How Okta built a partner-first model

Okta's CRO Jon Addison joins GTMnow host Sophie to break down the full story behind Okta's remarkable revenue turnaround, the launch of Okta for AI Agents, and the go-to-market playbook that's carrying them from $3B toward a $5B ARR target.

From nearly $850M in operating losses to over $760M in operating income, Okta's transformation is one of the most significant turnaround stories in enterprise SaaS. In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on exactly how it happened.

In this episode:

- Why 91% of enterprises are already deploying AI agents but only 10% have a security strategy for them

- How Okta's "AI governance gap" insight became the foundation for their biggest product launch in years: Okta for AI Agents

- The GTM restructure around specialization that unlocked productivity and drove 40% higher average contract value on new product deals

- How Okta became a partner-first company: 95% of their top 100 deals in the last fiscal year were partner-led, and what operationally made that possible

- Why the first discovery call no longer exists, and how sellers need to show up differently in the AI era

- Jon's new internal sales methodology, APEX, built on Command of the Message for the AI era

- How Okta is using AI internally to transform their own go-to-market motion, from conversational intelligence to pre-sales assistants

- What the path to $5B ARR actually looks like: enterprise expansion, international growth, public sector, and the massive new TAM unlocked by non-human identity

- Jon's leadership philosophy: why human-centric selling is becoming more critical as AI takes over the repetitive work

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi

Guest: Jon Addison, CRO at Okta

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-addison-3399175

Timestamp:

0:00 - Cold open

1:19 - Welcome + Jon's background: from London to Silicon Valley

1:52 - How Jon got into software and identity management

4:08 - Okta for AI Agents launch announcement

5:04 - 90% of customers live with agents, only 10% confident in securing them

6:31 - What's driving the governance gap in the market

7:53 - Speed of agent innovation must be matched by security and governance

8:36 - 40% higher ACV on deals that include new products

9:43 - Why consolidation around a single identity platform is resonating

11:45 - How AI agents unlock a massive new TAM for Okta

13:05 - Okta's turnaround: from $850M operating losses to $760M operating income

13:36 - Key decision 1: GTM specialization drove productivity

15:02 - Key decision 2: becoming a partner-first company

16:14 - What cracking the partner-led model actually looks like

19:08 - How long it takes to see ROI from a partner-led pivot

20:12 - The path from $3B to $5B: enterprise, international, public sector

21:49 - Using AI internally: launching "Apex," the AI-era sales methodology

23:04 - What the Apex sales methodology entails

24:25 - Buyers now show up with strong opinions before the first call

25:44 - How discovery is changing: human-centric selling in the AI era

27:33 - Headcount and AI: what skills matter in the future

29:31 - Why relationships are Okta's core competitive advantage

30:36 - The role of experiences: F1, events, and the 7-touchpoint rule

31:47 - Broad GTM surface area: ABM, ecosys

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

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