The good thing about all good things coming to an end

And here’s the customary “after x years, I’m leaving the company” post. I found it useful, even cathartic, to reflect on the best part of a decade in my professional career, so why not share. So, first things first. I’m leaving Cloudreach next week after almost 9 years. And the good thing is that I wouldn’t change a thing in my time here. The good times, the bad times and the, ahem, character building times. 

First impressions

My first interaction with Cloudreach was a quirky job description that caught my attention straight away. My other half kept calling it the “cloudy lunch company”, as the job spec referred to the then tradition of taking everyone out for lunch on Fridays. Then came an interview with Pontus. I went into the meeting armed with this research (there is a 2012 version that I can’t find online - it’s hilarious to look at it now!).

At the end of the conversation we arranged to meet James the following day. As I was travelling back from London (we were living abroad at the time), Pontus called me to make an offer. He said that I must have something special, as James didn’t normally have a great opinion of salespeople! I took that as a compliment. And the rest is history.

All of it of a blur

So what did I make of it all? While it was all a blur in the moment, in recent times I’ve come to realise how many defining moments I had at this company. It’s unlikely I’ll ever be exposed to the same breadth of experiences as I had here.

I worked “hands-on” across account management, sales leadership, global expansion, marketing, delivery, product, finance and operations, IT and systems implementation, being acquired, acquiring others, corp dev and integration, divestments, PE relationships, partnerships and I think the list could go on. I travelled extensively across the globe, learning both personally and professionally. And to top it all off, I worked with some of the smartest folks around. Just check what they’re all doing after life at Cloudreach.

When people ask me about my biggest achievement at Cloudreach, I always struggle to find the one thing that I’m most proud of. Firstly, because I see all achievements not as mine, but as collective feats. The company needs to benefit from them to make them true accomplishments. And secondly, because I believe genuine success is built on a succession of small (ok, sometimes big) wins over time, not in one single moment. 

I remember closing our first ￡100k deal, and then ￡250k, then ￡1m and so on, building up to a famous $25m deal in 2016. After that, big deals became routine. We were the best company to work for according to the Sunday Times. We created new products that were a huge success. We implemented transformational processes that allowed us to scale from the UK to the rest of the world. Ah, and that first Gartner MQ top right, without even being a Gartner customer! The Blackstone investment and the recent Microsoft Partner of the Year award also up there. The list goes on! And above everything else, all the promising talent we hired and promoted, who went on to become cloudy superstars. That’s the real accomplishment.

And speaking of great people, there are lots of you who made this journey incredible. Too many to name here. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank the people who I worked with the most and who I shared the best (and worst) moments with. 

Firstly Pontus, who trusted me with any challenge, however difficult. Even though I wasn’t entirely there in terms of experience (or at all in some cases), his unwavering support enabled me to learn, and succeed, like I never have before. 

James for his wisdom and mentorship over the years. Always offering a point of view I hadn’t thought of before, he really helped me see things differently. His love for pyrotechnics is something that needs a separate blog post.

Karima, who through her incredible ability to teach and translate anything legal, made me believe I would like to be a lawyer myself one day! Thanks to her, I find legal negotiations fun (I know…)

And finally Tom Ray and Chris Bunch, who were part of the same leadership team as myself for the longest. So many achievements and unusual moments. Their friendship and good spirits were part of why this company has been so great. And I probably shared more hotel rooms with these two then I’d like to admit.

“This is me”

This chapter will certainly define me for years to come from a professional point of view. So what would be my humble advice to the reader, should they be so foolish to take it? My personal trajectory here was driven by the appetite to learn and to do things I’d never done before, rather than a “conventional” career path. To say yes, to put my hand up when the outcome was uncertain and just “get on with it”. The key, however, is to own it - whether you were initially “qualified” to do it or not, you have to deliver regardless.

Not that long ago, someone warned me that having “zigzagged” through roles and responsibilities deemed me unable to answer questions like “what are you?”, “are you a sales and marketing person?”, “are you a product person?” “are you a finance and operations person?” etc. Admittedly, at the time I didn’t have a good answer for it. And those are valid questions when you’re looking for a “box” to put someone in.

But as I reflect on it, the answer is: “that is who and what I am”. And it has given me a unique set of capabilities and general adaptability that I can leverage in whatever I do next, whichever box it might happen to be in.

Speaking of that - what’s next? Well, that will be for another blog post in the future, which will help boost my credentials as a LinkedIn “author” :-)

In the expression coined by Chris Bunch circa 2012: Keep it cloudy!

Andre