Q. What’s the best thing a customer has ever said about you?
A. I’m working now with a public-sector customer and, on a call last week he said, ‘We want you back because we trust you. You give us a straightforward, honest appraisal of where we are.’ That was after I had told them they were going nowhere fast on a six-month-old project — and what they needed to do to fix it. That’s what customers get from me, I think: straight talk. That honesty is so key to the customer-Avanade relationship. The trust you put in place is critical to our success and the project’s.
Q. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
A. I like interacting with customers. I like to understand where they want to go and then translate their vision into technology. It’s about more than CRM — it’s about understanding their landscape, platforms and all the things they want to do. That’s the bit that gets me out of bed, really. The more I’m doing that, the happier I am.
Q. Tell us one weird fact about yourself.
A. I once built a website for Muhammad Ali.