Bloom Story: Wendy Nys

Maximum 20% routine. For Wendy Nys, the other 80% may be more challenging. That's how she feels about life and that's also the balance she seeks in her work. Wendy has been Customer Success Manager at Arxus for a year now. It is a job in which she can perfectly combine her technical knowledge with the soft skills that she has also mastered. It is a logical step in her flourishing career, but this is certainly not the final stop.

I prefer Lego

As a child, Wendy was more interested in technology and LEGO than in dolls, for example. After 4 years in secondary school, she consciously chose IT.

"I never just did what was most obvious," Wendy begins. "I was in a general secondary education and wanted to study Computer Science, but that wasn't possible there. For that I had to switch to a technical secondary education direction. In my time it was called Business Economics (now Accounting Informatics). Studying IT was still quite new back then, especially as a girl, but for me it was the only option."

Did you get into tech right after college?

"Yes and no. I actually started in a commercial position by accident. I found a vacancy at a small tech company where they had only just taken the first steps towards IT. I was one of the first to work with their new ERP system and I liked that. For 15 years I continued to work as a commercial office assistant in various companies. It was always about very technical products. My last inside sales job was with an IT company and there I was lucky, thanks to my affinity with IT, to be able to work directly with the IT colleagues as a key user. Then I realized again how much I liked that and I wanted to 'go back'."

"Thanks to my affinity for IT, I got the chance to work with the IT colleagues. That's when I realized again how much I enjoyed that."

Returning to IT after 15 years, it doesn't sound obvious.

"Indeed, it turned out I didn't quite have the right experience, but I had set my sights on a tech job. So try and stop me!"

Wendy started at the bottom of the ladder again. "As an IT helpdesk employee, I could use both my technical and my commercial, more social skills. I quickly learned a lot and it wasn't long before I became team lead of the helpdesk. And when the company decided to outsource the service desk, I helped set that up. That's how I got further into it and because I had the necessary knowledge in the meantime, I was given the task as operations manager to lead the service desk. After a while we had the operations well on track and then I heard that the role of Infrastructure manager became vacant. For me, it was gradually time for something new, so I took on that role."

Seriously! You tell this like it's nothing, but that was a big deal, right?

"Sure! But I really wanted that. Operations management is rather service-oriented and I still wanted to go more into the technical side. In that job as Infrastructure manager, I learned so much. I took training courses and was assisted by the partners we worked with. We had a small team and yet we did a lot of projects for which I was the project manager. I grew tremendously in that company and I wasn't finished there, but as a woman it stopped there."

The glass ceiling (and through it)

"Women and technology, the management had their doubts about that anyway."

"I really wanted to grow even further," says Wendy. "That didn't necessarily have to be in height, in width was also allowed. But I felt I was working for a management that had its doubts about the combination of women and technology. Is that going to work out, I saw them thinking. Even after all these years! That's when I decided to look for an employer where I would have more opportunities."

That's how you came to join The Cronos Group last year?

"I had already worked with quite a few Cronos companies and by chance there was a vacancy at Uptime Group, for Customer Success Manager at Arxus. I responded to it rather impulsively, but it clicked immediately. Arxus is a scale-up, a relatively small company in full growth, and I liked that."

Customer Success Manager, what does that entail at Arxus?

"Customer Success Manager is actually a dual job. I am the person who promotes the interests of the customer within Arxus and at the same time I am the person who represents the Arxus vision and the Arxus products to the customer. This brings me into contact with many different business processes and many different sectors. We have customers in the construction industry, healthcare companies, production companies, etc. I also have to deal with all the products and solutions that Arxus offers. I translate the questions of customers into the offer of Arxus and vice versa, and I bring everything together. A bit like a spider in its web."

"Within Arxus I represent the interests of the customer and at the customer I represent the Arxus vision and the Arxus products."

Do you work primarily with the IT department at customers?

"Mostly we do, but we do try to involve the business, especially when it comes to strategic choices. Arxus is a cloud provider. We do private cloud, but also Azure. If customers want to move from private cloud to Azure, we guide them through their story. We really take them along in their 'journey' and show them what is currently on the market that could be interesting for them. In addition, at Arxus we offer managed services. Guaranteeing that service and support to customers, seeing that everything is followed up properly, that's also part of my job."

80% challenge

What do you enjoy most about your job?

"I think anyway the contact with all different people and customers. Secondly, the technicality of the products. And finally, the support and advisory role I have. It's very satisfying when customers can make the right decision because of my advice."

Can you name three successes that have the most value to you?

"At number one is definitely the fact that I have been able to grow as a help desk employee. The fact that I set up a well-run service desk in collaboration with an external company in which I then took on a leading role. Second is my switch to Infrastructure. That switch was really quite drastic. I also took Security into account and had an audit carried out within the company on my own initiative. From that audit I set up a Security Committee with the management, the business and IT, and I started awareness campaigns for the employees. Since then, Security has been on the map there! That's the third success I'm quite proud of."

And what challenges did you encounter or come across?

"Unfortunately, as a woman in a man's world, it is always a challenge to be taken seriously. I have to prove time and time again that I am technically on board and it often takes a long time to gain trust. It is as if it is less obvious for a company to put its IT infrastructure or IT policy in the hands of a woman. Even in my current job, I find it a challenge to build a relationship of trust with my customers. They don't just believe what I say, right? Over the years I take this less personally because I've been through it so many times. By now I know how to handle that and then I think, "I'll get there!"

"I have to prove over and over again that I'm technically on board, and it often takes a long time to gain confidence. But in the meantime, I know, "I'll get there!"

"The biggest challenge today has nothing to do with my being a woman, it's just that there is a lot coming at me from all sides. My days are very hectic. But if I don't have that in my job tomorrow, I won't like the job anymore. I need that to keep me interested, to have the feeling that I can still grow. As soon as more than 20% is running on routine, I start looking for a new challenge. That can be within the same job, but I always try to stick to that 80/20 rule everywhere."

Deliberate ambitions and boundless dreams

What would you still like to accomplish professionally?

"What I would prefer to do again is to help set the lines of a company. A management position focused on business processes, vision and strategy. It's not necessarily my ambition to be a people manager with dozens of people reporting to me."

And on a personal level?

"I like to travel very much. In this, too, the newness appeals to me above all. Getting to know other cultures, talking to people and trying to understand how they live, that interests me enormously. I guess it has to do with my soft skills. My favorite country is without a doubt America. When I think about it, I feel homesick. But I hope to make many other beautiful trips together with my partner. Costa Rica, Australia, Iceland, Lapland and Mexico are at the top of our list."

To finish, is there anything you would rather have known earlier? Would you have made different choices then?

"If I had known 20 years ago that it would work out so well, I would have made the move to an IT job much sooner. I also never want to work in a company with a glass ceiling again. I know what I'm worth and I want to be able to develop without limits."

Are you inspired by Wendy's story and would you like more information about working at Arxus? Leave your details here and we will contact you as soon as possible.