Aaron Cristal

Retired

San Jose, California, United States

About

-Chief of Staff for President/COO and VP Global Sales-facilitating key strategic initiatives, Business reviews -25 Years of Global Service Experience -Gigamon-Led team over over 70 people in TAC, EDU, PS, Service Operations and Customer Success. Grew bookings from $25M to over $175M in 7 years at 90% Margin. Specialties: Technical Leadership in the areas of: - Support and support management - Technical Training and development - Change Management - Routing, Switching, Wireless, Security, Cloud

Experience

  • Semi Retired at Self-employed
    Oct 2022 - Present · 3 yrs 10 mos

    Taking a good break and seeing if it sticks!

  • Gigamon (9 yrs 8 mos)
    • VP of Sales Engineering & Solution Center
      Nov 2020 - Oct 2022 · 2 yrs

      -Lead Enablement, Solution Engineering and Solution sales Architect directly. (~20) -Functional accountability SE (110) -Provides pre-sales enablement & advisory.

    • Chief Of Staff
      Sep 2019 - Nov 2020 · 1 yr 3 mos

      • Support the President/COO and VP Global Sales in their various day-to-day activities. • Act as an adviser to the COO and senior management team • Assist the COO in facilitating effective decision-making • Coordinate the execution and reporting of strategic initiatives • Participate in regular meetings with HR to discuss potential staffing issues

    • Director Customer Service and Support
      Mar 2013 - Sep 2019 · 6 yrs 7 mos

      Lead Global Services team

  • Sr. Director Global Services Solutions at Extreme Networks
    Jul 2003 - Jan 2013 · 9 yrs 7 mos

    Technical support, Training, Advance Services, Service Readiness and PLC, Business Systems, and Service Partner Relationships (outsource and PS) • Full P&L responsibility for the $60M Services business which represented 19% of Company revenues • Grew Services Gross Margin 22% to an all-time sustainable high of 66% and at industry leading levels • Accountable for 20M Operating Budget and a global team of more than 100 services professionals • Managed 5 Global TAC centers in Utrecht, Tokyo, Santa Clara, Chennai, and RTP, as well as Services Operations at HQ • Global Responsibility of team of 100 with over 50% outside the US. • Created solution validation team inclusive of BETA support and design specification reviews for usability. • Implemented “One Team” strategy to maximize resource utilization and improve motivation of team. • Restructured Support Team to improve skills while generating knowledge content for customers. • Maintained Best In Class Customer Satisfaction across the portfolio of Maintenance, Advanced Services, Professional Services and Training and Education • Increased first level resolution to 85%, with engineering escalations less than 5% of all cases.

  • Director Customer Services at Vina/Larscom/Verilink
    2000 - 2003 · 3 yrs

    Responsibility for: Technical Support, Return and Repair, Technical Training and System Engineering. • Optimized customer experience by incorporating both the Systems Engineering and Services teams. • Created field skills development method to improve skill set of systems engineers and improve time to market as well as first customer deployment experience. • Managed migration to acquiring company (Larscom)

  • Director Customer Service at Digital Link Corporation
    1994 - 2000 · 6 yrs

    Led team consitisting of Repair, Techncial Support, Contracts and Technical Training.