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Meet Maureen: Director of Innovation Operations

About Maureen

Maureen Wink is the Director of Innovation Operations, running operations for the Office of the CTO team at Guavus. Maureen has spent over 15 years in data analytics, working with technical engineering and analytics teams to ensure customers get the most out of their data. Before coming to Guavus, Maureen worked at UPS driving business requirement development on their enterprise data warehouse.

Office of CTO

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I really enjoy turning ideas into actual applications a customer can use and benefit from.

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San Jose, USA

Q & A

Tell us a bit about what you do here.

I’d say that I wear a few different hats. I work and coordinate with other teams including Analytics, Engineering, Sales and Product to make sure we are aligned on customers and project priorities.

I play a role similar to a technical project manager on many customer engagements to ensure that we are ready to deliver what the customer needs.

I also keep track of everything the CTO group has going on. The rest of the team is usually traveling the world, meeting with customers or partners; and while I, too, traveled a bit, I tend to set base in our San Jose office to better keep up on all the ongoing projects.

What is the most exciting part of your job?

I really enjoy turning ideas into actual applications a customer can use and benefit from. It’s much more exciting to me to do that and see the whole process as opposed to working on one tiny part of a process for one tiny piece of an application, as you would often do in a larger organization.

For example, I’m part of the team that went from sketching out ideas on a whiteboard to working alongside the customer on a proof of concept, and then to launching our Live Ops product! In this particular case, the satisfaction was even greater because a few of us were awarded a patent for the diagnosis of network anomalies (the exact technology used in Live Ops)! A successful project— and my first patent ever.

How does your role benefit customers?

In several different ways. First, I help the clients identify the best data-driven solutions to their issues, then we explore the best way our company can engage. After that initial point, I work with them to implement the selected solution and ensure they get the most out of it. My goal is to make it easy for them.

What are you most proud of?

The relationships that I’ve developed here, both with customers and colleagues! It’s always a good feeling when they come to me, even about things that are not directly part of my role.

When that happens, I know I have earned their trust and respect. They know that if they have an issue or question, I’ll be able to address it or get it taken care of.

How has Guavus helped you grow and succeed?

Guavus has helped me get out of my comfort zone and pushed me to learn about an industry I never worked with before.

I came from UPS (United Parcel Service) where I was doing data analytics, but I had no experience with data from communications service providers before I joined Guavus in 2011. I had a lot to learn and I really appreciated all of the amazingly knowledgeable and supportive colleagues who have helped me carve my own space in which to grow.

What kind of personal qualities do you think make a good Director of Innovation Operations?

You need to know how to balance ever-changing priorities while still listening to customers, understanding what their challenges are, and translating what they’re saying into use cases Guavus can address.

Whoever does this needs to be somebody who can understand both the business and technical sides of things. I work with customers a lot, but also our Sales team, our Analytics department, and our Engineering group.

3 words to describe Guavus

Driven, innovative and dedicated.

If you weren’t at Guavus, what would you be doing?

I love helping customers harness the power of their data. If not at Guavus, I’d still be trying to do that somewhere else.

Unexpected Fact:

My boyfriend and I have two dogs named “Data Warehouse” and “Series Bea”.

“Data Warehouse”, because we love data! “Series Bea”, because we got her when Guavus was going through a new round of funding.

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