Steve Williams, corporate head of IT at Sunderland City
Council, was driven to a career in IT more by his desire to
practise German, than his interest in technology.
But his first job at a German IT supplier laid down the
groundwork for a high-flying career which propelled him to the head
of Sunderland City Council's IT, in charge of an annual budget of
£8m.
In 1987, at the age of 24, Williams moved to Bremen to take up a
position at Allgeier Computer, a supplier of IT systems to
construction companies.
He persuaded his employer to give him a position as a systems
consultant, working with customers to change their business
processes.
This was an important position as customers would only sign-off
IT contracts once suppliers had successfully re-engineered their
business processes.
Two years later, as a 26-year-old, Williams was asked by
Allgeier to conduct a five-week feasibility study for a new
business in southern California.
Williams got the job because he was flexible enough to move,
whereas other employees at the same level had family
responsibilities.
"The hardest part was trying to persuade the Germans to bend
the software for the American market, rather than bending the
American market for the benefit of the Germans," he said.
When he returned to the UK in the same year, Williams joined ICI
Fibres, one of the business divisions of the chemicals company in
Harrogate.
Over the next 10 years, Williams worked in both business
analysis and IT management roles for ICI Fibres and another arm of
the company, ICI Acrylics.
The experience helped him to learn what information managing
directors needed from IT to run their businesses well.
"Today that type of system would be called an executive
dashboard, but in 1993 it was a little more rudimentary than that,"
he said.
Williams left ICI to join Viasystems, a US-headquartered
telecoms equipment business operating in a fiercely competitive
market.
"You would have thought the shift from private sector to public
would be the big change, but the biggest shift of culture was from
ICI to Viasystems," he said.
The equipment company's market became so competitive by
late-2001 that the supplier relocated its operations to China,
cutting short Williams' first stint as an IT director.
The following spring he found his second IT director role at
retail healthcare start-up The Health Clinic.
Unfortunately, the company went into administration later the
same year. With a wife and child to support, Williams' work
priorities had changed.
He had settled in the North East. His wife was from Sunderland
and he found work with Newcastle-based executive coaching business
Sentient.
Williams' big break came when Sunderland City Council's IT
director left to join a Canadian software supplier.
By then Williams had built up the expertise and experience
needed to manage an IT department with an £8m budget and he was
quickly snapped up as corporate head of ICT.
CV: Steve Williams
- 2003- Sunderland City Council - Corporate head of ICT
- 2002-2003 The Health Clinic - Systems director
- 1999-2002 Viasystems - European director of information
systems and services; group planning manager
- 1989-1999 ICI Acrylics/ICI Fibres - Finance, planning and IT
manager; executive information systems team leader; business
planning manager; team leader; training manager; business
analyst
- 1987-1989 Allgeier Computer Systems - consultant
- 1985-1986 Mercedes-Benz UK Organisation - analyst.