Daniel Valik
Kirkland,WA
Summary
● Seasoned Product Executive and Strategic Thinker with over 24 years of international experience leading cross-functional teams to deliver innovative products and services for top technology companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Vonage, T-Mobile, Huawei US, RingCentral, and VMWare.
● Proven track record for developing customer-centric product strategies across several areas like Data Analytics, Generative AI/ML, Core Cloud computing, Communications- and Collaboration services.
● Enthusiastic about driving customer success, fostering product adoption, and promoting growth. Skilled at uniting business-, technical-, and thought leadership through effective collaboration and partnership with sales, marketing, product, and customer advisory teams.
● Renowned speaker and thought leader – Enthusiastic presenter at conferences, webinars, internal events, Executive Briefing Centers (EBCs), customer advisory events, and training sessions for customers and partners, with a strong executive presence.
● Lifelong learner with a curious mind, and a published author of multiple books on business, strategy, and technical topics, including Cloud, Data and AI, AIOps, Observability, Communications Services, and Business Leadership.
Overview
25
25
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Head of Product Management and Strategy – Webex Analytics, Data Platform, and Gen-AI Services
Cisco Systems HQ
08.2021 - Current
- Currently leading a distributed product management delivery team (DLT) of over 50 professionals, driving a $1.4 billion business for Cisco Webex and its partners.
- Achieved the highest ratio of product launches and adoptions in FY23 and FY24.
- Overseeing the entire Webex product strategy for Customer Data Platforms, analytics, and reporting services, surfacing core Generative AI (AI/ML) use cases for the Webex Communications Platform.
- Envisioning and executing the first Splunk to Cisco Integration, GTM, and Monetization Strategy of prospected $85 million revenue (3 years) for Advanced Analytics and AI services.
- Driving customer and partner engagements through briefings, conferences, events, workshops, and development of core content and positioning for Webex and Splunk platforms.
- (delivered 4 fully booked sessions for Cisco Conferences in FY24, quarterly customer and partner summits with a total of over 1300 attendees in collaboration with field sales and business development services).
- Leading business strategy and new product introduction, development, and positioning of Customer Experience Services such as AI-Topic Modeling (2.5 million events/month), Customer Journey Data Service (2.7 million events/month), Experience and Survey Management (25K surveys/month), Billing and Reporting (capturing more than $200K per month of revenue), and Workforce Management and Optimization (deployed with 320 customers in FY24).
- Driving strategic integrations, customer and partner engagements with Webex partner ecosystem for Data, Analytics, Gen-AI and LLM, Observability, Workforce Management and Computerization services, Executive Briefings, and Conferencing speaker engagements.
Director of Product and Emerging Services – AI Contact Center Augmentation
Vonage HQ
01.2021 - 08.2021
- Designed and implemented a global Go-To-Market strategy for Vonage new Contact Center Augmentation and AI Services.
- Established and formalized strategic partnerships with AWS for AI/ML joint ventures, Google for CC-AI, IBM for Watson AI, and Meta/WhatsApp for Digital Channel adoption, achieving a $45 million revenue goal within the first year.
- Developed, validated, and delivered AI contact center services, and created marketplace integrations to distribute these services, leveraging Vonage core Communications Services as a Platform (CPaaS)
- Exceeded adoption metrics by 22% and generated over $15 million in net new revenue in less than a year.
Group Product Manager – Workstream Collaboration Services, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Edge Computing
T-Mobile for Business US HQ
09.2019 - 01.2021
- Reported directly to the EVP, of T-Mobile for Business, directing product research and strategy for the first commercial SaaS offer.
- Led key transformation of T-Mobile into an enterprise focused on SaaS-oriented sales, business development, marketing, and product support, archiving 40% optimization in velocity for product planning and execution.
- Conducted over 40 validation workshops to analyze the technology landscape and competitive environment, forecast future trends and revenues, and deliver MVPs for new product areas.
- Delivered and presented a comprehensive 60-page strategy proposal to the senior leadership team.
- Designed and developed new products for workstream collaboration, Unified Communications, Contact Center as a Service, VR/AR, 5G/Edge Computing, and Unified Workspaces product lines, targeting $455 million in revenue within 5 years.
Sr. Director for Product Management and Strategies – Hybrid Cloud Services and Research @ CTO Office
Huawei Technologies Research Center USA
12.2017 - 09.2019
- Directed product research and strategy and reported directly to EVP and CTO to launch Huawei OpenStack private cloud offerings for key markets in LATAM, Europe, APAC, and US.
- Launched first Cloud Management Platform, led multiple other prototypes, and integrated it with AWS, Azure, and GCP cloud offers, hitting $175 million revenue target and subscription target of 65 multinational enterprise customers.
- Led more than 40 global partner innovation councils for product, strategy, and market validation with VMware, Microsoft, Google, Philips, CERN, Bosch, China Telecom, Equinix, Red Hat, Rackspace, and Universities of Vancouver, Canada.
Senior Marketing Manager – Amazon EC2 Core Compute Services
Amazon Web Services HQ – AWS
01.2016 - 12.2017
- Spearheaded product and go-to-market strategy for core SMB EC2 cloud services, resulting in over 100K new subscribers within the first year.
- Successfully met adoption, retention, and conversion metrics for AWS EC2 SMB cloud services, and established reporting cadence to AWS leadership, including Matt Garman (AWS CEO) and Andy Jassy (Amazon CEO).
- Delivered core positioning for AWS EC2, including creating collateral, BOM, customer success studies, customer insight research, and digital assets.
- Drove speaker and customer engagements, Briefings, sales and field trainings, and customer workshops for strategic early adopters
- Delivered strategy to AWS EC2 leadership team to compete with Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, Linode and Vulkr services.
Founder and CEO
Hanako Consulting LLC
01.2016 - 01.2021
- Established business to support Non-Profits, Startups, and SMBs with their GTM, Content, and Business Strategies.
- Provided management advisory, shadowing, coaching, and consulting services to high-level business and tech executives.
- Drove over 32 projects encompassing product management advisory and support, product marketing and go-to-market strategies, change management, business development, M&A advisory, and competitive analysis.
- As a result, several advised companies were able to establish strategic biz and product partnerships with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
Head of Product Marketing and GTM Strategies – Core Collaboration Services
RingCentral HQ
01.2016 - 12.2016
- Oversaw RingCentral’s entire core communications services portfolio, over $320M UCaaS business.
- Directed go-to-market strategy, messaging, positioning, and new product introductions, including key strategic customer engagements.
- Led team of 12 Product Marketing Managers in collaboration with technical field and sales teams.
- Launched RingCentral Tiers for Office, Glip, RingCentral Meetings, and introduction into financial services market.
Principal Product Marketing Manager – Cloud Management Platform and DevOps
VMWare HQ
12.2014 - 01.2016
- Directed go-to-market strategy, messaging & positioning, pricing & packaging, and product launches for Cloud Management Platform and automation products, including vRealize Code Stream, Orchestrator, Infrastructure as Code, DevOps, and container solutions, hit subscription target of 130K users and revenue goal of $66 million within 2 years.
- Increased active customer base and product usage of vRealize and vRealize Code Stream by over 25% by 2017.
- Shipped first VMWare Developer marketplace w/ 20+ global ISV integrations and VMware vSphere Integrated Containers.
Sr. Technical Product Manager – Developer Platform and WebRTC
Microsoft Western Europe 2005 – 2010 and Microsoft Corporation US HQ, 2011 – 2015
- Built and introduced first Microsoft UC-based contact center prototypes for global markets in 2013.
- Spearheaded development and launches for Skype Developer Platform, Lync, Office 365 Dedicated Cloud Services, Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling, Developer Ecosystem, and ISV Marketplace apps.
- Conducted over 80 EBC sessions per year for Microsoft’s most strategic customers.
- Collaborated with over 75 global System Integrators (SI) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) on joint product and go-to-market projects across Western Europe, APAC, and US markets.
- Developed launch content and successfully launched key products at Microsoft’s largest conferences and industry engagements.
- Delivered first WebRTC stack for Microsoft Edge and partnered with Google Chrome and Apple Safari on industry-wide standards.
- Achieved $12 million (and received Award for outstanding performance) in cost savings by replacing competitive services with custom-built Microsoft communications services.
Unify2 Singapore and Hong Kong, (Co-) Managing Director and CTO, APAC Region
Early Career
01.2010 - 08.2011
MATERNA Information & Communications GmbH Vienna, Technical Product Lead – Infrastructure Services, Unified Messaging and Speech Services System Engineer, Consultant, Trainer (MCT Degree)
Early Career
08.1999 - 08.2005
Education
MBA - Business Administration And Strategic Management
Alpen Adria University And Westminster University
Austria, Klagenfurt And London, UK01.2010
Master of Science - Business Administration And Strategic Management
Alpen Adria University - MOT Institute
Austria, Klagenfurt01.2010
ABM - Business Administration And Management
WIFI University
Vienna, Austria01.2009
High School Diploma -
Private School Information Technology & Business Traders
Vienna, Austria01.1999
Skills
Strategic Thinking and Planning
Go-to-Market Strategies
Data-driven decision-making
Cross-Functional Leadership
Sales and Marketing Leadership
Presentation and Content Skills
Product vision and positioning
Business Case Development
Excellent Communication
Organizational Skills
Certification
- Pragmatic Certified Product Manager
- Pragmatic Marketing and Product Management
- Pathwise Strategic and Organizational Leadership Program 2017
- Microsoft Certified Trainer
- MS Certified Systems Admin
- MS Certified Systems Engineer
- MS Office Specialist
- AWS Cloud Certification
Blogs and Podcasts
- AI and Machine Learning with Vonage CPaaS and AWS CCI (2021)
- Google Product Management Skills (https://soundcloud.com/build_great_products/004-key-pm-skills-with-daniel)
- VMWare.com Blog (2016) + Daniel Valik, Author at VMware Cloud Management
- Radio X on UCaaS and Innovation with Daniel Valik
Speaker and Customer Engagements
- Cisco Executive Briefing Speaker Award (most delivered EBC’s in FY23)
- Webex Cisco Live 2024 – The Era of Data, Analytics, and AI for Collaboration Services (Breakout Session)
- Webex Cisco Live 2023 – The Future of Customer Engagements (Breakout Session)
- Webex Cisco Partner Days 2022 and 2023 – Managing Customer Care with Better Data Insights
- Cisco Webex One Conference 2021: JDS Sessions, Jeetu/Javed Keynote presentation – demo of JDS
- Vonage Transform Partner Conference – Innovation with AI/ML and Contact Center Augmentation, US, 2021
- Keynote for Huawei HCS Online launch at the annual Huawei Conference in Shenzhen, China, 2019
- Keynote for Huawei Cloud Services launch in LATAM, CEAB Conference, 2018
- Keynote presentation for Huawei Public Cloud Services at Microsoft Inspire Conference in Las Vegas, 2018
- Keynote presentation for Huawei PaaS and container services at OpenStack conference in Vancouver, BC, 2018
- Microsoft Lync, Build and Ignite Conferences from 2012 to 2015.
- Delivered content, sessions, and speaker engagements for other key events: Verint Verba Compliance and Regulatory Forum 2018/2019, Amazon Loft Summits 2018, MSFT Ignite 2017, RingCentral Connect 2017, ConnectCentral 2017, VMworld Las Vegas 2016, Gartner Symposium 2016, DevOps Summit 2016, PuppetCon 2016, HostingCon 2016, Enterprise Connect 2015, 2016, SDL - Voice of Global Innovator 2014 and others.
Awards
- High-Performance Award for Product Leadership Top 10%, Cisco Systems (2022 and 2023)
- High-Performance Award for Product Leadership Excellence, T-Mobile (2020)
- Huawei High Potential Performance Award (2019)
- Huawei “Keynote Speaker for Global Cloud Trends” at largest financial market conference in LATAM, 2019
- Verint Award for best guest speaker session: History of Regulatory Compliance and Data Privacy, Verint con 2019
- RingCentral Best Speaker Award (2017)
- VMWare Award for “Best Product Launch and GTM Expertise” (2017)
- Microsoft Best Speaker Award (2015, 2016) and Outstanding Customer Focus Award (2014, 2015, 2016)
- Executive Briefing Center’s “Rising Star” speaker award (February 2014)
- Microsoft CSS HQ Ranking to Exceeded Performance and High Potential in FY12 (June 2011 to June 2012)
Accomplishments
● High-Performance Award for Product Leadership Top 10%, Cisco Systems (2022 and 2023)
● High-Performance Award for Product Leadership Excellence, T-Mobile (2020)
● Huawei High Potential Performance Award (2019)
● Huawei “Keynote Speaker for Global Cloud Trends” at largest financial market conference in LATAM, 2019
● Verint Award for best guest speaker session: History of Regulatory Compliance and Data Privacy, Verint con 2019
● RingCentral Best Speaker Award (2017)
● VMWare Award for “Best Product Launch and GTM Expertise” (2017)
● Microsoft Best Speaker Award (2015, 2016) and Outstanding Customer Focus Award (2014, 2015, 2016)
● Executive Briefing Center’s “Rising Star” speaker award (February 2014)
● Microsoft CSS HQ Ranking to Exceeded Performance and High Potential in FY12 (June 2011 to June 2012)
Languages
English
Native or Bilingual
German
Native or Bilingual
Timeline
Head of Product Management and Strategy – Webex Analytics, Data Platform, and Gen-AI Services
Cisco Systems HQ
08.2021 - Current
Director of Product and Emerging Services – AI Contact Center Augmentation
Vonage HQ
01.2021 - 08.2021
Group Product Manager – Workstream Collaboration Services, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Edge Computing
T-Mobile for Business US HQ
09.2019 - 01.2021
Sr. Director for Product Management and Strategies – Hybrid Cloud Services and Research @ CTO Office
Huawei Technologies Research Center USA
12.2017 - 09.2019
Senior Marketing Manager – Amazon EC2 Core Compute Services
Amazon Web Services HQ – AWS
01.2016 - 12.2017
Head of Product Marketing and GTM Strategies – Core Collaboration Services
RingCentral HQ
01.2016 - 12.2016
Founder and CEO
Hanako Consulting LLC
01.2016 - 01.2021
Principal Product Marketing Manager – Cloud Management Platform and DevOps
VMWare HQ
12.2014 - 01.2016
Unify2 Singapore and Hong Kong, (Co-) Managing Director and CTO, APAC Region
Early Career
01.2010 - 08.2011
MATERNA Information & Communications GmbH Vienna, Technical Product Lead – Infrastructure Services, Unified Messaging and Speech Services System Engineer, Consultant, Trainer (MCT Degree)
Early Career
08.1999 - 08.2005
Sr. Technical Product Manager – Developer Platform and WebRTC
Microsoft Western Europe 2005 – 2010 and Microsoft Corporation US HQ, 2011 – 2015
MBA - Business Administration And Strategic Management
Alpen Adria University And Westminster University
Master of Science - Business Administration And Strategic Management
Alpen Adria University - MOT Institute
ABM - Business Administration And Management
WIFI University
High School Diploma -
Private School Information Technology & Business Traders
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