Cameron Chehreh: Spearheading Innovation ona Global Level for Enterprise Transformation
Dell Technologies is a multinational company known for its innovative IT solutions and services. The company offers a portfolio of advanced capabilities from the edge to the core to the cloud, delivering the tools that enable digital transformation. The federal organization provides government agencies and the Department of Defense the tools they need to meet the mission every time.
Working Toward the Digital Future
Dell Technologies helps organizations and individuals build their digital future and transform how they work, live, and play. As part of that enterprise, the federal organization helps government agencies digitally enable the mission, with a broad range of solutions and services that enable multi-cloud flexibility, the digital workplace, and data management and insight.
Leadership
Cameron Chehrehis the Chief Technology Officer and vice president of presales engineering at Dell Technologies. In this role, he is responsible for strategy execution, leadership, and innovation management for Dell Technologies’ federal portfolio that includes civilian government agencies and U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers.
Experiences That Shaped His Journey
Cameron started his career in the music industry, combining the lessons he learned there with a formal education in computer science to help build the first cloud computing company. “It’s all about thinking differently and challenging conventional thinking,” he says.
Rather than be constrained by the conventional thinking of the time, Cameron let his artistic side inspire him to envision new ways of interacting with and deploying new technology. His company, US internet working, eventually became the basis for the cloud computing model we know today.
Back in 1999 and the early 2000’s no one was thinking about delivering business applications in an “as-a-service” format, Cameron notes. US internet working transformed how business applications were delivered with its pioneering service delivery model. The corporate tagline of the time: Software and a Service. The foundation for modern cloud computing had been built.
Cameron has learned a few things over the years—about challenging conventional thinking, about being creative, about not following the norm. And those lessons led him to what he calls “the greatest job on the planet.” His advice: “You have to be a bit creative, but you also have to focus intensely on what drives the definition of success for customers and for your business.”
Cameron says working with innovative technology is fun, but he had a realization: you have to define the mission value. “No matter how brilliant the idea, it wouldn’t succeed if we couldn’t show a mission partner the value it could create for them,” he says.
Obstacles Create Opportunities for Innovation
Cameron is fond of an Albert Einstein quote: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” In other words, though you may be an expert in a particular field, the real skill is in convincing others in your organization to be aligned to your thinking.
As both optimist and innovator, Cameron spends much of his work overcoming objections. “People are comfortable with the status quo,” he says. “Trying to convince people there’s a better way to do things is not the easiest journey in life.”
The Qualities ofa Great Leader
Cameron uses a Venn diagram to illustrate the key attributes of a successful CTO—at the intersection of technical acumen, business acumen, and financial acumen. “You’ve got to know your craft, your profession,” he says. Technical acumen means you are highly specialized, but you also understand the impact of your decisions on the bigger picture. “Open your aperture.”
Most people are not technically oriented. But to get buy-in, you have to be able to speak to them in a way they understand. Business acumen means you know how to build bridges and translate “geek speak” into plain English.
A successful CTO also possesses financial acumen. “You have to understand the business,” says Cameron.“How customers drive business cases, and how they define value in their own culture and parlance. When you bring a business perspective, a financial perspective, and ultimately your technical vision to bear, you demonstrate you can bring something innovative to market, and communicate the practicality of it as well.”
A Personalized Appeal
Cameron notes that there is a generation of people that didn’t grow up as digital natives. Younger generations take for granted that technology is everywhere and can be used to operate just about everything. It’s difficult for them to imagine a time when that wasn’t the case.
While he is not a digital native, Cameron doesn’t consider himself a digital naif either. He helped build the infrastructure that supports a lot of the digital infrastructure of today. To him, engaging with people is about making a personal connection. It’s about sharing stories of how tech is advancing your own life.
“You can buy a laptop from anyone,” says Cameron, “but what I love about a Dell laptop is the personal experience it provides: biometrics, 2-factor authentication, and an easier log-in process. I like the Dell design and ergonomics.”
Innovation Powered by Technology
To make technology exciting for people, Cameron enjoys relating tech to the ordinary items humans interact with on a daily basis. “I love show the power of how technology, when used for good, can really enhance the human experience,” he says.
AI, IoT, and big data are evident in a simple drive to the grocery store, says Cameron, using his own personal vehicle as an example. The auto-start button on his keychain can start the engine from 20-30 feet away because of all the sensors in the vehicle. In the summer, the air conditioner kicks on; the heat comes on in the winter—again, thanks to sensors. All these pieces come together to illustrate how technology affects our quotidian life. Cameron adds that all of these technologies are disruptive and when optimally executed, nearly transparent.“We’re not seeing the power, the magnitude that underpins all of these great technologies converging to create the digitally enhanced human experience,” he says.
The Impact of Technology ona Leader
Leaders have to be digitally aware, thinking of their own digital experience first and then reimagining it for the customer. The user experience governs how organizations deliver products and services.
Defining the Future
Cameron is optimistic not just about Dell Technologies, but about the entire digital industry in the future.“In the past, innovation cycles typically were 10 to 20 years,” Cameron says. “Today, that’s down to five years, and even less. That trend will continue to quicken.” Cameron envisions a “smarter” world (with more and more smart devices) being better able to clean the environment, enable more efficient healthcare, even cure diseases. “We’ll be aided in that journey with AI/ML, and all of the things that help us come to conclusions faster,” he says.
Advice from a Leader
It took him his entire career to figure out you should “find what you truly love and focus on it,” Cameron says. “The career and the money will follow.Find your passion and why you got into the business. Follow that passion with every fiber of your being. Then it’ll never feel like a day of work.”
In tech, Cameron has said he believes people forget about the “human” piece of the human-machine interaction. Designers forget the end-user; how someone will consume the solution or product being built. Cameron admires those who put the consumer first in their design thinking. “Being technical is one thing,” he says,“but never lose your humanity.”
