{"id":18408,"date":"2022-08-31T16:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/?p=18408"},"modified":"2022-08-31T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:00:12","slug":"get-to-know-vaughan-shanks-ceo-of-cydarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/2022\/08\/31\/get-to-know-vaughan-shanks-ceo-of-cydarm\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to Know: Vaughan Shanks, CEO of Cydarm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the lighter side of things, we ask Vaughan Shanks, CEO of Cydarm, what makes him tick.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Vaughan Shanks, CEO of Cydarm<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Landing the first customer for Cydarm back in 2018 \u2013 an ASX Top 50 organization, no less! I distinctly remember when they made the decision to go ahead with us. It was a proof of concept, so not a paid engagement \u2013 totally fair, given the stage our product was at \u2013 and I was asked to meet the team and give a demo. They sat through the demo, lots of poker faces, and then at the end, this one analyst said: \u201cWell, it\u2019s better than our current system, I\u2019m in.\u201d It was instant validation and encouraged me to keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What first made you think of a career in technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a four-year-old, I was obsessed with NASA and going to space. I think that made me naturally inclined towards technology. My late great uncle Albert was a seminal influence: he was a rocket scientist and electrical engineer who used to build computers at home out of wire wrap and breadboards. Then there was my mother \u2013 she was an analyst programmer who would bring home spent punch cards for me to draw on, as recycled paper. Being steeped in this atmosphere growing up, it was almost preordained I would go into tech! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bifurcate my role into management and leadership. Management is basically about being an efficient administrator; delegating tasks and meeting schedules and all that stuff. I see that as a technical discipline. The more important part is leadership, and that to me is about influence \u2013 being able to show people how you want them to behave, with one another and with your customers. A lot of my style is drawn from leaders I admire. I\u2019ve had the privilege of working for some very good ones, in the public and private sectors, and I\u2019ve tried to implement their best traits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think is the current hot technology talking point?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s cybersecurity, from my perspective. As the world starts fracturing and we are seeing globalization going into reverse, we\u2019re increasingly realizing that all the general-purpose technology we rely on to keep life running, is actually not reliable and secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve built on a shaky foundation and created vast interconnected IT estates full of undiscovered bugs and security holes. Senior leaders in many countries have realized this and that\u2019s why they\u2019ve begun issuing mandates and executive orders to enforce better security across the supply chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you deal with stress and unwind outside the office?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spending time outside of the office with the people in my life who are important to me gives me perspective and reminds me of why it is I do what I do. I love active sports such as running and cycling, especially in nature. As far out into the wilderness as possible is my preference although, unfortunately, these days, that\u2019s not usually very far, given my schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have multiple bikes but, being a city dweller, it\u2019s the road bike that gets the most use. There\u2019s a group I ride with now and again but more often I go out by myself for three or four hours on a weekend. As long as there are hills and trees, I\u2019m happy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If<\/strong> <\/strong>you could go back and change one career decision, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a third-year computer science student in 1997, a couple of years after the web had been popularized. As a team project, my group developed a system for putting emails on a website. We couldn\u2019t see a practical need for it but we said: \u201clet\u2019s do it because we can and we\u2019ll get a high mark.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we built the system, named it BobMail, for want of a better name, got A-pluses for our efforts and then at the end of the semester we canned it. Just a few months later, a company called Hotmail was sold to Microsoft for hundreds of millions of dollars. We\u2019d literally built a Hotmail equivalent and then wrote it off because we weren\u2019t thinking big, didn\u2019t have the vision and didn\u2019t believe that a group of undergrads in Australia could develop world-class technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in your industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a buzzword topic but one thing customers care a lot about is interoperability. When they get a new system, knowing it\u2019s going to connect with their legacy infrastructure, they don\u2019t have to do a bulk rip and replace or work with consultants to integrate everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several of the large vendors got together recently and announced a new data format for interoperability. For people outside the industry, it may sound boring but it\u2019s a game changer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What<\/strong> <\/strong>are<\/strong> <\/strong>the region-specific challenges when implementing new technologies in APAC?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skills shortage is a big one. If you look at Australia, our STEM participation rates in high school are at all-time lows. Personally, I cannot understand why more people do not pursue careers in STEM, given the way the world is going, but for some reason, people are overlooking this opportunity. That\u2019s created a pipeline problem and a squeeze for employers. There are too many open jobs and not enough people to go around and that means it\u2019s hard to assemble a team to execute a vision. The other issue is that Australia\u2019s a small market and potential customers are often conservative by nature when making tech choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and how do you<\/strong> <\/strong>see these developing in the next 12 months?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve had a big increase in the size of our team \u2013 up from nine staff in late 2021 to 15. I\u2019ve encouraged the team to build processes around some of the things we do, so people\u2019s responsibilities are defined and handoffs are clear. In early 2022, I set myself the goal of becoming the world\u2019s best delegator but feedback from the team suggests I\u2019m not there yet! Over the next year, I\u2019ll be focusing more on strategy and getting myself out of the day-to-day, tactical stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you offer to someone aspiring to obtain a C-level position in your industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never been a CEO prior to this position and there\u2019s no way I would have been picked for the role at a traditional ICT company because I don\u2019t have a traditional corporate background. Becoming the CEO of a start-up is a different journey. The fastest way to get there is to register a company and employ yourself! You need to back yourself but don\u2019t be naive. Have some idea of the responsibilities you\u2019re taking on and prepare yourself for them: learn how venture capital funding works; practise leadership skills; and, if you\u2019re a technologist like me, develop an understanding of economics and accounting. In short, identify your blind spots and do whatever you can to fill them, by the fastest possible means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the lighter side of things, we ask Vaughan Shanks, CEO of Cydarm, what makes him tick. What would you describe as your most memorable achievement? Landing the first customer for Cydarm back in 2018 \u2013 an ASX Top 50 organization, no less! I distinctly remember when they made the decision to go ahead with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":18410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3559,21],"tags":[76,174,3679,155,3680],"class_list":["post-18408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intelligent-technologies-cybersecurity","category-get-to-know","tag-australia","tag-cybersecurity","tag-cydarm","tag-get-to-know","tag-vaughan-shanks"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18408"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18415,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18408\/revisions\/18415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}