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how connected medical technology, in this
case using Virtual Reality, has moved the
diagnosis, treatment and monitoring much
closer to patients. In 2019, I expect to see
more health organisations transform their
data architectures in order to enable similar
connected medical technologies and deliver
better services.
What do you currently identify as
the major areas of investment for
your industry?
At Couchbase we are seeing companies
investing heavily to ensure that mission-
critical applications can perform at an ever-
increasing scale. Whether in e-Commerce,
travel, media or financial services, the move
from legacy relational databases to more
flexible NoSQL data platforms is already well
under way. This move is enabling companies
to embrace new ways of doing things that
the old world simply couldn’t support;
from real-time operational analytics to IoT
devices and taking personalisation and user
experience to the next level. Combined with
the coming of age of cloud technologies like
Kubernetes, we are certainly in for a year of
incredible innovation.
but companies shouldn’t fret too much
about these relatively small differences.
At Couchbase, we’ve put in place customer
support and engineering teams based in
Europe to have proximity to our customers
which we’ve made work by investing in the
region. Other than that, we don’t find being
a US-based company in Europe, and indeed
the wider EMEA region, all that challenging
from the point of view of implementing
new technologies.
What changes to your job role have
you seen in the last year and how do
you see these developing in the next
12 months?
As I mentioned, there’s been a huge
12-month shift in investment going into
innovation. Decision makers are realising
they need to be able to deliver ever more
personalised customer and employee
experiences at huge scale. I think this will only
gather pace as businesses strive to innovate
more and keep ahead of the competition.
Similarly, the number of IT workers
attending events has increased dramatically
because there’s a pressure to learn more
and deliver change. You just can’t get away
with being a CTO or a CIO without being a
thought leader.
What advice would you offer
somebody aspiring to obtain C-level
position in your industry?
I’d tell them that there is zero substitute for
hard work. Get up early, network and choose
who you work for in the first few years wisely.
I was exceptionally lucky to work with some
incredible people when I first started and it’s
really benefited me. I can say with confidence
that those early role models and mentors
define the person you’ll become later on. n
How do you deal with stress and
unwind outside of the office?
Three small things: my young children. It’s
easy to switch off at the weekends as I’m
mostly a taxi driver. My kids take part in
rugby, hockey and gymnastics, so there’s
always something going on to take my mind
off work.
If you could go back and change one
career decision, what would it be?
Nothing. I honestly don’t have any regrets
because I’ve been fortunate enough to
experience a variety of roles in companies
which ranged in size. It’s given me really
valuable business experience and is
something I’d recommend.
What are the region-specific
challenges when implementing new
technologies in Europe?
My belief is that Europe is actually not
that different to America. Of course, there
are European-centric issues like GDPR and
employment regulations that are different,
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