Mission, a CDW Company

The smartest AI strategy? Get out of your team's way. 🎙️ In a recent episode of The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast with Steve Taplin, Mission CTO Jonathan LaCour makes the case for a different approach to AI adoption: stop mandating from the top down and start trusting your people to figure it out. Catch the full conversation: https://hubs.ly/Q049tWj80

Behind the screens at Mission! 👀 Our "Day in the Life" series continues with Holly Howell, Sr. Recruiter, working from Florida. 🏋️ What’s your morning ritual before diving into work? I love to move before starting my day or later on in the morning/early afternoon. Whether it’s weight lifting, a walk, or a HIIT class, getting a workout in early or mid-morning helps me feel energized and focused. I’m pretty competitive in the gym too—I’m always chasing a new PR or pushing myself to lift heavier. It’s become a big part of my routine and mindset; starting the day with a challenge helps me show up more motivated and ready to tackle whatever the day brings. 🤝 How would you describe what you do at Mission in three sentences or less? I help connect great people with great opportunities at Mission. I partner with hiring managers to understand what their teams need, find top talent, and make sure candidates have an amazing experience throughout the process. My goal is to help build teams that set Mission up for long-term success while creating a positive and thoughtful hiring journey for every candidate we meet. 🚀 Favorite memory or project at Mission Cloud, and why? One of my favorite experiences has been working directly with our SLT on leadership searches, including the Practice VP of Sales and Practice VP of Channels roles. It was incredibly rewarding to earn their trust, build strong relationships, and contribute to such impactful hires. Being involved in those searches gave me the opportunity to think more strategically, partner closely with leadership, and see firsthand how the right hire can influence the direction of a team. Those experiences really helped me uplevel my skills and grow professionally. 🤩 What’s your favorite thing you get to do each day at work? Delivering an offer....hands down!! There’s nothing better than finding the perfect fit for a role and getting to make that call to share the good news. It’s one of the most exciting and rewarding moments in recruiting because it represents all the work that went into finding the right match. 💪 If you weren’t a recruiter, what would you do? Something in sports for sure. Maybe sports broadcasting or sports analytics. Sports have always been my escape and something I’m really passionate about. I love the strategy, the competition, and the stories behind teams and athletes, so getting to work in that world would be amazing. 🙏 Best career advice you’ve received The best career advice I’ve received is to focus on building genuine relationships and trust. When you lead with authenticity and invest in people, everything else tends to follow. Recruiting especially is built on relationships, so taking the time to really understand people and support them goes a long way in creating meaningful connections and long-term success.

Fewer will. 🔥 The instinct when something breaks is to patch it. Another integration. Another vendor. Another contract. But fragmented contact centers don't fail loudly, they bleed slowly through budget waste, poor CX, and teams that can't move fast. On April 16, we're making the case for consolidation — and backing it with real TCO data. Join us: 👉 https://hubs.ly/Q048F4d_0

Your contact center has too many cooks — and too many tools. 🔧 Routing platforms. Video tools. CRMs. Custom integrations. All disconnected. Fragmented environments don't just slow teams down — they quietly drain budgets and stall innovation. Join us April 16 to see what contact center consolidation on Amazon Connect actually looks like, and the business case behind it. 👉 Save your spot: https://hubs.ly/Q048F6Qp0

Proof that the Mission crew works hard and plays hard 📸 Team lunch and Kraken vs. Lightning game. Not a bad way to spend the week.

Denver friends -- this one's for you! Join us on March 26th at Wynkoop for a beer tasting & buffet where you'll meet: 🔐 Henry Williams, Cloud Security Specialist, CrowdStrike – bringing real-world insight from cloud-native incidents. ⚙️ Jason Gay, Sr. Manager Cloud Operations, Mission – sharing how to align cloud operations with risk, governance, and scalable growth. 📍 Wynkoop Brewing Company, Denver 📅 Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 4:00–6:30pm MDT 👉 Register today: https://hubs.ly/Q046YYxj0 👉 Connect with Mission’s AWS experts: https://hubs.ly/Q046Z1q00

Is your contact center a patchwork of disconnected tools driving up costs and slowing down innovation? On April 16th, join Joel Suarez, Principal Field Solution Architect of Mission Cloud for a live webinar where we break down real-world TCO wins from two companies that consolidated four legacy systems into a single Amazon Connect platform — and what that actually looked like in practice. You'll walk away with concrete metrics, modernization patterns, and outcome-based storytelling you can bring straight to your leadership team. 📅 April 16, 2026 | 1:00 PM PT / 4:00 PM ET 🔗 Register now: https://hubs.ly/Q047pjVd0

It's time to meet the people who power Mission. 🧑💻 For the second takeover in our "Day in the Life" series, we're heading to Chicago to meet Ryan Schilter, Technical Account Manager. 🚶♂️➡️ What’s your morning ritual before diving into work? I start every day with a long walk! Getting outside, soaking up a little sunshine, and wandering along the lakefront path in Chicago always starts my day out on an upbeat note. I always pair my walk with one of my favorite podcasts (Smartless or Good Hang) or a fun playlist and an iced coffee! After that, I make sure to do the NYTimes Wordle before diving into work. 🤝 How would you describe what you do at Mission?  As a Technical Account Manager, my role is to guide our partners throughout their AWS journey by consulting on best practices and identifying AWS and Mission solutions that best fit our customers' needs. I also continuously review and recommend next steps to modernize their AWS environments, improving security, reliability, fault tolerance, and cost efficiency. 🕺 Favorite memory or project at Mission Cloud, and why? My favorite memory at Mission is attending any in-person event, especially our annual IGNITE party at AWS re:Invent! It is an incredible opportunity to connect in person with colleagues and customers that are spread across the country, learn about new innovations and offerings at AWS, and of course, go to the best party at re:Invent!   🧠 What’s your favorite thing you get to do each day at work? My favorite thing I get to do each day at work is learn from my colleagues! Every single person at Mission & CDW is a wealth of knowledge, with a shared goal of best supporting our clients and helping them maximize their return on their AWS investment. Continuously learning and subsequently watching a client’s roadblocks and problems disappear through our expertise and guidance is truly rewarding. 🍦 If you weren’t a Technical Account Manager, what would you do? I would own a little store in Cape Cod that is an ice cream shop by day and a wine bar by night! And I’d definitely offer free scoops and free pours to anyone who brings their dog along. 🚀 What’s the best career advice you've received? The best career advice I’ve received came from one of my leaders at Mission - embrace change and practice being uncomfortable. Change is inevitable and presents the best opportunities to grow, challenge oneself, innovate, and mold it into something remarkable. 

Can your Amazon Web Services (AWS) security architecture keep pace with both attackers and auditors? Join Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike in Denver to explore security patterns that work in production—including controls for PCI, HIPAA, and SOC 2—and how to operationalize them with continuous monitoring, threat hunting, and incident response. Hear from experts who live this every day and see how to align cloud operations with risk, governance, and business outcomes. 📍 Wynkoop Brewing Company, Denver 📅 Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 4:00–6:30pm MDT 👉 Register now: https://hubs.ly/Q046YGMm0 👉 Talk to our team about your AWS environment: https://hubs.ly/Q046YGS20

It's our favorite day of the week, Photo Dump Friday! 📸 We had a busy week. A 7k, CxO Builder Day in Staten Island, and Dr. Ryan Ries representing on the course at the Anthropic golf event. Good people, even better week. 🙌