployed Voice over IP and data networking solutions
  • Served on the Product Security Task Force.

VA Linux

Senior Software Engineer

2000 - 2001
  • Lead software designer on open source VA Cluster Management (VACM) project.
  • Managed a team of software developers.
  • Developed embedded applications for low-level hardware management.
  • Authored and presented white papers at major technical conferences such as the Ottawa Linux Symposium and LinuxWorld Expo.
  • Designed a highly available web server that was used to serve content for the successful web telecast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show.

VA Linux

Senior Sales Engineer

1998 - 2000
  • Assisted Fortune 500 and government agencies in their decision making process.
  • Presented solution portfolio to senior management teams.
  • Created and managed customer evaluation programs.
  • Grew North American sales 500% to a run rate of over 50 million dollars per quarter.
  • Delivered pre and post sales expertise in both product and service domains.

Corel Computer Corp

Software Engineer

1997 to 1998
  • Assisted in port of Linux operating system to the ARM CPU based NetWinder.
  • Maintained master distribution image as well as build tools.
  • Lead engineer on WebFront small business web based management solution.
  • Presented at various trade shows such as Linux Expo and ISP Con.
  • Founding member of the NetWinder.org community development portal.

Advisory Roles

Plato

Founding Mentor

2017 - Present

SugarCRM Canada Inc

Board Member

2012 - 2021

Certifications

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)

(ISC)²

Mar 2015 - Present

Certfied Information Systems Auditor (CISA)

ISACA

May 2016 - Present

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional

Amazon Web Services

Dec 2014