MEET MIKE
Hi, I’m Mike Souza and I have more than 30 years of work experience that spans the US Air Force to the ranks of leadership across the corporate enterprise. From 2009 through August 2017, I was the executive leader responsible for FusionStorm sales, support, marketing, and pre-sales consulting engineering across the United States. This group consisted of over 160 people, supporting more than 1200 customers, and generating over $700M in revenue.
My efforts as SVP of Sales and Marketing, centered on talent acquisition and development, expanding a portfolio of solutions to raise average revenue per customer, and diversifying the customer base by moving up-market into the multi-national enterprise and Service Provider/PaaS/SaaS customer segment. Over time, FusionStorm added and/or grew marquee customers such as Apple, Facebook, DropBox, Pandora, Moodys, GoDaddy, Netflix, Servicenow, Sherwin-Williams, and numerous others, making a significant impact on its year over year growth.
Prior to FusionStorm, I was part of SBC Communications Enterprise Accounts organization, in the role of Regional Vice President for Northern California. This $150M business, served 1,100 customers providing solutions for their telecommunications needs. My first 10 years in telecommunications were spent with MCI in a variety of roles, inclusive of Senior Manager/Strategic Data Services, Area Sales Manager, Account Manager, Technical Consultant, and Field Engineer.
Prior to my work in the commercial business sector, I served in the US Air Force as a Combat Communications officer for four years, with three additional years spent as a Reservist.
I am the proud father of three children and live in Sonoma, CA. I am an active climber and mountaineer and love the thrill and challenges of the sport. I also enjoy kayaking and woodworking, am a member of the American Legion, contribute work for charitable causes like ALS and Cerebral Palsy, and stay active in supporting our public schools. Please scroll down the page to learn more about my work and thanks for visiting 4SYTE Consultants!
ABOUT 4SYTE CONSULTANTS
Having been a sales leader for multiple decades, I have developed a reputation of being a focused, results-oriented business leader. Throughout my career, I have led and guided many organizations through transformations and measureable success. In my most recent role at Fusion Storm, a $750 million value added reseller and tech integration company, I developed teams and executed on strategies that ultimately grew the company from $90 million in 2005 to over $700 million by the year 2016.
My passion for growth and transformation in these areas has catapulted me to start my own firm, 4syte Consultants. 4syte Consultants is a boutique consulting practice that specializes in business planning, consulting, and executive coaching for technology companies. With my over 30 years of experience in the high-tech space, I have been at the helm of many aspects of organizational change and growth. What we offer executives of technology companies is an opportunity to learn more about their own business and find ways to grow it beyond their expectations.
In addition to being a business man, I am also an involved father, friend, and colleague with a large community of friends and family. At this stage of my career, I gain tremendous satisfaction in seeing others develop their business acumen so that they may become increasingly successful.
My intensity, my adventurous spirit, and my willingness to take risks are all characteristics that translate well at the business table. These traits have served me well in a sales leadership capacity and in countless other areas throughout my professional career. If you want to grow, you must take risks; if you take risks, you must be prepared to fail. Part of the value I bring is that my clients can learn from my failures and missteps while running large sales and support organizations.
Failure will bring you one step closer to wild success, and 4syte can help you get there.
4SYTE SERVICES
EXECUTIVE COACHING
When I coach executives, I want for them to be able to come out of each coaching session with a better understanding of what they are doing in their business and look for a current state analysis of how they are impacting their overall business. Throughout the coaching process you will be supported, encouraged, and stretched to new heights. You will become more aware, committed, and action-oriented in order to achieve important personal and professional goals.
We will have a dialogue as to how we move them from their current state to a future state from a personal perspective. From a coaching perspective, I look not to solve the entire business issues, but analyze their particular discipline around sales marketing as well as engineering. My approach also takes into account an assessment where we review the data that they have around such topics. As an output of our discussions, I take the analysis to validate and/or invalidate the data so that ultimately we create recommendations and playbooks to use within their organization.
ORGANIZATIONAL AND OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENTS AND OPTIMIZATION
Each assessment is customized based on your unique business requirements and industry segment. Below is a sampling of the types of assessments we can produce throughout our engagement. Each assessment keeps in mind the end-game of revenue growth and performance.
ASSESSMENT
Assess Business Processes – What are… the inputs, outputs, resources, constraints for the processes? The process maps and metrics?
Assess Workforce – What are… the available skillsets? The knowledge levels of best practices and standards? The expertise levels with tools and methods?
AssessTechnologies – What are… the IT environment, platforms, and systems? The engineering, manufacturing, supply chain productivity software products in use? The levels of performance, scalability, availability, security, and integration?
GAP ANALYSIS AND ROADMAP
Perform Gap Analysis – What are… industry best practices and benchmarks? The gaps between your current processes, workforce, and technologies and industry best practices?
Define Strategy and Roadmap – What are… the roles and responsibilities? The specific solutions most suitable for your company? The training solutions required? What is a realistic implementation plan and how can you get ready for implementation?
Develop Business Case – How can you project and measure ROI? What are the costs and risks?
REVENUE GROWTH AND GO TO MARKET STRATEGIES
In this area of the practice, the focus is on designing new paths to revenue growth. More valuable than a snapshot of revenue, revenue growth helps investors identify trends in order to gauge revenue growth over time. The engagement is specifically focused on the chief sales or Chief Revenue Officer as well as their senior staff to discuss their current go to market strategies. Our analysis includes how the current strategies are performing and what gaps there are to their desired performance. Ultimately, we develop a plan to close the gaps to reach their financial and performance goals. This plan includes topics such as talent systems, partner strategy, and other levers that influence revenue growth.
TALENT ACQUISITION
Company success starts with having the very best talent you can find. The employment brand encompasses not only the procurement of human capital, but the approach to employee development. The unique needs of companies especially to recruit and hire as well as attract top talent cannot be overlooked when evaluating your path to revenue. First, I work with my clients to understand their current approach to finding top talent. Secondly, we assess how they are engaging with their existing talent, and how they are either developing them or not. Finally, we address how to manage that talent both from a development, retention, and then a growth perspective. We tie that growth factor to results and discuss topics such as culture and characteristics that aren’t necessarily intrinsic to the employees but rather more intrinsic to the company philosophy.
THE 4SYTE BLOG
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Is It Time To Give Up The Summit (Or Strategy)?
As I have written before, in mountaineering you don't always reach the summit you’re attempting. Failure can be attributed to weather, fitness or training issues, or any number of issues that arise on the ascent. [...]
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