Business Chief APAC+ANZ Magazine October 2017 | Page 12

INTERVIEW

JOEN VAN DRIEL has been selling clouds for a number of years . With roles spanning Europe , north and Southeast Asia , van Driel is currently the Vice President of Oracle Digital Cloud Applications in Singapore , where he is in charge of a team of representatives currently selling Oracle ’ s cloud products across Asia Pacific . Here , van Driel explains how he was drawn to the role because of the exciting challenges it presented .

Van Driel worked in various different roles at Oracle until 2007 , before returning earlier this year as Vice President . He came back to the organisation because it posed an interesting opportunity for him . “ Oracle was late in the game for the cloud , let ’ s be honest ,” he says . “ But they put a lot of investment into it and hired people and so I got the opportunity to run and build a fairly large , new team , focusing on selling products . I love building teams ,” he says . “ There ’ s a lot of investment going on within Oracle , in this new organisation , not only in the cloud , but also in the new market . It ’ s a big focus area .”

Oracle cloud applications

THE CLOUD AROUND THE GLOBE

Before re-joining the organisation van Driel held roles at Google , Adobe and Salesforce , positions that gave him experience of the various markets , in locations as diverse as Dublin , Sydney and Hong Kong . “ When you do business in Southeast Asia today , compared to a more mature market , there is a big difference ,” he explains . These variations , he says , include how fast people adopt new technology , the age of the markets , and how much the cloud and broadband internet are

12 October 2017