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Meet the Rainmakers: Dan Magner, VP, Delivery

Dan Magner
We recently sat down with Thunder VP, Delivery, Dan Magner, to learn a little more about our master of delivery. Here’s what he had to say! Q. Dan, tell us a little bit about your role at Thunder. My role is focused on bringing the highest quality Delivery to all of Thunder’s customers.  This includes:
  • Building a team of the best and brightest resources
  • Rolling out and continuously improving upon Thunder’s Delivery Methodology that drives consistent, repeatable quality output for our customers, focused on Business Outcomes and the Customer Experience (for both our Customers Employees and our Customer’s Customers)
  • Ensuring that adherence to the above methodology through onboarding, training and checkpoints throughout projects
  • Ensuring project teams are appropriately staffed to deliver high quality projects
  • Working closely with project teams to ensure Customer Success (Green projects and Happy Customers) throughout the end-to-end project lifecycle
  • Ensuring all individuals at Thunder have a professional development path within the organization
Q. What made you want to join the Thunder crew? Overall, my goal was to be part of a company where I could make a significant impact and help to build something from the ground up.   I enjoy the fast paced nature and the ability to see change over time.  Sometimes it’s hard to see it from the ground level but when we poke our heads out of the sand and think about 18 months ago when we only had 6 people on the team, kicking off our first $700k project, it’s truly amazing how far we’ve already come.  I cannot wait to see where things are in 18 months from now! Q. You’ve been in the Salesforce ecosystem for quite a while now (with 5 SF certifications – impressive), how has your past experience prepared you for leading delivery at Thunder? I’ve been building and growing teams in a similar manner for many years prior to Thunder.  Previous experiences have included:
    1. Building out new teams / offices from the ground up
    2. Airdropping into existing offices to accelerate growth and adopt best in class tools/methods
    3. Leading ‘struggling’ regions within an organization and transforming them into the top performing teams
    4. Driving and sometimes re-building Methodology that will scale over time, particularly through the massive growth associated with an acquisition
Q. In addition to your delivery expertise, you bring a lot of fun and humor to the team. We love your humorous, random non-work-related announcements on Slack and your “Cool S***” project recaps in your all hands meetings. Have you always been the funny guy? There’s too much pressure to answer this question in a humorous way. So I’ll just say this… Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “Funny” as: “Affording light mirth and laughter”… I have no idea where I’m going with this and I have no clue what “Mirth” means.  Next Question please 😉 Q. We’ve already established that the Thundercats love to chat over Slack… word on the street is someone recently spotted your celebrity doppleganger – do tell! Dan Magner / Woody I’ll be honest.  I do not see the resemblance but I’m honored by the implication that I look anything like Woody Harrelson during his Cheers days.  That said:
    1. If my hairline projections are the same as Woody’s, I’ll be looking like the rest of the male Thundercats pretty soon
    2. In my life I’ve been more often compared to a Norm than a Woody. Check back in January after the Holidays to see where we are.
    3. I love bulleted lists.
Q. Last one! As a leader at Thunder, what are you most excited about in the near future for the rapidly growing company? Thunder has done a bang up job at hiring extremely talented individuals that know how to get shit done.  There are two speciifc areas that I’m excited to see take shape moving:
    1. Creating and rolling out our OWN best-in-class methodology that will drive quality across the organization and will ensure we are doing more than just trusting that “everyone know’s what they are doing”
    2. Hiring senior resources is a great strategy to help get us off the ground. As we mature as an organization, I’m excited to see our ability to grow talent WITHIN our organization, including:
      1. Hiring less experienced resources
      2. Driving professional development growth paths
      3. Watching our individual contributors grow into our Leaders
Want To Know More About Dan Or Our Delivery Team? Simply Contact Us And We’ll Get Back To You In A Flash – It’s As Easy As Boom.
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