Technology and culture, together.
Bringing technology direction, people strategy and enterprise automation into the same conversation.
CIO
The setting
As founder and CIO at Synaptek, I was responsible for technology and people strategy. We built a consulting business around enterprise integration and workflow automation, alongside the culture and skills needed to deliver it.
During the same period, January 2019 to November 2021, I also held the role of Innovation Director at Spherica.
The question behind the work
Enterprise organisations rarely suffer from a shortage of applications. The harder problem is connecting systems, data, processes and people. A useful workflow can cross several SaaS applications, yet still depend on someone copying information or chasing the next step.
Our work sat in those gaps: using APIs and integration platforms as a service (iPaaS) to connect applications and orchestrate business processes. The technology roadmap had to make sense to both customers and the teams responsible for delivery.
What I did
- Provided technology leadership and direction.
- Worked with automation and integration teams on integration strategy.
- Collaborated with enterprise architecture teams on technology roadmaps.
- Built relationships with technology partners and external vendors.
- Supported a culture of innovation and explained the possibilities of automation.
Connecting the information engineers needed.
While supporting an enterprise customer, I wanted to bring information from across its technology estate together so engineers had better context for diagnosing issues. Discovering Workato at a Slack partner event opened up a broader opportunity.
I founded and built Synaptek while working from Workato’s Cupertino office, during an earlier period of its growth. Our relationship was through Synaptek; I was not employed by Workato. Working closely with that ecosystem gave me practical experience of how APIs, SaaS applications and workflow orchestration could improve business processes.
Our work included an integration-platform-based IT incident management system, recognised with the Workato Innovation Excellence Partner Award in 2020.
The aim was to reduce the customer’s mean time to resolution: the time needed to resolve an incident. Faster resolution contributed to better uptime for Virgin Trains and increased revenue for ServiceOps. It connected an engineering measure with outcomes that mattered to both the service provider and the railway.
What this chapter brings together
Enterprise integration, API-led automation and enterprise architecture, alongside partner relationships, technology adoption and organisational change. Connecting applications was part of the work; helping people use the resulting process was just as important.
Enterprise automation
“I worked with Karl from my time at Workato, where he was the Workato practice executive sponsor and one of our very best evangelists in the EU. It’s rare to find technical chops, business acumen, and passion all in one place.”
Read full recommendation from Mary Vue
I worked with Karl from my time at Workato, where he was the Workato practice executive sponsor and one of our very best evangelists in the EU. It’s rare to find technical chops, business acumen, and passion all in one place. Karl is exactly that, super knowledgeable about technology, a trusted leader by customers, partners and peers, and truly passionate about innovation and digital transformation journeys.
Tech Leader of the Year, 2021.
I received the Tech Leader award at Birmingham Tech Week in 2021. Invest West Midlands reported the recognition during my time as CIO at Synaptek.
Read the award coverage ↗“Karl has an innate ability to see simple solutions to complex problems and the strength of character to drive through their implementation.”
Read full recommendation from Steve Jennings
He has a clarity of vision that allows him to set challenging goals and objectives, always thinking about the big picture and the direction in which our business should be heading. He is a constant source of fresh, innovative ideas. Karl has an innate ability to see simple solutions to complex problems and the strength of character to drive through their implementation.
What this means for enterprise AI
That experience informs how I think about AI agents today. AI becomes more useful when it can participate in real business processes, beyond answering questions. It then depends on the same foundations: connected systems, dependable data, workflow orchestration and clear ownership.
The integration problem does not disappear in an agentic enterprise. It becomes more important. An agent needs boundaries around what it can access and change, a way to handle failures and a person accountable for the result.
When people become the integration layer →
Engineering trust into enterprise AI →
Career background
In a 2020 interview with The Recruitment Doctor Podcast, I discussed my route into technology leadership, company values and using Slack automation to recognise colleagues’ achievements.