Andrew Filev

is the CEO and Founder of Wrike, a SaaS platform that was instrumental in creating the collaborative work management category back in 2006. Today, he oversees a 1,000-strong team of employees, who are working to build one of the world’s most powerful cloud-based collaboration platforms

Q. TELL US ABOUT YOUR EDUCATION AND CAREER PATH

» When I reflect on my education and career path, I can’t help but compare my upbringing to that of my kids. There was very little “screen time”. We didn’t have tablets and streaming services, so I spent my childhood reading books and playing chess with my grandfather.

The first time I saw a computer, it looked like magic to me, and I became extremely eager to understand it. The problem is, I didn’t have consistent access to one for many years to come. Sometimes, I would go to my mom’s workplace and their IT guy would show me something.

Later, I changed schools to enrol in one that had a fully established computer class. Eventually, I saved enough money to build my own from secondhand parts. So, it’s not a surprise that I ended up studying computer science at college. My intellectual curiosity brought me into many other subjects as well, but my interest in “thinking machines” persists and continues to evolve to this day.

I started a full-time job in between my first and second year of college and, by the time I was in my second year, I was already running my own company.

Q. WHAT LED YOU TO THIS INDUSTRY?

» My first company grew at such a rapid pace that I could see the decline in efficiency between when we started the company with five employees in one room, to more than 100 worldwide.

I spent a lot of my time managing emails, spreadsheets and meetings, trying to understand who was doing what, when, and what the impact or results were. There was no real-time visibility unless I picked up the phone and asked. I knew we were not nearly as productive and efficient as we could be, and that’s when I started thinking about collaboration and project management.

At that time, I saw a critical gap in project management that needed to be filled.

While most PM solutions were great at handling one large-scale project, they weren’t built to juggle multiple projects in an agile environment. They missed critical collaboration capabilities that teams need to work effectively. They also focused on one aspect of work – a well defined project – when, in reality, a lot of work in the company falls more into a ‘workflow’ category.

So, I decided it was time to break the silos and create a work management platform that could handle any kind of work for the organisation, and do it in a way that would scale from one project or team to hundreds of thousands. The technology was also getting there, with the tech world on the cusp of cloud and mobile revolutions. This is how Wrike was born.

Andrew Filev, Wrike's CEO: How I Built a Company Ready for Hybrid Work Years Before It Was Cool

Since then, we have been growing and evolving the platform to follow the pace at which the work and technologies have changed.

Q. HOW ARE YOU DRIVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

» I was lucky to be exposed at the turn of the century to the trends that later redefined the way we work – distributed teams, fully digital workflows, agile processes and cloud technologies. I saw firsthand how you could improve your productivity and that of your team, and it was obvious to me that different industries and departments would follow.

If there is a way to do something twice as efficient, free markets will always drive the business community to adopt such technologies and best practices.

A big priority for IT departments and digital transformation teams in 2023 will be bringing the workflows and initiatives into one work platform, versus allowing them to stay scattered all over apps and files. I believe 85% of organisations will make it a top-three priority to invest in and implement a solution that provides greater visibility across business functions. They will look for more robust solutions that are not only cost-effective, easy to use, and get teams going upon sign-in, but ones that are more powerful and increase productivity across the organisation.

This next wave may come in the form of integrations, AI, and automation technologies that allow the solution to grow with their teams.

There’s no trade-off for data centres and sustainability

Schneider Electric’s Thierry Chamayou explains why sustainability is a strategic imperative for the data centre industry

THIERRY CHAMAYOU, VICE PRESIDENT CLOUD & SERVICE PROVIDERS EMEA, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

“Within the last few years sustainability has moved from a ‘nice to have’, to one of the top three procurement considerations for end-users and operators.” says Schneider Electric’s Vice President, Cloud Service Providers, EMEA, Thierry Chamayou.

Schneider Electric, who has signed the 17 science-based targets that form the foundation of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals has made sustainability a fundamental focus of its operations, positioning itself as one of the world’s leading authorities on net zero. Today the company develops technologies for several critical sectors, including buildings, grids, industrial manufacturing, and of course, data centres. It is here that Chamayou believes data centres are leading the charge and demonstrating that energyintensive industries can be a key enabler for decarbonisation.

Sustainability has indeed become a strategic imperative for data centres, and for businesses embarking on this journey, Schneider Electric is leading by exampleestablishing new innovations and investing significant amounts of revenue in research and development. Chamayou tells us that the company is not only helping organisations improve efficiency and reduce emissions, but is helping business to establish strategies that will enable long-term, sustainable change.

A key example is its position as a leader in the Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) market, where it was recently ranked No. 1 for its NEO Network and Zeigo platforms. These acquisitions have enabled Schneider Electric to simplify the buying process by connecting customers with trusted experts, and offering exclusive market intelligence to accelerate decision making.

Chamayou tells us that there is “no trade-off”, and sustainability is not just good for the planet, it’s now become a central of focus for organisations both in the industry and outside of it. Many businesses, for example, are becoming more climate-conscious, and as such, making significant investments in Greentech to futureproof and safeguard their operations.

In the data centre sector specifically, sustainability has been driven by enduser requirements, pushing operators to measure and prove their environmental impact in a multitude of ways. “One way in which the company is helping here is through its industry-first sustainability framework”, says Chamayou, “helping operators to measure their impact through five key areas – energy, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), water, waste, land and biodiversity.”

For Schneider, these are vital, as they give data centre organisations fixed and quantifiable metrics for them to measure their progress towards improved sustainability standards.

“Ultimately, creating sustainable change comes down to setting a bold and actionable strategy,” continues Chamayou, “but no two strategies are entirely alike. Each customer will define its ambition in terms of climate impact, and we take a data-driven approach to help them drive change. To do that, we use our global platform with suites of different software, called EcoStruxure™.”

One example is EcoStruxure’s Resource Advisor, which enables customers to unlock greater optimisation, while giving them access to the analytics and reporting tools that are critical to the first phase of improving sustainability. For data centres in particular, this level of transparency and measurability is invaluable.

Interestingly Schneider Electric’s efforts within the space coincide with the publication of several of its recent research papers. One example is ‘Sustainability at the Edge’, exploring the gap between enterprise plans and edge sustainability programs. One of the report’s key findings was the revelation of a ‘perception-versus-reality dilemma’ across much of the industry.

According to the report, “the maturity evaluations of nearly half of respondents (48%) did not match a previous answer,” as many enterprise organisations believe their sustainability programmes are more advanced than they are, in-reality. What’s more, the paper found that 73% of organisations surveyed ranked sustainability as their second-most important business priority. Critically, only 33% say they have created a strategic sustainability plan.

Chamayou tells us that having clear, definable metrics that data centres can use to shape their sustainability strategies will be an immense aid. Through its framework, technologies and expertise, Schneider Electric is helping the industry to create datadriven strategies, where success and progress are measurable.