CIO interview: Mark Ridley, Reed.co.uk

Mark Ridley is approaching his final few weeks as director of technology at Reed.co.uk, yet his next destination is far from clear. After working for the recruitment company for more than 18 years, Ridley was not keen on the idea of finding a job before moving on. 

“The business almost feels like family – I didn’t want to be scurrying off for interviews,” he says, suggesting a stealth-like approach to job-hunting would have been dishonest. When it came to handing in his notice, Ridley was, once again, keen to avoid being disingenuous. 

He had an upfront conversation with the managing director to explain his plans and his reasoning. “I’ve been here for so long, and had so much freedom and responsibility, that it felt like the most noble thing to do,” he says. 

Now – almost two decades after joining the firm – Ridley is set to strike out on his own. Here, he tells Computer Weekly how he came to that decision, and talks about his remaining challenges and future priorities. 

Making the decision to leave 

Ridley started working for Reed as a web developer in 1997. He wrote a large proportion of the active code that allowed consultants to host job vacancies on the firm’s website for the first time. Ridley was quickly exposed to new areas as he helped build the organisation’s online offering, Reed.co.uk. 

“I went from coding, to server administration, to outsourcing and on to building a team,” he says. “I was self-taught and made an awful lot of mistakes, but I was part of a supportive environment that allowed me to make crazy decisions.” 

“I need to scare myself. I don’t want to get comfortable or complacent. The sense of freefalling I have at the moment is really exciting”

When he joined, the Reed.co.uk web operation was part of sister company Reed’s in-house IT team. The startup became a separate business in 2007. Reed.co.uk now employs more than 350 workers and features vacancies from more than 25,000 recruiters a year, including private and public sector employers. 

Ridley says his decision to leave was, in a large part, prompted by his own analysis of the firm’s executive structure. In September 2015, Reed’s managing director asked Ridley to have a think about what his own role should encompass going forwards. “I wanted to take on a role that was best for the business, rather than something that just worked at a personal level,” he says. 

Ridley’s analysis of executive positions prompted a period of self-reflection, during which time he realised it was time for a change. “The team and the company is in a very strong position now,” he says. “I need to scare myself a little bit more. I don’t want to get comfortable or complacent. The sense of freefalling I have at the moment is really exciting.” 

Building a new management structure 

As part of his analysis of executive positions last year, Ridley researched C-suite roles in companies of a similar size to Reed.co.uk across various sectors. Most firms, he found, have about five or six C-suite roles, plus additional non-executive positions. 

As well as the usual management positions, such as operations, finance and human resources, Ridley discovered company-specific roles, such as commercial or innovation officer. 

He took this information and, alongside the operations board, matched these C-suite positions to the various tasks in his own company. The process identified about 150 different responsibilities within Reed.co.uk, which Ridley distilled into 30 specific work categories. These categories were then assigned to potential C-suite positions. 

“What became clear to me was that there are two senior roles associated to IT at our firm,” says Ridley. “One is a product-focused position, looking after the development team and the engineering of Reed.co.uk. The other executive role is connected to the operations of the business, such as agile development.” 

It is this change – and the split in business IT between products and operations – that leads Ridley to conclude that now is a good time to move on. “With the changes we’re making, my role is splitting in half,” he says. “I took a decision not to apply for either position. I’ve been here for 18 years and I know I’d be constantly interfering in the other half if I took on one of the roles.” 

Pushing responsibility for IT to the rest of the business 

When it comes to major achievements, Ridley says the firm has tried hard to push as much IT ownership as possible to individual lines of business. Rather than IT implementing and running systems, the decentralised approach taken by Reed.co.uk means business heads are responsible for the technology they buy.

“In a traditional procurement model, IT doesn’t know the value of the technology it buys and the line of business doesn’t understand the cost,” he says. 

“With the changes we’re making, my role is splitting in half. I took a decision not to apply for either position [as] I know I’d be constantly interfering in the other half if I took on one of the roles”

Mark Ridley, Reed.co.uk

“We’ve turned that approach on its head and said the business owns the systems it buys. Individual units make the business case for technology and are responsible for making the most of those systems.” 

The IT team works across the organisation and provides expert assistance. In-house technology workers help the rest of the business to squeeze value from IT. It is here that the newly identified operations role is key, as this individual and his or her team will oversee implementation and assist with key business issues, such as governance, data integration and information security. 

The new setup will be implemented after Ridley leaves. Yet it is also important to recognise that brave operational changes are nothing new to the firm. In 2012, Ridley and his colleagues took the decision to run a separate IT setup to sister company Reed. “We decided to go it alone and to try to provide a platform that was really cutting edge for our users,” he says. 

Reed.co.uk now runs no legacy kit. The entire business, says Ridley, is digital. The firm’s aim is to provide a software as a service (SaaS) product for recruiters, such as agencies, hiring managers or in-house HR teams. “We’re producing something online that our customers consume through a browser,” he says. 

“We wanted to push the boundaries in terms of what was achievable with technology. We didn’t have any big ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems or similar enterprise platforms. That freedom allowed us to go straight to the cloud. Because our approach has been successful, our board has continued to allow us to be innovative.” 

Working on the right priorities 

As the digital strategy evolved, Ridley and his colleagues also decided to move away from a reliance on the Microsoft Windows operating system and to use Google Chrome instead. “Most of our staff – well over two-thirds – now use Chrome devices to connect to the network and do their work,” he says. 

Ridley says employees can access services, such as Salesforce CRM, Google apps for productivity and NewVoiceMedia, which is the firm’s telephony service. The head office runs a cabinet of charged Chrome devices. Employees turn up for work, take a computer from the cabinet and get on with their day. 

The business is still involved in a large amount of forward-thinking activity, such as using advances in cloud, mobile and analytics to deliver great experiences to internal and external customers. As the business pushes forwards with a customer-centric IT strategy, Ridley says it must keep one eye on governance, particularly in regards to the creation of a single data strategy. 

Enterprises, he says, still need people who understand where data lives, especially in the age of the cloud, where more information is stored off-site. To that end, Ridley and his colleagues have created – and continue to refine – an in-house data science team. 

The data scientists at Reed.co.uk focus on product developments, such as making career recommendations to clients, and internal operations. One key operations-focused project is using predictive analytics to help sales staff have the right conversations with customers at the right time. 

“To create that level of insight, you must be able to bring disparate cloud-based data sources together,” says Ridley. “So a huge part of our roadmap concerns establishing effective governance and using key techniques, like machine learning and predictive analytics, to help create value for the rest of the business. In short, our strategy is about using data science to help the business function more effectively.” 

Venturing into new areas of business 

Ridley’s influence over the development of strategy is drawing to a close. He has less than two months left at the firm. His number one priority is helping the business find qualified candidates to take on the newly identified products and operations roles. But where will Ridley turn next? For now, he is uncertain. 

“I genuinely have no idea,” he says. “One of the things I’ve loved about working for Reed.co.uk is the opportunity to face new challenges, and to keep learning and developing every day.” 

The good news, he says, is that there is an abundance of opportunities for entrepreneurial IT leaders. Such sentiment is backed by research. The Tech Partnership and Experian suggest future growth in specialist technology roles is likely to be greatest among IT directors, with 37.5% growth between 2015 and 2025. 

Ridley could seize this opportunity and move to a larger, blue chip business. However, he recognises that such a transition would mean trading the agility inherent to his current role for a position in a more rigid enterprise structure.

Another option is interim management, which Ridley says provides a way to practice working in a broad range of sectors. After spending so long at one company, Ridley recognises he could gain very different experiences by jumping from company to company. Yet, in the long term, his primary aim is to find another opportunity, like Reed.co.uk, that provides in-depth knowledge. 

“I grew up in the car industry as my parents owned a dealership. There’s a part of me that wants to go back to seeing what happens when the buck really stops with you. So I’d definitely consider starting my own business,” he says.

“But while I’m entrepreneurial, I’ve always been disparaging of people who only start a business with an exit in mind. For me, getting your teeth into something for the long term is important, and that’s what I’ve always benefited from here.”