Corporate Vision October 2017

14 CORPORATE VISION / October 2017 , This year’s CEO of the Year – Virginia award belongs toMichael J. Saylor, President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at MicroStrategy, Inc. When he’s not at MicroStrategy’s Northern Virginia headquarters, Mr. Saylor spends his time traveling to cities around the world to share his vision on enterprise analytics andmobility with leaders and business audiences. We caught up withMr. Saylor to discuss his leadership role, his thoughts on the technology industry, andMicroStrategy’s commitment to its vision of intelligence everywhere. Creating Countless Opportunities MicroStrategy is a longstanding global leader in enterprise analytics and mobility software. The company provides world- class software and expert services so its enterprise customers can deploy unique intelligence applications, make better business decisions, and transform the way they do business. Saylor begins the interview by telling us more about the company in his own words. “For over 25 years, we have been building software that helps organizations transform their data into intelligence. Our software helps people discover new opportunities, make better decisions, and drive real results.” Saylor elaborated on the types of organisations MicroStrategy serves. “Our customers span a variety of industries, including retail, banking, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, telecommunications, and federal and municipal government. We’re proud to work with customers like Boston Children’s Hospital, Cisco Systems, eBay, Fox Entertainment Group, Netflix, PetSmart, United States Postal Service, Vodafone, and Whole Foods Market.” When asked to identify the key to MicroStrategy’s long-term success, Saylor explains, “When MicroStrategy went public in 1998, we had 100 competitors. Today, we are the only remaining independent company of that original group. While other players in the analytics space have grown through mergers and acquisitions, we have remained focused on sustainable, strategic growth. That means we aren’t purchasing other companies or outsourcing our technology. Rather, we’ve developed our own technology and talent internally, maintaining the technical integrity of our platform and authenticity of our culture. For the last 25 years, this unique approach has defined our growth and has been instrumental in the lasting value we deliver to our customers.” Saylor goes on to explain the key principles that continue to drive growth at his company. “Our growth is tied to our customers and their evolving needs. While every customer has unique technology requirements, MicroStrategy succeeds because we get to know our customers, ask them for feedback, and work together to create solutions that help them gain a competitive edge and drive them towards long-term success.” “We aim to serve our customers at all points on the following arc: traditional, evolutionary, and revolutionary. We meet our customers where they are and help them transform their current data assets into actionable intelligence with powerful reporting and analytics. We then help them evolve beyond simple data analytics to extend insights to everyone across the company with powerful enterprise analytics and mobility tools. Finally, we want to inspire our customers with revolutionary technology, that makes them look beyond the state of the market today.” “For example, we offer a product called Usher that, when deployed to employees’ mobile devices, generates telemetry data that gives organisations a 360-degree view of how their people move throughout the enterprise. Combined with powerful back-end analytics, this solution opens new opportunities to drive change and reach new levels of efficiency. We help our customers move through each phase by partnering with them to deliver solutions that fit their unique needs and make them more competitive in their respective industries.” Saylor then turns his thoughts to how he stays motivated as a CEO, what it takes to make big decisions in an ever-changing technology landscape, and the essential qualities he looks for in senior leadership. “Over the past quarter century, I’ve learned a lot as a CEO. I’ve seen seven generations of the core MicroStrategy product, ebbs and flows of the tech market, and shifts in the overall economy. Throughout all of this change, the one constant that has driven me is building the best enterprise analytics and mobility software company in the world. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but MicroStrategy is in a unique position to make it happen. We’re not here to simply offer solutions that make life a little easier—we’re committed to fundamentally changing the way organisations operate.” “In 2008, I wrote The Mobile Wave and predicted the way mobile technology would transform our daily lives. Based on this premise, we built a number of new products within MicroStrategy – some were 1701CV24