OK, it’s my turn to drop the news. As of March 31st, my employer made me redundant after nearly 13 years. I knew it was coming for a long time, and it was not personal to me, as many of my colleagues ended up in the same situation. I left on very good terms and would like to thank Darren Austin CEng FBCS FIETfor trying to keep me around. Unfortunately, I felt my journey was not ready to end, and I had more to give.  I’m not resentful about the situation, and I completely understand why the new CEO decided to consolidate the company.

Colleagues, peers, and partners wouldn’t believe that someone like me would be made redundant, but the value and revenue you helped bring were not factors in the decision criteria. I was very proud to have been recognised in this way, and one partner even offered to write a letter of concern about my departure as they felt I was integral to their partnership. Again, I explained it was not personal. It’s bittersweet for me since on one hand, it was time for me to find a new adventure, but on the other hand, I’m leaving behind 1000s of friends.

In my 13 years, I like to believe I 100% stamped my mark on that company. I led the whole Private Cloud as a Service, putting things in motion. I helped one business line build up its cloud expertise. For 7 years, I delivered an innovation webinar every 2 weeks to expose my colleagues to the technology trends outside the company. I often pushed technology way before the company was ready for it. I knew this was the case, but I felt it needed someone like me to line it up now, so it would be adopted later. My colleagues would laugh at the thought that was evangelising the idea that one day we would have assets on the moon. I’ll continue to push this narrative until I die. I’m also known for dropping the odd, interesting whitepaper or article.  And for 8 years, I was a leader in our research community, and jokingly, I was known as the Official Company DJ.

There are too many colleagues to call out because I have a lot of friends. So instead, I will call out the amazing leaders I’ve worked under. Now, when you’ve worked for 13 years in the same company and moved around, you’ll always come across one or two bad eggs, but the following people I felt helped my career and made working enjoyable:

Wim Los

Michael Endres

Sophie Proust

Mukesh Sharma

Stéphane RICHARD

I will say goodbye for now, and purposely not burn any bridges because you never know, I could end up back with my previous employer. I wanted to find a new role, but going back is not out of the question.

I’d also like to mention some great partners I have worked with. Partners were very important to me: Dell Technologies , Veeam Software , VMware , @Redhat, NetApp , and Microsoft, to name a few.

Now, my network of peers, I’m asking you to help me find my next role. Nowadays, it is the general consensus that getting hired with help from people you know is easier. Applying for LinkedIn jobs when thousands of others have applied for that is not a great strategy.  Of course, I’ll still apply for roles, but I much prefer to go through someone I know. Right now, I have one conversation going. I held off going nuts and making noise to make sure everything was legal first, but now is the time to go nuts. I’m open to any conversation, but there are some low-hanging fruits:

a)      Go to another GSI: Accenture, Capgemini, Fujitsu, Wipro, for example

b)      Or I go back into partner land from where I came before joining my previous employer. For example, I worked for Veeam in the past, so I could go there or to a competitor.  The obvious role in a partner where I could add the most value, maybe with a partner that needs a Field CTO who knows the GSI business/

As mentioned earlier, I have one conversation in the pipeline, so I want to pursue that first. I will then return to post a more detailed post about what could be next for me. This post was more about saying goodbye for now to my previous employer. Goodbye and don’t be a stranger. If you need me, I’m still here.