Talent Smart Podcast

Cloud technology promised agility, innovation and scalability. For many organisations, it delivered exactly that. But it also introduced a new challenge: visibility, accountability and control over spend.

In this episode of the Talent Smart Podcast, we sit down with one of the leading voices in the FinOps community, Ben de Mora, to explore why FinOps has rapidly evolved from a niche cloud management discipline into a strategic business capability.

Ben has helped organisations save and avoid more than $100 million in cloud spend, advised global enterprises, trained thousands of FinOps practitioners and helped shape some of the industry's most widely adopted FinOps frameworks. Drawing on years of experience working with business, finance and technology leaders, he explains why so many organisations struggle to understand where their cloud investment is going — and what they can do about it.

We begin by demystifying FinOps. What is it? Why does it matter? And why are so many organisations discovering that cloud cost management is not simply a finance problem or a technology problem, but a business problem that requires collaboration across all three disciplines.

The conversation then explores the realities of cloud overspend. Ben shares where waste typically occurs, why traditional governance models often fail in cloud environments, and how businesses can find themselves spending significantly more than expected without realising it.

We then dive into the heart of FinOps itself. Ben breaks down the core principles that underpin successful FinOps programmes, explains the importance of data and real-time visibility, and discusses how organisations can bring finance, engineering and business teams together around a common set of goals. We also explore the role of tooling and automation, and why technology alone is never the answer.

The episode concludes with practical advice for leaders looking to take action. Ben shares quick wins that organisations can implement immediately, common mistakes to avoid, and his perspective on the future of FinOps as cloud, AI and digital transformation continue to accelerate.

Whether you are a CIO, CFO, CTO, technology leader, cloud architect or business executive looking to improve efficiency and maximise value from your technology investments, this episode provides a clear and practical introduction to one of the most important disciplines shaping modern digital organisations.

Key topics include:

Alexandra Mousavizadeh - AI is a Growth Story for Jobs and Business

Is AI really coming for our jobs, or is it creating the biggest business growth opportunity of our generation?

The headlines often paint AI as a threat to employment, but what does the evidence actually tell us?

In this episode of the Talent Smart Podcast, we sit down with Alexandra Mousavizadeh, CEO of Evident, whose organisation analyses the world's leading companies to understand how AI is really being adopted and where it is creating measurable business value.

Together, we explore one of the biggest questions facing business leaders today: Is AI a story of workforce reduction, or one of growth, transformation and opportunity?

Drawing on extensive research and real-world evidence, Alexandra challenges many of the myths surrounding AI adoption. We discuss why the organisations leading in AI aren't simply using it to cut costs, but to unlock innovation, improve productivity, create new revenue streams and build entirely new capabilities.

The conversation also tackles one of the most sensitive topics in business today—headcount. Rather than relying on speculation, we examine what the data says about how AI is changing the workforce, the skills that are becoming increasingly valuable, and why many organisations are investing in re-skilling their people rather than replacing them.

We also explore what separates genuine AI leaders from businesses that are still experimenting, the role leadership plays in successful AI transformation, and how CEOs, CIOs and CHROs can position their organisations to thrive over the next decade.

Whether you're a business leader, technology executive, HR professional, investor or simply curious about the future of work, this episode provides an evidence-based perspective on one of the most important business conversations of our time.

In this episode we discuss:

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that moves beyond the headlines and explores what the evidence really tells us about the future of AI, business growth and the workforce.

Lucy Murphy (CGO. Linklaters) – Secrets to successful transformations

In this second episode, we delve into how to deliver meaningful and long lasting change within a large organisation. Lucy gives us some great advice in terms of creating fast decision making and how to maintain momentum within your transformation programme, together with tips on how to avoid “change fatigue” or “transformation burnout”.

We spend some time discussing technology’s place within large scale transformation and AI adoption, in particular the need for accessible and meaningful data to allow for AI to offer business benefit.

Lucy also shared her thoughts on the need to create an environment that is future fit and is built on a belief of ongoing improvement and a growth mindset.

In this episode of the Podcast, we sit down with a leading voice at the intersection of customer data, AI, analytics and hyper-personalisation to explore what it really takes to turn customer data into meaningful, commercially valuable experiences.

We unpack why customer data activation has become such a critical priority, what happens when organisations get it right, and why so many businesses still struggle to bridge the gap between data investment and customer impact.

The conversation dives into the real-world technology landscape behind modern customer engagement — including Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), Customer Experience Platforms (CEPs) and the campaign execution engines that bring customer strategies to life. We explore what best-in-class customer activation actually looks like and why true hyper-personalisation is far more than just smarter segmentation.

From there, we move into one of the hottest topics in technology today: AI agents and context management.

What makes an AI agent genuinely intelligent rather than simply automated? Why is context emerging as the missing ingredient in most AI strategies? And how will memory, first-party data and contextual intelligence reshape the future of customer experience?

Expect strong opinions, practical insight, and a few thought-provoking hot takes on where organisations are getting AI wrong — and what leaders should be focusing on over the next 12–24 months.

For the past two decades, Lucy has been a member of the Executive Committee at three global law firms. In these roles, she has been instrumental in reorienting the organisational strategy towards client-centricity. Her experience includes leading corporate strategy, reputation management, corporate communications, government relations and product development.

Lucy is renowned as an outcomes-based leader with extensive experience in designing and leading transformations encompassing operational, financial, infrastructural and strategic goals in complex environments across multiple markets. In recognition of her capabilities, she was named one of Europe's most transformational leaders in professional services in 2019 and one of the world's most influential leaders in the field in 2023.

In this episode; Lucy shares with us her journey to becoming one of the most recognised transformational leader in the Legal profession and beyond. She outlines her steps for success when building large scale successful business and technological transformations.

We also discuss the potential blockers and pitfalls that need to be navigated and avoided. Lucy candidly shares her own experiences and how to overcome issues. We discuss how technology is rapidly changing, but can be a real driver for business efficiencies and how to make good choices when selecting your technology platforms and partners.

In this fascinating insight into the world of Data we uncover what do CEOs often misunderstand and when boards talk about “being data-driven,” what do you think they usually mean and what are they often missing.

We talk about a “data knowledge gap” in organisations — how to define that gap, and why is it so dangerous right now. We also ask why do so many organisations still struggle to understand what data they have, where it lives, and how good it actually is.

Sarah explains why data is such a critical prerequisite for meaningful AI adoption and what happens when companies try to “bolt AI on” without fixing their data foundations? Sarah also shares where organisations typically see the quickest efficiency gains once they start using data properly.

Many organisations sit on vast amounts of data but never monetise it. We asked Sarah; what mindset shift is required to see data as a product, not just an asset and what does “data as a product” actually look like in practice.

We explore how do leaders create a culture where data is trusted, used, and challenged (rather than ignored or feared) and what will separate organisations that successfully leverage data and AI from those that fall behind over the next 3–5 years.

Anna Westerhoff-Mason - Building High-Performing Teams in Startup & Scale-Up Environments

In this insightful episode, we discuss high-performing teams in startup and scale-up environments and we uncover what does that actually look like day-to-day — not in theory, but in reality.  We unpick the importance of Defining culture early and what should leaders focus on first: values, behaviours, or outcomes, together with exploring how much of culture is intentionally designed versus organically formed in the early stages.

We talk about hiring in a start up, what matters more than technical skill when building a high-performing early team. Anna gives an insight into how to maintain your culture as your company grows and why we often see how it starts strong but gets diluted as teams scale.

We also delve into Leadership, trust and psychological safety and the importance of talent retention & sustaining performance and why consistent communications and feedback from leadership is vital.

Anna also gives her three key actions that you can take in the next 90 days to strengthen team performance and culture.

What does it really take to build world-class engineering teams at global scale — and sustain velocity without sacrificing quality?

In this episode, we sit down with Lyndsay MacLeod, an award-winning Continuous Improvement leader with 20+ years of experience driving large-scale transformation across engineering, manufacturing and financial services.

This isn’t theory. It’s hard-won insight from someone who has led change across complex, distributed, high-pressure environments.

We explore:

If you lead engineering teams, oversee digital transformation, or responsible for technology risk and delivery at scale — this conversation is for you.

Lyndsay shares practical frameworks, cultural insights, and leadership lessons that separate high-performing global teams from those stuck in “agile theatre.”

Lean isn’t about going faster. It’s about building organisations that learn faster.

Listen now.

Claire Talbot – Creating a culture for success

We welcomed Claire Talbot. Claire is the VP of IT at Smartest Energy, a people-powered energy company that helps businesses buy, sell and trade energy with confidence. Within this role, she is responsible for the design, development and implementation of their Enterprise information systems, software applications, IT support and infrastructure systems. 

Having studied Computer Science, Claire started her careers as a computer programmer.  Throughout her career she has moved up to a senior role within IT working at board level across a variety of businesses in manufacturing, retail, and utilities.  A strong support of Women in Technology Claire regularly speaks at schools and mentors’ young women starting their career within.

In this episode, we discussed how understanding Your Team Beyond the Workplace is highly beneficial for everyone. Claire talks about the importance of truly knowing your team members, including aspects of their personal and home lives.

Claire explained how cultivating a No-Blame culture, where mistakes are treated as learning opportunities is crucial.

Claire used the metaphor of a good leader being an umbrella; when it rains being a shield and stepping aside when the sun shines.  In addition, she explains that people are your best asset as a CIO – “otherwise, all you have is technology”.

Nicholas Smith - "How communication skills define careers"

Nicholas is a highly experienced Chief Operating Officer and Technology Strategy and Transformation Executive, with over 20 years of experience in solving enterprise-wide business and technology problems for large organisations in Financial Services and Central Government. He has a proven track record in driving Operational Excellence, enhancing the Colleague Experience, defining and driving execution of Technology and Organisation Strategy.

In this episode, Nicholas shares his secrets to communication and how to build an ethos within your organisation of open, simple and authentic communication that returns amazing results.

We learn about how a strategy lives or dies on how well you can articulate it, and how simplicity of message is key to success.

Nicholas shares with us his ingredients (and how to implement them) for building an organisation that is underpinned by great communication.

These are:

1) Be ruthless in your hiring strategy

2) Be interested in what you do / your business

3) Work hard (at the right things)

4) Great communications throughout the team

5) People are more than assets—look after them

6) Be the custodian of careers (develop your people)