Venturi's Voice: Technology | Leadership | Staffing | Career | Innovation

Alex Norman is Head of Front End at Upside Technology, and an experienced lead front-end engineer who builds products and teams from scratch. Upside is an investment app that will develop, harness and maximise the skills you need to become an expert investor. Investing is complex but it doesn't need to be difficult and their app and connected products provide you with all the tools you need to make investment decisions with confidence. Through bespoke insights, scientific analysis, and a smart framework used by professional portfolio managers, Upside help you gain the skills and confidence you need to invest in an educated, sustainable and risk-aware way. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Alex to discuss the technologies that have helped Alex and his team build the app in 3 months, general patterns of building front-end features, and Alex's leadership style and advice.

Andrea Dante Bozzola is Engineering Manager at Yelp. Yelp connects people with great local businesses. Their users have contributed approximately 155 million cumulative reviews of almost every type of local business, from restaurants, boutiques and salons to dentists, mechanics, plumbers and more. These reviews are written by people using Yelp to share their everyday local business experiences, giving voice to consumers and bringing “word of mouth” online. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Andrea to discuss the age-old question of the difference between leadership and management, what motivates someone to become a leader or manager, and what is good leadership at its core.

Sarah Müller is Chief Commercial Officer at zolar, and formerly Managing Director of Kununu. Their mission is to build a solar plant on every roof in the world. Zolar enables homeowners to produce their own green electricity and at the same time make an active contribution to climate protection. Sarah is responsible for the development and expansion of the sales organization of the fast-growing start-ups with a focus on strong scaling of Marketing and Sales.  During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Sarah to discuss Sarah's career history, employer branding and why it's so important for businesses to get right; as well as practical advice on how to measure employer branding, and what we can expect to see in the future for Zolar.

Pete Dignan is Head of PistonHeads Engineering and Consumer Engagement at CarGurus. CarGurus uses data and technology to make buying cars simple, giving people the tools they need to confidently find, buy, finance, or sell a car. They're the most-visited car-shopping site in the US, and they're expanding globally. Pete is a great communicator and has spoken at multiple conferences including Google's Adopt or Die, MongoDB Meetup, ElasticSearch breakfast seminar, and Figaro Digital Conference.  During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Pete to discuss measuring business success across different departments and how Pete connects business value to an engineering change.

Sam Curtis is CEO of Big Sofa Technologies, and has worked across a variety of disciplines, and with a wide variety of clients but have always retained a strong global focus to the work he has done. Big Sofa Technologies uses video to transform human behaviors and patterns into actionable data to identify business-changing design, communication and innovation opportunities for their clients. Their pioneering platform transforms video into an accessible, interactive, and sustainable data source, to help clients explore how people live, shop, and consume. Alongside their team of behavioral experts, this Visual Insights System helps their clients understand and analyze real human behaviors and patterns in the spaces and places they occur, delivering new-to-the-world analytics and insights. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Sam to discuss how BST have built groundbreaking machine learning which recognises human behavior, as well as Intelligence Augmentation – which enables machines and humans to work together to make humans lives easier.

Lawrence Lilley is CTO @ MUTUAL VISION  Lawrence is an information technology professional experienced in executing IT delivery for organisational success. An established record of clear strategic leadership and collaboration to develop, innovate and simplify organisational processes to deliver measurable benefit. MUTUAL VISION is a tech business uniquely owned by their customer community of UK building societies and banks and wholly focused on meeting their needs in an ethical way. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Lawrence to discuss Lawrence's leadership style, the difference between a Manager and a Leader, and the importance of diversity in your workforce.

Shane Armstrong started his career in the Military, then moved to work for the Police force, and now is Software Engineering Manager at a world leading Bank. Learning about leadership from a young age defined Shane's future; during this podcast episode, we hear stories from Shane's past in the Military and the Police force and how these learnings have shaped his leadership style as Software Engineering manager at one of the world-leading banks.

Jason Vogel is Head of Engineering at BrandAlley.co.uk Founded in 2008, BrandAlley.co.uk has established itself as the UK's number one private sales site, offering up to 80% off luxury and premium brands. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Jason to discuss Jason's career in tech, emigrating from South Africa to the UK, the different cultures in technology, and how Jason and his team at BrandAlley.co.uk prepare for periods of increased popularity and demand, such as Black Friday.

Joe Pettersson is a technology leader with a focus on building inclusive, productive and fun engineering and product teams. Joe has worked in a lot of different domains, but has a particular passion for developer tools and B2B SaaS businesses. He is also an active angel and seed investor in the European technology eco-system.  Banked is a fintech startup that powers real-time payments for consumers, businesses and banks. Their dream is to ensure everyone gets paid in the fastest, cheapest, most efficient way possible, so they're driving an irreversible shift in global payments. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Joe to discuss how to successfully scale happy, diverse and motivated engineering teams. They also discussed Joe's book 'Scaling Engineering', (set to be released on July 2022) which consists of interviews with over 400 engineering leaders. "Scaling engineering teams is difficult. It's complex, time-consuming and at times it can feel unintuitive. A few can turn to their networks as they go on the journey, and that can feel like a super power. The knowledge and experience needed can feel inaccessible to those that don't have their own networks. Scaling Engineering is being written to help solve that problem."

Saima Mahmood is Software Development Manager at Oracle. After joining Oracle as a Scrum Master, Saima was promoted to Software Development Manager following her success in leading and organising the team she was working with and delivering everything that was planned across two releases, through detailed planning and communication. Oracle is a cloud technology company that provides organizations around the world with computing infrastructure and software to help them innovate, unlock efficiencies and become more effective. Oracle also created the world's first – and only – autonomous database to help organize and secure their customers' data. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Saima to discuss driving diversity in the tech space, Inspiring the next generation, promoting recruitment to attract all types of people, and some of the reasons why people may avoid a career in technology.

Max Ostermeier is CEO of Implandata Implandata is going to transform the management of glaucoma patients. 80 million patients are at risk of permanent loss of eyesight because of glaucoma. Management of glaucoma patients is primarily eye center based. Disease status and progression is unknown in between office visits, resulting in irreversible vision loss at a significant number of patients. Implandata's breakthrough EYEMATE system introduces remote management and care of glaucoma. Crucial disease parameters are collected at the patient, AI analyzed and provided real-time to the ophthalmologist, enabling personalized therapy guidance. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Max to discuss how Implandata began, how the cutting edge tech works, how to successfully get a product out to market from scratch and the future of tech and data-driven healthcare.

Melissa Snover is CEO and Founder at Nourish3d and Script3d.  Melissa is an award-winning entrepreneur and visionary in the world of food technology. Having started her first company at the age of 23, she has been bringing innovative products to the consumer market ever since. She is a passionate supporter of women in business, as well as being a dedicated mentor; encouraging young people of all backgrounds to begin studying in STEM fields. Nourish3d is the world's first truly personalised nutrition product. Using patented 3D printing technology and a vegan encapsulation formula to create totally bespoke and delicious vitamin stacks. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Melissa to discuss how the business began, the inspiration behind starting the business and how Melissa has used 3D printing to create a solution to combat the limited constraints of mass production in confectionery. As well as Melissa's experience appearing on the BBC Series Dragons Den.

Mario Behrendt is Head of Engineering at Tails.com. Mario grew the software engineering team from 8 to 50 engineers across multiple countries, introduced a QA function and ensured delivery performance across all teams at Tails.com. He managed to scale internationally from 1 to 9 countries, while moving the Python-based monolith to a micro-service architecture. Tails.com is a dog food subscription company that creates tailored food for each and every dog they serve. They start by asking people a few simple questions about the owners' dog. Then Tails.com use that information to create their dog's unique recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, they're now scaling fast in the UK and Europe – backed by Purina, one of the worlds largest pet food companies. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Mario to discuss his career history to Head of Engineering, growing up in a small town in rural Germany and working with the tech available to him from a very young age. As well as how to approach hiring at scale whilst also hiring for diversity and without bias.

Ewan Leith leads RealityMine's software engineering, operations and test teams, to deliver high quality software and services for its clients. He especially enjoys working with cutting-edge technology and great people — two things Ewan believes that RealityMine has plenty of! RealityMine enables the world's leading market research organisations to monitor real consumers across multiple devices and on all major operating systems. This permission-based data collection provides unique insights into the behaviour of consumers and is integrated by agencies into syndicated products, audience measurement currencies and custom research globally. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Ewan to discuss how to create an environment that spawns innovation, and how to build and support that culture from the ground up. And as times have been more challenging during the pandemic - how to maintain this culture as teams are physically separated.

Tom Dunlop is Chief Executive Officer & Founder @ Summize. As an accomplished commercial and technology lawyer, Tom's experience with reviewing contracts was the catalyst that led to Summize. Prior to this, he worked as a Global Legal Director for several fast-growth technology companies. As a practicing lawyer himself, Tom saw the need to reduce cost and speed up the implementation time of products to change the way legal teams work, spawning the birth of Summize, which started with a simple question - how could contracts be made quicker and easier for legal teams?  During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Tom to discuss Tom's career history and background as a professional GB athlete, his thoughts on the increase of tech adoption in the legal space, why the legal industry has previously been slow on the uptake with new technology.

Emily Zhang is the Head of Product at Oyster. She is excited to be part of this mission-driven company at this early stage to help launch, scale and succeed. Prior to joining Oyster, Emily built products at Carta and eBay. She began her career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Emily grew up in Sydney and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oyster is the platform that makes it easy for companies to hire, manage, pay, and look after their global team members. Their mission is to create a more equal world by making it possible for companies everywhere to hire people anywhere. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Emily to discuss Emily's career to date, remotely building and onboarding teams at scale, and the culture of Silicon Valley.

Lisa Li is Technical Lead at AND Digital. Lisa is a proficient developer with many years of experience in analysis, design and develop web and mobile-based applications. She has worked with design agents, e-commences, small businesses, large corporate and government projects. Lisa's roles have ranged from designing product wireframe, developing web and mobile applications to deploy applications to live environments. AND Digital accelerates the development of world-class digital capabilities, and power the product development of ambitious companies - from British Airways and Conde Nast, to The Telegraph, Gousto and more. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Lisa to discuss Lisa's career in technology with advice on how to grow from Junior to Senior in your role in tech. As well as why the tech industry still has a gender imbalance, and what it was like for Lisa at the beginning of her career entering into a male-dominated industry.

Dan McNeil is Director of Engineering at ComplyAdvantage. ComplyAdvantage, founded in 2014,  provides anti-money laundering technology. The company uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to help regulated organisations manage risk obligations and counteract financial crime. Dan McNeil is Director of Engineering and has a particular interest in people management, promoting diversity within teams and the importance of mental health awareness in the workplace. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Dan to discuss hiring at scale and how to remain inclusive during the hiring and onboarding process when hiring quickly as well as some of the pitfalls to be aware of, and some of the benefits a business can expect when hiring without bias.

Richard Somerfield is Chief Technology Officer at Summize. Summize enables legal teams to review their contracts quickly and efficiently. It is an intuitive and interactive software that summarises contractual points instantly and allows the management of key terms. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Richard to discuss his career history and background in development, his decision to move from Silicon Valley to join a start-up in the UK, some of the key learnings Richard has taken from Silicon Valley and his thoughts on the future of the increase of tech adoption in the legal space. Check out our new Venturi's Voice Podcast YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QPc0YqhTZE7wcL1srro6g

Check out the video podcast on our new YouTube Channel here: https://youtu.be/qd40xCjH2X0 Ben Towers is the Co-Founder of Tahora, and is one of ‘the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet' whilst still only being 23 years old. Ben started in business aged 11 and has since successfully exited his marketing agency, invested in disruptive start-ups and inspired millions. Ben is now on a mission to change the health outcomes of his generation. Tahora is the culture and wellbeing platform creating inclusive hybrid workplaces with better connected and happier employees. During this podcast Ben sits down with Ben to discuss the most common issues that keep arising in terms of mental wellbeing in the workplace and how the Tahora platform can help, how and why Ben decided to create Tahora, and how businesses can introduce a mental wellbeing program for their workforce.

Michael Wolman is Director of Analytics and Data at Win Technologies, a proud member of the Betway Group. Michael started his career with BP on their commercial graduate scheme, with a short stint on a L'Oréal marketing internship. He then had a bit of a career speed bump with Virgin Media, and finally landed at Win Technologies (part of the Betway Group) as their Director of Analytics and Data. Betway Group, owned by Super Group, is a leading global provider of first-class entertainment across sports betting and casino. Since 2006, they have remained at the forefront of the online gaming industry, utilising the very latest technologies to provide innovative and interactive gaming experiences in a fair, safe, secure and responsible environment. During this podcast episode, Michael sits down with Ben to discuss his career journey to date and how Michael got started in his career, how he has developed his own leadership style, and some of the challenges motivating and engaging teams, particularly through times of unforeseen change like Covid. This podcast is available on all streaming platforms, and why not check out our new YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QPc0YqhTZE7wcL1srro6g

Louis Chery-Roberts is Head of Quality Assurance at Win Technologies, a proud member of the Betway Group. Louis's role involves working in an Agile environment whilst perform testing procedures on the Web /Mobile Application Software to ensure all errors are identified and corrected before release to stakeholders. Betway Group, owned by Super Group, is a leading global provider of first-class entertainment across sports betting and casino. Since 2006, they have remained at the forefront of the online gaming industry, utilising the very latest technologies to provide innovative and interactive gaming experiences in a fair, safe, secure and responsible environment. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Louis to discuss how Louis has navigated his career to get to Head of QA, how changes in technology have impacted Quality Assurance, and what we can expect for the future of Quality Assurance. They also discuss Louis's thoughts on leadership, and some of the challenges Louis faced when moving from a non-technical to a very technical Quality Assurance team. This podcast is available on all streaming platforms, and why not check out our new YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QPc0YqhTZE7wcL1srro6g

Michael Gillett is currently Head of Development at Win Technologies, a proud member of the Betway Group. Michael studied Computer Science, specialising in User Interfaces and Web Site development, achieving an MSc with Distinction. Previous to that he studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering, specialising in Digital Systems and Computer Engineering, achieving a First-Class BEng with Honours. Betway Group, owned by Super Group, is a leading global provider of first-class entertainment across sports betting and casino. Since 2006, they have remained at the forefront of the online gaming industry, utilising the very latest technologies to provide innovative and interactive gaming experiences in a fair, safe, secure and responsible environment. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Michael to discuss how to identify and work with new technologies, what makes a great leader in the technology space and how Michael has developed his own leadership style.

Sally Goble is a highly motivated and self starting senior leader with over 10 years of industry experience and a track record of building and managing mixed discipline, distributed, teams of software engineers, SREs and QAs. Experience of both scale up and established tech teams.  Sally has an extensive career in tech, previously working at The Guardian Newspaper as Head of Quality - responsible for quality across all of the Guardian's digital products. Then moving to Deliveroo as Senior Engineering Manager, and now joins Attest as Engineering Manager.  Attest is a consumer research platform that provides confidence for every decision, with the right insight, at the right time.  During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Sally to discuss how to create seamless communication at scale, some of the pitfalls to be aware of and the benefits a business can expect when streamlining their communication strategy.

Watch the Video Podcast on our YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QPc0YqhTZE7wcL1srro6g Matthew Sinclair is the Vice President of Engineering for BCG Digital Ventures (DV). BCG Digital Ventures is Boston Consulting Group's corporate investment and incubation firm. Matthew joined BCG DV in January 2016. He oversees technology and engineering across all ventures at DV London, and as the current speaker for DV's Engineering Executive Committee, he takes an active role in coordinating the engineering cohort across DV's centers around the world. Since joining BCG, Matthew has been involved in a wide variety of ventures, taking CTO, director, advisory, and other senior leadership roles across a broad range of industries, including industrial goods, finance and insurance tech, mobility, resources, e-commerce, and private equity. He has been involved in the ideation, incubation, and launch of more than 30 internal or publicly launched client ventures. Matthew serves as a non-Fellow Board Member of the Royal Academy of Engineering's Enterprise Hub and acts as a mentor for the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub Alumni Program. Prior to joining DV, Matthew delivered complex systems to telecommunications, financial services, and payments companies. Working with startups, product teams, and consulting organizations from Australia, Asia, and Europe, Matthew has helped build network analyzers, flight simulators, high-performance mission-critical EFT payment transaction switches, online and mobile banking and shared mobility platforms, and more. He was involved in a number of startups in Australia, including Distra (payments), TouchPass (security), Tillless (payments), and SaveMail (document storage). He also was a consultant to banks and financial institutions at Carpadium Consulting. Matthew holds numerous patents related to mobile wireless and other technologies. BCG Digital Ventures is the corporate innovation and digital business-building arm of Boston Consulting Group. Our mission is to invent, build, and scale industry-disrupting businesses with the world's most influential companies.

Check out the Video Podcast Here: https://youtu.be/Ugk8vD8auPw Mark Pybus is Data Practice Director at Contino. Mark works across enterprise organisations to deliver transformation through the creation and application of data systems at scale. Widely experienced in data and analytics, Mark delivers key engineering and organisational capabilities to ensure that the best data strategy delivers the best results. Contino is a leading transformation consultancy that helps large, heavily-regulated enterprises to become fast, agile and competitive. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Mark to discuss the evolution of a data professional, where we are now with data, and what we can expect from the future of data; looking at and drawing parallels between the history of software engineering and data. They also discussed data Mesh, defining it, and how to design and approach it.

Yoaquim Cintrón is Engineering Management & DevSecOps at Attune. Attune is an admitted small commercial market built to get business off your desk and on the books hassle free. Yoaquim has been labelled by co-workers at Attune as 'The Culture Guardian' for his work and efforts supporting a collaborative and 'people over everything' culture within the business. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Yoaquim to discuss the most important aspects and qualities of a leader, how Yoaquim has led his team through times of unforeseen change, and the considerations and pitfalls to be aware of when building an engineering team from scratch. It was an honour to have Yoaquim on the show to share his insights and knowledge with the tech community.

Dan Fiehn is Group Chief Operating Officer at Markerstudy Insurance, a leader and strategist with over 30 years' experience. Dan Fiehn joined Markerstudy, the UK's fifth largest motor insurance provider, in 2011 to head up the Group IT and Product Management divisions and led the rebrand of the division to ‘M-Powered', building a culture of innovation, developing a scalable infrastructure to fast track mergers and acquisitions and underpinning rapid growth. Responsible for the IT digital strategy and IT and business cross functional teams, Dan created an award-winning team achieving recognition at the CIO Top 100, Gartner Eye on Innovation and Celent Model Insurer Awards. Dan is at the forefront of innovation which is transforming insurance, having successfully overseen the delivery of the market leading insurer-hosted rating hub and the acquisition of Co-op Insurance. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Dan to discuss his prolific career history, what people can do to better their chances of success in the industry and what makes a great leader.

Neil Kimmett is a Senior Engineering Manager at ClassPass. Previously, Neil has worked on apps at companies like Harry's, Boiler Room, Marks & Spencers, alongside other startups in London, San Francisco, and New York. ClassPass Inc. is an American company which provides access to different fitness classes such as yoga, strength training, barre, martial arts, pilates, boxing, and indoor cycling classes, as well as use of health clubs via its flat-rate monthly subscription billing service. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Neil to discuss what lessons he has learned during the pandemic and how he has built the systems at ClassPass to allow the business to adapt so quickly and smoothly during this time. We also hear about what we can expect in the future for ClassPass and how Neil has successfully managed and motivated his team during such challenging times.

Anthony Mayer is Vice President of Engineering at Getsafe. Anthony had previously worked for many start-ups in Silicon Valley, then decided to make the move to rural Germany to help with Getsafe's mission to revolutionize the insurance industry. Since launching in 2018 in Germany, Getsafe has expanded to the UK and is now looking into further European markets. The company is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, with a satellite office in London, and employs more than 120 people. It is one of Europe's best-funded insurtechs, serving over 150,000 customers. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Anthony to discuss what it's actually like living and working in Silicon Valley, and what the catalyst was to move away from that life. We also discussed how Getsafe simplifies the insurance industry using cutting-edge technology, and how Anthony stays productive during long periods of focus. Check out the Venturi's Voice Podcast on all streaming platforms, with over 500 interviews with leaders in technology, check out the archive here: https://venturi-group.com/podcast/ Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-910706127 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6dMy9SJZi8CEn5AelKAwQY?si=L2CR248TTZKDiY6sbySSKg&dl_branch=1 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/venturis-voice-technology-leadership-staffing-career/id1206017713 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjI4NzQ0ODkxOC9zb3VuZHMucnNz Be sure to like and subscribe! Thanks, Ben

Chris Allan is MHFA Instructor, Occupational Health Advisor and Co Host at Mind Games Podcast https://linktr.ee/AskMindGames. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Chris to discuss what businesses can do to support mental health in their workforce, some of the key things organisations can embed into their wellbeing strategy to support employees, some of the most common issues that Chris encounters when advising businesses, and some of the things people can do in general to look after their own mental health. Write into Mind Games Podcast with your questions for Chris here: askmindgamesuk@gmail.com.

Alex Harman is President of TOCA Social. TOCA Social is the world's first interactive football and dining experience, combining immersive gaming and world class food and drink - bridging the physical and digital worlds together in a way never seen before. During the Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Alex to discuss what spawned the idea of TOCA Social, what life was like in the early start up stage of the business, the challenges launching a business during a pandemic, and the importance of good UX in the hospitality and leisure industry. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/P6cFITpfQgE

Anika Sierk is Lead Data Scientist at Unmind with a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience/Psychology. Unmind is a London-based startup that empowers organisations and employees to measurably improve their mental wellbeing. Their data science team draws actionable insights and valuable information through the application of data mining techniques, predictive models and other related methods to better understand their users' behaviour, and to drive change and improvements across the platform. Anika's background lies in research and holds extensive experience in data analysis and statistical inference through conducting research projects in London (UCL), Berlin (Charité), Cologne (Max Planck), and New York (CUNY). During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Anika to discuss Anika's career in data, what it was like moving into a team lead role after just 18 months, imposter syndrome and how to overcome it, and the resources Anika relies on to stay ahead of the curve in the data space.

Javaad Abdul-Rasool is VP of Talent at Habito, a start-up advisor and mentor. Habito was founded in 2016 with the aim to give people the tools, knowledge and expert support they need to help them buy and finance their homes. Javaad is currently working in the leadership team at Habito to provide the vision, drive and direction of Habito's talent agenda. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Javaad to discuss how we can keep flying the flag of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, and why it should be important to all of us. As well as how to build on what we already have, and the things we can do to be successful in the DE&I space.

Ken Hunter is an accomplished technology leader with a credible history of success building and transforming state-of-the-art technology systems from conception to completion. Ability to align technology strategy with business needs, vision, and standards. Adept at spearheading top-notch organizations, involving migration to balanced cloud infrastructures, legacy systems modernization, and mobile application strategies execution. He's a transformational technology leader with the ability to build and lead high performing teams across multiple business lines and geographies. Refined communicator; expert in cultivating and strengthening professional relationships with teams, clientele, partners, stakeholders, and management. In Ken's role as Vice President of Technology at The Michales Companies, he directs development of modern eCommerce marketplace, finished goods third-party retail platform; act as cornerstone for organizational growth. He also acts as Interim Technology Officer to monitor and manage Merchandising and Supply Chain Systems for over $5B company. During this podcast episode, Ben sat down with Ken to discuss the future of eCommerce and traditional brick and mortar stores, and how we can leverage technology to save traditional retail.

Fast-forwarding the Future of Healthcare @ Livi | George Jones by Venturi Group: CTO, Data, Development, Cyber Security, Business Intelligence, Infrastructure, Cloud

Rachel Murphy is the CEO at Difrent, a professional services partner to ‘tech for good' organisations delivering business efficiencies by challenging the status quo for tech-enabled business transformation and Difrent has recently been recognised as overall winner of the Leading Healthcare Awards 2021. Rachel also led the transformation programme of all patient facing, self-care and prevention activities within the Paperless 2020 Programme in the NHS, a £270m digital transformation of all patient-facing services across the NHS. Rachel has an exceptional record defining and executing strategy at top level to deliver change, improve performance and ensure first-class digital/technology services and solutions for blue-chip organisations across multiple sectors. During the podcast episode, Ben sat down with Rachel to discuss the motivation to start Difrent, her journey within the NHS to then building and selling Difrent. They also touched upon a new business Rachel is advising which is bringing cutting-edge technology in the fight against COVID 19.

Rhian Atkins is an experienced Data Analytics Business Consultant and has experience in identifying, scoping, and leading large-scale multi-million pound projects that create value by using data more effectively. Rhian has led large teams working across many clients in several sectors including FMCG, gaming, the NHS and the Ministry of Defence. Rhian is also the Co-founder of Women in all things Data, and is currently Client Director in Data & AI at Avanade. Women in all things Data is a catalyst for positive change, since their beginnings in 2019, they have been driven by the same ideas initially founded their Women Empowerment Non-Profit Organization upon: support, empowerment, and progress. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Rhian to discuss Rhian's Career in Data, how Women in all things Data was founded, what we can expect for the future of their platform and this space and how you can get involved.

Karen Jean-Francois is Analytics Manager at Cardlytics, Women in Data Podcast Host and Producer, Twenty in Data and Technology Awardee 2020. Whilst studying to be a Maths teacher in 2010, Karen fell in love with Data Science and opted for a career change, switching to an MSc in Applied Statistics studying at Université Paris Sud 11. Eight years later she started working for Cardlytics as a Senior Analyst / Manager. Now, as a woman working in data, Karen has experienced the lack of female role models in the industry and keenly supports Women in Data for the quest to change this.  Cardlytics is an advertising platform in banks' digital channels. They partner with financial institutions to run their banking rewards programs that promote customer loyalty and deepen banking relationships. They have a secure view into where and when consumers are spending their money. They use these insights to help marketers identify, reach, and influence likely buyers at scale, as well as measure the true sales impact of marketing campaigns. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Karen to discuss her interesting route into the world of Data, struggling with imposter syndrome with some advice for how to overcome it, the issues surrounding the Data Science job title, and we hear about what's coming up in Women in Data.

Derek Lee Bronston is Senior Director of Mobile Engineering at Freshly. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Derek to discuss the culture within Freshly, the benefits of choosing a quality over quantity approach in code, and Derek's process-driven development and how this fits into the organisation. Derek moved from an engineering role into a leadership role, and spend a lot of time dealing with systems and processes around how we work as humans, we hear how Derek has tailored his approach when leading large teams to leverage their capabilities. Freshly is a direct-to-consumer subscription meal company, and is one of the most popular of the prepared meal subscription services.

Angad Salaria is Senior Director of Engineering at QOMPLX - an AI/ML data analytics and risk platform to help clients solve challenges in cybersecurity, insurance & finance. QOMPLX makes it faster and easier for organizations to integrate disparate data sources both inside and outside the enterprise into a unified analytics infrastructure to make better decisions at scale. This broader analytics infrastructure is provided through QOMPLX OS, an enterprise operating system that powers QOMPLX’s decision platforms in cybersecurity, insurance, and quantitative finance. Headquartered in Reston, VA, QOMPLX also has offices in New York and London. Angad started his career in a multinational technology consulting firm with 120k employees at the time, realising that making moves in this scale of business was difficult, he joined a start-up to become closer to the decision making, therefore enabling to implement ideas at speed. The philosophy that Angad has followed throughout his career is to be a self-starter and always look to solve problems. Ben sat down with Angad to discuss his career in tech, and to find out how he has navigated that to become a leader in this field. They also discussed some of the most important aspects to consider when becoming a leader and how to empower your team to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Chris Sewell started his career at Just Eat, and after working in Australia for a few months went down the path of being self-employed back in the UK before joining Build Circle, where Chris is now Head of Engineering,  Build Circle is a software engineering consultancy with experience across both e-commerce and financial technology, specialising in high-volume scaled systems. During this Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Chris to hear how he has navigated his career, with advice for fellow engineers in the industry. They also discussed Data Residency, how Fintech is transforming international payments and what we're likely to see in the future of this space.

Conor Jensen is an experienced Data Science executive with over 15 years working in the analytics space. He is VP of Data Science for the Americas at Dataiku, helping customers with their biggest and most ambitious AI and Data Science projects. Previously he worked in Customer Success after taking his lumps building out data science teams and platforms at multiple large enterprises. In prior lives, Conor was a Weather Forecaster in the Air Force, a Starbucks Store Manager, an Emergency Management Technician in the Air National Guard, and taught archery and rock climbing. He also earned a Bachelor’s in Mathematics from UIC. Dataiku is an artificial intelligence and machine learning company which was founded in 2013. In December 2019, Dataiku announced that CapitalG - the late-stage growth venture capital fund financed by Alphabet Inc. - joined Dataiku as an investor and that it had achieved unicorn status, valued at $1.4 billion. During the podcast episode, Ben sat down with Conor to discuss building and maintaining data science platforms, especially as MLOps becomes more mature. How Conor structures and builds a data science team, especially at scale, and some of the pitfalls to be aware of when doing so.

Ben Ziomek is CTO at Actuate. Actuate works to mitigate the costs of gun violence. They build firearm detection systems using computer vision software and artificial intelligence, turning any security camera into a smart camera. Their aim is to accelerate security response time and improve safety outcomes during active shooter situations, protect organizations from COVID-19, and help manage buildings more effectively. Ben is a Forbes 30 Under 30 recognized entrepreneur focused on AI product development and the commercialization of technology globally. With experience across product management, AI/machine learning, sales and marketing tech, M&A, and commercial partnerships. He has led teams of FTEs and contractors distributed across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas, and now is CTO at Actuate. During the podcast, Ben sat down with Ben to discuss hiring in the security industry, selling the business to candidates, empowering engineers, and we discuss why there may be so few AI product companies in the market.

Eric Dreshfield is currently Partner Marketing Manager at ActiveCampaign, his primary responsibility is to drive awareness of ActiveCampaign in the Salesforce ecosystem through various methods including co-marketing with Salesforce, creation of customer success stories, thought-leadership blogging, webinars, etc. He is also responsible for maintaining the company’s listing on the Salesforce AppExchange and representing ActiveCampaign at Salesforce and Salesforce community events. Eric was first awarded the title of Salesforce Community MVP in Spring, 2013 and has been honored with the title every year through 2019. In 2020 he was named to the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame! ActiveCampaign is a cloud software platform for small-to-mid-sized businesses and is based in Chicago, Illinois. The company offers software for customer experience automation, which combines email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM categories. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Eric to discuss how Eric has navigated his career and how having built a personal brand has aided this process, we hear advice for others who are looking to make themselves more marketable, with tips and avenues to make this a less daunting process. Ben and Eric also touch upon the different ways we can raise awareness for diversity, equity and inclusion. Whilst you're here, check out Eric and Deepa Patel's Podcast: Untold Stories - No Longer Untold, a podcast highlighting the challenges and successes of many diverse individuals so that others will have hope for the future and so their stories will no longer be untold.

Dr. Judith Beyrle is Head of Analytics at Cheil Germany GmbH with a background in media research and sociology.  Cheil is one of the world’s leading marketing solutions companies. Established in 1973 with headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Cheil's thousands of global employees create ideas that move brands, products and people from its 44 offices and 7 affiliates in 37 countries. Cheil delivers innovative communications strategies that drive business results through full-service advertising capabilities and beyond, with specialties in shopper marketing, experiential retail design, PR, sports marketing, and special events. Cheil's creativity is world-renowned, as the network is highly awarded by international festivals including Cannes Lions, CLIO, Spikes Asia, Dubai Lynx, AdFest and Effie Awards.  Dr. Judith has led a very interesting career in data, having always had a deep interest in analytics, she has followed her ambitions to navigate her career successfully to become the Head of Analytics at Cheil GmbH. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Dr. Judith to discuss her career in data, the often overlooked hard and soft skills required to have a successful career in data, and how to look at data objectively without unconscious bias.

Joeseph Allen is a Manchester-based Data Scientist and Front-end Developer. Joe currently works as a Research Associate at the UK Data Service, the UK's largest collection of social and economic data. The UK Data Service is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to meet the data needs of researchers, students and teachers from all sectors, including academia, central and local government, charities and foundations, independent research centres, think tanks, and business consultants and the commercial sector. The UK Data Service collection includes major UK government-sponsored surveys, cross-national surveys, longitudinal studies, UK census data, international aggregate, business data, and qualitative data. In his spare time, Joe organises PyDataMCR, teaches mathematics amongst many other sidelines. He also writes blog posts about agile working, recruitment and more. During the podcast episode, Ben sits down with Joe to discuss how Joe has navigated his career, the pitfalls of job searching in the data science industry and how to stand out from the crowd when applying to roles.

Michael Hamrah has more than fifteen years of software engineering expertise across a variety of languages and platforms. Experienced leader helping individuals, teams, and companies grow, delivering sustainable value through impactful technology. Michael is hands-on with AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, databases/streaming platforms, and CI/CD/PD pipelines. Extensive product delivery with rich web and mobile experiences. Focus on security and operational efficiency. Strong preference for statically-typed languages and automation. At Bluecore, Michael and his team oversee Bluecore's Platform and Infrastructure (PI) teams. They maintain multiple Kubernetes clusters, Datastore, BigQuery, PubSub, network and several other systems running on GCP managed with Terraform, and support 100's of millions of events per day and hundreds/terabytes of data with an event-driven, microservice-based architecture. Bluecore is a marketing technology company that’s reimagining the way retailers communicate with shoppers. Working with the world’s fastest-growing retail brands, Bluecore intelligently connects casual shoppers to the products that transform them into lifetime customers. During the Podcast episode, Ben sits down with Michael to discuss how people in tech tend to view their careers and what you can do differently to maximize the chance of success. And what managers can do to help their team on their career journey.

Ben Simonds is Head of Analytics at Contino, with responsibility for internal analytics and reporting as well as consulting with clients on BI, Analytics, and Cloud FinOps engagements. Contino is a leading transformation consultancy that helps large, heavily-regulated enterprises to become fast, agile and competitive. Ben has an incredibly interesting career path, starting out his journey by setting up his own successful 3D animation studio (Gecko Animation) and then moving into the world of Analytics. During the podcast episode, Ben discusses the correlation between data analytics and 3D animation, as well as the often overlooked hard and soft skills required to be successful in data.

Jennifer Agnes is Managing Director at Cynozure, a people-led data and analytics strategy consultancy, that creates data-guided organisations. Jennifer is a strategically focused and execution-biased senior executive with extensive global experience in increasing business value through comprehensive data, analytics, and team transformation strategies. Known for designing and delivering business solutions with a pragmatic, hands-on approach to meet strategic goals of the customer and company, provide value to shareholders, and ensure employee success. During the podcast episode, Ben sat down with Jennifer to discuss all things Data; What is 'good' Data? Is Data more important than code? and how to look into Data objectively, and how to extract the true value of Data to maximize its potential for your business. Thanks again to Jennifer for taking the time to come on the show and providing such a brilliant conversation.

Ian Venner is CTO and Co-Founder of Hurricane Modular Commerce. Ian is a highly analytical, technically savvy C-level exec and consultant with extensive experience in delivering best-in-class, cutting-edge solutions to clients from diverse industries. He is passionate about technology, about defining, implementing and managing solutions that offer immediate value and also support business growth, both organic and planned. What drives and inspires Ian is designing bespoke solution architecture that meets exact requirements within operational and financial constraints. Through Ian's career, he has worked with industry leaders from media, financial services and the telecoms sectors, providing high-quality solutions such as application architecture, mobile technology and more traditional system solutions that have spearheaded the implementation of technologies. He has worked on projects such as the launch of Samsung’s Media Hub platform in the US, the first system to globally utilise the Ultraviolet/DECE model. With strong commercial acumen and entrepreneurial vision, Ian is a confident operational and business lead, making a positive contribution to the development of wider corporate strategies that realise revenue, reputation and sustainable success in the field. Hurricane Commerce is the data partner for postal operators, online retailers, eCommerce platforms and carriers. Nothing moves without the right data and increasing global regulation is providing huge challenges to those involved in cross-border eCommerce trade. During the podcast episode, Ben sat down with Ian to discuss left-field thinking, unconstrained design, and letting innovation drive technology.