It might be said that technology actively seeks out individuals who yearn to find a better, more efficient and cost-effective way of accomplishing goals. That certainly seems to be the case for Juan Fernandez.
The truth is, technology wasn’t on Fernandez’s radar screen during his formative years. He was homeschooled in a semi-rural part of the country and ended up working before he could complete the program. In fact, he felt a future in the trades was more obtainable.
Fernandez’s path to IT had already garnered momentum when, in 2014, while working as a CIO for a college, he wrote a flat-rate printer RFP. The company that won the bid inquired as to how he came up with this flat-rate model, which at the time had yet to garner mainstream attraction. A conversation ensued, and it wasn’t long before Fernandez joined the firm, ImageNet Consulting, to start an IT service offering.
A journey from humble beginnings to IT savant begs the question: How is it possible?
“Once I set my sites on technology, I aimed to become the best I could be,” said Fernandez, a 2021 ENX Magazine Difference Maker. “I studied diligently and obtained certification after certification. I focused on how technology could improve businesses when technology was just in its infancy. Finding that silver lining of benefits cost was hard in the early days; today it’s much simpler. Developing technology as a competitive advantage, creating profitable technology solutions and making IT simple has led to the success that I have obtained to date.”
Body of Work
During the course of his 27-year career, Fernandez has written CompTIA A+, Network + and Security + tests and sits on the CompTIA SME Technical Advisory board. He has constructed business models for administering IT-driven DaaS, SaaS, DRaaS and XaaS services. His work in facilitating online development opportunities that enable self-service capabilities and his quest to translate technology into easy-to-digest formats that are flexible, adaptable and responsive to customer needs helps bring technology to a wider audience.
Embracing a Making “IT” Simple philosophy has not gone unrecognized; Fernandez was named HP DaaS Innovator of the Year and Continuum’s Growth Partner of the Year. One of the high-water achievements in his career was winning Continuum’s MSP Shark Tank competition for best security and services presentation. His all-inclusive security- and device-as-a-service model created a framework for channel and MSP models.
The Shark Tank pitch itself underwent an 11th-hour metamorphosis. After working on his presentation for three straight days, Fernandez and his wife went out to dinner. When she casually asked how the presentation was going, Fernandez paused in mid-sentence and exclaimed “It’s all wrong.” Right then it occurred to him that the pitch should be less of a security presentation and more of an all-inclusive secure business solutions approach. The epiphany caused him to tweak the pitch.
“What they asked for was a security presentation, but that wasn’t what they wanted,” Fernandez noted. “They didn’t really know what they wanted, but at that moment, I knew.”
Deep down, Fernandez sees himself as a builder of businesses, technology solutions, processes, cultures, training programs and teams…and most of all, a builder of successful people. “I am passionate about technology and helping others find the leader within,” he said. “I strive to enable others and place them in roles they will be successful at. I am all about making a difference in the industry, and through each individual contribution, we can make small strides to improve the overall ecosystem.
“Technology is the foundation of our future, and we should treat it as such. We can choose to build it right and be successful or build it wrong and suffer the consequences. I choose to help others understand the right way and strive to follow my credo and Make IT Simple in every aspect.”
Fernandez prefers to lead by example and empowers his team by placing them in roles of responsibility. In empowering other people to be successful, he also pushes himself to lead by example and share his story to be an inspiration to others. “I’m just trying to demonstrate that, if I can do it, so can anyone else,” he added.
He credits many influencers on his journey to IT revelation; included among them is Ryan Walsh of Pax8. “He is someone I’ve befriended over the years and have always appreciated how he treats people and admired his thought leadership.”
Revolutionizing IT
Providing IT solutions certainly provided a sound foundation for customers during the “quicksand of the pandemic,” he noted. Moving forward, Fernandez’s goal is to devise a way to revolutionize technology delivery and service by creating a new way of delivering business outcomes. He is dedicating much of his efforts toward CXaaS, or customer experience-as-a-service. While he recently moved on from ImageNet Consulting, his unending search for simplifying IT and making it a powerful tool for end-users will certainly continue.
“Technology is my passion, I love working to find ways to implement emerging technologies to create new ways to create competitive advantages, increase productivity or improve their profitability,” he noted.
Fernandez and his wife, Lisa, have been married for 26 years. They have two daughters, Angelic and Dominique, plus three Pomeranian fur children. Traveling, camping and fishing are extremely popular in the Fernandez household, and he loves to restore (and race) classic cars. A member of Konica Minolta’s IT dealer council, Fernandez is also the current co-chair for the CompTIA channel development advisory council and hopes to complete a book he is working on by year’s end.
