When Brendan Kinkade was a young kid growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, he wanted to know how things work — a concept he now refers to as “practical physics.” At the time, though, the pursuit of practical physics translated into completely taking apart and then reassembling motorbike engines on his back patio. “Every screw and washer had a place, and if you deconstruct things, you have to know how they go back into place,” says Kinkade. “It taught me to be systematic and process-oriented. And to understand that there are many pieces that make up the whole.”
For Kinkade, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and this year’s Executive Excellence Award winner, that early interest in engineering came naturally. Kinkade’s father was an aerospace designer and his mother was a university radiation biology professor and dean who went on to become CIO at the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Kinkade studied mechanical engineering and aviation at the University of Louisiana Monroe, and his path to his current role as vice president, strategic partners, for IBM’s cloud and cognitive software business has had a few curves. In fact, before taking on a series of executive-level positions at major technology companies, Kinkade spent years in the media and entertainment world in Los Angeles.
He had a family connection in that industry: the late actress Rue McClanahan, who won an Emmy playing Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, was Kinkade’s aunt. But what really drew Kinkade to the entertainment business was the same “how to do it” impulse that led him to take apart motorbikes. “I took an interest in directing and how to produce and edit, and that exposed me to emerging digital technologies,” he says. His work eventually caught the attention of an early-stage data storage startup, which was pioneering the shift from tape to disk-based backup.
Kinkade served as the company’s vice president of marketing for six years, then later joined the cloud computing company VMware before eventually joining IBM in 2016. “I was concerned the corporate world would be too stiff,” he says. “But I found that, to the contrary, there’s a lot of creativity, good thinking, and logical processes as well as room for business instincts and understanding the market and where it may go.”
In fact, Kinkade’s current position leading a team of 24 in the development of partnerships for IBM’s cloud and cognitive software business demands both the ability to foster strong personal relationships and a deep understanding of technology. Relationships are obviously important as Kinkade and his team work with companies like Dell, Intel, and VMware to develop mutually beneficial partnerships that complement what the IBM public and hybrid cloud platforms can already deliver.
That same emphasis on strong relationships also guides Kinkade’s approach to executive leadership. “My role as a leader is to establish a culture, and the culture on my team is one of inclusion and strong collaboration,” he says. “I think that starts with me. Anyone can call me at any time. I’m responsive, and I have open and frank communications about our objectives and expectations. I think people respect you when you’re open, clear, and honest.”
Kinkade’s approach to leadership has proven effective. Within IBM, his organization ranks at the top in employee engagement and earns “best in class” marks in 13 of 17 categories. Kinkade himself received 100 percent favorable engagement scores from his direct reports. Good leadership also happens to translate into strong financial results. Partnerships managed by Kinkade’s group brought in over $1 billion in revenue for IBM in 2019, with IBM’s public cloud partnerships increasing 93 percent from 2018.
A longtime member of AISES and a Sequoyah Fellow, Kinkade prioritizes fostering opportunities for Native students interested in technology careers. He serves on IBM’s Executive Native American Diversity and Inclusion Council, and his own team is made up of over 40 percent women and minorities. Kinkade is also actively involved with Native American education through the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Title IV Indian Education Program, and his two daughters have been recognized for their many academic achievements by both the Choctaw Nation and the LAUSD Indian Education Program.
Kinkade is enthusiastic about encouraging Native students to pursue careers in technology because he knows firsthand what a dynamic and exciting industry it is — one that always rewards looking to the future. “It’s important to stay engaged in the present,” he says. “But always be on the lookout, particularly in technology, because the landscape changes so fast. If you can avoid being myopic and keep your eyes on the horizon, there can be a lot of interesting opportunities.”
