Tech Talks

Harvey Nash

Welcome to Tech Talks (A Podcast about Technology Leaders and Leadership).

We explore the stories behind the most recognisable names in industry and the startups you’re yet to hear from. The innovation, cultural transformation and investment stories driving technology with host David Savage.

If you’re interested in the latest ideas on AI, data, cyber-security this is the show for you. Follow and join the conversation.

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Find out more about our solutions at https://www.harveynash.co.uk/

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Yesterday · 22 min
The Truth About 'Good Enough' AI
Eight years ago, Gene Reich was running an MSP and worried about help desk phishing: callers who weren't who they claimed to be, and sensitive data littered across email and ticketing systems. He and Peter Segerstrom, co-founders of Traceless, now argue the problem has escaped the help desk. In a remote-first world, huge groups of people work with other huge groups, and nobody knows who anyone else is. Add AI-powered social engineering, staff vibe coding their jobs, and a Teams flaw Peter says let attackers impersonate colleagues, and identity becomes everybody's problem. We unpack why people remain the weakest link in the supply chain, why AI may matter more to small businesses than enterprises, and why Gene believes today's AI is already good enough for 90% of users. Then Peter names the conversation nobody is having: a looming crisis of authenticity. Listen before you approve your next password reset. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠⁠Lemzi⁠⁠.
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Wednesday · 31 min
No Time to Mourn: Building a Tech Career Through a War
One morning, Diana Kocheva learns that the classmate she’d sat beside since she was seven has died. There is no time to mourn. There’s work, a podcast to record, and a mother in Zaporizhzhia who needs a generator to get through the winter. Diana, founder of London Tech Community, came to the UK as a Ukrainian refugee in 2022 and now runs a community of thousands of women in tech, while living, as she puts it, between two worlds. If you lead people, some of them are carrying something similar, and it will never show up on a dashboard. David and Diana unpack who gets labelled a refugee, the online pile-on that branded her a “red carpet refugee”, why luck is the only real difference, the defence innovation the West is missing, and why tech should talk far more about art. Press play before your next one-to-one. Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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Tuesday · 27 min
Are You Assembling the Avengers While the Moment Passes?
For his last documentary, David flew a sound engineer and a TV production crew to a dry lake bed in the Nevada desert, just to record his footsteps and a passing car. Four hotel rooms, two cities, one soundscape. Most stories can’t wait for that kind of operation, and most opportunities won’t. Owen Grover, General Manager USA at Nomono, knows the trade-off well: when an interview subject becomes available at the last minute, waiting to assemble the full team can mean missing the moment altogether. It’s a dilemma every tech leader will recognise, whether the prize is a story, a pilot or a product launch. Together they unpack when a lean kit beats a full squad, why video has proved additive rather than a threat to audio, and where AI should stop: the audience and the creators should always be human. Press play before you call in the cavalry. Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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Monday · 21 min
Why I Was Grateful When COVID Killed My Business
In 2020, every bar and restaurant shut, and the social media marketing business Tom Shaw had built for them went with them. With no clients left to answer to, he decided to learn to code. Today, as a tech content creator with 400,000-plus Instagram followers, he gets behind the security at data centres, labs and Formula E’s broadcast operation. But his sharpest lesson isn’t about access. One of his videos hit six million views and won him roughly 1,000 followers; another reached a million and won 40,000. For any leader reporting on reach, that gap should sting. David and Tom unpack why AI has removed the barrier to building but not the risk of shipping, why tech moves faster than society, and why counting watchers is the wrong metric. Press play if your numbers look great and still feel empty. Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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October 23 · 30 min
Why My Investment App Knew I Was on the Phone
Justin Pagano was on a phone call when he opened his investment app, and a banner appeared: we’re not calling you, and we’d never ask for this. No block, no extra step, just a nudge at the exact moment a scam would land. It’s a small thing that raises a big question for every tech leader: when does protection help people, and when does it just get in their way? Justin, Senior Director of GRC Engineering at Vanta, argues that most governance still runs on PDFs and point-in-time snapshots that can’t keep pace with cloud-scale systems or AI. We unpack why risk rarely lands with the business, how layered defences work like seatbelts and airbags, what’s lurking in your shadow AI inventory, and why fixating on risk for its own sake can quietly wreck the outcome you were protecting. Press play if your controls look fine on paper. Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
October 22 · 17 min
Data in Sport: Can Numbers ever Overrule Gut Feeling?
David grabs Will Morgan, Principal Data Scientist at the Rajasthan Royals, on the floor at Data Decoded in Manchester, the day before they share a stage. Will went from 12 years in academia, with a PhD in atmospheric science, to building a year-round analytics function for one of the founding teams of the Indian Premier League (IPL). He explains why data culture in a traditional sport has to come from the top down. That starts with an owner who has a tech background and runs through head coach Kumar Sangakkara, who makes sure the models are part of every recruitment and selection decision. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠⁠Lemzi⁠⁠.
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October 21 · 41 min
The Ad Is Cringe. 300 Million Views Don’t Care.
You watch an ad and wince. It’s clumsy, it’s cringe, and you can’t imagine it converting anyone. Then it racks up 300 million views and converts brilliantly. For Ada Mockute Jaime, Chief Marketing Officer at Nordcurrent, moments like that settled the argument: she is not the customer, and her taste is not the strategy. The stakes reach well beyond gaming. AI now produces ads for a couple of euros each and pushes thousands of new games out every day, so attention goes to whoever reads their audience best, not whoever has the best taste. We unpack how social listening revealed that players felt nostalgia where marketing was selling speed, how one fast-fingered player with a modest following opened up Indonesia, and why she hires for curiosity over specialist skill. If your instincts have ever overruled your data, press play. Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
October 20 · 19 min
Is Your Data Lying to Your Board?
What happens when a prediction lands on a board slide and everyone treats it as a fact? Recorded live at Data Decoded, David sits down with transformation leader and founder Lucy Goudie straight after her talk. Her argument is that truth and untruth now move at the same speed, so organisations that outsource decisions to data are really outsourcing accountability. Lucy explains why uncertainty has to travel with every prediction. She shows how a single unchallenged number can become someone’s ceiling, and why human doubt should be treated as a data point. She also uses David’s Garmin VO2 max to make a point about business: you can’t work on outcomes like time to market directly, only on the behaviours that drive them. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠here⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.
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October 19 · 32 min
My Job Didn’t Exist When I Started Coding
Eight years ago, Janine Luk was teaching herself to code at night and at weekends while working in marketing. The job she does now didn’t exist. Today, plenty of young people hesitate to start, convinced AI will replace software engineers before they get a foot in the door, and most leaders can’t tell them which skills will still matter. Janine, a Senior Software Engineer at Datatonic, has a blunter answer: treat technical skill as the baseline, because everyone applying for your job already has it. The edge is explaining what you built, selling it, and knowing how it makes the business money. We unpack why junior and mid-level engineers miss that, how golf got her into rooms engineers rarely reach, what male allies actually do that helps, and why she posts and walks away. Press play if you hire engineers, or you are one wondering what’s left. WhatsApp us on +447392087344! If you’re heading to Web Summit and looking for a different way to meet attendees, we’re hosting a breakfast run club on Tuesday November 10th at 7am. Come and meet some new, friendly faces: https://luma.com/mpv6bmso Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
October 16 · 33 min
The Truth About the Paper Behind Global Trade
Somewhere in a port right now, a cargo document is being stamped by hand. By the figures Steve Hemmings has seen, between 60% and 80% of global maritime trade is still on paper. That’s not because the technology doesn’t exist, but because people trust the paper. That trust gap is the real story. The industry carrying the global economy is putting serious money into AI that stalls at prototype, because the foundations underneath it (governance, data and change management) were never built. David sits down with Steve Hemmings, Client CTO at Insight, to unpack three things: why maritime fell behind, what shipping could learn from how airlines move your luggage, and his “cart to market” model for spotting who is pulling your transformation forward and who is dragging it back. If you’ve ever bought another tool because nobody used the last one, press play. If you’re heading to Web Summit and looking for a different way to meet attendees, we’re hosting a breakfast run club on Tuesday November 10th at 7am. Come and meet some new, friendly faces: ⁠https://luma.com/mpv6bmso⁠ Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.
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October 15 · 22 min
Do You Know Which of Your Customers Are AI Agents?
A few weeks before this conversation, a global hotel group believed its AI agents were under control: registry, governance, real-time token tracking. Then millions of visits hit its website that nobody could identify. They were personal AI agents, acting for real guests, searching and booking rooms. Turning them away wasn’t an option. The team had 24 hours to decide what to control. Wei Manfredi, SVP of AI and Architecture at IHG Hotels & Resorts, takes David inside that scramble. When an agent scrapes the wrong rate and the booking collapses, who answers to the guest? Why do agents scrape web pages when an API sits ready? And why is so much of what we call AI risk really poor engineering? We also unpack how to turn staff who fear replacement into builders. If agents are already shopping on your site, this is your early warning. If you’re heading to Web Summit and looking for a different way to meet attendees, we’re hosting a breakfast run club on Tuesday November 10th at 7am. Come and meet some new, friendly faces: https://luma.com/mpv6bmso Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
October 14 · 28 min
Should a 16-Year-Old Have to Run His Own Crisis Helpline?
Is AI safety really about existential risk, or about the here-and-now? David Savage reconnects with Gaia Marcus, now Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, five years after they first spoke while she was working on the UK’s National Data Strategy. Gaia shares findings from I Love It, But I Hate It, the Ada and Nuffield Foundation research with 50 young people aged 14–24. The digital-native generation is bucking the usual trend: they are more wary of AI, not less. She also explains why fluency with interfaces is no substitute for social maturity. They discuss the hidden costs of putting AI into real workflows. Ada’s research on social workers using AI transcription found strong enthusiasm, but also inconsistent use, hallucinated records and unresolved questions about liability. They also cover why individually sensible decisions to cut entry-level hiring could create a sector-wide talent crisis. On regulation, Gaia explains the “Swiss cheese” model of layered defences and why middle powers can still set conditions for access to their markets. She also describes how surprised the public is that chatbots aren’t regulated already. She closes with advice for 20-year-olds: critical thinking, broad skills, and an experiment that shows how much human knowledge AI models simply can’t see. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠⁠Lemzi⁠⁠.
October 13 · 28 min
You Can’t Move Fast and Break the Grid
What happens when an AI-first mindset meets critical national infrastructure? David is joined by Berian James, a machine learning and AI product leader whose career runs from payments at Square to supply chain transformation at Maersk, energy trading, and now tem, where he’s helping rebuild how UK businesses and generators buy and sell energy. Berian makes the case that “move fast and break things” simply doesn’t apply when the energy grid is at stake. He explains why risk management, done well, is an engine for growth rather than a cost to be controlled, and how pricing fixed contracts three years out depends on deep regulatory and domain knowledge, not just clever models. David presses him on a question every buyer of AI should be asking: if your provider runs on agents, how can you trust today’s price in two and a half years? They also tackle the jobs question head-on. With graduate roles down by a third since ChatGPT launched, Berian argues that AI-native graduates may actually have a head start, and that today’s shift in engineering is the next leap in abstraction, much like the move from assembly to compilers. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠here⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.
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October 12 · 32 min
Every CEO Is Living Through Y2K Again
Overnight, Neil Fox argues, a developer can become a supervisor of AI agents. That is not a tooling upgrade. It is an identity shift, and most organisations have no plan for it. Neil, Chief Transformation Officer at Artizent, has spent a lifetime in software and now works as much with business leaders as with engineers. He explains why agile teams of seven to nine are shrinking to pods of three, why the bottleneck has moved from writing code to deciding what is worth building, and why treating AI as a time-saver misses its real value: running thousands of experiments at once. We also get into the token budgets CFOs have no idea how to plan, and the question Neil wishes more leaders asked: what does all this do to us as a society? Press play if your job title is about to mean something different. If you’re heading to Web Summit and looking for a different way to meet attendees, we’re hosting a breakfast run club on Tuesday November 10th at 7am. Come and meet some new, friendly faces: https://luma.com/mpv6bmso Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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October 9 · 35 min
Your Agents Are Junior Staff. Who’s Checking Their Work?
At one point, Jenny Larsson was letting AI do so much of her writing that she felt herself getting worse at it, until the words no longer sounded like her. So she pulled back. That small retreat sits at the centre of a much bigger problem. Executives talk about AI constantly, she says, yet almost entirely as a productivity play, while customer growth goes undiscussed and entry-level roles quietly disappear. If fewer juniors climb the ranks, who becomes the expert capable of judging an agent’s work? Jenny, former global CIO for specialty lines at Intact Insurance and now an adviser to executive teams placing their AI bets, unpacks her human-AI delegation ladder, research suggesting 70% of AI success is process, people and change, and why your visibility inside AI answers is the new search problem. Press play before you hand over another decision you can no longer check. On today’s show we also talk about “I love it, but I hate it”; a piece of research from Nuffield Health and the Ada Lovelace Institute into the impact of digital on young people. Read the report here. Follow us on Instagram! Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
October 8 · 21 min
Is Your AI Pilot Too Snazzy to Survive Production?
What happens when any employee can launch an agent that updates a thousand records before IT even knows it exists? Recorded during Dreamforce week in San Francisco, David Savage sits down with Frank Klensch, who leads technical architecture and engineering for Slalom's enterprise applications team, after more than a decade in and around Salesforce. With IT budgets under intense scrutiny and bottom-up AI experimentation spreading through organisations, Frank argues that the companies getting real value aren't the ones with the flashiest pilots. They're the ones that treat autonomy as something an agent earns. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠here⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.
October 7 · 30 min
The Green Premium: Why Climate Tech Has to Wash Its Own Face
David Savage is joined by Matt Bird, CEO and co-founder of Supercritical Solutions, for a candid conversation about what it really takes to build a hardware deep tech business in the UK. Matt explains why he spends 80% of his time fundraising, and why his Series A relationship with Toyota Ventures and Shell Ventures took three years to land. He also explains why the UK is a brilliant place to start a company but a hard place to scale one. They also tackle the boardroom reality of climate tech. Matt describes a world where "net zero" has become a dirty word, and where the green premium is a non-starter with finance directors. In that world, the only sustainable path is technology that wins on pure economics. Matt also shares how Supercritical hires for fit before technical skill, and why the company invests in interns and school outreach for a generation struggling to get on the ladder. Finally, he explains why tritium, the scarce fuel that powers most fusion reactors, is the fusion story more people should be talking about. David would love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. To do that, just click ⁠here⁠. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.
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October 6 · 26 min
Is Rewarding AI Spend the Dumbest Idea Ever?
Last year, an IT leader told his C-suite the only thing he could guarantee about their new AI tooling was that they'd change their minds within six months. It took three. Now it's budget season again, and boards are demanding AI savings yesterday. Jim Daniel, Senior Vice President of Enterprise IT and Business Operations at Smarsh, argues that pressure is exactly why so many enterprises are deploying AI without governing it, and why so much of the output is slop rather than value. At Dreamforce, we unpack why the model is no longer the limiting factor, how a switch to usage-based pricing changed who gets access, why vendors quietly switching on AI is the governance gap nobody budgets for, and why he's relieved he no longer owns security. If your AI spend is climbing faster than your confidence in what it returns, press play. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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October 5 · 25 min
What are Salesforce Investing Their Cash In?
For years, Nowi Kallen's team searched for the legal software platform an entire industry would standardise on, and never found it. Then AI shifted the ground, and the bet suddenly made sense. Recorded at Dreamforce, David asks Nowi, Partner at Salesforce Ventures, how he decides which founders and which spaces are worth backing when AI is rewriting the rules every quarter. We unpack why AI-native founders skew younger, why the best of them hire for where the business will be in 12 months, why "a few years out" is no excuse to wait on space technology, why Europe's founders are building everywhere but still lack the compute, and what ambient agents will mean for your working day. If you want the next five years through the eyes of someone paid to bet on them, press play. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.
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October 2 · 39 min
Meet the Company on a Mission to Inspire a Million Children to Read
Every time the writer pitched one more personalised detail, the CTO's workload grew exponentially: hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of artwork permutations for one children's book. Now AI has made that product easier to build and the job harder. Mark Daniell (writer and education lead) and Alex Pond (CTO), co-founders of You Are The Star, turn children into the heroes of personalised sports stories, in print and in a digital library. Alex argues that AI hasn't removed work; it has stripped out the routine and left a relentless stream of high-stakes calls on risk, compliance and accuracy, with children on the platform and rights holders scrutinising every frame. We unpack why they build artwork from 3D models rather than generating it, why a printed book still beats an app, and why Mark stopped blaming the phone. WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344 Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services. The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.

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