Can you give some insights into your journey?
I grew up within a working class family, living in a council estate in Milan where I was one of the few who went to university. After university, I ended up completing a doctorate in artificial intelligence at Edinburgh University. I then had to make the choice between the corporate world and academia. This took me through a career at Hewlett-Packard laboratories, which at the time, was one of the top places to do computer vision.
Following this, I completed an Executive MBA which took me into a completely different career – I was very technical and wanted to get explore the business side of the industry. It took me into a completely different career trajectory where I took on more managerial positions. It’s been a long journey from aspiring engineer to managing director at Lloyd’s Register.
What were the biggest challenges moving from an engineering role into leadership?
The biggest challenge was taking the leap and deciding to change roles. I was a highly respected technical person and found that by moving into the world of investments – there were some interesting challenges.
A few days into the new role, I asked my boss if I could use my MBA toolkit to talk to clients and investors. He said, “yes you can, but I’ll show you the door”. I was thinking like an engineer but he was coming from a completely different financial route. It was an interesting wake up call for me.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your career?
I’d probably stick to the technical side a bit longer, but that’s with the benefit of hindsight. I also would have loved to join a start-up – but it wasn’t fashionable at the time. The idea of building something from scratch, working in a small team, competing for fundraising and launching a new product. It’s something I’m experiencing later in my career and that type of challenge is quite rare in the corporate world.
What have been the biggest barriers and challenges to innovation in traditional industries?
Lloyd’s Register is a company specialising in safety and risk in critical industries. We soon realised that there was a sizeable problem in the market regarding the adoption of technology in safety and risk. When compared to other technologies which affected the bottom or top line, the case for investing in safety and risk was never as strong with our clients.
We discovered our clients were even struggling to find technologies they could adopt to solve their challenges, so we decided to do something about it. We set up a global accelerator that would match their problems and requirements with technology companies, and help shape precise innovation pilots of the technology with the client in a real setting.
What are the biggest challenges and learns from digitalising safety critical environments?
There are two types of digitization. The first is IT driven, moving from paper to a data platform, and this type of digitalisation is well established. The second, much harder type, is trying to digitise particular operational processes. It has the potential to be a very lucrative market as the client might not know the ROI on these different types of technology. It is an intricate ecosystem of different technologies which can be confusing.
For example, if one of the propeller shafts in a ship engine breaks, it could cost millions and the ship could be stranded or end up in an accident. The problem is massive for the shipping industry, as every single ship will have this safety issue, so using predictive analytics and technology becomes vital.
There are thousands of niches in every industry, so it poses a massive problem for the adoption of technology as there is no one solution that works for every company.
How do you get your team to think innovatively?
The collaboration between domain experts and data scientists is the fastest route to impact within our sector. Within my team, we’ve been trying to match the people who know the cutting edge technology with the experts in the asset domain.
What we’ve been doing in my in my team is trying to match the people who know the cutting edge technology with the experts in the asset domain.
The collaboration between domain experts and data scientists is probably the fastest route to impact our sector, while we wait for the next generation of domain experts who also understand the latest technology to emerge.
As a leader, how do you go about creating the next generation of innovative engineers?
Technology is becoming more accessible with better tools. As such, the skills baseline is going up but the technological problems are getting more complicated.
There is a school of thought which advocates that by making computer science, tech and engineering look easy; more people will be attracted to it. However, I think that could be counterproductive over time because the next generation might be put off when they discover the complexity.
I think we need to explain how fantastic it is to work in engineering and computer science, how rewarding it is, and how useful for society it can be. Having role models like Elon Musk can be unattainable –there are so many real and inspiring stories about people in the technology industry who are in rewarding, well paid jobs – that’s what we’re missing when we focus on celebrity status.
What’s the best book, podcast, or movie you would recommend that you have taken long lasting learns from?
Dune, the Frank Herbert masterpiece – I read it before going to watch the movie, and it was mind-blowing. The other book is Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith – a popular science book talking about the evolution of octopuses and how their neural system developed in a completely separate way to our own.
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