Meet Alan: Learning and growing as a leader

The American philanthropist Ray Dalio once said, “Great collaboration feels like playing jazz. In jazz, there’s no script: You have to figure things out as you go along. Sometimes you need to sit back and let others drive things.” Other times, you lead the way But ultimately, to create great music, you need to combine your skills and focus on the goals of what you’re trying to achieve together

This is one of the key principles guiding me as a leader at ServiceNow. As a client director, I’m responsible for our strategic relationship with a major German automotive industry leader It’s my job to build and manage the existing partnership with our customer, understand our clients’ business needs, and lead a virtual team of solution consultants, experts, and professional services to help our clients use the power of the Now Platform to achieve these needs.  

Not your typical tech leader

What makes me unique as a leader at ServiceNow is that, prior to joining the company, I had never worked in the enterprise software business. My career had taken me into the world of management consulting. The skills I developed in my previous roles—specifically to help clients break down and solve strategic challenges and make decisions about their future growth and change—are exactly the skills I’m using at ServiceNow to help drive digital transformation for our customers. 

My unique background is welcomed at the company by my team and the leadership team because it’s helping us to think differently about how we want to grow the account and industry. This is very much fueled by our culture of diversity and belonging, where we feel safe bringing our authentic selves to work As a company, and within our team, we very much embrace people with unique backgrounds because this gives us a wider perspective in our business and ultimately helps us make better decisions, which will help us to grow.  

What I really enjoy and appreciate about working at ServiceNow is, regardless of your job level, the autonomy and freedom you are afforded to shape your role and take ownership of projects. For example, in my role, I’m not just seen as a sales face to the customers, but as a leader of a strategic partnership. 

Leading by example

I’m responsible for building a team to support our customers’ top priorities. Instead of telling me what to do, senior executives look to me to lead the account team, and they regularly reach out to ask how they can help. It’s a unique environment to work in, and it gives me, as well as the team, the room to stay curious and find new learnings.  

I’m also empowering my team to become leaders. The team is made up of sub-account leaders who are responsible for different parts of the industry value chain, assembling their own project teams, and working with the clients directly. My role is very much that of a servant leader: helping to advise the team, being there to get things done, and making sure I’m giving my team new opportunities to be creative, learn, and grow. 

I’m also trying to further develop my team’s leadership skills and sense of ownership by encouraging them to think about end-to-end solutions and the whole customer experience rather than focusing solely on ServiceNow products. 

At ServiceNow, we define our success by our customers’ success, which is why the whole team prides themselves on putting our customers’ businesses first. We also work with our customers to help modernize and connect their entire organizations through productivity-enhancing digital workflows.  

When I joined ServiceNow just two years ago, it was a hidden champion for digital transformation. Today, ServiceNow is one of the fastest-growing enterprise companies, and we continue to dream big to our path of achieving $10 billion in revenue and beyond. I’m proud to be part of ServiceNow’s journey and grateful for the personal growth I’ve had the chance to experience so far. 

Interested in joining us? Explore our careers site.  

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