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Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff No. 1 in Comparably ranking of top CEOs - WBIR-TV

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Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff No. 1 in Comparably ranking of top CEOs - USA TODAY

Claremont McKenna College

CEO, Mobomo  -  Building elegant solutions to solve complex problems  -  Creating growth and value through innovative, award-winning, human-centered designed products

As CEO, I promote a shared mission of building elegant solutions to solve complex problems — conceptualizing, designing, developing, and launching transformational, human-centered digital products that meet the needs of the largest federal agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and cutting-edge start-ups. I also provide guidance and direction on strategies to maintain a long-term trajectory of growth based on the creation of value from:

•	Award-winning design and development teams
•	Innovative, human-centered digital products
•	Stable, long-term customer relationships
•	Investment in Mobomo's innovation lab

Striving for continual growth and value creation, I've prioritized three key areas — executive leadership, operation modernization, and sales — and garnered indisputable results in each.

Under my leadership, a hyper-focus on P&L, EBITDA, and cash flow has maximized the organization's financial strength. Growth strategies, including establishing an offshore team of 40+ designers and developers, have put us on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies 8 years in a row.

I led the process, audit, and continual establishment of CMMI Dev/3, IOS 9001, and I began the CMMC certification process in 2020. I also implemented modern software architecture and agile development practices, including Kanban, Scrum, and SAFe. Multiple Webby Awards in recent years suggest that we're getting it right operationally.

I routinely review sales pipeline development and proposal strategy and solutioning, and I've conducted hundreds of capability and sales presentations for C-suite executives and prospects. My effectiveness has been most visibly demonstrated by helping to take Mobomo from a start-up to a $27-million-dollar-a-year, award-winning success story.

Among the federal agencies and organizations I have proudly worked with are: NASA, NOAA, USGS, GSA, the U.S. Navy, FERC, USAGM, ITA, USO, the World Bank, and NALC.

Mobomo

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to becoming Mobomo's CEO, I served as the company's COO. In that role, I leveraged my technical skills, expertise in user interface/user experience, and experience with mobile app and mobile web design to ensure efficient and effective execution and delivery of projects across the organization.

I also designed, built, and grew structures and teams that helped Mobomo successfully transition from its early years through various growth stages. Some examples include:

•	Building a team of graphic designers and front-end developers to create engaging and user-friendly apps and website 
•	Initiating a regular operating review process focused on operational excellence, P&L management, and risk management and mitigation
•	Growing a professional sales staff with a keen eye for helping the company fit price and technical requirements to market demands

Much of what I was able to accomplish as COO can be credited to insights I gained from having done DevOps works at the ground level. Understanding the pain points of an aggressive, agile, build-and-release process, I knew where to step in and how to make processes smoother, people more productive, and products better — all while cultivating a culture conducive to hard work, camaraderie, and success.

Chief Operating Officer

In this position, I created user interface (UI) prototypes for market research, product proposals, and customer testing. I also performed UI design and front-end web development on multiple projects, including a web-based website builder with more than 250K users and the company's first mobile phone app (for searching and purchasing domain names). On the website builder project, I also served as team lead, supervising coding and implementation of the application and the three-person offshore design team creating the templates featured on the website.

This work was my first experience with being part of a product build-out from conception to launch. My technical skills grew exponentially — especially in the mobile arena, which was essentially born during that time. Other skills were fast-tracked as well. I learned to translate ideas into designs, designs into plans, and plans into products quickly, efficiently, and in the service of what people want and how they want to use it — to design interfaces expressly with human interaction in mind. I also learned to motivate and direct teams, both in-person and remote, to elicit their best efforts — which are essential to success in any organization.

Network Solutions

Technical Design Specialist

Under contract to provide marketing services to this digital stethoscope manufacturer seeking capital investment, I designed and implemented a unique and identifiable brand identity, launched the initial campaign into the highly valued medical educational market with competitive product positioning, and redesigned web-based product materials to encourage engagement and sales.

The short-term, fast-moving, results-driven nature of this position helped hone my ability to quickly identify an offering, assess its value, and build a framework or structure to successfully support that offering in the applicable market.

Thinklabs

Marketing Analyst

When I started doing business development work in the U.S. market for a subsidiary start-up internet service provider of MediaCell, I did it all: researched competing technology and service providers, established business models and pricing strategies, created sales team training and delivery methods, and designed and developed direct marketing and technical support sales materials.

After being promoted to Director of Marketing at MediaCell during the company's creation and growth of a start-up manufacturer of carrier-grade Wi-Fi data components, I again did pretty much everything. I developed marketing plans with detailed ROI analyses supporting multiple product deployments and usage types. I designed customized Wi-Fi network models based on environmental, usage, and cost variables. I established brand identity standards, designed and managed the workflow process for creating presentation materials, and delivered brand solutions to clients.

These are the kinds of things you'll find on my resume, but what you won't see are the lessons learned from working in small, struggling-to-prove-themselves start-up environments — the lessons about doing what needs to be done, regardless of experience or job title. In addition to the above, I also performed quality assurance functions, making sure the technology we were trying to sell worked. And I installed devices in the field and designed Styrofoam packaging to safely ship product to customers.

The ultimate lesson I learned during these years: Figure out what needs to be done, figure out how best to do it, and then move on to the next thing — do what has to be done to support your organization's mission, vision, and goals.

Brian Lacey