The Spotlight Series - Don’t just survive, thrive!
The Spotlight Series - Don’t just survive, thrive!
Mastering the Art of Tech Leadership and Innovation with Andrew Beitz
Embark on a captivating journey with Andrew Beitz, a tech guru who has boldly navigated the ever-evolving landscape of the technology industry for three decades, and now sits with us to peel back the layers of leadership, innovation, and strategy. Andrew imparts his wisdom on how to strike that elusive balance between advancing a career and nurturing a life, all while sharing his rise from a curious software engineer to a visionary executive. This episode isn't just a trek through Andrew's career—it's a roadmap for embracing the discomfort that comes with growth and the thrill of leading teams to uncharted success.
As we peel back the veneer of corporate transformation, Andrew offers an insider's look at the trials and triumphs faced when reengineering a company's soul. Through the lens of his experience with Vasco Data Security and other global ventures, he reveals the foundational pillars of fostering an effective team culture: shared vision, celebrating quick victories, and the magic of mentoring. Andrew's anecdote about applying his tech leadership finesse to Major League Baseball strategy is a testament to the versatile nature of true leadership. For anyone at the helm of a tech team or simply aspiring to lead, this discussion is a treasure trove of strategies, anecdotes, and insights that transcends industries.
Welcome to Series 6 of the Spotlight Series Don't you Survive Thrive. This podcast was born out of the 2020 pandemic and has been through various iterations. In Series 6, I talk to senior tech leaders about their impressive career journeys. Talk to senior tech leaders about their impressive career journeys. My name is Nicholas Steele, founding director of JJP Talent Solutions, an Australian IT recruitment business. I've had the privilege of talking to numerous tech leaders and founders over the last 25 years and love sharing their stories and insights. I hope you enjoy listening. I'm delighted to introduce Andrew Beats. Andrew has extensive leadership experience growing global tech companies such as Next DC, as well as building a variety of new business ventures. Building a variety of new business ventures. Andrew, thank you for joining me on season six, episode six of the Spotlight series.
Speaker 2:Don't you Survive Thrive?
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me Nicola, my pleasure Andrew, and it's fantastic to see you again. So first of all, give me an overview of your career to date, yep.
Speaker 2:So I've been an executive manager and a leader in technology entrepreneur in scaling global businesses today, both on the ASX and the NASDAQ. I have over 30 years' experience in managing and growing companies. I've lived overseas, worked overseas globally, you know, worked in both start-ups to meet the large organisations and also worked in difficult, different vertical markets as well, such as the telecommunications to the data centers, to exploration of mining, to health technology and, even more recently, fintech space as well.
Speaker 1:um also got some board advisory um where I've done for global technology companies as well fantastic and you've got such an amazing uh breadth and depth of experience there, and over 30 years been a little superficial. How have you managed to stay so youthful with all these amazing and challenging times on a global scale? It's incredible.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the compliment. I'm not sure if I might get the exercise in.
Speaker 1:Well, it is important. It's one of the pillars of life, isn't it? Getting movement in nutrition, sleep, all the things that your mum told you to do, they make sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good to have a life balance in everything you do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Excellent. Well, it's certainly paying off and having that successful career at the same time, career at the same time. So let's think back 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:What attracted you to the technology industry back then? Yeah, I started my career as a software engineer, where I had the passion and love for just building things, and today I apply technology lens over a business to ad bay, which is sort of what you would know as a big kid in the store playing with his favorite toys um, yeah, the best way to describe it, I think absolutely excellent.
Speaker 1:Um and what back 30 years ago. So what were you programming in then?
Speaker 2:C and C++. I was educating developers on C how to use C++ back then in a startup company, so going from, as people might know, in software development from a procedural to an object oriented language. So it was always a convincing thing of how to get them across to C++.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that was what I first recruited in was purely C and C++ software engineers back in London in the early 2000s and there was enough work for two consultants in that company. I mean, if you had just focused on C and C++ in Brisbane at the moment, there just wouldn't be enough work to do that. But it was huge at that particular time and it's interesting going from that more in-depth and then seeing that broader lens that you do today. So you started as a software engineer and then you moved into a leadership role. So how did you secure that role and what would your advice be to people that are trying to make that leap to that next level?
Speaker 2:It was quite early in my career actually. I was headhunted for this role, uh, where my first initial career was at citr, and then I moved over to uh, this lead role in fraunhofer I easier in germany. So I was leading a team quite a bright team over there in Germany to commercialise products and services and I was also with the role partnering with lots of technology businesses and representing the whole of software engineering community at the international standards meetings as well globally at the international standards meetings as well globally. So it was my first leadership role and really growing from there and opening my eyes up to the rest of the world. It was a sense of maturity when you really do start to live and work overseas and starting to do business at a different level. That matures you as an individual.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Were you living in Germany at that particular point?
Speaker 2:I was living in a small town called Kaiserslautern.
Speaker 1:Okay, whereabouts is that?
Speaker 2:It's near Frankfurt, near Heidelberg, if you know the map in Germany, if you were to put the centre of Europe, that's where Kaiserslautern is. It's the centre of all of Europe there.
Speaker 1:I will take a look, because I did a geography degree, so if there's an opportunity to look at a map, I'm in there. I get really excited about maps, so I shall be doing that.
Speaker 2:And if people follow football football, it's the number one full sport team. Uh in, well, it was, but it always shifts between bavaria, munich and perfect, yes, excellent.
Speaker 1:My the extent of my football knowledge is watching ted lasso, so we'll, we'll move on from. It's a great program, by the way, um, and in terms of that, advice to Peter starring leaders yes, so you've got that global experience. But whether it be on a global scale or on a more um locally, what would your advice be? How did you get that? Role and what have you?
Speaker 2:I would say and I've always said this be comfortable being uncomfortable um do something that scares you sometimes, and it's like it's really about putting yourself out there, um finding what you're passionate about and really um being that leader and that voice that inspires other people, um to to go on to do better things absolutely so being comfortable, being uncomfortable and um and seeing that potential in leading those people as well.
Speaker 1:So that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:And also in my career. I've done an MBA at the University of Queensland and with that I was always wondering what is it that I don't know? But it's also about knowing you, know, being. You don't have to know everything. You know. Having a team that can get you there across it is the most important thing. Obviously, you need to know, and I think what the NBA does is ground you in terms of all areas but I think it's about knowing those, letting your team, inspiring your team, leading your team in a way that they can do bring out the best in them individually, absolutely, and that's so important as well not just one size fits all.
Speaker 1:So you have worked on a variety of innovations and spearheaded a variety of innovative products. What would you say has been the most exciting one that you've developed?
Speaker 2:I've been fortunate enough to be on lots of exciting innovation and I always like being on that bleeding edge technology where you can shift the company to the next level and deliver on new revenue and EBITDA growth.
Speaker 2:So some examples of those ones have been, for example, vasco's Proving your Identity it's in most banking and financial institutions around the world still today and they shifted itself from that hardware tokens of proving yourself, you know, with something you have, to software-based tokens, which now what we find is OTPs on mobiles. That allowed us to reach those economies of scale With Next. Dc, which is, as everyone knows, on the ASX, is a successful data centre company that's growing globally now. It was more than just hosting your infrastructure within the data centre. It was about connectivity and having everything as a service. So it was a proven business model there. And then the touch to pay more recently, where we're changing the way that customers experience for merchants itself, where, instead of doing payments behind a counter in the store, now they can actually walk around the merchants around their store and make payments on a mobile device. So we're turning mobile devices into payment terminals and it's a real game changer today in getting out innovative solutions quicker in the market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gosh, that's incredible, isn't it? I mean, we didn't really have these smartphones until 2007. Was the iPhone, wasn't it? And now can you imagine a life without that device? I know, sometimes it can.
Speaker 2:My kids can't even think of a life without internet and it's like and I know that it's so embedded in us today that technology the internet and now mobile devices that it's a great technology that's really scaled around the world.
Speaker 1:It is incredible, although you want to be leading it rather than you being a slave to it as well, which is that's a whole nother topic of conversation. So those are really exciting innovations and it's. I remember I arrived in Australia 12 years ago this week and I actually the office that I was in when I first moved to Australia was at the back of the next DC building on Wharf Street.
Speaker 2:On Wharf Street. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's amazing. That's the data. Yeah, little town of Brisbane because I'd come from the big smoke in London has the startup ecosystem and the success stories that have come out over the last 10 plus years and you've been working and growing some of those. It's been incredible.
Speaker 2:So it's an exciting time to be in Brisbane and Queensland and Australia, yeah it is I can't say enough how much it's and all businesses should be thinking globally. They have a presence, and what presence they can make globally is an important thing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and actually talking about that startup ecosystem. So it's not without its challenges what attracts you to working in startups, whether they be early stage or more established scale-up type organisations.
Speaker 2:There's always a buzz in starting up a new business, building something from the ground up, finding a product market fit to scale that company itself, and I've always loved that part of the challenge in the market itself. I started my career at a start-up company in Brisbane called CITR. It was a handful of people with UQ seed funding that we grew from you know those handful of people to over 200 people globally. So it was in the telecommunications business focusing on network management. Very bright people in the company itself and it's such a great success story of what they did there at CITR.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. So when was that like the turn of the century? Sorry, that's what my children say. Oh, is that the turn of the century, Mum?
Speaker 2:Are you giving one away? Was that like the late?
Speaker 1:90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, yeah, in that period.
Speaker 1:So it was an exciting time, pardon.
Speaker 2:It was an exciting time there and I loved that whole start-up. I think that's what drove my initial passion and being in that company, in that start-up space to really see the scale. And we did have growing pains and things like that as as building up the company, but overall we had really good people that really drove the success of that business today, uh. So I think it was a great introduction for me coming out uh of um you know my course and things like that, and going straight into it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I mean I don't think there was even the phrase start-up at that particular period in time. That's developed since then and did you kind of fall into it rather than join it by design and realise it was the right place for you?
Speaker 2:That's an interesting question because I actually was looking for a software engineering firm and I had previously. If people know Brisbane, well, there was a SciTech here and I had always worked every vacation from my first year of uni I worked at SciTech and I just every year I worked there and things like that was a great introduction SciTech and I wanted to make a make sure that I focused here in Brisbane initially and a lot were taking roles in Sydney and Melbourne and Sydney and Melbourne were tech hubs and spruces back then, but now I think Brisbane's come of age and it's really starting to prove like Next.
Speaker 2:DC is a great example and there's a lot of other examples there of technology start-up companies that have grown to be very successful both on the ASX and outside.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And before we started the podcast, we were talking about an event I've been to last night, about Antler and the venture capitalists, and what they were saying is Queensland is a really exciting time, one of the people being well educated and having really strong universities, like UQ, as you mentioned. So the wealth of talent and, of course, the weather and the lifestyle is a very attractive opportunity to bring people in here. I love them.
Speaker 2:Just on that note. I love travelling overseas and I love meeting different people and working with different people overseas. But I come back here and think how lucky you know after living overseas and things. It's great to be back here in Australia, let alone Brisbane, but it's a great environment here in Australia and I do want to say that you can make it successful here as a leader in this country.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It is a fabulous place. Also, life isn't life without challenges. It can't all be sunshine and an amazing lifestyle. So what would you say has been the biggest challenge that you've faced in your career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say I was appointed as the GM of Vasco Data Security and this was over 10 years ago itself, where I had to come in and make some major changes to the company to get releases out, to make sure that we get productivity back online and to deliver results in a market. So it was a real cultural shift and a transformation for the business. So you know, really what I was doing is bringing people on a journey that had a shared vision we had and really it was about making those initial changes and getting early runs on the board to be successful and it did know it was very profitable. It's still going today. It's very much a great success story in terms of changing the company culture around by having that vision and shared institution. And those people that came on the journey with me continued eight years on with the company and continued to be very successful. So I was really happy with the talent pool that was there and everyone that participated in there, obviously much brighter than I was.
Speaker 1:So was that very much about changing hearts and minds and bringing everybody on the journey that that was the kind of challenge at that particular time.
Speaker 2:It was driving a roadmap, having a roadmap understanding what the vision was for the company in terms of where we wanted to go as an authentication type company, getting releases, putting in systems and processes that had a framework where we were delivering quality products into banking and financial institutions today. So that very much was instilled. You know that was a real cultural shift in terms of move the company.
Speaker 1:So the cultural challenge and I guess obviously the technical challenge as well, and you have had an extensive career in leadership. What would you say is really an overlooked skill to be a successful leader, particularly in a startup scale up environment?
Speaker 2:I always think leadership is about inspiring people to bring out the best in them. So I always think of it having a vision and values that in the business, that everyone's on the same journey and everyone understands where they're playing. If you've got good talent, then that is the. They come on, they understand where they're going and people come into an organisation wanting to do the right thing, wanting to know where their place is and how they can, how they're contributing to the overall success of the company.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Making a difference. So making a difference, making a difference on a scale within the company and then the world at large as well, whether it be locally, nationally, internationally, etc. Coming back to you, andrew, you are clearly a very busy man and have had a lot of success over the last 30-plus years. What are your top three productivity hacks, would you say?
Speaker 2:I would say, you know, for productivity it's all about, first of all, getting the right team. You know they have to share that passion, um, and then you should be, uh, letting them do what they do best, um. So getting the right team is the number one, um, and be a leader that inspires them each day. You know, uh, that they understand what they're supposed to be doing, what are the goals, what are their OKRs? You know that they have to reach. What are the things that they have to achieve and that's achievable in a way that they can aspire to get to that deliverable itself. And then I always think the last thing is about productivities is always having one-on-ones and mentoring. One-on-ones is just a check-in regularly to see where they're at, see what's blocking them, see what they can do to help them, and mentoring is something where they feel like they're growing in the organisation and they're achieving.
Speaker 2:So there's been examples of that where I've instigated mentoring in a number of organisations and it's had such a profound impact on the individuals that a lot of them still reach out to me today and say you know, mentoring has done a lot for me to grow and, as a result, I'm also a UQ MBA mentor. I'm an ambassador to the Bell Society at UQ and I love that experience of giving back and also hearing the stories that they do out there today.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, and there's very much a central theme with regards to all of those, and it's all about people.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:So it's not technology. I know your passion is technology, but at the end of the day it's people that are at the centre of everything, and being people-centric, it's a common theme.
Speaker 2:I have a love and a passion for technology, but it is the people, and it is the people that bring, is the people bringing up the best in a organisation, and you cannot achieve without really good people in the organisation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And my last question tell me something, andrew, that is unusual or surprising about you.
Speaker 2:Okay, unusual or surprising about you? Okay, um, I had the fortunate case to work on a business strategy for the major league baseball in the us uh-huh was walton consulting in philadelphia.
Speaker 2:um, I was able to see many of the places and baseball rings out there itself, but I applied a different business and a different lens and framework to provide a strategy to grow their business with a team. And it was a great experience for me of taking something so left field excuse the pun and applying it to my knowledge in that industry itself. So I've always loved that sort of experience of having something left field and being able to apply it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I tell you what's quite interesting about that. So you didn't have any experience of baseball at all. Was it baseball or basketball?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was baseball, and I'm not a good pitcher.
Speaker 1:I just gotta put that out there but it's been football, but not well, it's funny because it reminds me. Have you watched Ted Lasso?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a similar thing that he had no experience of football, as in soccer, but it was his leadership that made the difference there. So it's a similar kind of theme and comes back to the people as well. Um, I could talk about ted lasso all day. I've watched it twice and I still feel sad when it finishes. Well, andrew, thank you very much for sharing your stories and insights and everything. Is there anything else that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:Look, I'd just like to say for everyone out there, it's an exciting time that we're in right now and out there it's an exciting time that we're in right now as a society, we've never been more connected in the world than today. Technology is an enabler and it adds value to all businesses and in our decade, we're going to see a fundamental shift in technology at a macro level. You know we're already seeing that generative AI, chat, gbt, you know going out there and everybody's even including it now in their everyday work, you know to. We're also looking at another shift in digital assets, the decentralised payments out there. So you know, from a macro level, that's going to be an important thing.
Speaker 2:And also there's the war on cyber security that's happening right now. So that's in everyone's mind is how we play on that. And lastly, there's the quantum computing that's having. It will have a major shift when it comes out to the way we do things today. So there are a number of major technology shifts on the AI, digital payments, to those security and in the area of quantum computing that will have a profound impact on our decade. So my last thought is no matter what business you're in, there's never been a better time to innovate, so I'd just like to end with those words itself Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, absolutely, and the rate of change is phenomenal. It's absolutely incredible and all that impacts. If you go along for the ride rather than being left behind, you can be driven by that success as well. Well, andrew, thank you very much. It's been fabulous to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe rate and review. The Don't Just Survive Thrive podcast is part of the Spotlight series, which includes the YouTube channel Spotlight on Software Development. If you want more insights into the software industry, particularly purpose-led tech startups and scale-ups, then subscribe to this channel. Thank you for listening. Until next time.