The holidays have come and gone, and a new year is upon us, but that doesn’t mean the excitement is over. In fact, the first month of the year is a time to celebrate new beginnings and prepare for whatever adventure awaits us in the coming months. And when it comes to new adventures, no one relates to this more than Chris Holliday, Managing Director of Solution Advisory at Maven Wave, an Atos company.
As the former senior vice president of Client Management at Visual BI (which was acquired by Maven Wave last year), 2021 brought some massive waves of change in Holliday’s direction. Fortunately, his nautical know-how has taught him to navigate unfamiliar waters, and we couldn’t be happier to have him on board.
Read below for our full interview with Holliday!
Tell us about yourself.
My name is Chris Holliday, and I am a Managing Director of the Solution Advisory team. I came to Maven Wave via Visual BI where I headed up the consulting company as SVP of Client Management. I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL with my wife, daughter, and two dogs aboard our sailboat the Wild Rumpus. Prior to my eight-year tenure with Visual BI, I spent almost 10 years in IT leadership with the chemical company Tronox.
Tell us about your role at Maven Wave.
My formal role is Head of the Solution Advisory, but I will also continue to support the folks from Visual BI until the transition is complete. The Solution Advisory team is a new team that is charged with:
- owning solution go-to-market strategies
- helping un-encumber the delivery folks from the sales process
- enabling Sales, SEs, and SAs in support of their pipeline goals
What is the top highlight of your career so far?
Leading the greatest team of consultants ever at Visual BI!
What is your favorite part of working at Maven Wave?
The people and the startup energy!
What does company culture mean to you?
To me, company culture is the way the team interacts both internally and with customers and partners. Culture is the energy, the engagement, and the ethos that drives our day-to-day. Company culture is important because it is the emotional identification employees have with the organization. A positive, inclusive, and vibrant work environment feels good!
Where do you see the cloud market in the next few years?
I think we will see additional consolidation down to more SaaS with less wiring up between infrastructure and platform pieces. I also think we will start to see cross-cloud abstractions, which will begin the commoditization of cloud services where we no longer need to care about where our storage or compute is coming from but more about the cost and ease-of-use features desired.
What goals do you have for your team this year and beyond?
For my Visual BI team, the single goal I have is for them to comfortably be integrated into Maven Wave as soon as possible. For Solution Advisory, we are in a pioneering phase, so we have many lofty goals around enablement automation, industry focus, and hyperscaler certification. Part of our goal will be to monitor our effectiveness to make sure our initial thinking continues to yield expected results and alter course when needed.
How would you describe your leadership style?
Supportive and by example; hire good people and enable them to do what you hired them to do.
What is something about you that always surprises people?
I am fluent in Spanish.
How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
Sailing, spearfishing, cycling, and the never-ending pursuit of great restaurants.
Rapid Question Round
- Brand new or vintage? Vintage
- City or countryside? Countryside
- Mac or PC? PC
- Cats or dogs? Both
- Introvert or extrovert? Ambivert
- Spring or Autumn? Spring
- Football or baseball? Neither
- Vacation: Campground or resort? Campground
- Music or podcasts? Podcasts
- Karaoke: Singing or spectating? Singing
- Comedy or drama? Comedy
CULTURE
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