30 at 30: James Christmas

Executive MBA – Strategic Leadership Class of 2006

Vice President – Customer Success, Global Services Support and Deployment at Dell EMC

After graduating from high school, James Christmas joined the U.S. Air Force. Serving in the military opened funding doors for college, but it also presented a challenge: Christmas found himself frequently transferring from school to school as he moved for his military duties.

“I joined the service to get funding for school,” Christmas said. “And I transferred schools constantly because I had many different duty stations during my Air Force career.”

Nevertheless, through every move he balanced work and school, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration. As he considered what would come next after completing his military career, Christmas set his sights on a position at Dell Technologies.

“Dell was always in the paper,” he said. “The company was growing, and they were going after IBM. It was sort of a ‘David and Goliath’ type of story, and the more I read about Michael Dell and his vision for what he wanted to accomplish in the industry, the more I wanted to work for Dell.”

Starting an EMBA Journey

Upon making his career transition to the private sector, Christmas accepted a senior operations manager role at Dell. About four years later, he earned a promotion that took him to Dell’s factory in Middle Tennessee. There, his supervisor recognized his drive to grow and encouraged him to consider graduate school.

At first, Christmas was overwhelmed by the idea of adding graduate school to his growing list of responsibilities. As a director at Dell’s Lebanon manufacturing facility, Christmas worked a night shift, while his wife worked a day shift. Also, the couple were busy raising their children.

“I was responsible for the second shift of manufacturing at the Lebanon facility,” Christmas said. “I was married with four children and honestly didn’t have grad school on my mind. But my boss felt it was something that would help me accelerate my career and continue my journey at Dell.”

After several conversations, and with encouragement from his family and colleagues, Christmas began exploring MBA options.

From Neighbors to Classmates

In researching graduate school programs, Christmas – now a seasoned leader in the technology industry – encountered another challenge. He was three credits shy of his bachelor’s degree. After reaching out to a few regional schools, he ultimately connected with the Haslam College of Business’ Graduate and Executive Education team. They offered Christmas the opportunity to finish his remaining undergraduate credits in time to join the upcoming Executive MBA (EMBA) cohort. (This is now the Executive MBA – Strategic Leadership [EMBA-SL] program.)

“My experience at UT was such a warm, family-type of atmosphere,” Christmas said. “I felt like the education would be for the entire person, as opposed to just an academic approach. So, the decision to come to UT was quite easy.”

Laughing, Christmas shared that when he told his neighbor and long-time friend Darel Callis about his plans to join the EMBA cohort, Callis decided to throw his hat in the ring, too. The friends completed their applications together in Christmas’s backyard.

“We carpooled from Nashville, and we’re still friends to this day,” said Christmas.

Making Classroom Connections

Christmas recalled that, on his first day as an EMBA student, he felt daunted by the program’s academic rigor. But over the course of the year, working with his classmates, he gained confidence in his academic abilities and found opportunities to share his operational expertise.

“Professionally, I felt like my skillset matched from a scope and responsibility standpoint, but academically, I was intimidated at first,” he said. “I had just finished my bachelor’s degree weeks before. But as we went through the year, we discovered we all had a part to play, and we all added value to our projects. I became a lot more comfortable.”

Throughout his EMBA experience, Christmas valued his fellow students’ perspectives and experiences. Having classmates from across different industries and functions was an asset, as Christmas learned new ways to grow as a leader and brought inspiration from the classroom back to his work at Dell.

“Getting to sit with all of those other executives, you’re able to draw from their experience and how they present things.” Christmas said. “It was great learning from a leadership perspective, because it was a lesson in leadership from everyone we got to work with.”

Real-World Lessons From Faculty

In addition to learning alongside his fellow students, Christmas enjoyed the experience of working with faculty. The EMBA offered a special experience, as the cohort not only spent time in the classroom with their professors, but also connected with them informally during the residence periods. This mix of formal learning and casual contact was equally valuable to Christmas, revealing insights about his professors’ experience in industry.

“One of the unique things about the program is that, because we were in class for several days in a row, we often had lunch and dinner with the faculty,” Christmas said. “It was a great experience to get not only the academic component, but also the time to learn about their professional experiences. Most of the faculty had worked in the public sector before teaching, and there were some really interesting things to garner from those relationships.”

For the same reason, Christmas found that his professors were interested in his executive experience. After graduation, he even hosted UT faculty for factory tours at Dell.

“After I finished school, there were a couple of professors who came to Dell for factory tours, to see how we managed supply chain and what the manufacturing process was like,” Christmas said. “I really enjoyed that part of the education.”

Learning to “Fail Fast”

One of the core principles that Christmas practiced during the Executive MBA program, which he has carried through each role at Dell, is seeing new experiences – and even failures – as learning opportunities.

As an EMBA student, Christmas found that often, the classes that were hardest for him also served him the most, because they helped to fill knowledge gaps. This spurred him to make lifelong learning and “failing fast” tenets of his career philosophy.

“You don’t learn everything and then get promoted, that’s not how it works.” Christmas said, smiling. “You have to be on your toes and be willing to humble yourself as you continue to learn in order to be successful in the role that you’re in. I always tell people that there’s a lot of humility in executive roles.”

Christmas shared a story from his early career of being promoted to oversee global contact centers. This was his first experience managing multiple facilities, and to connect with his employees, he sent each of his direct reports a Christmas ornament. A few days later, he received a call from the manager of Dell’s facility in China. He expressed gratitude for the gift but reminded Christmas that the holiday did not have the same cultural significance at their facility that it did in the U.S.

“You always find opportunities to learn, especially in failure.” Christmas said. “Some of my hardest courses – where I made the worst grades – are the classes I learned the most in, because I had the biggest gaps in my learning. So, there are some key things there – to fail fast, learn from those mistakes, and that’s how you continue to grow.”

Growing in Leadership

Since his time as a student, Christmas has successfully leveraged his EMBA knowledge in several different roles with progressively greater responsibilities at Dell. He expressed his gratitude for the company’s willingness to encourage his continued personal and professional development.

“I’ve been with Dell for 27 years,” Christmas said. “I started out as an individual contributor, and now I’m a vice president in our tech support organization. One of the best things about Dell is that they’ve given me the opportunity to work in many different areas across a vast number of jobs. My MBA gave me the foundation to transition from role to role successfully.”

Today, as vice president of customer success, global services support and deployment, he heads a team with a broad operational footprint, spanning countries around the world. He continues to use his EMBA knowledge in his work and to mentor growing leaders in the company.

EMBA Words of Wisdom

Looking back on the experiences that led to his current role at Dell, Christmas shared a story with advice for those who are building their careers toward executive leadership.

“I worked for a gentleman named Frank Miller, a retired two-star General out of the Army,” Christmas said. “He always had very strong leadership principles, and he would end many presentations or conversations with, ‘If you care, all things are possible.’”

Christmas maintains this leadership principle today and ends every all-hands meeting by quoting Miller. Signing off, Christmas emphasized the importance of being a leader who cares.

“If you focus on the right thing, and you focus on your people, then you can make a difference.”