Embracing change & industry inflection points to advance your career

Excerpts from an Avalara Orange Bag Session last week in Pune, India

By: Frank Hanzlik

November 18, 2024 Pune, India

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It is often said that the only constant is “change”.? Jeff Bezos speaks about “stasis” (standing still) as the enemy, and that is why every day is day 1 at Amazon.

How do you approach change?? Do you seek it out?? Do you avoid it? The data suggests that most people are resistant to change in their personal and professional lives.? It is a bit understandable, you get good at something, and you stick with it.

In technology businesses, change happens all the time.? Think of:

-landline phones

-fax machines

-dial up modems

-desktop computers At one point, they were all cutting- edge technologies, but things change. Today, I am going to make the argument that embracing change, and in particular, industry inflection points, can be a powerful development tool for your career.? I am also going to make the point that being thoughtful and purposeful about role selection and the jobs you take is also very important.? Lastly, I am going to link both of those points to the importance of making a lifelong commitment to building and maintain a strong personal and professional network.

I am going to do this by walking through 3 industry pivot points that I have directly been a part of, have shaped my career, and I think can be instructive:

1) The explosion of mobility and cellular from my time at Motorola

2)The .com era from my time at Dell

3)And, the Wi-Fi movement, from my time leading the Wi-Fi Alliance, the global trade & certification association for the Wi-Fi industry

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Now, first, a little bit about me for context. -I was born and raised in Chicago, and have moved around the US, living and working in Chicago, Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest, and Austin , TX—where I currently reside.

-My mother was a first- generation immigrant from Germany and had a profound impact on my life and career (will come back to the importance of that a few times during this session).

-On a personal level, I have been married for 32 years.? When we talk about embracing change, I never would have met Tina (my wife) had I not gotten out of my comfort zone and moved to Los Angeles.? I have 2 daughters (23 and 26) that are both a big part of my life.

-For fun, I like to run, cycle, and hike.? I also love global travel, something that I inherited from my mother and developed through taking trips back to Europe to see family when I was young.? I have traveled to over 50 countries, and been to India well over a dozen times.

-Now, professionally, I have worked at a range of companies:? Big companies like Motorola and Dell.? I did a start-up.? A mid-cap company.?? A hedge-fund. And, a not for profit when I was the first Managing Director at the Wi-Fi Alliance. So, with that foundation in place, let’s get into the story.

Chapter 1

My first job was at Motorola, at HQ in Chicago.? I started out as a pricing/bid and quote analyst in the division that built 2-way communications equipment (walkie talkies) for public safety agencies.? Motorola was a dominant leader in that field, and it was a great environment to learn solid business acumen and work with a lot of incredibly smart people.? While most people today associate Motorola with cellular phones, when I started, cellular phones were just being introduced. They cost about $3K, and were BTB focused.? However, I could see that mobility was going to be really big, and that this is where the action was going to be.? I also had a sense, pretty early in my career, that I wanted to someday be a leader of a business vs a specialist within a specific discipline-like sales, or marketing, or product.? And so, as I looked at potential jobs, I sought those that would help me acquire a broad base of functional skills. I spent some time as an analyst, and then pursued an opportunity to move to Los Angeles to get some large account sales experience.? I did that for a few years, did well (and met my wife), and then came back to Chicago to take a role in product management and go back to school to get my MBA at night.? So, early in my career, I was starting to build a base of experience across different elements of the business--in pricing & analysis, in sales, and in product management.? Each role taught me valuable insights that would help me down the road.

Now, as I mentioned, cellular was just starting to move from a BTB business to a consumer business.? That inflection point represented a great opportunity, and I wanted to be a part of it! ??So, through networking with some of my mentors, I was able to move into the cellular division at Motorola.? We had a mantra of “cellular—everyone, everywhere”.? It was so inspiring—the concept of moving from calling a place, to calling a person (Anil) was a game-changer.? Think about that.? There was a time (not that long ago) where you had to call a place and cross your fingers that someone was there to pick-up. Through that work, I got to travel the world meeting with cellular operators as we were lighting up networks everywhere—Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe.? I got to go to places that sounded so exotic-Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires.? I continued to have that passion for international travel and exploration from my mother, and felt so lucky to be seeing the world as part of my job.? We were making a real difference in the world, and I had a front row seat. It was awesome!

That time for me was fun and rewarding. After a few years, I had now finished my MBA, and was starting to think about what was next.? There was a small company in Austin, TX that was revolutionizing the way computers were developed and sold.? That company was Dell Computer, started in the dorm room by Michael Dell. I had a friend and mentor from Motorola (Bill De Kruif) who had recently joined, and I could see this was a special place by how he was beaming whenever I spoke with him.? So, after 11 years at Motorola, I knew I was ready to start the second chapter of my professional journey.

Chapter 2

Through Bill, I was able to get a door opened at Dell and joined their product team working on communication products.? This was a great entry point based on my background at Motorola, as Dell was looking to make their PC’s “more connected”.

Over my ten years at Dell, I had a chance to work on cutting edge mobile products, including Dell’s unsuccessful entry into the Smartphone market. I had a chance to see the power of Dell’s superior supply chain in action, and ride the wave with dell.com (one of the world’s first .com’s to really scale). Now, as fun as the mobile stuff was, my biggest opportunity at Dell came quite unexpectedly.? One of my mentors there (Michael Tatelman) asked me to run the Software and Peripherals business for North America.? This business was comprised of all the hardware and software in the ecosystem around the PC.? It was a high-margin business for Dell, and about $1B USD annually.? However, for a variety of reasons, the business had been declining 20% for the past few years.?? At first, I kind of dismissed the opportunity.? “Michael (Tatelman not Dell), I am a wireless/mobility guy (I told him), this is not my bag.? He persisted, and said “I am not really “asking”??. He said this was an amazing opportunity to make a difference in a huge business and strengthen and re-position my brand in the process.? I thought it over, knew he was right, and said ok!?

I took over the business, and within three years, had it turned around….positive growth!? It was a tremendously rewarding experience.? Michael took a risk on me, I accepted the challenge to get out of my comfort zone, and now I had demonstrated proficiency as the GM of a $1B business.? That, was really fun, and my learnings leading a business at that scale were instrumental in helping me land my last two jobs. Now, while I was in my early days of working on mobility at Dell, I got exposed to an emerging technology that I sensed could change the world.? That technology, Wireless Ethernet (and what we now know as Wi-Fi), began the third chapter in my story.

Chapter 3: Wi-Fi Alliance

At Dell we were always looking at new technologies.? Most of them were over-hyped and never went anywhere. However, in 1999, I was in a conference room with one of our vendors that was showing off a revolutionary new way to connect your PC to the internet… without wires.? Now, at the time, that was crazy talk.? To connect a PC to the internet, you needed to connect a hard-wired ethernet cable.? Well, this was that same idea, but done wirelessly, with a PC card that you could insert into your computer.

We brought in some of these products to show people.? With this technology, you could now, for the first time ever, attend a meeting in a conference room or work in the cafeteria, without the constraints of wires.? The more people at Dell who saw this, the more they kept asking “how can I get one” of these.? And, the more we distributed them, the more everyone wanted one…including the other Michael, Michael Dell! As happy as I was at Dell, I had a special feeling about what this new technology could potentially do.? I wanted to be a part of it, and go all in.? So, I moved my family from Austin, TX to the Pacific Northwest to join a start-up that was focused on this space.? My wife was a saint, as we had just built a new house in Austin, and had our second child on the way…but she could tell how important this was too me. Through this start-up, I became involved in the industry trade group that was developing inter-vendor certification standards and evangelizing the technology. I loved working with this group, and after 3 years at the start-up, I was approached by the board of this organization to take a full-time job to become their first Managing Director.? Now, I always considered myself a very corporate and capitalistic person.? This organization was technically a not-for-profit trade association, so what was I doing? ?Was this crazy talk as well?? Well, the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to give it a shot.? It was a unique inflection point in technology, and I felt, if we got it right, this could really change the world.? And, if I didn’t, corporate America would still be there.?

Well, you probably know what happened.? I took a risk, took the job, and it is probably the single accomplishment of my professional career for which I am most proud. I was able to work with a special group of individuals, get 300+ companies (many of which were competitors) to move in a common direction, and solidify the Wi-Fi brand and its industry leading certification program as the gold standard for connectivity. ?I got to travel the world, evangelize the technology, and work with regulators, tech companies, and test labs to build an ecosystem that was the envy of the industry.? I even got Apple to join the board, which was a pretty big deal since Steve Jobs wanted to go all in with this technology in Apple products, and we really needed them “in the boat” with us.? In a small way, I think what we did with Wi-Fi DID change the world, and that work with partners and ecosystems continues to help me in my role today at Avalara.? There is a book about this revolution that was written by my good friend and former colleague, Greg Ennis,? It is called “Beyond Everywhere-How Wi-Fi Became the World’s Most Beloved Technology”.? Check it out if you like.

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So, to wrap things up:

-Be bold with your career and take risks.? Look for industry inflection points and different role in your career that can really stretch you.? As Jeff Bezos likes to say, there are very few “one- way doors”.? So, if you take a risk and it does not work out, you can probably go back to what you were doing before and try again later.

-Continue to invest in your network.? Do it in an authentic and reciprocal way.? Every role in my career (every role) came through networking, and the trust and brand that I worked hard to build with colleagues, mentors, and friends.? Finding your next big thing is rarely about job boards, it’s about the power of your network.

-Mentor and share your learnings and experiences with those around you.? I owe my career to people that believed in me. We are all very fortunate in this room to be working at a company like Avalara.? ?Look at ways you can have that impact with others. Thank you again for your time, and the ability to be with you today.? Now, how about some questions?

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