Venturi's Voice: Technology | Leadership | Staffing | Career | Innovation

Vincent Gratrick is responsible for the strategic and operational use of Digital and Technology at one of the most well-known and loved UK charities. Vincent is a highly driven, accomplished and articulate Senior Leader, with an in-depth understanding of the strategic and operational requirements of a Digital and technology function. Experience in running global projects, high availability systems and teams to deliver a service orientated function. Proven ability to translate business requirements into practical, imaginative and highly effective IT solutions with experience in managing senior internal/external stakeholder relationships. Renowned as a forward-thinking strategist and creative problem solver with a consistent history of organisational success and the support to accelerate a variety of business objectives. Continually exhibit a pragmatic and entrepreneurial leadership style to improve poor performing and misaligned teams and revitalized and realigned them to become business partners improving em

David Lewanda is Director of Mobile Engineering at Major League Baseball, an experienced technology leader working hard to develop world-class solutions. David has worked productively in a variety of different industries, from the Department of Defense to television broadcast and consumer electronics, while also thriving in many different environments from early-stage startups to large multinational corporations. His number one goal has always been to deliver high-quality products while staying on schedule and within budget.  During the Podcast, Ben and David discuss David's interesting route into technology, as well as the challenges that David has faced when hiring mobile engineers to work on streaming platforms. With the benefit of hiring distributed teams, managers can access a pool of applicants that is far greater than if hiring locally. We speak about how David has successfully led these distributed teams and how working life has been affected by the pandemic.

James Cross is a Big Data Engineer and certified AWS Solutions Architect with a passion for data-driven applications. He has spent the last decade helping his clients to design and implement huge scale streaming Big Data platforms, Cloud-based analytics stacks, and serverless architectures. James started his professional career in Investment Banking, working with well-established technologies such as Java and SQL Server, before moving into the Big Data space. Since then he has worked with a huge range of Big Data tools including most of the Hadoop eco-system, Spark and many No-SQL technologies such as Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis and DynamoDB. More recently his focus has been on Cloud technologies and how they can be applied to data analytics, culminating in his work at Scout Solutions as CTO, and more recently with companies including Mckinsey, HSBC and Shell. Colibri Ltd. is a technology consultancy company founded in 2013 by James Cross. The company works to help its clients navigate the rapidly changing a

Ben sat down with Lakuan Smith, who is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Manager at Justworks. Lakuan's motivation for taking this career path stems from personal discriminatory experiences in his life, job hunting and work environments, finding the need to change this - Lakuan delved into DE&I and realised that he could make a real difference within this role. Justworks is the fastest-growing HR technology company in the US. They provide small- and medium-sized businesses access to big-company benefits, automated payroll, HR tools, and compliance support — all in one place. They do this by combining the power of a Professional Employer Organization with expert 24/7 support and a simple and friendly online platform. Their customers work across all 50 U.S. states in a variety of industries.

Stories from professional leading women in tech discussing the benefits of diversity in the industry as well as Covid's impact on the topic. As we continuously challenge gender inequality at Venturi, we were joined by prominent industry leaders for International Women’s Day to share how they have built remarkable careers; their respective journeys to now and emphasise the importance of championing an industry with more equal opportunities. Listen back to our live round-table with four professional women in leadership roles within the tech industry, as they share their experiences, knowledge and offer advice in order to prioritize D&I. Collectively, they have created their careers from varying backgrounds in the industry and unanimously have one common goal: to keep discussing and pushing for diversity, to bring the gap together and engage other professionals in the industry, making this a comfortable, common topic in the workplace. Introducing your roundtable guests: Anna Chalon– Sr. Director of Tale

Akshay Sheth is Vice President, Director of Engineering at FactSet. Akshay has incubated FactSet's API program in 2017 which shaped the company's product, technology and go-to-market strategy for public APIs. He has built an engineering and product team within Analytics and Trading group to deliver first set of public APIs leading to a revenue increase of $3M+. The program has now expanded to other parts of the company and has positioned FactSet as an open and flexible technology provider to the investment community. During this podcast episode, we covered new technologies and how to decipher what new technology and tools are right for your business to get the best end solution. We also discussed Akshay's journey into technology, and advice for people looking to take a similar career path- making the most of opportunities that are handed to you, and when presented with a challenge - how to react and take it head-on to further your career.

Culture Shift helps businesses and universities to assist their staff, students and teachers to report workplace harassment on their anonymous reporting tool. Culture Shift is the epitome of tech for good, making real, positive changes to people's lives, by building products that empower organisations to tackle harassment and bullying. The software is designed to empower those who are reluctant to report wrongdoing, by removing barriers to reporting, and ensuring they have a secure and confidential platform in which to do so. The software also allows victims or witnesses of harassment to access support for what they’ve experienced as well as giving organisations oversight of any worrying trends, helping them to tackle them. As well as providing a confidential platform for reporting bullying and harassment, the software allows businesses to analyze data to identify trends that mean they can take appropriate action. They can monitor any worrying behaviour and intervene early with communications or specific tr

Sean McSharry is Head of UX at DXC Technology. Sean has a strong background in user experience, technology, business and leadership, working across many sectors, roles and countries. He has studied and worked consciously to glean the best approaches and methodologies from the best people from role to role, industry to industry, studying hard to be a better UX architect, technologist and leader at every step, leading to many successful senior roles. Sean is also a published author for Apress on programming-based books and a public speaker on UX, and has run and presented at a number of user groups.  During this podcast episode, we spoke about Neurodiversity in technology and UX, and the advantages of the alignment of UX and Autism, as well as Sean's experience in the industry after being diagnosed with Autism part way through his career. Whilst you're here, check out Sean's UX Sanctuary meetup group here: https://www.meetup.com/UX-Sanctuary/ andThe UX Sanctuary website here: https://uxsanctuary.wixsite.co

Andrew's career journey started after graduating from a Computer Science degree, moving straight into a junior software development role with an IT Consultancy. Throughout his career, Andrew has been lucky enough to work as firstly a software developer, but then later as an Enterprise Technical Architect on many leading edge projects for "blue chip" organisations. Andrew's experience in IT ranges across primarily banking, finance, insurance and telecommunications industries, while also incorporating projects with a number of disruptive SMEs. More recently he has acted as CTO and Managing Director for FinTech disruptive start-ups and have provided CTO consultancy services to a select number of financial institutions. Andrew is one of three founding members of RTGS Limited, owner and operator of the RTGS.global cross-border liquidity network. As CTO, his role is to design and build out the RTGS.global platform, network and its capabilities. This includes their unique and patent pending liquidity lock and blo

Lorin Gresser is CEO of Dem Dx, an award-winning AI healthcare company based in London. The company’s CE certified clinical diagnostic platform, developed in consultation with over 200 medical experts, enables frontline practitioners to diagnose, identify necessary tests and present recommendations for further care before the patient sees a doctor. As a mature medical student, Lorin struggled to link the theoretical teaching from her textbooks and lectures to the actual patients she saw in clinic or on the wards. Their founding principle remains to better connect healthcare workers to the high-quality medical information that they require. The Dem Dx platform is 22% more accurate than Harvard-trained junior doctors, delivers 85% accuracy at first diagnosis, and reduces time to diagnose by 40%. During this podcast episode, we spoke about some of the amazing and innovative advancements of AI and healthcare, with Dem Dx positioning itself ahead of the curve. We also spoke about Lorin's leap into technology af

I sat down with Maximilian Nierhoff, Head of Business Intelligence at Fashionette AG and Ann-Christin Werner, Business Intelligence Analyst at Fashionette AG, to find out the development of the business, how they have recently made the whole company data-driven, some of the benefits of this and how they have created an assistance framework for self-service analytics. Fashionette AG operates an online retail store. The Company offers fashion accessories such as designer bags, shoes, and accessories, as well as sunglasses, watches, and jewelry. It's now the leading online store for designer handbags in Germany, since its foundation in 2008. Showtimes 0:55 - What Fashionette is, and how they fit into the world of technology. 2:05 - An introduction to Maximilian and Ann-Christin. 8:22 - The utilization of data to grow a business and some of the methods to implement this. 10:14 - What self-service analytics means at Fashionette, and why they have considered self-service analytics to be one of the most import

Matt Craggs is Head of Operations at Floom. Floom is a curated online floristry website that offers quality and beautiful bouquets from a curated selection of independent florists, delivered same-day. Their hand-selected independent florists create unique floral arrangements that they have designed and uploaded to the Floom website themselves. Floom makes those products accessible by providing an alternative to traditional retail and offering their partner an eCommerce channel. Customers type in a delivery postcode, and select a bespoke bouquet to send in a matter of clicks. During the podcast episode, we spoke about the inner workings of the business, the fluctuating popularity around the seasonal time of the year, and how Matt and his team prepare for the dramatic increase in demand. We also spoke about burnout, mental health exhaustion, and the pressure to meet certain demands in some industries that Matt has previously experienced in other roles. Touching upon how is best to avoid burnout and advice f

Nina Monckton is Head of Data Strategy, Advancing Analytics & Data Science at AXA Health. Managing the Data and Analytics overarching strategy for AXA PPP healthcare and its customers by responding to opportunities using creativity, innovation, leadership and communication expertise to bring new strategies to life. A recognised thought leader in the delivery of successful big data analytics. Creates, leads, motivates and manages large technical teams. Nina was winner of the 2019 Women in IT Awards Transformation Leader for the delivery of a cloud EDW and online analytics platform for 2,000 external B2B users. Selected for Digital Leaders 100 in 2018 and an Oracle advanced data analytics and cloud analytics reference site. Responsible for creating a data lab that has identified £1.1 billion of potential savings and is helping to support better care for NHS patients.

Arthur Frankel is the founder of Solution Street and has over 25 years of professional experience solving tough business problems. His career has spanned the many changes in technology from large mainframe systems to PCs to client/server to web applications. Over the years he has worked with some of the largest and complex enterprise-wide systems for financial and telecommunications companies. Arthur was a Senior Principal for American Management Systems, Inc, and a Director of Software Engineering for FolioFn before starting Solution Street in 2002. Solution Street is a software engineering firm based in Herndon VA, that builds custom, web, mobile, and cloud systems and software for other businesses spanning a wide variety of different industries. During the podcast episode, we spoke about what it's like to build a company from the ground, and turning a passion into a long-lasting successful business. Showtimes 0:50 - The service Solution Street provides. 2:00 - How Arthur keeps up with the speed of de

Ben sat down with Thomson Staff & Heather Staff, the Co-Founders of Street Group, to discuss leading through innovation and the development of their new industry-dominating technology. Street Group is the new name for Agent Software, the team behind Spectre & Hello Again, and their brand new product Street.co.uk. Their mission is to elevate how agents and their clients manage the process of moving home. Street Group have three products, with one goal: To provide a seamless customer experience at every stage of their journey, enabling estate agents to achieve more by doing less using their automatic, personalised and highly targeted software. Spectre Sales is the UK’s No.1 instruction generation tool and has generated over £12 billion of property instructions since its inception in 2015. Spectre helps agents increase market share whilst saving time via automation. Spectre Lettings is the market leading solution for agent’s wishing to grow their lettings portfolio. Identify and automate communicatio

Chris has over 14 years’ experience within the Banking and Financial Services sector, working in key roles at Berenberg Bank and Fitch Ratings. As Head of Digital Transformation at Berenberg, Chris operates across the full product lifecycle, establishing agile and continuous improvement environments and leads onshore and offshore development teams to achieve on-time delivery of projects. Established in 1590, Berenberg is one of the oldest banks in the world, with its Head Office in Hamburg, Germany, and with a strong presence in the financial centres of London, Frankfurt and New York, it is one of Europe’s leading privately-owned banks. 1,600 employees carry the Bank’s long tradition of success into the future. Through its business divisions of Investmentbank and Corporate Banking, Wealth and Asset Management, Berenberg is able to offer a broad range of services into corporations, investment institutions and private individuals. Berenberg has a strong reputation based on first-class performance, and althoug

Seán Óg is Chief Technology Officer - Digital Savings at Investec, an experienced technology leader who understands what it takes to build high performing teams. He has cultivated a career largely based in the financial services industry, and began his career as a software engineer and has also built a successful start-up within a corporate environment. Investec is an international banking and wealth management group providing a range of financial products and services to a client base in Europe, Southern Africa, and Asia-Pacific. They bring an out of the ordinary approach to creating and managing wealth. Founded in South Africa as a small finance company, today they offer clients our services as a global bank and asset management group. During this Podcast episode, Seán Óg gives us insight into his career journey in technology, the mammoth challenge Investec has taken on in the last 12 months in going cloud-native, and how the organisation has responded to the challenges of 2020. Showtimes 0:55 - What is

Rakhee Gupta is Technical Recruiting Manager at SeatGeek, overseeing all technical recruiting across Engineering and Product in NYC and Israel. SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticket platform that enables users to buy and sell tickets for live sports, concerts and theatre events. SeatGeek allows both mobile app and desktop users to browse events, view interactive color-coded seatmaps, complete purchases, and receive electronic or print tickets. Rakhee’s team has aggressive hiring goals across the company, especially in research and development. The company also has a plan to continue its focus on diversity and inclusion in its hiring efforts. During the podcast, we spoke about remotely recruiting and onboarding and what that process looks like to provide the best candidate experience. As well as hiring for diversity, some of the best ways to do this and the benefits of attracting diverse talent into your business.

Thiago Ghisi is an Engineering Director based in New York City. He has 15+ years of experience in Software Development, passing in corporations and startups in Brazil and the US, working as a Software Engineer, QA, Product Manager, Consultant across a wide variety of domains and technologies, and more recently as Engineering Manager in the Mobile Space. In 2007, he stumbled upon Extreme Programming and since then has focused on learning, applying, and sharing processes and practices of Agile & Lean. Thiago is fascinated by creating environments where cross-functional teams can innovate and consistently deliver valuable, high-quality software reliably using solid engineering practices. Ultimate Career Vision: Finding Practical, Cutting-Edge Applications for Abstract Innovative Ideas through Data Analysis and Collaboration with Diverse Open-Minded Teams. A mix of creativity & innovation & incremental improvement with efficiency & productivity. During the podcast episode, we spoke about how T

Hasani Jess is the UK Chief Technology Officer at Simply Business, responsible for the InsureTechs technology vision. His wide ranging expertise and forward-thinking approach enables him to devise and execute ambitious long-term technology strategies. A recognized technology thought-leader, Hasani has operated in multiple domains spanning two decades including telecoms, government, finance, healthcare and retail. In 2019 he was recognized as one of the top business leaders in technology and was named in the CIO 100 list, an annual recognition of the UK’s technology leadership community. Hasani received his Bachelors of Eng in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from Aston University in Birmingham, UK. During the podcast episode, we spoke about Hasani's impressive and vast tech career journey. Carving a career in tech now - during a time of recent growth and adjustments within the industry, is different from ever before, we hear Hasani's thoughts and advice on this. We also spoke about how to build