Rudie Raath

Experience

• 

  Hewlett-Packard South Africa

  Mar 2008 - Oct 2014

  Lead all strategic deals with cross business functions, deal and financial structuring, facilitate strategic workshops with C-Level customers and partners, direct reports coach for performance, knowledge transfer programs from presales to sales functions, presentation and messaging workshops, graduate development programs, reducing operations costs and increasing customer engagement within presales. Drive overall market intelligence and drive transformational solutions into the digital age. Manage and align with global and local alliances to retain a healthy eco-system of partners allowing multi-vendor or services provider offerings. Aligned separate functions into single top-performing presales group, managing 16 direct reports and P&L of $160 million.Success in the Role - Driving force behind consultative solution selling and responding to proposals in a business case fashion rather than point products and why HP. Implementing a now widely adopted Sales Enablement Virtual Training and Coaching Program. Establishing new market revenues in Cloud Solutions and key ISP’s. Biggest success over the past two years was the establishment of a strong focused team delivering a constant “Will-to-Win” strategy with the future in mind. Show less Lead the entire portfolio which included Data Centre Consulting, Network Consulting, Unified Communications, Security Consulting and Technology Education. This business had a services (billable hours only) P&L of $6M which we exceed for the first time in 3 fiscal years after taking over the business. I was responsible to work with virtual horizontal focused sales communities driving and attaching our services to deals, driving business directly with my team and also managed to establish a strong pursuit team to seek and deliver new revenue generating business in both corporate, telco and public sector space. This role was also key in supporting larger deals for our hardware business in driving strategic discovery workshops with customers to align long term strategies with sales motions within the customers and partners. I was also responsible for building strong skills and business strategy around partners like Riverbed, Microsoft, VMWare and SAP. Leading a team of 19 people. Success in the Role - Build a strong focused team and moved from not making budget to exceeding budget and winning the award for Consulting Country of the year on Europe, Middle East and Africa. Instrumental in driving new industry focus in FSI and Retail in winning a strategic deal within JD Group, Education with Tshwane University of Technology and building strategic relationships with Gartner and IDC around the future of Technology. I was identified as top talent and placed on a 9 month executive development course at Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) which truly change my outlook on business and uncovered my true passion for business psychology and emotional intelligence development in people. Show less Enterprise Group, Hewlett Packard South Africa (from Oct-09 to Sep-10) Responsible of building a new Networking Consulting practice previously just a very small team of 3 people and driving brand new markets directly with the sole focus to drive larger deal value in our hardware business. The business had very little focus and I basically had to start from the ground up and build a go-to-market strategy and execute directly and with limited sales exposure in the extended virtual team. Even with the challenges we managed to end the fiscal year at 384% of budget. Success in the Role - Achieving 384% of budget in 12 months and being promoted to head of the entire consulting division. I was also recognised as Most Valued Employee and flown to Rome with a trip for me and my wife. Show less I was brought into HP for my deep knowledge in networking and driving the HP ProCurve brand at that stage. I was responsible for building network solutions for small to large solutions. We were a small team but very successful. I was responsible for partner presales development and internal direct sales knowledge management. Core field of expertise where Network Management, Integration into Microsoft Network Access management solutions. I also started a successful loyalty program and skills development boot camp which not only empowered the channel with key hands-on knowledge, but also motivated them to do better and reach out to their extended contacts outside their direct organisation and within HP for advice. Success in the Role - Establishment of the Boot Camp program and presales development in the channel. Through this engagement I create opportunity to be recognised as a good fit to lead the Networking Consulting business in South Africa Show less

  • Chief Technologist & Country Presales Manager

    Oct 2012 - Oct 2014

  • Country Manager: Technology Consulting

    Oct 2010 - Sept 2012

  • Category Manager: Network Consulting

    Oct 2009 - Sept 2010

  • Senior Solutions Architect: Networking

    Mar 2008 - Sept 2009
• 

  Datacentrix

  Jan 2015 - Nov 2021

  As managing principal for the Technology Innovation and Advisory at Datacentrix, we assist organisations by driving growth by converting traditional "analogue" businesses models to digital frameworks. It is essential that the organisation find their transformation journey and not replicate other company's journies. In the age of digital adoption, cloud technologies, software-defined everything, it is crucial that we understand why we are doing what we do. Understand the workload and its dependedcies first before looking at the underpinning technology might be the difference between growing and surviving. Being in a leadership position carries an enormous responsibility to evaluate yourself and lead rather than dictating. Humanity is evolving, and so is management styles. We live in an age of virtual teams, remote or home office, a world where office hours are not the same for everyone. It is now more critical than ever before to trust your teams, empower them with a clear vision and provide them with measurable objectives. Accountability is driven through clear metrics and actionable deadlines which will promote a healthy work-life balance. I am blessed to be in a position where I can truly live my passion for sharing my knowledge and developing my team's experience. I love presenting and dealing with C-Level people to use my unique ability to translate complex technical aspects into simple business terms. Core business focus#FutureTech #Automation #CyberSecurity #Hyperscalers #TechnologyTransformation #DigitalEconomy #TechLeadership #Mobility #Apps Show less As we enter the digital connected world we look to technology not only to harness the business outcomes but deliver a transformational journey to bridge the gap between the current and desired digital connected state. Our world is about to change and my new role with Datacentrix is one that not only excites me but allows me to work with organisations to offer these bridging solutions. As cloud solutions mature, we see the birth of unique offerings that assists organisations to focus on their core offerings through harnessing true converged cloud solutions that not only offers a public cloud offering, but a blend of on-premis cloud or Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Virtual Public Cloud and Software-as-a-Service. In this new world the new currency of the world will no longer be USD but the data held by organisations and how they mine data and provide a platform to interact with it. Please do connect with me and share your thoughts on this new world and your challenges. Show less

  • Chief Difgital Officer

    Mar 2021 - Nov 2021

  • Chief Digital Officer

    Jul 2017 - Feb 2021

  • Digital Technology Strategist

    Jan 2015 - Jun 2017
• 

  Razrtec (Pty) Ltd

  Dec 2021 - now

  Chief Executive Officer

  Razrtec was formed in 2017 as independent consulting and core business support services supporting customers embarking on strategic projects and digital transformation. Our team has many years of experience in delivering turnkey solutions and projects aligned to business objectives and within the required financial constraints. To ensure we can offer our services across the digital spectrum, we partner with a professional network of like-minded individuals and companies, thus ensuring a unified response to your requirements. ​Our commitment to customers in every engagement: Only take-on assignments that we have experience in;Provide transparent and honest feedback in real-time;Offer competitive financial solutions aligned to business outcomes and not point solutions; andConfidentiality at all times.​ Show less