February 27, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode, Damien Davis, a customer success leader at ServiceNow, shares his insights on balancing career growth with personal wellness. He discusses his journey of maintaining healthy habits while managing a demanding executive role, emphasising the importance of sustainable routines and mindset shifts. Damien also highlights how building strong relationships, focusing on personal branding, and leveraging AI-driven solutions to drive impact for both businesses and customers. With a people-first approach, he explains how ServiceNow measures success through NPS, CSAT, and customer value realisation, reinforcing the link between employee engagement and client impact.
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Matt Best (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
your hosts, me, Matt Best,andJonny Adams. In this
podcast, we'll be sharinginsights from our combined 30
plus years experience andhearing from other industry
leaders to get their thoughtsand perspectives on what growth
looks like in modern business.We'll cover all aspects of
leadership, sales, accountdevelopment and customer
(00:21):
success, alongside othercritical elements required to
build an effective growth enginefor your business. This podcast
is aimed at leaders from execall the way down to line
managers. Hello and welcome tothe Growth Workshop Podcast.
We're thrilled to have DamienDavies from ServiceNow joining
us today. Damien, welcome andthank you for coming along.
Damien Davies (00:43):
Thanks for having me.
Matt Best (00:44):
Brilliant Damien. We would love to kind of get into
hearing more about your career,your personal life. I know
you've got lots of things kindof going on in your world, and
some really kind of incrediblechallenges as well, which we
want to sort of dive into. Butmaybe before that, Jonny and I
were debating this morning,actually, that a fun question to
ask might be, if you had toselect two people to be in your
(01:07):
personal advisory board, so thiscould be anyone work outside of
work, personal, somebody thatdoesn't even exist anymore. Who
would those people be? And why?
Damien Davies (01:18):
That's a good way to start.
Matt Best (01:19):
Punchy.
Damien Davies (01:20):
Look, we're on the Growth Podcast here, right?
We're talking about growth. AndI'm a big fan of growth and
learning. And someone thatreally inspires me is Stephen
Bartlett, you know, fromDragon's Den and Diary of a CEO.
Follow his content all the timeon LinkedIn, and often it's
almost like a daily feed toread. If I could have him in my
(01:40):
corner. He's always advertising,isn't he? Is it? You know, he's
always saying, Now, come andjoin my companies. And I'm like,
Yeah, I love you as my boardadvisor. And then second one be
my wife, just keep feet on theground. Right? I've enjoyed a
very successful career withServiceNow, and I know we'll
dive deeper into that. And whileI'm on this trajectory of growth
and learning, I think the havingthe mantra of hungry but humble
(02:02):
and keeping feet on the ground,Mrs. D, definitely keeps me
grounded.
Matt Best (02:05):
Hungry and humble. Yeah, that's fantastic. And
Damien, you talk about yourcareer so far, and obviously
ServiceNow are a globalenterprise business solution
provider, and you probably do amuch better job of introducing
them than I just have, but maybetell us a little bit about your
role there and what it is thatyou do.
Damien Davies (02:23):
Yeah, well, I kind of feel like I'm on my
third career within ServiceNow.I've actually been there nearly
14 years. They were a pre IPOstartup when I joined back in
2011 you know, we had about 300employees globally, and we've
now got 26 and a half 1000 fulltime employees. That's quite
some growth. I did my first sixyears working in the customer
(02:45):
support organization, working intech support. I did another
seven years working in our ITservice management business unit
as a product management leader.And now I'm on my third wave of
career, and I now work in what'scalled our customer excellence
group, or internally, we call itCEG, and my role is really to
help ServiceNow customers unlockthe value of their investment in
(03:07):
our solutions.
Matt Best (03:08):
Amazing, and I know that has you traveling around
the world as well. And I guesstrying to balance that is can be
pretty tricky. I know as wellyou've told us. You told us
previously that you've got thispersonal objective of losing 50
pounds by the time that you're50. Talk to us a little bit
about that. And I think, like,what I think really interesting
for our audience as we thinkabout growth is so often looking
(03:31):
at that what that requires interms of mindset, wellbeing both
inside and outside of work. Sohow are you juggling that, and
how are you helping yourself getto that goal?
Damien Davies (03:42):
But for dial back first, my next birthday does
start with a five. There's goingto be a round number. And I've
had this moment of realizationand said, You know what, look,
I'm late 40s. I'm not in greatshape. I've got a successful
career. I've got a young family.I have an older daughter as
well. I'm like, Look, if I'mgoing to be successful, both in
and outside of work, I reallyneed to pay a bit more attention
(04:04):
to how I look after my body andyou know, again, following lots
of podcasts and various postsfrom, you know, inspirational
individuals, and decided, Youknow what, if I'm gonna be in
the best shape of my life, Ineed to change habits and
processes. I've lost weight andgained weight several times in
(04:24):
the past, and I've been toofocused on the goal and the
outcome of hitting a targetweight. And so often people come
up to me, oh, yeah, what's yourtarget? And I went more on the
target is building better habitsand changing my mindset so that
I, you know, try and do it semiautomatically, the weight will
come off, and it will be abyproduct of changing those
habits. But at the same token,you know, if you're going to
(04:47):
track and measure anything, so Idid the initial measurements,
and you know the scales, if itwas one of those talking scales,
would have said one at a time,please. And I realized that look
realistically if I was going. Bein optimal shape. Body fat
percentage was a big number, buthow that translated into weight
was around about 50 pounds in usthree and a half stone, 23
(05:11):
kilos. And I don't profess to bea nutritionist or a personal
trainer, but I'm following, youknow, a really good program, and
you know, I'm working out threetimes a week in the gym, I'm
doing my cardio, getting mysteps in, and I've completely
changed my relationship withfood, but I've already started
to see some initial successes,and while it's still very
(05:31):
intentional and very focused, Ifeel like I'm getting into the
rhythm of building some of thosebetter habits.
Jonny Adams (05:37):
Just curious thinking about growth and that
story. What's the thing thatsort of triggered you to do
this? Because I'm so hearing afew things that might have been
the trigger.
Damien Davies (05:47):
I'm going to be brutally honest, right? You
know, it'd be lovely to use someinspirational quote saying I
just want to be there for mychildren and be in the best
shape of my life. Look, I'm aman, and before is vanity,
right? I looked in the mirrorand I didn't like what I saw,
and I'm still not completely inlove with what I see, because
I'm in the early stages of thatjourney, you know. And I was
like, Look, I want to be likeRonaldo. I want to have that
(06:07):
body. And I thought, if I wantto have that one, I'm gonna have
to work bloody hard to getthere. And then I sort of did a
bit of a balancing act, andsaid, Is that sustainable? And I
thought, You know what I know?What's sustainable, eating
healthily, avoiding junk andmaking sure that I build a
workout routine that I cansustain. Can I do six days a
week in the gym for the rest ofmy life? No? Can I do every
(06:28):
other day? Probably.
Matt Best (06:30):
It sounds like, you know, you've got this very like
you said, habits focused andsomeone who's clearly good and
experienced at making those kindof changes. And we talk about
this a lot in the context ofsales and business development,
and establishing thoseproductive habits and that
regular track and that cadence,and having access to those data
points, be that data point, aphoto of you in the mirror shows
(06:51):
it applies in so many differentconcepts.
Damien Davies (06:53):
Well, it's the same process, right? You think
about if you're working in saleswith a customer and you've
agreed on a mutual close plan,every day you're tracking that
mutual close plan working out,right? What actions and next
steps do I need to take? Today,I've just applied that same
methodology to my bodytransformation, and ultimately
my mutual close plan is buildingbetter habits, eating healthier,
(07:13):
working out, and the byproductwill be me being in much better
shape in the same way that wewant to go and close a deal.
Matt Best (07:19):
I can almost hear the people screaming at this
podcast, thinking, but I don'thave the time. And you know,
you're a senior leader in alarge, significant business with
lots of priorities. How have youfound the time to not only start
to sort of focus on thesehabits, but actually kind of
(07:39):
follow through with that?
Damien Davies (07:41):
Yeah, so well, time is a commodity that we
could all use more of, right?Time is not going away, and
probably I'm going to continueto be busy until I reach
retirement age. So do I want toput it off until then, or do I
want to start now? And one of myreally close friends who's
actually a gym buddy of mine,big shout out to Fred, he said
to me, Look, it's either one dayor today's day one. So if you're
(08:05):
worried about time, stop sayingone day. Let's do it today, day
one. Let's work it out. And thenif you're really worried about
time, then just figure right.Look, in the morning, can you
get up half an hour earlier? Canyou right? You know, ask
yourself, I just think, look,time is not going away. So how
we deal with it, and how ourmindset is in our approach to
(08:26):
that? You know, let's not lookfor excuses. Let's find the
time, make time. Was itHannibal, I believe, find a way
or make one, right? You know,when he was going over the
mountains to go and fight theRomans, right? It's like,
literally, we'll either find away or we'll make one. Let's
find some time, or make sometime.
Jonny Adams (08:42):
Yeah, as you describe some of those things
about time, there's also a greatlittle snippet that I learned
from a partner of ours, that ifyou take the population of the
London Marathon, the majorityhave a an age that has a nine in
it. So it's 2939 49 and thescience behind it suggests that
when you are about to hit adecade, that you typically are
(09:04):
willing to do something thatyou're not willing to do in
those other years. And I wonderif there's a little bit of that
going on, but a lot of peoplewho run the math and all the
math, and just because of...
Damien Davies (09:14):
I've not looked into that psyche, I wonder if
that's what's spurring me onsubconsciously. Yeah, I was
thinking, when you hit thatdecade you normally, typically
want to you go, you look back 10years and go, What have I done?
I'm not one digging. I want tolook forwards. I don't want to
look back, I want to lookforwards.
Matt Best (09:28):
And thinking about that as a sort of personal goal.
Love to dive in a little bit toyour career, the journey that
you've been on with ServiceNow.And I think as we a lot of the
time on the podcast, we talkabout, what those frameworks,
what are those things that canhelp our listeners? And a lot of
our listeners are, are leadersin some in some sort of shape or
form, senior leaders, middlemanagement or just aspiring
(09:51):
leaders? What are the things?What's the advice that you would
give to some of those leaderslistening here as they embark on
their journey from the career,the illustrious career that
you've had so far?
Damien Davies (10:02):
Well, my number one giveaway or takeaway is it's
all about the people. Nothing inbusiness happens without
relationships. You know, even inthe tech world, we use
technology in the service ofpeople, to make people's lives
and certainly their work livesbetter. That's what enterprise
software does it automatesstuff, and it makes jobs better,
(10:23):
makes companies more efficient,but it's all about the people,
and as you build your grow, growyour career, you know, make
relationships, find champions,open opportunities and open
doors, both inside and outsideof your organization, with your
customers, with your businesspartners, stakeholders, and your
internal colleagues, seniorleaders, peers, even juniors
(10:43):
with like reverse mentoring. Youknow, I've spent the last decade
expanding my network, reallyworking, and focusing on my
personal brand, becauseobviously our brand is what
people see us as, right, or whatpeople will talk about us when
we're not in the room. And Ithink actually, every single one
of us has the opportunity tocontrol the narrative of our
(11:04):
personal brand. Certainly, thelast two years, I've invested
very heavily in my personalbrand. What do I want to be
known for? What do I want to befamous for? How can I be seen as
someone that can enable and helpothers to learn and grow? And I
like to think that I've done areasonable job of it, because I
get approached with questions,and, you know, asking for
(11:25):
advice, and I feel very humbledthat people are coming to me to
ask for that career advice, andI can only talk through my own
personal experiences, which hasbeen my growth journey with
ServiceNow, but it all comesdown to the people.
Jonny Adams (11:37):
I resonate with what you're saying, massive
impact on myself, even thepeople around me who on that
journey, who's been the personthat's given you the most
impact?
Damien Davies (11:46):
There's a few and it's interesting. Use the word
impact. Impact is very importantword for me for two reasons.
Firstly, it's my personalmantra. If you look up my
LinkedIn, yeah, I mean, mytagline is making an impact, and
it's something that reallyresonates deeply with me. And
secondly, servicenows flagshipproduct for our customer success
is also called impact. So it'ssomething that just, it just
(12:08):
resonates deeply every day. Andwhen I go to my career journey
about people that have made animpact, honestly, there's been
so many as I've built thisnetwork up, I've been very
fortunate and very lucky totravel the world, working in my
various roles at ServiceNow andin every city and every country
that I've gone to, I've made newacquaintances, some of which
have become really closepersonal friends. And that
(12:31):
network expands, and then itopens opportunities, and then
someone will make anotherconnection. And it's like a
spider web. There's people ofall walks of life. You know,
once on a flight, I made friendswith a CEO of a company. He
actually boarded the plane late,was sweating profusely, sat down
next to me. We started chattingfor the flight, and we've become
friends. And he now messages andcomments on my LinkedIn posts
(12:54):
and invites me back to his placeand stuff. And it's like, look,
you know, there's all theselovely serendipity moments that
I I couldn't really in thislength of this podcast name too
many individuals, because I'vebeen humbled to have met so many
great people that have had animpact on my life.
Matt Best (13:13):
We talk about impact at SBR. It's our mantra. I guess
impact can mean a lot of thingsto a lot of different people,
but I love the way that you talkabout impact in the context of
relationships, and I guess partof that is being impacted, and
also, as you said, making animpact on the individuals that
you meet. Like, how does thattranslate at ServiceNow? How
(13:33):
does that translate to you in asort of in a corporate way?
Like, how do you deliver impactto your clients?
Damien Davies (13:39):
I mean impact as a product or a solution is
servicenows Customer Successoffering customers that have
impact are not only buyingenterprise software or, you
know, subscription licenses,they're getting a success
package as well. And we actuallysell that in the form of a
digital product. It's part ofthe core platform where there
are various tools and, you know,applications and modules on the
(14:01):
platform that help customersrealize value, adopt the
technical products faster, andmaintain their platform health.
But what it also gives them isthat human layer, and that's
where it comes to relationships,where they get access to
expertise, you know, governance,assurance, subject matter
experts, product ninjas, as welike to call them. I think about
Apple iPhone. If you've gotsomething wrong your iPhone, you
(14:23):
want to go to the productninjas. And that's the Genius
Bar in the Apple Store. Whatimpact is the Genius Bar for
service? Now, that's obviouslynot brand endorsed or market
endorsed. That's my personalanalogy of how I would describe
it to friends and family. Youknow, I think there's probably
some copyright around thatterminology, so I'm just
caveating that, but like, Imean, it makes sense, if
(14:44):
something wrong with youriPhone, go and see the Genius
Bar. If something's wrong withyour service now or you want it
to work better, go and see theimpact, folks.
Jonny Adams (14:50):
And is there a way that you measure impact at
ServiceNow? It seems to be aquestion that we're working with
our clients on. You know, isthere metrics that you use? Is
there certain things that you doto be sure that you're tracking
impact?
Damien Davies (15:01):
Oh of course, I mean corporate metrics, right?
And NPS scores, net promoterscores, CSAT, customer
satisfaction. Internally, wehave a metric of undeployed
backlog. You know? We'll look atright customer a has bought
service now they are licensedand entitled to X amount of
modules. We look at right, whatif they actually switched on?
What are they using? Again,we've got this great platform
with an abundance of data, wecan actually see what's been
(15:23):
turned on, what's being used,and we can then identify gaps,
and we can make recommendationsbased on that data, on how they
can get more value. So yeah,undeployed backlog is an
internal metric. Yeah, CSAT andNet Promoter Score are really
sort of some of the drivingmetrics.
Jonny Adams (15:38):
And we've had someone on this podcast before a
great gentleman called Mike, whotalked about the leading way to
retain clients is about havinggreat employee engagement. So
how are you impacting youremployees, to create engagement
from them? Because, as abyproduct, if you get great
employee engagement, in theory,your customers are taken care
of. If you've got any sort ofways in which you do that as
(15:59):
ServiceNow?
Damien Davies (16:00):
Absolutely. So one person comes to mind is
Richard Branson. He made thefamous quote, if you take care
of your employees, they'll takecare of your customers. And I
think that's been quoted abillion times. It's in his books
service. Now we have what wecall our people pact. And our
Chief People Officer launchedthis people pact a few years ago
during during the sort of thepandemic years, and it was
(16:20):
really about employeeengagement. I'm very fortunate.
You know, we have a huge cultureof employee well being. We get
allocated a number of well beingdays each year, which, you know,
is giving people time off inaddition to their, you know,
their personal time off, holidayallowance and corporate public
holidays. So we have well beingdays. Then there are various
initiatives and programs basedon physical and mental well
(16:42):
being, and then the employeeengagement mantra is like, bring
your authentic self to work. Ifanyone lives and breathes that
is me. 14 years I haven't beenfired yet, and I'm just me. You
know, what you see on LinkedInis what you see here in the
studio and what you'll see downthe Powerball in the gym, right?
I don't feel I have to switch onsome form of corporate persona,
(17:04):
and I can just be myself. And Ifeel empowered to be myself,
thanks to that rich culture,bring your best self to work.
You know, doing what you love,making an impact. All of that,
that corporate well beingmantra, you know that that's
what I think is, first levelemployee engagement.
Jonny Adams (17:22):
Well, if you had to refine and summarize your sort
of journey from on achronological aspect, just for
the listeners and the guests tounderstand a little bit more
about your journey, whatemployee number you were and
just give that sort of littlepotted history, would that be
all right?
Damien Davies (17:35):
Yeah, sure. Well, my badge number is in very small
number of digits. There's 125 inthe entire company that have
been there longer than me. Nowthere's two ways to look at
that. One, I've been there along time in relation to most of
the company. Two, despite thefact that I've been there nearly
14 years, there's still 125people that have been there
longer. They've also chosen tostay as long as I have, which is
(17:58):
testament to, you know, theopportunities and the culture
that the company has provided uswith.
Jonny Adams (18:04):
So if it was Hunger Games, that would be an
interesting setup, wouldn't it?125 Have you tried to see who
survives? I remember watching aYouTube clip about how work day
grew, and they grew from zero to10 million, and they talk talk
about the commercial function,and the commercial function had
X amount of people in it. Hadthis type of competence in it.
It had these types of processesin it. And then you go from 10
(18:25):
million to 100 million. There'sa theory within the marketplace
that you need to find the newteam leadership capital, for
example, is a term that's usedwhere you need to change your
leadership team. You've clearlybeen on the journey and stayed
on the journey. So there must besome secret sauce out there.
Could you describe? Because youknow how you might have bucked
that trend, or how you've stayedwithin the organization
throughout that.
Damien Davies (18:45):
It's funny you say about, like, those growths
and stuff like our CEO, our Csuite, are internally referred
to as the p5 which is Phase Fiveof growth. And you know, there
are obviously companies that youknow, naught to 1 million,
naught to 100 million orwhatever. I don't I can tell you
what the thresholds are, butwe're now on that journey,
having hit 10 billion US dollarsof revenue. So we're obviously
(19:09):
in what we call Phase Five ofgrowth, and we've done it
organically. We've madeacquisitions ServiceNow. I mean,
obviously I was there when wemade our first acquisition, back
in 2013 when we acquired a smalltechnology company, replatformed
it and launched it asperformance analytics as a core
capability of the platform.We've made several acquisitions,
particularly over the last sixyears, as we build our AI
(19:31):
capabilities. A number of AIacquisitions, starting with
virtual agents, chat bots, youknow, predictive intelligence,
being able to predict fields ontables. You know, generative,
AI, agent, AI, it's all thislovely AI themed technology, but
this growth now, I think if I goback to the very early days when
I started my career atServiceNow in the basement of
(19:53):
our then office in Richmond, ourUK, I workforce was 80 people,
eight zero UK, I now has over1000 People. And like I say, you
know, obviously in Europe,Middle East and Africa, we're at
nearly 5000 and globally, youknow, 26 and a half 1000 full
time employees. I don't think Icould have imagined that in my
wildest dreams in the earlydays, but I've also seen four
(20:14):
chief executive officers, and wewere the first tech company to I
go through an IPO sinceFacebook. So it was very high
profile, and the IPO took usonto Wall Street on the New York
Stock Exchange. We've just gonethrough the stratosphere, and
it's all about flawless,relentless, elite execution in
every corner of our business,right from the C suite, our p5
(20:35):
team, right I say down, or youcan flip it whichever way you
like, from every juniorindividual contributor right up
to every senior leader.Everybody is focused on people
and elite execution, and that'swhat has been a big contribution
to Servicenows trajectory in ourgrowth.
Matt Best (20:51):
Are there things for you having gone through those
different phases that not havekept you at ServiceNow? I think
what's really interesting is youtalk about that authenticity.
And I think we see this a lot ofthe time, and I see this in the
mirror when I think about thatmy career, there's definitely
been times where I've felt thatI needed to be something else at
(21:11):
work. What is it? There may besort of one or two things that
on that journey have beenconsistent at ServiceNow that
have that have been the thingsthat you've sort of anchored to,
like, I'm curious as as you gothrough a lot of change in a
relatively short amount of time,how you've been able to sort of
navigate that, as it were?
Damien Davies (21:32):
I'd like to say, we spoke earlier about hungry
but humble, keep feet on theground. I feel very blessed,
very lucky that I actually havea role that is deeply fulfilling
and gives me a lot of jobsatisfaction. The company has
given me tremendous opportunity,very lucky to have gotten in the
early days. So it's given mefinancial stability and security
(21:52):
for my family. He's given me acareer. I've grown and been
promoted into a senior leaderfrom a junior individual
contributor. He's given me theopportunity to travel the world.
I get to meet people. And I'm apeople person. I I crave in
person contact. You know, whenwe all had to pivot to fully
remote during the pandemic, Iwas like, Ah, lovely to see
people again. And now, as youknow, we've come out the other
(22:14):
side of that, and if anything,my travel is back to pre COVID
levels. You know, I've got avery supportive family that
empowers and enables me. That'swhy I said about Mrs. Davies
being one of my board advisors.You know, I've got a wife that
is managing my family at homewhile I'm on the road, but I
also get that lovely balance.And I think, you know, if I was
to put metrics around it, I'mhome half the time and I'm
(22:36):
traveling half the time now,those travels could be off to
glamorous locations across theworld or or to some northern
cities. We don't have to namedrop Sheffield, right? Anyone
who thinks business travel isglamorous hasn't done it enough,
the actual travel can beexhausted. You know, long
journeys, different time zones.It's not a complaint, it's an
observation. I know some peopleare saying, Yeah, try doing it
(22:57):
26 hours in economy teaming. AndI'm like, Look, I've done that,
but it's time away from thefamily. But what's worth it is
when I get there the other end,and let's say, the relationships
and the opportunities and thatin person engagement that it
gives me and my actual role, Iget to evangelize what impact
does, what our customerexcellence group do for our
customers. But I also get tolisten. And you might be
(23:19):
surprised, because I talk a lot,but listening is such a gift,
being able to hear feedback andthen drive actionable insights,
working with our customerexperience organization,
documenting that feedback,working out which funnel that
needs to go in. Is it acomplaint? Does it needs to be
addressed? Is it someone's veryhappy? Does it need to be turned
into a case study or a marketingstory? Or does someone need
(23:41):
something? Do they need somehelp? So hearing that feedback,
I can channel that intodifferent buckets and drive some
actual tangible actions fromjust listening. So it's really
rewarding as well.
Matt Best (23:50):
Perfect. Thank you for joining us on the Growth
Workshop Podcast, and we hopethat you join us again for part
two of this conversation. Formore insights, make sure you
subscribe, and if you enjoyedthe journey, don't forget to
leave us a review. Your feedbackfuels our growth until next
time, keep up that forwardthinking mindset. Goodbye.
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
your hosts, me, Matt Best,andJonny Adams. In this
podcast, we'll be sharinginsights from our combined 30
plus years experience andhearing from other industry
leaders to get their thoughtsand perspectives on what growth
looks like in modern business.We'll cover all aspects of
leadership, sales, accountdevelopment and customer
(00:21):
success, alongside othercritical elements required to
build an effective growth enginefor your business. This podcast
is aimed at leaders from execall the way down to line
managers. Hello and welcome tothe Growth Workshop Podcast.
We're thrilled to have DamienDavies from ServiceNow joining
us today. Damien, welcome andthank you for coming along.
Damien Davies (00:43):
Thanks for having me.
Matt Best (00:44):
Brilliant Damien. We would love to kind of get into
hearing more about your career,your personal life. I know
you've got lots of things kindof going on in your world, and
some really kind of incrediblechallenges as well, which we
want to sort of dive into. Butmaybe before that, Jonny and I
were debating this morning,actually, that a fun question to
ask might be, if you had toselect two people to be in your
(01:07):
personal advisory board, so thiscould be anyone work outside of
work, personal, somebody thatdoesn't even exist anymore. Who
would those people be? And why?
Damien Davies (01:18):
That's a good way to start.
Matt Best (01:19):
Punchy.
Damien Davies (01:20):
Look, we're on the Growth Podcast here, right?
We're talking about growth. AndI'm a big fan of growth and
learning. And someone thatreally inspires me is Stephen
Bartlett, you know, fromDragon's Den and Diary of a CEO.
Follow his content all the timeon LinkedIn, and often it's
almost like a daily feed toread. If I could have him in my
(01:40):
corner. He's always advertising,isn't he? Is it? You know, he's
always saying, Now, come andjoin my companies. And I'm like,
Yeah, I love you as my boardadvisor. And then second one be
my wife, just keep feet on theground. Right? I've enjoyed a
very successful career withServiceNow, and I know we'll
dive deeper into that. And whileI'm on this trajectory of growth
and learning, I think the havingthe mantra of hungry but humble
(02:02):
and keeping feet on the ground,Mrs. D, definitely keeps me
grounded.
Matt Best (02:05):
Hungry and humble. Yeah, that's fantastic. And
Damien, you talk about yourcareer so far, and obviously
ServiceNow are a globalenterprise business solution
provider, and you probably do amuch better job of introducing
them than I just have, but maybetell us a little bit about your
role there and what it is thatyou do.
Damien Davies (02:23):
Yeah, well, I kind of feel like I'm on my
third career within ServiceNow.I've actually been there nearly
14 years. They were a pre IPOstartup when I joined back in
2011 you know, we had about 300employees globally, and we've
now got 26 and a half 1000 fulltime employees. That's quite
some growth. I did my first sixyears working in the customer
(02:45):
support organization, working intech support. I did another
seven years working in our ITservice management business unit
as a product management leader.And now I'm on my third wave of
career, and I now work in what'scalled our customer excellence
group, or internally, we call itCEG, and my role is really to
help ServiceNow customers unlockthe value of their investment in
(03:07):
our solutions.
Matt Best (03:08):
Amazing, and I know that has you traveling around
the world as well. And I guesstrying to balance that is can be
pretty tricky. I know as wellyou've told us. You told us
previously that you've got thispersonal objective of losing 50
pounds by the time that you're50. Talk to us a little bit
about that. And I think, like,what I think really interesting
for our audience as we thinkabout growth is so often looking
(03:31):
at that what that requires interms of mindset, wellbeing both
inside and outside of work. Sohow are you juggling that, and
how are you helping yourself getto that goal?
Damien Davies (03:42):
But for dial back first, my next birthday does
start with a five. There's goingto be a round number. And I've
had this moment of realizationand said, You know what, look,
I'm late 40s. I'm not in greatshape. I've got a successful
career. I've got a young family.I have an older daughter as
well. I'm like, Look, if I'mgoing to be successful, both in
and outside of work, I reallyneed to pay a bit more attention
(04:04):
to how I look after my body andyou know, again, following lots
of podcasts and various postsfrom, you know, inspirational
individuals, and decided, Youknow what, if I'm gonna be in
the best shape of my life, Ineed to change habits and
processes. I've lost weight andgained weight several times in
(04:24):
the past, and I've been toofocused on the goal and the
outcome of hitting a targetweight. And so often people come
up to me, oh, yeah, what's yourtarget? And I went more on the
target is building better habitsand changing my mindset so that
I, you know, try and do it semiautomatically, the weight will
come off, and it will be abyproduct of changing those
habits. But at the same token,you know, if you're going to
(04:47):
track and measure anything, so Idid the initial measurements,
and you know the scales, if itwas one of those talking scales,
would have said one at a time,please. And I realized that look
realistically if I was going. Bein optimal shape. Body fat
percentage was a big number, buthow that translated into weight
was around about 50 pounds in usthree and a half stone, 23
(05:11):
kilos. And I don't profess to bea nutritionist or a personal
trainer, but I'm following, youknow, a really good program, and
you know, I'm working out threetimes a week in the gym, I'm
doing my cardio, getting mysteps in, and I've completely
changed my relationship withfood, but I've already started
to see some initial successes,and while it's still very
(05:31):
intentional and very focused, Ifeel like I'm getting into the
rhythm of building some of thosebetter habits.
Jonny Adams (05:37):
Just curious thinking about growth and that
story. What's the thing thatsort of triggered you to do
this? Because I'm so hearing afew things that might have been
the trigger.
Damien Davies (05:47):
I'm going to be brutally honest, right? You
know, it'd be lovely to use someinspirational quote saying I
just want to be there for mychildren and be in the best
shape of my life. Look, I'm aman, and before is vanity,
right? I looked in the mirrorand I didn't like what I saw,
and I'm still not completely inlove with what I see, because
I'm in the early stages of thatjourney, you know. And I was
like, Look, I want to be likeRonaldo. I want to have that
(06:07):
body. And I thought, if I wantto have that one, I'm gonna have
to work bloody hard to getthere. And then I sort of did a
bit of a balancing act, andsaid, Is that sustainable? And I
thought, You know what I know?What's sustainable, eating
healthily, avoiding junk andmaking sure that I build a
workout routine that I cansustain. Can I do six days a
week in the gym for the rest ofmy life? No? Can I do every
(06:28):
other day? Probably.
Matt Best (06:30):
It sounds like, you know, you've got this very like
you said, habits focused andsomeone who's clearly good and
experienced at making those kindof changes. And we talk about
this a lot in the context ofsales and business development,
and establishing thoseproductive habits and that
regular track and that cadence,and having access to those data
points, be that data point, aphoto of you in the mirror shows
(06:51):
it applies in so many differentconcepts.
Damien Davies (06:53):
Well, it's the same process, right? You think
about if you're working in saleswith a customer and you've
agreed on a mutual close plan,every day you're tracking that
mutual close plan working out,right? What actions and next
steps do I need to take? Today,I've just applied that same
methodology to my bodytransformation, and ultimately
my mutual close plan is buildingbetter habits, eating healthier,
(07:13):
working out, and the byproductwill be me being in much better
shape in the same way that wewant to go and close a deal.
Matt Best (07:19):
I can almost hear the people screaming at this
podcast, thinking, but I don'thave the time. And you know,
you're a senior leader in alarge, significant business with
lots of priorities. How have youfound the time to not only start
to sort of focus on thesehabits, but actually kind of
(07:39):
follow through with that?
Damien Davies (07:41):
Yeah, so well, time is a commodity that we
could all use more of, right?Time is not going away, and
probably I'm going to continueto be busy until I reach
retirement age. So do I want toput it off until then, or do I
want to start now? And one of myreally close friends who's
actually a gym buddy of mine,big shout out to Fred, he said
to me, Look, it's either one dayor today's day one. So if you're
(08:05):
worried about time, stop sayingone day. Let's do it today, day
one. Let's work it out. And thenif you're really worried about
time, then just figure right.Look, in the morning, can you
get up half an hour earlier? Canyou right? You know, ask
yourself, I just think, look,time is not going away. So how
we deal with it, and how ourmindset is in our approach to
(08:26):
that? You know, let's not lookfor excuses. Let's find the
time, make time. Was itHannibal, I believe, find a way
or make one, right? You know,when he was going over the
mountains to go and fight theRomans, right? It's like,
literally, we'll either find away or we'll make one. Let's
find some time, or make sometime.
Jonny Adams (08:42):
Yeah, as you describe some of those things
about time, there's also a greatlittle snippet that I learned
from a partner of ours, that ifyou take the population of the
London Marathon, the majorityhave a an age that has a nine in
it. So it's 2939 49 and thescience behind it suggests that
when you are about to hit adecade, that you typically are
(09:04):
willing to do something thatyou're not willing to do in
those other years. And I wonderif there's a little bit of that
going on, but a lot of peoplewho run the math and all the
math, and just because of...
Damien Davies (09:14):
I've not looked into that psyche, I wonder if
that's what's spurring me onsubconsciously. Yeah, I was
thinking, when you hit thatdecade you normally, typically
want to you go, you look back 10years and go, What have I done?
I'm not one digging. I want tolook forwards. I don't want to
look back, I want to lookforwards.
Matt Best (09:28):
And thinking about that as a sort of personal goal.
Love to dive in a little bit toyour career, the journey that
you've been on with ServiceNow.And I think as we a lot of the
time on the podcast, we talkabout, what those frameworks,
what are those things that canhelp our listeners? And a lot of
our listeners are, are leadersin some in some sort of shape or
form, senior leaders, middlemanagement or just aspiring
(09:51):
leaders? What are the things?What's the advice that you would
give to some of those leaderslistening here as they embark on
their journey from the career,the illustrious career that
you've had so far?
Damien Davies (10:02):
Well, my number one giveaway or takeaway is it's
all about the people. Nothing inbusiness happens without
relationships. You know, even inthe tech world, we use
technology in the service ofpeople, to make people's lives
and certainly their work livesbetter. That's what enterprise
software does it automatesstuff, and it makes jobs better,
(10:23):
makes companies more efficient,but it's all about the people,
and as you build your grow, growyour career, you know, make
relationships, find champions,open opportunities and open
doors, both inside and outsideof your organization, with your
customers, with your businesspartners, stakeholders, and your
internal colleagues, seniorleaders, peers, even juniors
(10:43):
with like reverse mentoring. Youknow, I've spent the last decade
expanding my network, reallyworking, and focusing on my
personal brand, becauseobviously our brand is what
people see us as, right, or whatpeople will talk about us when
we're not in the room. And Ithink actually, every single one
of us has the opportunity tocontrol the narrative of our
(11:04):
personal brand. Certainly, thelast two years, I've invested
very heavily in my personalbrand. What do I want to be
known for? What do I want to befamous for? How can I be seen as
someone that can enable and helpothers to learn and grow? And I
like to think that I've done areasonable job of it, because I
get approached with questions,and, you know, asking for
(11:25):
advice, and I feel very humbledthat people are coming to me to
ask for that career advice, andI can only talk through my own
personal experiences, which hasbeen my growth journey with
ServiceNow, but it all comesdown to the people.
Jonny Adams (11:37):
I resonate with what you're saying, massive
impact on myself, even thepeople around me who on that
journey, who's been the personthat's given you the most
impact?
Damien Davies (11:46):
There's a few and it's interesting. Use the word
impact. Impact is very importantword for me for two reasons.
Firstly, it's my personalmantra. If you look up my
LinkedIn, yeah, I mean, mytagline is making an impact, and
it's something that reallyresonates deeply with me. And
secondly, servicenows flagshipproduct for our customer success
is also called impact. So it'ssomething that just, it just
(12:08):
resonates deeply every day. Andwhen I go to my career journey
about people that have made animpact, honestly, there's been
so many as I've built thisnetwork up, I've been very
fortunate and very lucky totravel the world, working in my
various roles at ServiceNow andin every city and every country
that I've gone to, I've made newacquaintances, some of which
have become really closepersonal friends. And that
(12:31):
network expands, and then itopens opportunities, and then
someone will make anotherconnection. And it's like a
spider web. There's people ofall walks of life. You know,
once on a flight, I made friendswith a CEO of a company. He
actually boarded the plane late,was sweating profusely, sat down
next to me. We started chattingfor the flight, and we've become
friends. And he now messages andcomments on my LinkedIn posts
(12:54):
and invites me back to his placeand stuff. And it's like, look,
you know, there's all theselovely serendipity moments that
I I couldn't really in thislength of this podcast name too
many individuals, because I'vebeen humbled to have met so many
great people that have had animpact on my life.
Matt Best (13:13):
We talk about impact at SBR. It's our mantra. I guess
impact can mean a lot of thingsto a lot of different people,
but I love the way that you talkabout impact in the context of
relationships, and I guess partof that is being impacted, and
also, as you said, making animpact on the individuals that
you meet. Like, how does thattranslate at ServiceNow? How
(13:33):
does that translate to you in asort of in a corporate way?
Like, how do you deliver impactto your clients?
Damien Davies (13:39):
I mean impact as a product or a solution is
servicenows Customer Successoffering customers that have
impact are not only buyingenterprise software or, you
know, subscription licenses,they're getting a success
package as well. And we actuallysell that in the form of a
digital product. It's part ofthe core platform where there
are various tools and, you know,applications and modules on the
(14:01):
platform that help customersrealize value, adopt the
technical products faster, andmaintain their platform health.
But what it also gives them isthat human layer, and that's
where it comes to relationships,where they get access to
expertise, you know, governance,assurance, subject matter
experts, product ninjas, as welike to call them. I think about
Apple iPhone. If you've gotsomething wrong your iPhone, you
(14:23):
want to go to the productninjas. And that's the Genius
Bar in the Apple Store. Whatimpact is the Genius Bar for
service? Now, that's obviouslynot brand endorsed or market
endorsed. That's my personalanalogy of how I would describe
it to friends and family. Youknow, I think there's probably
some copyright around thatterminology, so I'm just
caveating that, but like, Imean, it makes sense, if
(14:44):
something wrong with youriPhone, go and see the Genius
Bar. If something's wrong withyour service now or you want it
to work better, go and see theimpact, folks.
Jonny Adams (14:50):
And is there a way that you measure impact at
ServiceNow? It seems to be aquestion that we're working with
our clients on. You know, isthere metrics that you use? Is
there certain things that you doto be sure that you're tracking
impact?
Damien Davies (15:01):
Oh of course, I mean corporate metrics, right?
And NPS scores, net promoterscores, CSAT, customer
satisfaction. Internally, wehave a metric of undeployed
backlog. You know? We'll look atright customer a has bought
service now they are licensedand entitled to X amount of
modules. We look at right, whatif they actually switched on?
What are they using? Again,we've got this great platform
with an abundance of data, wecan actually see what's been
(15:23):
turned on, what's being used,and we can then identify gaps,
and we can make recommendationsbased on that data, on how they
can get more value. So yeah,undeployed backlog is an
internal metric. Yeah, CSAT andNet Promoter Score are really
sort of some of the drivingmetrics.
Jonny Adams (15:38):
And we've had someone on this podcast before a
great gentleman called Mike, whotalked about the leading way to
retain clients is about havinggreat employee engagement. So
how are you impacting youremployees, to create engagement
from them? Because, as abyproduct, if you get great
employee engagement, in theory,your customers are taken care
of. If you've got any sort ofways in which you do that as
(15:59):
ServiceNow?
Damien Davies (16:00):
Absolutely. So one person comes to mind is
Richard Branson. He made thefamous quote, if you take care
of your employees, they'll takecare of your customers. And I
think that's been quoted abillion times. It's in his books
service. Now we have what wecall our people pact. And our
Chief People Officer launchedthis people pact a few years ago
during during the sort of thepandemic years, and it was
(16:20):
really about employeeengagement. I'm very fortunate.
You know, we have a huge cultureof employee well being. We get
allocated a number of well beingdays each year, which, you know,
is giving people time off inaddition to their, you know,
their personal time off, holidayallowance and corporate public
holidays. So we have well beingdays. Then there are various
initiatives and programs basedon physical and mental well
(16:42):
being, and then the employeeengagement mantra is like, bring
your authentic self to work. Ifanyone lives and breathes that
is me. 14 years I haven't beenfired yet, and I'm just me. You
know, what you see on LinkedInis what you see here in the
studio and what you'll see downthe Powerball in the gym, right?
I don't feel I have to switch onsome form of corporate persona,
(17:04):
and I can just be myself. And Ifeel empowered to be myself,
thanks to that rich culture,bring your best self to work.
You know, doing what you love,making an impact. All of that,
that corporate well beingmantra, you know that that's
what I think is, first levelemployee engagement.
Jonny Adams (17:22):
Well, if you had to refine and summarize your sort
of journey from on achronological aspect, just for
the listeners and the guests tounderstand a little bit more
about your journey, whatemployee number you were and
just give that sort of littlepotted history, would that be
all right?
Damien Davies (17:35):
Yeah, sure. Well, my badge number is in very small
number of digits. There's 125 inthe entire company that have
been there longer than me. Nowthere's two ways to look at
that. One, I've been there along time in relation to most of
the company. Two, despite thefact that I've been there nearly
14 years, there's still 125people that have been there
longer. They've also chosen tostay as long as I have, which is
(17:58):
testament to, you know, theopportunities and the culture
that the company has provided uswith.
Jonny Adams (18:04):
So if it was Hunger Games, that would be an
interesting setup, wouldn't it?125 Have you tried to see who
survives? I remember watching aYouTube clip about how work day
grew, and they grew from zero to10 million, and they talk talk
about the commercial function,and the commercial function had
X amount of people in it. Hadthis type of competence in it.
It had these types of processesin it. And then you go from 10
(18:25):
million to 100 million. There'sa theory within the marketplace
that you need to find the newteam leadership capital, for
example, is a term that's usedwhere you need to change your
leadership team. You've clearlybeen on the journey and stayed
on the journey. So there must besome secret sauce out there.
Could you describe? Because youknow how you might have bucked
that trend, or how you've stayedwithin the organization
throughout that.
Damien Davies (18:45):
It's funny you say about, like, those growths
and stuff like our CEO, our Csuite, are internally referred
to as the p5 which is Phase Fiveof growth. And you know, there
are obviously companies that youknow, naught to 1 million,
naught to 100 million orwhatever. I don't I can tell you
what the thresholds are, butwe're now on that journey,
having hit 10 billion US dollarsof revenue. So we're obviously
(19:09):
in what we call Phase Five ofgrowth, and we've done it
organically. We've madeacquisitions ServiceNow. I mean,
obviously I was there when wemade our first acquisition, back
in 2013 when we acquired a smalltechnology company, replatformed
it and launched it asperformance analytics as a core
capability of the platform.We've made several acquisitions,
particularly over the last sixyears, as we build our AI
(19:31):
capabilities. A number of AIacquisitions, starting with
virtual agents, chat bots, youknow, predictive intelligence,
being able to predict fields ontables. You know, generative,
AI, agent, AI, it's all thislovely AI themed technology, but
this growth now, I think if I goback to the very early days when
I started my career atServiceNow in the basement of
(19:53):
our then office in Richmond, ourUK, I workforce was 80 people,
eight zero UK, I now has over1000 People. And like I say, you
know, obviously in Europe,Middle East and Africa, we're at
nearly 5000 and globally, youknow, 26 and a half 1000 full
time employees. I don't think Icould have imagined that in my
wildest dreams in the earlydays, but I've also seen four
(20:14):
chief executive officers, and wewere the first tech company to I
go through an IPO sinceFacebook. So it was very high
profile, and the IPO took usonto Wall Street on the New York
Stock Exchange. We've just gonethrough the stratosphere, and
it's all about flawless,relentless, elite execution in
every corner of our business,right from the C suite, our p5
(20:35):
team, right I say down, or youcan flip it whichever way you
like, from every juniorindividual contributor right up
to every senior leader.Everybody is focused on people
and elite execution, and that'swhat has been a big contribution
to Servicenows trajectory in ourgrowth.
Matt Best (20:51):
Are there things for you having gone through those
different phases that not havekept you at ServiceNow? I think
what's really interesting is youtalk about that authenticity.
And I think we see this a lot ofthe time, and I see this in the
mirror when I think about thatmy career, there's definitely
been times where I've felt thatI needed to be something else at
(21:11):
work. What is it? There may besort of one or two things that
on that journey have beenconsistent at ServiceNow that
have that have been the thingsthat you've sort of anchored to,
like, I'm curious as as you gothrough a lot of change in a
relatively short amount of time,how you've been able to sort of
navigate that, as it were?
Damien Davies (21:32):
I'd like to say, we spoke earlier about hungry
but humble, keep feet on theground. I feel very blessed,
very lucky that I actually havea role that is deeply fulfilling
and gives me a lot of jobsatisfaction. The company has
given me tremendous opportunity,very lucky to have gotten in the
early days. So it's given mefinancial stability and security
(21:52):
for my family. He's given me acareer. I've grown and been
promoted into a senior leaderfrom a junior individual
contributor. He's given me theopportunity to travel the world.
I get to meet people. And I'm apeople person. I I crave in
person contact. You know, whenwe all had to pivot to fully
remote during the pandemic, Iwas like, Ah, lovely to see
people again. And now, as youknow, we've come out the other
(22:14):
side of that, and if anything,my travel is back to pre COVID
levels. You know, I've got avery supportive family that
empowers and enables me. That'swhy I said about Mrs. Davies
being one of my board advisors.You know, I've got a wife that
is managing my family at homewhile I'm on the road, but I
also get that lovely balance.And I think, you know, if I was
to put metrics around it, I'mhome half the time and I'm
(22:36):
traveling half the time now,those travels could be off to
glamorous locations across theworld or or to some northern
cities. We don't have to namedrop Sheffield, right? Anyone
who thinks business travel isglamorous hasn't done it enough,
the actual travel can beexhausted. You know, long
journeys, different time zones.It's not a complaint, it's an
observation. I know some peopleare saying, Yeah, try doing it
(22:57):
26 hours in economy teaming. AndI'm like, Look, I've done that,
but it's time away from thefamily. But what's worth it is
when I get there the other end,and let's say, the relationships
and the opportunities and thatin person engagement that it
gives me and my actual role, Iget to evangelize what impact
does, what our customerexcellence group do for our
customers. But I also get tolisten. And you might be
(23:19):
surprised, because I talk a lot,but listening is such a gift,
being able to hear feedback andthen drive actionable insights,
working with our customerexperience organization,
documenting that feedback,working out which funnel that
needs to go in. Is it acomplaint? Does it needs to be
addressed? Is it someone's veryhappy? Does it need to be turned
into a case study or a marketingstory? Or does someone need
(23:41):
something? Do they need somehelp? So hearing that feedback,
I can channel that intodifferent buckets and drive some
actual tangible actions fromjust listening. So it's really
rewarding as well.
Matt Best (23:50):
Perfect. Thank you for joining us on the Growth
Workshop Podcast, and we hopethat you join us again for part
two of this conversation. Formore insights, make sure you
subscribe, and if you enjoyedthe journey, don't forget to
leave us a review. Your feedbackfuels our growth until next
time, keep up that forwardthinking mindset. Goodbye.
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