I’m the new CIO of Property Black Box, a property managing agent based in the UK. I use technology to help make things smart on the inside, but simple on the outside, so that everyone can benefit.
I live just outside of London in the Surrey Hills with my wife, Robyn and my beautiful and cheeky daughter, Lily.
I enjoy hiking and love everything about cars, the noise they make, the way they are designed and built and the way they make you feel when you drive them.
Everything is changing all around us, and I love being part of it.
I started as a software developer.
I’ve always had an interest in taking things apart and understanding how they work. I remember when I was 12 years old, in the mid-90s, I got my first computer, an IBM PS2. I learnt everything I could about that machine, it felt like the future.
I graduated from university with a degree in Management Science and Computing, and immediately got a job as a software developer at Rolfe & Nolan (now ION Trading); I helped create a back-office processing system for investment banks and stock exchanges.
The tech was old, but the development processes and techniques being used were awesome, I really mastered my craft here and quickly got promoted to lead all bespoke projects and “online” work. However, towards the end of my time here, I was spending a lot of time updating Gantt charts, which were almost immediately out of date as soon they were created, so I started looking into Scrum and Agile and immediately knew there was a better way of working.
After 10 years as a developer and manager, I decided to switch things up and look for Scrum Master roles. I ended up at Global, a media company in the UK. This was a complete change of industry, I had to learn lots about radio and advertising. I was the sole project manager for all of Global’s Digital products and was thrown right into the deep end by creating an application called Global Player - an app used by millions of people. I led and grew multiple development teams to become effective, efficient and predictable. We kept our stakeholders and customers happy, whilst also making it a fun place to work. Gantt charts were a thing of the past - we were adding value multiple times a day now.
I took a few years out from Global to work at HSBC investment bank as a Project Manager and subject matter expert for the software I created at Rolfe & Nolan - the money was too good to turn down. It was a very different culture working at HSBC, there was a lot of red tape and it was very different to the start-up feel that I had experienced at Global. I did however learn a lot about running large-scale projects and started to help HSBC become more agile by simplifying things, it was a great experience overall.
I returned to my old role at Global, this time with much more experience and a much greater focus on what I wanted to do next. I wanted to become one of the best Scrum Masters in the world. I invested a lot of my own time and money attending training courses, reading books, studying, going to meetups and learning everything I could about how work gets done. I applied this learning in my day job, inspected the results and adapted our approach to our own unique culture. As we became more successful, we grew from 3 to 9 teams. I learnt so much during this period of my career.
After 7 years at Global, it was time to change. A new exciting opportunity arose, and Property Black Box asked me to be their Chief Information Officer. It was time to apply all the learnings from my past to a new industry, Property Management.
By the end of 2023, I achieved the highest level of qualification in Scrum (PSM3), I was giving back to the community by sharing my knowledge and experience via my blog at agilebatman.com and a set of Sprint Journals available at Amazon worldwide.
At Property Black Box, I’m now leading the digitisation of our data. We’re moving everything from physical documents, emails and spreadsheets to cloud databases, integrating modern information systems together, ensuring the security of all our data, rolling out a remote-first approach to working and automating everything we can, so that people can focus on what people do best - understanding complex problems that require emergent thinking.
I always knew deep down that I’d be a leader. Although I didn’t realise it at first, I’ve always been a natural leader, I’m the eldest of 3 brothers, I used to organise a lot of things at school, I help groups of people to make decisions, I love helping people become the best version of themselves and I love working with technology.
I never set out to become a CIO specifically, but it feels like the perfect role for me now. I can bring all my ground-up development experience and knowledge, my enthusiasm for technology and helping people, and apply it at Property Black Box to help all of our customers enjoy their homes, safe in the knowledge that we are looking after the buildings they live in.
Have you had a role model or mentor that has helped you on your journey? (If you feel comfortable, please share their name and how they helped you)
I’m very lucky to have worked for a great manager for a number of years (Peter Cropley) that gave me autonomy to define my own path, to trust me to get the job done the best way I knew how, and to stop me doing something stupid when required.
I’ve also worked with one of the best software developers I’ve ever known, Sam Rayment. The deep technical conversations we’ve had and the challenges we’ve set and overcome over the years has really helped me grow.
More recently I’ve spent a lot of time with Lavaneesh Gautam (PST) - he really helped push me to go for the highest qualification in Scrum (PSM 3). I didn’t think I could do it, but he believed in me.
I’m also lucky to have been given the chance to teach, coach and mentor some great Scrum Masters over the years, if teaching others helps you retain 90% of the information you learn, Mikki Offei and Tony Torretti have helped me learn a lot over the past few years - I can’t thank them enough.
How do you see the role of the technology leader evolving over the next 5 years?
I’ve worked with a lot of technology leaders who thinking delivering on time, on budget and on scope is the only important thing. It’s important, but it’s also important to make sure you are heading in the right direction, and sometimes that means changing 1, 2 or even all 3 of those things as you learn more.
Technology leadership needs to become more people focussed, people are the most important part of your company, technology just helps them do their jobs better.
Over the next 5 years, technology leaders will need to help define and drive outcomes, rather than output, and get involved with helping support teams to become more autonomous, where they get to decide what work to do, how to do it and when it’ll be done. Technology leaders will need to focus on helping teams become more effective by investing in people and their dynamics, rather than adding more project managers and processes to check everything is on track.
I see a shift for technology leaders becoming more involved in how people work together, building teams of people that can achieve anything. COVID-enforced remote working has really shone a light on how we collaborate.
Agility - the world is moving at such a fast pace now that you need to be able to inspect, adapt and pivot regularly. Embracing changes to plans, even late in the process, and seeing change as a positive rather than a negative.
An understanding of what value means to their business - it’s not always the “amount of things produced”. We need to measure the impact and outcomes of what we are delivering to ensure we’re heading the right direction.
I read a lot.
I always leave at least 1/2 a day per week in my calendar as “innovation time”. This is my time to think, my time to collate my thoughts and catch up with technology and leadership.
I follow various tech blogs and YouTube channels, I read lots of books and like to challenge myself to achieve the next steps based on what I know right now. I’ve built quite a wish list of books that I’m working through. Reading opens your mind to new ideas.
I also connect with peers to see what I can learn from them and what I can offer in return.
There is so much scope for technological innovation in property management.
Technology can help make information transparent and easy to understand by all involved. This could be by using Artificial Intelligence to make leases easy to understand, or by creating online, interactive dashboards for each property with real-time data so that people can see at a glance how their property is being managed.
When people have transparency of information, better decisions can be made.
At the moment, most buildings are “offline” without a communal data connection - bringing them online, using IoT and smart devices can help managing agents fix issues almost as quickly as they are identified.
"Your journey is a long one, so make sure you enjoy the ride."
First of all understand why you want to be a leader at all, for me, I want to give back to the world and make it a nice place to live. I want to help people to be the best versions of themselves and that is a huge motivating factor for me. When times are tough, that’s all I need to think about.
Have a continuous learning, growth mindset. Accept that you don’t know everything and that you will always learn something new, ask questions and open your mind.
The more effort you put in, the luckier you get. But remember, your journey is a long one, so make sure you enjoy the ride and take time out for yourself and your family.
This is my first CIO position, I want to be known by my peers as someone that actually made a difference. I want the things I do everyday to have a positive impact on the lives of the people who live in the properties we manage.
When I have that confidence, I want to help other CIOs to succeed by sharing what I have learnt and experienced and I want to learn from others.
Having a bit more empathy for each other. With information so easy to find now, and communication so broad, people are getting more and more polarised. It would be nice if we could understand each other a lot more and get on a bit better.
I’m already enjoying my CIO journey so much and can’t wait to see what the future brings!
A big thank you to Stephen Waring from the Property Black Box 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.