Ali Powell joins us for today's chat. Ali is currently the General Manager of Customer Success at Microsoft, representing large enterprise customers in the Southwest. Ali has almost 14 years with the business, and we talk broadly about his team's charter for customer success and why it's so important in the emerging digital and innovation economy. We also go deeper on topics ranging from customer understanding and empathy, all the way to building diverse and inclusive teams and how to go about making contributions to solve the world's problems.

Big takeaways include the following:

1. The way businesses use technology today is based on a more granular consumption model than in previous eras, and helping businesses with incremental wins that allow the tech to make business priorities effective, is critical

2. Customer Success focus areas should include the following:

-Understanding the need

-Aligning the need to where business is headed

-Making sure there is a smooth integration and adoption

3. Contributing to solving the world's problems doesn't have to be complicated; look for a problem, focus on solving it, tell a story that supports the uniqueness of the challenge and why it should be solved , use networks as "currency", tackle one small problem at a time

4. Diversity and inclusion is about building platforms for people to feel comfortable, to develop courage and also to empower others with the courage to find the freedom in their voice to contribute and add value.

Resources: Treasures from Africa

http://www.treasuresfromafrica.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Treasures-From-Africa-218553888175625/

Books: Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

How to contact Ali:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-powell-8b61402/

Thanks for listening!

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