GET TO KNOW...
On the lighter side of things, we ask the
industry experts what makes them tick. . . .
Alastair Pooley,
CIO at Snow Software
What would you describe as your
most memorable achievement?
It would have to be the adoption and
growth of public cloud at my last company.
In 2013, the CTO and I decided we should
focus on a ‘cloud first’ strategy, so I closed
nine physical data centres and moved
80% of our customer-facing infrastructure
to AWS. As a result, the business gained
flexibility and an ability to grow rapidly that
proved critical in allowing the huge growth
rates the company subsequently enjoyed
and its successful IPO.
What first made you think of a
career in technology?
I’ve been interested in computers since my
teenage years. My first job was with a local
IT firm, building computers from scratch. This
was during the early 90s, a time when we still
had to assemble the components. It wasn’t
until I was at university studying physics that
I thought about it as a career.
I didn’t have any IT qualifications when
I graduated. As there weren’t that many
people with network or Internet experience,
the ISP with whom I secured my first job was
willing to take a gamble on people based on
sheer interest.
What style of management
philosophy do you employ with your
current position?
I believe it’s important to know what drives
and inspires you and what will make coming
www.intelligentcio.com
into work every morning that bit easier.
Once you work with your team to identity
these key motivators, you can ensure that
you’re managing them in a way that helps
them perform to the best of their ability and
supporting their career progression to deliver
better staff retention.
What do you think will emerge as the
technology trend of 2018 and why?
What do you currently identify as
the major areas of investment in
your industry?
Fundamentally, we develop technology that
helps provide visibility to our customers
of software usage across the enterprise.
We seem to always be looking at our
toolset of how we build, test and operate
our technology. We also invest heavily in
Data governance is becoming an
increasingly important responsibility for
the CIO, with GDPR on the immediate
horizon. Ownership, insight and visibility will
ultimately enable the CIO to have better
discussions within the business and truly add
real value.
“
THE REGIONAL
CHALLENGE I FACE
IN EUROPE IS
THE INCREASED
FOCUS ON
PRIVACY BY
DESIGN.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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