Watch First Person and meet the most interesting people in IT

Available on this website, on YouTube, and wherever you find your podcasts, First Person is the show where we meet the most interesting people in IT, and learn from them what makes them tick by focusing only on their firsts. First job, first great boss, first time they realized IT was the industry for them – first failure or first pet. It’s amazing what we can learn from interesting people talking about serious things in a not-too-serious way.

To get you started we are launching with no fewer than five great episodes, available to watch below, as a video series, on YouTube, and as a podcast.

New episodes drop every Monday, so subscribe now on your preferred platform. And if you are one of the most interesting people in IT, let us know by signing up for the Computerworld Contributor Network, or emailing me at matt_egan@foundryco.com.

(And if you like unvarnished truths and real-world lived experience from IT professionals and leaders, check out our First Person blog on CIO.com).

First Person: Dr CJ Meadows – Executive Chairman – The Tiger Centre

We meet Dr CJ Meadows – from the US, based in Singapore, having worked around the world from Japan to India and beyond. An accountant by training and IT pro by practice, CJ is an entrepreneur, consultant, and educator who runs a not-for-profit using tech to bring access to education to excluded folks. We spoke about how her career (and life) path has never been linear or conventional. We discussed how the future of work will require leaders who can use design thinking to focus on solving new and real problems rather than building the shiniest tech. She explained how her best bosses showed empathy and support, and that those same skills are useful in family and personal life make for great business success. CJ ends with some great lessons for life: follow your own path, and try not to kill each other. Words to live by.

First Person meets Dr CJ Meadows

First Person Meets… Paul Preiss – CEO and Founder of the Iasa

We meet Paul Preiss, the CEO and founder of the IASA, the not-for-profit professional association for all business technology architects. In our conversation Paul describes himself as unbelievably passionate person about everything he does, personal and professional, and how that helped him steer and build a storied career in technology. He describes how he went from doing a degree in Japanese, to what he describes as his calling: IT. His first roles in development, moving to become an architect with Dell, and on to great success. Paul tells us some of the things he learnt along the way, outlines his failures and what he learnt from them, as well as introducing us to some of the great leaders who helped shape him and his career.

First Person meets Paul Preiss

First Person Meets… Jim Wilt – CTO | Chief Architect | Distinguished Architect – WVE

We meet Jim Wilt, a voraciously curious CTO, distinguished chief architect and engineering advocate. Jim’s enjoying a stellar career with roles as CTO, CDO and chief architect across a multitude of enterprise organizations. In this conversation we learn about his success and failures, and how he may have learnt more from the latter. He takes us from being inspired by a Disney movie to learn to code on paper because he couldn’t afford access to a computer, to working in medical research and winning prestigious awards for huge organizations. He describes a great boss in McDonalds who taught him the value of giving your best to everything you do, including the story of the janitor at NASA who sent a man to the Moon. Jim shares how he needed to be convinced of his own expertise, and shares the view that material success follows passion and focus – don’t waste your time being safe.

First Person meets Jim Wilt

First Person Meets… Arno Schilperoord – Director Global Architecture & Digital Innovation at The HEINEKEN Company

We meet Arno Schilperoord, a global leader for Heineken who believes that coding is magic and poetry, offering the opportunity to create something from nothing and infinite possibility. Arno tells us how studying physics and using computer models and writing computer code to help in the analysis was his way into IT. He says that in IT everybody was learning things for the first time, and explains how designing resilient high-performance solutions was just a small step from his current practice of architecture. Arno tells us that great bosses are able to spot and resolve problems early, and that great leadership isn’t just about technical expertise, it’s about awareness, timing, and creating a culture of high performance and creating an environment where people feel safe and feel supported.

First Person meets Arno Schilperoord

First Person: David Jones – Chief Architect – WVE

We meet David Jones – a chief architect, CTO and CIO who describes his work as elevating business technology strategy through architectural excellence. David introduces himself as someone who loves collaborating, doesn’t do politics and is always honest. He tells us how he got started by choosing to study electrical engineering inspired by his brother and a French pen pal, and espouses the value of practical, in-industry training over academic learning (although he returned to his own school to teach). David tells us how he was supported to accelerate his career by studying bleeding edge tech whilst he was working in an operational business, and how that taught him a valuable architectural lesson: the best solution for the organization you are in may not always be the most current technical solution. David’s message to those starting out is to follow your passions, learn, and be open and curious – you never know where life will take you.

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