CHANNEL CHIEF
Customer and
technology champion
Nicolai Solling is passionate about meeting customers and helping to solve
their problems through technology solutions. By Arun Shankar.
Nicolai Solling is CTO at
Help AG.
N
icolai Solling works as the Chief
Technology Officer at Help AG
Middle East, where he oversees
technical services and solutions delivered
in the market. At the outset, he points out,
he has a lot of customer facing time, both
to position solutions to existing customers
and also to meet new customers, while
explaining to them what sets a security
specialist like Help AG apart from others.
“These meetings are also great as
they help me to understand what the
customer’s problems and priorities are,
which ultimately translates into how our
solutions and services portfolio looks. I am
always on the lookout for new interesting
solutions that address real problems in the
market,” he explains.
Solling also has several internal work
responsibilities. For instance, coordinating
the enablement of teams and making
sure they are good at delivering the
technologies Help AG takes to market.
He is also the escalation point in case of
technical issues.
For Solling, one of the most satisfying
parts of his job is the people. “My
colleagues play a large role in making
my job fantastic. The success of Help AG
Middle East is really a team effort and I
am so pleased to be surrounded by the
best information security specialists in the
business,” he adds.
With regards to the challenges at work,
Solling indicates it’s an easy question
to answer: balancing internal versus
customer-facing activities. “I simply love
meeting our clients and understanding
what drives them. Furthermore, I am
really passionate about what we do. But
I also have internal functions that are
important. My tendency is always to
prioritise the customer meeting. Luckily
my colleagues have a lot of understanding
for this and try to help me out with the
internal tasks.”
For Solling, his most memorable
achievement is what has been achieved
with Help AG. “From the humble
beginnings where our office was the size
of a shoebox and we would celebrate a
$5,000 order to today, where we have
more than 130 employees in four different
locations around the Gulf. It is simply
mind-blowing for me.” Solling made
his entry into technology at the age of
8, when his family got its first X86 PC
machine. Dabbling with technology
kept him away from the formal path
into academics. “I was simply too busy
exploring technology so my background
is not academic apart from the specific
vendor specialisations I have done over
the years,” he explains.
Putting his mind to technology
forecasting, Solling expects that in the
coming years, “we will really start to see
cloud adoption here in the Middle East.
Our clients have been quite hesitant, but
I can really see that things are starting to
happen. Our industry will be undergoing
changes as customers transition from
Capex to Opex models, and this of course
impacts technology models.”
He believes it is easier to cope with
stress by being really positive at work,
while doing it with a smile makes it easier
to spend a lot of time on it. His weekly
routine of running helps to manage stress
levels and his sense of well-being, while
his family with relatively young kids are a
wonderful distraction.
Off work, Solling combines his passion
for technology and cooking by bringing
in gadgets not found in the average
kitchen, such as NO2 siphons, smoke
guns, sous vides, pressure cookers and a
Thermomix. “I was even dumb enough
to buy an Internet-connected coffee
machine, which I now admit was a waste
of money; not everything is smarter with
an application, especially not at 6.30 in
the morning,” he reflects.
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