Tom Vervoort
Director Key Account Management & Business Development
As an Account Manager and a S&D Subject Matter Expert, Tom Vervoot juggles many roles at SDS. In this capacity, he works closely with the Customer Success Managers to understand the ground realities and to deliver excellent business value to customers. Tom’s mission is to champion innovation and provide support to clients in their S&D digitization journey.
What is the first thing you do when you come into the office every day?
I usually start quite early (for a Belgian) which gives me time to drink my coffee and catch up on the news on RFI and BBC. I’m also quite obsessed with the “zero inbox” process and sorting my mail and to-do list is also an important part of my morning routine.
What does a typical work day look like for you? What are your responsibilities and priorities?
Thank god I don’t have a typical day, as an account manager my objective is to make sure clients renew their licenses every year and consider additional features that we can upsell.
Being an account manager also means spending a considerable amount of time with our Customer Success Managers who are in touch with our clients on a daily basis while I keep in touch with group stakeholders and will nurture opportunities with the Orange group to extend our current footprint of 9 countries.
But I also have another hat, as I’ve been with the S&D product since it’s inception I can also claim to be a subject matter expert in our S&D solution and will support other account managers in their sales effort or work with product owners on designing and validating new product features.
What is the account management team culture like at the company? Any traditions?
The gong! Although this became a bit less common in covid times, every PO meant a hit on the office gong to announce the sale. It’s very satisfying. Nowadays slack messages with lots of animated emojis are but nothing beats the gong.
How does the AM/Sales team collaborate with other teams within the company? Are there any challenges that you often need to overcome
It’s clearly a team effort. Our business model relies heavily on license renewal and every team has an equally important role to play to make sure our tools remain relevant within our clients ecosystem. As an AM you are leading the charge when it comes to client acquisition but it doesn’t stop there, during the implementation phase you stick around to make sure the implementation team has the continuous support of your client and once everything is live the Customer Success Manager and the AM are the dream team to maintain custom trust, create upsell opportunities and feed precious product feedback and new ideas to the product team.
Any big projects or goals you’re currently working on?
We are a small team managing 9 countries, and our big goal right now is to ensure all these clients renew for 2022 and beyond.
What’s an important lesson you’ve learned while working at Riaktr?
“There must be a better way” this was one of the mottos I was taught early on when I joined back in 2015. This means to never accept the status quo, always look forward and to explore new learning opportunities
What are your personal goals/objectives that you strive to achieve?
I’m dreaming of a situation where a client tells me “thank you, this is exactly what I wanted”
Any big personal wins at Riaktr that you’re particularly proud of?
The fact that a small bunch of people in Belgium has been able to convince some of the largest telecom operators to trust them to collaborate is a huge achievement and I’m proud to have contributed to that story for the last 7 years in different role
And finally, how do you unwind from work?
Other than spending as much quality time with my daughter I also occasionally play golf.
