Hugh Odonnell

About Hugh Odonnell

Results-driven Professional Services leader with 16+ years of progressive advancement at F5 Inc and 10 years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. I have a proven track record of building and scaling global teams, driving operational excellence, and delivering transformative outcomes for commercial and enterprise clients. My expertise includes strategic planning, service innovation, subcontracting, P&L management, and cross-functional collaboration. I have led the global deployment of Certinia PSA, standardizing global services delivery processes, metric tracking & analytics, engagement flow, revenue forecasting, and resource management to optimize delivery and margin. My work on customer satisfaction programs—first with Gainsight and now Qualtrics—has enabled actionable insights and continuous improvement in customer experience. While I incorporate emerging AI and automation into service delivery, my primary focus remains on driving customer success, operational efficiency, and team development. My Air Force career honed my ability to lead large, diverse teams, manage multimillion-dollar projects, and deliver mission-critical solutions under pressure. I thrive in dynamic, high-growth environments, leading organizational change and fostering cultures of continuous improvement and inclusion. We deliver successful customer engagements when we partner closely across Sales, Global Support, Product Engineering, and Customer Success to deliver measurable business impact. Professional Services is a people business and I am passionate about leading with empathy, mentoring leaders, building high-performing teams and having the highest employee engagement scores and NPS.Core Competencies:• Global Professional Services Leadership• SaaS & Enterprise Applications• Certinia PSA Deployment• Customer Satisfaction (Gainsight, Qualtrics)• Service Portfolio Management• Operational Excellence• P&L Management and Revenue Growth• Professional Services Revenue Forecasting• Strategic Planning and Execution• Change Management• Cross-Functional Collaboration• Team Building and Mentorship• Partner/Channel Enablement• Military Leadership and Project Management

Experience

1. Sr Director, Professional Services

   F5

   Oct 2022 — Present · Auburn, AL, US

   Lead a global Professional Services organization, overseeing delivery for multi-cloud application deployments across commercial and enterprise segments.• Developed and executed Professional Services strategy, mentored managers, and guided contract negotiations for SOWs, MSAs, and related agreements.• Led the global deployment of Certinia PSA, standardizing global service delivery processes, revenue forecasting, metric tracking & analytics, engagement flow, backlog execution, and resource management.• Sponsored major projects, escalations, and complex customer engagements.• Drove innovation in service delivery, process improvements, and technology enhancements.• Led field readiness program to continuously develop and improve consultant skills on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), SaaS implementations on F5 Distributed Cloud, Kubernetes, zero-trust, application security, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and identity management.• Led pre-sales professional services scoping to ensuring customer expectations were understood and development of quality proposals/SOWs.• Partnered cross-functionally with Sales, Technical Support, Product Engineering, and Customer Success to optimize service attach rates and customer adoption.• Migrated to Qualtrics survey platform to get actionable customer insights and ensure customer satisfaction above 9.4 out of 10.

Education

• United States Air Force Academy

  BS, Computer Science

  1993 — 1997

• U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology

  M.S., Computer Science

  1997 — 1999

Skills

• Eclipse
• Cisco Technologies
• Dns
• Integration
• Shell Scripting
• Html
• Contract Negotiation
• Customer Satisfaction
• Testing
• Cyber Security
• Web Development
• Application Delivery
• C++
• Mentoring
• Unix
• Network Design
• Java
• Cloud Computing
• Application Performance Management
• Storage
• Tcp/Ip
• Software Engineering
• Javascript
• Networking
• Security
• Enterprise Architecture
• Data Center
• Php
• Computer Security
• Cascading Style Sheets (Css)
• Network Security
• IT Management
• Load Balancing
• Agile Methodologies
• Network Operations
• High Availability
• Cisco
• F5 Bigip
• Web Applications
• Virtualization