Simon Ellis

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT SIMON ELLIS

Enterprise Architecture | Innovation | New Technology | Design | Business & Technology Strategy | Mentoring | Teamwork | Digital Transformation | Scenario PlanningI’ve always been interested in technology, ever since I was sponsored through University by BAe where I had the privilege of working on the next generation fighter aircraft & learning from, in my opinion, some of the world best at Software and hardware engineering. Innovation excited me so much, that after a stint at an Oracle consultancy learning all about DB technology I went back to work for the naval arm of BAe, BAeSEMA.There I worked in the Artificial Intelligence team, a long time before AI became trendy. It is amazing to see what cost millions and years to develop, can now be done in days & hundreds of pounds. But our expectations and requirements have moved on somewhat from then!I enjoyed the Oracle side of things so ended up working for Oracle Corporation in a specialist team responsible for cutting edge products, helping customers implement new technology, delivering innovative business models and services to their customers. It was fun, so much so that I ended up managing teams of specialists in technology & business intelligence for a number of years.However I knew that deep down I was an entrepreneur and wanted to build my own business, so I went to learn what it takes to run a start-up and also had a fascinating period working as CTO for a large offshore software engineering specialist. Having bagged all the fantastic learning, I started my own software company & developed a contract and asset management product, and I successfully sold the business to a global distributor. After the purchase I spent time working with them across EMEA for a number of years in their services team.Driven by having the ability to develop technology strategy, based on business strategy, I took an opportunity to join the retail giants Boots, first as a contractor then as a permanent member of staff, working on a number of great programmes, ultimately running their Enterprise Architecture team. Latterly with WBA (Boots parent company) I was assigned as the global Enterprise Architect on their global cloud transformation programme, whilst also being the delivery lead for the cloud transformation element outside the US. An amazing learning experience, working with some great professionals and working across the breadth of the business and operations.