Tech Leaders Intel

As tech startups and disruptors seek to provide more niche services to the general public, data security becomes an increasingly bigger concern. It follows that education on security risks and precautions for insurtech firm leadership, solution architects and end-users is absolutely paramount.

On the latest installment of the Tech Leaders’ Intel podcast, we speak with Lee Williamson, Chief Information Security Officer at EIP, who has spent years helping colleagues and customers understand security and extolling the virtues of self-education in this area. Once a freelance consultant, Lee signed on full-time with EIP to oversee the establishment of a company culture that’s laser-focused on security.

Together with host Nick Goodwin, Lee shares his insights on:

• Why a stable executive board is a need-to-have for startup stability
• The value of transparency to clients when security testing solutions
• How continuously reviewing security policies and processes contributes to a secure product
• Staving off vulnerability by making your company harder to access for hackers

…and that’s not all. Ever the champion for data security education, Lee is full of tips and resources to bolster listener knowledge on keeping data safe for everybody involved. It is an absolutely reassuring listen no matter who you are. To get in touch with Lee, he can be reached on LinkedIn, and for more information on EIP, visit their official website

Increasing satisfaction within internal and external teams is a never-ending job. But how do you even approach the subject, considering there are just as many opinions as people within the team?

In this week’s Tech Leaders’ Intel podcast, we speak with Nuno Veloso, the Head of Engineering at luxury fashion company FARFETCH. Nuno enlightened us on the challenges of being a leader in a rapidly evolving industry where expectations are constantly on the rise. Struggling to understand the viewpoint of all teams, Nuno decided a different approach. While brainstorming with his colleagues, they decided to attack the subject straight-on by undertaking a company-wide survey initiative.

In detail, Nuno tackles subjects like:

• The alignment of different teams
• Understanding impacts and risks of platform interventions
• Planning solutions when something goes awry
• How to understand and name gaps in competencies
• Helping employees see the impact of their daily workloads

...and much more!

This week’s podcast is a must for everyone who struggles to maintain a high satisfaction level within their teams, with helpful advice how to approach the subject head-on.

Oftentimes we read, hear, and see influential people share their journey of becoming great leaders, nurturing growth, setting an example, and lightning the way for others. What most of them omit is the real challenges life puts in your way, that not everybody has the willingness to do. In other words, nobody can become a great mentor overnight. On this episode of Tech Leaders’ Intel, James Loveridge speaks with Joe Pettersson, a self-described introvert who has broken out of his comfort zone to become the mentor he always wanted to be.

Joe, the Chief Technology Officer at Banked, paints us a picture of how being a jack-of-all-trades prepared him to face the obstacles, how much personal and professional growth are intertwined, and how to fight intrusive thoughts and self-doubt. Together with James, they discuss Joe’s leadership experience, including:

• How a side project turned his life around in an instant
• Impostor syndrome and how to deal with it
• How failure is an acceptable outcome
• The importance of being open and transparent with everybody, including yourself
• Key aspects of a good leader and recognizing flaws
• VC and PE Due Diligence
• Pre-seed and seed fundings

...and much more!

This week’s podcast is a must-listen to everybody interested to become a better mentor.
For more of Joe’s insights you can find him on:

• Twitter
• Linkedin
• His website

Conventional thinking goes that the most successful startups, technologies, and business leaders are specialists with years of experience mastering the niches and corners of their field. While that may be the reality, it is crucial not to overlook how a generalist mindset can also fuel success. On the newest edition of Tech Leaders’ Intel, Didier Caroff speaks with Simon Upton to deliver some particularly salient insights about navigating changes in business growth.

Didier, who is vice president of engineering at Akeneo, explains how his background in engineering, banking, and project management helped him become a forward-thinking executive in scaling firms in the product information management (PIM) space. Together they discuss his career and expertise, including:

• PIM’s influence on the customer’s product experience (PX)
• Team-driven topology and domain-driven design
• The role of value streams in the evolution of organisational processes
• How management strategies change during the upscaling of a business

And of course, much more across the span of forty-five minutes. For more of his insights, Didier has a podcast of his own called Beer and Tech. You can subscribe to it on Spotify or reach out to him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

You rarely hear from business leaders about those difficult early decisions that go into building a startup. Hearing from someone who has been there speak about their experiences with radical candour is a breath of fresh air. On the newest episode of Tech Leaders’ Intel, Lunio founder Neil Andrew tells his story from disenchantment with education to distaste for corporate life to founding a successful marketing efficiency platform.

With the Great Resignation seeing elevated numbers of people quitting their jobs for a multitude of reasons, Neil’s story gives hope to those trying to strike out on their own. Together with James, they discuss:

• Staying true to your own values while building a company
• Making difficult decisions in the early days of a startup
• The difficulties of (re)writing documentation and changing your tech stack on your own
• Transitioning from founding activities to the boardroom

...with many more insights contained within. The conversation flows easily, and Neil gives us an unvarnished portrait of the trials and rewards of growing Lunio. He is an approachable guy who invites anyone who needs support to contact him on LinkedIn. For more information on the value that Lunio provides, visit their website.

This week on Tech Leaders’ Intel, we’re joined by Dave Tonge, CTO of MoneyHub, a data and payments fintech and a pioneer of open banking. Having been at MoneyHub for nearly 12 years now, Dave is well-placed to share his knowledge on consumer data rights, open finance initiatives, tech leadership and more.

With new consumer duty regulations coming into place in July, Dave couldn’t have joined us for a chat at a more important time, as MoneyHub provides solutions for businesses to help them deliver on their customer care responsibilities. With that in mind, key highlights of our conversation include:

• MoneyHub’s ‘Categorisation Engine’ and using machine learning to help businesses meet customer needs.
• The importance of contextualizing your communications to customers and why this can help firms deliver on duty regulations.
• Overcoming issues presented by legacy systems.
• Retaining talent and what really constitutes ‘agile working’.
• How to avoid code rot.

This is certainly an episode not to miss – after all, as Dave sums it up, we often underestimate the changes that can occur in the space of a decade, but, despite the challenges, this is precisely what makes this industry so exciting. We totally agree – thanks for joining us Dave and for being so open with your advice. If you want to learn more about MoneyHub, check them out online here. Or, you can continue the conversation with Dave directly by connecting with him on LinkedIn.

In this week’s episode of Tech Leaders’ Intel, we’re very happy to be joined by Primoz Fonda, VP of DevOps at global fintech company SumUp. Originally from Slovenia, Primoz has been in London for the past 11 years, climbing the ranks from system administrator to his current leadership role.

We start by discussing the differences between ways of working in Slovenia vs. those in the UK, and Primoz explains why the expectation to be a generalist when he started out actually helped him on his journey to where he is now – not the least because it means he’s extremely agile when it comes to adopting new tech and learning new processes!

With this in mind, Primoz is able to share his advice on:

• Knowing if and when to move into a leadership position
• Acting as a mentor and an enabler for your team
• The pros and cons of the ‘Spotify Model’
• Being a salesperson for your role while not acting as a blocker
• Understanding the different needs of stakeholders

And much, much more!

With his interesting and varied career history (and, by the sounds of it, plenty more challenges and opportunities still to come) Primoz’s insight is invaluable for anyone working in engineering and considering moving into a leadership role. If you like what you hear and want to continue the conversation, you can connect with Primoz on LinkedIn.

Welcome to Episode 12 of Tech Leaders’ Intel. This week we’re speaking with Paolo Negri, co-founder of Contentful, a headless content management system. Founded in 2013 in Berlin, and now based in San Francisco, the company has grown rapidly and was valued at US$3bn in 2021.

Paolo and his co-founder Sascha Konietzke met after an entrepreneur speed-dating event. Their early days involved working in the cheapest room of a shared office space, with an engineer sleeping on an old sofa. As you can imagine, growing from their first investment ($0.5m) to their most recent one ($175m) required learning specific skills, and fast!

Paolo talks us through the importance of early investors who can look beyond uneven results and the knowledge value (and reality checks) they bring, before sharing key insights around:

• the challenges of development and consistency when you’re an API-based company,
• the importance of when and when not to make teams agile and independent, and
• the growth of low-code/no-code development.

Finally, Paolo shares some valuable tips, from recommended reading to advice he’d give his younger self. We’ve learnt so much recording this episode – and we’re sure you will by listening to it. If you like what you hear and want to continue the conversation, connect with Paolo on Linkedin.

Welcome to Episode 11 of Tech Leaders’ Intel. This week, we’re chatting with Dennis Teichmann, co-founder of the HR-software company Jacando. In light of their rapid growth in the booming HR-software market, we asked Dennis about:

• how to identify market demand and when to pivot your product,
  
  
• how your company culture will change with time and growth and what you can do to keep some of that pioneering magic
  
  
• when to offshore your IT and what to look out for when you go for it.

In the process we learn what happens to your company culture when you grow fast, how to find the balance between being a team player and having ambition, and when to accept that a colleague doesn’t share your values. Dennis also shares three big learnings from being an entrepreneur – so tune in for insights you don’t get elsewhere!

If you like what you hear and want to keep the conversation going, you can check in with Dennis on LinkedIn

Welcome to Episode 10 of Tech Leaders’ Intel! This week we’re excited to be joined by Vicky Bukta. She only graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017, but after joining the e-commerce trailblazer, Shopify, her impressive career growth has seen her rapidly rise through the ranks to become the company’s data-engineering team lead.

We begin by discussing how she entered the field and joined Shopify, before moving onto the challenges small companies face as the number and complexity of their data sets grow. For Vicky, overcoming these challenges meant teaching the wider company how to handle routine and detailed queries about data sets, so her team could focus on bigger data-engineering issues. That involved ensuring team knowledge was taken out of people’s heads and recorded for others to find and use, a process that required constant discipline.

It turns out this process is also essential for supporting the growing trend towards remote working as it helps prevent team tribalism of knowledge. Vicky’s team straddles multiple time zones, with some members having no overlap in their working hours, which presents both challenges and opportunities. Not only do we talk about how her team now works together, but we also consider how remote working is increasingly becoming something tech companies must embrace to secure and retain the best global talent.

Finally, we end by discussing how it is more important than ever to encourage women to go into tech from an early age; and why female tech representation in the media is so crucial for this.

If you like what you hear and want to continue the conversation, you can connect with Vicky on LinkedIn or visit her website VictoriaBukta.me