Executive Profile: Meet VIP Tech Consultants' newest executive Sean Attwood

VIP Tech Consultants' new business development manager, Sean Attwood, is a well-established figure in the Alamo City's tech scene.

After more than a decade at Rackspace Technology, years of experience in workforce and economic development with the Alamo Colleges District, and serving as a senior executive at greater: SATX, Attwood assumed his new role in May.

He's excited about the pivot: Attwood described recruiting as a "competitive, scrappy business."

"The reward is knowing that you are simultaneously creating opportunity for individuals while solving important problems for your clients," he told the Business Journal.

He added that recruiting was always something in his blood, but the new role enables him to focus solely on his passion.

Though he grew up immersed in technology, his career has had what he terms a nonlinear path: It began in 2001 when he began working for local tech company Sirius Computer Solutions until 2004. Then he got a job as an account manager for Rackspace — "the cool tech company in town" —and was handed a contract with a rapidly exploding website called YouTube.

"Sometimes increasing your surface area for 'luck' is by simply showing up and knowing how to take one on the chin – just keep moving forward," said Attwood.

He remained with Rackspace until 2016, when he began working for the Alamo Colleges District, first as program manager of workforce and economic development and then director of "Techworks," a skills training program. In that role, he headed up grant funding to provide training for tech workers and helped build non-credit curriculum for tech training. In 2018 he took on the role of vice president of business development at greater:SATX, until he was offered his new role at VIP Tech Consultants, the tech arm of VIP Staffing.

Attwood said he's had an interesting path as someone in the tech industry who has never logged in or provided any lines of code at a hardware level, but he takes great pleasure in the journey.

One thing he wants to bring to the new role is renewed empathy in the hiring process — a priority of VIP Tech Consultants, he said.

"We've all hard about the candidate experience with ghosting and things like that," Attwood said. "What that shows is a lack of empathy. (But) be empathetic to the recruiter or whoever's in charge of the hiring process, too. Understand they're dealing with piles of resumes, crushing deadlines and just trying to provide for their families."

Attwood applauded the efforts the City of San Antonio has taken in recent years to make access to tech training programs more attainable to marginalized communities. He said the No. 1 goal of employers to retain and attract talent in the wake of the pandemic should be to "embrace neurodiversity" — acknowledging that different employees have different needs and neurotypes in a largely work-from-home era.

VIP Tech Consultants was launched as an arm of VIP Staffing in 2018. VIP Staffing itself has done business in San Antonio for over three decades.

Managing Director of VIP Tech Consultants Michael Martinez told the Business Journal said he and Sean are like-minded in that they both have a twofold focus in their career on improving others' quality of live and giving back to the city.

It's rare to find an executive of Sean's caliber who meets every requirement for the role, he said.

"Sean is the exception to that rule and — even more importantly — happens to be a pretty good human being," Martinez added.

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