Cross & Crescent

John Loiacono (Fresno State 1984) knows first-hand the value of being a leader, not just a manager.

After spending nearly 20 years at Sun Microsystems and now as a new senior executive with Adobe Systems Inc., Loiacono has seen a wide variety of management styles.

“Don’t confuse managing with leading,” he says. “They hopefully go together, but most often they don’t.”

Loiacono says he often sees people in managerial positions who believe they are leaders because 50 people report to them. “But the real answer is that you can have four people, or you can have 4,000 people, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

He likens it to the old military analogy about what type of leader soldiers are willing to die for — the one who is right beside them or the one who is sitting 50 miles back in his tent telling them what to do.

“Which one are you going to support more?” he asks.

Developing Early Leadership Skills

Looking back, Loiacono credits his early leadership training to the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter at Fresno State where he had the opportunity to serve as vice president.

Fifty of the 90 members regularly attended chapter meetings, all voicing different opinions about how to spend chapter funds.

“When you’re in the middle of it, it doesn’t seem like it’s that important,” he says about being a chapter leader. “It doesn’t seem like it’s that big in scale. But like everything in life, you’re learning a lot you don’t realize.”

Ironically, Loiacono almost didn’t join Lambda Chi.

In 1982, he transferred to Fresno State from a junior college where he had been editor of the school newspaper. He chose Fresno State so he could be close to home and his parents, who had health issues.

He initially rented an apartment with two friends. They all agreed they were anti-Greek, believing all fraternities were like the movie “Animal House” or were full of preppy men wearing Polo shirts.

The following semester during rush week, Loiacono’s roommate jokingly said they should go check out the fraternity parties.

“It just so happened that when I rushed, I found the Lambda Chis to be a lot like me, very down to earth,” he recalls.

Many of the fraternities said one thing and did another, but Lambda Chi treated him like a human being from beginning to end.

Regarding his initial ignorance about Lambda Chi, he says “When you’re in youth, you’re always influenced by people around you, so you have preconceived notions about things instead of experiencing them first hand and then making a decision.”

Rising at Sun

In 1987, Loiacono joined Sun, quickly rose through the ranks, and became part of its communications management team. Wanting to diversify his skills, he spent the next year trying to convince the executives that he could work in sales.

Fortunately for him, his persistent efforts paid off and he was given a sales job in the commercial market segment for banking, healthcare, and insurance companies.

Sales was a great experience and I’d recommend it to anyone

“Sales was a great experience and I’d recommend it to anyone,” he says.

After spending about two years in sales, Loiacono became head of a software team. Not too long after that, he went back to the corporate side and ran brand marketing, advertising, public relations, and websites. He then had the opportunity to expand his role by becoming Sun’s chief marketing officer.

In early 2000, he was asked again to take a new role as general manager for one of Sun’s divisions, the operating system group. Loiacono ran the division for three years and then went back to software and ran the entire division, which he did for more than two years.

“People ask why I was at Sun for so long,” he says. “I joke when I say I was either really stupid or really fortunate. Sun was a place where you were allowed to try new things. I was able to go and be a sales rep and I had never sold a French fry before.”

Loiacono often coaches young adults about careers and tells them there are different paths they can take depending upon their individual styles.

“I know people who have been in finance their entire careers and never varied from that. They become a CFO eventually, and that’s great,” he says. “Then, there are other people who take the path of diversifying, where you do a little of this and a little of that; and management then takes notice of your diverse experience.”

With all the areas Loiacono has worked in, he says what he didn’t know at Sun he studied and learned how to do. For example, even though he is not an engineer, he was given the opportunity to manage many different engineering teams.

“Engineers don’t respect, necessarily, people who wear fancy suits and are slick talkers,” he says. “What they appreciate are people who are well immersed in the technology. By the time I was running engineering organizations, my skills had been honed as a manager, more managerial side and leadership skills.”

Adobe Comes Calling

In March, Adobe hired Loiacono to be senior vice president, creative solutions. In this role, he is responsible for the development, delivery, and marketing of Adobe’s entire creative software portfolio, including flagship brands such as Adobe Creative Suite®, Macromedia Studio®, Adobe Photoshop®, Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe InDesign®, Adobe Premiere®, Macromedia Flash® and Macromedia Dreamweaver®.

“It was a big change,” he says about his move to Adobe. “Any kind of change was going to be dramatic, but being at Sun for so long makes this even more challenging.”

“Adobe is a fascinating company, it has a very well-known and respected brand,” he says. The company’s recent acquisition of Macromedia is a large part of Loiacono’s excitement regarding his new position. Adobe’s long dominance in the print industry and Macromedia’s web development tools offer a unique mix.

“In my view it’s a 1+1=3,” he says. “The combination of those two things, Adobe and Macromedia, is very complementary and creates a very big opportunity.”

Sun’s tagline for years is “the network is the computer,” and Loiacono believes that will be true for many more years to come.

“Wherever I go I believe that everything is going to be connected. It will be hard to go somewhere that you can’t connect a device.”

A very rare second-generation Silicon Valley native, Loiacono says a major reason he decided to go to Adobe was because it offered him a creative environment in a software-driven company.

“The creative side is something that I really enjoy, something I can relate back to the creativity of the fraternity days of trying to make ends meet with very little budgets.” Thanks to his involvement in Lambda Chi Alpha, Loiacono is skilled at finding creative solutions.