Kevin Dallas: A Go-To Tech Enthusiast Exemplifying Innovation by Advancing the Software-Defined AI-First World
We are entering the second wave of digital transformation, the transformation of operational technology (OT). This is where enterprises are delivering next-generation intelligent systems that will fuel a new intelligent machine economy, which in turn will transform both society and our economy. These intelligent machines range from autonomous vehicles, and robots, to drones that are software-defined and AI-Infused. This market opportunity is unprecedented with an estimated $2T impact on GDP, and software spending of over $100B by 2025.
Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent machines with its industry-leading offering Wind River Studio, a cloud-native software platform that spans the full lifecycle of the system from development, deployment, operations, and services. The company serves the aerospace, defense, telecommunications, automotive, industrial, and medical industries powering billions of devices and systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability. For more than four decades, Wind River has been an innovator, from having the first real-time operating system on Mars to playing a key role in the world’s first successful 5G data session and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world. The Wind River’s mission is to enable our blue chip customers to realize this exciting new digital future for the planet.
A Transformational Leader with Decades of Experience
As the President and CEO of Wind River, Kevin Dallas is responsible for all aspects of the company’s business globally and has. He has more than 25 years of experience driving digital innovation and growth at technology companies.
Kevin joined Wind River from Microsoft in February 2020, where he served as the Corporate Vice President for cloud and AI business development. At Microsoft, he led a team creating partnerships that enable the digital transformation of customers and partners across a range of industries, including connected/autonomous vehicles, industrial IoT, discrete manufacturing, retail, financial services, media and entertainment, and healthcare.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 1996, Kevin held roles at NVIDIA Corporation and National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments Inc.) in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East in positions that included microprocessor design, and systems engineering, product management, and end-to-end business leadership. Besides the above-mentioned accolades, Kevin is also currently serving as a director on the board of Align Technology, Inc., which he states has given him insight into how companies are actually run. He has acquired a B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.
Learning Invaluable Lessons from Top CEOs
Recollecting his professional journey, Kevin mentions that he had the opportunity to work with and learn from world-class CEOs like Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO), Alan Mulally (ex-Boeing and Ford CEO), and Joe Hogan (Align Technology CEO). Common across these leaders was the ability to drive a compelling transformational vision for the company, comprehensive strategy, relentless execution, and a culture focused on customer & product truth. Kevin took these learnings to manage a P&L and grow an end-to-end business at Microsoft from US$100M to US$1B in revenue; most recently the ongoing transformation of Wind River that is being acquired by Aptiv for $4.3B.
Driving Transformation
He opines that the biggest challenge in driving a company transformation is instilling a sense of belief at the leadership team level. “Instill a sense of belief in the transformation you are driving, behave as if you are the company you aspire to be, then be the company you aspire to be, is by far the biggest challenge” he states.
Kevin further asserts that at Wind River, in addition, believes there needs to be a lived experience around three cultural attributes: customer focus, growth mindset, and diversity and inclusion. Although Wind River has won numerous top workplace accolades over the past several years in a row, he believes that it will take another 3 to 5 years to make the cultural attributes the lived experience. Specifically changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is crucial, besides executing operations with discipline and at the leadership team level.
‘Integrity’ at the Heart of Good Leadership
Kevin insists that integrity is the foundation of good leadership, and one must stand for their beliefs. No matter how hard a situation is, a good leader inspires with his principles without compromising; they refrain from making false promises or taking shortcuts, choosing thoughts and action over personal gain. A leader should be visionary, driven, and inspired by what a company can become. Kevin claims that ensuring a vision for the future with perseverance and keeping everybody invested in the process is what a visionary leader does. They do not hold back from taking risks and making unconventional decisions.
He shares that through the last 10 years of his career, a principle he always kept top of mind was “realize that with every challenge there is an opportunity, be the one that finds the opportunity.” This principle came into effect for him particularly with the COVID pandemic during the entire tenure of my role as CEO of Wind River. He says that in partnership with his leadership the company was able to evolve a great collaboration environment for its employees, win in new markets like 5G Telco, provide best-in-class customer success services, and deliver record-breaking financial results for its shareholders during the COVID pandemic.
Realizing the New Intelligent Machine Economy
The software-defined AI-first world that is driving the intelligent machine economy is fundamentally changing every company, every industry, and our society. Kevin remarks that this new world is elevating the human ability to achieve more in a safe and secure environment, and is enabling exciting new experiences across everybody’s digital lives.
“As we look at today’s modern world, we are seeing tremendous growth in what the contemporary consumer expects to experience. From automated self-driving cars that can perform accident-avoidance functions to advanced robotics and lights-out manufacturing automation and augmented reality, the digital future is bright with opportunity,” reveals Kevin. He adds that these applications are heavily dependent on innovating edge computing technologies, such as far edge cloud, data analytics, AI/ML, distributed system security, and 5G connectivity. In particular, the rate of industry innovation is ever increasing making all these new technologies available at the intelligent edge. In fact, 75% of the computing, data analytics, and AI processing will be done at the edge post-2025.
In this digitally transformed software-defined AI-first world, people are seeing the rapid rise of new digital-native companies that have disrupted traditional business models and destabilized established players and industry sectors, presumes Kevin. As a result, he says that traditional companies realize they face an existential threat and are accepting that to realize their digital future in the new intelligent machine economy, they need to embrace software, data, and AI as value drivers for their businesses.
A Vision and Mission Reflecting Wind River’s True North
According to Kevin, the software-defined AI-first world is pushing the pace of innovation and transforming the industries it serves ranging from aerospace to automotive, defense to industrial, and medical to telecommunications. He mentions that this software-defined era along with the second wave of digital transformation and the new intelligent machine economy is all seismic global trends that are accelerating Wind River’s next phase of growth.
Wind River’s vision is a software-defined AI-first world where intelligent machines empower organizations, driving transformational economic and social change, avows Kevin. The company’s mission is to enable its customers to realize the digital future of the planet with software-defined mission-critical intelligent systems where security, safety, and reliability are paramount.
Tech Leadership Excellence
Kevin’s advice for budding or emerging leaders is to follow your passion. While talking about following one’s passion, he mentions being personally passionate about realizing a digital future of the new intelligent machine economy. He concludes by saying that leaders every day should aspire to be role models, live by their cultural values, and coach their teams’, providing a safe haven to help them learn and grow. Leaders have to show they care by balancing professional and personal values for employees.
The post Kevin Dallas: A Go-To Tech Enthusiast Exemplifying Innovation by Advancing the Software-Defined AI-First World appeared first on .
We are entering the second wave of digital transformation, the transformation of operational technology (OT). This is where enterprises are delivering next-generation intelligent systems that will fuel a new intelligent machine economy, which in turn will transform both society and our economy. These intelligent machines range from autonomous vehicles, and robots, to drones that are software-defined and AI-Infused. This market opportunity is unprecedented with an estimated $2T impact on GDP, and software spending of over $100B by 2025.
Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent machines with its industry-leading offering Wind River Studio, a cloud-native software platform that spans the full lifecycle of the system from development, deployment, operations, and services. The company serves the aerospace, defense, telecommunications, automotive, industrial, and medical industries powering billions of devices and systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability. For more than four decades, Wind River has been an innovator, from having the first real-time operating system on Mars to playing a key role in the world’s first successful 5G data session and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world. The Wind River’s mission is to enable our blue chip customers to realize this exciting new digital future for the planet.
A Transformational Leader with Decades of Experience
As the President and CEO of Wind River, Kevin Dallas is responsible for all aspects of the company’s business globally and has. He has more than 25 years of experience driving digital innovation and growth at technology companies.
Kevin joined Wind River from Microsoft in February 2020, where he served as the Corporate Vice President for cloud and AI business development. At Microsoft, he led a team creating partnerships that enable the digital transformation of customers and partners across a range of industries, including connected/autonomous vehicles, industrial IoT, discrete manufacturing, retail, financial services, media and entertainment, and healthcare.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 1996, Kevin held roles at NVIDIA Corporation and National Semiconductor (now Texas Instruments Inc.) in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East in positions that included microprocessor design, and systems engineering, product management, and end-to-end business leadership. Besides the above-mentioned accolades, Kevin is also currently serving as a director on the board of Align Technology, Inc., which he states has given him insight into how companies are actually run. He has acquired a B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.
Learning Invaluable Lessons from Top CEOs
Recollecting his professional journey, Kevin mentions that he had the opportunity to work with and learn from world-class CEOs like Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO), Alan Mulally (ex-Boeing and Ford CEO), and Joe Hogan (Align Technology CEO). Common across these leaders was the ability to drive a compelling transformational vision for the company, comprehensive strategy, relentless execution, and a culture focused on customer & product truth. Kevin took these learnings to manage a P&L and grow an end-to-end business at Microsoft from US$100M to US$1B in revenue; most recently the ongoing transformation of Wind River that is being acquired by Aptiv for $4.3B.
Driving Transformation
He opines that the biggest challenge in driving a company transformation is instilling a sense of belief at the leadership team level. “Instill a sense of belief in the transformation you are driving, behave as if you are the company you aspire to be, then be the company you aspire to be, is by far the biggest challenge” he states.
Kevin further asserts that at Wind River, in addition, believes there needs to be a lived experience around three cultural attributes: customer focus, growth mindset, and diversity and inclusion. Although Wind River has won numerous top workplace accolades over the past several years in a row, he believes that it will take another 3 to 5 years to make the cultural attributes the lived experience. Specifically changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is crucial, besides executing operations with discipline and at the leadership team level.
‘Integrity’ at the Heart of Good Leadership
Kevin insists that integrity is the foundation of good leadership, and one must stand for their beliefs. No matter how hard a situation is, a good leader inspires with his principles without compromising; they refrain from making false promises or taking shortcuts, choosing thoughts and action over personal gain. A leader should be visionary, driven, and inspired by what a company can become. Kevin claims that ensuring a vision for the future with perseverance and keeping everybody invested in the process is what a visionary leader does. They do not hold back from taking risks and making unconventional decisions.
He shares that through the last 10 years of his career, a principle he always kept top of mind was “realize that with every challenge there is an opportunity, be the one that finds the opportunity.” This principle came into effect for him particularly with the COVID pandemic during the entire tenure of my role as CEO of Wind River. He says that in partnership with his leadership the company was able to evolve a great collaboration environment for its employees, win in new markets like 5G Telco, provide best-in-class customer success services, and deliver record-breaking financial results for its shareholders during the COVID pandemic.
Realizing the New Intelligent Machine Economy
The software-defined AI-first world that is driving the intelligent machine economy is fundamentally changing every company, every industry, and our society. Kevin remarks that this new world is elevating the human ability to achieve more in a safe and secure environment, and is enabling exciting new experiences across everybody’s digital lives.
“As we look at today’s modern world, we are seeing tremendous growth in what the contemporary consumer expects to experience. From automated self-driving cars that can perform accident-avoidance functions to advanced robotics and lights-out manufacturing automation and augmented reality, the digital future is bright with opportunity,” reveals Kevin. He adds that these applications are heavily dependent on innovating edge computing technologies, such as far edge cloud, data analytics, AI/ML, distributed system security, and 5G connectivity. In particular, the rate of industry innovation is ever increasing making all these new technologies available at the intelligent edge. In fact, 75% of the computing, data analytics, and AI processing will be done at the edge post-2025.
In this digitally transformed software-defined AI-first world, people are seeing the rapid rise of new digital-native companies that have disrupted traditional business models and destabilized established players and industry sectors, presumes Kevin. As a result, he says that traditional companies realize they face an existential threat and are accepting that to realize their digital future in the new intelligent machine economy, they need to embrace software, data, and AI as value drivers for their businesses.
A Vision and Mission Reflecting Wind River’s True North
According to Kevin, the software-defined AI-first world is pushing the pace of innovation and transforming the industries it serves ranging from aerospace to automotive, defense to industrial, and medical to telecommunications. He mentions that this software-defined era along with the second wave of digital transformation and the new intelligent machine economy is all seismic global trends that are accelerating Wind River’s next phase of growth.
Wind River’s vision is a software-defined AI-first world where intelligent machines empower organizations, driving transformational economic and social change, avows Kevin. The company’s mission is to enable its customers to realize the digital future of the planet with software-defined mission-critical intelligent systems where security, safety, and reliability are paramount.
Tech Leadership Excellence
Kevin’s advice for budding or emerging leaders is to follow your passion. While talking about following one’s passion, he mentions being personally passionate about realizing a digital future of the new intelligent machine economy. He concludes by saying that leaders every day should aspire to be role models, live by their cultural values, and coach their teams’, providing a safe haven to help them learn and grow. Leaders have to show they care by balancing professional and personal values for employees.
The post Kevin Dallas: A Go-To Tech Enthusiast Exemplifying Innovation by Advancing the Software-Defined AI-First World appeared first on .
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