Kris Duggan is an Australian-born entrepreneur, advisor, investor, and educator. In his career, Kris Duggan has advised and invested in a variety of Silicon Valley-based companies, including Palantir Technologies, RelateIQ, Addepar, Blend Labs, Turo, and Gusto. In 2010, Duggan co-founded and was the founding CEO of Badgeville, which provided gamification and social engagement solutions to help companies influence and measure user behavior. Badgeville grew to over 100 employees and 300 customers prior to be being acquired by publicly traded CallidusCloud in 2016. In 2013, Duggan co-founded and was the founding CEO of BetterWorks, an enterprise software company dedicated to innovating the field of performance management. BetterWorks is funded by Kleiner Perkins and Emergence Capital. BetterWorks has almost 100 employees and serves over 250 customers. Kris Duggan presently serves on the board of directors at BetterWorks. In 2018, Kris Duggan co-founded a new technology company, based in Palo Alto, CA. Additionally, Duggan is an advisory chair to the Alchemist Accelerator, an organization which facilitates enterprise startups and advises new entrepreneurs. He previously served as an adjunct faculty for Singularity University, and is a frequent speaker on the topics of scaling startups, customer loyalty, gamification, employee engagement, and performance management.
BetterWorks In 2013, Duggan co-founded BetterWorks, a Silicon Valley-based company dedicated to helping companies, managers and employees succeed at work Rooted in the Objectives and Key Results method for goal setting, BetterWorks uses Goal Science™ principles to drive operational excellence for companies. BetterWorks is funded by Kleiner Perkins and Emergence Capital and has raised $40M in capital. Duggan resigned as CEO of BetterWorks in July 2017, and as of February 2018, Duggan was an active board member. Badgeville Kris Duggan co-founded Badgeville in 2010. During his three-year tenure as CEO, the company raised $40M in capital, grew to over 100 employees, and secured over 300 customers. Known as the Behavior Platform, Badgeville helped business leaders measure and influence behavior in both customer- and employee-facing user experiences. Badgeville's customers included Deloitte, EMC, Oracle, Dell, AOL, Samsung, NBC, The Active Network, Recyclebank and Universal Music. The company received numerous awards including TechCrunch Disrupt's Audience Choice 2010, Forbes America's Most Promising New Companies, LeWeb's Startup Finalist, Twiistup's Showoff finalist, Forrester's Groundswell B2B and B2C, and Gartner's Cool Vendor in Social CRM. In its first three years, Badgeville was featured in more than 300 major media publications and outlets including features in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. Publicly traded CallidusCloud acquired the company in 2016, and SAP acquired Callidus in 2018. Addepar From 2012 until 2014, Duggan served as an advisor to Addepar, assisting with go-to-market strategy and execution. During this period, Addepar launched a campaign targeting Registered Investment advisers. Addepar has since gone to raise over $140M in funding. Palantir From 2009 until 2013, Duggan served as an advisor to Palantir Technologies, assisting with go-to-market strategy and execution. He developed the company in a number of ways, including expansion into the federal government. Socialtext From 2006 until founding Badgeville, Duggan served as vice president of sales for Socialtext, delivering enterprise social software for collaboration. Duggan helped drive business for Socialtext's comprehensive suite of social could apps. WebEx From 2003 until 2006, Duggan held senior sales management positions with WebEx prior to its acquisition by Cisco for $3.2 billion. The company is currently known as Cisco WebEx, and provides a host of virtual, on-demand collaboration software including web conferencing and videoconferencing.
Teaching
Kris Duggan is an advisory chair to the Alchemist Accelerator, an organization which facilitates enterprise startups and advises new entrepreneurs. He was also an adjunct faculty member for Singularity University.
Controversy
On 11 July 2017, a former employee of BetterWorks named Beatrice Kim filed a civil lawsuit in Superior Court in San Francisco against the company, Duggan, and two other employees accusing them of sexual harassment and discrimination. Duggan denied the allegations, but resigned his position as CEO of BetterWorks on 26 July 2017. He later blogged about the entire experience on his personal blog. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on 31 January 2018.
