MarTech Edge Interview with Mario Carvajal, Chief Strategy Officer, AvePoint

Welcome, Mario! We are curious to know about your professional life before AvePoint. How did your experience as the CTO of AvePoint help you develop the skills and vision that you need as the Chief Strategy Officer?

To start, I’m a first-generation American, and my career journey may seem unorthodox. With an art degree in hand, I was a struggling artist for some time before a combination of hard work and luck landed me at KPMG, where I ultimately became Creative Director.

My career journey has taught me that you should expect the unexpected, always be adaptable, and never be afraid to explore new avenues and learn new skills. Prior to joining AvePoint, I spent a decade in leadership roles as a programmer and systems integrator. My ability to remain curious opened pathways to learn a lot of skills across project management, design, sales, and leadership that allowed me to thrive initially.

My previous role as Chief Technology Officer at AvePoint provided me with a wide range of benefits and insights that contributed to my growth and development. Aligning strategies with overall business goals, leading innovation initiatives, and gaining a deep understanding of complex technology challenges and opportunities have provided part of the foundation I rely on today in my current role as Chief Strategy Officer. I now have a deeper understanding of the intersection of technology and business. This also allows me to present the vision to investors, to companies we are interested in acquiring, and to strategic partners and customers. Ultimately, my executive path has been all about believing in myself, being scrappy and hustling, and taking risks.

What key features and benefits of the AvePoint Confidence Platform enable organizations to optimize and secure their digital workplace? And how do the latest updates to the platform enhance its existing capabilities and performance?

AvePoint’s Confidence Platform powers digital workplace enablement at every stage of the digital transformation journey, including data transformation, workforce enablement, and cloud adoption. The Confidence Platform gives customers better insights into each of their workspaces, users, guests, and repositories so organizations can modernize, protect, and control their cloud environment.

The newest Confidence Platform updates build on these existing capabilities to help customers further modernize data with enhanced migration capabilities, upskill workforces with advanced reporting capabilities for educators and administrators, and measure transformation efforts with more robust analytics capabilities. We are also implementing AI and machine learning technologies to help customers achieve business value by swiftly detecting and guarding against ransomware attacks, ensuring policy enforcement for how information is accessed, and improving the lifecycle of information through strong data governance — and we intend to continue using this technology to improve our offerings.

How do you approach strategic planning in a dynamic and uncertain environment, such as during economic downturns or global crises? Can you share some examples of how you have successfully adapted the company’s strategy to cope with such challenges?

Organizations must always expect the unexpected — and be prepared to pivot quickly as market conditions continue to shift. Business leaders should not be afraid to reinvent the strategy playbook depending on economic downturns or global crises. For example, today, we’re focused on profitable growth, which means ensuring efficient sales processes, reducing unnecessary spending, and optimizing data storage costs. There are several underlying strategies that underpin this focus. We employ scenario planning methods to help us envision different go-to-market motions and assess their potential impacts on the business. We also apply the concept of the Blue Ocean strategy to help us identify new market spaces with little to no competition. By creating uncontested market segments, we can achieve high growth and innovation.

Another example (although this is not unique to us) was the COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically changed our strategic outlook and process. I was navigating the process of AvePoint’s IPO during this time, and we needed to pivot to working remotely basically overnight. This sudden change in workflows certainly altered our strategic planning — and reminded my team that you must always remain adaptable and communicative.

How does AvePoint use AI/ML to enhance its SaaS management solutions for modern digital workplaces and complex collaboration scenarios?

In today’s digital-powered workplace, securely utilizing AI is now key to powering productivity and streamlining insights and workflows. As any effective AI solution runs on high-quality data input — a top-notch proprietary data management strategy is needed to unlock true business value from the use of AI. AvePoint’s platform answers this call, working with customers for over 20 years on modernizing, controlling, and applying resilience to their data management practices — establishing the strong foundation needed for compelling AI solutions. AvePoint’s AI capabilities have already helped customers achieve business value by swiftly detecting ransomware attacks, ensuring policy enforcement for how information is accessed, and improving the life cycle of the information through strong data governance — and this is only the beginning. Seeing the potential that AI has to transform data insights and the workplace, AvePoint will continue to advance our AI capabilities to offer customers the most automated data management platform to optimize SaaS operations.

How do you approach mergers & acquisitions and strategic partnerships as part of AvePoint’s growth strategy?

When it comes to both partnerships and M&A, our strategy has always been to align with organizations that will expand our platform capabilities, help address customer needs, and expand into new geographical markets. For example, in the category of complementary technology, AvePoint acquired tyGraph in 2022 — a Canada-based provider of workplace analytics solutions — allowing our customers to discover critical workplace communication insights and make more informed decisions about their business. We have been able to integrate new features and functionalities into our platform as a result of this acquisition.

We also acquired Essential Co. Ltd. last year — a South Korea-based software solutions provider, that has allowed us to expand further into APAC. AvePoint will continue to work with global organizations that share our dedication to driving digital transformation and providing the most data-driven solutions for our customers.

Can you discuss any recent accomplishments regarding AvePoint’s strategic goals in which you played a decisive role?

As AI enables our customers to unlock advanced insights and power digital transformation, I’ve continuously guided AvePoint in growing our platform capabilities to become more AI/ML-enabled. We must deliver solutions that improve decision-making based on accurate and timely information. As customers will continue to seek more advanced and fully automated data management solutions in the coming years, I will continue to lead AvePoint in advancing our platform’s AI capabilities to deliver the most effective way to manage and govern data — with future plans to reveal new AI-driven platform enhancements that make data insights, recommendations, and protection more accessible. These initiatives are underpinned by a strategy to have a well-orchestrated data layer that enables a deeper understanding of business users and their preferences. This will lead to personalized experiences and improved customer satisfaction in using our products.

We just had our #shifthappens Conference in Washington, DC. It was great to gather in an in-person format, where our team and other industry leaders discussed experiences, strategies, and best practices that define digital workplace transformation.

What essential advice would you offer upcoming leaders in developing robust people skills necessary for succeeding in the evolving business landscape?

In today’s business environment, remaining agile and communicative is key. We’re still navigating an unpredictable macroeconomic environment, and with emerging technologies rapidly transforming the way we work and live, you should model the growth mindset for your teams. It essentially means as organizations continue to invest in new workplace technologies and advance digital transformation, business leaders must prioritize continuous education and upskilling opportunities — equipping employees with the technology skills and confidence needed to boost productivity and stay adaptable.

Business leaders must also be able to communicate effectively with employees, take feedback into account, and put the controls in place to create a successful and dynamic work environment. To retain top talent, hands-on and attentive team leadership is now a key skill for business leaders to possess.