NinjaRMM CEO: COVID Vaccines Required In New Texas HQ

‘The No. 1 reason moving to Austin was right for Ninja is that’s where our employees wanted to go,’ says NinaRMM CEO Sal Sferlazza. ‘When the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off the work-from-home era, about half of Ninja’s employees were already working remotely and a handful of employees had planned to relocate from the Bay Area to Austin.’

NinjaRMM will require COVID-19 vaccinations for any employees who want to work in the company’s new Austin, Texas headquarters that opened in August, CEO Sal Sferlazza told CRN.

The move from San Francisco for the remote monitoring and management software maker came after the COVID-19 pandemic shifted all employees to a remote workforce, with many voicing their desire to move to Austin.

“The No. 1 reason moving to Austin was right for Ninja is that’s where our employees wanted to go,” Sferlazza told CRN. “When the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off the work-from-home era, about half of Ninja’s employees were already working remotely and a handful of employees had planned to relocate from the Bay Area to Austin. With our lease ending at our office in San Francisco and the company going fully remote for the foreseeable future, moving now ended up being the perfect timing.”

Although many employees are still working from home, the CEO said NinjaRMM is “committed to providing a fun and safe environment” for everyone, which is why those who choose to work in office are required to have the COVID-19 vaccine.

[Related: CES 2022 Will Require Proof Of Vaccination From Attendees]

“Our remote Ninja team has done incredible work but we know that having a space where teams can come in and collaborate face-to-face is something that some employees want,” Sferlazza told CRN. “We also recognize the fact that we’re still in the midst of a pandemic. More than half of Ninja’s employees were already fully remote before the pandemic, so we’ve always been set up to succeed as a distributed team. Whenever possible, we’ve encouraged employees to work in whatever environment makes them most comfortable and productive, whether that’s fully from home, the office, or a mix of both.”

NinjaRMM is the latest tech company to require vaccines, following in the footsteps of Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others. Intel is offering bonuses to vaccinated employees.

NinjaRMM’s 4,800-square- foot Austin office will have about 30 employees, according to Kodie Dower, a spokesperson for NinjaRMM. The company currently has about 285 employees, with plans to hire an additional 250 to 300 employees worldwide over the next year. Of those new hires, 75 to 100 will be based in Austin, Dower told CRN.

One of those newest hires is Chief Technology Officer Shane Stevens. Stevens, who is based in Houston, brings decades of channel and IT industry experience to NinjaRMM that will help accelerate go-to-market timelines for new products.

“The main things that really make NinjaRMM stand out are the quality and value of the current platform, the company’s vision and the people within the company,” he told CRN.

Coming into the position, his first focus will be on the sustaining the platform as well as looking to develop new products and features.

“And also extending what’s already there and going a little broader and deeper,” he said. “But the first things to really look at are related to the areas of security and just the ability to have business continuity of the platform.”

Stevens said NinjaRMM is working on some new products in the project management space but declined to disclose further details.

In his new position, he’s ready to make an impact and continue to deliver platforms that are secure and easy to use.

“In bringing more people on to build those platforms, it’s very promising, it’s very challenging, but it also has a lot of reward to it,” he said.