Meet our new CEO: Allen Debes

Just over a year into being part of NTT DATA, today marks another milestone in Nexient’s history as Mark Orttung steps down as our CEO. 

Mark has led the company since 2014, helping us define our Product Mindset methodology, build our agile software development practice, scale to over 1,000 people, and lead the acquisition. Many of you may not know that Mark also coined our ‘Life’s too short for crappy software’ tagline. I like to think this encapsulates Mark’s ability to connect with people instinctively and tap into how we want them to feel. 

Mark will now lead the product launch group within NTT DATA. I’d like to formally thank him on behalf of the team and all our clients for his guidance, counsel, and support.

I now have the honor of becoming Nexient’s CEO. First, to introduce myself, I joined in 2019 and was most recently our Chief Revenue Officer. I have a long career in strategic software consulting. I guess I have always enjoyed solving clients’ business problems, helping them become more effective, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with them. More personally, I live in Minneapolis en route to Scottsdale, with my amazing wife, Kammi. With our young adult children in various stages of progress in their lives, Kammi and I are focused on hiking, yoga, trying different global and local experiences, building new and old friendships, and having an impact wherever we can.

So what’s next for Nexient? I’ll explain below.

There are three main priorities for us in the next phase:

• We’re developing smart products powered by ML and AI. For example, one that saves lives by helping our major utility client design, re-architect, test, and deploy an emergency response website, resulting in a six times increase in peak volume the site can handle. You need to know it’s being taken care of when the power is out.
• We’re creating exceptional experiences that drive increased revenue for our clients. Recently we helped a home furnishing icon re-think their entire digital experience resulting in incredibly fast site load times and a much better customer experience, directly lifting revenue.  
• We’re delivering business results. For example, our Fortune 50 logistics client credits Nexient for helping them go from four software releases per year to 240. This makes them more nimble and able to respond to evolving market conditions and user needs. 

Of course, we’ll continue to work alongside our clients. If you are in the office, we will be right there with you. We’ll continue to embed our team members into our client teams, we’ll train and mentor to build capabilities so our clients can realize their vision. And we’ll continue the great partnership and momentum we have with NTT DATA.

It’s an exciting time for us. We are proud to work on critical projects for our clients. Projects that make a difference. If you have a product or process problem needing a fresh approach, please reach out to us here. Or if you know someone who would thrive in this environment, we’re hiring and would love to hear from them.

So to answer What’s Next? Smart products, exceptional experiences, and business results.

Thank you.

Allen Debes, CEO, Nexient

September 2022

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