At Pivotal’s new Atlanta office in Ponce City Market, we recently hosted over 200 top business leaders across the Southeastern U.S.—representing companies from Georgia to Florida to North Carolina.
We’re thrilled to officially open a software innovation hub in Atlanta, which is a testament to Atlanta’s fast-growing tech scene, as well as demand from many large enterprises that have embraced a software-led future—and seeking a strategic partner to help transform their organizations.
Me with Paul Gaffney of the Home Depot, Pivotal CEO Rob Mee, and Mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed
Our new office is an environment where startups and enterprise customers can learn our modern software development methodology, which shaped the software development culture of Silicon Valley's most valuable Internet companies, as well as use our next-generation cloud technology, which is quickly becoming the standard cloud-native platform for Fortune 100 companies, to empower their people and change the fortunes of their company for the better.
We view our Atlanta office as an opportunity to learn from industry leaders such as The Home Depot, Honeywell, Masonite International, etc—who encourage us to constantly iterate and innovate both our methodology and flagship Pivotal Cloud Foundry® software product to help solve their biggest challenges.
The official opening event for our Atlanta software innovation hub brought together local customers, as well as the Mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed, and CEO and President of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Hala Moddelmog, to talk about energizing the growing tech scene and driving impact within the community and beyond.
Opening remarks from Rob Mee, CEO at Pivotal, started by debunking the myth that Silicon Valley is the only place great at software. Rather, the methodology, techniques, and tools utilized by Google, Uber, or any venture-backed startup is transferable 2,400 miles away to Atlanta. In sum, he believes the world's largest companies that adopt a modern software development methodology and cloud platform, coupled with their decades of industry know-how, will have the opportunity to leapfrog today's competition and become the new class of disruptors.
Kasim Reed, Mayor of the City of Atlanta, stressed his leadership and advocacy for building up Atlanta as a destination for tech talent and tech companies.
Hala Moddelmog, CEO and President of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, is one of the most admired and respected leaders in the State of Georgia, and someone with over two decades serving as President and CEO at iconic organizations such as Arby’s Restaurant Group, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and Church’s Chicken. She talked about accelerating economic growth by creating the conditions to allow for the Greater Atlanta Area to become the preferred software development center for the eastern United States.
Paul Gaffney, Senior Vice President of Information Technology at The Home Depot.
Paul Gaffney, Senior Vice President of Information Technology at The Home Depot, a Silicon Valley veteran, spoke to the audience on how the iconic retailer is simultaneously running a healthy $181 billion dollar [market capitalization] business, while strategically investing in technology and software know-how to ensure they’re a leader in the digital era.
Bruce Calder, Vice President of Software at Honeywell, spoke to the audience about his mandate to bolster the $96 billion dollar [market capitalization] multi-national icon with modern software capabilities.
The new software innovation hub is located in Ponce City Market and brings the unique Pivotal culture, agile methods, and cloud technologies to the local market. We hope like-minded business leaders and technologists will think of our office as a base to learn, study, and implement a next-generation software development methodology. We also plan to hire software engineers, designers, and product managers from the strong pool of graduates at national and local top-tier universities—helping make Atlanta a destination for top tech talent.
This summer we’ll be hosting many events for the Atlanta tech community, and we hope to see you there.
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