[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlUhp_hVat4&w=962&h=541]
Gregory Fox is a Technology Alliances leader, former CMO, Advisor, Keynote Speaker, and a LinkedIn Power Profile.
He is currently the General Manager of the WorkSpan Networking & Communications business.
In this video, he shares his insights around Tech alliances:
- Why partnering is critical for any company to succeed in today’s world.
- Evolution of alliances and ecosystems
- What kind of career opportunities are available in the Alliances and Partner space.
- How LinkedIn helps with networking and career opportunities.
- Touchy topic: Trade war between the US and China, Huawei, etc
- Last but not least: his favorite app, favorite quote, fav book, and fav restaurant
Read more about Greg Fox’s insights on Tech alliances
Career Nation: Hey Career Nation. Welcome back to the show. Today, we have a very special guest. He has been a leader in major tech companies. He is a LinkedIn power profile, and he’s also worked internationally and is recently transitioned from large tech to SAAS startups. Please welcome Greg Fox. Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg Fox: Abhijeet, great to be here. Great to be with you and Career Nation. It’s a real privilege and pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
Career Nation: Fantastic. Greg, why don’t we dive into your career journey, which is like you’ve done so many different things. Give us a thumbnail, give us a… kind of paint a picture for us. How has been your career journey thus far?
Greg Fox: Absolutely. So I started in computer science. I really was fascinated by computer science, started… that was my major in college, but… so I learned how to program on the 68,000 assembly for the Macintosh and developed WordPerfect for Mac, which was an amazing product. But then I felt like I didn’t want to be stuck in a pigeonhole into software development or software engineering. I was really intrigued by economics and political science. So actually my major shifted to economics with a minor in political science and Spanish actually. Eventually I got my masters, my MBA at the Marriott School at Brigham Young University. Then following that I joined Compaq Computer in Houston, Texas in product management working for the CEO. Now I didn’t work directly for the CEO, but this is when Eckard Pfeiffer was the CEO of Compaq Computer.
Greg Fox: Then about three or four years, they’ve made a transition to Novell. This was when Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Novell. I was really interested in partnering, how do partners go to market together for companies as they build products, how do they take them to market through partners. I was director partner marketing at Novell for a few years. Then my friend introduced me to this great company called Cisco systems. I knew a lot about the iconic John Chambers who was a CEO, their alliances and corporate business development group was growing and expanding. They needed someone to come in and look at their enterprise business and also in how to better partner with enterprise companies. And so I was… I became CMO with the Alliance Marketing Organization and then did a few roles in channels, and so forth for about 13 years with Cisco.
Greg Fox: Just an amazing time in a great company, an era in working with John Chambers and other great leaders there. And then, interestingly Citrix really was trying to look at how do they do their ISV partner program. And so I was introduced to Citrix just down the street in Santa Clara. Joined and led the ISV partner program for about three years. And then my journey took a path to China. I was introduced to Huawei through the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, which I was an advisory board member, a member of the board of directors. Their executives we’re investigating alliances and ecosystems and trying to figure out how do they formalize a program. And so I was introduced to them. They asked me if I’d be willing to relocate to China, to Shenzhen. And sure enough I came, led the strategic alliances organization for a couple of years, then transitioned into corporate marketing and brand strategy.
Greg Fox: And then WorkSpan. I was always looking at WorkSpan as a potential platform for how you better operationalize partners and alliances. So I was introduced to WorkSpan while I was at Huawei, was really intrigued by the business model and was introduced to some of their executives. And sure enough the timing was right for me to make a move back to the US after about three and a half years in China and WorkSpan hired me to come initially to look after the Alliance ACEs community. But then my role has expanded to really look at kind of a general management role, looking at our communications, and networking business, but also VP of alliances because we have a partner program. But also still looking after the Alliance Aces community at WorkSpan. It’s always been a dream of mine to join a startup, and I didn’t do it early on in my career, but I’m doing it late in my career, and I’m really happy to be at WorkSpan today.
Career Nation: Oh, that’s fantastic. And it’s great to hear the transition from being at Compaq, product management into alliances, partnerships at Cisco, Novell, Citrix, Huawei and now at WorkSpan, which is sort of like super exciting and working in a familiar space, which is partnership and alliances. Let me ask you a question on partnership and alliances and then we’ll go to WorkSpan. Traditionally partners are thought of as resellers, “Hey, I’m going to sell through the channel.” And they’ve had that reseller role over a period of time. They’ve also become a sort of value-added partners and they basically create solutions on top of sort of vendor technologies, and now you’ve got alliances. So tell us a little bit about this world of partners and alliances. Is it like everybody gives each other a group hug or is like… what happens in partners and alliances?
Greg Fox: Well, it’s interesting that… No company goes to market alone, I would say, right? Either you’re kind of building products yourselves, you’re acquiring companies to fill the gaps, or you need to partner with other companies to compliment your offers in terms of how you serve customers. So no companies are going to market alone there, you have to work with partners of all different types, whether it’s a system integrator or a channel partner or a cloud provider that really sort of compliment your entire go to market or route to market to be able to serve those customers. Research has shown that companies that adopt this, ecosystem model actually grow faster than companies that don’t, and they’re more profitable and they do business better and they serve customers better.
Greg Fox: So it’s not just about the reseller channel relationship, it’s about the holistic partnering model. Working with partners across the value chain to be able to better serve customers and being able to orchestrate that motion with those partners is critical for a company to really be successful in the partnering world. It can be… most partners fail. Partnerships fail. There are those companies that do it well. Really see the tangible ROI and great results in terms of customer satisfaction, being able to develop and bring solutions faster to market. Being able to really show alliance contribution to sales, opportunities and sales pursuits, et cetera. So I think that even though some of the research says these are hard and difficult companies that do it well and are able to see the tangible benefits
Career Nation: Yup. And that’s great. And so Greg, so there’s a lot of value that gets created through channel partnerships, alliances, they help to scale from a sales standpoint as well as create more value for customers. And that’s great. I mean, it creates a really good go to market. And so that’s the partnership and alliances sort of world or domain. How is WorkSpan working in this space? What is it trying to do? How is it trying to create value in this space?
Greg Fox: Yup. So what we say at WorkSpan is that we’re kind of completely re-imagining how companies go to market together. So for the first time with we call this WorkSpan Ecosystem Cloud and this is a new category. Ecosystem Cloud has been recognized as a new category in the market, by Gartner by others. And so, for the first time companies can now with their partners, build with, market with, and sell with, and they can grow their business and create abundance together in a single secure cloud-based network. So, that’s kind of the value proposition that WorkSpan offers. And so there’s… traditionally companies have had their own sort of ways in which they partner their own processes. They look at… they may be using spreadsheets or emails to exchange information with one another.
Greg Fox: They can’t track performance with those partners. Usually that happens at the year-end when they’re trying to do a QBR or business review. Developing a joint solution often takes six to nine months. Deal registration is like a black box, joint planning is a long exercise. Joint execution in the field is very hard and difficult. Getting the sales teams aligned around incentives and motions is important. And so a lot of these companies are using traditional tools and they have to do this manually through spreadsheets. Partners have their process. We may have our own process, but now with WorkSpan, you’re able to, operationalize and have a single shared system of record that can be used by their partners in the ecosystems.
Greg Fox: Giving them joint visibility to the projects that they’re managing, to be able to ideate on joint solutions, collaborate on joint opportunities, even pre pipeline opportunities before they’re accepted in the field by sales. It integrates well with existing PRM tools and also CRM tools. And so this single kind of system of record allows companies to better manage those motions with their partners in terms of how they serve customers.
Career Nation: Great. It sounds like the evolution of sort of partner management and partner space in terms of how do you define solutions, market them, sell them together, and it sounds like it will certainly provide a lot of acceleration and efficiency in this space. From a career nation standpoint, Greg, what are sort of the career opportunities in this space as you look at the evolution of channels and partnerships and alliances, what type of careers are coming up in this area?
Greg Fox: There’s a lot of different careers I would say. There may be an alliance manager that’s managing a single relationship for a company or someone that manages, the solution portfolio with the business units and a partner, a set of partners could be someone that would manage the marketing campaigns, or the marketing development funds in terms of how they execute and use those funds to accelerate, sales opportunities in the field. It could be someone that manages an overall portfolio of partners within a program for a company. It could be someone that’s in operations, right? Someone needs to operationalize these motions with their partners, keep track and measure and report on success and report, et cetera. So the operational aspect, is really important.
Greg Fox: And then I would say, companies like with WorkSpan, we have a network success team that actually helps implement. So you need sort of implementers of solutions like Ecosystem Cloud to help companies get really see that time to value realized over 60 to 90 days to help them get up and running to help them overcome change management or implement new kinds of tools or capabilities in their organizations. So sometimes that’s a little bit complex and there’s a little bit of resistance to change, but those kinds of careers, I would say a really… I think in ecosystems and alliances, this is going to continue to be sort of a thriving business, and the career opportunities are endless. In fact on our Alliance Aces Community, which we host, we actually post a lot of the jobs that alliance managers, we may be interested in, and the different roles from different companies in the tech industry are featured there. And so-
Career Nation: Oh, absolutely. That’s great. And that’s fantastic to hear because as technology becomes more interoperable, you’ve got more API’s, more sort of companies and vendors sort of coming together. For example, Microsoft has made a 180 degree in terms of how to work with other companies in an architecture that will be heterogeneous across may be an enterprise or so. So it’s fantastic to hear there are so many career opportunities in the space. Let me shift gears a little bit about sort of partners and alliances and go into a sort of customer value. And so as you look at go to the market alliance has partnerships and all of these things sort of come to a head in terms of how do we create customer value. Tell us a little bit more about how do you see customer value being created, especially as you work with customers and you take a kind of the vendor or the company’s a technology and then you take partner’s capabilities, put those things together, create value. How do you see value getting created for customers?
Greg Fox: Yeah, I think… you asked a little bit about going to market.
Career Nation: Yup.
Greg Fox: You look at go to market. I think it’s around, how do you have like this game plan for reaching and serving the right customers, in the right markets, through the right channels, with the right value proposition. It’s kind of a long-winded answer for go to market, but also I think it’s around creating those powerful high-quality customer experiences, I would say. But then customer value, right? If you look at customer value, it’s more about that perception of what a product or service is worth to a customer versus the possible alternatives. And worth means, whether the customer feels that they receive the benefits or services over what they paid, right? Are they realizing incremental, benefits or services over what their perception of what they paid, I think is really important.
Greg Fox: So for example, at WorkSpan, we have a network success team. So we really focused on customer value because if the customer purchases ecosystem cloud and is the deploying it, for a joint solution or with a set of partners, they really need to see incremental value quickly. And so we have a network success team that is assigned to the customer that helps them implement that particular use case or use cases, trains them on the platform and then enables the team that will be using it so that they can quickly use it, incorporate into their kind of daily workflow.
Greg Fox: And so that change management, that barrier to use is really lowered. So they can see that, that value creation or through faster-delivering solutions that are faster, perfectly introduced, a pipeline is accelerated, joint wins or customers wins are achieved faster and that they’re there and that they’re working in more of in a one motion kind of aspect. So that network-
Career Nation: Absolutely.
Greg Fox: It is really, is really critical. I believe.
Career Nation: Yeah, that’s great. And it was really great to hear about customer value, and the benefited drives for the customer, creates an ROI based on their cost, and it creates incremental value on top of what the customer was experiencing earlier, creates more delightful customer experiences. That’s fantastic. So thank you for those insights.
Greg Fox: Sure.
Career Nation: And are there any war stories that you’d like to share? Anything that comes to mind in terms of customer value or go to market?
Greg Fox: So I’ll just give you an example. I used to do a lot of… I still do a lot of public speaking at different events, but this was a business week conference that I was attending representing Cisco. Pretty high profile, and I was speaking on sort of this, the art of compete and collaborate as it related to the Cisco HP alliance. Okay. It was a great alliance, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to us, more to them. I was asked, and this was about, how we better serve our customers and how do we create value together as an alliance. And I was asked if that, I was willing to admit that sometimes alliances fail because we had actually, we had sort of transitioned the alliance from a really cooperative, not a lot of overlap.
Greg Fox: But then as we made acquisitions is HP made acquisitions, we had this ongoing overlap between the two companies. And so I said… they interpreted that I said that yeah, sometimes alliances fail and so they associated that. They said, “For the first time we’ve now see that an executive is willing to admit that alliances fail.” But what I should have said was, is that sometimes it’s appropriate to exit in the alliance when the competitive overlap outweighs the collaboration benefits. So my comments were taken a little bit out of context. The headline was there, referencing our highly successful HP alliance. PR was up in arms. We had to issue a revision to my comments, to make sure that our customers would continue to realize the value of the Cisco HP alliance. And so-
Career Nation: Wow.
Greg Fox: Yeah. It was a, it was a pretty good headline. They wanted a really good headline to attach to someone that would be controversial. But even if the headline says that an executive is willing to admit that alliances fail, but in the body it said sometimes it may be necessary to exit in alliance. So they took it a little bit out of context, but that was… we had to do some damage control with HP and also with our PR firm and then reassure customers that we were still doing things as normal. So a little bit of a challenge, but we got through it just fine.
Career Nation: Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes these challenges brings people closer together and creates better partnerships, and sometimes you have to go through the dip.
Greg Fox: Yes, absolutely.
Career Nation: That’s a great story right there, Greg. Thank you.
Greg Fox: You’re welcome.
Career Nation: Why don’t we shift gears one more time and get into a favorites game-
Greg Fox: Now. Sure.
Career Nation: and would love to know a little bit more about you, Greg here.
Greg Fox: Yes.
Career Nation: In this favorite game. So we’re going to ask you what’s your favorite thing and why? And we’ll start with your favorite app.
Greg Fox: Okay. I was going to tell you… can I tell you something else that’s my favorite and advanced?
Career Nation: Yeah. Absolutely.
Greg Fox: That my favorite game or my favorite thing to do is play golf. I’m an avid golfer. I think, if you look at some of the great golfers over time, like Bobby Jones, who was an amateur his whole life really was kind of the, even the founder of the Grand Slam of Augusta National in the Masters Tournament. Pretty amazing. I’ve just been an avid golfer my entire life and just loved the game. And Bobby Jones said, “Competitive golf has played mainly on a five and a half inch course. The space between your ears. And so, no round is the same. Each course is unique and amazing, et cetera. But my favorite… I’ll get to my favorite app.
Greg Fox: My favorite app. It’s pretty simple. I love LinkedIn. I’m an avid LinkedIn user. I think the ability to connect and collaborate and network, and engage in meaningful conversations, with professionals across the spectrum is pretty amazing, and it’s allowed us, and me personally to sort of extend my network… Every new job that I have secured has been through my network on LinkedIn and through past relationships. So with LinkedIn you’re able to explore partnering opportunities, learn new skills, keep track of the latest trends. I think you can share your voice and your point of view and allow others to react to it. I think it’s an amazing platform, and I love participating in LinkedIn.
Career Nation: Oh absolutely. And I really do think that LinkedIn has created an unbelievable networking opportunity for all of us. And quite frankly, it’s an indispensable tool now. Like as part of your profession, you just need to have LinkedIn, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in sales or operations, it does not matter. Everybody needs to be on LinkedIn.
Greg Fox: Absolutely. It’s critical I think, a company and to an individual success in their career. No question.
Career Nation: Absolutely.
Greg Fox: Yup.
Career Nation: Good. Well, we’ll go to the next favorites. And this one is about your favorite book.
Greg Fox: Yes. I thought a little bit about this. I’m a big Stephen R. Covey fan. Actually I grew up in Provo, Utah where Steven R. Covey lived, and I grew up with some of his kids and his children.
Career Nation: Oh, very cool.
Greg Fox: And so I was really intrigued by, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I think, if you look about the book talks a lot about the effectiveness and of that balance of how do you obtain desirable results with caring for that, which produces those results. And he talks a little bit about, there’s like three categories of the seven habits around independence, moving from dependence to dependence, that self-mastery and then interdependence, working with others, and then that art of continual improvement, right? In both the personal, interpersonal spheres of influence. So I really like Covey’s seven habits. I’ve tried to incorporate some of those habits in my own life, and it’s been really helpful for me, in my personal relationships with family and friends, but also in my career in the broader realm.
Career Nation: Yeah, it’s a must have for anyone’s personal library.
Greg Fox: Yes.
Career Nation: And definitely recommend it as well.
Greg Fox: Yup.
Career Nation: Moving onto the next favorites category, Greg, do you have a quote that you like, personally you put it up on your wall or your closet or you would like to see it on a billboard on Highway One O One or pick your favorite freeway minus 680, but for other reasons?
Greg Fox: Absolutely. One O One is better. Yes. So there’s a couple of quotes. Let me give you two. One is from Steve Jobs, we all know who Steve Jobs is. He says, “Focus means saying no to the hundred other good things.” I really like that, right? There’s so many good things you can pursue and that are maybe deserving of your attention and energy and investment that really focus on doing some things really well. I think it’s really critical, and I really like… I’m a big actually Helen Keller fan. I really admire her life and just sort of the challenges that she faced and what she overcame to really contribute and to be a force for good in society.
Greg Fox: She said that, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved.” So we all face trials, we all face challenges, even people that you think are highly successful, everyone goes through challenging circumstances and trials is how do you best overcome those challenges and trials, how they strengthen your character and your perseverance and how do you still be inspired and achieve success I think is really, really, really important. So I really like, what Helen Keller said and just her own personal example of that.
Career Nation: Yeah, absolutely. And that is a super deep, Greg-
Greg Fox: It’s a little bit deep-
Career Nation: And I love that. I love your commentary on that, which is, everyone goes through dips and valleys and how you emerge from that and how you pull yourself up and actually emerge as a confident person, as ambitious as someone who wants to create value for others and all of those good things. But going through the depth it doesn’t feel that good, but once he emerges from it, it actually feels much better.
Greg Fox: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Career Nation: Great. Do you have a favorite restaurant?
Greg Fox: I’ve got a couple. I love fast food In-N-Out Burger as an iconic just go-to place for me. But then there’s a great little sort of restaurant in my hometown in Provo, Utah called Dolce Vita. It’s an Italian family-owned business and just the food is made with such care and authenticity and it’s family-owned. My wife and I have developed personal relationships with the owners there and we go there often to just for a nice dinner and really a good standby for just enjoying great Italian fare.
Career Nation: Oh, that sounds really good.
Greg Fox: And if you asked me about my favorite drink, I would say diet Coke. Just like… John Chambers was… I think he’s still an avid diet Coke drinker. I call it the breakfast of champions. I do love a Diet Coke, a couple a day. It helps get me through the day, but I think it’s a good fuel to helping.
Career Nation: That’s awesome. Is there a certain caffeine level that you aspire to every day?
Greg Fox: I’ve tried to lower my caffeine sort of intake over time. I used to be a little bit higher on the caffeine scale, but now it’s lower. I’m a little bit more balanced on that, but I still like it a couple of times a day.
Career Nation: I like to indulge. I like it.
Greg Fox: Yes.
Career Nation: Greg. As you look at your career journey, are there some strategies and approaches that have helped you? And when you think of it, like for example, it could be your morning routine, or it could be the way you prepare for certain things. Like if when you look back, are there things that have really helped you that you would like to share with Career Nation?
Greg Fox: Sure. Couple of things. I always say, always prepare for the unexpected if you can, because things don’t always happen the way you expect them to. Give yourself the opportunity to act on something even as it appears real time. That’s kind of the way the Huawei opportunity came to me is an opportunity came and presented itself. I was prepared to make a decision quickly on it and acted on it. Just kind of going on the opportunity, but also the, what I felt like was a good next phase in my career. So just always be kind of present around, prepare for the unexpected, and then when those opportunities present itself, be able to act on that.
Greg Fox: Couple of other things I would say is I think personal I’m always… I really value personal relationships. They’re really matter. So, being deeply loyal to friends, I care about the wellbeing of others and how do they achieve success. So I’m always available. I try to be available to someone in need. Never be too busy that you can’t help someone who needs something in the moment. Some things you just can’t put off, you have to address immediately if the opportunity is there and you feel like you need to act. I think face to face meetings really matter. The ability to connect, collaborate and build mutual trust in a real time is really important, I would say. I also love the energy of the office, especially in the startup, everyone’s working together. Sometimes you we can walk all over ourselves and get in each other’s way.
Greg Fox: But I really like that we’re working collaboratively, getting projects done, doing things that you don’t expect to do when it may not be your role or job to do, but then also still needing that quiet solitude time to be able to think clearly and be creative I think is important. And then I would say be a mentor. Be willing to share advice to someone in their own career, helping them overcome a challenge or a personal situation. One of my big attributes is hire interns. Hire interns who are hungry for experience, give them tough projects and they will amaze you. I hired an intern from the local Mountain View High School here in the Bay Area, Kavya Shankar, she went on to Harvard, is just an amazing leader. I think she’s working in investment banking now and she created a social media marketing plan at Cisco for me at the time when social media marketing was really up and coming.
Greg Fox: We really needed a solid strategy. I gave her the assignment and she just blew this project out of the water, like in McKinsey, like kind of deliverable and really help us apply social media marketing into our digital strategy. And then I would say, yeah, just give back, right? Be able to volunteer on non-profits or other organizations where you can add value and help others who are aspiring to be business leaders. Help them realize the potential and help them fulfill their dreams. I would say that’s a few areas of advice that I would offer.
Career Nation: Oh, that’s great. That’s a lot of nuggets there. Greg we’ll have to-
Greg Fox: Yes it is.
Career Nation: unpack that a little bit. One follow up question to that I have when you have like a big meeting, a big presentation, how do you prepare? Like is there… you’re about to present to a big partner, new alliance that’s going to come up or is there a method to the madness? Do you go through some homework? Tell us a little bit about sort of the secret sauce of Greg Fox.
Greg Fox: Sure. I always tried to understand who the audience is, who want be presenting to, what are their core business challenges, what are their core top of mind issues, right? I always try map whatever I present and prepare in advance so that they… so it really resonates and articulates with their care abouts and what they need to hear. I do a lot of just research, kind of market research and then also just do a lot of discussions with people that have to weigh in or provide content into a big presentation where I’m dependent upon their contribution to make it meaningful. And I do a lot of rehearsals as well. Kind of talking through the talk track with colleagues, even with some mentors or peers to make sure that it resonates and that the talk flow is good.
Greg Fox: Then I try to think about what are some potential objections that the customer or the recipient may have and how to overcome those objections with and… but also trying to lead us to some tangible outcomes, and the next steps that are mutually beneficial for us and for them. And so that’s kind of the way I look at a big presentation, prepare well, have your data intact, your talking points intact, know who your audience is and then rehearse and practice. And then even though there may be unexpected outcomes or things that come out during the presentation, if you’re prepared in that manner, it can usually go pretty well. And then have a supporting staff that surround you to help you be successful in the moment that you deliver the presentation.
Career Nation: Awesome.
Greg Fox: Yeah.
Career Nation: I love how your team of prepare for the unexpected tied so nicely in with how to prepare for big presentations. I love those points, especially about when we get into sort of the talk track. I also loved your point about objections. Like how can we better anticipate objections of your customers or partners and have a response ready? One of my mentors used to tell me that, “You don’t need to answer every question, but you definitely need to respond to every question,” and so that has definitely helped. I love your topic of tangible outcomes. It’s very important. Otherwise, you can just have a presentation, but what comes out of it is questionable.
Greg Fox: Yes.
Career Nation: That’s a great point. Love it.
Greg Fox: Good, good. Glad it was useful.
Career Nation: Yup. A little while ago you mentioned about Huawei and I wanted to sort of get your perspective on what’s going on with China. So you worked in China and you worked with Huawei. Currently, we see we’ve got, between the Trump administration and Beijing, there is trade war tariffs, accusations of security issues using Huawei equipment, et cetera. So how is that playing out in your opinion? What’s sort of your perspective on this whole thing?
Greg Fox: Yup, great question. I’d have to say my three and a half years at Huawei were some of the very best moments of my career. It was magical in a lot of ways. Going to China, living there amongst the Chinese people, embracing the culture, understanding how they do business and then just seeing that sort of that commitment to excellence and that drive to succeed was amazing. I think on the US, China relationship front, there’s definitely, there’s this kind of race for technology, technological leadership. If you look at 5G Thomas driving, it’s a bit, a little bit controversial. First off, let me just say, I don’t think there should be any artificial barriers to trade or doing business.
Greg Fox: It’s best if trust and collaboration and fairness can exist that benefits all societies. But I think if you look at the role that technology plays, plays a huge role in the like GDP of nations. And so there’s this race to develop these emerging technologies to help raise the level of competitiveness, but also the standard of living in nations. Because I think there’s a direct link of investments in ICT to an increase in the GDP of countries. I’ll get to your question in a second. But if you look at these, the digital economy is growing faster than the regular economy and that’s all fueled through data center, cloud, video, big data, mobility, 5G, IOT and AI, and this 5G, it’s ushering in a new wave of mobile connectivity, which allows people to connect to data experiences and people in ways that they never thought possible.
Greg Fox: And so, that is the foundation of things like remote surgery, IOT accessories, improved drone capabilities, autonomous driving, et cetera. And these lightning fast speeds and the ability to power these new technologies, a new augmented and virtual reality experiences are pretty amazing. So there’s this competitiveness in the industry between China and the US as to who can more quickly deliver the capabilities and the promises that 5G offer. And so that’s why I see where we see a lot of the tension between US and China relations is that who is best equipped to be able to offer the promise of 5G because whoever leads in 5G will likely dominate some of the… realize a lot of the economic benefits associated with that. With that said, I think, it’s that balancing act, right?
Greg Fox: Trump has said, we don’t want the US to fall behind other nations like China in the effort to develop and roll out this technology. Then there’s this ongoing concern the government has about… they talk about cybersecurity or unsecured networks, some of the customer data compromised, are there back doors to the government. I would say, in my work, in all the work that I’ve done at Huawei and then in the industry, I have not seen any tangible evidence that there are these backdoors or cybersecurity risks related to Chinese technology manufacturers including Huawei, and that, I think this is just… it’s a race for developing the technology more quickly than the other to try to gain an advantage over one another to be able to reap the economic rewards associated with that.
Greg Fox: I’m hopeful that there will be a resolution that companies can choose the best technology options that they have available, that the networks are secure, that there aren’t these undermining kinds of policies or compromising of customer data that could be used by foreign governments, for their own advantage. And so I’m optimistic about where this is at today, but I think there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of building better ties, building better relationships, building better trust between nations. And I hope that results in ultimately better experiences and better outcomes and prosperity for customers that adopt and see and realize the applications related to these technologies.
Career Nation: Yeah, absolutely. And I hope so too that we get back to sort of normalcy because whether it’s you as business or Chinese businesses, we all want a more predictable and a more stable business environment. Do you business, innovate and create value. So I totally, totally get it. So thank you for that commentary. I know it’s a controversial topic, but I appreciate you providing those insights, especially from your vantage point.
Greg Fox: Yeah, my pleasure.
Career Nation: Awesome. Hey, Greg, as we wrap up our episode here, are there any key messages that you would like to share with Career Nation? Anything, any major takeaways as they sort of think about their career development, whether they’re early in career or later in career? What should they think about? What is your sort of parting message for them?
Greg Fox: Well, thank you. I would say continue to invest in your personal skills and competencies. I’m kind of at the stage where I’m a little bit later in my career, but I’ve actually continued to invest in my own kind of personal career development. I just recently completed a Kellogg School, Digital Marketing Strategies, Data Automation and AI and Analytics course. And I’m engaged in a MIT Sloan online executive education course on IOT and the business implications and opportunities. I would say continue to invest in your own personal skills, your personal development because I think you are personally responsible for your own development and your own career. Even though you may have leaders and mentors around you that would advise you, you may have career opportunities within an existing company or opportunity outside. Ultimately you are responsible for your own career path, your own opportunities that will come to you.
Greg Fox: I would say also, find ways to share your experience with others. When I was at Huawei, we had new employee orientation. And so, people that were coming from outside of China had a hard time adapting to the local culture, the local aspects that were unique to Huawei but also China. So I helped, based on my experience, I was able to present how to quickly adapt to the Huawei environment as part of the Huawei University, the helping others better acclimated and have better experiences to, and learn from my pain points in my failings that I experienced. So I think always find ways to share your experience with others. Be open to sharing your career advice, be a mentor for those around you. I think as you give back to others and you serve and help others succeed, you naturally received more rewards yourself.
Career Nation: For sure. It’s the law of karma.
Greg Fox: It’s the law of karma. I think helping others achieve success will lead to your own, personal benefit and personal advantage and never lose sight of that. I think if you’re on, you’re inwardly focused more just concerned about yourself. You may find some advancements in career, but ultimately I don’t think you get to where you need to or where the potential lies unless you give back and serve others in a meaningful way.
Career Nation: Oh, that’s so wonderful. What a great to end this episode Greg.
Greg Fox: Thank you.
Career Nation: Thank you so much for your insights and your perspectives. This was super valuable and hopefully, we’ll see you around in the Bay Area or on the show next time.
Greg Fox: Absolutely. Abhijeet, thank you so much, and to all at Career Nation for the great opportunity to speak with you today. Best of success, the each of you and to your listeners in their own personal career journeys. Thank you.
Career Nation: Thanks Greg. Have a great day.
Greg Fox: You too. Take care.