CHANNEL CHIEF
For DAVE FUNNELL , Manager: Cloud Provider at VMware, there
are seven types of leadership style, and he falls into the strategic
leadership segment.
D
Describe your current job
role and the parts that are
somewhat challenging?
What made you think of a career
in technology?
I manage the VMware Cloud provider
business for Sub-Saharan Africa. This is
a rapidly growing business where Cloud
Service Providers (CSPs) leverage VMware to
deliver a variety of solutions and services to
the market.
The size and varied maturity of the
territory make the role challenging, but also
very exciting. The nature of the programme
means I get to work closely with the revenue
generating business within the CSPs.
When you look back at your
career what has been the most
memorable achievement?
I’ve been working in ICT for over 20 years,
and there have been so many changes over
that period, that being flexible enough
to adapt to those changes and stay at
the forefront of numerous technology
transformations is an achievement in itself.
Along the way, I’ve been privileged to work
with market leading vendors, partners and
customers as they have benefited from
these technology changes.
The size and varied
maturity of the
territory make the role
challenging, but also
very exciting.
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
Issue 23
It seemed like a logical step when I made
the move into the technology space. I had
experience in a service industry and, allied
to an understanding of technology and its
benefits to business, it was a very attractive
career option. With the constant change
there is always the opportunity to learn and
acquire new skills.
Dave Funnell, Manager: Cloud Provider
at VMware
What style of management
philosophy do you employ at your
current position?
VMware employ highly competent
individuals, so management is about
creating the right environment for them
to be productive. It is a highly pressured
environment, so it’s important to keep
energy high, encouraging people to succeed.
We also need to support our full partner
ecosystem as an extension of the VMware
sales teams and allow them to feel part of
the organisation.
What is your style as a
team leader?
It is said that there are seven types of
leadership style and I feel that I most
likely fall into the strategic leadership
segment. This would make sense as I have
both operational responsibility and I am
targeted to drive strong growth within the
cloud business.
What do you think will be the hot
technology talking point of 2019?
Maybe not a hot tech topic, but I think the
maturity of cloud adoption, as it moves from
being an idealised nirvana that promises
to mitigate all the issues of IT, to a fully
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