CXO CHANGEMAKER
Jason Rivera, Chief Technology Officer at Verra Mobility
Driving digital transformation is more than having the right technology. It requires cultural transformation and leadership to inspire teams to be agile, to foster a culture of learning and, in many cases, to have the confidence to be ambitious.
What do great leaders do to achieve this?
We’re pleased to introduce our new CXO CHANGEMAKER series. Here, you’ll meet ambitious leaders who are driving technology and digital transformation in their organizations. You’ll learn how these leaders have uncovered business opportunities, dealt with failures and led through the unexpected. No matter the goal, true transformation requires the leadership of an inspiring changemaker. We’ve come to know some great ones.
And now to our very first honoree, Jason Rivera.
As the Chief Technology Officer at Verra Mobility — and humble leader, in our view — Rivera has successfully shepherded the organization through significant disruption and impressive innovation. Rivera’s tenure at Verra Mobility spans 8 years, backed by decades of experience in engineering and delivery, IT operations and strategy. But as our conversation with Rivera will surely reveal, his success is anchored by his focus on culture and client need.
Verra Mobility is a global leader in smart mobility technology that makes transportation safer, smarter and more connected. They enable smarter roadways by providing integrated technology to manage tolls, violations and vehicle registrations for their commercial customers — rental car companies, fleet management companies and large fleet operators. They also work with government customers (municipalities and school districts) by installing leading photo enforcement technology to positively impact driver behavior and enhance road safety. These include red light, speed, school bus stop arm and bus lane cameras.
I’ll answer on behalf of my organization. Verra Mobility has gone through an incredible amount of change as part of our growth journey. We have completed and integrated five strategic acquisitions, transitioned from a privately-held company to a public entity and have a workforce that scores their engagement well above others in the technology industry. Throughout all this, we continue to deliver market-leading solutions to our customers. That is a pretty awesome team to be a part of!
We continue to have a robust pipeline of new product introductions and strategic initiatives. In addition, we have a major cloud migration, a major redesign of a key platform, and we have begun a project to replace our ERP system.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant curveball for all of us. Prior to the pandemic, our company had a small remote footprint. Most employees were in a company office. The sudden shift to a remote-first environment required rapid adaptation and implementation of new technologies to ensure that we continued to experience high-levels of productivity.
For example, many of the municipalities that we serve added proof of COVID-19 vaccination to their list of requirements for staff engaged on their projects. The team had 14 days to design and implement a system that met the requirements of our customers, protected the sensitive data of our employees, and made it easy for all who interacted with the programs we operate. We thrive under that type of pressure at Verra Mobility and the team delivered.
While I can’t really point to one move, thematically I have made a series of decisions, some to step backward to move forward, that are based around people and culture. In my view, if you find a workplace with great people and culture, you’ll find a successful company.
I can think of a number of challenging moves throughout my career. However, I try to mitigate risks as much as possible. To do this, I consider specific questions:
Are these calculated moves with a clear purpose and objective?
Do you have the data you need to make the decision or investment?
Can you recognize when things aren’t working, and do you have the courage to kill the project?
Can you learn from your mistakes and apply your learnings to the next decision?
There have been some keys to success for me in this area.
Understand your customer (internal and external). The key here is to listen, understand, then ask questions.
Create space to succeed (or fail). You need to give the team space to operate effectively, without fear of failure. Often, teams are given space but without having an environment where calculated risks are encouraged.
Connect with the outside. Too often I see teams that are too stubborn to seek counsel from the outside. We must admit that we don’t know everything about everything. Building that community of valued partners (like Insight) is so important for our long-term success.
We have some rules around collaboration. One is “leave nothing unsaid.” Get it all out on the table. This leads to great dialogue and helps us go faster.
Lead by example, from the top.
I truly believe that effective product management starts with understanding the customer. Once you understand your customer, you can deploy a process that guides the team through strategic planning, agile execution and continuous improvement. This sounds simple, but if highly collaborative cross-functional teams stick to this model, they will be very successful.
Technology in transportation is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Autonomous vehicles, electrification, cybersecurity and V2X connectivity are all advancements that we monitor closely. The key is to stay highly connected to your customers and markets to ensure that you are serving them at their highest point of need.
The biggest challenge we face is maintaining our pace while keeping a workforce as engaged as they are today. We tackle this challenge by committing to extreme prioritization, building highly collaborative teams and giving these teams autonomy to operate.
The partnership with Insight has been amazing. You have truly helped us at our highest point of need. You have allowed us to go faster, and bridged knowledge gaps that would be too costly or too lengthy to add on our own. When I have needed someone to ideate with, you have been there for me, answering the call on the first ring. I view Insight as an extension of my own team.
Stay close to your customers, stay close to your teams and adopt a servant leadership mindset to help those around you.
Relentless pursuit of understanding your customer(s), internal and external, and using that knowledge to bring effective solutions to the marketplace.
