1. With over 20 years of experience working with tech, what have been the most significant achievements in your career?
Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy, and by following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right.
As an employer for over 25 years — I would say people & leadership development is crucial and the most standout achievement for me, to see others shine, grow and succeed is deeply satisfying.
2. What do you think are the most positive and negative aspects of blockchain technology in its current form?
Blockchain is often touted as a world-changing technology and in many ways, it is. However, it isn’t necessarily the cure-all panacea for the world’s problems.
Public Blockchain has an environmental cost. At least, the way it is being used today, it does. Blockchain relies on encryption to provide its security as well as establish consensus over a distributed network. This essentially means that, in order to “prove” that a user has permission to write to the chain, complex algorithms must be run, which in turn require large amounts of computing power. Of course, this comes at a cost. Taking the most widely known and used blockchain as an example – Bitcoin – last year it was claimed that the computing power required to keep the network running consumes as much energy as was used by 159 of the world’s nations. Bitcoin’s blockchain is a hugely valuable network – with a current market capacity of over $170 billion – so sophisticated and computationally intense security is essential.
Smaller scale, even Private ledger technologies – such as Everledger who securely monitor and record business activity – consumes a fraction of that, equivalent to other database cloud enabled technology. Nevertheless, all disciplines should have a conscious understanding of their environmental implications as well as the energy costs can’t be ignored.
3. How would you describe your regular day- to- day activities, as CEO and founder of Everledger?
Early in the morning Rotations for each office kick off from 6am - depending on which country I wake up on. I like to meet with my Chief of Staff, Levels and Country Operations leads. I have a large & distributed international team so many meetings are through a video conference call. My calendar is a puzzle of human Tetris: I meet to go over my agenda for the week. I also make my rounds to various departments in the office throughout the day because it gives me the opportunity to catch up with my team and introduce myself to new team members. If we have an event coming up, I spend time preparing for that. Toward the end of the workday, I participate in a quiet review time — “high-five at 3:05.” It’s important to me as a coach, mentor, leader and as an operational CEO to remain visible to my team and recognise value creation.
I believe that a crucial part of building a successful business is creating a culture that is productive and fun. As an entrepreneur, you’ll have to carefully define your own values and build from there!
4. What are the skills and qualities you focus on when developing current and future blockchain professionals?
Beyond the technical skills, I would say the traits of a Everledgends are emotional intelligence (includes social skills, empathy), self-awareness and confidence, capacity to self-manage, the ability to communicate ideas and direction and self-motivation.
You can hear from Everledger's Chief Experience Officer Louise Mercer discuss ´Unpacking the business obstacles to adopting blockchain technology´ on Day 1 at APAC Blockchain Conference 2022, don´t miss out on this interesting presentation.
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