Tech-Exec Issue 10

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HABITAT ZERO: NATALIE RENS, ASTREIA AND LIFE ON MARS THE POWER OF DATA: BY FIVETRAN'S GURO BERGAN WING: THE GOOGLE 'XER' TRANSFORMING URBAN DELIVERY

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TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS LEADERSHIP INNOVATION

“THE CDO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SETTING THE DATA FOUNDATION" MICROSOFT'S EFFIE KILMER ON DATA MANAGEMENT IN THE CLOUD AND THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE CDO

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i

t’s no secret the role of the CDO is evolving. A greater reliance on data and analytics to drive enterprise decision making, the importance of real-time insight for maximising business value, and leading on complex transformations and cloud migrations are just some of the plates today’s data leader has to keep spinning.

But there’s another side, too. It’s about culture, nurturing a transformative mindset across every level of the organisation, being a conduit between the push and pull of every function or individual’s data needs and, above all, consistently being the catalyst for change.

It’s hard. Which is why people like Microsoft’s Effie Kilmer have been working so tirelessly with likeminded industry leaders at the EDM Council

Stroud & Clarke is a multichannel creative agency that produces exceptional business and lifestyle content for brands, leaders and pioneers.

and other organisations to help. In this issue we hear her thoughts on why the CDO will lead the next phase of cloud adoption and how she, the EDM Council and fellow industry experts have created an industry-wide best practice framework for data management in a cloud environment. In the current enterprise environment the result, the new CDMC framework, is essential reading.

Data leadership is a thread that runs across this edition, whether it’s Fivetran’s Guro Bergan discussing how integration and centralisation can maximise data value, data and analytics improving patient care with Orto Clinical Diagnostic’s Shree Seshan, or data and technology transformation at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. You’ll also find more about our upcoming Data Leaders Awards, for which we’re seeking exceptional and inspirational CDOs – make sure you cast your vote soon.

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© Stroud and Clarke Ltd 2022. All rights reserved. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that information is correct upon publishing, Stroud and Clarke Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information. All information in this magazine is provided “as is”, with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information. This magazine may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

E D I T O R I A L //

As always, enjoy the issue.

Matt.

Content Director

Marketing Director

Managing Directors

Matt High

Jack Pascall

Creative Directors

Project Director

Charlotte Clarke James Pepper

Daniel Crawford Steve Shipley

Manuel Navarro Project Director

Katie Fedun

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06 | INSIGHT

EXEC SUMMARY News, views and tech insight 12 | INTERVIEW

MICROSOFT On creating a best-practice framework for data management in the cloud

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28 | PORTFOLIO

TECH YOU NEED Innovations for work, leisure and the environmentally conscious 38 | INNOVATION

NATALIE RENS

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Planning humanity’s next great adventure: welcome to Mars 46 | INTERVIEW

ROYAL FREE LONDON On digital healtchare and the future hospital

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62 | ENTREPRENEUR

EMMA BATES Goodbye toxic masculinity, hello a new era of social media

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64 | LEADERSHIP

MIND THE TALENT GAP How leaders can mitigate the emerging data talent gap

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74 | INNOVATOR

EMERGE WAVE-1 What will the metaverse look like?

Have a feel and find out

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76 | INTERVIEW

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ORTHO CLINICAL DIAGNOSTICS On data transformation, culture and improving patient care

WING The Google ‘Xer’ transforming urban delivery 94 | DISRUPTOR

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TINY ROBOT CRAB Introducing the smallest ever remote controlled walking robot

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86 | TECHNOLOGY

96 | AWARDS

DATA LEADER AWARDS

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Recognising inspirational leadership in the data community

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110 | INTERVIEW

FIVETRAN On why organisations must maximise the value of their data 120 | CITY GUIDE

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48 HRS: VIENNA Business and pleasure in the Austrian capital

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E X E C S U M M A R Y //

When building on the capabilities of the cloud, organisations will discover opportunities and options for meeting the evolving needs of the business, says Accenture. This cycle, called the cloud continuum, sets a strong technology foundation for future development. For example, so-called continuum competitors are up to three times more likely to innovate and re-engineer knowledge work and up to three times more likely to use the cloud for achieving sustainability goals. Accenture sets out four keys to unlocking the potential of the cloud continuum. They are: know where you want to go, establish cloud practices to augment technologies, accelerate innovation to deliver exceptional experiences, and stay committed to strategy. www.accenture.com

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CLIMATE COLLABORATION

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Microsoft is launching the Microsoft Climate Research Initiative (MCRI), a community of multi-disciplinary researchers collaborating to accelerate cutting-edge research and transformative innovation in climate science and technology.

Initially, MCRI, which will combine Microsoft’s research skills and compute capacities with domain experts, will focus on three critical areas: overcoming constraints to decarbonisation, reducing uncertainties in carbon accounting and assessing climate risk in greater detail. www.microsoft.com

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minutes How long it took for Citreon’s limited edition all-electric My Ami Beach Buggy quadricycle to completely sell out. www.citroen.co.uk

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E X E C S U M M A R Y //

ME E T R A CE BIRD The RaceBird is here. The incredible all-electric foiling raceboat that will be at the heart of the new UIM E1 electric boat racing world championship made its UK debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s Future Lab. Nestled among suitably innovative and cuttingedge peers, RaceBird was presented as a static model allowing visitors to get up close and personal with its design concept and technologies, and understand more about the new on-water racing series based on clean technologies. Find out more about RaceBird and E1 in our interview with designer, Sophi Horne here.

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“Less than two years ago, the RaceBird was just a design on paper. To see it fully realised amongst the most exciting, futuristic technologies in the world feels like we’ve come full-circle” – Sophi Horne, RaceBird designer Founder and Chairman of SeaBird Technologies

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SPOT THE BALL At last, an end to arguments over the offside rule.

And football fans have Adidas to thank. The sports brand has launched the first World Cup Official Match Ball featuring innovative connected ball technology ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It features a unique Suspension System that lets a time-precise motion sensor track every touch during a match at a rate of 500 times per second.

The data will be available to match officials and combine with FIFA’s semi-automated offside technology to optimise in-game decision making. www.news.adidas.com

SUPER SHIRT Weights? Protein shakes? Endless gym sessions? Pah! Forget it. We’ll take a Myoshirt. The product of researchers at ETH Zurich’s Sensory Motor Systems Lab, Myoshirt is a soft robotic device that, in the simplest terms, acts like a set of wearable muscles that increases strength and endurance – by an average of 33% for participants without physical impairments. But, there’s a far more noble purpose for Myoshirt than just letting you skip the gym – its creators say it can ultimately be used by those with arm or upper body impairments or disabilities. www.nature.com

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By 2030, the value of the metaverse could reach $5tn according to research by McKinsey & Co. Here’s the top five enterprise use cases smart companies are getting on board with: > Marketing campaigns or initiatives > Learning and development for employees > Meetings in the metaverse > Events or conferences > Product design or digital twinning McKinsey & Co: Value creation in the metaverse

Tesla says in a press release that its delivery of new battery-powered cars and crossovers fell by nearly 18% over its previous quarter.

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Following the US Supreme Court’s decision to strip federal abortion rights, Google will remove location history data about some ‘particuarly personal’ locations post-visit.

The Apple Watch Series 8, which debuts later this year, will reportedly include a body-temperature sensor to warn for signs of fever.

The US Federal Communications Commission grants SpaceX authorisation to use its Starlink satellite internet system on moving vehicles, including cars and aircraft.

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program is funding a concept that will enable dozens of small robots (micro-swimmers) to explore distant planets.

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MICROSOFT’S EFFIE KILMER ON WHY THE CDO WILL LEAD THE NEXT PHASE OF CLOUD ADOPTION AND THE CREATION OF AN INDUSTRY-WIDE BEST PRACTICE FRAMEWORK FOR DATA MANAGEMENT IN A CLOUD ENVIRONMENT

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FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS

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hen, part way through our conversation, Effie Kilmer discusses her work in Ghana as an engineering student introducing a water filtration system to a remote village, it’s a timely digression. The story, which is as much about the intricacies of people and culture, flexibility in approaching innovation, empathy and trust as it is engineering or technology, is a good analogy for many of the themes that she and her industry peers have invested much of their time on recently: enterprise transformation and change programmes, the changing role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and driving success in an ever-evolving regulatory and complex cloud environment.

“I realised, ‘how do I create change here?’,” says Kilmer, reflecting on the project. “I thought it would be relatively simple, we’d implement the new system and everyone in the community would use it – how you might imagine a CDO feeling about a technology implementation they’d invested in. People weren’t using it, instead sticking to the water they knew better. And on reflection I understood it: why should they use something new, different or based on something they weren’t familiar with just because I told them to?

“We took a different approach, spent time with each person in the community, drank the water from the purification system with them and tried to educate those willing in the community who were using the system – the children. Once we had those early adopters on, you could really see it spread and real change starting to happen,” she adds. “It’s a lesson that I carry with me to this day. To make change happen you have to be real, to have empathy, and it sounds elementary, but you have to have the ability to understand others and allow others to understand you, all CDOs would say the same. If you’re able to build trust, relationships and understand the way people think and work, you can support them and collectively be better.”

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There are, of course, different levels of complexity but any change programme – whether working with rural communities or being at the heart of complex data management and enterprise cloud migration processes – is hard, both practically and in terms of those ‘softer’ skills around people and culture. Kilmer knows that, and so do the many CDOs she works with in her current role as Chief Data Officer Engagement Lead at Microsoft’s Data Governance Platform team. In this position, she’s a trusted advisor to the CDOs at Microsoft’s largest global enterprise customers, and responsible for leading the cloud provider’s long-term strategic platform direction to enable the business users of the cloud.

DATA MANAGEMENT AND THE CDO

“TO MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN YOU HAVE TO BE REAL, TO HAVE EMPATHY AND THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS AND ALLOW OTHERS TO UNDERSTAND YOU”

The global data landscape is more complex than ever, with CDOs at the forefront of both managing complex enterprise data assets that drive strategic decision making to improve operational efficiency, and delivering service excellence for their customers. Their remit is broad and requires tackling issues including digital disruption and transformation, privacy, compliance and a changing regulatory landscape, cybersecurity, as well nurturing an effective data culture built upon data-driven insights. Much of today’s digital transformation is taking place in the cloud, with cloud adoption continuing at pace across all industries and presenting both challenges and opportunities. Data is the foundation of these transformations, with

The Cloud Data Management Capabilities Framework is Now Available for All Industries to Enable Best Practices for Data in the Cloud The EDM Council has published the Cloud Data Management Capabilities (CDMC) framework for managing data in the Cloud for all industries. The CDMC framework represents a comprehensive set of cloud data management capabilities, standards and best practices for cloud, multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud implementations, incorporating automated key controls for protecting sensitive data.

The CDMC framework was collaboratively developed with over 100 industry-leading companies including Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud, incorporating 14 Key Automated Controls for protecting sensitive data “The EDM Council is honored to have facilitated the development of the CDMC framework to provide an auditable and certified cloud data management best practice available as a free license. We’re very excited to make the framework available to all industries and appreciate the global industry efforts of everyone involved to make it a reality.”

— John Bottega, President of the EDM Council

CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FRAMEWORK

SIGN-UP FOR EDM COUNCIL’S CDMC VIRTUAL TRAINING CLASSES

www.edmcouncil.org

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organisations reaping the many benefits of managing and storing data in a cloud environment including cost savings, mobility, agility, better information security and increased levels of communication, and the ability to drive business value through data-powered insights.

“THE CDO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SETTING THE DATA FOUNDATION ACROSS PEOPLE, PROCESS AND This shift puts data management – TECHNOLOGY, AND preparing the business for the workforce of the future by building a data culture, IDENTIFYING THE MATURITY redefining processes and ensuring the optimal tools are in place to set strong OF THE ORGANISATION’S data foundations – and the role of the CDO UNDERLYING CAPABILITIES at the heart of a company’s cloud strategy, positioning them as a key differentiator AND DATA ESTATE” between successful organisations and those that underestimate the challenges of creating a data-driven enterprise able to deliver on core strategic objectives.

“There’s been a pretty significant shift over the last five to 10 years in terms of the CDO role,” says Kilmer, expanding on the growing importance of data and the data leader to the modern enterprise.

“Look across industries and it’s fair to say that the financial sector is one of the most mature in terms of understanding the foundational components that make data trustworthy for data-driven decision making. The reason for the industry’s maturity is due to the regulatory changes as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, which forced large global banks to evaluate how they pass data in and out of their organisation, how they set appropriate controls and evidence it effectively. This

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meant that the first phase of CDOs were quite defensive in terms of their role – it was much more of a risk management function. We see other industries following suit with the establishment of GDPR, where all industries in the EU have to better understand their data estate in order to swiftly identify an individual’s personal data inside their organisation. “ In today’s world, the CDO is expected to be far more offensive,” she continues.

“Because of the pace of change, ongoing transformation and this shift to the cloud, the modern data leader has to rethink the way they’ve managed traditional processes inside their

Understandably, the level of complexity facing CDOs has increased with several core priorities and areas of focus emerging that are central to good data management.

“They’re responsible for setting the data foundation across people, process and technology, and identifying the maturity of the organisation’s underlying capabilities and data estate,” Kilmer elaborates.

“As consumer behaviour changes, the underlying capabilities begin to shift.

We are seeing an increased interest for consumers to understand how their data is being used by brands and CDOs are having to set data ethics standards inside their organisation. There’s been a shift from transformation being traditionally

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organisation. They’re far more business and value driven, and have to consider things like generating new revenue streams, how to monetise data and upskill the business in order to keep up with the changes in consumer behaviour.

In many respects, digital transformation has been a great forcing function for driving this change. Naturally, that brings challenges. The scope of responsibility continues to diversify and broaden and that can be challenging. Increasingly the role is about balancing the more traditional defensive and risk management-focused posture while also meeting the more offensive expectations that we’re seeing at the c-level.”

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seen through the lens of IT, to a realisation there’s a significant cultural component and understanding the digital use of the data estate, the value behind the data and what it means to the organisation, then digitally transforming from there. It all starts with good data management, setting the data foundations and the CDO setting the direction for how they implement it.”

According to Kilmer, that data foundation should encompass three key areas of the business: people, process and technology.

“Begin with identifying use cases in two buckets: operational efficiency for your employees and customer service excellence to delight current and future clients, underpinned with sustainability at the forefront. Identify areas ripe for automation to help make your employees more effective in their day to day work, help reduce the amount of manual work, and upskill your workforce to help prepare them for the future. Technology is about ensuring you’re implementing the innovations that will not just support the needs of today but also help the business navigate the future, which means considering supporting an open system, many clouds and adapting to the rapidly changing regulatory environment.

“Having the appropriate controls and management of the data within the organisation’s estate is first and foremost,” she continues. “Most organisations have a backlog of use cases they are working

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towards. In order to tackle each use case, you must ask the question; what data do I need? Where is the data coming from?

How and who can help me get access to it? Tackling each use case individually is achievable, however, it is cumbersome.

Eventually you will find there is an underlying pattern. Organisations that align themselves to industry frameworks help accelerate programmes, and can provide perspective on the current maturity of your underlying data foundation.”

CDMC FRAMEWORK AND BEST PRACTICE

“THERE’S AN INDUSTRY NEED TO SET BEST PRACTICE STANDARDS FOR DATA MANAGEMENT IN THE CLOUD”

With the advent of cloud adoption, the art of data management has evolved and yet there remains a lack of consistent industry best practices and standards for applying data management capabilities during migration to and operation in single, multiple and hybrid cloud environments.

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on-premise and cloud environments.

“One of the first questions I will get asked in an intro call with a CDO is ‘how are other organisations doing it?’. Everyone wants to know the secret to accelerate,” Kilmer states. “For cloud service providers like Microsoft, the lack of best practice can make understanding the data management priorities of organisations more challenging, thus potentially impacting cloud implementation and development.”

To rectify this the EDM Council, a global association created to elevate the practice of data management as a business and operational priority, launched in May 2020 the Cloud Data Management Capabilities (CDMC) Framework in collaboration with more than 350 individual business executives, engineers, technologists and data professionals, as well as participants from over 100 global organisations including cloud service providers – the latter including Kilmer and Microsoft. Producing the first version of the CDMC was a one and a half year project, during which participants

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I N T E R V I E W //

took part in more than 750 sessions and contributed more than 45,000 work hours, estimated to be more than $5m in value.

The CDMC is a standalone industry framework developed around several core objectives such as providing direction and guidance on core data management capabilities in cloud data management aligned with best industry practices, developing a consistent scoring model to measure maturity and readiness against cloud data management capabilities, and collaborating with cloud service and technology providers to set out priorities for accelerating capabilities for cloud migration and implementation. The objective of the

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CDMC framework is to help organisations accelerate their migrations to the cloud with an industry standard for handling sensitive and non-sensitive data.

It recognises that standards and best practices help businesses harness the opportunities that exist through cloud adoption while helping to mitigate some of the key challenges set out in this article.

To do this it sets out an in-depth framework that addresses some of the complex data management capabilities required to control data in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These include establishing clear accountabilities, control and governance for data migrated to or created in

cloud environments, establishing data management controls through the data lifecycle, understanding and tracking what data resides in cloud environments and its sensitivity, and ensuring that data assets are fit-for-purpose for data consumers

“Industry has been developing data solutions for decades. And for decades, has struggled with building these solutions optimally, with data risk controls and automations being built-in upfront,” Bottega adds. “As data management transforms to cloud, we have a unique opportunity to do cloud right – build our

“There’s an industry need to set best practice standards for data management in the cloud,” Kilmer affirms. “Every organisation was trying to set a framework or their own standard, but the unique positioning of the EDM Council being a neutral body, meant it was able to bring together executives from the three cloud providers – Microsoft, Amazon and Google – and several industry leaders from the largest global banks.

Within months, we grew from a starting

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“We are in the throes of a digital transformation,” says the EDM Council’s President John Bottega, discussing the need for a best practice framework for data in the cloud.

“Nearly everything we do, how we do business, how we socialise, exercise, shop, even order food, is taking place online and in the cloud. Most experts predict that by 2025, 50% of all globally stored data will be in the cloud. Cloud offers one of the greatest opportunities to enable and action our data but poses some of our biggest information management challenges.

How do you build an environment where the data asset is protected, yet easily accessible to authorised users? How do you build in controls to protect privacy, especially cross-jurisdictions that have different data sovereignty laws? How do you ensure that the data collected is accurate and complete, void of bias and being used ethically?

information infrastructures, controls and automations from scratch, according to industry best practices. Given the risks of doing cloud incorrectly, it is imperative that we develop and adhere to ‘target state’ frameworks to ensure the trust and safety of our information assets.”

“THE CDMC IS A MANUAL FOR HOW, AS A CDO, YOU CAN HELP YOUR ORGANISATION MOVE FROM ON-PREM TO THE CLOUD THROUGH DATA MANAGEMENT”

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“THERE’S BEEN A SHIFT FROM TRANSFORMATION BEING TRADITIONALLY SEEN THROUGH THE LENS OF IT, TO A REALISATION THERE’S A SIGNIFICANT CULTURAL COMPONENT” 24

point of around 30 executives to almost 350 participants across the globe. It’s an engagement I will cherish forever and we were thrilled to release the full framework a year and a half later in September 2021.

“The CDMC identifies six key capability components of cloud data management: Governance and Accountability, Cataloguing and Classification, Accessibility and Usage, Protection and Privacy, Data Lifecycle, and Data and Technical Architecture,” she continues.

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“It’s a manual for how, as a CDO, you can help your organisation move from on-prem to the cloud through data management, what to expect in terms of automation, a common set of definitions, what areas that you should rethink or reevaluate, how can you improve your processes, your metrics, the expectations you can set in your organisation and more.

“It’s also useful from our perspective as a cloud provider because it allows us to hear and understand the requirements

and expectations of our customers, as to what they need from a data management perspective,” adds Kilmer. “We’ve used it as a way to influence our roadmap – we had our entire engineering team help shape and define what the framework looks like, and I’m not aware of any other opportunity to bring together so many organisations and leaders to set out something so important. Organisations are realising that they have to align to an industry standard to navigate this next phase of cloud adoption; it’s essential to

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THE SIX COMPONENTS OF CDMC 01. Data governance and accountability Organisations need clear governance, accountability and controls for data migrated to or created in-cloud. Capabilities needed to successfully achieve a sound data governance environment include business case, data ownership, data sourcing and crossborder data movement.

05. Data lifecycle It is imperative when migrating from on-prem to cloud to follow industry best practices in data management and design before they move to the cloud. New cloud environments must strictly adhere to best practices of data lifecycle controls, applied on an ongoing basis, to ensure that data is properly captured, processed, persisted, maintained,

02. Cataloguing and classification To have a successful cloud environment, you must know what data is in the cloud, how sensitive it is, and how to access it.

This component addresses the importance of building a comprehensive data catalogue and populating it with critical metadata.

utilised, and properly retained, archived or defensively destroyed.

03. Data accessibility and usage Data in the cloud needs to be accessible, but needs to be protected. This component describes the importance of automating key access and use and usage controls of your information assets to ensure protection and privacy of sensitive data, and ensure data is appropriately and ethically used.

04. Data protection and privacy It is the obligation of a good cloud environment to provide data security and protect data privacy. This component provides the capabilities for enforcing and evidencing the required levels of transparency, security and protection of data in the cloud.

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06. Technical architecture As with data that resides on-prem, the proper design of data and the supporting technologies for cloud are fundamental to ensuring that data is protected and being used to meet business objectives. Best practice architecture patterns and guidelines for the adoption of cloud capabilities maximise the ability to realise value from these data.

John Bottega, President, EDM Council

Mike Meriton, Co-founder & COO, EDM Council

industry best practices for their migration and use of data in-cloud to avoid the risks associated with this expanding platform.”

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE

The best practice set out in the CDMC is a significant step forward for businesses looking to leverage the power of data management and the capabilities of their CDO. But, in an increasingly complex environment the acceleration and optimisation of cloud adoption will require organisations to define clear data strategy and ensure it is aligned with the right people, processes and technology so that they can build a mature and modern data estate in the cloud. To do that, adopting industry standards and best practices will be crucial.

To successfully implement data management in the cloud will bring several benefits to organisations, says the EDM Council’s co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Mike Meriton. “The most obvious are cost efficiency and flexibility. Cloud environments enable rapid expansion of resources as a firm’s requirements change, better utilisation of resources and the ability to leverage a broad array of external data marketplaces and alternative data sources for business opportunities. At the same time, firms no longer have to worry about ‘server utilisation’ in the data center – unused capacity and waste when these issues are being automatically addressed for you with cloud providers.

“Second (and probably the most important) is the democratisation of a firm’s data – putting data to work, “ continues Meriton.

“Cloud enables expanded access to critical data and alternative data sources to authorised users while providing a layer of access controls and data protection. Given this improved data use paradigm, firms will find their ability to innovate, enabling access to newer markets and improved collaboration (internally and externally) which will lead to more innovative products and services. But new technologies introduce new challenges. It is imperative that firms venturing into cloud follow

“Data management is truly the foundational element, but it’s not easy,” concludes Kilmer. “It requires a mindset shift of the entire organisation and those organisations that underestimate the amount of work that goes into it, and the potential of the best practices in the CDMC or other frameworks, will quickly become frustrated in their inability to accelerate their cloud programmes to achieve greater innovation and new revenue streams.”

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help prioritise and establish an internal framework and then leverage it to rethink data management for the future.”

www.microsoft.com

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Portfolio

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Innovative and inspired items for work, leisure and sustainable living

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SHINE TURBINE

www.shineturbine.com

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Why should remote work mean swapping a desk in the office for one at home? For Shine and its innovative backpack-friendly wind turbine, remote really means remote. The same size as a water bottle, just 13kg and built to generate power from gentle breezes of just 13kph, Shine Turbine lets you go off-grid, not offline.

Anchor it to the ground wherever you choose to work or play and its three 60cm blades automatically face into the wind and provide enough power to charge external devices like phones, iPads and more, or an internal battery.

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Innovative and inspired items for work, leisure and sustainable living

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DELOREAN ALPHA5 To get the bad news out of the way first: there’s no flux capacitor.

Or time travel. But in Alpha5, there’s all-electric innovation, an estimated range of 300+ miles, a 100+kWh battery and a top speed [if you let the electronic limiter have its way] of 155mph. There’s also the same gull-wing doors as Doc Brown’s screen icon, classic

www.delorean.com

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DeLorean looks and intelligent technology that allows for the optimum driving experience. It is, after all, a car for ‘people that love to drive’, says the company’s CEO Joost de Vries.

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Portfolio

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Innovative and inspired items for work, leisure and sustainable living

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LAMY 2000 In a world of unashamed digitalisation, there’s something satisfying about a well-loved pen.

It’s a tool to support creativity, thinking and expression that demonstrates – in the case of the Lamy 2000 – beautiful design and highquality functionality. But Lamy wears its sustainable credentials on its sleeve too. Not only are TECH-EXEC MAGAZINE | ISSUE TEN

products built to last, meaning less waste and ‘exceptional’ longterm usage, but the company also uses renewable energy sources at its sites, recycled materials where possible, environmentally friendly packaging and production equipment, and invests in social and environmental initiatives. www.lamy.com

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Portfolio

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Innovative and inspired items for work, leisure and sustainable living

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THE MIRROR If gyms are anything to go by, everyone loves staring at themselves in the mirror when working out. Those mirrors aren’t gonna get you fit by themselves. But this one is. The Mirror is the ultimate smart home gym that includes a library of over 10,000 workout classes on demand, weekly curated and personalised workouts, smart

www.mirror.co

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and real-time workout data that can be paired with a smart watch, and fully integrated smart weights that track reps and form. And yes.

You can still stare at yourself.

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Portfolio

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Innovative and inspired items for work, leisure and sustainable living

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SWFT MAXX Commuting is hard. Even in an electric car. Which is where the MAXX Electric Moped comes into its own. The first e-moped of its kind to feature a compact design perfect for winding through traffic and packed city streets, it’s the perfect way to get around – whether you’re heading to work or play.

Courtesy of electric bike pioneers

www.rideswft.com

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SWFT, the MAXX features front and rear hydraulic shock absorbers, remote control and built-in alarm, a 400W brushless motor and 48V battery and smart driving display. It’ll also do 38 miles on a single, up to 10hr charge.

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HABITAT ZERO

IS THERE LIFE ON MARS? CERTAINLY, IF NATALIE RENS AND ASTREIA’S VISION OF BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE IN SPACE IS ANYTHING TO GO BY

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Astreia is the result of that vision. The company that Rens founded not long after that SpaceX launch has the goal of enabling sustainable human life through the development of selfsufficient habitation that can be built at scale anywhere on this planet, or another. Through the use of intelligent operating systems and innovative design and assembly techniques – Astreia intends its homes to be shipped to Mars ready to assemble by astronauts – Rens and the business will help humans survive in an environment in which gravity is about one third that of Earth, the average temperature is around -63 degrees celsius and there’s little oxygen. And, should you forget to pop your spacesuit on before stepping out of your Astreia newbuild, you run the very real risk of boiling your body fluids. Instantly.

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hat were you doing at 10 years old? Dr Natalie Rens was setting a lifelong goal to help humanity.

And not just on Earth, either.

You see, on February 6, 2018 the South African native, who’d previously left home at 16 to study biomedical science and neuroscience before later serving as the first AI specialist for the Australian government, witnessed SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launch Starman into space.

It was the moment that sending humans to Mars became a possibility in our lifetime. And when Rens set her sights on building the first ever settlements on the Red Planet.

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“I WAS OBSESSED WITH THE IDEA OF RUNNING OFF…”

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But such a challenge doesn’t deter Rens.

Far from it. Her career to date has been driven by a consistent thread of a fascination with humanity, an interest in our collective health and wellbeing and ensuring the future survival of our species. “It’s always been there for me,” she says, “but I don’t think I necessarily pieced it together in the best way when I was younger. I’ve always been fascinated by that real extreme element of exploration and journeying into the unknown of both human knowledge and discovery. From a young age I was obsessed with the idea of running off into a rainforest or the Amazon and excited by the fact that we just don’t know, at an experiential level, what we’d face in those kinds of environments.

“The idea that you could take the knowledge you’ll uncover, bring it back and develop new

medical cures or help, not just one person, but humanity at a much greater scale to collectively push us all forward was inspirational,” Rens continues. “That was my goal, which is why I initially chose to go into medical science, before moving into neuroscience – we know so little about the human brain that I felt that was the most exploratory place you could go with science. Ultimately, I wasn’t fulfilled by academia, a feeling that was building at the same time as activity around space, particularly the human exploration of Mars and it just clicked, of all those things that had driven me from a young it was the absolute extreme: very deadly, an extremely harsh and unknown environment that challenges the very notion of human survival as the first planet we can go to. It was the birth of Astreia and seeing if we could actually achieve this endeavour to survive on Mars, but also considering what that means for the entire future of humanity.”

The need for survival is very real and proponents of multiplanetary life, including Rens, offer several reasons why. We are as close to midnight as we have ever been on the famous Doomsday Clock and, with the growing impacts of climate change, global conflict, food shortages and pandemics, the further we can distribute humankind through space, the better chance we have of surviving. But Earth too is suffering, as the global population increases while resources slowly dwindle.

Sending humans to live on Mars where resources are limited will force us to develop sustainable technologies that could be used to solve the global changes we face on Earth.

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“WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF STEPS TO GET THERE…” We have between five and 10 years until the first humans may venture on the near-six month journey to Mars, if Elon Musk is to be believed. Which means we have the same amount of time to develop our Martian homes. To meet this timeline, Astreia’s current focus is twofold: Rens and the team are developing the intelligent habitat control system that will be essential to controlling the survivable environment on Mars, while also building and testing their structures for rapid shipping and assembly. The debut of their major build is happening in the

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“ The first years aren’t gonna be super fun; forget any notions of space tourists staying in luxury for two years and heading back.

It’ll be extreme”

appropriately named ‘Habitat Zero’, the first sustainable community in Texas consisting of 125 Astreia homes designed to support the rapidly growing aerospace hub and nearby SpaceX Starbase.

“It doesn’t matter how fancy or smart a control system you have if you have nothing to protect you from the harsh environment,” says Rens. “We started by focusing on the habitat control system, and that continues in the context of Mars, but it’s essential to solve the challenge of building habitation that can be assembled easily, and that is self-sufficient.”

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Habitat Zero is powered by renewable energy for sustainability and disaster resilience, with the intention of scaling global sustainable housing and tackling the climate crises we face. The community is built with green features to conserve water and protect the natural environment, powered by a net-zero community grid consisting of solar panels on all homes, Tesla Powerwall battery storage and 30 curbside EV chargers. At its heart are Astreia’s high-performance homes.

The company designs these to be shipped

“If habitation on Mars is optimisation level 100, we have thousands of steps to get there; housing on Earth today is probably optimisation level four or five,” says Rens.

“Habitat Zero is literally us starting from zero and tackling one of our first goals of hitting net-zero energy. To achieve that there were several objectives, including a structural system that can be produced in a facility at small scale, shipped easily and assembled rapidly, energy efficiency and the foundations of our habitat

ready to assemble, and they are fabricated off site as a complete set of components to minimise site disruption and significantly decrease build time – seven days compared to a typical seven months’ build time for an average house.

control system.

This panelised concept brings several advantages. Quality is far greater as a result of computer-generated design, the use of precise machinery and stringent quality control processes; build time and efficiency are improved; and sustainability increases dramatically. Panelised buildings produce 76% less waste than traditional construction and the use of sustainable materials achieves a low-carbon footprint home.

Astreia’s proprietary software control system is built around the concept of the home as a machine. Within, a suite of sensors collect data and provide deep insights into the state of the building at all times, including endpoint energy sensors to track and save energy, real-time water flow sensors to conserve water and environmental monitors.

© Astreia

“ It doesn’t matter how fancy or smart a control system you have if you have nothing to protect you from the harsh environment”

“At the moment, we’re building the foundations of that system, but the goal is that it’s entirely autonomous,” she adds. “We basically have energy meters that sit in our outlets and give quite a granular view of energy usage.

With the solar panels and Tesla Powerwall in the home itself, we also get data on solar production, battery use and storage. We’ve included water flow meters and have actually separated out every pipe in the home so that we can individually monitor water usage at every outlet. If you start to see something TECH-EXEC MAGAZINE | ISSUE TEN

deviating, you can determine there’s a leak there, hopefully preventing water loss or damage. The same goes for the energy meters, which allows us to see faults or spikes to prevent damage. There’s also a suite of environmental monitors measuring real-time temperature, humidity, air quality, pressure and light levels. It’s the first step.”

“LET’S SHIP EVERYTHING FROM THE START…” Technologies like AI and machine learning play an important role in the control system and will prove crucial to ensuring survival when we reach Mars, says Rens. “There’s two really important aspects of ML. First, it’s very proficient at pattern recognition at a much larger scale than humans could ever be, and at a far greater processing speed. Secondly, it allows us to test scenarios at scale that haven’t come into play in the real world yet.

“The reason that’s fascinated me with regards to going to Mars, and why I think it’s integral for creating an artificial habitation environment, is that if any single thing fails in an environment where everything is

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“ I ’ve always been fascinated by that real extreme element of exploration and journeying into the unknown of both human knowledge and discovery” © Astreia

necessary to keep you alive, whether it’s your energy or water supply, your oxygen, or any of those elements, then it’s game over.

So the ability to feed in all of that data and all of those environmental parameters in real time, maintain it at a functional level, and then very rapidly simulate anything that could possibly deviate from that survival

“In my opinion, there’s a lot of assumptions that are made for that approach. You have to get your machinery there, all the conditions for a pressurised system using regolith have to be right and work and, once built, all your systems, fittings, electronics and plumbing have to magically appear.

zone and recognise it ideally before it happens, is fundamental to surviving long term in that kind of environment.”

“Our view is ‘let’s just ship everything from the start’,” she adds. “It’s smarter. You have the ability to do what we’re doing now and test all your systems here on Earth so you’re ready, you know it’s going to fit together and can be assembled and we build everything necessary into the structure before it leaves.

If you’re using the structure in a similar way to any other space vehicle, you have the usual design constraints: you’re protecting against radiation and a very low atmosphere, gravity is lower than on Earth, you have to

To date, most of the proposed solutions for building on Mars have centred around 3D printing structures once on the planet from a cement-like material called regolith.

Astreia, spurred by SpaceX’s Starship programme, is doing things differently. “We’re the only company I’m aware of not going down the 3D printing route,” says Rens.

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make sure it survives the trip, and ultimately that your astronauts can assemble without fail on arrival.”

for the intrepid explorers among us. The first years aren’t gonna be super fun; forget any notions of space tourists staying in luxury for two years and heading back. It’ll be extreme.

“I DEFINITELY WANT TO GO TO MARS…” “From our perspective, we’ll keep working hard to make sure we can survive,” she adds.

“We’re trying to build as aggressively as we can. We’re looking to build 125 homes this year and seeking to multiply production and development by 10 year on year. Development will centre around adding more features

more of a city-type perspective and, in that regard, I don’t think it’s any different to any other environment we’ve gone to – we’re still human, we still have relatively hard-coded needs that have to be met. Just because we’re heading to another planet doesn’t mean that any of those things would have to change and I think it would ultimately end up being a similar, but more technologically advanced civilisation. But, it’ll be a journey

and optimisation, and steps like increasing our energy efficiency through the structure, thermal regulation, adding in water selfsufficiency to close that loop, as well as considering developments like air monitoring, sealing the habitation and more. Then, likely around 2024, we will be seeking to start on our lunar designs to ship to the moon on Starship and test the habitation even further before its ultimate mission.”

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© Astreia

To reach that point there is still work to be done, although Rens is remarkably confident in the success of our interplanetary exploration when asked about the development scope between survival and thriving “There’s two parts to that,” she says. “Firstly, when I think about our life on Mars, I consider it from

Which begs one final question. “Yeah, I definitely want to go to Mars,” Rens enthuses.

“Obviously there’s a risk of dying, either on the way or when you get there, but that doesn’t concern me per se. What I wouldn’t want is to have Astreia still in the process of making a big impact here on Earth as well as getting ready for our journey to Mars and disappear just before it all happens. I’ll wait for a couple of launches until I can head over and help start scaling what we’re delivering here. It’s going to be amazing.” www.astreia.com

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THE ROYAL FREE LONDON’S GLENN WINTERINGHAM ON DIGITAL HEALTHCARE, IMPROVING PATIENT OUTCOMES AND BUILDING THE HOSPITALS OF THE FUTURE

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lot can change in five years. As Glenn Winteringham and his NHS colleagues know very well. In 2017, and after some 30 years’ already spent in a variety of tech, IT and digital-focused roles within the NHS, he joined the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust at around the same time it had been selected as one of the original 12 NHS Global Digital Exemplars (GDE) – a group of internationally recognised NHS providers established to deliver outstanding patient care improvements through the world-class use of innovative digital technologies and information. To say that the rest is history would be something of an understatement.

Indeed, since 2017 the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust – one of the UK’s biggest NHS trusts consisting of Barnet Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital – has been through an enormous digital transformation and clinically-led change programme. This has seen it drive forward digital adoption and evolution under the core objectives set out around the GDE programme, digitise patient records through the application of an advanced electronic patient record (EPR) system, introduce new and innovative technologies across its hospitals to reduce unwanted clinical variation, thus improving patient care across the board, and open the brand new and world-leading digital Chase Farm Hospital.

The culmination of this work to date saw Chase Farm Hospital being awarded the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) Stage 7 – the highest level in a grading system that measures a health facility’s adoption and maturity of its electronic medical record (EMR) capabilities – from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Achieving levels 6 and 7 formed part of the Royal Free London’s programme of being a GDE and demonstrates high levels of digital maturity that can be subsequently shared across the rest of the NHS.

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GLENN WINTERINGHAM CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

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“CHASE FARM HOSPITAL IS DESIGNED TO BE COMPLETELY DIGITAL”

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Royal Free London: Leading the way For years, the NHS has sought to make better use of technology. Today it is transforming the way care is delivered and by the end of next year, 90% of NHS trusts will have electronic patient record (EPR) technology in place.

The convergence across ICS regions and the levelling up of these systems – as well as the onward connectivity of applications and the wider access to data – is at the heart of a new programme that will advance the way care is delivered.

As wearables and edge devices become ever more prevalent across the NHS, the sheer volume of this data will significantly increase – a point that was recognised at a very early stage by the team at Royal Free London. In fact, it was a major factor and reason why Royal Free London invested in a state-of-the-art scalable and secure datacentre infrastructure.

Making sure clinical teams could access the right data at the point of need was also critical.

As a clinically led programme, clinicians needed to have the most appropriate devices to access data where and when it was needed. This was fundamental to the hugely successful EPR adoption across the Trust.

Royal Free London has shown that the right leadership, support and engagement from the clinical teams coupled with the right technology partners was crucial to this success.

Here at Dell Technologies it’s something we are extremely proud to have been part of.

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is one that is leading the way forward. Chief Digital Officer Glenn Winteringham and the Royal Free London’s senior leadership team have achieved HIMSS EMRAM stage 7 in just six years thanks to the deployment of a trust wide EPR platform from Cerner. This follows the trust’s selection as one of the original Global Digital Exemplars in 2017.

In isolation, the new EPR is an incredible achievement, particularly as the Royal Free London team delivered it during a global pandemic. Today it’s providing visibility of huge amounts of data – the kind of data that will reduce clinical risk and deliver positive outcomes for clinicians and patients alike.

www.dell.com

Nick Moroney NHS Account Executive Dell Technologies nicholas.moroney@dell.com

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THE DIGITAL JOURNEY

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“It was a perfect storm of things coming together, but in a really good way,” recalls Winteringham of the start of the Royal Free London’s incredible journey. “The idea around the Global Digital Exemplars was to significantly advance digital maturity across the NHS and, for us, when we were selected in 2017 it really pump primed this huge programme of change at a point when two or three significant developments were coming together.

Notably, we were then opening Chase Farm Hospital which had been designed to be completely digital – no manual records, paperless processes, no space to store things like records, completely redesigned and innovative operating spaces and individual rooms instead of wards, automated checking in and so on – and designing and implementing new ways of standardising care pathways and processes to reduce variation.

“Chase Farm Hospital opened in 2018 and we introduced our new EPR, which was the first of its kind in the UK from Cerner and brought together all of the best practice, processes and digitised pathways into one product, it’s just spurred us on an ongoing journey through a massive and continuous digital transformation programme across the whole of Royal Free London,” says Winteringham.

“And it’s happened at pace, too. If you go back to 2016 we were assessed at HIMSS EMRAM Stage 1, which is the lowest; we went through the transformation in 2018

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and seven months after go-live we were already at Stage 6.”

Winteringham has more than 30 years’ experience in NHS acute digital transformation and service delivery. Over that period, technology and digital adoption in the healthcare sector hasn’t always been at the pace seen in other industries but, he says, the establishing of the GDE programme has been a valuable catalyst for change.

“Historically, particularly in terms of EPRs, there wasn’t much around in the 1980s or 90s and during the early stages of those kinds of systems being deployed there

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“ALL OUR HOSPITALS NOW HAVE DIGITISED RECORDS AND IT’S COMPLETELY TRANSFORMED CARE WITHIN WITHIN THE ORGANISATION”

wasn’t a great deal of success because there wasn’t as much clinical involvement as there should have been – it was very much ‘here’s a solution, work with it’,” explains Winteringham. “That’s changed with the GDE work. All our hospitals now have digitised records and it’s completely transformed care both within the organisation and more broadly because of how we can share patient records.

“We use Cerner’s Millennium Model Content EPR system, which incorporates all of the learning and best practice from various earlier systems used across other hospitals in the UK and combines them in one package; it was essentially HIMSS EMRAM 6 straight out of the box,” he continues. “It’s a game changer. Historically you’d have vast amounts of paper patient records that couldn’t be shared or weren’t

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“OUR EPR IMPROVES PATIENT OUTCOMES, ALLOWS FOR SAFER DECISION MAKING AND MAKES THE PROCESS MORE EFFICIENT”

that visible to clinicians or GPs. As part of our GDE, and when we were launching the EPR, we acquired a sharing platform called the Health Information Exchange (HIE), which means that every healthcare provider in north London, be it acute hospitals, community or mental health hospitals and GPs can all see the patient data in real time. That’s a huge step forwards, because suddenly clinicians aren’t flying blind, they know what medication a patient is on, any complex conditions and their status, the latest treatments that have been received – it improves patient

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outcomes, allows for safer decision making and makes the process more efficient.

“Alongside this, we also share our data to a second platform called the population health management platform,” Winteringham adds. “That allows us to stratify and risk-assess our patients across north central London into ‘cohorts’ based on specific things like diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart failure and many of the other major health problems so that we can develop and perfect treatment plans for them. That’s been a major step

in standardising the data and allowing everyone who has access to the system to have a patient-centric view of the care model we apply, which improves patient care and safety.”

CHASE FARM HOSPITAL INNOVATION

“Another significant advantage is related to medical devices,” Winteringham adds.

“With things like anaesthetic devices or vital signs machines you have valuable data there that has historically been manually observed rather than entered into any EPR. With our system, all of that information that’s streaming from the device in our hospital goes to the EPR, which monitors and makes calculations accordingly. Take vital signs as an example. If there’s any change or deterioration, the EPR system will flag an early warning

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The new EPR system is central to the Royal Free London’s Chase Farm Hospital, where the trust is pioneering new technologies so that staff can deliver better, safer and more efficient patient care. Within the context of the hospital, the EPR system acts as a single digital patient record available to all staff who need access to it, when and wherever they are. “Historically, some have launched such a big system in modules, but we began with a full big bang go-live that was very much clinician validated and led,” says Winteringham. “It was based around patient flow and refining how they perfected the EPR in order to do their job properly, and that constant improvement methodology was really important.

like handwriting being difficult to read, the charts going missing, or mistakes being made. Our EPR has a system called Electronic Prescription and Medicines Administration (EPMA), which tracks doses and medicines given, won’t allow the wrong medication to be prescribed in the wrong dose and will even offer alternatives and guidance to doctors.

For the nurses tending to the patients it flags when medication should be given to make the process more efficient.

“The EPR works on PCs, so to support the hospital staff to do their job we invested in thousands of portable devices that could be taken bedside and on ward rounds,” he continues, detailing the other technologies at the heart of Chase Farm Hospital. “There’s several benefits to that, including medication prescription and administration. Previously, hospitals used paper drug charts that were manually completed, and where you have manual work you can have errors – things

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alert to the nurse or clinician so that the patient can be safely cared for; that’s a huge win for patient safety.”

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The hospital has also introduced several other new technologies so that staff can deliver better, safer and more efficient care including self-check-in kiosks and a digital outpatient flow system, a real-time stock control system that helps eliminate unnecessary waste, and a nurse communication system that allows patients – most of whom have their own room rather than being on a ward – to contact staff should they experience problems; the same device also allows medical staff to communicate with each other and share information related to patient care.

A key aspect of such a vast programme of digital transformation and innovation was collaborating with key strategic partners, says Winteringham: “We work with a number of strategic partners to innovate and support our digital transformation programme. We have standardised on Dell Technologies for both our data centre infrastructure and end user devices. Working with Dell Technologies we have completely replaced our obsolete data centre infrastructure with a state-of-the-art converged architecture, which is fully scalable and provides very high levels of resilience and cyber security. We also standardised on Dell Technologies PCs and laptops to ensure all our staff have fast, secure access to their applications

and support them to deliver better, safer, faster patient care and outcomes.”

“FOR US HIMSS STAGE 7 IS REALLY A PROXY FOR BETTER CARE, FOR HIGHER QUALITY CARE AND PATIENT SAFETY”

“It’s the highest global standard,” Winteringham confirms, “and to put that in context, there’s only three in the NHS and seven in Europe. But we’re not doing this for the badge. It’s obviously good to have recognition for the work we’re doing, but for us HIMSS Stage 7 is really a proxy for better, higher quality care and patient safety – that’s the driver for everything we do here. There’s several differences between HIMSS Stage 6 and 7 including around patient care, but also aspects like disaster recovery and how you manage a significant system failure, how the EPR and digital innovations directly benefit the clinicians to offer better outcomes and more direct patient care, and demonstrating specific use cases around these.

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The result of such a significant programme was the awarding of HIMSS Stage 7 in March 2022. Chase Farm Hospital was validated as HIMSS Stage 6 in 2019, with the latest achievement testament to the pace at which it has continued its digital transformation. Criteria for stage 7, the highest level awarded by HIMSS, includes improved patient safety by providing critical information where and when clinicians need it and significantly reducing time and errors in care delivery.

“I’ll give you an example,” he adds.

“Historically you had instances of

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surgical site infection in patients leaving operating theatres. Prior to a transformation like ours, your clinicians would have to manually pull sets of notes and analyse them – a process that may take two or three months before they’re able to derive a conclusion. Because we’re entirely digitised, one of our chief medical officers pulled all 9,000 records and analysed them in an hour before finding the source of the problem. At Chase Farm Hospital we live and breathe this every day and when we were validated as Stage 7 there was no rest, it’s not our mindset. There has to be continuous improvement because we’re always trying to make the best patient experiences and, technology aside, that’s as much down to culture as it is anything else.”

CULTURE, LEARNING AND GROWTH At the Royal Free London, building an effective transformation culture has proven to be essential to the success of the organisation’s work to date. “When I arrived at the organisation, IT was leading technology projects and that was one of the first things I looked to change,” says Winteringham. “I set out clearly that these aren’t IT projects, they’re

change projects and they have to be clinically led. Many of the executive positions here are doctors or nurses and, as an organisation, we’d already spent time ensuring clinicians were taking on leadership roles; as part of the GDE programme and subsequent transformation we moved from nothing being clinically led to a complete mantra of everything being clinically led.

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“WE INTRODUCED OUR NEW EPR, WHICH WAS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN THE UK FROM CERNER AND BROUGHT TOGETHER ALL OF THE BEST PRACTICE, PROCESSES AND DIGITISED PATHWAYS INTO ONE PRODUCT”

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“If you ask what really changed our culture, it’s that,” he adds. “There was a new approach from IT and then it was all about clinical informatics leadership, having credible and respected people in a peer-to-peer environment talking about digital, advocating for the new technologies and how they would benefit the organisation and its patients and giving them the time to lead on it. When it came to the EPR development, we had several hundred clinicians designing care pathways and it was a game changer.”

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This passion for continuous improvement doesn’t rest at the Royal Free London.

The original purpose of the GDE programme was to drive best digital practice across leading NHS hospitals so that the exemplars could share their learning and experience through the creation of blueprints that would enable other trusts to follow in their footsteps as quickly and effectively as possible. “It’s an interesting point,” Winteringham reflects. “We’ve been through a major five-year digital transformation, living and breathing it.

“TO SUPPORT THE HOSPITAL STAFF TO DO THEIR JOB WE INVESTED IN THOUSANDS OF PORTABLE DEVICES THAT COULD BE TAKEN BEDSIDE AND ON WARD ROUNDS”

“There are several real benefits from going on this journey, but there are some important learnings,” he continues. “I tell people very simply, if you don’t have a clinical informatics team then you won’t achieve this; if you don’t have executive sponsorship and this isn’t seen as a change programme, you also won’t achieve it; the same goes for if you don’t have some very tight governance. Without all of that, you can adopt a new EPR system and get it up and running, but it’ll fail because the technology is nothing without being close enough to everyone using

it and having the support of the entire team. Now, it’s all about continuous improvement to the point where we’re almost obsessive compulsive about adoption and optimisation. We’ve changed our governance to reflect the fact that digital is now a group focus and aligned it with our digital strategy, which is around digital, data, infrastructure and innovation.

We’re going again, there is no end point to better, safer and faster patient care.”

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We’re not the only ones in the NHS, but we’re a small club of people who have driven this and it’s been a fascinating journey.

www.royalfree.nhs.uk

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ENTR EPR EN EU R //

EMMA BATES D I E M

Inequalities between genders remain one of the most persistent patterns in the distribution of power across our physical and digital worlds. That’s why a gender gap exists in pay structures, why less than 40% of countries offer equal education access to girls and boys, and why all the major social media platforms were founded by men.

Except Diem. The social network startup for women and gender nonbinary individuals was founded by Emma Bates, together with co-founder Divia Singh. Bates is an experienced entrepreneur who started her career in marketing, brand marketing and

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“ We like to think of it as a steady march towards a realm where power does not equal masculinity, but is instead distributed evenly among folks of any gender”

partnerships strategy before founding Diem, which launched in October 2021; she is also a member of The Female Founder Collective, a network of businesses led by women that supports other women.

Diem connects knowledgeable hosts with other users to discuss topics like toxic masculinity and birth control in an environment that’s less conducive to harassment than traditional social media outlets. www.askdiem.com

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MIND THE TALENT GAP

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Rivery’s Itamar Ben Hamo discusses the emerging data talent gap in data ops and how organisations and leaders can mitigate the challenges it brings

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emand for data scientists and data analysts is growing faster than for any other job role on the planet, according to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Future of Jobs’ report. At the same time the use of data – and the complexity that comes with it – is increasing exponentially for every organisation, regardless of industry or size. This greater adoption of data is widening an already substantial talent gap for the people required to leverage it. Here, we speak with Itamar Ben Hamo of Rivery, whose services help companies mitigate the challenges, to find out more.

This is what led to the creation of Rivery. We took our deep knowledge in data processing, and turned it into a unique native SaaS platform for data teams. We have seen the power and importance of talent in organisations, and we sought to bridge it further through our work at Rivery.

Tech-Exec: Can you give us a brief intro to you and your work and tell us more about Rivery’s scope of operations, particularly related to the topic of easing or bridging the data talent gap?

IBH: We know that the data talent gap is widening over time. Demand for data scientists and data analysts is growing faster than for any other job role on the planet, according to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Future of Jobs’ report. Big data has made the task of extracting business value from data exponentially harder – companies deal with petabytes of data, not gigabytes, along with hundreds of data sources. Alongside that, using data has become essential for businesses in any sector.

Itamar Ben Hamo: The long and short of it is I’ve been fascinated with data and its applications for over 20 years.

Back in 2007 I founded my first company, which became the leading BI consultancy in Israel. We helped hundreds of companies around the world to create optimal data processes. Our teams used to run all projects in Python as the ETL (Extract, Load, Transform) space was covered mainly by legacy players that lacked the ability to scale and also didn’t have integration capabilities to support hundreds of sources we needed in our projects. We felt we couldn’t find a modern data stack in the market.

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TE: Let’s look at that talent gap in more detail. First, how has the adoption and use of data evolved in organisations and what key trends or themes drive the greater need for data?

The greater adoption of data has led to a widening gulf between the talent needed to leverage it. It’s a critical issue, too. Companies that fail to streamline their data pipelines and centralise processes will be left with low-quality business intelligence insights which will see them outflanked and outsmarted by competitors.

— ITAMAR BEN HAMO CEO & CO-FOUNDER, RIVERY

TE: How has the pace of growth exacerbated the talent gap and do you think businesses and their leaders have focused enough attention on the issue as they’ve expanded their data capabilities?

IBH: Data science powers everything from targeting adverts to leveraging investments. This is why data scientists are in such demand. In Britain, nearly half of businesses are trying to recruit for data roles (48%) but almost half are also struggling in this regard (46%), according to statistics from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

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“IN MY OPINION, THE BIGGEST TALENT GAP IS NOT ON THE TECHNICAL OR NON-TECHNICAL SIDE OF DATA, BUT IN LEADERSHIP” Because of the rapid pace, we’re seeing many organisations left behind when it comes to their data capabilities. Leveraging data is an accelerator for any business, and leaving it untapped is a waste of potential.

Because data talent is not keeping up with the rise in demand, more and more businesses cannot catch up – that’s a critical issue for tech leaders.

One reason for this growing gap is that businesses fail to do their part when it comes to training. The supply of graduates with a background in computer programming or data modelling is still

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limited – and companies have thus far failed to step up in terms of training. This is one of the reasons why companies have been left with a shortage of the skills they need.

TE: Can you tell me any more about the nuances, challenges or complexities of handling data during hyper-scale growth?

IBH: Companies going through hyper-scale growth are only able to do so with data.

I often say that businesses can only grow as fast as their data. Many companies still get the insight out of their data and they have to wait for monthly or quarterly reports to inform strategic business

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decisions that could have taken place instantly with access to data in real time.

While orchestrating a perfect data stack that connects all data sources and centralises data can be an initial challenge, the bigger challenge is often for companies to democratise access to data and train all teams on how to leverage this data in their day jobs.

I’ll give Rivery as an example. As a hypergrowth company where our revenue is tight directly to consumption, we must be proactive with our users, and being able to share insight proactively will make the

experience with their data processing much more efficient. Real-time recommendations improve the experience, save cost and make their time-to-insight much faster.

Another challenge for fast-growing companies is choosing the right tools and platforms to build their data stack. These need to be assessed carefully and mistakes are inevitable, but I recommend data teams to thoroughly research before adopting new data technologies. Being stuck with the wrong tool or platform can become a massive headache in the long run. Researching them thoroughly and understanding their compatibility with your data stack is key.

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“THE GREATER ADOPTION OF DATA HAS LED TO A WIDENING GULF BETWEEN THE TALENT NEEDED TO LE VER AGE IT. IT’S A CRITICAL ISSUE” Most importantly, assessing their clear value in terms of ROI is crucial.

TE: What are the key areas of talent in which companies are lacking and why is it difficult to bring in the people, resources and talent that’s needed?

IBH: One of the key reasons that the talent gap is such a big problem is that people with the appropriate technical skills are wasting their time. Research has shown that data scientists – experts who have, in many cases, spent years training for PhDs – spend almost half their time, up to 41%, gathering and

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cleaning data. This means they spend less time doing the work which yields the rewards in terms of insights, building and running models. Data scientists spend just 31% of their time on models, and more time doing thankless ‘grunt work’ in preparation for running models.

With data scientists in short supply, companies cannot afford the ones they have to spend their time preparing to work, rather than working. Thankfully, technology has an answer in the form of data management platforms which help data scientists to use their time more effectively.

TE: If you’re looking at the modern, datadriven organisation, what does ‘talent’ look like and can you tell me about the importance of arming talent with the skills and tools to process data effectively?

IBH: With technologies such as augmented analytics (using machine learning) and no-code Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) platforms taking the technical grunt work out of big data, jobs around data are changing. Engineers are expected to have more insight into the business data they are working with, and business analysts are expected to have data skills such as SQL and, in ML cases, some Python skills. They don’t need to deal with infrastructure to address the scale in business which makes them independent in their mission.

We’re also seeing the rise of a new role which closes the data talent gap – the Analytics Engineer. Analytics Engineers don’t analyse the data, they transform it and document data for business users, closing the gap between the business side and IT.

“IT’S ABOUT FINDING BUSINESS LEADERS THAT HAVE STRONG TECHNICAL OR ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE AND ALSO THE SKILLS AND STRATEGIC FORESIGHT TO UNLOCK THE VALUE OF INSIGHTS AND INSPIRE ACROSS THEIR ORGANISATION” 70

They don’t spend their time on complex computer science problems, but are technical enough to launch data pipelines and a cloud data warehouse, while also being business-minded enough to understand and deliver the analytics requirements of the business.

TE: How has the evolution of ELT pipelines impacted data scientists and how should companies consider this moving forward?

Approaches such as data mesh will become more important in future. A data mesh allows teams to pool together relevant sources, to then analyse it for potential business opportunities – a boon for organisations who want to leverage it more. Critically, it does not require expert data scientists to pull insights; internal talent can investigate

TE: If you’re considering data as a wholebusiness tool and things like data democratisation, how should companies balance their talent sourcing and team building between technical and nontechnical users and what does that look like from an organisational perspective?

IBH: It is a balancing act, but it is one that filters from the top of the organisation downwards. In my opinion, the biggest talent gap is not on the technical or nontechnical side of data, but in leadership.

The talent gap right now is about finding business leaders that have strong technical or engineering knowledge and also the skills and strategic foresight to unlock the value of insights and inspire across their organisation.

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IBH: The shift from older on-premises approaches towards a cloud-based ELT approach has allowed companies to become much more agile in their use of data. But this requires company leadership to be agile in their thinking, especially in non-digital native organisations, with data leaders who embrace and understand the technology – and evangelise for it at the board level within the business.

Organisations need data leaders who understand both sides of data: the technical side, and also the business’s needs in terms of insights derived from that data, and who can lead the organisation into the future.

the mesh, while bringing forward ways to improve the organisation.

As part of this, every employee in a modern organisation could be considered a ‘data citizen’. There is a growing expectation for people from any discipline to have a basic understanding on how to manage or interpret data. Just like how in the 90s people had to be proficient in Microsoft Office or Powerpoint, today’s workforce is expected to be data literate.

There is a lot of debate on technical vs non-technical users. Understandably, most data tools and platforms gravitate toward a no-code, user-friendly interface to broaden the appeal among

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“ONE OF THE KEY REASONS THAT THE TALENT GAP IS SUCH A BIG PROBLEM IS THAT PEOPLE WITH THE APPROPRIATE TECHNICAL SKILLS ARE WASTING THEIR TIME” non-technical users. We do this at Rivery as well. However, we also provide the tools for those engineering teams that want to create more complex, customised data workflows using languages such as Python.

From an organisational perspective, balancing talent sourcing is always tricky. But once solved, the benefits can be massive for the reasons outlined above.

TE: How do solutions like Rivery’s help with these challenges and can you tell me more about the recent Series B round of venture funding you’ve been through?

IBH: Our platform is crucial to help data teams bridge the talent gap. We free data

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teams from time-consuming and repetitive tasks so they can invest their time and energy in focusing on creating data models, analysing data in new ways, and ultimately providing their organisations with the insights they need in the shortest and most efficient way. Rivery’s customers come from across the entire digital economy, from real estate to food or fintech, and our SaaS services have always been built with a customer-first mindset, focusing on what our customers want and need.

Looking to the future, SaaS ELT solutions will further liberate data teams from having to code or manipulate the backend, allowing them to create actionable

business insights faster than ever before.

For Rivery, we hope to continue delivering our best-in-class SaaS ELT solution to customers around the world thanks to our new $30m funding round, which was led

by Tiger Global Management. The funds will help us boost our company’s growth in New York and Tel Aviv, as well as expanding in EMEA.

IBH: Companies have to scale faster than ever before and ELT solutions enable that, allowing data teams to do more with less.

A simplified and clear approach helps organisations onboard their talent and get to grips with data, then gives them the opportunity to soar. As the organisation scales upwards, the principles and processes stay the same – allowing talent to continue their work and grow their skills alongside the organisation.

Additionally, as we increasingly rely on data, the gap is often human and managerial rather than technical. The platforms and tools to manage and automate data processes exist with unlimited flexibility and scalability with cloud data warehouses and cloud-native SaaS platforms.

IBH: The real challenge is to create the perfect data stack for your business. There is no one-size-fits-all. Each business has different needs and preferences. They use different data sources and engage with customers in different ways. However, everyone is relying on an increasing number of data sources. Teams are often drowning in a tsunami of data. Making sense of it, creating the right models and protocols – and cascading insights and best practices across teams will be the biggest challenge for the next 10 years.

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TE: How does your approach to data management help organisations in terms of scalability and transformation, and how does using a fully Saas end-to-end solution change talent recruitment?

volumes of data to drive business strategy and decision making?

Itamar Ben Hamo is co-founder and CEO at Rivery, the SaaS ELT platform that streamlines data integration, transformation and orchestration. A seasoned business executive, Ben Hamo was co-founder and CEO of Vision.BI, a leading data consulting firm acquired by Keyrus Group. At Keyrus, Ben Hamo was group vice president for North America.

TE: Is this a challenge that will continue as we become increasingly reliant on large

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EMERGE WAVE-1

F E E L

T H

What will the metaverse look like? Ha, so passé.

We’ve moved on since Mark Zukerberg ignited everyone’s interest. Now, according to Emerge, it’s all about what the metaverse feels like.

If you want to know, the innovative social virtual connection company’s Wave-1 device is here to help. Wave-1, which is part of the ‘Emerge Home’ system, uses haptic technology – any tech that can recreate the experience of touch by applying forces or vibrations – to let users have immersive, bare-handed and tactile experiences, and the sensation of physical touch, in VR.

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M E T A V E R S E “ Emerge Home is the first step in a broader journey to create a new language of touch in virtual worlds” —

SLY SPENCER, CO-CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, EMERGE

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E

When placed on a flat surface, Wave-1 emits an ultrasonic forcefield some three feet into the air that can be ‘felt’ and interacted with via touch in a virtual world or gaming environment. Take the ‘Center’ as an example, a social gathering space created in the metaverse by Emerge, in which you can hold hands, high-five and fist bump to your heart’s content. All without getting up off the sofa.

CLICK TO LEARN MORE

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The change catalyst

S H R E E S E S H A N D I S C U S S E S D ATA T R A N S F O R M AT I O N , WH Y CULT URE IS ESSEN T IAL AND HOW DATA A ND A N A LY T IC S C A N T R A NSF ORM PAT IEN T C A RE

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“

I

was there to tell them what they didn’t want to hear,” says Shree Seshan, recalling his days as a data consultant working with businesses on complex data management transformations. “The first meeting would typically begin apprehensively, which was a perfect start because transformation and change are never easy and it’s important to understand. But whenever someone tells me something is impossible, I ask them, if we can make it a reality, are they prepared to listen? You don’t need alignment right away or everyone to say yes, you need people willing to work together and embrace the collective journey. I’m nothing but a change catalyst and ultimately my job is to constantly influence that change.”

Seshan has done so for the better part of a 20-year career in data, analytics and enterprise technology transformations that encompasses work around data strategy and enterprise data management, digital transformation, programme and portfolio management, and complex IT programme delivery across several large organisations and industry sectors from manufacturing, logistics and automotive

through pharma and healthcare. For nearly one year, he has held the role of Global Head of Data & Analytics at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, a global leader of in vitro diagnostics dedicated to improving and saving lives through innovative laboratory testing and blood-typing solutions.

The use of data and analytics within the enterprise has evolved significantly over Seshan’s career. Today, he explains, it is a powerful tool that, when harnessed in the most effective way and combined with a strong, democratised and data-driven culture, can bring significant value and customer outcomes for any organisation.

“Through my years in consulting, as well

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“ I ’ M N O T H I N G B U T A CH A NGE C ATA LY S T

as in data leadership roles at organisations like L’Oréal and GSK, I’ve gained a broad perspective around how different businesses and industries value, use and monetise their data – it’s fascinating,” he says. “The beauty of data is that no matter where you are, every single data set is unique and has its own patterns or nuances and understanding that has undoubtedly helped to shape my career, my thoughts around processes and collaboration with people, and forming effective data strategies.

“With that in mind, understanding data is about putting it in context by considering what actually matters the most to the

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A ND ULT IM AT ELY MY JOB IS TO CONS TA N T LY INF L UENCE T HAT CHANGE”

organisation or industry you’re in, and realising where the value is,” Seshan continues. “As an example, when I joined L’Oréal in 2017, we were really focused on consumer marketing, using data for targeted audience campaigns and creating some very specific marketing segments for customers – that kind of work makes you realise how powerful data can really be. Similarly at GSK, data was a tool to enable product accuracy and improve the customer experience. There’s just a huge number of use cases where data can be deployed to great effect. On top of that, you have consistent themes around ensuring you have trustworthy information, improving quality and use, and methods of data enrichment. Ultimately, the goal remains the same: how do you get the most out of the data you have available to you?”

EXPLORING DATA POTENTIAL At Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, getting the most out of the data and technology the company uses is particularly important. The business, which provides products and equipment for in vitro diagnostic testing, rightly understands the importance of delivering accurate, efficient and reliable technology to support exceptional patient care – a statement that is exemplified in its brand promise: Because Every Test Is A Life™. Guided by this vision, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics has an established track record for providing high-quality products and services to the global clinical laboratory

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and immunodiagnostics and transfusion medicine communities including hospitals, hospital networks, clinical laboratories and blood banks worldwide. Its innovative technology and customised solutions enhance clinical outcomes, improve efficiency and ensure that test results are fast, accurate and reliable.

– we get large volumes of data from our devices. Naturally, we have very strict policies around what we can do with any of our data due to privacy impact assessments (PIAs), but broadly speaking it is very rich data and there are some great potential use cases for that around things like population health management.

“There are some specifics or certain considerations to the use of data and analytics in the healthcare sector,” says Seshan. “In particular, there’s a lot around the medical technologies we provide to our customers and the importance of the work they do in line with our brand promise, and there’s also great potential in the data we generate

“We also have several other data points across the business,” he adds. “For example, reporting on the use of our devices and solutions, which allows us to make sure customers stay within compliance and contract obligations. All this data not just helps deliver healthcare, but provides insights to help us grow and stay compliant,

which is obviously important in our industry, ensuring customers are using the systems correctly, or even for upselling or cross-selling opportunities in the future. It’s a great example of the potential of the data.”

DATA TRANSFORMATION SUCCESS Seshan joined Ortho Clinical Diagnostics in November 2021 assuming a role that has largely been focused on developing and evolving the data and analytics function and harnessing that growth to drive wider business value. He is highly experienced in such work and, previously in his career, has often been called upon to lead complex data management programmes and transformations. There are, he explains, several fundamental steps to any such transformation: “Typically, I like to layer those steps into two distinct areas,” Seshan explains. “First, it’s about establishing or developing the broader data analytics organisation, and second is building out your specific strategic data management programmes.

in combination with effective data enablement (governance). For us, data enablement is critical – because every test is a life, we’re extremely protective of what we capture, disseminate, share and so on.

“Looking at that first layer in more detail,” he continues, “From the outset, you have to make sure that, at a higher level, there’s enough focus given to data platforms and data engineering. You then need to give the appropriate attention to the trustworthiness of your data, which could encompass data quality, mass data management and more. Once these foundations are in place, focus on advanced data analytics and insights. All of this,

“However, I think often people mistake data governance, or undervalue/underestimate it,” Seshan adds. “It’s often thought of as a limitation or just about data security, and of course that’s important, but there’s a broader set of considerations around metadata management, reference data management, data lineage, cataloguing and glossaries. But personally, I look beyond that. For me, data governance is about enabling people with the right data

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“UNDERS TANDING DATA IS ABOU T P U T T ING I T IN C ON T E X T

BY CONSIDERING W H AT AC T UA L LY MAT T ERS T HE MOS T TO THE ORGANISAT ION OR INDUS T RY Y O U ’ R E I N, A N D REALISING WHERE T HE VA L UE IS ”

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“WE ALL WANT THE BUSINESS TO BE SUCCESSFUL AND, FOR IT TO DO SO, IT NEEDS TO BE DRIVEN

BY THE INSIGHTS THAT DATA CAN GIVE”

worth thinking about what that actually means. My interpretation is that it means the business should be able to take meaningful actions or positions based on its data and insight and to understand where potential problems are that need remedying.

I would like for organisations to drive their business with the data insights, as opposed to them being an afterthought. I’m a firm believer in data democratisation, but ultimately, we all want the business to be successful and, for it to do so, it needs to be driven by the insights that data can give – it’s the only way you transform into a truly data-driven organisation.”

DRIVING CHANGE Seshan is a firm believer in regular assessment of an organisation’s data maturity to

and taking a wider perspective, looking at people, policies, processes and then technology. It’s about defined ownership and structure so that, theoretically, you can walk into any organisation and get answers for questions like ‘who owns customer data?’, and determine data maturity and how well data is maintained and leveraged.”

Once those four strong pillars of any data analytics organisation are established, says Seshan, an organisation can focus more closely on individual data programmes.

“A big one is around ownership,” he explains. “You’ll always see questions around who owns the data; the broader line I agree with is that the business does. But it’s also

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— SHREE SESHAN, GLOBAL HEAD OF DATA & ANALYTICS, ORTHO CLINICAL DIAGNOSTICS

Modernize Healthcare Management and improve Patient Experience with AI and Data Analytics We leverage data solutions to re-imagine the medical industry An Intelligent Fabric for Healthcare AI and data insights for Medical Enterprise Intelligence Integrated Medical Supply Chain Framework

+14706481648 1305 Cherrington Parkway Moon Township, PA - 15108 United States www.mastechinfotrellis.com

see continuous improvement. In the case of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, it was one of his first considerations when joining the business. “Historically, Ortho’s data team is a supremely talented group of people who have delivered what’s needed to support the business. They’ve been working extremely well and delivering, but when I joined, I had questions about the broader data strategy, the holistic approach to data, how we consolidate the many different data platforms we use and more. And for some, there weren’t always the answers I needed or would have preferred, so my approach was for us to try something different, and to consider data by looking at the business processes – we

can’t deploy any technical solution without understanding the business after all.

“We probably spent a good three or four months understanding everything we could about how the current business processes were set up and worked in a particular domain, where there were potential areas that could fail, how and where we could automate, improve or bring innovations,” he says. “These are the kinds of subtle changes we’re still making, and I felt that was really important. You have to develop in small steps, and you have to understand the root causes of every decision and process.

Only then can you consider the right

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technical solution and how you can make it scalable. I’m very happy with the work we’ve taken in this regard to date.”

As part of this work, the company has worked with Mastech Infotrellis, a key strategic partner that works with leading enterprises to help them achieve their business objectives and leverage the power of data. Together, Ortho and Mastech assessed the former’s master data measurement programme for customers to gauge data maturity, concluding that the company sits around two on a scale of five. “That’s purely for customer data and customer data processes,” Seshan explains. “We’ve yet to do similar exercises for other domains like enterprise data, but I think we’re where we should be, though there’s always a desire to improve.

Working with vendors like Mastech is important for us, and in any transformation project I’m a strong believer in a good mix of internal and external skills and capabilities. In this instance, digital transformation is very much part of Mastech’s DNA, so it absolutely makes sense to take advantage of that and they’ve been instrumental in providing guidance and leadership that will help us grow.”

CULTURE, PEOPLE AND THE JOURNEY People are at the heart of any effective transformation. Seshan is passionate about the importance of mindset, culture and positive leadership in the success of any change programme, placing a premium on nurturing collaboration with the business

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and following the principles of practice leadership, in which leaders encourage effective support by modelling the desired behaviours in a people-centric way.

“Change isn’t easy,” he says, “and it’s something I really care about. In my opinion, data can only do so much if you don’t think about the people using it, managing it and curating it, it’s why data literacy is so important. One of the things I am doing with my team is getting them out to events, conferences and industry forums so they hear, not just from me, but from what other organisations are doing. The industry changes constantly, so it’s vital they’re

experiencing this from a first-hand perspective. And I don’t just want them out there listening to success stories, I want them to hear about the failures too.

We may not get everything right on this journey, so it’s essential for us to understand how to take the best learnings from any failure.

“To get everyone on board, you have to make what you’re doing is tangible to them all,” says Seshan. “I am very lucky here in that we have a great leadership team that believes in the things the team and I are doing and the vision we have, it helps to realise the goals we’ve set out. It’s still

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“ULT IM AT E LY T HE GO A L REMAINS THE SAME: HOW DO YOU GET THE MOS T OU T OF T HE DATA Y O U H AV E AVA IL A B L E TO YOU?” relatively early days in our journey, it will take time and it won’t be easy, but you have to understand that any transformation is about constant evolution and there isn’t necessarily a destination. Our focus will be on continuing to develop the structure and strategy that we need so that we can very clearly define how to make Ortho Clinical Diagnostics a datadriven organisation.” www.orthoclinicaldiagnostics.com

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TRANSFORMING THE WAY THAT GOODS ARE TRANSPORTED

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X. A place of mystery, of radical ideas and sci-fi sounding technologies that could one day make the

using science and technology to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

world a better place. When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin formed the organisation’s self-titled ‘Moonshot Factory’, they did so to break convention and set free the kind of innovative thinking that few possess. In the 10 years since, its ‘Xers’ have strived to build things beyond our collective imaginations,

For Wing, that problem was greater than ever difficulty moving goods around cities and urban areas efficiently and cost-effectively, increasing congestion and growing demand for faster delivery and, perhaps most importantly, the alarming contribution of transportation to rising greenhouse gas emissions. The answer

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“DRONE DELIVERY WHEN YOU NEED IT” was to transform the way goods are transported by creating an innovative, scalable and on-demand drone delivery service for essential products and services.

Wing began 10 years ago.

Initially its team designed a drone system capable of delivering defibrillators to heart attack victims, before honing and refining their autonomous, lightweight delivery drones to transport small packages across many everyday situations - think everything from coffee orders and pharmacy prescriptions through to library books - with one essential factor in mind: speed of delivery.

This was perfected over a continuous and aggressive

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development programme, including the company’s first real-world deliveries in rural Queensland, Australia in 2014, a suitably studentappropriate delivery of burritos to a group studying at Virginia Tech in the US [the largest and longest drone delivery test in the country at that time], and a 2017 delivery test in Australia focused on ensuring drones could find both

Wing prototypes © X, The Moonshot Factory

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Flight tests © X, The Moonshot Factory

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© X, The Moonshot Factory

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“AN AIR DELIVERY SERVICE THAT’S FASTER, SAFER AND MORE ECOLOGICALLY FRIENDLY THAN WHAT’S POSSIBLE TODAY ON THE GROUND”

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Australia © Wing Virginia © Wing

Medicine delivery © Wing

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“OUR FLIGHT OPERATIONS SOFTWARE ENABLES US TO SHARE THE SKY SAFELY”

Wing graduated from X in 2018 to become an independent Alphabet business.

Since then, it has launched a first-of-its-kind, ondemand drone service in Australia, Finland and the US and completed more than 100,000 flights.

At the heart of the service is its autonomous 1m wingspan drone, designed with both fixed wing and hover propellers and to emit zero pollution. Onboard software helps the aircraft intelligently understand its surroundings,

process information and monitor its own health and performance in real time; the company has also developed its own flight operations software that allows unmanned aircraft to navigate safely around other drones and manned flights.

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the best route to a home and the safest delivery spot once they arrived..

And yet, for all its complexity, Wing is remarkably simple.

So long as you’re in a city in which it operates, all you have to do is download the dedicated app, place your order and track your flight until your package is gently lowered to you from above.

Now that’s fast food. www.wing.com

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D IS RU PTO R //

ROBOTIC CRAB

The books we read as children are powerful.

They inform our imaginations, fuel creativity and encourage us to explore. They’re even, in the case of John A. Rogers, Yonggang Huang and the team of engineers at Northwestern University, the inspiration for the tiny robotic crab that could revolutionise complex surgery.

M I N I A T U R E I N N O V A T I O N

Tiny robotic crab – for want of a more official title – is the smallest ever remote controlled walking robot that, at just half a millimetre wide, can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn and even jump. And rather than being powered by complex hardware, hydraulics or electricity, it does so using the elastic resilience of its

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“ Our technology enables a variety of controlled motion modalities and can walk with an average speed of half its body length per second” —

YONGGANG HUANG, JAN AND MARCIA ACHENBACH PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY shape-memory alloy body inspired by the pop-up mechanisms used in children’s books.

Its creators hope that someday similar robots could be used to perform tasks inside tightly confined spaces, such as repairing or assembling small structures and machines, or acting as surgical assistants to stop internal bleeding or eliminate cancerous tumours.

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RECOGNISING INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP

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The Tech-Exec Data Leaders awards

Diversity and inclusion, people

recognise success, achievement and inspirational leadership in the global data community.

and culture are crucial. We’re looking for data leaders who have taken positive steps to address the D&I challenges seen in the tech industry, who are passionate about teaching the skills of their craft to the next generation, or who have set the standard when it comes to what a data-driven culture looks like.

Finally, we are looking for creative and impactful uses of technology that go beyond enterprise tech adoption, whether that’s contributing to ESG initiatives or anything outside ‘business as usual’.

In today’s enterprise environment, all data leaders face similar challenges – many of those are reflected in the key categories that our judges will use to put forward our winners. But it is how they succeed against those challenges that will make the difference. Our categories are broad, but within each we will consider several areas.

Impact on business, for example, will recognise those leaders who understand that data means more than technology, and who have used their craft to align with core business objectives or strategies to drive success.

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IM PACT ON BUSIN ESS SUCCESS

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AN D PEOPLE

Recognising those data leaders who understand the value of data and technology to add value and contribute to strategic success.

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CREATING A DATA-DRIVEN CULTURE

POSITIVE IM PACT OF TECH NOLOGY

Understanding the importance of nurturing culture, mindset and collaboration in a data transformation environment.

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Acknowledging those leaders who encourage a diverse and inclusive data landscape while encouraging education and training for the next generation.

The adoption, use and harnessing of data, tools and technologies to impact business, the community and society.

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Just 26% of all strategic decisions are currently data-driven. Get ahead by becoming a fully data guided organisation.

Let’s unleash the power of data and use it in a positive and collaborative way. As practitioners in business, and as an analytics consultancy with people at its core, our approach and frameworks deliver real clarity and business value.

Our ambition and clear approach enables more people to use, access and understand data. We’re on a mission to contribute to a better future for all through the positive and open use of data. Are you with us?

For more leading edge thought leadership on data follow here

Shaping the industry.

Helping individuals, organisations and society benefit from the transformative power of data.

Cynozure was founded in 2016 with the ambition to reshape how businesses view data and analytics - people first, business first and outcome focused.

Six years on, the company has more than doubled in size for the second year in a row, as well as tripling its geographic reach in the space of 12 months, with the team also doubling in size to support this rapid growth.

Cynozure works with forward thinking organisations, developing best practice and making data more accessible for everyone. Its customers include Knight Frank, Baillie Gifford, Samaritans, Penguin Random House and Open Data Institute.

Founder and CEO, Jason Foster set up Cynozure to establish a new precedent on data strategy in a traditionally techled data industry, and is doing so through the company’s Level Up Framework, which focuses on building a clear roadmap focused on business outcomes and adding incremental business value.

Cynozure is committed to creating a strong community of data leaders and professionals in the nascent industry.

Its CDO Hub acts as a peer to peer learning accelerator for CDOs, bringing them together to network, share best practices and move the industry forward.

It now has members in 12 countries globally, with a 42% increase in members compared to the same point last year.

The company is also an active member of the data community, regularly publishing whitepapers and blogs, as well as its weekly podcast - Hub & Spoken. Hosted

by CEO and Founder Jason Foster, the podcast features leading experts in data and analytics and covers the most pressing issues in the world of data.

To keep up to date with Cynozure’s latest news and events, and get early notification of the next Hub & Spoken, sign up to the newsletter. www.cynozure.com

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MEET THE JUDGES

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jason Foster

Christa Swain

[ CY N O Z UR E ]

[ E DE N S M IT H ]

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Jason is an established and respected data leader and CEO and founder of Cynozure, a people-led, data and analytics strategy business formed with a single purpose: to contribute to a better future for all through the positive and open use of data. He has won several awards for the work that he and the Cynozure team do, including being voted in the DataIQ 100 Most Influential People in Data in 2020 and 2021, and is the best-selling author of Data Means Business.

As Marketing Manager at Eden Smith, Christa will bring a fresh perspective to the judging panel.

Having spent nearly three years working with Eden Smith, a team of data staffing, consulting and education specialists, Christa has a keen understanding of the people that are in the data industry.

Christa’s aim is to support data leaders, job seekers and businesses to ‘make sense of data’ by developing an extensive community of data professionals, facilitating introduction, and sharing information.

Our panel of judges, all of whom are industry-leading data leaders and thinkers, will use a set of strict criteria to understand and acknowledge the

genuine and relevant impact that those data leaders who are nominated are making, both in their own businesses and to the profession more broadly.

Helen Mannion

[ ORBI T I ON GRO UP ]

[ SP E CSAVE R S ]

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Kyle is Founder and CEO of Orbition Group, a talent solutions business that operates exclusively within the data and analytics space across the UK, Europe and the US. He was featured in the Data IQ 100 Most Influential People in Data for 2022 and also founded and hosts the Driven

by Data Community. Kyle is passionate about enabling organisations to drive decisions and obtain value from the use of data, analytics and AI; the two biggest assets a business has, he says, are people and data.

Helen has been listed in the DataIQ Top 100 most influential data-driven professionals every year since 2016. In a global transformation role at Specsavers her mission is to create a strong data community culture across the organisation that sees data make a significant impact and is driving a positive difference in people’s lives through helping improve sight and hearing.

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Kyle winterbottom

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Niche Data Staffing Solution Specialists OVER 20 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN STAFFING WITHIN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES As niche data specialists we understand your challenges. We are placed at the centre of a growing community that provides us with the experience and knowledge to build data teams that align with your business function.

We will listen to your needs and advise you on recruitment, retention and development challenges ensuring that you attract top personnel in a fast moving market.

CLICK TO LEARN MORE

www.edensmith.group

Connect with us

Don’t default to recruitment

JEZ CLARK, CO-FOUNDER & CEO AT EDEN SMITH

In the past decade, we have seen data begin to transform every area of social, economic and corporate life. The proliferation of the Internet, the growth of smart technology and the scale of availability of data has all contributed to the growth of the industry and the demand on data talent.

We’re operating in a hugely competitive and fast paced industry. The labour market, key skills required and demand for data talent is a constantly changing landscape.

SLOW DOWN, TO SPEED UP Before you run to the jobs market with a handful of job descriptions and a pocket full of promises, it is important to take a moment to step back and

20 data analysts, your requirement (and costs) can be cut by at least a third.

Do you understand your internal capability?

The solution is to start with your existing workforce: internal mobility, training and succession. Only when you’ve exhausted these internal avenues should you consider going to the external job market.

SUCCESSFUL RECRUITMENT STRATEGY DESIGN The old systems of transactional recruitment are broken and not fit for purpose in the modern world. It is important to partner with

“We must stop defaulting to recruitment as the answer, very few companies understand the internal capability already in situ.

We invest heavily in our teams, both in terms of time and money, we spend a huge amount of money in training, career development and the wellbeing of our workforces, without tracking their journey and additional skills acquired along the way. From my experiences to date, more than a third of required headcount can be eliminated with training, internal mobility and a robust succession plan.” think. Going to the market with an ill-prepared recruitment strategy can be costly and seriously jeopardise your employer brand. Every organisation needs to take advice from a specialist recruitment consultancy team to ensure that they are positioned for success, with a sustainable workforce strategy that will relieve these challenges.

CHOOSE THE CLEVER SOLUTION, NOT THE MOST OBVIOUS ONE If you’re jumping straight into recruitment mode when demand hits your organisation, the pressure to attract suitable talent is immense. The solution requires a bit more leg work, but you will reap the rewards in terms of value and outcomes. With a strategic approach to your organisational design and workforce re-engineering you may find that instead of needing to hire

a specialist recruitment team who have a deep understanding of the industry and can advise you both in workforce planning and a successful recruitment strategy design.

A retained project approach to building data teams adds an awful lot of value to your search.

Not only will it reduce the risk of bad hires, but it will establish clear expectations, a commitment to deliver and provide a greater quality of service.

Would you like more info on the Eden Smith approach to staffing? Get in touch with Jez Clark.

GET IN TOUCH

www.edensmith.group

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C L I C K TO VOTE NOW

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The talent to turn today’s data, into tomorrow’s decisions We are a dedicated, full-service staffing solution provider focused on scaling Data, Analytics & Artificial Intelligence teams across the UK, Europe and the USA. Every organisation is on the journey to evidence-based decision making, driven by Data and Analytics; consequently, it’s is the most significant area of growth and investment for modern organisations.

To deliver these new data initiatives and reap their benefits – businesses are making significant investments across their Data & Analytics teams/capabilities.

To overcome the twin forces of high, global demand and the debilitating scarcity of talent, there is a genuine need for an innovative talent solution provider that bridges the gap between ineffective traditional recruitment and expensive, slow executive search.

Our offering uses cutting-edge staffing and selection technologies, combined with highly skilled, experienced talent professionals to ensure exceptional service and unrivalled results.

Our solutions are specifically designed to solve the talent challenges across the Data & Analytics landscape while reducing cost, improving time to hire, raising brand awareness and improving retention.

With so many staffing businesses suffering from inertia using traditional methods that don’t yield results at the scale or speed required, we’ve positioned ourselves as the go-to player in this space.

LON DON: +4 4 20 4511 392 2 I uk@orbitiongroup.com N E W YORK : +1 3 15 61 0 7770 I usa @orbitiongroup.com

Driven By Data

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THE POWER OF DATA FIVETRAN’S GURO BERGAN DISCUSSES DATA IN T EGR AT ION AND CEN T R AL ISAT ION, AND WHY ORGANISAT IONS MUS T MA XIMISE T HE VA L UE OF T HE IR D ATA

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ou can have all the data in the world – and most organisations have more than enough to be working with – but it has no value, no meaning and no impact if no one can use it.

And that’s a more common scenario that most data leaders, functions and c-suites would believe, certainly according to Gartner statistics that found some 97% of data is unused by organisations.

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In an age where all businesses are placing a greater emphasis on being data driven, investing significant sums in data teams and processes and looking to harness data-powered insights to shape decision making, many are still falling short when it comes to making the most effective use of the assets they have to hand.

But to make use of that data, first you must access it. One of the biggest challenges facing many businesses is the disparate and siloed nature of the data they hold, which could be spread across several locations from applications, email marketing software and ecommerce sites, through social media and more. Collectively, this data holds enormous business value, yet if leaders and analysts are unable to access it in its entirety they will fall short in fulfilling the company’s ultimate potential.

In such an environment, data centralisation – consolidating siloed data from multiple sources into one destination that the whole organisation can access – is a crucial competitive advantage.

THE VALUE OF DATA “Data has no value if you’re not using it,” says Guro Bergan, VP and GM EMEA at Fivetran, a leader in automated data integration that helps businesses improve the accuracy of their data-driven decision making by continuously synchronising data from source applications to any destination. “In addition, it loses value over time so the more complex it is to use the data, the longer it takes to get any intelligence or insight from it. We’re certainly seeing an environment in which businesses are aware of the importance of the data they hold, but the challenge they face lies in how they’ve aggregated these many sources of data over time – in some cases

more time and resources spent on getting the data than analysing it to gain competitive insights or drive decision making.

To tackle this problem alone is complex, an inefficient use of business resources and sees engineers and analysts using their time on tasks that don’t bring any return on investment to the organisation.

Typically, businesses will need a large number of data engineers to build potentially hundreds of bespoke data pipelines that, as the company evolves, will rapidly become mired in repetitive rounds of build and maintenance to cope with everincreasing volumes of data. The result is

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many, many years. That presents a huge challenge because all the databases are different, they can’t connect them or sometimes even extract the data.”

The extent of the challenge was demonstrated in a survey of global data professionals conducted by Fivetran and Dimensional Research. It found that, while the top metric for data engineering success is data being used for decision making, close to half of those surveyed said that key business data has yet to be integrated, which in turn diminishes decision making capabilities. In addition, 68% of data professionals recognised that more insights could be extracted from existing data if they had more time available. On this theme, the survey also found that 34% of analysts’ time is being wasted on trying to access data, while 68% of analysts said they lack the time to implement profit-driving ideas.

INTEGRATION, CENTRALISATION, ACCESS To mitigate this challenge, organisations and their data leaders must have the right integration processes in place – including increased automation of previously manual processes – so that data engineers and analysts can focus on driving business value. “It’s essential for any kind of digital or data transformation,” says Bergan.

“Anything a company does is usually for one or more of three key reasons: to reduce cost, to reduce risk or to increase revenue.

In this instance, it’s a relatively simple thought process that starts with something along the lines of ‘how do we reduce

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the cost of data engineers because we’re spending too much to maintain these pipelines?’.

“As soon as you begin automating processes by using a solution like ours you no longer have to have engineers working every connector – and to put that saving into context, I was recently speaking with a customer of ours who explained that for each of the Fivetran connectors they use, they would have previously had to have up to four engineers to build that same connector,” she says. “Then they have to maintain it afterwards and, to compound the complexity, if those engineers who have built and maintained the connector

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leave the business there’s no one who knows how it was built or to step in should it break. With us, it’s more automation and essentially a plug-and-play solution depending on complexity, so it saves businesses from having significant volumes of technical debt and lets them get the most from their data.”

Fivetran exists with one mission: to make data as simple and reliable as electricity from a power outlet, regardless of the data’s source. The business delivers ready-to-use connectors that automatically adapt as schemas and APIs change, ensuring consistent and reliable access to all data. Its fully managed pipelines

enable data-driven decisions to be made company-wide through the delivery of ready-to-query data into the cloud warehouse. This frees everyone in the business to focus on analysis data and the insights it can bring, rather than continuous extract, transform, load (ETL) processes.

“IN THE MOST

“In the most simple form, what we do is move data from one place to another, which is easier to say than it is to do,” laughs Bergan. “And we do that across different areas of service, such as sales and customer success analytics in which we enable customers to visualise their sales pipelines and monitor customer satisfaction far more effectively, finance analytics centred around the provision of faster reporting and deeper insights, and marketing analytics, where we’re able to improve campaign performance.

Take an advertising use case as an example – think of all of the apps that have been developed and used over the last decade, it’s vast. We as consumers get adverts on all of those, and so companies need all of the data they can get out of the different advertising sources in one location so they’re able to create intelligence from it and improve campaign performance.

IS MOVE DATA

WHAT WE DO FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER” significant benefits. First, it’s improving healthcare because having one central collection of patient data means everyone can access it regardless of location and provide the same level of care. On top of that, though, they’re able to apply predictive analysis to the data we collect to drive a greater understanding and earlier diagnosis of health problems. That’s a huge added value in terms of improving survivability for patients. Personally, that’s the most fascinating thing about working with data, when used in the optimum way it can play a big role in improving our lives in so many ways.

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“It’s about having the ability to get the most value from the data you have across the business,” says Bergan. “Take one of our customers, a group of hospitals in the US, as an example. We help them centralise all the data from their different hospitals in one location, which is bringing

SIMPLE FORM,

“Another great example of value added is in our work with US airline JetBlue,” she continues. “They put all their data about their customers, aircraft and maintenance into one centralised repository. They use

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“BUSINESSES ARE AWARE OF T HE IMPORTANCE OF T HE DATA T HE Y

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HOLD, BUT THE CHALLENGE THEY FACE LIES IN HOW THEY’VE AGGREGAT ED THESE MANY SOURCES OF DATA OVER TIME”

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it to inform customer survey information that allows them to better understand customer satisfaction and therefore improve on their services. In addition, the aircraft maintenance data has enabled the development of more precise maintenance schedules and the reduction of delays, but also a reduction in the amount of fuel being used which is both good for their margins and, more importantly, for the planet.”

TECHNOLOGY, GROWTH, CULTURE Bergan is a relative newcomer to Fivetran, having only joined in January 2022, but her passion for the subject is evident. Prior to joining the business she has worked in several tech-focused roles and is a firm believer in technology being used as an enabler that should help companies focus on their core business. The success of any technology rollout, she says, should be measured primarily by the business value it generates.

“I actually used to manage a team of about 40 data engineers in a previous role; of course, I didn’t realise at the time how relevant that would become in the future,” she says. “I was with a company called ServiceSource, which did renewals on behalf of large tech companies. We’d basically take large volumes of the customer’s data every single month, scrub it and put it into our CRM so we could work the renewals. We had a team of 40 people scrubbing data and trying to write data scripts. And, every month, the data would come in a slightly different format, we’d

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have to rewrite the script and there was just so much manual work involved.

It’s incredible how much technology has evolved – at Fivetran we now have customers constantly scanning for updates, uploading that into their CRM and calling on it within hours.

“As General Manager of EMEA, I have sales, customer success, business and sales development sitting under me,” Bergan explains, giving more detail on working at the business. “There were several things that drew me to the company initially. The role itself was a perfect balance of being senior enough and large enough in terms of scope to really make an impact, and I wanted that buzz of working for a fast-growing pre-IPO company in a space that’s evolving – anything to do with data and building the modern data stack absolutely fits that bill. The technology side was a must, I wanted to work with a business that has really good technology that can make a difference, but I also was impressed with the culture in the company. On a personal level that’s always been important to me, and to join a team that has such a strong culture of collaboration, innovation and diversity has been great.”

This culture is the foundation of continuous growth and evolution at Fivetran.

Most recently, towards the end of 2021, the business acquired enterprise database replication leader HVR, which provides solutions for replicating mission-critical

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database management systems for some of the world’s largest enterprises. These systems are home to some of the most valuable data owned by an enterprise, but because of their mission-critical status they are complex to interact with.

“Fivetran has always focused predominantly on the cloud, so SaaS applications, the likes of Salesforce, TikTok, Hubspot, Facebook and Instagram and so on,” says Bergan. “HVR technically does the same, but focuses on the more complex, sometimes legacy enterprise databases.

Acquiring their business gives us the ability to take data from sources like Oracle databases, SAP and similar; this enables

“TO JOIN A TEAM T HAT HAS SUCH A S T RONG CULT URE OF COLLABORAT ION , INNO VAT ION HAS BEEN GRE AT ” our customers to combine much more data than that which is just sitting in their cloud applications. It’s particularly useful for more established enterprises with legacy systems that are beginning their cloud transformation journey and migrating to modern systems because we can now go with them on that journey.”

As organisations continue to evolve the volume and complexity of the data they’re using will continue to increase. “Some of the big trends we’re seeing moving forwards are a continued focus on revenue rather than just cost,” says Bergan. “Also, companies are looking to automate more and more for the simple reason that there

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AND DIVERSITY

aren’t that many data engineers out there, so there’s a constant search for talent. If they can use the scarce resources that they have to focus more on the value adding, providing business intelligence, using the data in a way that is driving predictive analytics and helps understand customers better, that’s really more valuable for them than spending time and money having people sitting there building data pipelines and changing transformation scripts.” www.fivetran.com

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City Guide

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EAT S LE E P WORK P LA Y

Essen schlafen Arbeit spielen

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WORDS GREGOR

M Ü LLER

Frequently ranked as one of the world’s most livable cities, Vienna is one of the jewels of Europe. With stunning architecture, city hiking trails and chic bars and restaurants, the city has something for everyone. Not only is Vienna a wonderful place to live, it’s also a great place to work. With a booming startup scene, it plays host to some of Europe’s fastest growing scaleups, a number of which have reached unicorn status. Co-Founder and COO of unicorn EdTech startup, GoStudent, Gregor Müller was born and raised in Vienna. He takes us on a tour of his hometown and guides us through his favourite spots in Austria’s capital.

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IMPACT HUB

4GAMECHANGERS FESTIVAL

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ZOKU

MOTTO BUSINESS Impact Hub is a great place to meet likeminded entrepreneurs, share ideas and get feedback. It’s a co-working space and cafe that brings together businesses aiming to make positive changes in the world.

It is based in Vienna’s 7th district and has a really relaxed, cool atmosphere. Many freelancers and entrepreneurs are based there and they’re always willing to lend an ear, listen to you and help you find a way into the community.

The annual 4GAMECHANGERS Festival takes place each June in the impressive Marx Hall and brings together innovators, founders and business leaders. It’s a super

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cool place for networking, hearing great speakers, and enjoying live music and entertainment. If you’re lucky enough to be in the city when it is on, it’s an absolute must.

Zoku offers stunning meeting and event spaces right next to one of Vienna’s most popular parks, Prater. It’s a great place to work solo or to collaborate with your team.

Zoku provides the ideal working environment, with spaces designed for both focus and creative brainstorming. One of the best things about the space is its rooftop terrace. There’s also a 24-hour bar, a gym and a restaurant. Zoku really has it all.

HOTEL BRISTOL

THE BRISTOL BAR

STAY A favourite for many younger business travellers, the 25 hours Hotel is centrally located in Vienna’s 7th district, is very hip and modern, and offers great meeting rooms for rent. It also has an awesome rooftop bar called Dachboden, which offers panoramic views of the city.

Specialising in cocktails and a great selection of Austrian wines, it’s the perfect summer spot for an after work drink.

MOTTO started as a French-inspired restaurant with really good vibes and great food. The restaurant and bar are located on the roof, with the hotel below.

MOTTO hotel is located in the 7th

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25 HOURS HOTEL

district, which is one of those urban areas in Vienna that’s very hip and has a lot of young people already living there. It’s where a lot of entrepreneurs want to go.

The more traditional hotels are located in the city’s oldest district, Ringstrasse, and occupy some of Vienna’s grandest buildings. One of my favourites is the art deco Hotel Bristol, located right next to the Vienna State Opera. It’s a must if you are seeking traditional Viennese hospitality. Be sure to visit The Bristol Bar, which was the first American bar to open in Vienna – the cocktails are excellent.

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GREGOR MÜLLER CO-FOUNDER AND COO, GOSTUDENT

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Gregor Müller is the Co-Founder and COO of GoStudent, the Vienna-headquartered EdTech unicorn.

Founded in 2016 and now active in 23 markets, GoStudent provides tailored, high quality video-based tuition to K-12 students.

Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, Gregor is incredibly passionate about the city’s vibrant and evolving startup scene. Prior to cofounding GoStudent, Gregor lived abroad and studied Business Administration at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

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PLACHUTTA EAT / DRINK One of my favourite restaurants in the city, Onyx offers Asian fusion cuisine with unparalleled views of Vienna’s beautiful Stephansdom Cathedral. The floor to ceiling glass windows mean you can look out over the city while enjoying great music, good vibes and a casual cool atmosphere. It’s also not too big of a place so it feels cosy and intimate – great for business dinners in the city.

Offering chic, mezze-style Isreili cuisine, NENI is perfect for relaxed business meetings with style. My personal favourite is the branch at Prater, which overlooks the colourful Prater amusement park. In my mind, NENI’s vibrant roof terrace is the perfect spot to enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner with company or alone.

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ONYX

NENI There are four or five branches of Plachutta offering good quality, traditional Austrian food. I love to bring international colleagues here to introduce them to Austrian cuisine.

It may not be the best place for vegetarians, but they have good food and the people are always very nice. It’s a bit laid back and classic, but the menu is brilliant.

PRATER

NEUSIEDLER SEE

LEISURE Prater is a huge park located in Vienna’s second district. It used to be the hunting grounds of the emperor, but today it’s one of the city’s most popular spots for dog walking, rollerblading and taking a stroll with friends. Prater is also home to a theme park with a lot of different rides and attractions,

spend time during summer. Neusiedler See is a popular destination for water sports and is usually good wind for sailing.

There are also a lot of great restaurants surrounding the lake, which means you can really make a day of it.

including The Giant Ferris Wheel, which offers a great view of the city. One of the best things about Prater is that there’s no entry fee, you simply pay for the rides you go on.

It’s also a relaxed, green space without the hustle and bustle of a regular theme park.

Kahlenberg - Stadtwanderweg 1 (City hiking trail number 1): One of the great things about Vienna is its easy access to nature.

Simply hop on a bus or tram to reach one of the city’s hiking trails. In the 19th district, you can follow the trail to Kahlenberg mountain on the outskirts of the city. The view from the top is incredible, you can see the whole of Vienna. There are also a lot of vineyards and hidden traditional ‘heurigers’ (wine taverns) so you can stop off for a spritzer along the way.

Neusiedler See is only a 40 minute drive away from Vienna and is a great spot for kitesurfing and hopping on a boat trip.

As it’s one of the places in Austria with the most sunshine, it’s a beautiful location to

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KAHLENBERG

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GLOBAL EVENTS CALENDER Ai4 2022

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16-18th AUGUST 2022 [ Las Vegas, USA ] Over three days, Ai4 2022 brings together business leaders and data practitioners to facilitate the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. It’s one of the industry’s most impactful AI events.

> VISIT WE BSI TE

BIG DATA EXPO 14-15th SEPT 2022 [ Utrecht, Netherlands ] Big Data Expo is the first platform to unite supply and demand of the big data sector.

It is also the only event in the Benelux that specifically addresses every aspect of data management.

> VI SI T WEB SI T E

INDUSTRY OF THINGS WORLD 18-20th SEPT 2022 [ Berlin, Germany ] Rethinking technology strategies for scalable, secure and efficient IoT, how smart, connected products are changing companies and revenue streams, and business models arising from products, data and assets as a service.

> VISIT WE BSI TE

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MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 28-30th SEPT 2022 [ Las Vegas, USA ] With over 200 expert speakers and 300+ brands MWC boasts cutting-edge echnology demos to fuel innovation and ideas that will change the world.

> VI SI T WEB SI T E

GITEX GLOBAL 10-14th SEPT 2022 [ Dubai WTC ]

> VISIT WE BSI TE

IBM CDO SUMMIT 9th NOV 2022 [ San Francisco, USA ]

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An event that brings together thoughtleaders, creators, innovators and makers to discuss, debate and challenge new ideology, showcase new products and identify future opportunities.

The CDO Summit features leading Chief Digital, Data, Analytics and Technology Officers from some of the world’s most prestigious organisations.

> VI SI T WEB SI T E

CES TECH 5-8th JAN 2023 [ Las Vegas, USA ] CES 2023 will partner with the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) to showcase the critical role of technology in support of the United Nations’ efforts to advance human security for all.

> VISIT WE BSI TE

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BUILD YOUR BRAND WITH US At Stroud & Clarke we believe in the power of storytelling to build brands, engage with audiences and inform the conversation. We produce creative content that provides insight, influences opinion and positions you at the forefront of your industry.

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