Alan Grogan, Global Lead For Intelligent Data Platforms, Avanade

Describe your career to date

My career started on the Barclays graduate programme. Amid the 2008 financial crisis, I was asked by RBS to play a pivotal role in its turnaround. Given the uncertainties of the times, I was given a lot of advice against making the move, but my heart told me that I would regret not at least trying to help turnaround the critical situation at RBS and across the UK. I left RBS to gain experience in the start-up market after an enjoyable 18 months; I then made a long-planned move into consulting with Atos. My successes there led to an opportunity to join IBM Global Business Services as its UK and Ireland executive for data platforms, advanced analytics, and Industry 4.0 and IoT. Eventually wanting a more diversified, stretching, and global role, I joined Avanade where I now work between as the Global Lead for Intelligent Data Platforms, and the Accenture Global Lead for Microsoft Data. The team across both these roles is significant, the Avanade Intelligent Data Platform team alone is over 10,000 experts covering Data Strategy, Data Visualisation, Data Management, Data Engineering, VizOps, Data Architecture, Platform engineering, and Solution Architecture. The financial, commercial, people, and customer aspects of my role are the core to the enjoyment I have in my role. Every day is not just different, but also full of learning and making decisions that very tangibly make a difference in the real world for people and communities.