N. Louis Shipley

Lou Shipley is a Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School and an Executive in Residence at the venture capital firm General Catalyst. He is also a highly successful tech CEO, most recently at Black Duck Software.

Lou specializes in tech entrepreneurship, sales/sales management, go-to-market strategies, and building effective leadership teams for startups and early-stage companies.

He teaches Entrepreneurial Sales in the MBA Elective Curriculum, a course aimed at demystifying sales as well as understanding how to sell and manage go-to-market functions.

Lou has led three tech firms. He was President and CEO of Reflectent Software prior to its 2006 acquisition by Citrix Systems, where he served as VP and GM of Citrix Virtualization and Cloud Products Group.

Following Citrix, Lou was President and CEO of VMTurbo (now Turbonomic) from 2011 to 2013. 

In 2013, Lou became CEO at struggling Black Duck Software and transformed it into the global leader in open source security and management solutions. In 2017, Black Duck was acquired by Synopsys for $565 million.

At General Catalyst, Lou advises on B2B software and marketplace investments. General Catalyst supports founders who challenge the status quo, partnering with them to build companies that withstand the test of time.

Lou serves on the Board of Directors of Wasabi, CustomerGauge, Sentry1, Fairmarkit, Logz.io, and Trinity College, and is also lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Lou has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Trinity College.

Articles

• Shipley, Lou. "How Tesla Sets Itself Apart." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (February 28, 2020). View Details
• Shipley, Lou. "Tesla's Advantage? 'It's the Software, Stupid.'." The Hill (June 6, 2019). View Details
• Shipley, Lou. "How to Make Your Sales Forecasts More Accurate." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (August 28, 2019). View Details
• DiPietro, Ben, and Lou Shipley. "After Equifax Breach, Companies Advised to Review Open-Source Software Code." Wall Street Journal (September 19, 2017). View Details
• Shipley, Lou. "How Small Businesses Can Fend Off Hackers." Wall Street Journal (July 16, 2015). View Details
• "Seven Things You Need to Know about CEO Lou Shipley." Boston Globe (January 5, 2014). View Details
• Shipley, Lou. "How Amazon Transforms Investor Tension into Creative Tension." Forbes.com (March 17, 2014). (Forbes Leadership Forum.) View Details

Interviews and Appearances

• "Lou Shipley: [How to Build a Culture of Enablement]." Reveal: The Revenue Intelligence Podcast, Gong.io, February 3, 2020. View Details
• "Integrating Theory into Your Organization: Black Duck by Synopsys." no. 31, The Disruptive Voice, HBS Forum on Growth and Innovation, March 29, 2019. View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials

• Shipley, N. Louis, and William R. Kerr. "Katie Couric Media: Landing the First Client." Harvard Business School Case 822-011, September 2021. View Details

Additional Information

• loushipley.com