Scott Sterry is our VP for Business Development and heads up our Sales team. Here he tells us what a typical day looks like, the importance of being an expert in your niche, and what sets Cristie apart. 

When did you start working in IT?  

I started in IT in 1997 when I joined EDF energy, one of the largest utility companies in the UK.  

From the start I worked in Data Protection, Backup and Disaster recovery – and I haven’t looked back! At EDF I was in roles including system administration and architecture before moving to resellers and IBM in architecture, planning and implementation. I joined Cristie in 2009.

Tell us a bit about your time at Cristie. 

I started working at Cristie just as the software part of the company was de-merging from the reseller group – so I like to think I was here from the start! I was recruited initially to cover global technical presales and enablement, but over time, as the company grew, I moved more into sales.  

I’m now responsible for our sales, marketing and strategic relationships, and I also sit on our product review and management team who decide on company and product strategy. 

Things have changed hugely since I’ve been here. When I started, we had one product and had just launched the second one – and we only had one primary partnership. Over the years we’ve developed a wider portfolio and now have three global strategic partnerships that integrate with Cristie products.  

What’s your typical day like?  

I wish I had a typical day! As part of a smaller team who sell globally it’s really important that we’re flexible.  

So a typical day might include customer and partner calls, sales prospecting and planning, marketing meetings, internal meetings on sales cadence or product along with any escalations that come in from customers. So some days it’s all customer meetings – others it’s all internal.  

What’s been a standout moment for you from 2020?  

Like many businesses we had to adjust quickly to remote working and I’m pleased to say that everyone has stepped up and embraced it. Our whole team has shown great flexibility with work arrangements and this has improved our customer interaction and feedback too. 

There have been some great customer wins that have stood out over this last year. We’ve grown our customer base for our migration and replication solutions, which is a key focus for us going forward. 

What are you looking forward to in 2021? 

It goes without saying that having face to face meetings with our partners and customers is going to be great!  

Apart from that, I’m going to be focusing on driving forward and growing our revenue for our replication and migration software. It’s a really exciting challenge for us this year. 

What makes Cristie stand out?  

There are a few things I’d like to mention.  

Firstly, our technology is unique. We have continued to specialise in a niche area, and I like to think we do that very well.  

Secondly, we combine our expertise with great response times in terms of developing new features, enhancements and sometimes new products from customers’ requests. 

Finally, we focus on a ‘system first’ approach, which allows us to work with physical, virtual and cloud systems, in any combination, and treating them all the same.  

What makes Cristie stand out is being truly environment and vendor agnostic for recovery, migration and replication. 

What’s your favourite part of the job? 

So many things I love about being at Cristie!   

I believe that we produce truly great software and being able to work with software that you really believe in is a real privilege.  

I enjoy solving the customer problems which lead to new product enhancements. Plus the sales and growth for the company that comes with that is awesome. 

But I have to say that if I were to pin it down to one thing, it would be the people that I work with – be that customers, partners or colleagues. I’ve met and made many new friends all over the world.  

Learn more about Cristie here, and to book a free trial of any of our products, click here.