by Kenzie Lee
July 15, 2020
We had the honour of interviewing Nashir Uddin, the CTO and Co-Founder of Cattle Dog Digital. In this post, we dive into Nas’s background, passions, and the founding story of Cattle Dog Digital.
Background
Nashir Uddin grew up in Bangladesh. As a young man, his father pushed him to pursue business administration. Though in 1994, Nas found his passion for computers after his uncle taught him programming language over a holiday break. He broke the news to his parents, and they were not happy. “I felt a passion about it,” Nas reflected in the interview. Nas then moved to India to pursue a degree in computer science. At university, Nas found studying to come naturally because his uncle had mentored him in computers, so he always enjoyed studying and learning. From the beginning, Nas knew that he had a passion for computers. “I didn’t listen to what people said. I listened to what I wanted to be.”
– Nashir Uddin, CTO & Co-Founder, Cattle Dog Digital
After finishing his degree, Nas moved back to Bangladesh and started MEDIMET Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The company function was to set up new inventory management systems for businesses and build unique software to help increase efficiencies. The software they built completely changed how their client’s businesses operated, moving from manual work that took two to three people working for two to four days to a task that now took 30 minutes on the computer. At his first company, Nas recognised the drastic changes that the software solutions were making for the business they helped, “I didn’t realise the impact was so big… you can help the people and also grow the company quicker.” Nas enjoyed seeing his work transform businesses.
Big Moves
In 2008, Nas moved to Australia and started working part-time at Quattro Innovation. After three months, Nas was asked to join full-time as the first employee, working as a consultant and then senior consultant. In 2013, Quattro Innovation was acquired by Deloitte and Nas moved on to join Deloitte. During his time at Deloitte, Nas shared, “It was fun, but one thing I missed being at a small company was the bonding.” After two years, Nas moved on to Accenture as a technical architect, where he enjoyed client-side experiences and projects. Next, Nas decided to join the Commonwealth Bank, where he ran multiple Salesforce instances across the bank.
Nashir Uddin and Luke Orell, Cattle Dog Digital’s Managing Director and Co-Founder, met at Quattro Innovation and kept in touch over the years. Luke reached out to Nas and asked him to be a part of the founding team at Cattle Dog Digital and Nas started running the technical side of the business. Luke and Nas then brought on Sarah ‘Sharky’ Harkness to run the sales and marketing side of the business and Cattle Dog Digital had its core founding team.
Forming Cattle Dog Digital
As Nas, Luke and Sharky began forming the company values, vision and vibe (V3MOM). Nas had two core fundamentals he wanted Cattle Dog Digital to pursue and stick to:
Family values are important to Nas, so he wanted this principle to be reflected in Cattle Dog Digital’s culture and business philosophy. Cattle Dog Digital’s ‘Ohana’ culture encourages the team to come together as a family and also balance their work to make time for their own families at home. Nas’s family is very important to him. Just as Nas is driven to help his son and daughter to grow, learn and be successful in life, he also wants the same for his work family.
At the larger companies Nas worked at in the past, he noticed a disconnect between the project team and the clients. Nas had a different vision for Cattle Dog Digital. “I didn’t want to do that. I wanted the company to have a long-term relationship with the client where we help the client end-to-end and help them grow and improve their process.” Rather than just running a project, offboarding quickly, and moving on to the next, Nas envisioned Cattle Dog Digital to be that loyal companion that stays with companies for the life of their digital transformation journey to help with continuous improvement and growth.
– Nashir Uddin, CTO & Co-Founder, Cattle Dog Digital
Continuous Learning
For Nas, work comes naturally because he is following his passion. He loves development, technical projects and challenges. His passion for tech drives Nas to continuous learning and training to advance his skill set. Nas has pursued many certifications throughout his career. Nas was among the first few people who held the Salesforce Developer II Certification in Australia. “When I joined Deloitte, they didn’t believe it,” Nas shared. Though Nas has many certifications, he believes it is important to consider someone’s skills beyond the certifications.
Nas’s certifications include Microsoft, Oracle (OCA), Associate MuleSoft Developer, Salesforce Admin, Salesforce Developer, Salesforce Advanced Developer, Salesforce Sales Cloud Consultant, Salesforce Platform Developer I, Salesforce Platform Developer II, Salesforce Service Cloud Consultant, Salesforce Integration Architecture Designer, Salesforce Development Deployment and Lifecycle Developer, Salesforce Data and Architecture Management Designer.
Nas is planning on completing more Salesforce certifications in the future. He enjoys accelerating his knowledge by continuing to train, learn and work on new technical challenges.
Passion for Pedigree Projects
In working with clients at Cattle Dog Digital, Nas enjoys large-scale, challenging projects. Some of his favourites include SNA, CSG, and JB Hi-Fi.
Nas shared that SNA was one of the most difficult and fun projects that he worked on. Working with CSG was another fun and rewarding project. Because they had many big issues, Nas was able to lead the CSG team through a tremendous transformation journey. At the end of the project, Nas and the team he trained presented the efficiency improvement outcomes to the upper management team, receiving glowing feedback. Nas enjoyed the challenge of helping JB Hi-Fi transform its processes as well. They had many sets of issues and Nas was able to make huge improvements across different areas.
Nas experiences a particular joy when he can help nonprofit organisations through his work. He feels like he is supporting the cause and making an impact for good. He likes using his skills to help others grow and enjoys seeing something being completely transformed for the better.
Humble Leader
Overall, Nas likes watching over the technical architecture side of the client accounts and enjoys building trust and growing relationships with different businesses. For Nas, it is exciting to see big transformation journeys come to life and notice the positive changes these projects make for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Today, Nas is very happy with Cattle Dog Digital’s work, growth, and team. He is grateful for the work-life balance he can have all while pursuing his passion for technology. RevOps Director and Co-Founder, Sarah Harkness expressed, “Nas is unreal. Cattle Dog Digital wouldn’t exist without him. We go to him to make sure we are living to the values. He holds us accountable for that.” Luke Orell, Cattle Dog Digital’s Managing Director and Co-Founder shared, “Nas can be my wingman anytime, but at the end of the day, I’m really Nas’ wingman. He’s Maverick and I’m Goose.” It is clear that having a leader like Nas that is humble, brilliant, authentic, passionate, and family-focused has shaped Cattle Dog Digital into the great company it is today, tomorrow and into the future.
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