Glen McCracken

About

I help businesses work out what comes next - and build the products, teams and technology to get there.Over 30 years, I’ve worked through acquisitions, digital transformations and the challenges of scaling. I enjoy connecting where a business wants to go with what its customers need and what its people need to make it happen.My background spans strategy, product, technology and operations. At PwC in the late 1990s, I was applying AI to forestry valuation and pricing alongside M&A modelling. Over the following decade at RHE, I built machine learning and analytics solutions spanning fraud detection, recommendation engines, image classification and decision support.I later led technology through Eden Park’s Rugby World Cup redevelopment as CTO, and led a 100-person technology and delivery organisation through Yellow’s shift from print to digital.I spent ten years at ION, building ION Analytics’ first central data, analytics, AI and automation function and leading post-acquisition integration involving Dealogic, Acuris, Selerity and Backstop. The integration work reduced non-personnel operating costs by 50% through platform consolidation, supplier rationalisation and simpler operations.That work meant getting into the detail of different businesses: understanding what made each valuable, what could work better together and where change would be harder than the plan suggested.Most recently, as CPTO at Lantum, I led product and technology teams scaling workforce technology across the NHS, helping shift from service-supported delivery to scalable platform delivery.A question I keep coming back to is how a business grows beyond the individual effort of its best people. How do you turn their expertise into products customers want, platforms others can build on and ways of working that help the whole organisation get better?That takes choices about where to invest, what to standardise and what to stop doing. It also takes trust. People need to understand where the business is going and have enough room to help it get there.I write about those choices: building and scaling businesses, product and platform strategy, and what AI changes in practice - from how work gets done to who gets to make decisions. I bring the perspective of someone who has had to deliver the change and live with the results.I’m always glad to compare notes with people building businesses or leading them through change, and welcome conversations about speaking, podcasts and interviews.