From Account Executive to Sales Manager: John Murphy on Building a Career at Braze

John Murphy joined Braze in July 2020 as an Account Executive. Five years later, he's a Sales Manager leading the EMEA SMB Account Management team out of London. What happened in between is a pretty good answer to the question of what career development at Braze looks like.

In that time, John moved around departments, focusing on mid-market and enterprise accounts along the way, and across markets spanning the United Kingdom, Netherlands, the Nordics, and the Middle East. In November 2025, he stepped into his current role as Manager, Account Management, Sales SMB.

We sat down with John to talk through what that journey actually looked like: the decisions he made, the programs that helped, and what he'd say to someone considering Braze today.

What career development at Braze looks like in practice

At Braze, the best career growth tends to come from breadth, not just speed. The experience you pick up moving across segments, customer types, and business motions builds a kind of credibility that opens doors, including ones you weren't necessarily planning for.

For John, that meant five years of deliberate, experience-first thinking.

"I made a deliberate decision not to chase titles, but to build the right experience first. I wanted exposure across segments, customer types, and both new business and account management to develop real credibility."

That exposure came in varied forms. Working across SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise meant sitting in rooms (and sometimes stadiums!) with a wide range of customers, from high-growth startups to some of the biggest consumer brands, retailers, and sports organizations in the world. Each required a different approach, a different read of the room.

"Some meetings genuinely took place in stadiums I grew up watching on TV, which is a pretty surreal experience when you stop and think about it. That breadth matters when you're leading a team, because you've been in most of the conversations your reps are having."

When his move into management came in late 2025, it didn't feel like a leap. It felt like the natural next step after years of intentionally building toward it — taking on mentoring, onboarding, interview panels, and strategic team projects alongside his customer responsibilities long before the title changed.

How Braze supports the transition from individual contributor to manager

Stepping into a first leadership role can be one of the most challenging professional transitions. The skills that made you a strong individual contributor don't often map cleanly onto what it takes to manage people well. At Braze, that transition is something the Talent Development team has built intentional programming and training around.

John completed the Braze Manager Essentials course as he moved into his management role. What stood out wasn't the theory, it was how practical the whole thing was.

"The most useful part of Manager Essentials was how practical it was. It focused on what you actually need day-to-day as a new manager: running effective 1:1s, setting clear expectations, and handling performance and development conversations in a structured way."

The program was also cross-functional, bringing together people from Sales, Engineering, People, Customer Experience, and Enablement. That mix matters, because it quickly surfaces something most new managers learn the hard way: the core challenges of managing people are largely the same regardless of the team.

One thread ran through all of it: self-awareness.

"The emphasis on self-awareness really stuck with me. If you don't understand how you show up as a leader, even the right approach can land the wrong way. That's something I've been much more deliberate about since stepping into the role, particularly in how I coach and set expectations."

The Talent Development team at Braze has built a wide range of programs and opportunities designed to support people at different career stages — whether you're working toward a leadership role, or looking to grow and excel as an individual contributor.

What Growing as a Leader Looked Like at Braze

The Braze Leadership Competency Model (LCM) maps out how leaders at the company are expected to grow and support others through specific qualities. For John, one competency has already become a touchstone in how he thinks about his day to day.

"The one I keep coming back to is 'Build Capability and Capacity'. It's the most relevant to where I am right now, early in a leadership role, working with a team that has real potential."

‘Build Capability and Capacity’ is defined as the idea that great leaders advance the business by building high-performing teams, championing development, and planning for the future, rather than just delivering results themselves.

As John sees it, the job of a manager isn't to be the best individual performer in the room anymore, it's to create the conditions where the team can perform at their best.

'Leads with Emotional Intelligence' is the other one he leans on, a recognition that management involves conversations that are more nuanced than anything in a customer-facing role, and that how you show up with different people genuinely matters.

There's also something personal in how John applies these frameworks. The conditions that helped him grow at Braze — honest feedback, space to take on new challenges, time to build credibility — are now the conditions he's trying to create for his own team.

"Braze created space for me to take on new challenges, get honest feedback, and build credibility over time. As a leader now, I see it as my responsibility to pass that on."

What Braze culture actually feels like from the inside

Culture is one of those things that's easy to describe in broad strokes and harder to pin down in specifics. John's version of it is grounded in day-to-day reality.

"Culture at Braze is something you feel in how people operate day to day. There's a genuine expectation of high performance, but also a real investment in development. That combination isn't as common as people think."

Being surrounded by high-performing peers raises your own standards in ways that are harder to manufacture. You can't really coast in that kind of environment. For John, that's been a good thing.

The other cultural thread that comes through clearly is adaptability. Braze has changed a lot since its IPO in 2021, and that growth hasn't slowed down. The company has continued to expand its footprint, opening new offices and growing its teams in markets around the world. That kind of consistent, sustained growth means the business continues to evolve every year, and the people who've done well here, in John's telling, are the ones who evolve with it.

"One thing that stands out is how quickly things evolve, whether that's how we go to market, how we think about customer value, or more recently how we're adopting AI across the business. The people who do well here are the ones who lean into that change and stay open to doing things differently."

Leadership above him has been a constant thread, too. John is direct about how much it's mattered: leaders who invested in him, advocated for him, gave him room to grow. His manager Melissa was a particular influence in his transition from individual contributor to manager through guiding, not just supporting, and creating space for him to learn through doing.

How to Grow Your Career at Braze

If you're thinking about a role at Braze and you're early in your career, or eyeing a leadership path down the line, John's advice is pretty direct.

"Do your current job really well. It sounds simple, but most people underestimate how much it matters. Don't chase the title: chase the experience. Build trust, stay curious, be open to doing things differently. When you do that consistently, opportunities find you. That's been true for me at every stage here at Braze."

Ready to ignite your career at Braze?

We're hiring across our sales teams globally, including in London. If John's story resonates and you're the kind of person who wants to genuinely grow and stay curious in your work, explore our open roles!