Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Emad Georgy:
Q: Emad, let’s start with your background. How did you get to where you are today?
A: I have always been interested in computers and the evolution of technology. But, I first got involved in computer science when I taught myself how to code at age 11. My parents immigrated to America when I was an infant with nothing but a dream and a vision for the future of their family. With the determination to give me a better life, they invested in a beat-up computer for a 11-year-old kid who had no idea what a computer really was. I have been coding ever since!
Since those early years, I have become committed to the advancement of technology and incredibly passionate about leadership development in the tech field.
Q: What’s your approach to technology management?
A: I consider myself to be a hands-on, execution-focused, CTO advisor and consultant. Following my work as a CTO at Experian and a number of other enterprise brands, I have continued to dedicate myself to leading large-scale transformations in software development, QA, architecture, Agile, DevOps and Operations.
In this industry, we often speak of technical debt, but the biggest challenge I see is leadership debt. Do we have the right leadership in place to direct and test the strategy; to ask the hard questions iteratively and have the courage to change based on feedback and data? Having a solid, aligned leadership team is the quickest way to build trust with staff – which is a core foundational pillar of success.
Q: Why is it important for companies to build privacy and security into software products from the start?
A: For years, enterprise software developers have been following a detrimental pattern of producing minimum viable products (MVP) to support demand from corporate sales divisions, only to remediate security issues after a quarterly or annual audit, or worse, after a consumer complaint or a breach. The age of reactive remediation is over. This is the kind of activity that will not be tolerated by the strict security and privacy laws that have been in place in Europe for years and are now being implemented in the U.S. Both customers and these mounting regulations demand that organizations take a more proactive approach to security implementation and protection of consumer data.
Executives, including CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and CTOs, must all recognize the critical importance of moving privacy and security features upstream in the development process and start incentivizing this rather than rewarding only on velocity of deliverables. A good tech team, with the proper resources, can produce safe, effective software at a rapid pace.
Q: What are you most excited about in the industry at the moment and what future trends are you expecting to see?
A: I’m excited that so many tech companies are in the process of growing and scaling. Scaling an organization, much like scaling architecture, requires a unique set of skills that, like muscles, must be exercised and honed through experience.
In terms of future trends, we are going to see more operational and DevOps maturity in the IoT space. We will encounter more leveraging of edge computing and the democratization of methods like quantum computing. Additionally, our data storage capabilities will be pushed to their limits with explorations into alternate mediums like bio-organisms.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: At Georgy Technology Leadership, our consulting practice is focusing on technology leadership born through years of execution knowledge and transformation. We have standardized what makes a good CTO and/or technology leader, and we coach against that baseline so growth is tangible. Our plan for the future is to help ensure the tech industry has a future; and we are doing this by developing leaders at all levels of the organizations with which we work.
