CIO at Colt Data Centre Services
Can you please provide a little introduction about yourself
I am currently working for Colt DCS, leading the Global Technology and Security teams, based in London.
What path have you taken to your current position?
I started my career as a Technology Consultant, providing performance trouble-shooting services to varied industries across EMEA.
I was asked to move to an internal role during extreme growth to lead the internal IT with increasing remit until I was leading all the internal systems and the customer facing SaaS infrastructure services for a listed global software and services business.
Significant M&A projects helped hone my commercial programme management capabilities.
Has it always been your vision to reach the position you’re at? Was your current role part of your vision to become a tech leader?
I am very grateful to have had the opportunities to develop into my current role. I'm bringing my experience to help Colt DCS scale at this time of huge growth, and its very exciting!
Have you had a role model or mentor that has helped you on your journey?
I've been lucky to have some great mentors throughout my career, with two of the most significant being Peter Mulreid and Gavin Spier (may they both RIP) who thought out of the box, had vision, and were great strategists.
How do you see the role of the technology leader evolving over the next 5 years?
Technology invention and application continues to enable new ways of doing things more efficiently, so the challenge is to stay current, continually apply what makes sense (and when) in order to keep the business competitive. Identifying opportunities and having an agile organisational capability to adopt new technology is ever increasing.
In parallel to technology innovation and enablement, security risk increases and needs to be managed within what may be a changing business appetite. UK Data Centres have recently been identified as Critical National Infrastructure (as are household utilities), acknowledging our dependence upon technology, so we will need to improve our capabilities of enablement and security hand-in-hand.
I tend to evaluate the business value stream, and chain, identifying opportunities for automation. As a business grows and transforms new opportunities to apply the latest technologies arise - the key thing is to identify them in time to retain competitive edge.
What skills do you think leaders of the future will need in order to thrive?
Building and maintaining relationships is key to gaining insight, trust, sponsorship, and achieving great things through, and with, others through shared understanding. Understanding of changing impactful external factors such as the political, economic and social environment requires constant review, as we have seen with the increasing importance of ESG and supply chain resilience.
Is there anything in particular that you would still like to achieve in your career or what is the next step on your journey?
Each business presents different and interesting challenges so I could consider moving into a role where I can influence and transform a wider portfolio.
What role do you see emerging technologies (e.g., AI, machine learning, blockchain) playing in your industry, and how are you preparing for them?
AI is driving rapid growth in the data centre industry, and we at Colt DCS have global expertise in developing and running hyperscale data centres which deliver the capacity. Internally, I envisage AI increasing individual productivity and being an enabler within the systems we consume. With the new found speed to obtain insights from data we will see more in-depth and faster decision making driving business outcomes, combined with people developing a healthy level of information skepticism.
Many of us use AI and ML through the systems we have interacted without knowing. It's interesting that it's taken the presentation of the user interface to democratise and get people excited about AI.
I approach the use of technology from an architectural perspective, looking for loosely coupled systems to avoid the lock-ins and stiffness of sprawling proprietary platforms.
"Building and maintaining relationships is key."
How do you measure and communicate the value and impact of technology initiatives to other business leaders and stakeholders?
Any technology initiative should be business beneficial - take your business stakeholders on the journey of discovery instead of working in isolation. Talk their language and don't expect them to talk tech.
As intriguing as new technology may be, focus on the ultimate business outcome - how will this increase revenues or reduce costs. Always consider the impact on people and manage that closely.
What has been your most significant achievement or proudest moment as a technology leader?
Back in 2014 I carved-out Dynatrace from Compuware Corp., establishing a high-tech global SaaS business as an independently controlled entity enabled through a new technology landscape, and with a new improved operating model. Through this project I fixed many of the business pains which had hampered agility, success and growth over the previous decade. I felt I had created a beautiful thing as it was listed and snapped up on the NYSE 4 years later.
One of my proudest moments was when one of my team, who had joined my helpdesk as their first job in tech, was promoted to run APAC Professional Services. This wasn't due to anything I had done except give them a break and ensure they had the right support in their early days.
A big thank you to Jonathan Oliver from Colt Data Centre Services for sharing his journey to date.
If you would like to gain more perspective from Tech Leaders and CIOs you can read some of our other interviews here.
