What Does it Take to Be an ‘Of the Year’ Winner?

Romain Vivier

Romain Vivier, Solution Consulting Manager of the Year, receiving his award from Adobe’s CEO (right) and Executive Vice President of Sales (left).

Each year at the Adobe Worldwide Sales Conference, nine Adobe employees are honored with the “Of the Year” award highlighting their outstanding performance and demonstration of the Worldwide Field Organization’s core values.

This year, Romain Vivier was named the Solution Consulting Manager of the Year at the Conference in Las Vegas. Although his award automatically qualifies him for Platinum Club in Costa Rica in April, he won’t be attending – his wife is expecting their second child that very same week!

Title: Solution Consultant Manager for ANZ Digital Marketing

Time at Adobe: 8 years with a 1-year hiatus working for a partner

Home base: Sydney, Australia

Adobe Life: What is your recipe for success?
Romain: See every opportunity to improve things around you and within your job as a way to show more than what you appear to be. Go above and beyond to demonstrate your skills and your hunger for more. Don’t be afraid of putting yourself in challenging situations. Dare to go out of your comfort zone and put hard work behind it to turn that challenge into a success. If you do that, opportunities will come naturally.

Adobe Life: What is the most important quality to doing your job well?
Romain: Being honest, fair and straightforward in how you communicate.

Adobe Life: What makes a good leader?
Romain: Trust. Having people trusting you, your judgment and the fact that you have their back, is key. It naturally comes with time from being consistently fair with people, doing what you say you’ll do, and by leading through example.

A good leader should also put his/her team first and focus on making them the best they can be instead of focusing on himself/herself. This means trusting in people’s abilities, encouraging people to take on challenges, not fearing failure and empowering them to be successful.

Adobe Life: What advice would you give new people at Adobe?
Romain: Congratulations! You’re in one of the best companies with plenty of opportunities to develop your career and satisfy your ambitions. Make the most of it and make a difference.

Adobe Life: How do you deal with setbacks/failure?
Romain: My recipe is to not be afraid to try and fail. We talk daily with our customers about optimization and A/B testing. The same applies to us.

As long as you have the courage to stand up after a failure, and you have the self-awareness to understand why you failed and accept your shortcomings, you’ll develop quickly. You cannot progress without failing and you can’t have success without trying.

Adobe Life: What is your strongest asset/quality?
Romain: I’m quite organized, structured and focused. One of my team members makes fun of me calling me “the machine”. I’m very execution-focused.

Adobe Life: When interviewing a potential new member of your team, what is your favorite question to ask?
Romain: I try to understand their motivation. Why are they are waking up in the morning to go to work? Why would they stay late at night doing something that excites them? Motivation is key to performance and enjoying work.

Adobe Life: How do you fuel your creative side?
Romain: I always thought I wasn’t good at that, but I’m a personality that needs time to come up with good ideas. I need to gather data, have all the information, and then let that rest and mature before I come up with something. I often come up with interesting ideas in the morning while exercising after having let it rest overnight.

Adobe Life: On a perfect day off, what do you do?
Romain: In the morning I head to the local national park and challenge myself on my mountain bike. In the afternoon and evening, assuming I made it back in one piece, I spend time with my family playing with Lego, watching a movie and having a nice dinner with my wife and kid.

Adobe Life: What are your favorite quotes:
Romain: “You are the sum of your team”. This is from an Indian engineering manager who I met while on my travels there. By making my team as successful as possible, good things keep happening.