Accelerating Innovation: Reimagining DEX for the AI Era

Dear Lakeside Software Community, 

I’m excited to share that I am returning as CEO of Lakeside Software, the company I founded in 1997. I am energized to rejoin in this capacity to propel Lakeside’s mission to be the market leader in Digital Employee Experience (DEX) software. 

Why Now? 

It’s the end of IT as you know it, and the future of enterprise IT depends on an elevated focus on AI-driven innovation. As a leading DEX tool for enterprise IT teams, Lakeside SysTrack is ripe for rapid advancement of our product and technology as we continue to seize the value of our depth, breadth, history, and quality of data to deliver on all the promises of AI.  

As SysTrack’s original inventor and a pioneer in the DEX space, I return to the CEO role with a primary focus to accelerate innovation, scale Lakeside’s AI capabilities, improve the SysTrack user experience, and deepen Lakeside’s business-centric impact across enterprise IT. During this transition, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Dave Keil for his contributions and leadership over the past three years during an important chapter of Lakeside’s growth.  

I’m returning at an exciting time in the market as enterprise IT teams mature their DEX strategy and implement AI into IT operations, and I am encouraged by the opportunities Lakeside has as a leader in this exciting space.  

Connecting With the Lakeside Community 

Over the next few weeks, I will be spending time with many of our employees, partners, and customers to reengage and hear directly where we have the greatest opportunities to innovate and grow together. 

Moving forward, I plan to spend significant time in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, office with our world-class engineering team. There, I’ll focus on working directly with the team to lean in to our company value of boundless ingenuity and curiosity, taking a hands-on role in driving innovation and increased collaboration across the entire organization. 

Our Path Forward 

Looking ahead, I will say that one of our primary goals is to continue scaling the company to best serve our customers—that is, enterprise organizations across all sectors, including financial services, retail, healthcare, airlines, and more. There’s still significant work to be done in the DEX space, both for our customers and partners. 

Lakeside remains firmly committed to listening to our customers and partners because that’s where we learn about the real-world problems they need to solve. By understanding their challenges, we gain insights that inspire creativity to develop solutions to better meet their needs. I stand by the 10+ patents Lakeside already has, including our recent patent to monitor consumer-facing kiosks in the retail space, and I am energized to see what innovations await our team.  

For example, our patented product architecture (that is, our Intelligent Edge) positions us to excel in scalability, mobility, cloud, and privacy. Our long-standing, unique edge architecture is especially exciting as AI PCs are fast entering enterprise fleets and require device performance monitoring capabilities with low latency. This architecture gives Lakeside a distinct advantage in delivering the highest-quality endpoint data, and it will allow us to build on this foundation to unlock even more potential for our customers, especially as AI integrations become ubiquitous across enterprise processes, products, and employee productivity tools. 

The Future of Digital Employee Experience 

As I mentioned, I firmly believe it’s the end of IT as you know it. It’s not the 1990s anymore; traditional, reactive IT is only holding back innovation, business-driven tech advancements, and end-user productivity. The standard for a high-quality digital experience is rapidly rising. People now expect—and deserve–a seamless, consumer-like experience with their work tech. As such, IT teams are moving toward a more AI-enabled, proactive approach. This shift aligns perfectly with SysTrack’s ability to improve both end-user satisfaction and organizational productivity, creating a win-win scenario. Companies want to deliver the best experience at the most effective cost, and that’s exactly what DEX is all about. 

I am particularly encouraged by our continued momentum in forming strategic partnerships to drive transformative change in the DEX and proactive IT space. Our recent reinvigoration of our Customer Advisory Board, our realignment of Strategy & Products, and the evolution of our partner program—highlighted by our second annual partner awards—all demonstrate our commitment to deepening customer relationships and expanding our partner ecosystem. 

A Personal Note 

Returning to lead Lakeside as CEO feels like coming home. While I’ve never truly been away from the company as I’ve remained an integral part of the board and advised on Lakeside’s strategic direction, stepping back into the CEO position renews my commitment to the vision that started it all. I’m looking forward to listening, learning, and collaborating with all of you as we forge a new era of IT, together.