At Quixxi, we’re all about community. We’re a dedicated team of professionals, but we’re also a family of supportive peers. And like any family, we all have our different attributes, our peculiar quarks, and our individual ambitions.

As we continue to work towards our common goal, we’re eager to share our dreams and personalities with you. Join us every Tuesday for an in-depth Q&A with individual team members, and get to know the people behind the Quixxi name.

Today we’re talking to Marco Manera, Chief Operating Officer at Quixxi.

1.To start off, tell us about your responsibilities as COO of Quixxi?

A: In a nutshell, I oversee the operations of the company and I’m responsible for the efficiency of the business. As we have both employees and customers spread across the globe — Australia, India, U.S.A, Singapore and Europe — I’m a strong believer of the old saying “think global, act local”, so the main challenge of my role is to establish policies that promote the global company culture and vision, and at the same time facilitate their local implementation.

2. What does your daily routine look like at Quixxi?

Marco enjoys the great outdoors when he’s not at the Quixxi office.

A: As we are a global company, there’s something going on 24/7, so I like starting my day early by catching up on the latest news and clearing my inbox before I jump on my bike for a quick, early morning ride. Ideally, by the time I get to the office and get dragged into team and client meetings, I’m up to speed on all the latest news — both internal and external — and I’m able to prioritise my day proactively rather than reactively. Of course, that doesn’t always go according to plan, but I try to focus on the things that matter most for the business. I also try to support the team as best I can, to ensure we are all pulling in the same direction.

3. You were, from the very beginning, very enthusiastic about blockchain technology. How and when did you first become intrigued by this emerging technology?

A: Although I spent the bulk of my professional career in sales and marketing, my background is in computer science, and my passion in economics, both of which share attributes in logic and complexity. Needless to say, spearheading Quixxi’s efforts into the blockchain space was the perfect opportunity for me to focus on one of the fastest growing technological segments, while at the same time, allotted me the opportunity to work on a project that I’m truly passionate about.

4. In your opinion, what field of blockchain technology will be the most disruptive in the near future?

A: There’s such a long list of applications that are being revolutionised by blockchain technology, including tracking ownership of documents and other digital assets, digital identity, digital voting, and distributed cloud storage. Almost every day we run into use-cases that can leverage blockchain technology. At Quixxi, we are working hard to provide our developers with tools that will allow them to unleash the power of blockchain in their future applications. Realistically, the whole blockchain space is still in its very early days, and I’m sure that when we look back at these times a couple of years down the track, we’ll wonder how we missed some of the applications early on. I strongly belive that the best has yet to come, but for the time being, we see most requests coming from digital-asset-verification and financial services applications.

5. What makes the Quixxi project different than every other project in the blockchain market?

A: As the development of blockchain technology is still at a very early stage, the main issue that developers have to deal with is a shortage of skills. There’s massive demand from enterprise customers — especially in segments such as finance, insurance, and document management — to implement blockchain technology within their businesses; however, developers have limited time and resources to be able to satisfy such a huge demand. At Quixxi, we have already helped thousands of developers worldwide to assess, secure, control and enhance their apps by using our security and analytics modules, and we are about to do the same with our new blockchain services. Furthermore, the Quixxi ecosystem will use a newly developed cryptocurrency — the Quixxi Token — that will be used to incentivise developers to publish their blockchain modules on the Quixxi marketplace. We believe this approach is unique, and will be very well received by the broader developer’s community.

6. The overall functionality and progression of a company, in part, depends on professional improvements, as such, how do you encourage individual and team development at Quixxi?

A: Quixxi is part of the Lakeba Group, a startup factory that includes several business ventures operating across a broad range of disruptive new technologies such as AI and image recognition. All development is done internally using the Quixxi platform. I firmly believe the best incentive is to give team members opportunities for professional growth and exposure across several market segments and technologies. We have several team members that over time have been moving across ventures, as well as different geographies, so development opportunities are numerous across the entire company.

Marco is an avid hiker; he even hiked to the Everest base camp in Nepal.

7. The Quixxi Marketplace is expanding rapidly, as the comprehensive Quixxi solution continues to progress and encompass the latest and greatest assets for Developers. Considering this rapid growth, how do you continue to internally streamline and consolidate the Quixxi vision?

A: It’s definitely a challenge when the business is growing so fast and new people come onboard so quickly to ensure the vision and culture of the company remains consistent. We have a very flat management structure, and everyone in the company is encouranged to share and discuss ideas. We also use a series of tools that allow us to communicate and share success stories, which only reinforces our overall vision and strategy with everyone in the company.

8. Tell me about both a professional project that you consider to be the most significant in your career, as well as an accomplishment you achieved in your personal life.

A: Professionally, I’ve always enjoyed building international teams in fast-growing markets, very often from the ground-up. As a manager, I’ve always believed the real measure of success is not purely revenue or profit related — ultimately both are basic requirements for a successful business venture — but it’s how the people that you coached progress in their careers and ultimately take over from where you left. I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to hire and coach people that have been able to do just that in a very successful way.

Personally, I’m passionate about experiencing new cultures and ways of living, and this inspired me over the years to live and work in many different countries across the globe. Working in an always connected environment, from time-to-time, I like to disconnect from the world, quite often trekking in remote areas. Over the years, I’ve visited some amazing places around the world, most noteabley, Everest Base Camp in Nepal. This year, I’m planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa — which also happens to be the highest free-standing mountain in the world — with a group of friends. So if I don’t replay to emails for a while… you’ll know where I am!

9. A large component of your role at Quixxi requires detail-oriented focus and strategic planning. With that being said, how would you describe your style when addressing an issue or new project?

I really don’t like micro-managing people, and I think this is the reason why so many businesses underperform or even fail. I’d like to think I’m quite good at analysing and breaking down complex problems into achievable tasks. With that being said, my management style very much revolves around empowering the people in the organisation to take ownership on projects, working with them to achieve the overall goal. The key is to make sure the goal is clearly communicated and agreed upon by all stakeholders, then it’s easy to find the best way to get there together.

About Quixxi

Quixxi provides a security solution for app developers and is currently developing blockchain capabilities to add to it’s marketplace of services, via the Quixxi Token Distribution Event (TDE). Register to find out about pre-sale bonuses by joining the Quixxi newsletter. Stay in touch by following Quixxi on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Lastly, keep an eye out for updates on our TDE, and by joining our Telegram, Reddit, and BitcoinTalk community channels.

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