https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Channel Futures 20: Top Tech Providers
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
    • Channel Leaders Lists
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Rankings
    • NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Channel Futures 20: Top Tech Providers
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2023 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Technology Advisor 101 (TA 101)
    • Channel Leaders Lists
  • Events
    • Back
    • 2023 Call for Speakers
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

Cloud


MSP 501 Executive of the Year Jeff VonDeylen

MSP 501 Executive of the Year: Ensono CEO Jeff VonDeylen

  • Written by Kris Blackmon
  • September 10, 2018
Ensono's Jeff VonDeylen has learned that empathy is key to surviving change.

Wish you could press “pause” for just a few minutes to catch your breath, and your balance, before diving back into the madcap business of managing the world’s digital transformation?

Sorry, change isn’t going to stop coming for us. So many seismic shifts are happening in business and technology right now that a state of upheaval is beginning to feel almost normal — and the risk of feeling overwhelmed or disconnected is sky-high. So what’s the answer?

Jeff VonDeylen, CEO of Ensono, says there’s one characteristic essential to surviving disruption, and what it is it might surprise you: empathy.

VonDeylen, our 2018 recipient of the Channel Futures MSP 501 Executive of the Year Award, has learned that understanding the moods and motivations of his team is critical to successfully leading an organization. That goes double in times of great change, which almost always breed apprehension. He should know: In 2016, VonDeylen took the helm at Ensono, which had just spun off from parent company and database marketing provider Axciom. He came in with a vision of a new kind of IT services company, one he wanted to help create.

That vision, it turns out, wasn’t quite as solid as he hoped.

“We came into the business three years ago,” said VonDeylen. “We didn’t know a lot about this, and we’ve had to adjust, modify, really sharpen our focus and our efforts along the way.”

In 2015, what was then Axciom IT existed to provide IT infrastructure management to one of the largest commercial databases of consumer data in the world. When that division broke free, rebranding itself as Ensono in January 2016, it brought with it a deep understanding of mainframe support and a solid client roster. It also had ambitions to become a big player in marketing and cloud technologies. As you can imagine, the company’s expertise and its vision didn’t quite go hand in hand.

VonDeylen found himself leading a company with an identity in flux during a time of upheaval in the IT industry. What’s more, there was a general downtrodden spirit among Ensono’s people, who for years had felt undervalued at Axciom and excluded from the digital marketing company’s grand vision of the future. Perhaps because it was so eager to harness that particular brand of energy, which seems to buoy so many cloud-based digital services providers like Axciom, Ensono was, in the beginning, focused on modernization and cloud enablement. Its deep expertise in legacy applications seemed like old news. Weren’t clients just going to migrate off of mainframe servers next week, anyway?

“There is a lot of modernization going on, and innovation, and that’s typically happening in and distributed in public cloud,” said VonDeylen. “But what we’re seeing is that there are many of these legacy applications that our clients have no stated objective to migrate off. They need help in providing that capability.”

That was a big lesson in business empathy. Ensono took a step back, listened to the market and tried to understand what it needed. Today, VonDeylen says the company has married its mainframe and modernization expertise to create a truly differentiated space for itself. There are some young, exciting companies out there that are only thinking about public cloud. As great as they are, those companies are not Ensono’s target clients. Rather, VonDeylen and his team want the long-established organizations with …

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
Tags: Agents Backup & Disaster Recovery Business Models Cloud Data Centers Industry Honors Security

Most Recent


  • Making Waves
    7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at TD Synnex, Veeam, Kaseya, Zendesk, More
    Microsoft has discovered malicious activity by a state-sponsored threat actor based in China.
  • Businessman reading cloud computing news
    Cloud Computing News: VMware, Celigo, Google Cloud, AWS Dominate the Week
    Find out what the vendors are up to this week and how partners are impacted.
  • OffSec Partners Get Expanded Global Partner Program
    The expanded partner program includes three new partner types.
  • Tech investments
    3 Ways Businesses Can Optimize Their Tech Investments
    Help customers start small, minimize risk and demonstrate business value in a condensed time frame.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • hybrid clouds
    Nutanix, HPE Team on Hybrid, Multicloud via GreenLake
  • lone Arctic wolf
    Arctic Wolf Enhances Partner Program with 2 New Tiers
  • Cloud Certification
    CompTIA Updates Cloud+ Certification, Drops New AI Guide for Businesses
  • cybersecurity lock
    Telos Partners Get New CyberProtect Partner Program

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Europe

June 13, 2023 - June 14, 2023

Channel Futures Leadership Summit

October 30, 2023 - November 2, 2023

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

March 11, 2024 - March 14, 2024

Galleries

View all

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at TD Synnex, Veeam, Kaseya, Zendesk, More

June 2, 2023

Cloud Computing News: VMware, Celigo, Google Cloud, AWS Dominate the Week

June 2, 2023

Channel People on the Move: HPE, Lumen, Sophos, TD Synnex, AireSpring, More

June 1, 2023

Industry Perspectives

View all

Dell Technologies World: Dell Apex Expanded Across On-Premises, Cloud and Edge

May 22, 2023

Identity Is Increasingly Valuable – and Targeted

May 18, 2023

Gaining a Competitive Advantage through AV Managed Services

May 10, 2023

Webinars

View all

From Problem to Profit: Mastering the Science of Selling Using Business Outcomes

May 9, 2023

Meet the 2023 Channel Futures Channel Influencers

April 13, 2023

DE&I Dialogue: How the Right DE&I Initiatives Can Propel Your Business

April 5, 2023

White Papers

View all

6 UCaaS Reseller Challenges and How Real World Businesses Solved Them

February 1, 2023

Frost Radar: North American UCaaS Market, 2022

February 1, 2023

The Complete Guide to White-Label UCaaS for Reseller Success

February 1, 2023

Channel Futures TV

View all

Coffee with Craig and James Episode No. 123: MartinWolf M&A Advisors, CP Expo Preview

UScellular Takes On Rivals with Partner Program Simplicity

April 21, 2023

OpenText Simplifying Deal Registration, Doubling Down on MDF

April 21, 2023

Everything-as-a-Service: CloudBlue Touts Critical Customer Transition

April 18, 2023

Twitter

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X