Finance Monthly CEO Awards 2018 Edition

FINANCE MONTHLY CEO AWARDS 2018 42 UNITED KINGDOM www.finance-monthly.com JOHN OWEN Group CEO, Mastek www.mastek.com ABOUT MASTEK John Owen is the CEO of Mastek. Based in London, UK, Mastek has come a long way, just like the sophisticated technology solutions that it builds. Evolving over the course of three decades from a traditional offshore, Indian IT services provider; today Mastek, is an enterprise digital transformation solutions provider delivering mission critical applications for tier one customers including H.M Government in the UK and other Fortune 2000 global companies. Mastek operates out of 11 locations across the UK, US and India. Since John’s appointment in November 2016, Mastek has enjoyed strong growth with revenues up 78%, EBITDA up 154% and employee numbers increasing by over 50% taking the total number of ‘Mastekeers’ to over 2,000 and counting. What were your goals on joining Mastek? I was appointed CEO in 2016 as part of the Board’s strategy to reposition Mastek from a traditional IT services company into a global leader in enterprise digital transformation. This strategy also involved me succeeding the Promotor and previous CEO, Sudhakar Ram who moved to Vice Chairman and MD, which has been great for continuity and helped fast-track my knowledge. It also included moving our global HQ from Mumbai to London to better reflect where we secure the majority of our revenues. For an Indian listed company, this was a bold move to enable Mastek to respond faster to the dynamic and fluid business requirements that drive the digital agenda. Mastek had historically done a fantastic job engineering enterprise level, mission critical software but hadn’t grown in the way you would have expected. I saw an organisation with everything it needed to grow and ride the digital wave by differentiating itself from the larger legacy IT service providers whose fundamental business models will struggle under such a paradigm shift. My job was simply to put in place the vision, strategy and execution discipline to allow Mastek to fulfil its true potential. We start from a fantastic position and having built start-ups previously, here at Mastek we have all the fundamentals in place: cash, capability, people, customers and an under-served growth market…we just needed to build the flawless execution culture which is within our control and is what we’re doing. What have been Mastek’s biggest achievements historically? Since entering the UK in 1992 I’d highlight the innovative and impactful work we’ve done delivering critical national infrastructure projects including building the largest data warehouse in Europe for the UK National Health Service (NHS) and helping to improve commuter journey times and reduce congestion levels through the London Congestion Charge implementation. Both these projects were delivered on time and budget and to exacting quality standards and showcase the software engineering talent inside Mastek. How is Mastek supporting organisations as they respond to the challenges of digital transformation? Simply put we help organisations in one of three ways: We help get troubled projects back on track To illustrate this I can share the example of how we helped a major UK retailer