The Silent Fix: Redefining Enterprise IT Through Proactive Ops

While some IT teams spend their days investigating helpdesk tickets, ControlUp and its CEO Jed Ayres are making them extinct. The company with an impressive rolodex of clients – including over one-third of the Fortune 100 – is reimagining enterprise IT by replacing firefighting problems with a proactive and automated approach—enabling systems to eliminate disruptions before they occur. The approach identifies anomalies in real time and resolves them before the user even notices the issue. “The best support call,” says Ayres, “is the one that never happens.”

Jed Ayres isn’t new to transformation. Before stepping into the CEO seat at ControlUp in August 2023, he was best known for turning IGEL from a hardware vendor into a dominant player in the industry, a pivot that ultimately led to the company’s acquisition by TA Associates. His success there, and at prior stops like AppSense and GE Capital IT Solutions, came from a clear strength: aligning deep tech capabilities with strong go-to-market vision.

At ControlUp, a leading Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management company, Ayres inherited a strong technical foundation from co-founder Asaf Ganot, who remains on board as executive chairman. Founded in 2012, ControlUp’s technology is now used by nearly 2,000 companies—translating into over five million endpoint devices—globally. Now Ayres is focused on scaling that foundation by positioning ControlUp as essential infrastructure for the modern digital workplace, not just a support function.

Ayres refers to ControlUp’s approach as “invisible IT.” By predicting and preventing IT issues before they happen, employees can focus on workflows, improving productivity and employee experience. “Our vision is to enable people to do the best work possible, whether they’re in IT, a frontline worker, or working remotely.”

ControlUp monitors the endpoint experience in real time, from Wi-Fi signal strength and latency to session responsiveness and boot times. Instead of flooding IT teams with data, it surfaces the most likely cause of an issue and, when possible, remediates it before anyone even notices, creating reduced IT workloads, and an uninterrupted digital experience for employees and employers alike. Seamless.

“You can’t deliver great customer experience without great employee experience,” Ayres reflects, an understanding that should allow enterprise leaders to appreciate the significance of seamless IT systems.

Ayres believes the real problem with many of today’s IT systems isn’t that they lack tools; it’s that the tools don’t talk to each other, and the data lives in silos. ControlUp’s answer is to integrate user experience insights directly into existing workflows, whether that’s help desk platforms, HR onboarding steps, or compliance logging. “Most enterprises run 20–30 agents just to patch, secure, and manage endpoints. ControlUp enables companies to seamlessly streamline all of that into a single, real-time platform.”

Additionally, ControlUp has a unique ability to collect data in near-real-time, every 3 seconds, without stressing systems, as well as using automation to detect patterns and write scripts for any future similar anomalies. “Our biggest customers are running hundreds of thousands of automated actions a day that are eliminating a problem before it becomes one,” Ayres notes.

In Ayres’ view, ControlUp isn’t just a DEX platform; it’s the operational glue that binds various enterprise systems together. That includes seamless interoperability with platforms like ServiceNow, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Citrix, enhancing existing workflows and providing extensive visibility and real-time insights without disrupting established processes.

The ambitious CEO has big plans for ControlUp, not just in revenue terms, but in how the company positions itself within the software ecosystem. As enterprise leaders rethink productivity in the hybrid era, Ayres believes IT can no longer be an afterthought, it has to be a driver. “We’re increasingly convinced this is breakthrough technology — with the potential to radically rewrite the way IT operates.”

Outside the office, Ayres is known for another type of endurance. He’s an Ironman triathlete and ultramarathon runner, reflecting the same mindset he brings to building companies: long-range focus, mental toughness, and consistent execution.

It’s a fitting metaphor for what he’s trying to build at ControlUp: a company that stays focused on fundamentals while still pushing the pace. He firmly believes that ControlUp is building infrastructure for the future of work, and the IT systems that will quietly, invisibly keep it running.

Have you read?
The World’s Best Medical Schools.
The World’s Best Universities.
The World’s Best International High Schools.
The World’s Best Business Schools.
The World’s Best Fashion Schools.
The World’s Best Hospitality And Hotel Management Schools.