Tony Kelly
Houston,TX
Summary
Seeking a Sales Engineering Leadership position utilizing my advanced technical, business, and leadership expertise to provide highly satisfied customers with cloud based secure network solutions.
Senior Sales Engineering Director with more than 20 years of technical sales leadership experience in identifying strategic avenues that have strengthened new and existing business development opportunities for industry and leading organizations such as Cisco Systems and Netskope. Experience includes serving as Systems Engineering Director for the America’s Geography with responsibility for leading 15 direct managers with 150 consulting engineers to create compelling wireless, security, and unified access solutions resulting in double digit revenue growth for 2 years reaching $2 billion annually.
Overview
34
34
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Sales Engineering Director
Lookout
01.2023 - Current
- Hands-on Sales Engineer directly responsible for presentations, demonstrations, and Proof of Concepts
- Additionally, leading the Go To Market program development for Systems Engineering Secure Service Edge repeatable practices and enablement
- Duties require hands-on experience with Leading Identity Providers (Okta) and Cloud Providers (AWS, Azure).
Systems Engineering Director
Netskope
08.2016 - 11.2022
- Build and Lead Systems Engineer teams to procure and retain customers, as well as procure and retain a robust eco-system of partners extending the Netskope Go To Market reach and scale
- Hired and onboarded more than 20 engineers from across the industry especially from our competitors
- Lead the Netskope Virtual Team for our Public Cloud solution resulting in many product enhancements and wins
- Mentored and promoted several Systems Engineering Managers
- Developed Netskope’s Service Delivery Program that enables and authorizes partners to offer their high margin services
- Developed Netskope’s Prime Engineer program that enables a select group of engineers from across the partner community to be as proficient as a Netskope Systems Engineer with inside access to Netskope news and resources.
Director of Sales & General Manager
Sirius Computer Solutions
04.2014 - 10.2015
- Led a team of Sales Specialists across the state of Texas in the sale of technical infrastructure, middleware applications, and professional/managed services
- Developed the annual business and go-to-market plans to surpass targets for sales, services, and gross margins
- Managed partner relationships by aligning sales and sales engineers based upon territories to promote synergies and enablement
- Partners included IBM, EMC, NetApp, HDS, Cisco, Splunk, Nutanix, and Palo Alto Networks
- Led the teams through multiple campaigns resulting in overall revenue growth and team’s first sales with Nutanix and Palo Alto Networks
- Led constant recruiting efforts of “A” players leading to 6 hires that doubled sales specialist capacity
- Nurtured executive level customer relationships in largest accounts leading to new revenue streams with strategic partners like EMC and Cisco, as well as, strategic directions like Big Data Analytics.
Senior Systems Engineering Director
Cisco Systems
11.2011 - 03.2014
- Guided efforts enabling the sale of Cisco Security and Unified Access products in the United States, Canada, Latin, and South America
- Developed the annual business and go-to-market plans to surpass targets for sales and productivity
- Received America’s Game Changer Award (2012) for introducing Next Generation Architecture change management initiative
- Created the business rationale, analysis, funding plan, and recruitment strategy necessary to segment and scale the operation and realign 150 consulting engineers and 15 managers
- Built the business case and received funding for 2 help desks to shift sales engineering team’s focus away from low-return post sales day-to-day management and towards business development of large accounts
- Surpassed revenue and productivity goals for 2 straight fiscal years with double-digit growth for both the Security and Unified Access product lines
- Total revenue exceeded $2B annually
- Awarded coveted America’s Game Changer Award (2013) for creating the vision and launching a novel engineer boot camp for Cisco Systems that optimized assets across the America’s and enabled 1,000 engineers in just 6 months
- Achieved unprecedented 4.8 out of 5.0 satisfaction scores, and program was adopted as a company best practice.
Director, Strategy & Planning
Cisco Systems
08.2009 - 10.2011
- This is a Chief Operating Officer role for a sales area comprised of 400 employees responsible for all business planning, strategy, operations, communications, and human resources
- Overachieved sales goals 2 straight years achieving a $1B and becoming the #1 Area by % of plan
- Led annual business planning development for every sales rep, sales manager, sales director, and the area for optimal territory and resource alignment
- Sales quotas defined based upon historical performance, total addressable market, and Harte Hank propensity to buy scores
- Fact based goal setting and communications resulted in day 1 quota acceptance and 365 days of selling productivity
- Led annual performance evaluation program linking employee development, rewards, and recognition
- Consistent expectation setting with periodic accountability measures led to a 50% reduction in employee turnover from 2010 to 2011 and a 10% improvement rating in overall employee satisfaction
- Developed unit’s inaugural business plan that trimmed time-to-hire metrics by 50% and cut employee onboarding time in half
- Plan was praised for its use of themes, consistent messaging, and delivery across multiple mediums, and was recognized as a company best practice.
Senior Systems Engineer Manager
Cisco Systems
08.2002 - 07.2009
- Second line leader (manager of managers) with primary duties focused on recruiting and mentoring top technical team, driving annual business plan, and building go-to-market strategy to surpass targets for sales and customer satisfaction
- Challenged a team of 4 managers and 35 systems engineers with key initiatives leading to more than $400 million in annual revenue
- Coached the first line managers in their roles as a manager and a business partner to the sales leaders
- Leveraged team calls, monthly 1:1’s, and weekly sales calls to stay connected and engaged to the managers and the systems engineers across a 7 state territory
- Set a vision for “security” as an adjective in 2006 to raise Cisco’s security credibility in the industry
- Developed study groups enabling every SE, SEM, and myself to achieve the CISSP certification while outperforming our peers across the country in security sales by more than 20%
- Raised the bar on technical excellence expectations while enabling every system engineer’s ability to succeed through a variety of tools
- These included formal training programs, self-study, and customer deployments
- During 2007, every SE achieved a Professional Level certification while our sales operation was recognized as the #1 team based upon advanced technology sales.
Systems Engineer Manager
Cisco Systems
08.1999 - 07.2002
- First line manager (player / coach) responsible for hiring, developing, and motivating a sales engineering team to solve customer problems and grow sales revenue
- Implemented SMART criteria within employee performance plans to ensure expectations were clearly set, understood, and aligned with the needs of the business
- Mentored SE’s technical development and consultative sales practices based upon knowledge as a Top 10% SE
- These best practices led to 6 SE’s achieving their CCIE certification resulting in exceeding revenue and customer satisfaction targets all 3 years.
Systems Engineer
Cisco Systems
11.1995 - 07.1999
- Teamed with account managers to deliver technical expertise on Cisco products and designs in sales presentations and ongoing client relations
- Gained technical closure on more than a dozen competitive wins greater than $500,000 including Randall’s (routing), American National Insurance (firewall & switching), Arthur Anderson (firewalls & switching), Air Liquide (routing), Pennzoil (switching), Coastal Bank (routing), Coastal Energy (firewall & routing), and American General (switching)
- Employed consultative selling approach with a current state / future state model showing technical / business benefits and transition paths
- Assumed the responsibility of network security expert for the Houston territory after the acquisition of NTI in 1996 giving Cisco a stateful firewall solution
- This responsibility grew to include IDS/IPS from the WheelGroup acquisition and VPN through the Altiga acquisition
- Consistently exceeded targets for productivity, service and customer satisfaction by employing real world expertise and a never lose attitude
- Promoted 3 times in 3 years.
Network Engineer
Conoco/DuPont
06.1990 - 11.1995
- Designed, implemented, and operated local and wide area networking infrastructure from Florida to California and including Mexico comprising 100’s of locations and 10’s of thousands of end users
- Infrastructure supported voice, video, and multiple dedicated data networks
- Entrusted by senior management with driving annual operational savings of $500,000 by reconstructing all aspects of legacy IBM, DEC, and voice networks that utilized an IP and TDM infrastructure
- The design and implementation phases involved 5 subordinates over a 6-month period
- Promoted 2 times for exceeding product quality, service, and end user satisfaction targets.
Education
MBA, Information Systems -
Houston Baptist University
Houston, TXBachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering -
Texas A&M University
College Station, TXSkills
- Cloud Security - CASB, ZTNA, SASE
- Networking – Wired/Wireless/ WAN/VPN
- Network Security
- Building & Leading High-Performance Teams
- Fact Based Decision Making
- Strategic Business Planning
- Excellent Written & Verbal Communications
- Capturing New Accounts
- Client Relationship Management
- Managing Pre/Post Sales
Websites
Certification
- CISSP, 80950, Expired, ISC(2)
- CCIE, 2146, Emeritus, Cisco Systems
Personalpursuits
P90X, Snow Skiing, Family Adventure Vacations, Outdoors, FFA
Awards
- Senior Systems Engineer Manager of the Year – 1999
- #1 Sales Operation, Sales % of Plan – 2004
- #1 Sales Operation, Customer Satisfaction – 2006
- #1 Sales Operation, Advanced Technology Sales – 2007
- ASSET Senior Systems Engineer Manager of the Year – 2009
- #1 Sales Area – 2011
- America’s Game Changer Award, Next Generation Architectural Program – 2012
- America’s Game Changer Award, Unified Access SE Boot camp – 2013
- Chairman’s Club, Sirius Computer Solutions – 2014
- President’s Club, Netskope – 2020
Timeline
Senior Sales Engineering Director
Lookout
01.2023 - Current
Systems Engineering Director
Netskope
08.2016 - 11.2022
Director of Sales & General Manager
Sirius Computer Solutions
04.2014 - 10.2015
Senior Systems Engineering Director
Cisco Systems
11.2011 - 03.2014
Director, Strategy & Planning
Cisco Systems
08.2009 - 10.2011
Senior Systems Engineer Manager
Cisco Systems
08.2002 - 07.2009
Systems Engineer Manager
Cisco Systems
08.1999 - 07.2002
Systems Engineer
Cisco Systems
11.1995 - 07.1999
Network Engineer
Conoco/DuPont
06.1990 - 11.1995
MBA, Information Systems -
Houston Baptist University
Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering -
Texas A&M University
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