 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. Okay, welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think 2021. John Furrier, your host of theCUBE, we're here with a great guest, Maria Wine-Ins who's the CMO of the new spinout, the name Kindral. Maria, great to see you, CUBE alumni, thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it. Yes, no, thank you, happy to be here. So I was really excited about this because the new name has been announced of the spinout, Kindral, it's the name, it's been some time. What's been the reception? Well, the strategy and the reception, we want to get into the brand, but what's been the reception so far of the name Kindral? Yeah, so let me start by saying that really again, excited to be here. This is Think 2021 and excited to kind of tell you a little bit about Kindral. Kindral, we announced it on April 12th, it was our reveal of the name, been long anticipated. So I think the response has been positive, it's been long anticipated and it was very well received by the market and by our own kind of internal employees that are part of Kindral. And the reason being that it's very different, it's very new and it also signals direction where this company is going and what this company is about because the underlining of the word Kindral is twofold. One is Kin, which stands for kinship. So it's about partnerships, it's about the relationships, it's about the enduring and nurture relationships that we have worked with our customers as well as our employees in the way that we work. And drill is from Kindral. Kindral is about growth, it's about new growth, it's about continuous growth. So it's the growth that we wanna set this company for but more importantly the growth around in conjunction with our customers. So kinship, Kindral, Kindral and at the heart of our company, it's all about the people and the relationships with our customers. Wow, that's awesome. Well, thanks for giving some insight into the name. I was going to ask that question, but you nailed it. So I like this because the theme here, I think this year, and this is an industry theme but it's really prominent in how you guys are executing with the whole IBM Red Hat and the whole system coming together with hybrid cloud is the word ecosystem has come this new meaning and this vibe of working together in a network effect, creating integrations. So it's like up and down the stack, whether it's technical or personal relationships or business relationships, there's a communal effect here, whether it's APIs integrating together or relationships. So I love the name. What was the process? I'm always curious, like how long does it take? I'm sure it's like. Yeah, no, no, no, it's a great question. It's because it's not like naming anything, right? It's not like naming your dog like somebody says. It's the corporate naming process is very rigorous. It has been a journey for us, like any other corporate business that's naming their strategy, their brand strategy. And we worked with, as you can imagine, with our legal teams, with our regulatory teams. We looked at linguistics. We worked with linguistic experts from around the world over 70 because we were a global company. So it was very important for us not only to understand how Kindrel would land in our global markets, but more importantly also is what it would stand for. And so we did a lot of interviews with our employees. We did interviews with, obviously, with our customers and prospects. We looked at trends. We looked at our competitors. We did market research. And within that, we wanted to land on something that really was at the heart of what this company was about. And after all of those kind of legalities that we went to, it was, we were very, very fortunate that at the top of our list was actually one of our favorites from the beginning. And that was Kindrel because at the heart of Kindrel, it really is about our people. And that's really what we wanted that this company to stand for. This is a business that in a company that at its foothold is 90,000 experts in their field. They're gonna be part of this amazing company. And what we wanted to do is speak to, what was at the kind of at the core of the idea behind this brand? What did we wanna stand for? And what were we gonna be? And that it was that we were gonna be a brand that stood at the heart of progress. That's our brand idea for not only the businesses that we are part of or with, but at the heart of progress and at the core was our people and the work that we do. The work that we do for our customers. So it's super exciting to be able to land on something that really can represent that and also differentiates us from the rest of our competitors in the market. So I love the overview. Just real quick question on the language thing. Was it, does it mean the same thing in different languages? Yeah, and that's something that now is what we're working on is how do we land it into all the different markets in the appropriate meeting? Again, that stands for relationships and growth. Relationships and growth. And that's the work that we have to do across all of our major markets where we do business. And that's the exciting part to kind of work with our local teams because this company at its foothold is what the work that we do in the markets that we compete with our people and with our customers. You know, I got to ask you, you know, what I remember, I look at some of the branding exercises I've been involved in and talk to experts because I'm not a brand expert, but I see a lot of like, there's a lot of work that goes into it. You mentioned a little bit of insight into how that is there. Is there like an architecture for the brand strategy? Because you, at a high level, I love you bringing in kind of the purpose of the brand. What's the brand strategy for Kendral? You mentioned some of the core principles, first principles. Is there like an architecture? Here's the purpose, here's our mission, and here's like the founding principles. Take us through the brand strategy of Kendral. Yeah, you know, and at the heart, there is a brand idea, right? It's a little bit of what I talked about. The brand idea is that we are at the heart of progress, the people and the work that we do. And so one of the things that we wanted to do was really look at the art and the science, bring humanity into the way that we were gonna activate this brand. And that really is where our brand idea came about, which is at the heart of progress. At the heart of progress, because our purpose as a brand is that together, and that is at all levels, together each of us advances the vital systems that power human progress. Together, each of us advance the vital systems that power human progress. That is our purpose as a company. And the idea, the brand idea is that at a nutshell, we're at the heart of progress for our customers for each other. In underlining that, it's about the beliefs. We wanna really look at how do we instill this healthy digital economy to ensure that we accelerate humanity's progress. And so that's the whole idea of healthy relationships, purposeful relationships that are about long term and sustainability with our customers. The openness that we wanna encourage in the diverse perspectives across our company to promote stronger partnerships with our customers and with our strategic partners. And then more importantly, it really had to represent the belief that the right people, the right teams with the right mindset can do anything that they want, that anything can be accomplished. Again, at the heart where the people. But what was also important in this is that we worked on our brand strategy and our purpose, our brand ideas and what we're gonna be our beliefs around enduring relationships, open partnerships, right skills, right people. But at the same time, there was a culture of platform. We wanted to be everything that we have been at IBM brought the greatness of being part of the IBM company. More importantly, what our customers look to us for. But then more importantly, what is it that we want to lean into as we move forward? And what was very important was how do we activate our experts and really bring the continuum that what our customers expect from us, the expertise that we're about with our people and lean into this, we wanna have and activate a culture where our people continue to be these devoted experts that are all about how they're focused and committed to shared success with our customers. We're empathetic and curious about really understanding where our customers are today and where they wanna go tomorrow. We're restless. And that's another word that we wanna really activate in our culture which we're restless. That means we are continuously improving ourselves, our skills and focused on the opportunity and every opportunity with bringing energy and bringing excitement to the work that we do. And then we're anticipating, we're anticipating the what next, bringing insights and looking at making these kind of connections outside of where our customers may be today, opportunities for tomorrow. And that really is at the heart of our cultural platform that we developed in conjunction with our brand strategy in support of continuing to do business with our customers in the way that we have been and what they expect from us. Coming from IBM but the platform that we're setting forward. That's a great masterclass. Jim you dropped there in terms of brand architecture and vision, great culture. I love the progress because it feels like we, that's what people want. They want to move faster and they want a positive future. And I think this idea of open innovation, progress, inclusiveness, inclusion, diversity, community it's the new way of working. What do you look for in the future as this all comes together? What's most exciting to you about the future? Yeah, what's most exciting is that this company is about the service and our people. So as part of a new independent company at the heart of what we do is in really our offering are the people. And that's why it's super important that here we are a company that is at the heart of progress because of the people and the work that we do. We design, we run, we manage the most modern, efficient and reliable technology that our customers expect from us. And they run crucial, crucial parts of their organizations, their business. We're the hearts and lungs, we're essential to these customers. And that's the opportunity ahead is how do we continue to build those enduring relationships and more importantly what excites me as CMO for this brand is that the heart of what I get to do is really our brand is our people. And how do we best show up every single day? And how do we build a culture? Because building a culture is how you show up for each other, how you show up for your customers and how do you continuously improve and lean on each other in the way that we kind of have set ourselves forward. So that to me is exciting to really work at the heart of progress because of the people and then the work that we do for our customers. That's super exciting. I love that cultural vibe because what that is is that's the future. And now as people are connected, whether they're go back to hybrid office or remote, the working together progress creates bonds of creation. This co-creation, something that we love here at theCUBE. We love working with you guys, co-creating content together. These experiences of the creation together, the solutions for the future, really makes a big difference. This is game-changing as a psychology and also people want to be part of that. And that creates these expert network. It creates the people value, the inclusiveness. If you can thread that needle, it's a magical formula. Don't you agree? No, totally agree and it creates belief. And as much as I would like to say, we're super excited about the name. We're super excited about the way we're showing up. I don't know if you've seen even the brand creative. Your very different colors, very different twists on the way that our brand's written in a very warm red. That what's exciting about it is, the best of companies are not just the brand and the logo. It's really the brand experience. And that is the way that we need to show up with our best of service, with the customer interactions that are best in class and a culture platform that really provides that experience and shows up as a company that Kindrell has the opportunity to be and grow to be. Maria Wyden, CMO, Kindrell, great to talk to you. What a great career you've having. What a run. You're on a great wave here with a great brand, great brand promise. Love the progress, love the culture, love the name. Congratulations, thanks for coming on theCUBE. No, thank you. And thank you for having me here. Appreciate it. Okay, this is IBM Think 2021 Cube Coverage. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching.