Simon Wardley

Current

• Software Services Manager / Cloud Computing Strategist at Canonical Ltd.
• Advisory Board at amphiLab Limited
• Consultant at Gardeviance

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Past

• Chief Operating Officer / Chief Technology Officer at Fotango Ltd, a subsidiary of Canon Europe
• Director & Consultant at Hermes Technology Ltd
• Project Manager / Senior Consultant at Quantum Consulting Ltd

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Education

• Glasgow Caledonian University
• University of Cambridge

Recommended

12 people have recommended Simon

Connections

423 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Simon Wardley’s Summary

An innovative strategist who combines significant levels of hands-on business, technical and management expertise in achieving business turnaround and strong revenue growth in high technology and software markets. An accomplished communicator with considerable international speaking experience to expert audiences, he is proficient at crafting and delivering persuasive messages and has robust experience in building and maintaining alliances and strategic partnerships. Simon has an established record of success in business and innovation in a variety of situations and has demonstrated a capability for managing change in both start-up and multi-national environments.

Simon Wardley’s Specialties:

Business strategy, innovation and organisational structure, IT strategy, product development, team management, risk management, project management, finance, planning and R&D incl. fabrication technologies, web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, open source, project methodologies and cloud computing.

Simon Wardley’s Experience

• Software Services Manager / Cloud Computing Strategist

  Canonical Ltd.

  (Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

  October 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)

  Responsible for Cloud Computing Strategy at Canonical, the main sponsors and supporters of Ubuntu.
  
  Canonical is the first linux distribution to launch a private cloud solution which enables users to create their own clouds that match the Amazon EC2 & S3 API. Using Ubuntu, users are able to mix public and private systems to create hybrid clouds, hence maximising the benefits of cloud whilst mitigating many of the transitional and outsourcing risks.
  
  My areas of responsibility include cloud computing strategy, the development of the cloud offerings, engagements with major manufacturers and companies and evangelism.

• Advisory Board

  amphiLab Limited

  (Printing industry)

  July 2008 — Present (1 year 5 months)

  A new funded start-up company in the field of interactive books and printed electronics. I provide general advice in business, planning, financial and operational activities.

• Consultant

  Gardeviance

  (Management Consulting industry)

  October 2007 — Present (2 years 2 months)

  Strategic consultancy and public speaker in the area of innovation & commoditisation, cloud computing, enterprise 2.0 and web 2.0.
  
  Example activities:
  • Advisory board member for Enterprise 2.0 Summit, Web 2.0 Expo and Web 2.0 Strategies.
  • International speaker at over 30 major events.
  • Client work includes development of process, open source and enterprise 2.0 strategies.
  • Author of several articles published in The Butler Group Review.

• Chief Operating Officer / Chief Technology Officer

  Fotango Ltd, a subsidiary of Canon Europe

  (Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 2000 — August 2007 (6 years 10 months)

  When I originally joined Fotango, the company was loss making, had technically poor systems and dwindling cash reserves. It was not expected to survive more than six months. As the CTO I was responsible for first its technical transformation, a major factor in its acquisition by Canon, and then subsequently as the COO the overall running of the business. Under my leadership Fotango became, and remained at the date of my leaving, a highly profitable company which had created significant cash reserves and annual revenues in excess of $6M. p.a.
  
  In seven years, I transformed Fotango from a “collapsing” company into a highly innovative, well organised and profitable company at the forefront of web 2.0 and with considerable expertise in web services, agile methodologies, open source technologies, collaborative enterprise techniques, virtualisation and cloud computing (née utility computing)
  
  Fotango developed one of the world's first Platform as a Service offerings in 2005, known as Zimki. The system (an equivalent to Google App Engine but using JavaScript as the main language) provided not only online development of entire systems in JavaScript but portability between different Zimki providers (instances). The system was rapidly growing and it was planned to be open sourced in 2007 enabling the formation of competitive marketplaces in the platform space.
  
  Whilst the "cloud computing" field was in its infancy, Fotango (and its parent company Canon) held a prominent position in the cloud comptuing space. The plans for Zimki were ambitious, the entire future cloud computing environment had been carefully mapped out in 2005 including billing systems, exchanges and assurance services. Unfortunately, the project failed as it was not aligned to the strategic goals of the parent company.
  
  Hence in 2007, at a time when Zimki was successful with a growing following and Fotango was a highly profitable group, the project was closed down and the entire company outsourced.

• Director & Consultant

  Hermes Technology Ltd

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 1998 — October 2000 (2 years 10 months)

  IT consultancy (security and software development) for a number of companies include Harrods, EMI, Merrill Lynch and the finance sector.

• Project Manager / Senior Consultant

  Quantum Consulting Ltd

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 1993 — January 1998 (4 years 3 months)

  Mixture of strategy, business analysis and application development work. Managed a number of projects across Europe for Fritolay Intl (part of the PepsiCo group).

Simon Wardley’s Education

• Glasgow Caledonian University

  MSc (dsc) , Energy & Environmental Management , 1991 — 1993

• University of Cambridge

  MA , Natural Sciences (PART II - Genetics) , 1987 — 1990

  Activities and Societies:

  Karate, Judo, Chess, Varsity Newspaper, Footlights, Union.

Simon Wardley’s Contact Settings

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