Bryant Bonner is turning his curiosity into career momentum after becoming the leader of a Volaris-owned business
Bryant Bonner’s lifelong love for learning was instilled in him at an early age.
Today, he draws inspiration from his colleagues and from educators in his family, including his wife, a dyslexia therapist in Texas.
But when he thinks back on how his passion for learning and education began in his early years, he says, “My parents’ love for education is what drove me.”
“My mom was an educator for her entire life—a teacher for more than 30 years and then a high school counselor for another 15 years,” he shares. Meanwhile, his father was the first in his family to pursue higher education and was a teacher before entering the real estate industry.
Bonner’s interest in education and learning remained so strong in adulthood that he even considered going into the education field himself—pursuing a PhD in education in the midst of an established career. But after finishing his dissertation and doing some soul-searching, he eventually found his way back to the technology world.
Now in a leadership role as the CEO of Four Js, a global company that provides a low-code development platform that sits within the Volaris Group umbrella of companies, he has found a way to combine his passion for learning, mentorship, and teaching with leading a team and continuing his interest in empowering people with technology. Bonner spoke to Acquired Knowledge about his career path, learning as a leader, and what’s next for Four Js.
What was your background in your early career, especially in the private sector?
In the early ‘90s, I got my undergraduate degree in management information systems (MIS) and accounting. My father could see that IT was going to take off and suggested I should get into the field.
When I graduated, Ernst and Young was recruiting students with a business function skill set, like accounting, along with process reengineering and systems implementation expertise. I became a SAP financial accounting consultant for a few years in the U.S. until an opportunity came up to establish a new SAP practice in Australia and New Zealand. My wife and I took on the adventure and moved there for just over three years.
When we came back to the United States, I went back to school, obtaining an MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. I then worked for a variety of companies, including Blue Fish Development Group, SAP, and Salesforce.
You took a chance to try something different during your career. What did you learn from that?
At one point, I quit my job in the private sector and became the Chief Information Officer of a college because I thought maybe I wanted to be a teacher. At the same time, I embarked on obtaining a PhD, and my dissertation was about how we could leverage cloud-based software in the education industry to better support students with disabilities needing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). But I quickly realized over the next couple of years that the public sector is different from the private sector in terms of attracting resources, budgets, and speed. I got frustrated, frankly.
I learned a lot about critical pedagogy, curriculum and instruction, but what I wanted to do was take my background and do something where I could leverage my knowledge of software and management consulting to make a difference for people.
How did you eventually arrive at Four Js and Volaris?
After my PhD, I returned to the private sector and joined Salesforce, where I led a team of business value practitioners who helped with deal execution for companies like Google and Microsoft. But as I approached my seventh year there, I began to feel pigeonholed in a role that wasn’t going to grow.
That’s when I got a call from a recruiter who saw my varied background and said they were looking for a COO for a global company. We had a conversation about it, and the rest is history. Bryn Jenkins, who was the CEO of Four Js then, hired me as his COO in May 2023.
A mentor of mine told me this adage: ‘Better, better, never best.’ What that means is you’re constantly striving to get better and better, and you never reach the peak.
Have you found mentors in the Volaris network?
Bryn Jenkins, the former CEO of Four Js, has now become a Group Leader at Volaris, leading the Developer Platforms Group. He is a great mentor to me. When he hired me, he had a succession plan in place for Four Js. Bryn has coached me the entire time I’ve been here. I’ve learned so much from him and our Portfolio Leader, Jesper Ulsted.
As a leader, I feel safe. In a leadership position, you know you are going to make mistakes sometimes, and you have to learn from those mistakes quickly, but I have the space to do that. Bryn and Jesper have given me great patience along the way, but great opportunity too.
I love the fact that there are people I can go to who have been in my shoes before, and that I can easily talk to and learn from them. To me, that’s what makes the Volaris community so great.
What is your advice for mentoring and coaching colleagues?
When I did my dissertation, I did a lot of work around St. Augustine, and he had a lot of ideas around how to be a great teacher and create a personalized and engaging learning environment.
He believed you have to meet the student where they are and how they learn by tailoring your communication. So, you cannot teach one way to all 30 students in a classroom. You’ve got to engage each student individually in the way that they learn. And you also have to have a learning environment that is an amazing experience. I think about that when I’m working with my team.
As a leader, I feel safe. In a leadership position, you know you are going to make mistakes sometimes, and you have to learn from those mistakes quickly, but I have the space to do that.
Now that you have been at Volaris since 2023, can you see yourself building a career here?
If you look at my background, I’ve spent time with some pretty big brands and companies that pride themselves on providing career paths for their employees. But with the business model we have at Constellation Software and Volaris Group, I feel like I have a higher ceiling from a career path perspective here than I ever would have had at those other companies.
With the Volaris model, as your company and portfolio grow, you grow with them. What comes along with that growth is a lot of learning. I’ve learned more since May 2023 about how to run a successful software company and why reaching for certain metrics and targets is important compared to my previous 20+ years at some pretty large software organizations including SAP and Salesforce.
What is next for Four Js?
Four Js was founded back in 1992, and when the company was acquired by Volaris, Bryn and other executives started to look at the company with a new perspective using the Volaris model. Bryn started to work with some of our customers on long-term revenue share agreements. Those decisions have given us the foundation to do what will help grow the company going forward.
Our professional services business is growing tremendously, but a challenge we are working on is finding what’s next in software license sales. We’re looking at how we can integrate AI into our tools so that we can help our independent software vendor (ISV) clients progress further and faster.
What advice would you give to other people looking to cultivate a love of learning?
A mentor of mine told me this adage: “Better, better, never best.” What that means is you’re constantly striving to get better and better, and you never reach the peak.
We’re constantly being refined through our experiences, and it takes a person with a humble heart to say that we can always be better—whether it’s being better in my faith or being a better father, husband, or friend.
In the business world, it’s the same. We’re always trying to provide better customer support and service, and create better products and experiences. Closed-mindedness is what hurts us as people, because we should always be learning and growing.
