Ryan Serpan
- Vice President & Head of AiEX - Intelligent Experiences Group
- Blend360
School Information
School: University of Colorado
College Major: Business
Years at College Works: 2001 to 2002
Career Information
Working For: Blend360
Title: Vice President & Head of AiEX – Intelligent Experiences Group
Industry: Technology
Brief Description of Duties / Responsibilities:
United States Head of the AiEX – Intelligent Experiences Leading digital transformation consultants, technology implementation specialists and managed service operators that collaborate with clients on the delivery of best-in-class Ai Transformation for Digital, Performance Marketing, Product Marketing, Marketing Analytics, CX, and Service teams. I collaborate with C-Suite executives to help shape the vision & future of their organizations around this transformation. Responsible for market and growth strategy of a $60m rapidly growing practice. Manage partner alliances, sales, pre-sales, solutions, and operations. Conceptualizing the future of CX through the lens of AI, Generative AI, intelligent automation, ai-decisioning and how consumer experience organizations will evolve alongside of AI transformation. Supporting CMO, CIO, CTO, CDO and CRO on crafting digital transformation agendas and building the teams required to transform.
What Has Been Your Proudest Accomplishment Post-CWP?Running and selling an interactive agency that employed several professionals and established leadership in our industry.
College Works Career Impact
In one sentence, what has CW meant to you?
College Works Painting enabled me to expand my comfort zone in an accelerated fashion, giving me a 5 year head start on all of my peers.
How did your CW experience impact your career? Immediately after graduation? Now?
Immediately after graduating I started my on digital agency. The skills I learned at College Works Painting were instrumental in being able to run this business. My comfort zone with sales and with understanding profit measurement kept us alive in the first several years.
What do you want to tell your clients about what it meant to work with them and how it has helped you get to where you are today?
Many of my College Works Painting clients became instrumental contacts for my future business. I worked with several that owned businesses or had positions with business that helped me kick start my interactive company. Keeping that network was hugely important for my success.
What was the greatest lesson you learned from your CW experience?
Persistence pays off. Mistakes are made, but learning to keep momentum moving forward helps me to always stay on top in my industry.
How have the friendships and networks you built during CW affected you?
For many years after College Works Painting I kept close with some of the interns and always had someone to bounce ideas off of. When things were scary or in danger with my interactive company, I could turn to my fellow interns for support and advice.
If you had to come up with a one line slogan for CW, what would it be?
The most significant expansion of your comfort zone.
Advice
What advice do you have for potential CW participants? Current CW participants?
Don’t think of this experience as just running a painting business, instead think of all the areas that you can expand in your comfort zone. You will make mistakes, you will have very tough weeks, but what better environment could exist to learn from these things than one where you have the support from College Works Painting?
Many college students struggle to choose between an internship specific to their target industry or doing CW. What advice would you give them on this subject if they wanted to enter your career field?
Most internships for big corporations are largely glorified office assistant positions. Sure you’re in the industry, but you’ll mostly be unchallenged. College Works Painting gave me an opportunity to lead for real, be in real situations, and fail for real. All of this had huge value to my long term career goals, rather than targeting the first job out of college. You never know if your first job will actually take you down a career path you’ll love forever, but hard work and learning to overcome big situations will pay off throughout the life of your career.
What’s your best advice for someone interested in entering your career field?
Management consulting is an industry that relies heavily on networking skills. Being able to develop a network, sell to that network, and maintain great relationships is key. What I learned at College Works Painting was huge in developing those skills.
What’s your favorite memory from CW?
All of the monthly sales meetings. We had a great time and collaborated well among the interns. I’m still friends to this day with several of the interns.
Last words of wisdom?
Don’t be afraid to fail, just learn to fail forward.