Most ServiceNow careers start with a line of code. Dr. Marilyn Nelson’s started in uniform.
Her foundation was built in the United States Air Force, where she served as an airborne cryptologic linguist, first enlisted, later as a Military Intelligence officer. Languages were the through-line. "When I was in the military as both enlisted and as an officer, I was a linguist. Languages just came very naturally to me… programming was just another language. And it came very, very easy to me."
Marilyn started her own company writing and scripting computer-aided and computer-based training, the kind of work that lands you inside a large enterprise on day one and asks you to explain how everything works. That took her to TIAA-CREF, which brought her in to stand up its corporate university, including onboarding, user training, governance, and making sure new people felt welcomed.
Then came the analytical assignment that redirected the next 20 years.
Here is the part of the résumé that tends to stop people mid-sentence. In 2004, Marilyn was running the vendor analysis on a service desk software replacement, and the platform that almost nobody had heard of yet. She stayed on to help build out the processes, the implementation, and the transformation. Her first ServiceNow implementation started in 2004 and went live in 2006.
The platform had no knowledge management at the time, and her customer had an enormous knowledge repository to move. "I scripted the knowledge management module in ServiceNow. This is how I get the claim of one of the original developers of the platform."
That work got noticed. A large consulting firm acquired her company to build out its ServiceNow practice in the States, and the platform took her around the world from there — Accenture in the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Singapore; KPMG in the States and then a second assignment to launch KPMG Australia's ServiceNow practice, two years that turned into four; DXC in Australia, Japan and eventually all of Asia Pacific; a Vice President role leading the ServiceNow practice at Kyndryl for North America; and a global mandate to start the ServiceNow consulting business at K2 Partnering Solutions.
(We’ll pause to let you catch up.)
Ultimately, it all led Marilyn here. CoreX was expanding its managed services offering, CoreXtend, and after a career spent building towards this kind of practice, the pitch landed.
Marilyn has built managed services organizations before. She came here to build another one, and she is clear that the pull was the work, not just the people she already knew.
"The opportunity to build the CoreXtend practice at CoreX is the challenge that made me want to join. The mission and vision for what we can build is a need not only by CoreX existing customers but many customers in the ServiceNow ecosystem."
The pure-play thing matters to her, too: "It is one of the few pure play [partners] out there. That's only ServiceNow focused. They only do ServiceNow, cradle to grave."
And the culture question came up in her own interview loop, unprompted by this interviewer. "People matter most… I love that the name is CoreX because it's really centered on that. That's what we're built on, right? The people, the culture , and the customer are at the Core of CoreX."
Ask Marilyn what frustrates ServiceNow customers most after go-live and the answer arrives fully formed: "One recurring frustration that I see with ServiceNow customers is they engage with an implementation partner who 'codes and goes away’ after go-live, leaving the customer with a ServiceNow platform and no real plan for long-term sustainability and driving operational efficiencies."
Which leads to the sentence she hears most often from customers (and the one CoreXtend exists to answer): "The conversation I have most often with customers often starts with 'we've had our go-live on ServiceNow, now what?' This is where the heart of the CoreXtend conversation starts. CoreXtend is the 'now what' for long-term operations and enhancements to the ServiceNow platform. CoreXtend is an extension of our customer’s run / operate team for the ServiceNow platform post go-live."
She has a shorter version, which arrived, as the best ones do, in the middle of the night. "It came to me at 2 A.M. but go-live is just the beginning of the real journey. And that's where we're now extending that experience."
Her mental image for CoreXtend is a bridge, serving as the span between implementation and everything after. "A bridge takes you from one side, usually over a body of water or a big canyon crevice, to the other side. If you don't have that bridge, you fall off."
None of which means keeping the lights on is beneath the practice. It just isn't the whole job. "We keep the lights on with innovative approaches while listening to our customers to help expand how they use the ServiceNow platform across the organization. We are not just 'order takers and code builders,’ we are thought leaders and bring the next generation of functionality to our customers."
Marilyn believes ServiceNow is leading the way on embedding AI into the platform. She also believes a lot of the market is sprinting before it can walk. "I do believe industries are getting a bit ahead of themselves by trying to introduce AI, because it's the new buzzword, without having a strategic vision for operational efficiencies."
Asked why, she doesn't hedge. "I think it's absolutely a lack of knowledge. I think people feel like they need to say, oh yeah, we're AI ready. We're ready to use AI. They're not ready from a process and governance perspective. It all starts at the process and governance of data level."
Marilyn expects the market to find its balance. "I think we've swung the pendulum too far one way. I think it's going to come back to a more centered balance. I think, in three to five years, we're going to come back and sit in the middle where people understand the power of AI." With one closing warning for anyone declaring victory early: "If you're just going to summarize incident tickets and you think that's AI, you've missed the boat already."
The CoreXtend approach starts a step earlier: "Starting with data rationalization and governance before engaging in the AI conversations. Once data rationalization and governance are in place, then we can change the operational approach to embedding AI into the workflow to gain true insight and operational efficiencies."
We asked Marilyn to finish the sentence: The best managed services relationship is the one where customers say _______. Her answer, verbatim, is the mission statement:
"… we wouldn't be where we are today with our ServiceNow platform, without the partnership, thought leadership, collaboration, and strategic planning delivered by CoreXtend."
She continues, "Customers don't know what they don't know. They need a true and trusted partner when it comes to both tactical and strategic implementation and operations of their ServiceNow platform."
Thirty years, four continents, one knowledge management module, and a partner who won't code and disappear. As Marilyn puts it: "There's lessons learned, there's gotchas, there's, ‘If I knew then what I know now’. And being able to share that and have a platform, I love to do that."
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Wondering what comes after your go-live? That's the CoreXtend conversation. Let's have it.