Joined Extreme in late 2017 via the Brocade acquisition, where he led the Data Center business in Switzerland and Austria. At the helm of the freshly formed Alpine Region within DACH, he led to a substantial business growth, winning several new lighthouse accounts from the competition and tripling the revenue in four years. Today, we are talking with Christoph Kaelin – the new Regional Director of Northern & Eastern Europe!
How would you describe yourself as a leader? Where or who do you draw your inspirations from?
In general, people tend to see me as a an open and positive-thinking person. I always try to lead by example and build a trusted environment for our local teams to encourage a free flow of ideas and some forward, out-of-the-box thinking. It is the kind of leadership that inspired me the most early on, back in my days at Brocade. My manager, a Danish expat living in Switzerland, led our team in a way that was built on trust, responsibility, and commitment – with some great result.
Interestingly enough, Denmark belongs to the region you are currently in charge of – Northern & Eastern Europe. For Extreme, NEE is not only the largest, but also the most diverse part of the EMEA organization. You could say that being open-minded is an essential part of your job description…
This couldn’t be more true. We’re talking about 35 countries, even more languages… On the one hand, there’s an obvious challenge to managing and working in such a complex environment, but on the other hand – it is way more fun and inspiring. And I mean, who’d be better equipped for leading such a multicultural team than a Swiss citizen! (smiles)
But jokes aside, I strongly believe that well organized teams and local interlock across different organizational departments are key in any matrix organization. It is maybe easier to hide behind a job description, but does not help the team. That’s why I embrace my teams to always have the bigger picture in mind. The NEE organization, as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts. So it’s important to first and foremost get people aligned with our shared vision and direction, but at the same be constantly aware of the local context.
The NEE organization, as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts.
What do you believe are the key factors for winning and succeeding in such a diverse market?
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that a ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work. Even more so, if you consider that in some countries we have a strong and long-lasting presence, with a large customer base and an established sales channel, while some markets we are only beginning to develop. Also, there are countries that kind of fit both descriptions – Poland, for example, holds a huge gross income potential for us. And this diversity can be a great thing too, because we may test the water and incubate certain models and strategies before approaching other markets, or even regions. Nordic countries and their large government customer base, for example, are leading our efforts towards MSP selling.
So there is a certain level of flexibility that needs to be applied, regarding the goals and tactics. Together with our regional leaders we define the market approach based on the local market knowledge. As a progressive leader, I always encourage our teams to try new ways of approaching their customers and prospects. Don’t be afraid to change things around. If it works, continue. If it doesn't – fail fast and try something else.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that a ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work.
You have a good perspective of the rapid changes the market has gone through over the past couple of years…
I am strongly convinced that the times of closed ecosystems are over. Our industry lacked innovations in the past, because of this factor. For instance, it makes no sense – neither economically, nor ecologically – to throw away a perfectly good WLAN access point just because you now want to manage it from the cloud instead of on-prem, as you did thus far. Similarly, organizations today want to be able to change the ‘persona’ of a switch at any moment to accommodate to the changing requirements, from access to the core or the Data Center of the network.
In that context, customers are no longer willing to pay for overpriced and closed systems from the old, big-name vendors. So we are the tipping point. And what our most recent history shows is that whenever we find ourselves in front of the customer and actually show them our solutions, we are winning and taking market share.
Don’t be afraid to change things around. If it works, continue. If it doesn't – fail fast and try something else.
What is Extreme’s main differentiator and competitive advantage moving forwards? What do you see as the company’s major evolutionary steps in terms of products and strategy?
I think our corporate mantra, New Ways, Better Outcomes, perfectly describes how we help customers in the post-pandemic and post-supply chain constrained world. For instance, our Universal Hardware approach gives them the flexibility to adopt to the ever-changing needs and extends the life cycle of their network investments. Our market-leading cloud-management platforms offer unmatched deployment options, covering both Extreme and third party devices. Our fabric technology shines equally both in large deployments and complex environments, where you have a lot of services to provision, as well as in smaller organizations which lack enough resources and expertise to operate their infrastructure. Our latest Universal ZTNA solution is the first network security offering to integrate network, application, and device access security within a single platform. Our licensing and warranty model is the simplest and most user-friendly in the industry…
The list goes on, but the main point is: the flexibility of our NEE team is only matched by the flexibility of our solutions. And that really comes in handy when approaching different markets and verticals!
Customers are no longer willing to pay for overpriced and closed systems from the old, big-name vendors.
In that regard, the recent ‘marriage’ of two key pieces of the technology puzzle, Fabric and SD-WAN, makes so much sense…
Networking is no longer just a technology play. Technology is a given and customers are selecting between the “A-brands” listed Leaders in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. In the current business environment, it comes down to security, business data insights, automation, and operational efficiency. And case by case, our customers consistently report operational savings compared to traditional deployments based on legacy vendors. The CIOs and CFOs are seeing the difference clearly. We’re still meeting with some reluctance from the technical departments of customers, because they’ve known and worked on Cisco their whole life, but that’s changing too.
Imagine that you operate an enterprise network spanning five locations. In practice, this means you’re managing five separate network infrastructures, and provisioning consistent services across different locations becomes an operational nightmare… The combination of our Fabric and SD-WAN technologies allows IT teams to provision services centrally for all locations. And what’s equally important, services which are discontinued are also removed from those five networks. You have so many services which are decommissioned and then stay in the configurations of the switches, creating a major vulnerability. It's just another proof of the security strengths in our fabric approach.
Case by case, our customers consistently report operational savings compared to traditional deployments based on legacy vendors.
Extreme’s strategic partnership with Living Tomorrow can be viewed as a motor of change for the way Extreme interacts with partners and customers alike. What are you most excited about this cooperation?
It’s a great opportunity to be recognized as a thought leader, to showcase innovations, but also to be challenged and inspired by other members of the Living Tomorrow ecosystem on how they see the world moving in the next ten years. While experiencing cutting-edge technologies first hand, our customers and partners also realize that the network is kind of in the center of it all, so it's important that it provides data insights, flexibility, and scale.
What personal goals do you want to accomplish in the first year as a new Regional Director Northern & Eastern Europe?
Establish strong local ‘country teams’ which are well aligned to support our growth ambitions. To that end, I formulated the goal for NEE to strive to be at the top in everything we do. I aim to hold one of our next team QBR’s at the Top of Europe – at Jungfraujoch a high-altitude research outpost of University of Bern, a long standing Extreme Customer, overlooking the eternal snows of the Aletsch Glacier at a height of 3,454 meters above sea level.