William Donlan Transcript
Clint Betts
Welcome to the CEO.com Show. My name is Clint Betts. Today's guest is Bill Donlan, the CEO of Astound Digital. Bill is a trusted partner to many of the leading software vendors who frequently call on him to deliver keynotes at global customer events, co-author industry assets and content, and moderate executive roundtables. His significant experience in field service and his perspectives on how AI will impact field service innovation is drawing attention from industry associations and enterprise executives who are eager to see the intellectual property and technology accelerators that Bill is driving at Astound. Bill, welcome to the show. Tell us how you became the CEO of Astound Digital and what Astound Digital is.
Bill Donlan
Awesome. Well, first of all, thanks, Clint, for the opportunity. And look, I've been in the IT services ecosystem my entire career. I have a master's degree in information systems and accounting. And I joined Arthur Anderson Management Consulting. We became Anderson Consulting a year later in Accenture. And so I've been in this space, Accenture thereafter. I've been in space a long time, spent 20 years at Gemini, and then I did a two-year stint as a partner at KPMG and really thought that was probably going to be my last job, my last employer. And anytime a tier one executive search firm calls you and says, we got a CEO job for you to look at, you take a look. I went through a process and got hired by the PE firm that really was the primary owner at the time, Astound Commerce. We rebranded to Astound Digital last year. I've been here now for a year and a couple of weeks. And we're a professional services firm in the front office space. You mentioned field service.
We do a lot of commerce, sales, service, marketing, field service. Getting heavily into components of both generative and more traditional predictive AI. A lot to do with data and fuels those AI solutions. It's a lot of work, having a lot of fun. Trying to build something that I think can be pretty special in terms of a place to work but also a great alternative to some of the bigger IT services consulting firms that I think bring the same level of service but a little bit of a different price point and cost structure, right?
Clint Betts
Give me a sense for where consulting is right now and the future of consulting, 'cause it does seem like it's in a bit of a transition period. And we'll get to AI in a second, and obviously that has a lot to do with it, but just give us a sense overall with where consulting is right now.
Bill Donlan
Yeah, look, I think you're right. We are in a transition phase. We've been through a few of these, whether it's client-server or the internet; what have you? We're definitely in one now, and I know we'll hold the AI, but if you're a professional services firm and you're not figuring out how to be more efficient with AI tools in the way you deliver projects, I think you're doing your clients a disservice. Now, I still think there's a need for some level of industry expertise. What are other companies doing that are similar to yours? What are companies doing that are different from yours, and how potentially can we apply that? That lens of industry, that lens of architecture, again in a pragmatic way, process, globalization, governance. I think even Elon's robots are going to have a tough time doing those kinds of things, but there is an impact on what we can do to drive down costs for our clients, make things more attractive, and deliver more efficiently with a higher level of quality.
And if you're not paying attention to that, you're going to find yourselves in some trouble for sure. I think you're right that things are changing, and we've got to evolve with those changes.
Clint Betts
Yeah, it's fascinating, right? Give me a sense of how you're thinking about an AI, and obviously, you're being asked to talk about this a lot, write about this a lot. Give us a sense for how you're thinking about AI, how you're using it in your industry, and obviously the billion-dollar question is what's going to happen next?
Bill Donlan
It's funny because we've had AI solutions for years now, and some of the predictive capabilities are fairly mature and should be a part of any solution that we're delivering to our clients. I look at it in two buckets. One is how are we leveraging AI tools in our system development lifecycle to be more efficient, to deliver at a higher quality, to deliver at a lower price point. Whether that's writing user stories, validating user stories, or potentially even writing code in some places, we've got this SDLC impacts of generative and AI tools, and then we've got the solutions that we're actually delivering for our clients. This whole idea is around the agentic enterprise and agents, and when you think about the Salesforce agent force, it's dominant in every conversation. You can't turn a corner without seeing here's another startup delivering agentic and agent technology. You certainly can't go to an industry event without seeing a lot of that. That's that generative AI side, and that's less mature, less proven data requirements are important.
Looking at where the business case is, make sure that you're testing so that solutions are not hallucinating on your clients and your client's customers. A lot to do in that changing landscape. At Astound, we wake up every day, and we're trying to figure out how we deliver projects more efficiently in that SDLC bucket, and then what are the things that we need to be doing for our clients and having the right, can we assess the data needs, can we figure out if you've got what you need to be able to be successful? The business case as well. Some of this stuff is easy to do, like an agent to answer a question, where can I get a vaccine? What is the current vaccine level? That stuff's easy. When you start getting into schedule a return for me or get me an installation or I'm ready to initiate an RMA process, you start thinking about other things that you need to work with, whether it's Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Azure data.
There's a lot to sort through and figure out and architect, and you can go fast in some of these use cases, but others you need to be more pragmatic and make sure that you're accounting for what's all needed. And also guiding our clients through the business case and the return, where is that return? Some of this is priced at consumption level, so you've got to be looking at those things.
Clint Betts
Yeah. The consumption versus subscription thing is really fascinating, and I think that where all that shakes out will be pretty interesting. What does a typical day look like for you as CEO of this company? I'm sure every day is pretty different.
Bill Donlan
You'd probably put a hundred CEOs on here in the professional services space who have been a year in their job, and they probably would give you a similar answer. We've had to make a lot of changes. We've had to re-architect the way we look at people and our people processes, which we're a people business, right? We don't have a warehouse full of widgets, cars, headphones, or anything else. People are our business. We've had to rebuild our go-to-market motion. I mentioned that we reinvented ourselves around end-to-end customer and front-office solutions, not just commerce. Unfortunately, you still get pulled into some tactical details. I probably don't spend as much time as I should right now driving the strategy. We're starting to get to the point where there's more time for that. I have a now very strong back office team, CFO, and chief people officer.
Fortunately for me, I'm able to spend time in the market, which is where I think my strength is with our customers, listening to them and understanding what's imperative for them. Companies are much more careful these days. I think understanding return and business impact and being truly invested in those outcomes as a services company are very, very important. And we're trying our best to be as invested in those outcomes for our clients as we possibly can, whether that's through commercial arrangements, fees at risk, potentially penalties if we don't deliver at the level that we need to. All of those things, I think, are things that we're willing to do and put our money where our mouth is for our customers.
Clint Betts
Given everything you've gone through to transform the business in such a transformational way, how would you describe your leadership style?
Bill Donlan
Great question. If you asked my C-level executives, they would probably say that I'm too busy with some of their business and the details. I do feel a very strong responsibility to the private equity firm that owns us and to our people. I've always been somebody who takes attrition very, very seriously and understands why people leave, understanding the importance of the people business. And so I'm a little more hands-on than they probably would like, but as the team gets fully embedded and ingrained and performing, there'll be opportunities to step back from that. My style certainly is to find good people that I can trust who can deliver in their roles, and I think we're getting there. My style is to be very, very in the market and understanding, talking to as many of our clients as often as I can about where there are opportunities to get better or what we can do differently that they would like us to do. In that regard, I'm pretty hands-on, I would say.
Clint Betts
How do you define culture within your company? And are you hybrid, remote, all in person? How does that work?
Bill Donlan
First of all, we have significant delivery center capabilities that are done very much virtually, right? We have a large delivery center in Eastern Europe, heavily in Ukraine. We have a nearshore US delivery center in Medellin, Colombia. Then, we have our more traditional QA data development delivery center in India. Most of that work, most of those components of a project team, are delivered 100% remotely. We are seeing a need to get closer to our clients. We went through that COVID period where one day you've got teams on site, and the next day you're locked down, and for two years, essentially, you never showed up on site. I don't think we'll ever go back to what we were pre-COVID in the professional services, the consulting world, but we're starting to see more workshops, more we're getting ready to go live, shepherd us through user acceptance testing, the early part of support with limited amounts or limited folks on the teams on site.
We operate in the US, the UK, and Germany, and I would say all of our clients in all of those GOs are starting to expect a little bit more physical presence than we had, but again, not going back to the pre-COVID levels.
Clint Betts
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I have to ask, how's the Ukraine operation going given everything that's happening over there?
Bill Donlan
It's the most resilient group of people I think I have ever met in my life. I can't; from day one of my being here, I would get on calls with folks who were dealing with things that are living here in the US, which I can't even imagine. Losing power or rockets and people being conscripted off the street. It's just not something I can imagine, and that group of people here, first of all, the talent level is amazing, the engineering talent, but the resilience of the people of Ukraine is something truly, truly admirable. They're doing great. Look, we all hope for peace here. It would be great to get to that point. There are days when I'm more optimistic than others, so maybe we can figure that out. But that group of people, and I hear from our clients all the time how great they are, how resilient and involved they are. It's hard to say the words without seeing it. Trust me when I tell you it's an amazing group of people.
Clint Betts
I can't imagine what it would be like to lead a group like that and see everything they're going through and have them still showing up and pushing through that. That's pretty remarkable in and of itself. Give me a sense of how you balance, whatever that means, balance your life. How do you keep that work-life balance or just general balance in your life?
Bill Donlan
I'm not the best at that. I'm lucky. I have a very supportive family. I have a daughter who doesn't live too far away, and she has two grandchildren, but I get out and run. I don't have time for a ton of other activities, but I'm doing this because it needs to be done now, and hopefully, we can get to the point where all the right people are in place, and there'll be a little bit more time for that. I could definitely improve in that area, but it's not awful either.
Clint Betts
Give people a sense of what it's like to be the CEO of a private equity-owned company. What's the difference between that and a public company or a venture-backed company? I think that actually would be interesting for some people to hear.
Bill Donlan
First of all, I would say that I have an incredibly supportive group, which is RLH Equity Partners out of Beverly Hills, California. I mean, we all know what it takes to deliver numbers to the street as a public company, and we see what happens when they don't or when they fail or when they come up short or even when there's just uncertainty. We certainly feel a level of pressure in attaining our plan, our business plan, our goals around revenue and bookings and profitability, and those kinds of things. It's not the same level. And these guys have been patient in understanding the degree of transformation that needed to take place, right? It's time. It's a year in, a year and a couple of weeks, it's time to perform. We certainly feel an increased level of pressure, but I also feel very supported by our ownership group, which is great as well.
Very involved in the board meetings, general direction, informal touch bases, good group of people and involved, but giving me the autonomy to set the stage for how we're going to run Astound on a day-to-day basis for sure.
Clint Betts
We're about a quarter in to 2025. How are you feeling about this year? Is it going as you expected when this year started, and how would you compare it to 2024?
Bill Donlan
Well, I mean, every time I feel like there's a little bit of a breeze at your back, something happens, whether it's back and forth with the tariff situation or whatever it may be, it's a tough market. It's not the worst market. It's not the most difficult market that I've seen as a professional services consultant. I mean, it's not that .com dot bomb, but I see our customers as much more pragmatic, much more careful in decisions, looking to do things a little bit smaller and faster and realize business returns and results more quickly, which is good. It's good for a firm like ours because I think we bring the big SI level of service, but not at that level of complexity, if you will, and potentially redundancy in some of the services that we deliver, and we have to be sharper and leaner and thinner, and we are. I'm optimistic for the US.
Germany is a tough market right now. The UK is also a pretty tough market. I would say that it is slightly better than 2024, though. I would say that we're off to a better start, a lot more momentum and activity than we had a year ago, which is good.
Clint Betts
Finally, we end every interview with the same question, and that is at CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Bill Donlan
I mean, there are many people. I will tell you that the guy that I had as my senior consultant on my first project at Anderson Consulting, now Accenture, said something to me that I tell people every day: "Get yourself technical in this space first." Now, back then, you coded COBOL and DB, two databases, and sometimes even an IMS database, so it's a different deal. But he said, get yourself technical, get in the details, understand the details, and it'll make you a better consultant. And there are very few days where I haven't reached back into the very detailed approach of estimating and understanding how to build something. He had a very, very big impact on me. My boss for a period of time at Capgemini had a lot of impact on me from a leadership standpoint, and what does it mean to lead and how do you pay attention to people? We all read books, but how do you really look after people and balance looking after them with challenging them and creating a challenging environment where they can grow? He had a lot of impact on me in terms of where I am as a leader. I would say those are the two that stand out to me the most.
Clint Betts
Bill, thank you so much for coming on. Seriously, congratulations on everything you've done this past year. It's remarkable. Let's have you back on as things continue on, and seriously, honored to have you.
Bill Donlan
Awesome. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks a lot.
Clint Betts
Thanks, man.
Edited for readability.