FEATURED EMPLOYEE
From Sales Goals to Real Impact: Eugene Wilkinson’s Path to a Fulfilling Career
Role |
Power Platform Technical Consultant |
Division: |
Business Applications |
Location: |
San Jose, CA |
Expertise: |
Design, Development with Microsoft Power Platform Applications |
Experience: |
5 years at SYSCOM |
Hobbies: |
Boardgames, Cycling with My Son |
This month’s spotlight features Eugene Wilkinson, a Silicon Valley-based DX Specialist whose journey from sales to solutions development reflects SYSCOM’s commitment to encouraging workers to make bold pivots and pursue fulfillment.
When Eugene Wilkinson talks about digital transformation, he doesn’t lead with jargon. He doesn’t start with architecture or roadmaps. He starts with people.
“Most of the clients I work with aren’t technical,” he says. “And honestly, I wasn’t either, at least not at first.”
Today, Eugene is a Power Platform Technical Consultant at SYSCOM, helping business users automate workflows, streamline processes, and build applications without writing code. But five years ago, he was in sales—chasing quotas, juggling pipelines, and wondering if there was something more fulfilling on the other side of the quarter.
“It wasn’t that I wanted to be an engineer,” he says. “I just didn’t want to be in sales anymore.”
From Sales to Solutions
Eugene’s career began in a completely different world: mobile gaming. After majoring in biology and moving to Silicon Valley, he took on a sales role at a VR gaming company, then later joined a business software firm that offered no-code app creation tools. It was there—between sales calls and the occasional sales engineering handoff—that he got his first taste of what it meant to build.
“When you’re in sales, everything is numbers,” he says. “You hit the goal, the goal gets higher. You don’t hit it, you’re falling behind. There wasn’t a lot of passion in that for me.”
What he wanted was to see the impact of his work. “Now every time I build something, I can actually see that it’s being used,” he says. “That never happened in sales.”
SYSCOM offered a way to make that shift. Eugene joined in 2020 as a consultant, working alongside clients to understand their business needs and recommend Microsoft solutions. As his technical skills grew, so did his responsibilities. He began designing systems, developing applications, and eventually leading webinars to help others do the same.
Building Trust with Visual Thinking
One of Eugene’s greatest strengths isn’t technical—it’s visual. When he’s meeting with clients for the first time, he doesn’t come armed with a canned demo or generic slide deck. Instead, he opens up a blank page and starts drawing.
“I try to sketch the flow live, as we’re talking,” he says. “Hearing their pain points, mapping out what the automation might look like—it helps everyone stay on the same page right from the beginning.”
That on-the-fly visual thinking helps build confidence. “It gives them a sense of reassurance,” he says. “Instead of waiting for a proposal or mockup, they’re already seeing the solution take shape in real time.”
For clients who are new to Power Automate or low-code tools, that clarity makes all the difference. “It’s hard to imagine how drag-and-drop automation works if you’ve never seen it,” he says. “But once they see it in action, even something simple, they get it. They realize, oh, this isn’t just technical. This is useful.”
Quick Wins That Scale
Eugene’s approach to transformation is rooted in simplicity. Before he suggests a full CRM rollout or multi-system integration, he looks for small pain points—tasks that are manual, repetitive, and easy to improve.
“Approvals are a great example,” he says. “We’ve helped clients move from email-based approvals to one-click flows. Instead of printing something, signing it, scanning it—it’s just a button press on your phone.”
One client, he recalls, had a back-office team manually transferring expense data every day. “Once we automated that, they saved ten hours a week,” he says. “Over a year, that’s more than 500 hours—and the automation only cost around $10,000 to build.”
Immediate, visible, and low-maintenance ROI like that is what hooks clients and keeps them coming back. And it’s what makes Eugene such a strong advocate for the citizen development model: giving non-technical employees the tools and training to build their own solutions.
I want businesspeople to understand they can be citizen developers too.
Eugene Wilkinson
Power Platform Technical Consultant
A Developer Shaped by Mentorship
Eugene didn’t make the leap to engineering on his own. From the beginning, he had support from his manager, Mina Tomoyose—a technical lead and mentor who helped guide his growth.
“When I joined SYSCOM, I had almost zero engineering experience,” he says. “Mina has over 20 years as a developer. She reviewed my code, answered my questions, and helped me level up.”
That mentorship shaped the way Eugene now teaches others. In webinars, he doesn’t just show what the Power Platform can do—he tells his own story, and reminds people that they don’t need a computer science degree to make an impact.
“I want businesspeople to understand they can be citizen developers too,” he says.
Outside of work, Eugene and his wife are raising two sons—a six-year-old and a two-month-old. Surrounded by young children, he enjoys lively days while maintaining a balance between work and family, making each day fulfilling.
Today, Eugene continues to lead webinars, build automations, and help clients turn daily pain points into scalable solutions. But he never forgets how he got here—or how many others are still standing where he once stood.
“I wasn’t technical. I didn’t know how to code. But I wanted to help solve real problems,” he says. “Now I get to do that—and help others see that they can too.”
All Employee
Spotlight Pages
FY2026-2028 SYSCOM Growth Agenda: Building sustainable value through consistent delivery
Executive Vice President Hiroshi Kubota outlines SYSCOM’s growth agenda for FY2026–2028. He shares his vision for a connected delivery model that bridges Microsoft modernization with the operational discipline clients depend on day to day, and what that shift means for every team across the company.
Employee Spotlight: Altan Ayur
Learning Beyond Limits: How Curiosity Drives Altan Ayur’s Career. “Every challenge is a chance to learn something new.”
Employee Spotlight: Duy Nguyen
Duy Nguyen’s Journey From Code to Client Impact: “SYSCOM believed in me before I believed in myself.”