Venturi's Voice: Technology | Leadership | Staffing | Career | Innovation

Mike Christensen is Tech Lead at Blokur  Blokur connects the dots between rights holders, creators and music users. The easiest way to pay and get paid for music. Blokur simplifies this process by matching music catalogues to the underlying publishing information quickly (2.4m matches analysed in 24 hours!) and accurately, reporting back on exactly which licences are required in order to use the music you want. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Mike to discuss the ins and outs of Blokur, the culture fostered by Mike and his team, the common pitfalls to be aware of when hiring and onboarding remotely, and some of the cutting edge technologies Blokur are working with.

Marija Ziterbart is Chief Technology Officer at The Lowdown and Managing Director at Tilde Loop. Marija is a technical superwoman who builds ideas into beautiful software that helps thousands of women with their contraception every day. Before joining The Lowdown she set up software development agency Tilde Loop. Marija is an experienced software engineer with a proven record of designing and implementing complex software systems. Team player who works directly with business managers to translate requirements into design and ultimately develop and deploy cutting-edge solutions. The Lowdown is a contraception review, advice and prescriptions platform that's making women’s health less of a minefield.  Tilde Loop is a London-based software development company comprised of experienced engineers, specialising in the JavaScript ecosystem and modern application development. They help organisations accelerate their software development. They're doing it by joining your team and contributing through the whole software development lifecycle, from requirements definition to successful delivery. Their software engineers are combining their knowledge with your ideas to create seamless digital experiences. During this podcast episode, Ben Sits down with Marija to discuss diversity and inclusion in tech - with just 1% of CTO's in tech being Female, Marija's experiences being female in a male-dominated industry, as well as where The Lowdown and Tilde Loop fit into the world of technology.

Alex Arnal Vivas is Head of Development / Technical Architect at more2. more2 are the leading insight and analysis business for retail, ecommerce, and travel. They are data-led, insight-driven, and rich in experience. They are the growth partner to over 100 brands, combining strategic thinking with operational excellence powered by the world’s leading technology to help you make the most of your customer data. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Alex to discuss agile and DevOps challenges in data engineering projects, the agile transformation process, testing and CI/CD in data engineering and analytical projects, as well as Alex's career reflection & the culture at more2.

Tome Pejoski is a Software Engineering Team Lead who loves bringing to life modern and powerful web applications. Always striving to keep up-to-date with the latest trends, technologies, software development and leadership best practices. Constantly looking forward to upgrading skills and expertise on a higher level. Currently making mobility fun and sustainable by working as a Tech Lead at FINN. FINN's mission is to make mobility fun and sustainable: They help everyone who loves driving their own car but refuses the struggle, commitment and intransparent costs associated with car ownership. They achieve this by offering all-inclusive, immediately available, monthly car-subscriptions. While you drive FINN plant trees as every journey is CO2 compensated. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Tome to discuss the service that FINN provides, scaling from 0 to 8000+ subscriptions in just two years with help of automation as well as the Engineering team set-up.

Marlon Hope is Digital Product Manager at Tilney Smith and Williamson Marlon offers high level strategic support, and project management for both public and private organisation. He is a mentor, DCF advisory board member and Community Lead @ Techs & the City.  Marlon Hope is an experienced Manager currently heading the team responsible for Digital Product at Tilney Smith and Williamson, which provides professional and financial services to private clients and their business interests.  Having led digital transformations in both public and private sectors, Marlon is passionate about the development of people and the role of mentorship and coaching in the furtherment of Manchester as the global digital hub of choice. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Marlon to discuss his career journey into product management, Marlon's views on management and mentoring, and the thriving tech culture in Manchester.

Matt Whetton is an engineer at heart, CTO at Oakbrook Finance, building a culture of creative problem solving, empowered engineering teams and continuous learning. Oakbrook Finance offers personalised financial solutions to individual customers using cutting-edge technology and data and analytics for fairer lending. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Matt to discuss his journey from software architect to CTO, the way Matt thinks about people and technology and how this is implemented in the business, and how Matt integrates analytics, data and software.

Paul Davison, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Teleware Paul has over 20 years’ experience in IT and product development. His expertise in developing products and processes to help clients align their digital capabilities to business strategy, drives exponential growth for clients. Paul has worked across a number of sectors including oil and gas. With this, Paul brings experience of working in tightly controlled development environments, developing project control technology to create improvements at every stage of the production process. TeleWare design software to help businesses communicate better with their customers and employees by routing communications more effectively. By recording and analysing these communications Teleware is able to discover how companies can better connect with customers to improve their experience, manage governance and grow revenues. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Paul to discuss culture and communication in technology, the future of the industry and how to best prepare for the approaching tech movements and developments.

Victoria Engelhardt is CEO and Co-Founder of Keleya Victoria has worked in Tech startups in Berlin for a number of years and spent some time in management consulting at BCG, and wanted to spend time on something that really matters to herself and the world. Keleya was spawned when a close friend of Victoria's became pregnant, realizing for the first time how hard it was to find a midwife and the right support throughout the pregnancy journey. Keleya enables women and their partners to have a safe and relaxed pregnancy, birth experience and motherhood by providing them with personalized, expert based information, workouts and nutrition plans and a matching midwife. Founded in 2017, Kelaya is headquartered in Berlin, Germany. This led Victoria to found Keleya – Your Pregnancy & Parenthood Companion. Keleya is the best-in-class pregnancy app that provides support, workouts and medical advice, and is reimbursed by major German health insurances, such as SBK, BIG direkt gesund, DAK etc. They have been awarded “Editor’s choice” by Apple and have been downloaded >200K times. As an addition to their eco-system, in cooperation with the German Midwife Association, they have launched a marketplace that connects parents with midwives on our platform ammely.de. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Victoria to discuss how the business was founded and why she chose to create a femtech company, building teams to create a successful product, the importance of diversity in the workplace and the exciting future of Keleya.

Mark Quinn is CTO and Co-Founder of Circl  Circl was developed in an effort to change the way bettors engage with sports and wagering: the game allows up to 10 users to play against each other to win a pool of money deposited beforehand by the group. The gaming mechanism is based on a series of real-time events occurring during the match, which are given their own scoring system. Thus, the pot of money moves around the Circl as the event goes on, instead of being awarded solely based on the final outcome. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Mark to chat about the Circl App, how the initial concept was formed and offers advice to anyone building an app and bringing it to market, as well as discussing some of the unforeseen challenges Mark and his team have overcome over the past 18 months. Get your Circl in by downloading the app here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/circl-social-betting/id1551226545 Mark is on the lookout for engineers to join Circl, so if you're looking to join a cutting-edge, fully remote start-up, get in touch!

Saravanan Sathyanandha is CTO at Monolith AI Saravanan is building an AI software platform to allow engineers to design products faster. Industries include aeronautical, automotive and more. Monolith AI is an Imperial College London spin off that is building a new machine learning software that utilises the latest in machine learning to help engineers to significantly improve the product development process. Monolith enables companies to monetise their old simulation and test data by using it to anticipate the behaviour of new products. Companies can optimise their R&D process by reducing the numbers of simulations, tests and prototypes required to develop a new product delivering faster and better products. During this podcast episode, Ben sits down with Saravanan to chat about the pro's and con's of startup life, his career journey, his role and mentors and influences along the way.