Career Profile
I started my journey in the IT world with ‘dual studies’ (apprenticeship and studies combined) at Siemens AG. After completion and a few years of application management for Microsoft SharePoint and Project Server at PSoD (Project Service on Demand) I took on a new challenge at AvePoint (ISV and Microsoft Partner) and started my career in the PreSales field.
I really enjoy doing PreSales - the combination of IT and problem solving, talking with people about business challenges is a very good combination for me as I am open minded and always (almost) positive.
With Okta I continued my journey in PreSales - connecting the right people to the right technology at the right time. I am working with all segments, recently more focused on Enterprise and Strategic accounts in the Central & Eastern Europe region. I received plenty of great feedback from prospects and customers for my unique way of doing things (e. g. Whiteboarding, approaching prospects) - backed by awards (read below).
During the last years I began to mentor new hires and helped them onboard to their new role at Okta. I also took over opportunities such as the first PreSales Academy in EMEA (people switching careers or their first job - 6 months onboarding program). I found this very rewarding to help and see people grow - that is what sparked my eandeavor to grow into leadership. Ulimately achieving the “Tech Win” is our main goal in Solutions Engineering - during my time in Leadership I drove a few projects in regards to tracking progress in Opportunities (Salesforce) and also on how to track time, activities and engagements in an easy way.
Experiences
Managing a diverse team of 7 people from 4 countries in a hybrid team setting. Team consisting of Core SEs, Specialists and Architects for multiple segments
- a) whole EMEA (Architect)
- b) Netherlands and Germany (Specialists) and
- c) Central & Eastern Europe Enterprise and Commercial (Core SEs)
Starting into Leadership with an official position and title.
- leading a team of 5 SEs
- defining new ways of async & remote work with Monday morning checkings (Slack) and Lightning Talks (Zoom)
Senior Solutions Engineer for Okta’s Identity Cloud (SaaS), focusing on Enterprise customers. Despite the ‘normal’ every day PreSales business I invested in:
- Recruited & hired PreSales Academy Central & Eastern Europe Candidates
- Interviewing candidates in Tech Challenges (tech evaluation) and peer interviews
- Microsoft SME (Subject Matter Expert) in Microsoft Compete scenarios
- Mentor & onboarding buddy for numerous SE’s in different roles (Alliances & Core SEs) A lot of feedback from peers and Managers in other regions did start my journey into Leadership.
Awards & Achievments:
- Presidents Club - FY23
- Lead SE in the biggest Workforce deal in the CEE region (1.5M ARR)
- EMEA PreSales Rockstar Award - FY23
- Presidents Club - FY22
- Technical Hot Shot Award CEE - FY22
- Peer Recognition Award - FY22
Worked as a Senior Sales / Solutions Engineer & Microsoft P-TSP at AvePoint in Munich. Deep knopwledge of Microsoft M365 products - focused on Cloud Backup for Microsoft and Salesforce, Cloud Governance Solutions but as well on-premises SharePoint governance & backup solutions. Trusted Advisor for AvePoint and Microsoft Software Products.
Achievments:
- #2 Sales Engineer worldwide in 2019 (over 200% achievement)
- #1 Sales Engineer worldwide in 2018 (over 200% achievement)
- #2 Sales Engineer worldwide in 2018 (over 300% achievement)
Started my journey PreSales. Quickly adapted sales frameworks and learned how to be successfull as a Solutions Engineer. Still focused on on-premises deployments of our AvePoint DocAve Management Software for Microsoft SharePoint. Growing knowledge to Microsoft Cloud deployments, protect via the AvePoint Online Services SaaS solutions. Adopted change to Subscription and ARR solution selling.
Projects
I like to tinker around with Hard- and Software. I always had a liking for NAS (NSLU2), embedded systems and ThinClients and use these in areas for which they were not designed. Also always open to try new things such as setting up a MIM proxy (evilginx). Enjoying to go to meetups (meetup.com) to get to know new people and learn new technology and just connect.
Publications
I post irregularly on my blog at https://thomasheinz.net - most of the time technical topics.