娇色导航

Kerry

Everyone, welcome to 娇色导航Leadership Live, New Zealand.

My guest today is some day chief technology officer at Black Pearl Group.

Sam has held a number of technology leadership roles at well-known

New Zealand startups, including Curious, which was bought by Spark and Xero. Hi, Sam.

Lovely to meet you. Hey, Kathy.

Hey, everyone.

Thanks so much for having me. Great, great.

Great to have you on.

Senior leadership live today.

And so let's get into it.

Tell us, give us a brief history of your career today

and how did you get your start in it?

Yeah, I have a probably a fairly unusual

background for someone who's a CTO at the moment.

So my original career was actually in teaching.

So I trained as a secondary school teacher but didn't do that for very long at all

the hours too long and the workloads to hide the students.

Awesome set up that side of it.

But from there I joined

National Bank at that time and Human Resources

and they got moved to the strategic planning function

and they moved to the UK and got involved

with Ernst Young and KPMG and they moved to a private equity firm.

And the private equity firm is where I first heard some machine learning

driving their technology function and then had a baby daughter.

And so I wanted to come back to New Zealand and worked

for Kiwibank as effectively the 娇色导航and I think

was called enterprise information or something like that

and moved to zero to come GM of data innovation.

And then as you said, it moved to Curious Lady Day.

I function there and then moved to Blackpool.

So yeah, I do not have a computer science degree.

I am not a doctor in mathematics or anything like that, but I hope that

what I bring is a real kind of person

and human focused approach to technology.

And also, you know, reportedly for CEOs and other, you know,

audience out there, a strategic perspective.

So, you know, I really got into that from a strategic, you know,

angle rather than focus on keyboards

and in the latest application or anything like that.

And very interesting career trajectory there.

And I love that, you know, you started out in teaching

and then made your way into technology through that route.

And it is quite interesting, speaking to a number of CIOs,

you've actually had quite a few different pathways into I.T., so you're not alone.

I've spoken to a few who started out in the police force

and economics, marketing, finance, and ended up in I.T.

Great that you have those different perspectives there.

So, look, electro group is a relatively new addition to New Zealand startup scene.

So can you give us a bit more background

on its purpose and who you're targeting with your products? Yeah, so

Blackpool is all about delivering growth

through data and AI and technology to small medium sized businesses.

So and where we're focused on the US market. So

for us are small, medium sized businesses, anyone up to a thousand people.

So and the New Zealand context, reasonably large.

But yeah, we really try to have our data

and our technology have a direct line to growth.

So there's no kind of fuzzy matrix about it.

You can very clearly see that my sales team are using this

to make more sales, or I could see how this is adding to my top line.

And so that's where we are focused, that's where our products are focused,

that's where our technology is focused, that's where our data is focused. So as

CTO, then, you know, you delved into a little bit of it there,

but how are you really and the rest of the team enabling that mission, your work?

What I love about working for a smaller company like Blackwell,

although definitely had us, Xero

and Kiwibank as well, is

really starting with the customer

and everything flows from there.

So at Kiwibank you have a very clear vision

of making New Zealand a more prosperous place

within a new Zealand owned bank and have a real focus.

Their Xero had a really clear focus on, you know, making accounting,

paying less, sorry but joyful for, you know, small business

who did not get in the business to do accounting

and make it a wonderful tool for accountants.

And so like Palu, I really try and bring all of that

experience around that customer focus.

And then the starting point of our technology.

So, you know, what data does a small business owner

or a Cyrus laid out or a marketing leader,

they need to help grow their business.

How do they want to interact with that

and what tools do they want

to integrate was because, you know, as we noted,

technology's an enormous space and there's lots of tools out there.

And sometimes you just want something to plug into something else that that you use.

And so

from a technology perspective, how did the customer in mind

hold some good outcomes for our shareholders of mind?

And then how can technology

enable that to happen?

And you can come up with quite a few,

you know, innovative ways of approaching that problem.

So I'm sure everyone who is listening, you know, AI

is a big part of our focus at the moment, and that enables

a lot of simplicity for end user,

but that enables a lot of

work to be done behind the scenes and then have a really nice

for you simple workspace for a user.

So I guess what I and my team try to bring to Blackpool

is that experience and technology,

but applying that to very clear

business problems or business opportunities

and the problems that customers are facing day in, day out.

So I don't I don't think, you know, the team is unusual that way.

I think a lot of technology firms would

describe themselves as taking that approach.

And what I like about Blackpool and the size that we are is,

is there's no line really between us and the customers.

So, you know, I am interacting with customers every day

and a bunch of my team are interacting with customers every day.

And so that gives you a nice insight into actually what is working for them.

What I thought was super simple

they thought was slightly confusing and difficult.

And you know, what I regard as confusing

and difficult in that regard has been very clear.

So, yeah, getting as close to

the customer as possible is really

what I push the team to do or lead the team to do,

and then applying their incredible expertise in relation to that.

So given what you've just said there,

it sounds like, you know, as CTO that you really have

a role in influencing the organization, then

I expect the wider leadership team as well would that be fair to say?

Yeah, I'm super lucky because

I guess maybe as my background indicates, but

I'm interested in lots and lots of things, so I'm lucky enough

to be a genuinely kind of curious curiosity about stuff.

And so being CTO at a company like Blackpool,

I get involved in all of the technology stuff obviously,

but also thinking about how do we resource the entire organization,

what does our go to market

product strategy look like?

I even take a look at the ads and the marketing that we've gotten.

What's the customer onboarding process?

How do we process staff?

How are we going to talk to investors? So I'm

really fortunate that for me, I get to play.

I get so many fingers and so many pies

and apply some of that experience.

I've got through working at Zero and Kiwibank private equity

and consulting firms and professional services firms.

I think all of that provides useful

battle scars that you can draw on

about things that you've messed up in the past that you don't want to repeat.

So yeah, so it's a very rewarding role. I have.

Yeah, very, very fortunate.

And of course, and with that

focus on the US, I, I know that you have an I.t team

that's based in various places around the world

and so can you talk to us a bit about the challenges

of having an I.T team spread across the world

and what are those challenges and what are the benefits?

Yeah, it's a common situation now.

A 2 to 4 teams distributed across the globe

and so I'm always really interested in other people's experiences

with that as well.

And I try to touch base with as many people that are in the situation.

So I think the the main thing for us

is to not think of the teams

as being outsourced, but rather

they are fully part of the team just in a different location.

And so, you know, we have some of the team here in

Wellington, we have some of them in New Plymouth.

We had some of them in Dubai, we had some of them in India

and we have some of the US.

And so there is no difference between those teams.

None of them are outsourced teams.

They are all just in a different location.

But to make that

like Rio rather than just an airy fairy comment,

I think the some of the trucks

or trips that I've had

and that we carried through on is about time zones.

So time zones are difficult

or they present an opportunity and depending on what you're trying to achieve.

So that's you're trying to achieve a 24 seven operational coverage.

Then having people in different time zones is actually super helpful

because someone doesn't have to get up at 3 a.m. to restart something.

And then if you're in that situation,

what you really need

is some very clear processes so that everyone approaches the problem

in the same way for the same problem and some very clear escalation.

So as they do get into an area where it's

outside their knowledge, they know who to draw.

So it can be a real advantage from from that perspective.

And I think looking at it as an advantage is the right mindset to

then if you've got more of a

product team where you're really trying to,

you know, generate lots of ideas and having lots of code

working and working on the same problems at the same time,

where possible, try to align

the working hours or at least have,

you know, 3 hours where everyone is online at the same time

and can have a conversation like this rather than just relying

on email or Slack or whatever

your messaging platform of choices.

And you probably need to either communicate.

So whereas you might just be on a swap some ideas at the office,

you actually need to write those out so that everyone is on the same page.

One of the habits that we have got into

is using video recordings more than I ever have done before.

So rather than trying to write down everything that you want to communicate,

actually do a three minute video just like this. And that allows you

to capture that tone of voice that you don't get

on a written format that allows you to issue expressions.

You know, for someone to know when you're having a laugh, you know,

when you're being a bit sarcastic or ironic, which

which might not come across at any level or a slight message.

So yeah, the shared working times and where you need to communicate

outside those shared work at times using a variety of mediums,

voice, video, writing stuff down.

We use a lot of

we use me around the locks or mapping out a process

and people being able to comment on a asynchronously.

But I think at the heart of it

is really a mindset around how do you think about people

that are not working in the same place as you?

Do you regard them as a fully fledged

member of your team or do you regard them as someone

who is working in a different way somewhere else? Yeah, absolutely.

And look, how do you attract talent then, given that it is a start up?

You know, it's not a household name. Yes.

Although given that you've worked at places like Xero and Curious

and maybe at a household name in the next few years,

how do you attract talent when it is not a well known organization?

Yeah, the easiest way is through a personal network like that.

That is by far the most effective and the easiest. So, you know,

I work with a guy, David Hunt, a contractor with us, who I used to work

at Zero was and there's a few other people like that

where we've had the most successful hires

is where it's a personal recommendation from someone with worked

with within the past or someone that's currently in the team.

So that that's the easiest it's the most effective.

If you could do that every time, that that would be brilliant.

But you know, in New Zealand we get a lot of success

just through straight advertising.

I think as long as you articulate

the opportunity that you've got,

people will respond to that opportunity.

If that's something that they want to get involved in.

And I think technology is one of those spaces

that not being a household name

is maybe an advantage like.

So it feels like in

you are doing something that's a bit different, that's a bit new.

I that that is attractive to many people and many people

want to be part of a start up vibe, right? Absolutely.

So just, just, just on that then, you know,

New Zealand is has some very well-known startups studies

that are household names and indeed you worked at many of them.

So do you think it's a good place?

And in terms of supporting startups

and if not, is there anything that can be done better?

Yeah, I think yes and no.

So I think the the advantages

we've got, there's some amazing people here.

You know, they're they are really smart people, was really good experience

who are really well connected and know how to take an idea and turn it

into something that is a viable business or at least is worth a shot. And Wellington is

small enough that there are a lot of networks

and connections where you can draw on these ideas.

And I think as New Zealanders, we're quite willing

to share our ideas and our experience.

And so it's not hard to, you know, ping someone as I could,

we catch up for a cup of coffee

and then have a chat and can I bounce this idea of you?

So I think A it's a real advantage

when it comes to testing an idea.

I think it's hard to raise

money in New Zealand at the moment.

So, you know, if you're looking for a bit

seed capital that that can make it difficult.

And I think one of the other things that

New Zealand makes a little bit difficult is

I think our larger enterprises who have the money to buy these startup

products and services and our government departments

tend to opt for the known name

and that tends to be an incumbent and that tends to be an overseas provider.

And so, you know, it just feels safe to go with some of those bigger names

that is now well-established names,

whereas there could be a huge benefit

of working with a startup who's willing to adapt their processes

and their product and their services and work super hard for you

as an enterprise And man,

there is so much open tech and as a service tech

out there that like you're not using lower grade

technology or anything like that from the start ups also knows

the based on us, the most innovative, the most leading edge that

some of the incumbents have kind of quite got round to turning on to a product.

Yeah so so yeah there's some incredible advantages, you know, around the people,

the connections, the talent, the mindset, the culture.

But then there are some difficult things around raising money.

And if you're focused on the enterprise, getting the attention

of those larger enterprise customers can be can be hard.

Now, you mentioned culture there.

And of course, you know, startup culture is something that attracts

a lot of people to work for for a startup.

But what's that transition like when

when a startup starts scaling and becomes a big player like Xero?

Now is do you lose some of that startup culture

and not knowing, you know, people by first name?

And how how do you plan to hang on to that as you grow black pro Yeah, yeah.

It's and there's some good things about moving

to enterprise kind of scale.

You know, there is some additional robustness

and maybe, you know, you're able to use a bit of time to, to establish

processes around how to do stuff, which makes onboarding people easier.

And so it's some of that stuff that as you grow,

you want to embrace like some of the good stuff you want to embrace.

I think the the main

thing that I hear and probably experienced, I guess around

a larger organization versus a startup

is simply the pace of decision making.

But the more layers there are an organization,

the more information gets lost as you move between layers.

And that makes it harder for everyone to make a good decision

and it makes it easier to all rather than make a decision.

I'll ask a question

which then has to go through several layers before you kind of get an answer.

So I think, you know, the trick

really to capturing that kind of style

and spirit and energy and momentum

is keeping organization Super Slack's, you know, as flat as possible

and having very direct lines of communication

rather than having barriers to communication.

So, you know, exactly indexed everywhere.

So you know, I developed I should feel completely comfortable talking to the CEO

and the CEO should feel very comfortable talking to a developer in this case.

I think one of the good examples that I've experienced

of that is when I first joined Xero,

there were these things called broad boards

where Rod Jury would swing by your desk, ask you what you're working

on, show me something cool, and then fire three ideas that you about.

You know what you should do differently.

And sometimes that's like super uncomfortable and some people hate that.

But the, the amazing thing about it

is, you know, the CEO of the space company

understood what you were working on and in that moment had

some ideas about it, which could be bad or could be, you know, game changing.

But an either way, there's an exchange of ideas and information.

And so I think that's

that's the kind of thing that happens naturally in a small organization.

It is hard in a big organization and simply,

you know, you need to get out there and have conversations

with people and not fall into those layers of communication.

And absolutely my $0.10

or so look, I has very much been

the buzz word of 2023, you know, even though it's been around for a long time.

And of course, you've worked in roles for many years, so

and keen to get your thoughts on how you see it evolving.

And, you know, is it that productivity silver bullet

the companies have been looking for?

And is there anything you think CIOs should be cautious about when it comes to? I

Yeah, it's exploded, hasn't it?

It's really exploded into the public consciousness.

And yeah, I was lucky enough to be involved in what we call a machine

learning back then, which is a different kind of buy in 2010

or 2008.

So I had a private equity firm where we were trying to identify

the really relevant news stories to the targets that we were going after.

And those are and summarize all of that information.

So yeah, I'm kind of lucky in that I've been living on the air.

I will say, you know, ten years

so I can understand how challenging

it might be for someone that is just being asked to look at it.

So it is radically different.

But the the difference between pre check GPT,

if you like, is the most recognizable and post

GPT t is truly different.

It is truly a different world and people shouldn't downplay the difference. One of

the differences is the ease of using the tool.

So previously to build

a tool like that or use a tool like that,

you had to be a developer in some way or a technologist in some way.

And now you know it's a text.

You and everyone can type into a text field

or just about everyone could type into a text field.

And so it's that how

that has also radically changed

those now freely available to everyone.

And that's the big difference.

And so I think, you know, I like many people and probably almost

all of your listeners use

these tools on a daily or at least weekly basis,

and it does enhance work productivity.

You know, what could have taken me an hour or something to sift through the net

and learn something churchy pretty can summarize for a very rapidly. So I think

the trick really is trying to work

out, well, how am I going to use that

for the benefit of my customers?

You know, what would make a difference to a lot of my customers

to be able to do something like that?

And what is the difference that I can provide or

my company can provide that is not just cheap too.

So anyone can sign up for free to check everyday. So just see.

As I say, that is not adding any value.

What is the difference that I could do around that?

And that's where I think you need to bounce around a lot of ideas

with the team that you have, but also talk to quite

a wide range of people to get different perspectives on it. And this

is where talking to people that truly understand

AI is really beneficial because there's

some things that I'm really good at and there's some things

that it's not very good at and often those are slightly counterintuitive.

I think it would be good at something that's not.

And so getting a realistic view of that is super useful.

I have one of my pet peeves

is when I was at a large organization

and the CEO would

say would come to me and say, Hey, I had this presentation from these people

when they tell me that we can do this, so we should do that.

And you kind of go, Yeah, in theory they're right.

Then our situation is that

is these problems, are these the things that we would need to overcome?

But it's being presented in a way that makes it sound

just easy and super attractive and is super attractive.

It's just not as easy as it's been portrayed lately,

especially when they don't know what's involved

to integrate the flashy thing that's being presented. Yeah, that's right.

And so it's not that the TV is bad or anything like that, but you need

some realism in there

to understand where your business is today

and what differences you can make.

It always tied back to a difference

for a customer or a difference for another stakeholder.

So, you know, one of the project that I was really excited about,

really keen on Curious, was where we were using machine vision.

So computer vision and there was lots of that.

Like we also got asked

to produce something and it was quite easy to produce a proof of concept.

But the reason why I liked this one is I was working with a waste management firm

who operated landfills and they had recently

had an incident where someone had seen, I think it was a bicycle and the landfill

would decided to jump on the landfill and try and retrieve the bicycle.

And there are these enormous various movers driving around.

And so that could have killed it.

And so identifying when someone was getting too close

to that barrier or breaking down like that is a very quickly,

you know, benefit that you can solve

for the customer and the health and safety and the staff at that site.

So it's not just all we should use solution,

it's actually we're trying to make the area more safe.

How might we do that with AI?

So, you know, you start with some problems,

bring in some people that really know the tech and have a really good free flowing conversation.

But yeah,

this whole large language model space that is at the interface

that is really like AI is literally going to transform businesses. Yeah, absolutely.

It's so fascinating.

We don't know where it will end up.

You know what it will like this time in 2024.

It's it's going to be a fascinating space to watch and look and some

you are also responsible for black crows i.t.

And so, you know, you spoke earlier about, you know, the flashy presentations

and people not really understanding that, yes, in theory

something looks good, but in practice there's a lot more to consider.

So what do you value then when it comes to dealing with vendors or partners?

For Black Pearls, it

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Transparency is probably the main thing.

Know like if you can have a nice, transparent, forthright conversation

with people that then lets you know very quickly

whether you're on the right space. So you know,

I like to share where Blackpool was at and what we're trying to do

and what challenges we have and where we don't think we have challenges

and be pretty open about that

and, you know, not share in a saying that's

commercially sensitive, you know, because we are listed.

So there's various things that you can talk about but be as open

and honest as you possibly can about what problem

it is you're trying to solve and really push

the the vendor or the person you're working with

to be equally transparent about what they can help with.

And what they can't help was because if you're on the wrong page about that,

it's going to come unstuck at some point

in better not to waste everyone's time. And if

you'd like, let's try and get past that

in all sounds that you know, over the long term or the medium or long

term, you come back to those transparent

and honest and forthright people,

even if you go, Hey, actually that's not going to work today.

But if you've had a good conversation with them, you keep them in mind

and you come back in three months time or six months time when you

now have that problem that they were able to solve.

So, so much of it is about that honesty and transparency.

I have a bit of a preference for New Zealand startups,

so where possible, I like to give their first bite

of the cherry about solving a problem for me.

And I guess it's because as a as a personal drive, I want to see that New Zealand's

I want to see New Zealand prosper,

an incredible place to grow up

and love and work with us.

The reason I came back from the UK is the reason that we decided to

bring our daughter here.

You know, I just want, you know, that requires companies

like Blackpool to spend money in New Zealand

and that doesn't make you take a substandard solution.

I'm not saying that at all.

But yet you have give New Zealand startups

an opportunity to, you know, and say why they can do stuff. We absolutely.

So look, and as we head into 2020 for some

what's important for you in the year ahead. a few things.

So on a personal level

my daughter starts high school so yeah,

that'll be a big attraction for me and our family.

I'm also determined to up my fitness,

so I'm going to spend a bit more time doing that.

And from a business perspective,

you know, we will be launching an additional

AI powered product in Blackpool.

And so that requires us to have some new capability

and that's really exciting that gives the team an opportunity to grow

and opens up a whole new customer set for us

and we need to be really on point

was how customers interact with it and the quality of their

AI powered solution that we're going to be providing.

And of course we need to get the marketing right product right to go to market,

the customer support, the onboarding, all of that as well.

So this is an exciting time to launch a new products and

2024, a good time for that. Here's hoping.

Well, we wish you all the best with it some day Chief

technology Officer Black pro group thank you so much for your time today. Thanks, Casey.

You really enjoyed it.