He Left Microsoft to Solve the Problem Nobody Else Wanted

Most Microsoft rollouts don’t fail because the technology is broken. They fail because people never change how they work. In this episode of Microsoft Mentors, Oli Ridley sits down with Mark Reynolds, Founder and CEO of Hable, to unpack the problem Mark spotted while working at Microsoft, and why he left a successful corporate career to solve it. Microsoft customers were migrating to the cloud. The technology was live. The licences were provisioned. But meaningful adoption wasn’t happening. When Mark asked the Partner ecosystem who was responsible for fixing the active-usage problem, the answer was repeatedly: “That’s not our job, mate.” So Mark built a company around making it his job. Eleven years later, Hable has grown into a leading Microsoft Adoption and Change Management partner, helping organisations turn investments in Microsoft 365, Teams and Copilot into measurable business value. This conversation explores Hable’s journey through three major technology eras—cloud, remote collaboration and AI—and the shift every Microsoft Partner and business leader now needs to understand: The technical side of transformation is getting easier. The human side is getting harder. Mark explains why buying Copilot licences is not an AI strategy, why IT cannot own business-wide adoption alone, and why organisations need leadership, digital confidence and department-specific use cases before AI can create value at scale. This is a practical conversation for Microsoft Partner leaders, founders, CIOs and anyone responsible for AI adoption, Copilot rollout or organisational change. 👉 Enjoyed the episode? Like the video, subscribe and share it with someone responsible for turning AI investment into actual business value. 💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode The active-usage problem Mark identified while working at Microsoft Why Microsoft technology deployments weren’t creating genuine transformation What gave Mark the confidence to leave Microsoft and launch Hable How Hable created a category before Adoption and Change Management had a recognised name Why technical implementation alone does not produce business outcomes How COVID accelerated Microsoft Teams adoption almost overnight Why Copilot adoption is fundamentally different from previous Microsoft rollouts Why giving licences to enthusiastic early adopters rarely transforms an organisation How to move AI adoption beyond the first 16% of employees Why finance, sales and operational leaders must shape their own AI use cases How digital confidence affects adoption at boardroom and employee level Why AI implementation may be fast, but meaningful organisational change still takes time What Microsoft Partners need to understand about the growing importance of ACM Mark’s biggest lessons from moving from founder to CEO Why founders should hire people who think differently from them 📬 Enjoyed the Episode? Subscribe to the Microsoft Mentors Newsletter for new episodes, Microsoft Partner insights and leadership lessons from across the ecosystem: 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/build-relati... 🔗 Links & Resources Connect with Mark Reynolds on LinkedIn 👉 [Add Mark’s LinkedIn URL] Explore Hable 👉 https://hable.co.uk/ Connect with Oli Ridley on LinkedIn 👉   / oli-ridley   Follow Cloud Decisions 👉 https://www.clouddecisions.co.uk/ 🏢 About Cloud Decisions Cloud Decisions helps Microsoft Partners and Microsoft-aligned businesses build high-performing teams across Cloud, Data, Security and AI. We combine specialist Microsoft ecosystem knowledge with data-led hiring strategies, helping Partners increase hiring velocity, protect delivery capability and scale sustainably as technology and skills requirements evolve.