Issue 12 2019

Acquisition International - Issue 12 2019 17 empower staff in their roles,’ he tells us proudly, ‘and wemeasure staff satisfaction and culture. To ensure that we have a coherent and well understood culture, we have conducted a yearlong program with all staff that holds a leadership position where we have discussed how to make culture better understood and enforced where needed. We have also held company wide meetings where we have discussed core values and the company culture.’ In order to truly empower staff, Kurtis understands they must be allowed to make mistakes. ‘I know these are management buzzwords, but you need to allow staff to fail but then to help and support them in learning. This way you build a stronger team and allow exploration of opportunities. If you believe you have all the answers you will strangle independence.’ Independent thinking is something that Kurtis thrives on, being one of the core factors that has given him success. When it comes to giving advice to others, it is a person’s ability to work proactively that underlines all his wisdom. ‘Believe in yourself! Find a mentor who can guide you and provide advice, but also make clear goals for yourself. What do you want to achieve, what do you enjoy but also what in life is important to you! Life and success are not all about work, and success outside of work often helps in in achieving success at work!’ Looking to his forthcoming work at LINX, it’s clear that the uptake of Cloud Services has created a separate interconnect market for interconnecting between Internet providers or Enterprises and Cloud Service providers or Cloud aggregators who provide access to multiple Cloud Service providers. We’re convinced that LINX has more plans in this direction, but Kurtis remains coy. ‘Sharing plans in a competitive environment is always dangerous,’ he says, dryly. ‘We will continue to work to ensure that LINX as a mutual, delivers value to its members and I look forward to working on the strategy and success of LINX. There are a lot of changes currently in the interconnect market, which is also an opportunity for us to develop the value proposition to the companies who uses our services!’ he told us. Even though we couldn’t get any more detail out of Kurtis and his plans for LINX in the future, we’re sure that his people-focused style of management will make whatever direction he heads in a veritable success.