Talking with Tech Leaders

For this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, we’re getting to grips with the challenges of optimising architecture teams for a platform and SaaS world – with Jonny Mallabar of ACCA.  That means we’re delving into the world of architecture once again. And we couldn’t ask for a better guide. Jonny has had a fascinating career, having led teams at Harmonic, HP and Cassidian, as well as consulting w...

What if your childhood hobby could propel you into a leading role in one of the world's top tech companies? Join us as Steve Orrin, federal CTO at Intel, shares his extraordinary journey from hacking on a TI-994A and Apple IIe to steering cutting-edge security initiatives at a global scale. Initially set on a path in medical research, Steve's fascination with the internet in the mid-90s...

It’s often said that change is a constant in the tech sector. But it’s not constant: the big leaps in technology are coming faster than ever. Just think about the last few years. Cloud, mobile, AI – the pace of change is extraordinary. Pete Dale knows all about digital transformation, not only in his role as Club Exec (think MD) at AND Digital Almeida, but from 20+ years spent in tech. In this epi...

Success in software development – perhaps in any sphere of technology – demands a fine balance of customer focus and engineering skill. Getting it right is easier said than done, with different skills, priorities and goals to wrangle into order. But our guest for this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders knows better than most how to find that balance.  Because Dwayne Pascal – Chief Product Techno...

From senior manager in the NHS to tech founder & entrepreneur: it sounds like a leap from one end of the spectrum to the other. But, after 28 years working with the health service – a career culminating in roles as CEO and Board Member – that’s the move that Amanda Philpott , our guest for this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, made.   When she personally experienced age-related hearing lo...

While this podcast has often touched on the topic of AI – it would be hard not to – rarely have we got so far into the nuts and bolts of how it works and what it can do. That’s because Neil Burnett and his team at Arria NLG are doing some incredible work in natural language generation, or the process of transforming data into human-readable text and valuable insight.  You may have heard of NLP, a...

For this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, we’re talking Architecture. And there are few more qualified to talk about the subject than Jem Anderton. As the Chief Architect at the Student Loans Company , he’s a member of the Technology Group leadership team, heads up a team of 25 architects and plays a key role in modernising an organisation with more than 8m customers.  Together with host Mich...

In our latest episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, our host Michael Phair chats with long-time colleague, client and friend, Jonathan McNamee – a seasoned pro and leading voice in digital strategy, continuous improvement and automation. They discuss the ins and outs of Jonathan’s career, tracing his path from Dublin City Universe to the likes of Salesforce, the Student Loans Company and the Test...

If you asked an expert on Scottish tech for a list of the biggest success stories of the past few years, you can bet that Skyscanner (a true Scottish unicorn) and Current Health (sold to US retail giant Best Buy for $400m) would top it. Richard Lennox played a big part in both – working his way up to Senior Director at the former, before joining the latter as Chief Operating Officer. We were lucky...

Our latest episode is all about the power of tech to do good for our communities, as we meet Kirsty McIntosh of the Scottish Tech Army . The charity was founded during the pandemic to bring tech-savvy volunteers together with third-sector organisations in need of support – on everything from managing websites to bolstering cyber security. With over 2,500 volunteers supporting 300 organisations (so...

In this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, Alan Mayberry chats host Michael Phair through his journey from the early days of his career in his hometown of Dunoon to the top tier of software engineering with Planet DDS today. It’s quite the journey, not only stopping off at the places you might expect, with roles at the likes of Brightree, Amec and Global, but also taking a few detours that migh...

In many ways, Hamish Grierson is the archetypal tech entrepreneur: sharp, single-minded and innovative. But, as this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders shows, that’s really just a tiny part of his story. For starters, we chat through a career that is varied, to say the least – from studying international politics and paying his way through university with landscape gardening, to pursuing roles i...

For most of the tech leaders we’ve interviewed on this show, one career is enough. But Brian Reid, Director of Corporate Transformation & Workplace at the Scottish Government, seems to be onto his fourth or fifth career now. In this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, he tells us all about the story of his first career – with the 30+ years he spent with Standard Life, working his way up from...

When we’re not Talking with Tech Leaders, we’re at our day jobs at Be-IT – Scotland’s largest independent Technology Recruiters. And, if you’ve heard anything about Be-IT, you’ve probably heard that we’ve recently celebrated our 10th birthday. So, to mark the milestone, we’ve had a chat with our very own Tech Leader: our CEO, Nikola Kelly. Having spent more than 20 years in the world of recruitmen...

As you might expect, we are huge fans of CodeClan . After all, they’re in the business of bringing talent into Scotland’s tech sector, and that’s something that drives us every day in our recruitment day jobs. So it’s a real privilege to have CEO, Loral Quinn, as our guest for episode 29 of Talking with Tech Leaders. We take a tour of Loral’s career, chatting through her brief roles in advertising...

Let’s face it, a show about the Tech Sector in Scotland probably should’ve had Karen Meechan on a whole lot sooner. As the CEO of ScotlandIS , she has an insight and understanding of our world that few others do. She knows the country’s challenges, problems and priorities when it comes to IT & Digital jobs – which this episode well worth your time, all by itself. But, it just so happens that K...

It’s always fun to consider how far computing has come, even in the space of one career. When Tony McClelland was getting started, programming was a skill you could learn with punch cards, industry ran on paper tapes and rendering cute cartoons involve a supercomputer and a sleeping bag. Which is to say that Tony has some incredible experience. And he’s happy to share it in this episode of Talking...

For this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, we’re talking all about the insights and values to be gleaned from the bits and bytes flowing through our everyday lives – to paraphrase our guest, Andy McMahon. The award-winning Data Scientist and Machine Learning expert takes us through his own career journey, from his academic roots with Imperial College, into the private sector with Streamba, Agg...

Just for a second, think about the biggest challenge you might face in your career. How’s about launching a digital TV service? Or integrating two colossal financial institutions? Or facing a year-long multi-million-pound high court case? You might say that Scott Mackay – CTO, Technology Strategist and CRM Guru – has seen more ups and downs in tech than most. You might also say that would make him...

Technical innovation is nothing without the human application. How the two elements work together is what the podcast is all about, which is what makes Simon Sear – Strategy & Innovation Expert – such a fascinating guest for episode 24.   Joining host Michael Phair, Simon discusses how his education in Psychology played a role in his early career, takes us through a few career highlights, incl...

He says it himself – Bob Keiller doesn’t quite qualify for the ‘tech’ part of ‘Talking with Tech Leaders’. So it’s perhaps worth renaming this episode Talking with Values Leaders, or Talking with Storytelling Leaders. Whatever we’re calling it, it’s well worth listening to. He chats through his career with host Michael Phair, charting his journey from Heriot Watt University, through a series of ro...

Most Tech Leaders get started pretty early. Andrew Flegg was already getting to grips with rudimentary programming when he was still in short trousers. So it’s perhaps no surprise that he’s risen to become the Chief Technology Officer at Alfa Systems , the multinational asset finance software giant. In this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, we go all the way back to those beginnings, tinkering...

In a time when the NHS struggles under the pressure of squeezed budgets and the after effects (and continued caseload) of the pandemic, every pound saved counts. Dr Anas Nader and Dr Jing Ouyang saved it an estimated £40million – enabling almost 3 million hours to be staffed sustainably each year through Patchwork Health. This episode of Talking with Tech Leaders offers the  story of how that happ...

The podcast title has never been more fitting: our guest for episode 20 of Talking with Tech Leaders is a leading thinker, leading innovator and leading academic. Bill Buchanan is not only Professor of Cryptography at Edinburgh Napier University but also an Officer of the British Empire – awarded in 2017 for services to cybersecurity. Together with host Michael Phair, Professor Buchanan covers som...

In this episode of Talking with Tech Leaders, we spend more time than usual talking through our guest’s career journey. And there’s a good reason for that: Alastair Rennie has had an incredible career – with the likes of Lockheed Martin, Student Loans Company and Wescot Credit Services. From the very start, he worked to harness the power of data – from his post-PhD consultancy analytical work, str...