An interview with Tom Williams, Head of Pre-Sales at Aiviq
When Tom Williams joined Aiviq as Head of Pre-Sales, he brought nearly 20 years of experience managing capital markets trading systems and leading pre-sales teams. But what struck us most wasn't his resume - it was his perspective on why pre-sales, as a discipline, remains one of the most misunderstood functions in SaaS. We sat down with him to explore the patterns he's seen across industries, what he's already learned here at Aiviq, and why it all matters.
From Capital Markets to Asset Management: Why the Journey Feels Familiar
What drew you to Aiviq, and how does your background inform your approach?
"My background is pretty technical," Tom explains. "I spent the last 20 years in capital markets, working with automated trading systems at Broadridge. But what fascinates me is how similar the challenges are here at Aiviq, even though we're in somewhat different parts of the industry."
The common thread? Data complexity and the demand for automation.
"In capital markets, you're dealing with massive data volumes from loads of different places, in completely different formats," he says. "The challenge is: how do you process that data, understand it, and make decisions based on it? That's exactly what we're solving for asset managers today. They're in a similar position - drowning in manual workflows that don't scale."
He also notes that asset management today mirrors where capital markets technology was 15 years ago: a clear demand for modern tech that enables greater automation, coupled with very little standardisation in technical interfaces. "And you've got companies on monolithic, dated platforms that can't support growing data volumes and growing demands on the data."
This is why Tom was drawn to Aiviq. "I saw an opportunity to bring my experience in solving complex data challenges into a part of the industry where there's real demand for that kind of thinking. Plus, Aiviq has a small but quickly growing team where I feel I can make a difference every day. The culture here is fantastic and energising."
The Biggest Gaps: 3 Main Insights Nobody Talks About
In your experience, what's the biggest gap you've seen in how companies set up clients for success before implementation even starts?
"There are three main issues I see repeatedly, and they're interconnected."
Insight #1: Don't Jump to Demos. Start With Discovery.
This is perhaps the most common mistake, and it often costs companies real time and money.
"Here's what typically happens," he explains. "Someone from sales calls a prospect and says, 'Let me show you a demo,' and the prospect agrees. But nobody has actually qualified whether they can solve their problems. They're making assumptions based on their industry, not their actual needs."
The result? Wasted meetings that burn through what should be substantive conversations.
His solution is simple but powerful: involve pre-sales early in the discovery process, before the first formal demo. "A short discovery call should happen before the first demo. You uncover the pain points and issues that are important to the customer's business, instead of focusing on generic features. What are they trying to accomplish? What's broken in their current process? What would success look like?"
The payoff? "You save everybody a lot of time. The first demo becomes substantive instead of exploratory. And you have a better shot at moving forward because you've started with genuine alignment on the end goals."
Insight #2: Manage Expectations - Don't Just Say Yes
In fast-growing companies, the pressure to close deals creates a particular type of risk. Pre-sales teams start saying "yes" to everything.
"This is extremely common, and it's very damaging," Tom says bluntly. "I've seen it happen time and again. A customer asks if a vendor can do X by implementation day, and instead of giving an honest answer, someone says, 'Sure’, or, ‘it's on the roadmap, we'll definitely have it by then.' But then the implementation team delivers what the product actually does, not what was promised, and the customer is disappointed."
The fallout goes beyond one deal. "Over-promising during sales and under-delivering during implementation erodes trust incredibly fast. And for a small but growing company, that kind of reputational damage is something they can't afford."
Tom is clear about the approach the team at Aiviq has always been committed to. "We understand what to prioritise, and manage both the customer's expectations and our internal product development priorities and roadmaps, so nothing is promised that cannot be delivered. What we're telling customers is completely honest. This is exactly what they'll get. There's no overstatement, no roadmap promises that won't materialise, no hidden assumptions. We prefer to be clear, realistic, and then overdeliver rather than the reverse. And having worked with Lee Griggs and others on the team before, I know this is aligned with how they operate, which is exactly why Aiviq was so attractive to me."
Insight #3: Create Mutual Agreement on the Solution
Once discovery is done and expectations are aligned, there's still a critical step that is often overlooked.
"You need to dig deep into what the solution needs to do to meet the customer's requirements," Tom says. "What I have seen in the past is teams starting by showing a demo, the customer says 'that's great,' and a short time later there's a contract. But there's no mutual understanding of what they're actually buying."
This is where pre-sales acts as a bridge. "Pre-sales sits between the customer and the product teams. We make sure that what the customer needs is something we can actually deliver. We're talking about real technical solution scoping: looking at data sources, identifying integration points, examining the business's use cases."
He emphasises that this is critical before signature, not after. "The result of this scoping exercise should be a mutual agreement between the customer and us, where we define clear success criteria for the implementation and longer-term strategy. When implementation starts, everyone's expecting the same things. You're all working towards the same goal that's been agreed upfront."
What Does the Ideal Customer Journey Actually Look Like?
Walk us through what you think the ideal client experience looks like from first conversation to day one of implementation.
"It starts with what we've just talked about, getting pre-sales involved from almost the very beginning of qualifying the lead," Tom says. "But let me map out how it flows."
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Stage 1: Discovery and Understanding "The first conversation should be exploratory. We're not pitching. We're listening. What are they trying to accomplish? What's broken in their current process? What would success look like? Pre-sales needs to be in this conversation, asking the right questions to uncover the pain points and issues that are important to their business."
Stage 2: Building Credibility “Once we understand their world, we show how our solution fits into it. Many vendors talk about features. But customers care about integration - how does this work in your workflows? How do you integrate it with your existing systems? That's where technical solution scoping happens: data sources, integration points, use cases."
Stage 3: Mutual Agreement "By this point, both sides should have clarity. The customer understands what they're buying. We understand what we're committing to deliver. There's no ambiguity, no assumptions. Just clear agreement on scope and success criteria."
Stage 4: Smooth Handover to Implementation "When the contract is signed and implementation starts, there should be no surprises because everything has already been agreed upon. The customer knows what's coming, the implementation team knows what was promised, and they're all aligned."
Tom emphasises that this isn't rigid. "Requirements do change. Customers learn things during implementation that shift priorities. But the framework is there, and any changes are managed within that framework rather than blindsiding everyone."
What's Surprising Customers - And What That Tells Us
What's surprised you most about the questions clients are actually asking versus what you expected?
"The operations team size question comes up constantly," Tom says. "We'll be in a meeting with a large asset manager who says, 'You only have a fraction of the people we do. We have large teams managing manual work. How can you support us?' And the question reveals something interesting about how they think."
He explains: "There are a lot of misconceptions around automation, and how much can be automated now. A lot of the tasks are being done manually today, but so much of this is exactly what we automate and augment. The question isn't really about support capacity, it's about whether the managers can trust the technology to reduce that manual work. There is a perception that large teams and manual workflows are just the cost of doing business. But there's often a better way."
This has shaped how Aiviq talks about its solution. "We're automating the repetitive, time-consuming work. Not replacing the teams, but freeing them up to do higher-value work. And the proof is in how our customers feel about it - we're sitting at an NPS score of 40+, which tells us our users genuinely trust the technology, and our operations teams, and see the value in what we're doing.
"We're not trying to run asset management workflows with a skeleton crew. We're trying to help managers operate more efficiently and get their people focused on what actually matters."
Clearing Up the Misconceptions About Pre-Sales
Can you tell us a bit about your role and some of the misconceptions around what pre-sales actually does?
"Pre-sales is a technical sales role. Some companies call it sales engineering. The key point is that we have product and domain experts in the room during every sales conversation. This is something that has really impressed me so far at Aiviq and is a real differentiator. The sales, pre-sales and product management teams are all industry-leading experts who deeply understand the product and the customer's domain.”
"The real value," Tom explains, "is having people who can translate between what customers need and what we can deliver. We're not just taking requirements and passing them along - we're sitting with customers to understand their world, their workflows, their pain points. We're working with our engineering teams to make sure what's being promised is what will be delivered. For me, this is the fun part of the job: being able to marry customer requirements to our capabilities, and design a solution that can be delivered on time, on budget, and result in a happy customer."
What's Next: Priorities as Aiviq Scales
Now that you've been here for a bit, been in countless customer conversations, and answered thousands of RFP questions - what are your priorities going forward?
Tom outlines three key areas:
Standardisation and Clarity: "As we scale, we want to further evolve and formalise our pre-sales process. We're building a repeatable framework that's crystal clear to every team - internally and to customers - what to expect at each stage, and what they'll get from us. This means customers get consistency regardless of who they're working with, faster decision-making because everyone's aligned on the process, and ultimately a smoother path from evaluation to implementation. That's what good pre-sales looks like."
Solution Design and Scoping: "We're starting to move parts of our Solution Design conversations earlier in the sales process. I've been impressed with Aiviq's current Solution Design process, which is thorough and works well. Our approach is somewhat consultancy-focused; we validate assumptions, understand what success looks like for the customer, and identify any potential gaps while both sides can still shape the implementation approach together.
It's important to note these are not a simple scoping exercise. These are collaborative consulting engagements that require meaningful commitment from both parties.
These early conversations mean implementation teams will arrive with the correct context and a shared understanding of objectives. The detailed Solution Design process, which is resource and time-intensive, then happens after signature once the customer's leadership is confident committing to implementation."
Strengthening Customer Experience: "The thread running through all of this is customer experience. When someone works with Aiviq - from first conversation to day one of implementation - they should have a smoother, more professional, more predictable journey. That's what great pre-sales enables. That's what we're building."
Why This Matters
Tom's experience across industries has given him a rare perspective: pre-sales done well is invisible. Customers don't realise what's happening. They just experience clarity, honesty, and a process that makes sense.
They know what they're buying. They know what's coming. And when implementation starts, there are no surprises. No scope creep. No broken promises. Just a partnership that was set up to succeed from day one.
"That's the kind of pre-sales function we're building here at Aiviq. Because at the end of the day, it's not about pre-sales. It's about making sure our customers succeed. Everything else is just mechanics."
Ready to Experience Pre-Sales Done Right?
If you're an asset manager tired of manual workflows and misconceptions about what modern automation can do, Tom and his team at Aiviq are ready to have a different kind of conversation:
