Gartner Expert

Marissa Schmidt

Sr Director Analyst

Marissa Schmidt is a Senior Director Analyst for Gartner covering cloud networking and security. Her expertise includes working with products in data center networking infrastructure, products that can run in the cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) for multi and hybrid multi cloud solutions, SASE, SSE, application security, GenAI security, WAAP, WAF, application security testing (AST), and Application Delivery Controller (ADC). She works with clients to address and provide insights on product management positioning, strategy and product differentiation and helping clients build and launch competitive products through the full product lifecycle. She has also expertise in pricing on premise and cloud products, SaaS and creating competitive pricing analysis. She is customer-focused with top Enterprise and Hyperscalers network infrastructure background.

Previous experience

Prior to joining Gartner, Ms. Schmidt worked for Citrix as Senior Director of Product Management with full product lifecycle responsibility of NetScaler/Application Delivery Controller product line which includes software load balancing, global load balancing, web application firewall, application security, SSL encryption/decryption, NIST/FIPS/GDPR compliance, SaaS product introduction, and hardware appliances. She also worked at Nortel and Bay Networks as engineering manager and engineer in routing, switches and load balancing. She is an expert in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model from Engineering to Product Management roles.

Professional background

Bay Networks, Engineering and Engineering management, 4 years

Citrix, Senior Director Product Management, 14 years

Nortel, Product Line Management and Engineering Management roles, 9 years

Areas of coverage
  • Lead With Product Management Excellence

  • Craft World-Class Product Strategies

  • Excel at Product Creation and Delivery

  • Drive Business Model Innovation

  • Capitalize on the Tech Market Landscape

Education

M.S, Engineering Management, Santa Clara University

B.S, Computer Engineering, Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo

Certificate Product Management Program, UC Berkeley

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Top Issues That I Help Clients Address

01

Guiding product managers positioning, strategy and vision for cloud networking products

02

Helping product managers create products with data protection and layered security

03

Helping product managers create products that improve network and application performance for on premise and cloud products

04

Helping product managers create products for hybrid multi cloud

05

Guiding product managers on competitive pricing for on premise, cloud and SaaS products