Cross & Crescent

A self-proclaimed “hybrid” with roots in both North Carolina and New York, Mark Templeton (North Carolina State 1975) was shaped from his southern heritage. The South “puts a premium on personal honor and individual values,” he says.

Templeton’s rock solid foundation and continual efforts toward becoming a great leader and follower has allowed him to not only better himself, but also improve others around him. As CEO of Citrix Systems, an S&P 500 company that specializes in offering secure remote access to computers, Templeton is anything but distant.

Learning in Order to Improve

Templeton began his collegiate career at North Carolina State University in 1970 studying product design. The School of Design at N.C. State was very difficult to get into at the time, and offered a unique blend of engineering mixed with arts and crafts.

Busy does not adequately describe Templeton’s time as an undergrad. In addition to academics, he played two sports — lacrosse and soccer — worked 20 hours a week, and was heavily involved in Lambda Chi Alpha.

Upon graduating from North Carolina State in 1975, Templeton attended graduate school at the University of Virginia. His reason for choosing not only these schools, but also his southern bride, is his love and pride for his southern heritage.

Before joining Citrix in 1995 as vice president of marketing, Templeton amassed more than a dozen years of experience in management positions at UB Networks, Keyfile Corporation, and LANSystems. At the time, Citrix had around 50 employees.

Six months after joing the small team, Citrix went public. Templeton recalls going public as a “tremendous and exciting experience for all.”

Two years later, the chief executive officer of Citrix announced his retirement. Templeton was asked by the management team to pursue the new opportunity, despite a lack of interest of the part of Templeton. Instead, he wanted to remain in the marketing department.

However, after much thought and advice, Templeton decided to pursue the vacant position. Soon after, the board chose him to run the company.

Templeton says that being the chief executive officer of Citrix has been a tremendous learning experience. He adds that “no one is really ever prepared to be a CEO in a high growth company,” and considers himself an “on-the-job training CEO.”

He admits he has made many mistakes, but stresses the importance of simply “being right more than you are wrong.” Templeton warns against making mistakes that are fatal to the company or mistakes of integrity. He insists his record is clear of these; instead, he has only made slip-ups on business decisions.

The most important result of mistakes, Templeton says, is “learning from them.” This process of learning from his mistakes and constantly improving has characterized his experience as CEO.

Citrix now has 3,200 employees worldwide, and is still growing.

Chief Culture Officer

Templeton has learned a great set of lessons based around leading transformation; more specifically, creating an “urgency for change” in a company that has been successful with a certain product or approach.

When thinking of the highlights of his tenure, a select few come to mind. One of these highlights in Templeton’s eyes is the people he has brought to the company.

“Ultimately, you are known in your life and in your career by who you have touched and who you have chosen to have a relationship with,” says Templeton. “It starts with the people that you bring to the company, and the people that they bring to the company. That is how you grow.”

A second highlight for Templeton is his company’s development in “nurturing a healthy culture” under his leadership. He sees himself as the “chief culture officer” in addition to CEO.

“Through having a clear culture, you can then hire and recruit in a consistent way. Then things get done in a consistent way. This environment prevents politics, encourages people to speak up, fix things when broken, and to show innovative spirit and love for the company,” says Templeton. “I didn’t invent the culture, but I’m smart enough to know a good thing when I see it, and I’ve done a lot to try and nurture it.”

“Everything else we’ve accomplished that has been a highlight has not been a highlight for me, but rather for the whole company,” says Templeton.

Templeton’s energetic leadership has helped propel Citrix into the technology and business spotlight. Under his direction, the company has achieved strong international growth, extending operations across Europe, Latin America, and the Asia/Pacific region. He has also been instrumental in establishing Citrix’s global channel and alliance network of more than 7,000 partners, and moving the company into the Internet market.

In 2005, Citrix produced a record revenue of $909 million, up from $741 million in 2004. This 23 percent increase translates into a $168 million spike in revenue for the surging company.

Citrix customers include all of the Fortune 100 companies, 98 percent of the Fortune 500, 98 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and individuals. Citrix has offices in 22 countries, and more than 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries.

Power of Change

Templeton was introduced to Lambda Chi Alpha through North Carolina State soccer teammate Steve Thomas. John Tesh, another prominent Lambda Chi alumnus, Thomas, and Templeton remain close friends to this day.

Interestingly, Templeton was a member of the first associate member class in the early 1970s. Joining Lambda Chi Alpha his freshman year, that was the first year of the then-revolutionary associate member program. This large-scale transition was “painful at first,” says Templeton. “It can be painful in moving toward what is right.”

“At the same time, there was a lot of enlightenment in the idea of change in a positive direction,” says Templeton. More specifically, they were “moving from being a club to being an organization that focuses on values and leadership.”

However, he says this difficult change and growth that his chapter endured “is a natural thing for organizations to experience.” This challenging transition no doubt helped instill the importance of the healthy culture he has stressed at Citrix.

Recently, Templeton joined Lambda Chi Alpha’s Educational Foundation Board of Directors, offering his leadership in our quest to continually improve. However, he at first wondered if he could contribute an adequate amount of time to the Board.

He soon decided to join the Board, saying that “giving back to an organization that was instrumental in giving you an experience during your most formative years that is helping you later in life is the right thing to do.”

However, Templeton says that before you can be a leader, you need to first learn how to be a great follower. He says since every organization has some sort of hierarchy, whether it be a board of directors or a group of shareholders, it is important to know how to follow.

“Even the president of the United States has to be a great follower of the ultimate leader — God,” says Templeton. “It all works well as long as you have your feet on the ground and you keep a good perspective on where you fit into the world.”