What has been your business/work highlight of 2024 so far?

In 2024, my biggest highlight has been establishing and advancing a relationship between Barco and Microsoft. From these efforts, ClickShare has joined the Microsoft ecosystem, and one of the first vendors to announce participation in the Shared Spaces initiative for device reporting. With further announcements due out at InfoComm in June 2024. This initiative is a major shift for ClickShare, which historically has competed against Microsoft within the meeting space. Beyond the impacts to the business relationship, the customer and market are the main benefactors of these initiatives.

Who is your business hero and why?

Behind great companies there is always great leadership, it’s a necessity for sustained growth. The main reason I chose to join ClickShare was because of the leadership I saw from our CEO Charles Beauduin. During our first meeting, prior to ever considering joining ClickShare, Charles joined a meeting between myself and ClickShare leadership, and during the meeting he left a lasting impression. Throughout our interaction Charles didn’t comport himself as the most important person in-room, but rather as a visionary who was motivated by the team outcome instead of his own agenda. When we moved locations, Charles recognised the value of the meeting and made sure those of us that needed to speak were the focus, to the extent he stepped in to serve those of us at the table. This style of ‘lead by example’ was so refreshing to see, and stayed with me for well over a year until the opportunity came to join the ClickShare team. I didn’t hesitate to join ClickShare, knowing the company’s leadership is decidedly different from most technology companies.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?

In my career I’ve made many mistakes, but my greatest mistake to date relates to ‘reading the room’. As a younger professional I had the privilege of working within an emerging market. While within this role I was responsible for determining our strategy for success, which was the easy part. The challenge was ‘selling’ this strategy to the rest of the executive team, which proved to be a fruitless effort. Had I recognised the uphill battle earlier in the process, I could have addressed the gap between the needed strategy and the team on hand or submit my resignation to save the headache. Instead, I fought the good fight, lost a lot of perceived value among those on the executive team and ended up still leaving the company. While hindsight is 20/20, the strategy that won the day was the wrong strategy and business is all but non-existent only a few years later. While it would be easy to say ‘I told you so’, I see the missed potential as a failure on my end, as working the personalities within the room as a primary consideration may have led to a different outcome. Since this experience, I’ve learned to individualise objections and put myself in each stakeholder’s perspective, yielding much better results.

What’s the most inspirational book you’ve ever read and why?

While this book may seem like a strange choice, one of my favourite books is Growth Hacking, but Sean Ellis. This book helped to inspire me within my career because it gave me a framework for challenging the status quo through data-led decision-making. This book is one I often recommend to those within business development and product, as it provides the needed perspective to change the business trajectory. While not the most inspirational book for your personal life, it is very helpful within the context of business.

What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role in 2024?

Within my current role my biggest challenge is the distance between myself and the greater ClickShare leadership team. While being located 3,000 miles from the office does make it easier to meet with our key partners, many of them who are located on the west coast of the US. This distance is felt when critical meetings are held during the middle of the night for my time zone, making it harder to contribute to decisions. Furthermore, the distance also limits our team’s ability to have unstructured meetings, where we catch up while accomplishing a task. One other challenge that comes out of this arrangement is the guilt you feel leaving a note or chat for a colleague after hours for their time zone, knowing they will likely respond anyways. This guilt leads to further guilt about not answering questions that come in during the night on my end. Thankfully the entire team has been very patient with me as we get used to this new ‘normal’.

What technology will have the greatest impact on your business this year and why?

AI isn’t new to the IT industry as it has become an integral part of analyzing vast amounts of data, recognizing patterns and making complex business decisions. But AI technology such as Microsoft Co-Pilot has made the most significant impact in the IT industry when it comes to creating the ultimate in-room experience. For instance, IT managers that want to maximise AI platforms into their existing software can incorporate AI with Microsoft to identify failure points, how much is going on, and make decisions.