Paul Walsh: Accurate Team Player Personally and Professionally

Firstly, a few things you should know about Paul:

• Sport is a big passion of his - he enjoys playing golf, football and racket sports
• He enjoys playing poker and finds it a great way to stay sharp and practice approaches to different situations from a strategy perspective
• Paul enjoys reading especially books that he can apply to daily work and personal life

Abundance of experience

With 15 years in the Telematics industry, working in Fleetmatics and the two last years as a consultant within the field, Paul has experienced almost every stage of growth, and struggle a company can go through. From 5 people as a start-up above a carpet shop in a suburb of Dublin to being on Wall Street at flotation of Fleetmatics to the NYSE in 2012.

Paul said: “the standout thing that I have learnt and relied on throughout my career is that it is people, above all else, that make companies successful”.

Paul spent some time earlier in the year working with the team at ABAX. Paul said: “I was already familiar with ABAX as a market leader with a reputation as a great place to work but having the opportunity to experience the culture and meet the people first hand, made it very clear to me it was somewhere I would be at home. When the opportunity came along to join as CTO, it was a very easy decision for me to make!”

Vision for the Tech Department

At ABAX we take pride in our technology department. Ultimately we have a product to sell and a customer to deliver a service to. Paul said: “It is key for everyone in the company, not just Product Development, to give our sales team the best advantage possible in the marketplace.The Product Development team must identify the right features to help ABAX achieve this. Equally important will be dismissing the wrong features, as early as possible, to minimise distraction and focus on our goals.”

Paul’s vision for the Product and Technology Department of ABAX, is to produce a World Class product used on a global scale solving real problems for real people. Paul said: “I believe we already have a very strong team across the department which is a great place to start from. I’m under no illusions of the task in front of us – we’ve got some big challenges to overcome. Focus will be an important part of reaching our goals. To be successful, it is clear to me that we will need help from everyone in the company. Identifying the right features to develop and minimising distraction for the team will be 2 key initiatives we will aim to employ.”

Answers lie within the team

Paul is a big believer in people working together in a team environment. Working and collaborating to find the best path forward, regardless of tenure or experience.

Ultimately, everyone within ABAX has the same goal, regardless of position or department – to make ABAX the best! It’s important that we all remember this as we face the challenges ahead.

Paul has seen a lot of different technology companies, particularly in the past couple of years, and recognises that the challenges we are facing are challenges faced across the industry. Paul said: “In my experience the answers generally already lie within the team. It will be my job to enable the team to simply let them do their job. If we do this, I’m sure success will follow!”

Accuracy equals success

Paul’s passion, both in work and life is accuracy. He believes that the more accurate in execution you are about everything you do, the more successful you will be. It’s a small approach that can benefit both your personal and work life. 

Paul said “I feel that it’s important to not dwell on the negative, it can waste precious time or even ruin your day. We only get so many and it’s important we make the most of them.”

Paul also believes that there is no such thing as a stupid question – just different perspectives that when put together result in a winning combination. Paul said: “It’s my job to provide the tools and conditions that best helps us achieve to achieve a winning combination. Enabling the right focus and drive will help us make the best decisions as quickly as possible. Also, have I mentioned I like to be as accurate as possible?”

Excited for the future

The future of ABAX as a company is exciting. Paul said “In 5 years time, I expect us to be a global leader in the B2B tech industry and am confident our main product will be built around a connected workspace.”

“In 10 years the market will have changed and consolidated further, tech will have changed which is exciting as it will allow us to solve bigger problems in a better way. It will also be amazing to see all the people who join ABAX and how we grow with their different skill sets. It’s important to embrace different ideas and the more people who can contribute to our company and join our journey, the more fun (and interesting) the journey will be!”

A level headed colleague  

As a co-worker, Paul is calm and level headed in a crisis. He also likes to have fun and enjoys what he does. Finally Paul said: “I love coming to work every day and facing the challenges it throws up head on. I’m not afraid to ask questions and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of occasions where I ask stupid questions! But that’s ok as long as it helps us move forward, towards the goals we have set for ourselves, and the company.”

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