Ron Wastal
AI & Platform Ecosystem Strategist and Advisor
I help software leaders understand how AI is reshaping their markets and where their companies can build a valuable position.
I help growing software companies become strategically important to larger SaaS, cloud and AI platforms.
My strength is identifying where technologies and products complement each other, then turning that fit into integrations, joint solutions and strategic partnerships. That requires understanding the platform’s direction, the software company’s distinctive capabilities and the customer problem they can solve together.
Over the past 18 months, I have focused intensively on how AI is changing enterprise software markets. My research examines competition across the AI stack, from models and data platforms to agents and applications, and within specific industries. I study where incumbents and challengers compete, where they depend on one another, and how those relationships change a software company’s strategic options.
That work informs the forthcoming book AI Battlegrounds: Incumbents, Challengers, and the Rise of the Recursive Enterprise, the Recursive Enterprise framework and my advisory approach at RAW PEC. I bring a platform ecosystem perspective to practical leadership questions: where to compete, which platforms to build around, what to integrate, and how to demonstrate customer value as the market changes.
My career spans enterprise applications, data management, integration, APIs, SaaS and cloud platforms. I began at NCR and Teradata, working across sales, solution marketing and management, and later held leadership roles at companies including Sybase, Ascential, Cast Iron Systems and IBM.
At MuleSoft, I led Global Strategic Alliances, developing relationships with Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. From 2016 to 2019, I led global channels and alliances at Apptio. At Jitterbit, I led global partner development, channels and alliances. Most recently, as Chief Ecosystem & Partner Officer at Nicus, I aligned product, marketing, sales and customer success initiatives around the ServiceNow ecosystem.
Across those roles, my focus has been the connection between technology fit and business opportunity: where a product belongs, why a platform company should care, and what both organizations must do to make the relationship valuable. Several companies where I held leadership roles were subsequently acquired. Those experiences inform my perspective on strategic positioning and relationships over the long term.
I founded RAW PEC to apply that experience as AI changes software markets and platform ecosystems. My work helps leaders choose where to compete, which platforms to build around and how to connect their contribution to measurable customer value.
RAW PEC brings together strategic advisory, the Recursive Enterprise framework, AI Battlegrounds, and tools including Partner Ecosystem Advisor (PEA) and Value Advisor Loop. The initial commercial focus is software companies in the ServiceNow ecosystem, informed by experience across the wider SaaS and cloud landscape.