Justin H.
Studied at David Eccles School of Business
Hiring Manager at Fenix Venture
Available tomorrow at 6:00 PM UTC
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About Justin
Accomplished executive with 20+ years of experience transforming technology and software organizations into scalable, high-margin enterprises. I connect emerging technologies like AI, analytics, and cloud to measurable business results. Recognized for leading growth, operational excellence, and value creation across founder-led, PE-backed, and global tech companies. My leadership blends hands-on technical fluency with board-level strategy to build portfolios that perform. Career Highlights - Drove a 172% increase in recurring monthly revenue (from $440K to $1.2M in 8 months) while raising gross margin from 40% to 62%. - Achieved 20% YoY gross profit growth and 25–50% expansion across software, AI, and cloud lines of business. - Transformed professional services profitability from –28% to +64%. - Increased customer acquisition 200%, cross-sell 150%, deal size 150%, and win rate to 60%. I’m passionate about scaling software and SaaS organizations through recurring revenue models, acquisitions, and operational discipline. My mission is to build sustainable growth portfolios where innovation and execution create lasting enterprise value.
Why do I coach?
I’ve spent the past 20+ years leading, scaling, and advising SaaS, AI, services, and line-of-business software companies across multiple industries. What I’ve learned is that the most rewarding work isn’t just building businesses, it’s helping people grow. At Microsoft, I led a team of consultants while also serving as a hands-on advisor and coach to executives and technical teams leading large-scale transformation. Later, as CEO in multiple organizations, I expanded that perspective beyond technology, learning firsthand how strategy, culture, and leadership development drive performance. In 2024, I stepped out of the CEO seat to focus full-time on my firm, Fenix Venture, where I advise and coach CEOs and their teams on how to scale companies and themselves at the same time. Over the years, I’ve worn a lot of hats (software engineer, sales and marketing leader, technologist, and C-suite executive). That mix gives me a broad view of how leadership, strategy, operations, and product all intersect.
Work Experience
Founder, CEO
Fenix Venture
June 2024 - Present
Hiring Manager
Fenix Venture is a strategic advisory and execution partner that helps founders and CEOs identify their most impactful opportunities across revenue, operations, and technology and then partners with them to execute, optimize, and scale. Our approach blends deep operational expertise, hands-on execution, and executive-level coaching. The result is measurable performance improvement and long-term enterprise value, delivered through clarity, alignment, and disciplined execution. Our Focus Areas • Revenue & Market Growth: Identify and activate untapped revenue channels to expand market share. • Operational Efficiency: Streamline workflows, eliminate bottlenecks, and reduce waste to improve margins. • AI Enablement & Technology: Leverage automation and intelligent systems to enhance decision-making and performance. • Financial Optimization: Strengthen pricing, cost structure, and cash flow for long-term profitability. • Innovation & New Business Lines: Design and launch scalable new offerings that expand enterprise value.
Chief Executive Officer
Blue Eye
July 2023 - June 2024
Hiring Manager
Led sales, operations, and strategic initiatives, driving stability and substantial revenue enhancements across various business sectors. Expanded a $5M P&L to $11M and led a team of 150 across two domestic and one international office. Developed and implemented comprehensive growth strategies that strengthened core business functions including sales, engineering, and operations, thereby elevating business profitability and enhancing efficiency. Key Accomplishments • Boosted monthly recurring revenue from $440K to $1.2M, a 172% increase, across three primary business lines over 8 months, while enhancing gross margin from 40% to 62%. • Improved EBITDA from a monthly deficit of $250K to a positive $125K within 6 months, exceeding profitability expectations. • Restructured sales and marketing teams to amplify sales qualified leads, reduce sales cycle length, and enhance deal closure rates; optimized operations to drive efficiency and improve overall business performance. • Developed and executed a comprehensive channel strategy, resulting in significant expansion of target customer access through multiple successful partnerships and integrations for Blue Eye Monitoring.
CEO / GM
Crayon
October 2021 - January 2023
Hiring Manager
Directed the entirety of US operations, focusing on strategic planning, effective people management, and innovative business development to achieve marked revenue increases across diverse business units. Increased $43M P&L to $51M and supervised a 200-strong national workforce. Crafted and executed innovative strategies in sales, marketing, and engineering that greatly improved operational capabilities and solidified the company’s market standing. Key Accomplishments • Transformed company from primarily licensing and software cloud advisory to include managed services/support and professional services for Cybersecurity, AI/ML, Analytics, Data, and M365. • Led multiple retention, recruitment, and culture initiatives to increase company size from 121 to 176 people, with minority representation of 46%, while reducing undesired attrition from 40% to 6%, receiving an employee survey rating of 92/100. • Augmented new customer acquisition, cross-sell revenue, average deal size, average seller attainment by 200%, 150%, 150%, and 80% respectively, while increasing average opportunity win-rate to 60%. • Built and strengthened professional relationships with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, as well as strategic partnerships with Veeam, Box, Orchestry, Databricks, Wilson Allen, NASCAR, and multiple Private Equity firms to drive new customer acquisition.
Director - Artificial Intelligence Technical Ecosystem
Microsoft
March 2012 - October 2021
Hiring Manager
Responsible for leading AI/ML and Analytics technical strategy for Microsoft's US partner ecosystem; working with partners of varying sizes, enterprises to startups, across multiple industries. Responsible for managing a team of AI/ML and Analytics architect/consultants that help our partners build cool, innovative, and disruptive solutions that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning. Key Accomplishments • Spearheaded multiple AI enablement initiatives to develop Microsoft’s GTM approach for data and AI: More than 30 initiatives and $1.5M in funding to drive a $5M+ increase in revenue. • Maximized data, analytics, and AI/ML partners, solutions, and partner expertise by 10, 14, and 20 times, within four-year period, resulting in attaining $100M+ customer growth. • Accelerated technical adoption, and partner/customer consumable assets by 15x and platform adoption velocity by 63% through identification of reference architectures, whitepapers, POCs, and demos with cross-functional team. • Developed Global Partner Index for partner solutions and expertise across industries and technologies to support internal teams, identifying top partners and solutions to confirm MSFT’s partner ecosystem meet customer and market demand.
Solutions Architect
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
November 2008 - March 2012
Responsible for solution architecture and technical strategy within the Church Education portfolio. Also responsible for providing architectural consultation to project teams, training on technologies, design patterns, and development processes, mentoring individual team members, and building foundational libraries needed to simplify development efforts. Key Accomplishments • Earned promotion to Solutions Architect position from Engineering Manager within two years for stellar performance. • Contributed to the successful delivery of multiple, multi-million-dollar projects using C#, .Net, MVC, Web Services, and SQL, aimed at connecting multiple, disparate organizations, increasing application reliability and performance. • Coordinated with leaders and executives from different organizations to efficiently align business initiatives with technical roadmaps and deliver projects, resulting in cutting overhead and streamlined business processes.
Education
David Eccles School of Business
MBA, Business Administration and Management, General
2008 - 2010
SWOT analysis, Accounting and +5 skills
Weber State University
BA, Computer Science
2000 - 2004
Architecture, SDLC and +3 skills