David Henderson: CTO Global
David heads up Technology and Digital at Global, the media and entertainment group with much-loved brands including: Heart, Capital, LBC, Classic FM and Smooth. Since joining, he has led a digital transformation to deliver state of the art studios, award-winning apps, a cloud-based infrastructure, a data analytics platform for audience data and is now turning his attention to automating outdoor advertising.
David is a Computer Science graduate, a Fellow of the British Computing Society (BCS) and has worked (and played cricket) in 10 countries. He helped launch the Tech Talent Charter to improve diversity and inclusion across the technology industry and was ranked top of the CIO100 in the UK in 2018.
What are your top 3 priorities in your most recent role?
1. Simplifying and automating the back office.
2. To grow our audience in new channels, including apps, smart speakers and across all of our digital listening.
3. Advertising: to improve the way we target and measure the effectiveness of our advertising.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention recruitment. With further investments in technology in 2021, we are always looking for high calibre technology talent.
Which previous role had the biggest impact on your career?
I spent seven or eight years in management consulting, which was really useful for learning, but I think the first role that really transformed my career, was being made the CTO of an online gaming business back in 2000.
I was fairly young and it was the first time I really understood the impact technology would have across the entire business, and how it would be the fundamental driver for growth.
I also realised that I would have to make tough decisions and there was no hiding place. In consulting, I could make recommendations and other people would have to make the actual decisions. I found there are also decisions where there's no right or wrong answer, you just have to choose one.
I think it changed me. From being a very analytical person, wanting to understand both sides of an argument and present options, I realised that as a CTO you don’t always have that luxury and you have to use your instinct. It taught me to trust my instinct and be more decisive and confident.
That role was also where I realised how accountable and how lonely it can be as a CTO. I’d thought a CTO’s job was very easy up to that point, but then I realised it was actually a lot more complicated!
How do you see the role of the Technology Leader changing?
Over the last six months, I’ve probably spent more time speaking to other CTO’s than I would normally, because there's been the opportunity for a greater amount of networking calls.
As I look back on the themes of these discussions, it definitely feels like technology leaders are being involved in more strategic discussions around the boardroom. I joined the board of Global this year and it’s been very interesting being exposed to more of the business strategy and involved in debates at an earlier point.
It’s also not something that is peculiar or unique to me; I've met many others who are seeing this shift as well. Technologists can then understand where they need to adapt and evolve towards a strategic direction.
Through these calls and my general travels, there are a bunch of CTO’s I really admire, because they are highly technical and able to talk the language of the developer. Importantly though, they're also able to simplify things and take people on a journey. They can reassure, as well as explain the pitfalls. This is such a key skill for any technology leader.
What are the most important issues confronting the technology industry?
For the last 10 years or more, I've been answering that question with the structural lack of talent in the industry. Recruitment attrition dynamics have changed on a short-term basis, but if you look at the macro picture - the way the UK is educating its children at school, college and university - we're not setting ourselves up for a successful long-term future in the technological age.
This is exacerbated because the technology industry is not doing enough to encourage support. We need to make technology a much more interesting subject at school and create more vibrant degree choices. We also need more apprenticeships to be offered and more internships funded.
There are pockets of brilliance, with some great programmes around AI and some really interesting apprenticeships, but the problem is still there. There are half a million to a million roles that we can't fill because we haven't got enough people. That's the type of long-term problem that worries me.
The talent pool is beginning to diversify, but it's still male-centric and not as diverse as it needs to be. Technology leaders need to sincerely believe, contribute and advocate for change, because that talent pool is really important.
What technology trends are you most excited about and why?
I'm excited about the cool new technology from a few years ago becoming a bit easier to adopt and at a lower cost; whether that's the remote working applications we talked about previously or the workplace social tools.
We use Facebook Workplace here at Global and it’s transformed our ability to connect, collaborate and share in a very Global way.
I'm also excited by things we’ve been talking about for years and years, like microservices and API's. Whilst there's nothing new in those concepts, they're now at a level where they're more appreciated and better understood. For the first time, we’re now trading with our advertising agencies in a more automated way.
We’ve recruited people at Global who are in their early 20s and doing things that blow my mind with datasets we’ve built up using free tools. From improving the yield on advertising or the way we price things, to looking at performance on our radio channels.
This creates a discursive and collaborative approach, which in turn makes the composition much richer. You've got people asking questions and data scientists coming up with potential answers. It’s exciting because, in time, many more problems and many more answers will be turned around quickly as we make most of this data.
What new product or company is having the biggest impact?
Over the last couple of years, the most useful to us has been snowflake. It’s allowed us to do things which would otherwise have been cost-prohibitive. It’s probably the only one that’s a bit more esoteric than the usual big vendors such as Salesforce and Amazon Web Services, but in terms of the data area, it’s the tool which has been most exciting.
What mobile app do you use every day?
There’s an app I use called PRODUCTIVE, which is a habit-building app. It reminds me of things I need to do in order to build good habits and it operates as my check and balance.
The irony is that I spend as much time with Post-it notes! On a Sunday night, I’ll plan out my week and compare the emails I have about what people want me to do, versus what my calendar says I'm actually doing and then look at the difference between them. My office is full of Post-it notes and, on a fortnightly basis, I'll take them down and put them up again to sequence work. I find being completely productive using online tools doesn’t work for my brain; I need a visual element to it as well.
What 3 skills should an aspiring Technology Leader look to develop?
1. Run your technology like it's a business. Obviously, it also needs to be congruent with the wider business, but I think of it as a mini business and it makes me more self-reliant and clear about what I’m trying to do.
2. Technology teams should be order-shapers not order-takers. Understand what drives the business and, when you’re given a requirement, try to build what is needed rather than what was asked for and don't be afraid to challenge. Done well, this behaviour builds trust with stakeholders.
3. Have a growth mindset. Things go wrong in tech all the time and learning from that is really important. The ability to continuously improve and adapt is a fundamental skill for any tech leader.
I’m passionate about measuring success, but it can’t always just be about KPI’s. I've got two things I use to judge my team's success:
Do our business stakeholders trust us and do they have confidence in what we're doing?
When looking at my team, do I get a sense they have pride in what we're doing?
If those two boxes are ticked, then I’ve found the KPI’s take care of themselves.
Where do you look for trusted technology information & inspiration?
I've known and followed Ben Evans for over a decade, and similarly, Simon Andrews. They both run weekly blogs and newsletters covering the tech and are both extremely insightful.
Aside from that, I read TechCrunch, Wired and the FT, but I would also say I’ve had a strong relationship with five to ten CTO’s who I have known for 10-15 years. We've stayed in touch on a regular basis, even if we've moved industries, to compare, contrast and share ideas or discuss vendor challenges. Having a strong group of people you can ask, without anything in return being expected, has served me really well.
What books should someone looking to get on in their technology career read?
Probably the most useful bit of advice I’ve had was ‘don't stick to just business and technology books’. I also remember an article by Bill Gates advising techies to "read well and read widely"; I would definitely agree with this sentiment.
Given my interest in productivity, I would suggest Stephen Covey's - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; an enlightening set of principles to help navigate many situations in work and life.
On a more contemporary note, in Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas, he writes incredibly relevant and useful information for technologists, talking about things like a growth mindset and BlackBox thinking.
There was also a book I read a few years ago called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle; very much out of my comfort zone but I found it really thought-provoking.
If you could tell your 20-year-old self one bit of information that would enable them to get on in their career, what would it be and why?
Enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points; if you are enthusiastic, work hard and do your best, then opportunities happen.
Trust your instincts. I spent too long analysing and trying to prove with data what my instincts told me straight away.
Simplify the language. There was a period of time where I revelled in technical jargon to try and sound clever, but I realised I was being excluded from strategic discussions. Be aware of language, the use of analogies and the power of storytelling.