The world’s largest gathering of vertical market software leaders offered a unique employee learning and development experience for top performers who are helping shape the future of Volaris Group
Grasping the size and scale of Volaris Group’s vast global network can be tricky, especially because our people work independently in businesses distributed around the world, often in hybrid or remote arrangements.
So it can be eye-opening to attend our largest employee conference, Quadrants, in person. From October 20-24, 2024, the event brought together 1,300 of our leaders in Cancún, Mexico for a week of networking, learning, and knowledge-sharing.
First-time attendee Calvin Lee, General Manager of Holocentric, spent nearly 20 hours on a plane to get to the conference. He recalls: “I was at Sydney airport when I realized that the significant number of people embarking on the same journey to Cancún were indeed my peers from various Volaris companies across Australia.”
Many Volaris leaders would have similar encounters in airports around the world. Eventually, each of their flight paths ended at Cancún International Airport, where they were shuttled to an all-inclusive resort and greeted by even more colleagues.
As more Volaris employees began to arrive, a palpable sense of excitement filled the air.
“We don’t get to see each other often, so this is an opportunity to meet everyone and network,” said Tobi Ojo, a Group Director of Finance at Volaris.
The evolution of Quadrants
In just a few years, Quadrants has grown to become the largest gathering of vertical market software leaders in the world.
In 2024, Volaris Group brought the event to North America for the first time. The theme was “Learning Through Connection,” a reference to the peer-to-peer mentorship and learning that is foundational to the company’s culture.
Quadrants has established itself as an event where leaders can network across functions and seniority levels. The collegial nature of the event helps facilitate new connections that can open doors to future career paths within the company.
The previous version of Quadrants was held in 2022 with 1,200 attendees, and that event was preceded by a smaller version held in 2019 with 600 attendees. Both times, the events were hosted in London. (Many people may not know that a pilot version of Quadrants was held in 2017. It began as a 50-person experiment as the brainchild of Volaris Executive Chairman Mark Miller.)
Did you miss Quadrants this time around? Here, we recap the event and look ahead at what it indicates for the evolution of Volaris Group in 2025 and beyond.
Keynote highlights inspiring career journeys
Executive Chairman Mark Miller kicked off the opening keynote by exclaiming, “Let the Volaris games begin!” As he stood near a Volaris-branded arcade machine, a video game animation began to play which highlighted several business leaders’ experiences at the company. The presentation showed that much like playing a video game, taking control of your professional development can lead to discovering more than one way to overcome obstacles, unlock new achievements, and map a path toward a successful outcome.
Portfolio Leader Jesper Ulsted was invited on stage to reflect on his decision to return to Volaris after briefly departing the company several years ago. He remembered: “While I was away from Volaris, what I was missing was being able to make decisions myself in a decentralized environment, setting stretch targets, but figuring out myself how to get there. That was an extremely inspiring environment for me that I missed, and that’s why I came back.”
Grab all the opportunities that you can along the way. I was in finance, but the endless possibilities that Volaris gave me meant that I could move into customer care and head up IT. I was able to, in a very comfortable environment, move around and get experience in different functions.
-Jesper Ulsted, Portfolio Leader, Volaris Group
Next, Portfolio COO Cristina Wheless shared her advice on how to lead within a high-growth organization like Volaris: “The key is learning how to become a force multiplier, because you can’t just keep doing more and more yourself. With that comes the responsibility of making time to develop your team.”
Other leaders who shared their experiences on stage included:
- Scott Winks, a Group Leader at Modaxo, who has thrived during a career in transit software that has seen him crisscross the globe.
- Becky Stout, a Group Manager who started her career with a technical background, but expanded her skillset during a long career with Volaris. She advised leaders to seek challenges and jump out of their comfort zones to gain new skills.
- Portfolio Manager Rob Turner shared his experiences being mentored to grow as a business leader, which led to him coaching other business leaders.
What this event does is help you walk away knowing new people that you can call up and talk to.
–Mark Miller, Executive Chairman, Volaris Group
Mike Dufton, who succeeded Mark Miller as CEO of Volaris Group in early 2024, joined the stage to talk about his first year in the new role. Upon taking the CEO job through an internal promotion, he dedicated his time to deeply listening to leaders across the organization. The time spent helped him take the pulse of the wider company and gather information about the current and future needs of the fast-growing company.
One of the needs he identified was the enthusiasm for learning among our leaders.
“I am passionate about continuing the journey of talent development,” he emphasized.
Finally, Modaxo CEO Bill Delaney joined the stage, sharing insights as the leader of a high-growth division that has grown inside Volaris Group. He talked about Modaxo’s focus on acquiring transit technology companies and its goal to influence the journey of a billion people through its software.
Breakouts: Bringing colleagues together to tackle common challenges
Participants spend a significant part of their time in small group breakout sessions at Quadrants. The unique discussion format limits many sessions to 15 participants, creating an intimate setting for honest conversations about business challenges.
Ahead of the conference, leaders were given opportunities to share their knowledge by proposing topics, volunteering to moderate group discussions, or leading discussions where they could share expertise.
The breakouts allow leaders to gain knowledge outside their comfort zones. For example, leaders who typically analyze legal documents could choose to attend a marketing discussion about social media. A finance leader could decide to learn more about human resources issues. By learning about different facets of a business, leaders are encouraged to be more well-rounded in their knowledge.
Quadrants offers a highly customizable experience through breakouts since participants can mix and match sessions in countless combinations. While there are too many session topics to list in full, here is a sampling of topics from 2024:
- AI in the Real World: A Case Study in Improving Customer Care
- How to Gather Effective Competitor Analysis
- How to Enter New Markets
- SaaS vs. Non-SaaS: Competing Strategies
- Using Customer Success Methodology in Technology: Driving User-Centric Solutions for Long-Term Success
- Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
- Product Packaging and Pricing
Showcasing talent at the AI Innovation Challenge
A spirit of friendly competition helps drive a high-performance culture at Volaris, and the AI Innovation Challenge was the perfect event to showcase this dynamic. The event challenged cross-functional teams to create innovative project proposals that harnessed the power of artificial intelligence.
The competition was set up two months before Quadrants, and it received over 100 enthusiastic submissions. The challenge tested each team’s abilities to research and develop a proposal, present a persuasive case of its merits, incorporate feedback from others, and potentially move forward with the next stage of their business idea.
Participants were given tokens to vote for their favorite project proposals. Teams vied to win cash prizes (US$100,000, $75,000, and $50,000 for the first, second, and third prize winners), in addition to recognition from peers and judges.
“We’ve got three different AI projects,” said David Weir, Project Director and Head of Sales at Delacon, whose team was very enthusiastic about the challenge. “We got everyone together, came up with different AI ideas, and then we did a bit of a competition where we singled it down to the three we submitted.”
The challenge required teams to explain their projects to peers, supported by posters on display. Many teams got creative with their presentations, with one team offering pins and another team using a Mona Lisa cut-out to demonstrate their idea.
The primary thing I’ve learned from this challenge is that the use cases for AI are limitless.
-Danna Coulter, Marketing Manager, Trapeze Workforce Management
The challenge highlighted the ability of our businesses to respond to a fast-changing environment where software companies can increasingly take advantage of artificial intelligence capabilities in ways that weren’t possible before.
“Creating a project proposal really opened up our eyes to not only AI and how we would interface with it, but also the different data sources we would get out of it,” shares Chris Brown, Director of ServicePlus Operations at SpecTec Cruise.
Teams had to wait for the closing party to learn whether they had won one of the top prizes. However, for many of them, participating in the challenge had already produced rewards for the business.
“We’ve had our idea for nearly two years now, and this AI challenge made us bring it to paper and start this project,” says Christoph Klett, Head of Software Development at Intellior, whose company was acquired by Volaris Group earlier in the year.
“That’s what’s very good about Volaris — this event pushed us to do it. We’ll definitely fulfill this project, whether we win the prize or not, because we really believe that our customers need it.”
Discussing diversity in leadership
The second day of the conference started with CEO Mike Dufton leading a panel about diversity in leadership.
“Diversity in leadership is so important to making informed, well-considered business decisions,” he said. “It’s really something that has been at the cornerstone of how Volaris operates and how Constellation Software operates.”
A global company like Volaris naturally brings different perspectives together, creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
“There are so many examples of how we embrace diverse thought in our organization, and there’s no better representation of diversity than this event itself,” he continued.
“At its core, that’s what is so important about diversity – ensuring that when we are making decisions, we have enough voices in the room that reflect different experiences to ensure that the best decisions occur.”
A panel of leaders shared their experiences of diversity and inclusion at work.
Jesse Murray, Global Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Volaris Group gave his definition of diversity in the workplace: “I think about human uniqueness in all its beauty – physical, neurological, cultural – and looking at the corporate perspective of diversity, it means adding strength to the workplace.”
Laurie Schultz, a board member of Constellation Software, talked about her past experience as the first female CEO in Canada to lead a company to a unicorn exit. Her former company, Galvanize, wanted its employee base to be more reflective of its customer base, so leadership set gender diversity goals to better represent the 42% of customers that were women.
As the General Manager of Cittati, a Brazil-based software provider for bus operators, Kleber Kikunaga shared his thoughts about diversity and the transit industry’s exposure to a wide range of people in Brazil. He said hiring employees with customer-facing, front-line experience helps software companies gain a better understanding of public transit users.
Sarah Taylor, Group Leader at Volaris shared after the event: “Some people may think I agreed to join the panel because I am a female CEO in tech, but the real reason is I have a nephew who is neurodiverse. Creating an inclusive school or workplace environment where individuals with unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds and experiences can flourish is fundamentally important.”
Nombali Mbambo, CFO of AdaptIT, talked about the unique context for workplace diversity in South Africa. Post-apartheid, the country introduced regulatory requirements to encourage full participation of the workforce.
After the panel discussion, the audience broke up into smaller breakout groups to discuss several topics raised during the panel. Feedback from the breakouts was submitted to help Volaris Group advance our work on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives within the company.
Portfolios take part in custom programming
The latter two days of the conference were dedicated to portfolios within Volaris. Each portfolio independently planned custom event programming according to their priorities. For example, the portfolio led by Tony DeSilvester ran a two-day sales challenge which saw them race toward an exhilarating presentation deadline on the final day of the conference.
Modaxo ran their own internal learning event called MOVE, which focused on the sharing of best practices in delivering technology and software to move the world’s people. And as part of the company’s mission to connect people with the places they want and need to go, Modaxo teams gathered on the beach to build bicycles that they donated to local children.
“Every child should have access to a bike,” said Trapeze South Africa’s Managing Director, Maretha Britz, while Modaxo’s CMO Kim Emmerson remarked, “We wanted to give back to the local community in a meaningful way.”
Unwinding at closing celebrations
All week long, the conference displayed the high-performance culture of Volaris. The closing party was a chance for participants to celebrate after a week of intensive learning.
The winners and finalists of the AI Innovation Challenge were announced and congratulated by Executive Chairman Mark Miller and CEO Mike Dufton.
Attendees had a final chance to connect with colleagues over food and drink, get collector’s edition Quadrants t-shirts, and unwind on the dance floor or around the campfire.
What Quadrants means for Volaris in 2025 and beyond
After an event like this ends, what are the lasting effects? Many leaders say that the positive impacts of the conference continue well after it is over. Quadrants can serve as a catalyst for action, but the challenge after leaving the event is to reflect on the lessons from each discussion, build on new working relationships, and apply insights to day-to-day operations.
For Volaris Group as a company, this event helps advance further thinking about how to serve our employee base as it continues to grow. Feedback from the diversity in leadership discussions will inform decisions we make in the future. Meanwhile, investing in leadership development remains a priority for CEO Mike Dufton, including at events such as Quadrants.
Above all, it is our people who continually make the company a success. Coming together at this event exhibits our collective strength when we work together.
Quoting one of our businesses, IndiCater, about feeling inspired to take on new challenges: “After all, two heads (or 1,300) are better than one.”
