On the lighter side of things , we ask the industry experts what makes them tick . . . .

I have always been passionate about how software can control the physical world . That relationship between virtual software and physical hardware and how they interact is fascinating and has long been a passion of mine .

With that in mind , my most memorable achievement was working on a project with Google where we took one of our classic supercomputing hardware products and managed to transform this into a cloud service . To be able to take a piece of classic , physical hardware and turn that into a SaaS was magic !

It is still a Google Cloud service sold today . To achieve that took some imagination !

What first made you think of a career in technology ?

My father was a university researcher who worked in a lab doing experiments . As a child , I was able to go to his workplace and see some of the first mainframes or some of the first desktop computers with 2D printers , and I had the opportunity to watch , play and experiment with the equipment myself , which was just a lot of fun !

Those first computers I experimented with belonged to my first employer who I joined a few years later !

What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position ?

This question made me think about my different styles of leadership , which I think really depends on your position and on your mission . Right now , my team has a particular challenge , which is to transform the way we deliver IT managed services .

We are in a period of transformation from a physical to a virtual world . This is obviously a technical challenge that we must solve , but it ’ s also a human challenge and my management philosophy is to inspire and set that vision for the future .

I want to drive the imagination and passion in my team that will enable them to innovate in a transforming world . To do this , I try to balance freedom of ideas and creativity alongside the need for relatively short-term business outcomes .

What do you think has emerged as the technology trend of this year and why ?

One big trend you cannot avoid talking about is AI , particularly Gen AI . This trend aligns with my line of work : connecting the virtual and real worlds .

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