Justin Hurst has a clear message for companies in every sector, and it’s one that can’t be ignored.

“If your industry hasn’t been disrupted yet, it is going to be,” says the global director of technology for systems and software company Nutanix. “As businesses become digital, they need to modernise their IT infrastructure, including the way they store data and do networking, so they can spend less time putting out fires and more on innovation and being productive.”

He knows that from dealing with customers who range from federal governments to banks, manufacturers and healthcare services. For all of them, the firm provides a single platform, or substrate, that can run any application and do it in convergence with others.

The products “on top” can be email, database or CRM (customer relationship management) systems, plus anything needed to remain compliant from the security perspective as users venture into the public cloud.

“Previously you had silos, with separate databases purchased and managed differently,” says Hurst, who serves as a link between major clients and in-house engineering and R&D teams. “Our suite of technologies represents a pretty big shift from that way of doing things.

“We bring something resilient, scalable and simple, moving away from traditional hardware computer and proprietary software. By doing that, we can reduce operational complexity and allow customers to take a pay-as-you-go approach, where they can really focus on the applications that change their business.”

Hurst was born in California, but from the age of eight grew up in Washington state, where his father was a building inspector for the Kirkland city government and his mother worked for non-profits.

“It wasn’t a techie household, but I took to computing at school and my parents saved up and bought me a Commodore 64,” he says. “I could programme it and make it do what I wanted. I thought it was something cool and that it would be important.”

The appeal also lay in the fact that everything was logical and orderly. To begin with, Hurst largely taught himself, and was even asked to fix security for the school network — after first getting into trouble for an unauthorised “investigation” of the system.

Later, though, aged 16, he signed up for evening classes at the local community college, where he found himself surrounded by full-time computer professionals who were still learning everything from the ground up. Not surprisingly, that sparked some serious thinking about opportunities and future direction.

“When I left high school in 1997, the tech market was booming, so I decided to skip university and see if I could make money,” Hurst says. “I found a decent-paying job with a telecoms company, establishing connectivity with call centres, and as the market kept going strong, I was able to run with it.”

Subsequent roles included a stint with the city government of Bothell, a suburb of Seattle; as a one-man IT department for a construction firm; and for a non-profit which helped children in foster care.

“They were all different. One was a helpdesk role, but otherwise I was assisting various departments with their tech set-ups. The people I worked for were not technical. In that area, they didn’t really know what they were up to, so I was able to prove myself and carry on.”

By 2008, though, he felt constrained in solving just one company’s problems at a time, so made the jump to Seattle-based Ivoxy Consulting. The firm specialised in storage, virtualisation and networking technology, but also had an education practice and developed a curriculum around different vendors.

As a result, Hurst did a lot of sales-style presentations and, once a month, taught a class for IT people working in the trenches. With no desk or office, the new role also required a different outlook, but he soon found the “nomadic” life suited his style, and now he can’t imagine being tied to a cubicle.

In due course, he was asked to expand operations to Portland, where he hired a team and built a book of business. All went well, but keen for a new perspective and the chance to build something from scratch, he wanted to join the vendor community, so switched to San Jose-based Nutanix in mid-2012.

Starting as a sales engineer, his territory covered the whole northwest USA, plus Alaska and northwest Canada, and it wasn’t easy.

“It was an uphill slog,” Hurst says. “We were selling one product then and missing a lot of core features. Also, we were an unknown name, recommending that customers throw out things they knew. But against all odds, it worked.”

These days, he travels the world in a cross-disciplinary role, which combines sales, marketing, product management, engineering, solving specific problems in a computer lab, and learning about the latest open source developments. He accepts that for an “information worker”, the idea of an 8-to-5 workday is quite antiquated, but combats the demands by establishing a rhythm and routine.

“It is about setting boundaries; the work will always be there,” says Hurst who, as a child actor, appeared on stage and TV and in commercials. “Therefore, I’m dogmatic about taking breaks and “real” holidays — two weeks without my phone. I try to take a Buddhist approach, to step back and ask ‘will this matter in five years?’”

To find a balance, he also studies Japanese on planes and, as a food lover, has developed a whole persona on Instagram as “The Professional Eater”. It allows him to reach out to chefs and food people and write about what’s new.

“In different cities, I would find a guide or fixer who knows food and wine and can tell me about the local culture. I want to know each chef’s inspiration and why they choose to do certain things. Some day, I might write a book about it.”