Leading IT - APAC Insights: Recent Episodes
Josh Rubens & Tom Leyden
This podcast is hosted by 2 leaders in the Australian Technology sector- Tom Leyden CIO of Global Design firm Woods Bagot and Josh Rubens Managing Director at boutique consultancy - Cloud Solutions Group. They take an informative and conversational look at topical IT matters on a fortnightly basis. They discuss key topics such as; Coping with COVID-19, IT strategy and digitisation, Cloud computing, IT security, IT infrastructure, Vendors, and people leadership. Each episode reviews industry news and takes a deeper look at IT vendor strategies and innovation with special guests and experts on various topics.
In this jam-packed episode, Josh and Tom discuss some of the exciting announcements made at the recent Microsoft Inspire 2023 conference. Key talking points included a slew of integrated AI capabilities and services where the focus is on making AI more accessible and beneficial for businesses across diverse domains.
Renowned global CIO and author Mary-Beth Hosking joins the podcast to share some evergreen IT leadership knowledge bombs, and valuable insights from her new book “When Now Means Now”.
Nathan Boyle, CIO at Hassell Architects, teams up with Tom and Josh to delve into the challenges and opportunities inherent in managing AI expectations at the C-level.
Heinrich Kokkuk, CIO at McConnell Dowell joins Josh and Tom to share lessons learned, as well as valuable and unique insights developed as an IT leader in the regional AEC industry.
Tom and Josh sift through the 300+ announcements made at this year’s Microsoft Ignite conference and discuss some of the significant highlights and how they will potentially impact businesses, including the Digital Transformation workforce.
A.I. and multi-faceted Security solutions dominated this episode, particularly as they relate to transforming these businesses to be more productive, efficient, and secure.
Understandably, the recent Optus security breach dominated the news section of this podcast, considering its wide-reaching global implications. Josh and Tom then turned to essential updates from this year’s VMware Explore ( formerly VMworld ), including new offerings that fast-track digital transformation and that gild the path to successful cloud native platforms.
Industry veteran, Veeam's Antony Marijanovic, offers eye-opening insights into the current landscape and the future of data protection. Key takeaways include; how to decrease data protection costs while improving your overall security, the ill-advised reliance on your SaaS or PaaS provider, and upcoming security features that cater for cyber security insurance compliance that speaks directly to the omnipresent threat that ransomware poses.
Special guest Scott Wall CTO (Chief Transformation Officer) at Bank Australia, discusses the various ways of giving a strategic voice to IT departments .
Particularly being able to speak the language at Board level; “developing actionable insights”, and “creating customer benefits” will resonate louder than ‘mean time between failure” or “enterprise architecture”.
Ryan Wadsworth Partner/CIO at KordaMentha joins the podcast to share the merits of re-inventing and rebranding “IT” to “Technology” including removing the stigma of IT being a financial burden and a necessary evil, growing to be a credible and proactive partner with the business, and the holy grail of transforming an organisation’s IT function into a profit centre along the way.
Let’s face it. The Cloud is now ubiquitous and prevalent in almost every aspect of technology supporting businesses. Adopting a Cloud Operating Model offers opportunities to re-assess and recalibrate how teams across the IT stack can leverage technology to support an organisation’s business plan.
A common challenge for many businesses is the onerous task of optimising delivery and securing data from disparate sources, including from the Cloud, on-premises, and data centres.
Ron Kaplan, VP of Sales for Storage Made Easy joins Josh and Tom to share successful strategies and technology offerings that help meet this challenge with real-world examples from the AEC and Finance industries.
IT recruitment expert Jenni Sanders (Randstad) returns to discuss the increasing challenges for businesses in sourcing, luring, and retaining IT talent and some win-win measures that employers are taking to ensure business continuity.
Josh and Tom delve into the world of AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations), and how advanced machine learning and AI can help automate and exponentially improve IT Ops.
Therese Chakour-West, CIO of Bunzl Australasia with over 1000 employees, discusses challenges for current CIOs, managing incumbent vendors when starting a new CIO role, the elephant in the room - change management, and more importantly, the significance of successfully bringing people along the journey of IT transformation journey.
Tom and Josh forecast the challenges and opportunities that await IT and business leadership in 2022. These span from 5G to the Metaverse, from composability to automation, and resourcing to security.
Tom and Josh dive into the world of FinOps, and how this collaborative discipline between stakeholders in Finance and Operations is crucial in strengthening financial accountability to the cloud's variable expenditure paradigm.
Tom and Josh wrap up what was a challenging year for the industry and for the community at large. They also deep dive into the key announcements from Microsoft 2021 that will influence businesses and their IT ecosystems in 2022 and beyond..
Tom and Josh dive into the announcements made during VMware’s flagship annual conference VMworld 2021. Despite the event itself being virtual for the 2nd year in a row, it was replete with many exciting product releases and roadmap. Tom and Josh analyse these as they have important implications for businesses using public cloud and emerging apps.
Tom and Josh discuss the rapidly growing interest in the Zero Trust industry, why it could be important to your business, and practical steps you can take to reduce cyber risk.
Tom and Josh discuss the critical hardware supply challenges brought on by COVID19, and the strategies that both clients and service providers are using to successfully mitigate workplace and project disruptions.
Satnam Narang from Tenable, an award-winning global authority on Cyber Exposure, discusses the current landscape of international cyber threats, and how businesses can rise to the challenge.
In this episode, Tom and Josh are joined by Robyn Adcock, Cyber Technology Practice Leader at Gallagher Insurance.
The chat highlights the challenges that both vendors and customers face navigating the Cyber Crime landscape affecting so many Australian businesses and the steps required to succeed.
Tom and Josh are joined by Keng Ng, CIO of Munro Footwear Group, Australia’s largest wholesaler/retailer of footwear, to discuss his application strategy and the benefits and ROI the business has achieved in deploying smart Power Platform apps.
Tom and Josh discuss this disturbing trend with IT recruitment expert Jenni Sanders (Randstad) as to the best ways for IT leaders to prevent this and retain and attract top talent.
Tom and Josh highlight some of the latest buzz in the IT market and discuss the importance of leveraging vendor relationships to not only benefit all parties but to avoid the dreaded ‘race to the bottom’.
Tom and Josh discuss the latest news from Microsoft’s Ignite 2021, and analyse how these product innovations will benefit businesses, and how they potentially impact the market.
Tom and Josh are joined by Cloud Solutions Group’s own Elspeth Hunter, to discuss the potential benefits that Microsoft’s Power Platform can provide businesses, and real use cases recently delivered to customers.
Tom and Josh are joined by leading CIO Brett Johnstone, to discuss the growing trend of Shadow IT and how IT leaders can embrace it in order to deliver the best outcomes for their organisations.
Ashwin Ram, Cyber Security Evangelist - Checkpoint, joins Tom and Josh to discuss Supply Chain attacks, Threat Intelligence, Malware as a Service, Deep Fakes, and the recent uptick in IT (including mobile) security breaches, what businesses should do to protect themselves, as well as IT security landscape predictions.
CIO50 2020 winner Salvatore Trimboli joins Tom and Josh to discuss his journey from Engineer to CIO, IT leadership, M&A and the future of FinTech
Tom and Josh discuss VMworld 2020 announcements and innovations, and how they are relevant for IT leaders.
Well-known CIO Brett Johnstone ( Monash College ) weighs in on how IT leaders should be measured to ensure that their KPIs can be strategically aligned to organisational goals.
Tom and Josh discuss the key announcements and news from Microsoft Ignite 2020, how they are relevant for IT Leaders, and whether to expect annual virtual hi-tech events becoming part of the ‘new normal’.
Peter Levett, the Chief of Staff from Secure Circle, an exciting Silicon valley start-up discusses; why DLP is even more critical than ever with everyone working remotely, why traditional approaches don’t work and how Secure Circle has fixed it.
Tom and Josh debate Microsoft Teams, how it compares to tools like Zoom and how Microsoft is positioning it as a business critical platform for work, applications and collaboration.
As we are all going through a period where businesses are retracting and revenues are shrinking, it is a perfect time to talk to a CFO to understand what they are looking for from IT in this environment and discover how IT leaders should best engage with them to influence them and drive the Digital Transformation required for companies to survive and thrive during and after COVID-19.
Tom and Josh discuss the latest Cloud news and chat with Tenable’s Chief Cybersecurity Strategist Adam Palmer about the best way to align Security to Business needs and security advice for IT leaders during COVID-19 and more
Tom Leyden and Josh Rubens discuss what IT leaders can do for the next 6 weeks to prepare their organisations for a return to the office and to capitalise on new opportunities that will be present in the market.
Tom and Josh have a great discussion with Mark Crawshaw CEO of Aplas Software- a revolutionary Geo-Spacial software mapping platform - about why he founded his company and what the main use cases his key clients are using it for.
Ensuring a successful cloud implementation can be fraught with many challenges, many of which can potentially lead to project derailment if not debilitating cost over-runs.
Tom Leyden and Josh Rubens discuss both the right and wrong ways to do Cloud Computing.
Tom Leyden and Josh Rubens speak with Hayley Turner, Director of Darktrace Australia about their game changing AI Cyber security solutions.
Tom Leyden CIO at Woods Bagot and Josh Rubens MD at Cloud Solutions Group discuss the transformative Lowcode Platform trend with Andrew Hehir APAC CIO at global recruitment firm Ranstad focussing on his experiences in delivering digital transformation with a Low-Code Platform. Tom and Josh also cover some recent and relevant IT news topics.
Josh Rubens and Tom Leyden discuss how Woods Bagot dealt with COVID-19 given their global footprint including 4 offices in China and 11 others spread across the USA, Europe and Australia. They talk about; the impact of COVID on the Construction industry, their lessons learnt and strategies for IT leaders to lead and thrive during COVID-19 as well as to prepare for the future as we transition into the ”new normal”.