Founder & CEO of DynaQuest Technology Services Inc., Randy Knutson is a seasoned veteran with over 35 years of enterprise technology experience. The alumnus of Utah State University, Randy is passionate about finding digital solutions for the inclusive, sustainable and economic development of those communities that have been underserved, left behind or forgotten.
Founded in 2013, DynaQuest is an award-winning Philippines-based IT & blockchain solutions provider that delivers customized and flexible solutions across the industries of enterprise, fintech, health tech, insurtech, and commerce. The company focuses on the deployment of solutions that help businesses improve their efficiency, IT capabilities, security and risk management through technical outsourcing and specialized recruitment of dedicated virtual specialists to help enterprises.
What Makes DynaQuest Unique?
DynaQuest has been developed as specialized solutions platforms and information delivery systems that branch out from industry to industry. With its root development that started from a KYC information system, has been utilized for the insurance, health tech and fintech industry. By focusing on nascent and frontier technologies, they are in a position to port and retrofit their services or solutions to startups, SMEs and corporations across industries.
The “Secret Sauce” & Leadership Principles
Always be curious and willing to learn new things. Randy considers that to be his secret sauce or at the core of my philosophy. In working and living in tech, he has seen enterprise technologies be succeeded by their next generation of counterparts. When technology or concept is foreign to me, he develops a natural curiosity towards it and he then thinks about the possible benefit use cases on how to apply it.
Leadership Principles:
- Vision – As you are the captain of the ship, your vision is essential in charting a course for your enterprise.
- Imagination – The creative conceptualization and application of new technologies or principles to improve current processes.
- Agility – Having an agile mindset will help you navigate changes in business and the times as innovation is happening so fast now.
Biggest Failure in Business
While talking about his biggest failure, Randy said, “Being on the founding team of my first startup, which ultimately failed, I learned several valuable lessons from that experience that have served me throughout my three decades of my career. First, how to develop, build and market new technology solutions (and lessons learned). Second, how to have open communications with your team, partners and investors. Third, who are your true supporters, and friends. The most difficult lesson was not the failure, but let goes of the good people that shared your passion and dream.”
Define Success
Success is subjective and depends on perspective. It’s not about getting all the things you want nor are all things going your way. Rather, success is about being consistent in your aspirations in putting passion in your life, your career, and your community efforts. For me, it has led me on a path to my core principles of sustainability and stability, rather than focusing on the speed at which you accomplish them. This to him is the path to a successful, meaningful life and providing a resilient portfolio for the future.
New Ideas to Implement
Randy has tried to create a team of people that foster innovation and a sense of ownership on their teams and in their assignments. Building a culture of innovation through empowerment and education. That has led him to a transformational pivot of his mission, a few years back, into providing sustainable economic development for Indigenous people. He has built partnerships and creates value in his ability to leverage technology to build a digital bridge, instead of creating a digital divide.
Randy Knutson’s Unique Leadership Style
In working with clients and partners across projects in Blockchain and Decentralized Economies Frameworks, it is humbling and heart-warming to be cited by different parties as a person of sound communication and organization skills. Over the years, he has worked with people, staff and partners on collaborative projects involving resources, goals and performance metrics. He has developed a keen perception of variables as moving parts where parties, goals, resources and key metrics are all constantly moving parts. As an organizer or among the project managers, it is our duty to keep these moving parts to proceed within the right direction – in an organized and timely manner.
“Vision” in Life
As Randy Knutson made his way into the corporate world, then later starting the business and working with various partners for economic impact projects, he has defined success as being less and less about himself and more about sharing the knowledge and abundance of opportunities to the communities who are once underserved. When he was still working across offshore locations, he has seen first-hand how new technologies such as life-changing as it grants employment, opens up new livelihoods for the community and how it gives new opportunities for local communities to grow. Randy is replicating and sharing that experience with his Indigenous people projects with partners where it will help the grassroots be included in societal development, place them at a stage to be producers and economic participants and help the community chart its own innovation course for economic impact. Seeing oneself succeed is just a step and the bigger journey of success is how we uplift and share our success in order to transform lives and livelihoods.
Characteristics of Every Leader
Every leader must have a vision set across the horizon. Vision allows a person to perceive the changes that are happening all around us and it helps us chart or reshapes our vision on how we see our organizations within the next 5-10 years. Vision also helps people to develop further empathy for the state of our communities and how we see ourselves as a member of society. What can we further do? How can we lend our expertise in making our society for the better? Lastly, vision can help our innermost perception about ourselves and what we need to improve or start doing more.
Greatest Accomplishments
“My proudest accomplishment has been our role as a partner with a program dedicated to the Indigenous people identity and economic development in the Philippines. Last year we achieved a landmark historic event that brought together over 30+ Indigenous Tribal Leaders for a ground-breaking economic cooperation agreement where sustainable agriculture is being promoted by modernising the community’s skills and knowledge of sustainability. Though the pandemic has delayed the plans from last year, the three additional workshops that we conducted did help us lay the foundation and framework for the launch of the digital identity and decentralized economy framework for the region. It aims to foster a sustainable an inclusive economy for the Indigenous people. This I believe will be my greatest accomplishment, which is yet to come, that will be my legacy”, shared Randy with a smiling face.
Road Ahead
DynaQuest is deeply invested in the research and development of decentralized economies and their framework via Blockchain. They are aiming to lead the charge in the decentralized transformation of the Philippines and Southeast Asia by fast-tracking embedded frontier technologies on key economic pillars so these mentioned markets can keep pace with their G7 counterparts.
Best Advice Ever Received “Last year, I followed the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Impact Summit online. One of the key topics under the ‘Great Reset’ is about rethinking the resilience of our sustainability projects. “We must start seeing the underserved as stakeholders and not just beneficiaries” is a powerful statement that got me thinking about everything on how we approach our goals for sustainable development and technology. It reminds me of the famous quote from a Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Technology is today’s fish, it is an equalizer, it is an enabler, that can take down barriers and it can help level the playing field of society. Now when it comes to sustainable development, the communities should be given the empowerment, knowledge and be placed in a position where they can be stewards of their success with us, being partners or mentors along the way. This is how we should start to chart long-term sustainability”, Randy shared.