Articles
BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE
Q: What led you to join the Green Leaf team?
A: I’ve known Kevin for a while and was impressed by the team that was pulled together, and the vision that the partners had in what they wanted to develop as a company. It was the right next step in my career. Having spent the last 20 years at Microsoft, I was looking for a place where employees were appreciated and the focus was not solely on profit, but on doing the right thing.
Q: What keeps you here?
A: Green Leaf feels like working with a family. The employees are appreciated and respected
Q: What are your area(s) of specialty?
A: All around data: data architecture, data capturing, data manipulation, and data presentation.
Q: Can you tell us about your journey and how your past experiences have led you to your current area(s) of specialty?
A: I started out in the computer industry in 1986 at New York Life Insurance, as a COBOL and assembler developer. I immediately had the opportunity to join the largest computer software company at the time, Computer Associates. As I began to see personal computers and PC networks develop in the market, I saw that area as a direction I should take. A lot of the career moves that I made were for gaining experience, which allowed me to jump to a few different companies, gaining experience in various areas.
After a stint with Novacare, where I gained my first experience in data management, I became an independent consultant. Here I got an opportunity to consult at Comcast. Microsoft later reached out, which led me to spend the next 20 years working for them. At Microsoft, I primarily focused on the data platform and troubleshooting performance issues with Microsoft’s customers. During that time, I met Kevin. After working with him, and having such a good experience, when I saw they started Green Leaf, I said someday I’m going to reach out because I wanted to work with them.
ROLE AT GREEN LEAF
Q: What’s one of the most important, interesting, or exciting projects you’ve worked on at Green Leaf, and what made it so special for you?
A: Each project has its similarities and differences. Every customer has their own challenge. Some are challenges based on the people participating and preconceived notions on what the solution should be. The most interesting projects are the most challenging ones.
Q: What project(s) are you involved in now?
A: We are helping our client accomplish something much faster than most organizations can pull off. The project is a data consolidation into a Data Lake that will provide them access to all the policies across the company from various data sources.
I have also become the key person on the customer side to deal with a 3rd party vendor who is their targeted application for entering and tracking policies. The challenge is understanding how the vendor stores data and being able to pull it out and present it to the customer. It is challenging because every policy product acts differently than any other one that is in there.
Q: How have you seen your role evolve and how do you see it continuing to evolve? What are the key contributions you aim to make?
A: I intend to be valued as a leader in the organization and at Green Leaf, I know that they value my opinion and input. I’m seen as an asset and that is the way I want to see it continuing.
Q: Can you tell us about a personal philosophy or approach that guides your work in tech and in serving clients?
A: Something that I learned early at Microsoft was that we spend too much time talking and not enough time listening. And what I mean is listening to the little things. Let’s not decide what the solution should be. Let’s not guess. Let’s make sure we ask the question rather than making assumptions.
Listening, asking the right questions, letting the customer speak. If you let them talk, they will. If the customer trusts you, they will be open to having more conversations. Listening and building trust is very important.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP & LOOKING AHEAD
Q: In your opinion, what are the major trends that will shape the technology consulting industry in the next five years?
A: AI – it’s only as valuable as the data you have to teach it. It is going to come down to how the AI is used. From a technology perspective, making it easier for customers to get the answers they are looking for could be AI-driven with natural language.
Q: How can Green Leaf be a leader in helping customers adopt new technology?
A: Having people able to have good conversations with customers on technology trends is key. No one can predict the future but if you keep on top of what the experts are saying, we’ve got to have some skills to present and possibly get in front of larger audiences. It’s hard to have case studies or proof for upcoming technologies but having people skilled with visibility is essential.
Q: How do you stay updated with the rapid changes in technology, and how do you foresee the evolution of the tech consultant’s role?
A: Things didn’t change as fast as when I first started in the computer industry. There is no way to be an expert in everything. I suggest becoming very strong in a small set of areas, and at least knowledgeable about a larger segment of technology.
I watch a lot of videos; I can say I am more of a visual person. Sometimes my learning is driven when I must learn something for a customer. I never say I can’t do something, it’s whether I have the time to put the amount of effort in to be at a good level of expertise. It’s hard to stay on top of something when you are not using it. It’s always best to use and test and be in the tool to learn about it.
Q: With the rise of AI and data analytics, what ethical considerations do you believe tech leaders should prioritize?
A: For any organization considering working with AI, they need to consider the people who could be affected by an inaccurate AI solution. For example, AI is being used for facial recognition, and they’ve proven it’s not 100% accurate. If your solution is going to be used for identifying individuals, that may be identified incorrectly, the consequences of that inaccuracy could be very consequential. You have to consider whether it’s worth using. The thing that I caution any customer using AI is to think of the personal impact over all else.
Q: How do you tailor your advisory approach to help clients not just meet but exceed their technology goals?
A: For me, it is satisfying to help the customers and other consultants learn. I’m not one to turn around and say, go figure it out yourself. If I have the experience and the time, I will help. It’s very valuable for us to teach the customer because we can deliver the greatest solution but if the customer can’t maintain the solution, it will be useless as soon as we walk out the door. Educating the customer and making sure they understand is key to a successful solution. It is satisfying for me to help them and teach them.
Q:Discuss the balance between innovation and risk in technology. How should companies approach risk-taking for technological advancement?
A: Car manufacturers do this often – do I file a recall on 2 million cars where the potential of serious harm is about 2%. Yes, the risk of any harm is high risk.
Nothing is ever going to be 100%. AI is constantly learning, there are outliers it hasn’t seen.
At Microsoft, we overlayed AI on top of Twitter to see how it would analyze a tweet and determine whether it was positive, neutral or negative. For example, someone tweeting, “that concert was bad.,” could be taken a few ways. Since there is no tonality in a tweet, you’re not sure of its connotation. The risk of the interpretation and the impact this could have on someone being evaluated for a job screening, mortgage, etc., is significant. It is essential to get all the facts.
Q: The role of collaboration in tech has never been more prominent. How do you foster a culture of collaboration with your client(s)?
A: Knowledge transfer and learning.
Q: What skills do you think will be most valuable for the technology workforce of the future, and how can professionals prepare now?
A: One of the things that needs to be instilled is the drive to want to get better. Learn more and build a strong understanding of things. Having the drive for continuous learning makes all the difference. A lot of people get comfortable and stop building their knowledge.
PERSONAL: INTERESTS AND HOBBIES
Q: If you could have dinner with any figure from the world of technology, who would it be and why?
A: Geoffrey Hinton, referred to as “The Godfather of AI”. He has concerns about AI, and I’d love to have a conversation and understand what he is afraid of.
Q: What’s the one gadget or tech you can’t live without?
A: My laptop. It is a lot more accommodating than my phone to see what I need to do, read, or watch.
Q: Can you share a personal success story or a particularly memorable experience from your career? What made it special for you?
A: When I graduated college, I ended up with a marketing job, where, unfortunately, I spent about a month pulling staples out of paper. When I got the opportunity to go to an MLB try out, they would not give me the day off. I took the day anyway and resigned. That evening, I made a lot of big choices. I quit my job, I decided to go back to school for computer programming, and I got engaged. That was probably the biggest risk I ever took. My biggest success was being able to take the opportunity to change my career, with immense support from my wife and my parents.
Q: Outside of work, what’s a hobby or activity you’re passionate about? How did you become involved in it and why is it important to you?
A: I love baseball, I still play to this day, and I like woodworking. My new hobby is enjoying and spending time with my grandkids.
Q: Green Leaf is a place where there’s a good balance of serious business and good-natured humor. Can you give a fun example of when you’ve either doled out or been on the receiving end of some of that humor?
A: No specific example but I really appreciate that Green Leaf has a good sense of humor, which sometimes is not clean, and I respect that. That tells me the people working here are not overly sensitive. I know whatever is said between employees is in good humor.