Mike McEwan
Coronavirus Countermeasures – a “Defence in Depth” strategy
While guidance has been issued on defensive measures such as lockdowns and social distancing, there is a need for more guidance on counter measures that could be taken to control - and ultimately eradicate - the virus, in advance of vaccines being rolled out...
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Application Development for Ethereum
While blockchain technology is poised to break into the mainstream, few in the mainstream are positioned to benefit from it. Those who are prepared will become the new giants of the global economy. Those who are not will have their kodak moment. There are numerous sources of information on blockchain – few of them give the uninitiated reader the guidance required to break into the inner circle and become a beneficiary of blockchain. This paper gives practical pointers, and aims to leave the reader standing on the first step of the path to business turnaround through blockchain, using Ethereum as the practical example...
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A Leadership Journey: The Sporting Years (Part 2 - Belfast 4 Nations)
As noted earlier, Scotland was a no-show at the 4 Nations in 2008 (so by definition, it was a 3 Nations). I had been invited to go, but it was clear that it was just because of my previous success, and I had too many other things to address that year, so I said no...
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A Leadership Journey: The Sporting Years (Part 1)
My sport is fencing and it’s the best sport in the world...
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A Leadership Journey: The Working Years (Part 4 - Production Implementation Team)
After the jubilation of RBS2GSI, attention returned to the work to get the NatWest business onto the GSI systems, along with the Group level operations. There was further churn in senior levels, most of which should feature in the stories of other leadership journeys, and not this one...
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A Leadership Journey: The Working Years (Part 3 - RBS2GSI)
Given the basic premise of the takeover, the teams from the RBS heritage always knew that the first step of the entire programme was to provide the scaled-up environment in production, designed to be capable of supporting multiple brands with the same underlying set of systems, and proven to be effective by running the existing RBS business on the new environment...
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A Leadership Journey: The Working Years (Part 2 - NatWest Integration)
It took another couple of years before I started to understand that I was on a leadership journey, and I needed to make more conscious efforts to do something about it. Again, motivation came first...
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A Leadership Journey: The Working Years (Part 1 - Year 2000)
I had the benefit of working at RBS when a lot of good things were happening, and received high quality training and experience that saw me grow from a focus on testing and release management, to managing a portfolio of projects and programmes that took up 10% of the total budget for the Development organisation. In that time, I learned that effective leadership required me to have motivation and vision, and to develop the skills to inspire and motivate others to achieve their best...
LinkA Leadership Journey
My priority was doing the best I could, not leadership, and I was a bit wary of those who were keen to be the one in charge. I soon learned I sometimes had to be in charge to achieve the best, and eventually learned that leadership is a journey, and one which has an end – the point where others take over and continue on their journeys...
Link“an extremely accomplished Programme Manager with a very strong delivery focus.”
Paul Kensit, Programme Manager, RBS Group
“willingness to lead, mentor and guide individuals to greater achievement than they thought possible.”
Paul Garbett, Senior Test Manager, Sopra Newell & Budge