We are proud to introduce you to our expert blogger, Sean Kennelly – VP, Product Management for Payments and CEM.
Read on to find out more about Sean, including what’s been the greatest influence on his career and how he believes CCM and CEM is going to change over the next couple of years.
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What’s your backstory (how did you come to be working for Doxim)?
I was working as a middle manager at a large IT firm outside of Toronto. They wanted me to move back there (after they had me move to another city to help manage an office elsewhere). I didn’t want to go back to Toronto, so I left to move back to my hometown (where both my and my wife’s family live). I took a position with a small software company (Neocog) as a business analyst (the CEO was a good friend of a long-term friend of mine) – they set me up and I started working here! Neocog was acquired by Doxim when we had 12 employees and Doxim had about 25.
What has been the greatest influence on your career?
Opportunity. I have been allotted a large amount of opportunity over the years. On multiple occasions, I was even able to create my own position and job description. This, alongside the general growth of the organization, has allowed me vast opportunity to learn many new skills; as well as home in on those that I currently possess.
If you could travel anywhere – where would it be?
Hong Kong 
What do you see as the biggest challenge to operating in today’s world?
In today’s world? I’d say a few things…Juggling the balance of managing your own finances, health, life, and family well, while simultaneously addressing the high-pressure demands that come at you from dozens of directions.
Outside of work, what are you passionate about?
Family, cars, building/designing (construction), playing guitar
As a child, what did you think you would grow up to be?
Oddly enough, I had no idea. I’ve always been a bit of a ‘jack of all trades’ – even when I was a child. I was interested in so many things that I don’t believe I ever dreamt of doing something specific… In my early teens, I wanted to be a professional snowboarder/skateboarder (and in my late-teens I wanted to keep playing music in a band!)
What do you appreciate most about working at Doxim?
Change and opportunity. I’m not one for mundane repetitiveness in a job. The fact that the world at Doxim is constantly evolving, is extremely interesting to me. New products, new services, new people, evolving strategies, etc. Alongside this change comes ample opportunity to grow yourself and your skills.
What is your area of focus?
Building stuff that sells
How has the business changed since you joined?
WOW – I can’t even explain… when I started at Neocog we were 7 employees… when Doxim acquired us, we were about 35. Now are 850+!!!
The entire business has evolved – top to bottom.
How do you think CCM and CEM is going to change over the next couple of years?
CCM and CEM will intersect into a single platform, centralizing ALL CONVERSATIONS (not just digital) into a source of record that allows staff to understand what is happening with their customers, everywhere across the business – not just across messaging, documents, and notifications.
Our clients are dying for a system that will allow their brand/experience owners to segment clients, execute ad-hoc, automated, trigger-event and campaign-based communications in the back-end – and SIMULTANEOUSLY enable operational staff across all facets of the business to view, manage, create engagements, and interact directly with clients.
The business’s communication objectives are there for a purpose; that purpose being sales, marketing, education, retention, etc. Being able to directly tie a messaging strategy to business outcomes is critical. An engagement + CCM tool would enable this… something all our clients are trying to achieve, and very few vendors can execute it.
