EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:  

Welcome back to Things Reasons, the Independent podcast for Australian IT leaders who want to hear what’s not being said on stage. This is the conversation after the meeting where people drop the script and say what they actually think. We talk about the drivers shaping Australian IT tech shifts, talent gaps, budget pressure, vendor plays and leadership calls. 

The reasons behind them and with me as always is my co-host. Naran McClung. Happy to be here. Naran, what have you been up to this week?  

Uh, look, what have I been up to? Uh, I have been spending so much time with Microsoft people, to be honest with you. Over the last week, obviously they went through a restructure. 

They’ve launched their financial year. Um, there are people in new roles for reasons I’m sure. But I’ve been meeting with so many of them. Uh, they have, I mean, they, they will always advocate that they’re partner first. Um, so far this financial year, incredibly so I would say probably four or five meetings a day, uh, introductions. 

So yeah, doing that and lots of cycling obviously as well. That’s how I get my lustrous glow. Jono. Okay. That’s where it comes from.  

It’s important.  

It is important, yeah. Right. But do you know what’s more important? We have a wonderful guest here. Uh, I’m gonna introduce this gentleman now. I’ve known him for some time. 

His name is Simon Reiter. He’s the CTO for CareSuper. Uh, he’s a wonderful chap. Uh, he’s an experienced technology leader. He is got deep experience in financial services and superannuation. And at CareSuper he’s responsible for steering technology strategy. Data, digital transformation in a sector that’s not just about dollars and cents, it’s about delivering long-term value to members. 

Simon, welcome to Things. Reasons.  

Thanks Naran, nice to be here.  

Excellent. Right.  

So, um, let’s get into it. Let’s get into it.  

 Alright, uh, Simon. We heard a rumor that you’ve just attended Adapt, CIO Edge, I think it might have even been yesterday. I’d love for you to talk us through it. Uh, what stood out to you? 

Anything that surprised you? Where was the focus? Uh, was it a valuable event? Always curious about these things. You know, um, lots of them go on in the industry. Love to get your perspective on the day.  

Thank you. Uh, look. You’re right, your rumors were true. I was at Adapt yesterday, so, uh, great look, great, great conference. 

I get to be honest, I get conference invitations in my mailbox, probably least once a week from someone somewhere. A lot of it. And I can’t go to all those ’cause it’s not a good use of my, you know, good use of my time. So I’m quite selective which ones I actually go to. Mm-hmm. So this is the one that few actually go to. 

Um, it’s, it’s a free event for me to attend, uh, which is great. And generally it’s around a lot of, a lot of my, a lot of my peers. And it’s not just, um, it’s not just the same sector. It’s across lots of other sectors. So the great thing they do at the start of each of the sessions is to sort of give you a bit of a view around who’s attending the actual conference. 

You use the word free there, Simon. Alright. Now, when we use products that are free, we are the product. So talk us through that.  

That’s true. I am the product in that one. So, to by, by attending what you do is you then you meet, you meet with a bunch of vendors, really as part of the attendance. Uh, and they sort of talk to you about what they’re actually offering in the market, which is also interesting to be honest because, you know, I don’t know everything, um, my wife  tells me that all the time. 

So, um, it is true. So. Sometimes meet with vendors, you sometimes get some good insights around, oh, I didn’t know that was a thing that was going on. And, and generally, you know, sometimes hearing where vendors are investing is a good, is a good lead indicator as well. I may actually start thinking about that. 

Yep. Uh, maybe I shouldn’t. So it’s just one of those things. That’s a good insight. Yes. Um, but yes, but at the start of the conference, the great thing they do to have a couple slides where they really show some industry stats. Um, you know, how, how much money’s being spent in IT, um, how, how big the IT teams are roughly across, uh, what size organisations are there. 

Uh, which industries they work in. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so then, and the other bit of what’s the top three priorities and they compare that to last year’s conference and you kinda see how it shifts. So, so this year, the top three, you could probably guess number one.  

Well, come on.  

Well, uh, okay. Uh, do. If I’m gonna guess, it’s either gonna be AI or cyber. 

Yep. AI. So, so again, AI this year there, you, this year, last year it was, um, last year it was cyber. Right? Uh, this year it was AI. Mm. And then, um, the second one was around, uh, enterprise data. So focusing on that, again, not surprising ’cause in my view, you know, data and AI are kind of peas in the pod  

they are  

work together. 

And then the, and the third was cyber. So  

Yeah, there you go. That’s, um, Naran and I have been sort of commenting on these trends. Uh, in the last series of the podcast and obviously keen, uh, attendees of, of the Adapt Conference,  

shout out to Adapt. We love Adapt.  

Yeah. Good on you. Uh, Matt Boone.  

That’s right. 

If you’re listening, I, I think he does listen to the podcast actually. Great team. And, um, and sometimes we are surprised, sometimes we’re not. That’s why it’s a Yeah. But we seem to be oscillating in the industry. You know, these two segments are jocking for position AI, cyber enterprise data. No surprise. 

And I think they’re all starting to merge as well, because you need to do AI safely. So interesting to, to get your views on that. What did you learn?  

So, interesting enough, the other, the other thing that was quite interesting is, um, well we had a round table and also some stats at the start, which confirmed the same thing. 

Only 2% of organisations have actually put in a AI AI capability beyond the proof of concept. Yes. So I’m not, not, not too surprised to see that. I think you, you both probably wouldn’t be too surprised. No. There’s lots of talk about AI, lots of proof of concepts, but taking it from an idea or a little proof of concept that doesn’t actually connect to anything. 

And you impact, you put into production with your production systems, your guardrails, your data, your security is a lot more complex. Mm-hmm. And then train your workforce on that. And then your customers, so. 

Well, let’s reflect on that. Right. So like amazing stat. And by now, I actually would’ve expected that percentage to be higher. 

Yeah. It’s not surprising, but the expectation, at least in market. Would have us believe it should be higher. And if we think about OpenAI, they’ve now got their channel and direct consultancy play. I’m wondering whether the, the builders of these LLMs have figured out that actually, um, it’s not enough just to have good tech businesses need a bit of help to turn this stuff on. 

Yeah.  

Right.  

Yeah. Um, I, I always think it’s interesting of what’s, what’s, what’s the problem AI is actually trying to solve? So it’s great. You got AI, it’s great technology. Yep. I, I mean, I use, I use it all the time for all sorts of things, right. So, um. But if it’s, if it’s, if it’s not clear what the problem is you’re trying to solve, you know, I, I think back, if everyone’s old, you know, we’re all probably old enough here to to know back when the app store came out, everyone was adamant we all need a mobile app. 

That’s right. And what’s the mobile app for? I don’t care. I just want mobile app care need. If you don’t have an app, you’re not in market. It’s the same thing. I don’t care what we need, we just need AI. Right? Mm-hmm. There’s no real thinking around, well, what’s that actually trying to solve? Well, who’s actually gonna use it? 

What’s the problem actually trying to fix? And then you roll out, you roll out an AI platform to your staff or to your customers. And then no one uses it. Yes. And you go, AI failed. It’s like, well, not really. What actually failed was that fact we, like every program you do and every change program in human history, you run a really strong change management journey. 

Yep. Have a very, very clear, we’re going to solve this problem with this, with this tool. You know? Um, very similar. So I guess you go back to, I always use the Henry Ford analogy, right? That you, when you’ve invented the car, he said if I asked people what they wanted. They would say, I would need a faster horse. So you go back to your van and go, if I asked for what they actually want. 

We come back and go, I wanna fix this process, or I want to automate that. And you go, that’s where you start with the AI and look at how you can actually use it to fix that problem. 

Yes, that’s right. And look, um, we’ve had a conversation of this in, I think in our first episode and we talk about the, just the changing role of the big IT service provider market sentiment for any organisation that has thousands and thousands of staff. 

Um, perhaps that just aren’t necessary. And I think there’s certainly an expectation that tech can help with that. I know, uh, as well, being an MSP ourselves at Macquarie, we’re about, uh, wanting to scale properly with tech as opposed to people, right? We don’t wanna scale with people because we need to be more predictable. 

We want programmatic methods and we have embraced, um, both machine learning and, uh, agentic AI in our own business. And I can definitely see that continuing. There’s no staff reduction though in our business, our people are just doing more high value tasks. And so, um, I think we’ll see more of that. Um, for us, the use cases are obvious. 

Anything that is just too labour intensive, right? Find a process that’s labour intensive and can the tech help with either augmentation or peering? Uh, is what we’re supposed to believe is where we’re at now if we believe, uh, Satya Nadella says, you know, it’s all about peering relationships with technology. 

Yeah, I think that’s right. I I, I’m also surprised at that 2% number. It, it sounds low. Yeah. Um, I wonder if that’s, you know, 2% are reporting that they’ve implemented a successful project, but there’s a much larger percent of percentage running experiments.  

I think the thing there is at that, at the round table that followed that day at lunch, um, which had about 25, uh, C CIOs and CTOs and heads of, uh, there across the org across Australia. 

There was lots of talk, a lot of people were asking how do I govern this? How do I secure this? How I measure value? Um, and essentially how, how are we actually getting the change, the people journey. That, that was the common themes from, from the lunch. Mm, not a lot of conversations around which LLM are you using? 

What tech have you embedded that with? It is all these other traditional and these all traditional change problems we’ve had for years or any, any big technology change. Yes. It’s just that this is now, um, AI, the challenge is at home I can use ChatGPT on my phone and the way it goes straight away and it does a great job and all a sudden you go, the workforce can go, why can’t I can’t do the same thing. 

Yeah, that’s right. Why?  

The way it doesn’t work just as well and there’s a whole bunch of complexities around why, but to the, to the, to your average staff member who’s working with you or your customer out there. They just want it to work just like ChatGPT. Right so. 

That’s right. I think consumer technology’s always, uh, been a little bit ahead in terms of setting expectations for end users. 

Mm-hmm. And then when they come into the workplace, they’re go, well, that, that thing that I do outside of work, why can’t I have it here? And there’s always that tension between business and the IT department, and the end user. And we saw that, uh, really I’d say proliferate, especially with the work from home shift, uh, through the pandemic and consumer technology starting to really drive the way that people work, uh, like we’ve never seen before. 

And I think that’s right, AI’s in the heading in the same direction.  

Wonder how many shadow IT gen, gen AI projects are kicking off all over the place with business, business units just taking the bull by the horns and going, you know what, we’re just gonna do this our own way.  

Yeah. I feel like our CTOs and CIOs just doing that. 

How do you say on top of that?  

It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a challenge, right? It’s a, it’s around how you, um, yeah. You, you want, you wanna be innovative. There’s a challenge with any CIO role is you wanna be innovative in showing progress. But at the same time, you have to look at compliance, regulation, security, and safety because you know, that’s what the board asks you to do. 

Sure. If we have to.  

If we have to. Nobody wants to be the glass half empty kind of guy. You don’t be the guy that says no all the time. Right. You don’t wanna be that guy. Which leads us nicely to question two. So Simon, um, I guess the obvious one is really where do you see the super industry going in the next five years, and what is the role in technology that’s shaping that? 

Yeah,  

that’s a good, good question. So look, superannuation for those who, who, most, most people who are probably listening will probably would be familiar what superannuation is by now. It’s been been around from the,  

something we have to have.  

The Paul Keating government brought it in if everyone remembers that. 

Um, and they, and back then it was a very small management contribution from your salary of about 3%. Um, now it’s up to 12. Um, it’s about four point trillion, $4.1 trillion now under, under management of funds across Australia. So, um, yeah, that’s a fair bit of, fair bit of coin sitting there that, that. You know, people like myself have the privilege of managing for, for the members who trust us to manage it for them. 

And CareSuper itself has about 60 billion of that. Um, we look after about 600,000 Australians of their superannuation retirement. But yeah, where it’s really going as, as an industry itself is, is a couple things. Uh, one is really gonna be around, you know, market consolidation as it grows larger, right. It, it’s, it’s one of those things, there’s, there’s a lot of super funds which are really specific to, to industries and, and as they grow larger and we just have to get more, more of a, more of a commercialised uh, market. Mm. Um, ’cause just the amount of money you’ve got to invest and the way, the way the global markets will work and, and to get the best returns for those members of those super funds, you really have to look at how you can invest that across the broad spectrum of different, you know, um, good. Good. You know, most of the airports in Australia are owned by superannuation funds. Most of the ports in Australia are owned by superannuation funds. It’s not just shares and gold and bonds that you might think traditional investments would be lots of infrastructure projects. Mm. Um, actually owned and big um big renewable energy projects are funded by superannuation funds. There’s a whole bunch of, um, property developments inside, you know, there’s one in the city not that far away, where they’re doing a build to rent program, um, to, to, to building, uh, properties close to where, where a lot of their members actually work as well to supporting that. 

So there’s lots of extra investment that happens, uh, locally and, and internationally as well. So, but to get the best return for your members, it basically means you have to have enough money there to support the, the members who want to retire, to give them the cash when they retire and get to that age to spend it and enjoy their retirement. 

Because that’s why we exist ultimately, is to support the members to get to a good retirement, but also have enough that you can go off and invest in those types of projects, which take, which might have 10, 20 year returns to come back and give you that, that really strong return. So really you want that, that’s where that consolidation driver comes through, uh, to getting the more money you can pull into one central spot to drive further investments. 

Yep. What that really means from a, from a technology point of view is, is well, well, how we actually start to centralise and uplift our support, our platforms to really support those members without having to hire more people. So, similar to your comment before on Naran, you can’t just keep hiring people to grow. 

No, it’s not a good use of, good use of expenditure to keep growing, growing, growing, and growing. ’cause ultimately, at the end of the day, lot of our superannuation funds are profit to member, which means, uh, we need to minimise our costs to serve those members. That means about minimising our our fees. So to do that, we look at, well, how can we streamline with technology? 

Yes. How can we digitise, how can we make things more, more straight through processing? How can we automate, uh, how can we do things around, for example, um, you know, helping those, those moments that matter. So, you know, just, just a couple moments that matter in, in your life when you start first get into the workforce, understanding what is super and how does this actually help me? 

No one really teaches that in school. So, um, so keeping that kind of journey. Then you go through the journey of when you’re midlife you start thinking, um, you know, you, you hit your forties probably. You start thinking, well, I’m gonna retire soon-ish. So you start thinking about what I’m gonna start doing for that. 

Mm. Then you get to retirement stage and go, okay, well how do I, how do I actually do retirement? What does this even mean? How does Centrelink get involved? What’s this pension thing? How do I apply for that? Like, all these different questions. And really, you’ve never done that before, right? No. So you, that’s why we should be there to help those people Yep. 

Through those moments. So it’s all about. My view, it’s about digitisation, streamlining, lots of change. Lots of change. Yeah. It’s, it’s an industry that you would think sound on the surface. You think superannuation, retirement, not much happening there, but there’s quite, quite a lot happening across the industry. 

Yeah. I mean, look, nothing fuels technology change, like acquisition, right? Yeah. And all that goes along with that, managing identity and uh, consolidating services and all that stuff. So, yeah.  

Yeah. In my, um, in my career in super. I’ve done five, five MNAs in the time I’ve been in superannuation, which is about, which is about six years. 

So,  

so there’s a lot of consolidation in that space,  

right? Yeah. A lot of consolidation. So there’s lot, there’s lots of, and it’s all driven by ultimately providing the best value back to the members to serve them. Right? So it’s, which is basically find the best optimising your costs and find the best way to invest the, the best invest the funding. 

Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a really interesting space. It’s, um, it’s not something, I think a lot of people dig into the backend of how it works and and how these funds deliver value back to members because it’s, to your point, something that you don’t really start to consider until later in life. It’s more just, you know, I’ve got this money going somewhere that I can’t really touch. 

And for business owners, you know, it’s, it’s actually quite a large, uh, chunk of your payroll as well. Um, in terms of technology decisions and your role, uh, helping to manage a, a superannuation fund. What is the criteria that you look for when you are green lighting a project or building a business case to, uh, link that business case back to member value? 

Like is there like a checklist? How do you, how do you position these, these projects and how do you think about member value in that context?  

Yeah. There’s two, two, I’ll give you two answers. So, so there’s the, well, there’s the, you know, there’s the Simon view and then, and which, which I sort of. Follow as, as a, as a CTO and leader. 

And there’s the actual, what we do as a, as a fund, as per our regulation, right? So there, there’s a thing they called the member’s best financial interest check or test. So essentially what you do, any, any procurement decision through that process, it runs through this, um, member’s best financial interest, uh, framework. 

And essentially we have to then measure the return of that investment of what it is. Uh, and go, is that in the best members best financial interest? Is that going to help them with retirements? What’s the ROI on that three? Does it really stack up? So it’s a really good commercial check around, okay, if I’m gonna spend, you know, a thousand dollars that has an ROI of 10 years probably not really worth probably not really worth doing it, right? 

Right. So, so you might look at things and go, okay, well what could we do separately make the ROI better? So good, good, good checkpoint. They get signed off all material purchases across the superannuation funds. And that, that’s, that’s a regulation we get by our, our regulator APRA. So. It’s across all superannuation funds now. 

The flip side is also, so obviously I follow that ’cause we, because that’s what we have to do. And that’s a good, it’s a good practice to follow anyway, I think. Makes sense. Strong check As a, as a, as a technology leader though, there, there’s a couple other things you kind of check when you look before you’re making these, these procurement decisions around partners. 

Um, because I think the word partners overused a bit in, in, in the vendor customer scape. ’cause then we all, we all have vendors. Uh, and we, and we all have interaction with our customers, right. And I think at the end of the day, you know, I don’t look at Coles as a partner or Woolworths as a partner. Mm-hmm. 

To me, it’s a vendor customer relationship. I go in there, I get my groceries, I get out. Yep. That’s kind of it. There’s, there’s no, there’s no partnership there. Yep. Um, 

and you may pay, you may pay for those groceries. Who knows? Um, that’s, that’s,  

it depends how good the AI’s working on the, uh the till very well. 

Yeah. 

Okay. So yeah. Anyway, so that, that’s, that’s one of those things where it’s, it’s kind of, that’s the journey of course, but other, other things, you go, actually, you know what, I actually want that part. I need, I need a strategic partner to help me get to a certain, certain end goal. Um, so you might go, look, it’s, this is key to our business, or it’s a material, it’s a material play. 

And then, and, and when I look at the strategy of what we want to achieve, I go, I want that, I want that vendor slash partners. Probably a better insertion there, right? To help me get to that point. So going back to that, you know, Coles Woolworths analogy, it’s only kinda like, Hey, instead of me just getting my groceries yes, you’ll help me do that, but you have a chef come around to my house and they’re gonna help me figure out my menu for the week and they help me cook it. That’s right. And do the prep work and then great. That’s deliver a whole bunch more value back to my family.  

There’s problem solving that needs to happen. 

Right? And it needs to be a back and forth and you’re looking for input just as much as you’re looking for outcomes. That’s it. A hundred percent.  

So that’s, that’s what I kind of look for from that, from that partnership view and that that’s, that’s not really. You get the member’s best financial interest check, that’s, that’s fine that that’s the commercial lens. 

But you might have two vendors who are exactly the same in their ROI and the cost. And you go, okay, from that check, they’re exactly the same, but one’s come along where’re really great strategic alignment going, we’re gonna partner with you and this is how we’re gonna do it. And the one’s come along going, here’s our price. 

Where’s really cheap? And you go, okay, well that, which one would you kind of pick between those two? So it’s almost again, um, you know, if one of the grocery chains said to you, I’ll just give you a groceries to you, and the other one said, they’ll come around and cook it for you. But it’s the same cost, which one you wanna pick. 

Yeah. It also depends on what you need. That’s it. That’s exactly on if you’re a good cook or not. Right. I’m a terrible cook. So in that case I’ll go for the, and actually cooks it. And tell me just, just as an extension to this, you know, I’m curious about how investment decisions get made in that context around cybersecurity. 

So you’re obviously a regulated by APRA and there’s things you have to do and then there’s a, linking it back to member value view as well. Right? So obviously the super industries, um, that’s quite topical with, uh, some cyber attacks in, um, other funds. And I think that’s got everybody thinking about, you know, uh, not just from a banking perspective, where is my money safe, but is my, is my retirement fund safe? 

Are you looking at that through a compliance lens or a strategic lens that would potentially help you attract more members or bring member value? Or is it both?  

That’s a good, good, interesting question. Um, I think, think, think that the, the first bit I go back to, you know, that, that in that industry superannuation industry event that the media jumped on, uh, and called a, a cyber attack. 

Mm. If you really break that down, um, which is I think is good to break this down a bit. Is is it was really a fraud event, actually, if you go back into it ’cause no initial systems were actually breached. Right. What it was is they, they basically went through and went through the dark web and they scraped a bunch of usernames and passwords from previous breaches and then use those to log onto portals and transfer, you know, transfer some money out. 

Right. Got it.  

And that’s where like members might have been using the same user and password for some other thing that got breached. And so there’s like a best practice user behavior type point.  

That’s, that’s it. So, so yeah, it’s a couple things. You go, well, you know. Yes, you should have MFA at, login and, and those types of practices. 

And yes. You know, CareSuper’s had that for a very long time in place. Sure. Um, but that’s, but again, I, I don’t see, security to me is not one of those things where it’s a competitive advantage. It’s just what we should do. To be good corporate citizens or, or good, a good, a good trusted partner to our members, right? 

Mm-hmm. So it’s this, there’s an expectation that if we, you’re gonna trust us for your retirement money, we’re gonna secure it for you. Yeah. So it’s not one of those things where in, in my view, securities is something you do and we should be doing, which should be aiming for the best security we can, we can justify putting in. 

Yeah. Um, ’cause obviously it’s a risk-based conversation. I mean, the best security in the world will be I just turn all the computers off Yeah. And unplug them. That’s right. And get a guy with a gun on top and go, that’s it. Come get your data. Right. It, but, but no one can use it.  

The Tesla, the robot that stands in front of your house, holding the gun, protecting your family. 

Yeah.  

It’s interesting you say that. So it’s a cost and risk based balancing act. Yep. But I think also, uh, compliance gives, gives the industry good guidelines. So like APRA with CPS 230 or you know, even the government with Essential 8 and just basic things like maturity level two. Yep. Mandating MFA are all helpful things. 

Yeah, they are. I mean, a APRA has a couple, um, CPS, 234, uh, which is their information security, um, guide guidelines, if anyone wants to go and look at that, it’s on APRA’s website. Uh, CPS 230, uh, which came in from 1st of July. That’s all about third party. Third party and vendor risk. Uh, we also have, um, you, I said Essential Eight, and we also have a lot of super funds use NIST. 

Okay. The industry framework as well to sort of,  

that’s starting to really come to the fore, I think as well.  

Yeah. I mean it, the good thing about NIST is it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the complete lifecycle of cybersecurity. So it goes from the whole what are you doing to, to plan it, to recover it, to monitor it, to, you know, to respond to incidents, which is good. 

Yep. And, and it’s a really, it’s a really easy conversation to have with your, your board and fellow execs ’cause you can talk about what’s on your maturity score. I was really hard to go, well, great, we spent X amount on security. Has that made us any better or not? And you go, well, if you, unless you lose your framework like that, you go, I, I think so. 

Yeah. So it’s good to say yes. We actually did, we had an independent audit come through our, NIST score has gone from, you know, 3 to 3.4. We, what we did is, you know, make up examples. They’re not, they’re not CareSuper’s numbers, but Sure. Um, what, whatever the examples might be, but at least you have a, a number you can link it back to and you can actually show when you break it down, then inside each of the different controls within NIST where your gaps might be. 

Mm-hmm. Which makes it means that was a much more meaningful conversation than, and it’s in language that even non-technical people can understand. Yeah.  

Puts some structure to it, doesn’t it? Yeah, certainly. Yeah, it does. Well look, I mean, there’s, there’s plenty to be, um, mindful of there, right. In which I’m gonna change gears here. 

This is sort of some more personal stuff if I may now. Uh, I’ll be vulnerable myself here, right? These jobs can be stressful, right? That we have. Um, now, clearly today, recording a podcast is nothing stressful about it at all. But the other job, the nine to five job, can be. I remember back in the day I went on a management course when I was working outta the ACT and um, unbeknownst to me, there was a whole segment on meditation. 

And this gentleman got up, he’s about 65, I think at the time. His name was Walter Bellin, and he, he looked 35 straight back, full of energy, et cetera. I thought, where’s this guy get all his energy from? He led us through a meditation class. And I was skeptical at the time. He said, just trust me on this. 

You’re a bunch of young people that think you know everything. Just bear with me here. I’m gonna guide you through this process. And I tell you what it was like taking, I imagine speculatively like taking a drug, right? And at the other end of it. I was refreshed. It’s like I’d had REM sleep and it reduced stress and anxiety market fold, and I’ve taken that through for the rest of my life ever since some 20 odd years ago. 

Where am I going with that? Clearly the job can be stressful, things can wake you up at 2:00 AM How do you manage it? What do you do? Good. Do you have any stress?  

Oh yeah. Plenty of stress. So, you know, so it’s one of those things, you know, I think working in technology and, you know, any technology job especially, um, when you’re looking after a, a large superannuation fund. 

That, you know, you gotta think you’re, you’re 24 hours away from a major crisis, right? Could be. Could be right now. Could be, could be tomorrow. It could be, you know when that phone’s gonna ring And that’s gonna be all, you know, your complete week changes. Mm-hmm. Well, your phone’s off right now. It could be happening right now. 

It could be. It could be, but you know what? That’s okay. Um, but it’s one of those things you saw worked through. So how, how, how I manage that At the end of the day, I, I kind of, you know, a, a long time ago, one, one of my, one of my mentors really re introduced this concept of energy, energy me off what you said. 

So, you know, certain things give you energy. Sleep’s obvious. Um, but that’s a physical, physical energy and you got your emotional energy as well and, and your body throughout the day and throughout the week through different stress situations. You use bits of both, right? Use your physical energy and use your stress, stress, energy. 

So, um, but the trick is how you keep your buckets full. Mm-hmm. And between those two, and there’s different things I do. And look, you know, I find certain things help my stress, energy, and that’s around, you know, exercising. I find if I don’t, if I don’t go to the gym and exercise that, that’s a good release of my stress, energy. 

Oh yes. Um, I also find doing my playing, playing my guitar. Also good stress relief for my energy ’cause because you just have to focus on what I’m doing with the music instead and, and being in a very technical, analytical job, having the chance to go more of my creative side. It’s actually a really nice refreshment. I’m using parts of my brain I wouldn’t normally use.  

If I had have known this, we’d have asked you to bring the guitar on the pod. I don’t think that would’ve been a problem at all. Next time, next time,  

next time. Um, and then the, um, the other thing I like, like doing as well is, is sort of, you know, um, the breathing throughout the day, the small things I do. 

So, you know, there’s certain, certain breathing techniques. They’ve sort of learned over the years, but you sort of can take some deep ’cause, ’cause your brain runs off of very heavily on oxygen, right? Mm. So, and a lot of us breathe wrong. Mm. So when you, until you actually do this, you actually talk to someone about it. 

You don’t realise that we actually all breathe wrong by default and that we actually start to refocus how you should be breathing. Then there’s deep breath in. You actually increase your oxygen right up to, you know, 89% of, of your blood, which is where you wanna try to be. And the more you do that, your brain works faster. 

Um, and that, that’s the technique I use a lot of times. Going to stressful meetings, going to, you know, to board presentations, going to, um, difficult conversations often find that if you, if you sort of brace yourself beforehand and take a few breaths and then, and do those deep breathing techniques, uh, you actually find just a lot more, you’re more calm and the conversation and then afterwards the same thing. 

So it’s kind just different things throughout the day. I also find going for a walk is also helpful. Getting some vitamin D I always try, try, especially in the summer. Mm-hmm. Try to get outside pretty early after waking up. Yep. Um, because it’s one of those things that you, you, your body feels so much better if you get some sun mm-hmm. 

In the first hour, in the morning, um, versus just. And that’s why winter we all a bit depressed. Right?  

Oh, listen, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I, I go out early. I mean, we’ve had torrential rain here in Sydney. I think Melbourne’s had anything like it, but we’ve had it here. We’ve just come through that now. 

And just the difference in starting your day, the sun’s coming up, you’re out on the bike, you have a coffee with your mates, and then you get on with it and go to work. Man, I feel better for that. Yeah, right.  

A hundred percent. A  

hundred percent. It  

took me years to figure that out. And then, and then, you know, you go, you look back now to some things that I, I was stressed and struggling with when I was going up the ranks and I was more junior at the time and if I knew that back then I could help with that. So much better those situations. But yeah.  

Well we talked about that. The advice we would give our younger selves, right as we sit here as aged. Um, are we those guys now? 

We aged, we are those guys now.  

Yeah. You know, I think the, the encouraging thing about that is, uh, just being self-aware and acknowledging that managing stress is a thing. A a  

hundred percent  

like for, I think that we’re allowed to talk about our feelings Jono, we’re allowed to talk about it. We are, you know, for years that just blast through. 

Pressure’s just part of the job, part of being a high performing person. And, uh, and you probably, uh, accidentally have other outlets. You know, some people are lucky to be still playing sport, um, into their thirties and forties and all the rest. And you know, that sort of accidentally happens. But being deliberate about managing stress. 

Uh, is really, really important.  

Agreed.   

 Alright. Well look Simon. So we have our famous quickfire three questions. Yeah. Um, I’m gonna ask you, in fact, we’ll do a back and forth. I’ll do the first one, John, or you can do the next one. Yeah. All right, let’s do it. That’s good. Okay. Here we go, Simon. So, what is the one piece of advice that you would give your past self before taking on a major tech initiative or challenge? 

For me, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all about the people. So, back, back, going back in hindsight when I was younger, it’s, it was all about, you know, I just get a tech out, not understand why people want to use it. You know what, you know, it’s obvious. You just use that, right? It’s gonna make your life better. But then now, now I’m got some more gray hair. 

You kind of realise that, hang on. People aren’t always open to change. That’s say everyone’s personality. Some people are just comfortable what they’re using. Some people are just scared. So, you know, taking it back to the people and going, well, what am I actually trying to solve? How’s this going to help you? 

I think that’s, that’s the advice I would give to anyone. Good advice. All advice yourself, really  

Advice. I love a, I love a people focused answer there as well. With all the tech that we’re embracing. Human beings is still important apparently Jono.  

Yeah. People are naturally resistant to change and uh, and I think technology’s there to help and you need to be able to, uh, stay focused on why you’re implementing certain technology in a business or in, in any setting really. 

And it’s really just to help people do things better.  

Yeah.  

Yeah. Um, great answer. Okay, here’s one. Uh, give us something controversial. Come on. Uh, what’s something you used to believe in tech leadership that you no longer do?  

Uh, that’s, that’s a, that’s a good one. See, I, I think if I was thinking about, if I, thinking about this ob objectively, uh, you know, I, I actually think, you know, that technology itself re really, you know, that, that the technology itself was, was the answer to everything, right? 

When I was more of a younger nerd. I used to think, you know, going back to going what that was, that was what, you know, we, we just put the systems in. We buy more, more buy more tech. Problem solved. Problem solved, right? We throw tech at it that will fix everything, right? You know, used to tinker with coding and electrical, soldering and wiring and robotic, all this kind of stuff. 

Back in, you know, back in the day when computers weren’t as easy as to use as they are now and technology didn’t exist. Um, but you, but you look at, you look at that go, that’s not really the right approach anymore. I don’t think people, people don’t want to go into that, that angle. I don’t think that’s really, really the way they solve problems anymore, either I that, well, it’s a people thing again. 

Right? But it goes back to the process and people, and I think you can think about it. I think it’s just a, it is just a evolution of how humans are. It just protected us for thousands of years for our evolution is that we are resistant to change because that’s what keeps you alive. And dinosaurs are chasing you. 

Right. So, right. Not being curious about going into there or inventing, you know, you can’t just be safe for what you know, and that’s what protects us and keeps us alive. Mm-hmm. As I go back to at the end of the day, you know, I think that was, I was probably naive around how, how I was pre more aggressive, how I threw some of those projects back in the day. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you got a more pragmatic approach now to approaching technology change. Yeah. More of a people first approach. I  

probably didn’t really think about the people really well being honest, burn back and back when I was younger I was kinda like, we’ll just do the technology and we’ll just go, people can suck it up. 

Like that kind of. That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And lots of things failed, right? So lots of mistakes were made. Some, some of those, I realised at the time, some of those, I, I didn’t realise, looking back in hindsight going, gee, I probably didn’t handle that that well. Right. I should, should have dealt with that in a different way. 

But it’s one of those things you, you just don’t realise when you are you’re young and passionate, I guess. Yes. That’s, and go, I just wanna just throw this technology in there so it’s not the Right, right. Look, you know  

what I, I reflect on this too, right? The younger version of myself was just like a steamroller, right? 

And get outta the way. This is what’s happening. Yeah. I think you,  

the younger version, 

you heard me, right? And I think, you know, if we’re in a position now to, um, balance the, the karma out, so to speak and, and help people, then that’s what we should do. It’s all about giving back when giving back. To pay for the sins of our former, I’m speaking for myself younger self. 

Uh, I think, I think you That’s fair. I mean, I think it’s how you, how you mentor the, the next generation coming up. Yeah. You know, the younger Naran’s right, that’s right. Say, say in the workforce, this is how you should approach this. Right. That’s, that’s really what, that’s really what we do now. Like, it’s kind of that mentoring the younger generation coming through, helping them realise that just being a steamroller and throwing technology at something and just pushing it through isn’t, it isn’t gonna end in a good result. 

That’s right.  

Great answer. I love it. Alright, you’re next Naran. 

Okay. So I guess well look leading on, so what would be your gut check for spotting a good partner? And just to be clear, we mean technology partner here. What would be your gut check for spotting a good partner or walking away from a bad one? 

No, I was gonna talk about my wife then Listen. That’s okay.  

We just have to be clear. We’re gonna have to reword the question.  

We might have to, that’s two in a row now. That’s right.  

That’s fine. Look, you know from, from a part I think. Kind of touched on that a little bit before, right. I think, to me, to be honest, it’s, it’s a partner that’s willing to work with you and, and that means I have to give up some concessions. 

They have to get some concessions. ’cause at the end of the day, a partnership’s a two way conversation, two way, you know, you get some vendors to come in, these are our terms, take it or leave it. You know, you get some sometimes, and you can’t be the same as a company, right? This is, that’s this. And that’s the first part. 

And the other bit is you start going through I start to find is also that, you know, what the sales team tells you. And what you actually get Yeah. Is also a really good check around. Is that really a good partner? ’cause generally, if it is, that is very much, pretty much the same. Yeah. So between when you say when it’s not a good partner is when the sales teams come in and sold, you know? 

I don’t know, a Ferrari, you end up with a rusted out Corolla with two wheels and you go, well, you know,  

shout out to Toyota.  

It’s just one of those things you go, it doesn’t quite match up to what you thought you were getting. Yeah. Uh, and that, that’s, that’s when you kinda go, oh, that’s, that’s not really, so it’s, to be honest, it, it’s that integrity, right? 

It’s openness, open conversation. It’s integrity. It’s, it’s having, having open dialogue and being, being able to, um, give and take a bit. Which is a bit like, like being married really anyway, isn’t it?  

Well, allegedly, yeah. It’s supposed to be like that. Well, look, I think, yeah, integrity, I seems probably the key word there, I reckon. 

Um, just be a little bit vulnerable, right? The power of honesty. Why, why not be honest, right? Like if we spoke about this before, like if you’re being asked to do something that’s maybe slightly outta your wheelhouse, call it out. Right. Yep. There’ll be a way to achieve the outcome, but you know, let your customer know that, you know, actually, um, I might be doing this for the first time. 

What’s wrong with that?  

Yeah, that, that’s good. And what I might always do when I have, when I have my meetings with vendors or partners, I always, one of the first questions I always ask is, how am I treat, how am I people treating your people? Mm-hmm. Because it’s a good way to go. ’cause that’s also part of it, right? 

That’s right. How you are here to help me. It’s actually, well, are my people doing it good by you as well. ’cause it’s a two way thing.  

That’s it.  

Yeah. Integrity and honesty, uh, who would’ve thought  

That’s right.  

You know, it’s important. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that’s fundamental to any business relationship. 

Mm-hmm. Um, Naran and I were talking about this in the last episode, but in the context of being an MSP and choosing a technology partner to help you build a solution, uh, to solve a problem for your customer. And there’s a few different lenses on that, but it does come back to that fundamental trust, uh, between the people. 

Yep. Yep. Yeah, percent. Fantastic answer. All right. Thanks Simon. Uh, look, thanks for joining us. It’s been a fantastic conversation. Uh, I’ve learned actually a lot about, uh, superannuation and where it’s headed, and, uh, there’s probably some people listening out there who have learned a little bit more about how, um, to sell stuff to Simon, so they’ll be grateful for that because that’s what he wants. 

That’s what he wants. We’ll put Simon’s number on the, yeah, thank you. Is it gonna be okay? No problem. Um, and look, yeah, fantastic conversation. Uh, obviously an experienced leader in the sector. We love talking to subject matter experts. Really insightful and uh, and it is a high stakes, important sector, important job, technology driven, and, uh, securing the future of Australians. 

So, um, I think underrepresented. So glad to have you with us today. Thank you very much.  

Thank you, Simon. You both. Amazing. Pleasure.   

Okay. Well look, thank you very much everybody for joining us for our second episode of Things, reasons We were of course, joined by Simon. 

Thank you very much Simon. Uh, we would love everybody to subscribe if you haven’t already. We will of course be back with more cut through conversations, uh, filtering out the noise. That’s what’s all about. Driving the decisions for Australian IT leaders like our friend Simon. You will find this everywhere. 

You get your podcasts. On Spotify, on YouTube. We’ll blast LinkedIn. We do want questions. Uh, in fact if we get questions for Simon, we’ll make sure to ask him and get an answer back to you. We love questions. Thanks for joining us.  

Thanks for joining us everybody. See you next time. This was Things Reasons with Naran Jono and  today Simon.