Kristan Vingrys returns to Australia to help courageous executives drive disruption in Australian business
Global software consultancy ThoughtWorks, has appointed Kristan Vingrys as Managing Director in Australia to continue evolving its capabilities as a strategic and impactful digital transformation and technology partner for courageous executives.
For the last 12 years, Vingrys has held a variety of roles at ThoughtWorks – most recently heading Global Strategic Investments and Offerings – and returns from the UK to his native Melbourne to leverage previous local business experience and introduce broad perspectives from his global operations proficiencies.
Vingrys brings with him an ambition to help organisations become leaders of digital disruption.
According to Vingrys, “I want to challenge executives to be more courageous. Digital transformation should not just be about legacy modernisation or saving costs, digital platforms need to be viewed as the ultimate enabler for continuous innovation and evolving new business models.
“In the UK, organisations like VAKT and Babylon Health are re-imagining their industries and charting new territory through unique and disruptive ideas, and there is definitely untapped potential for this level of innovation (and more) here in Australia – if business leaders are brave enough.”
Vingrys believes key to this is the confidence that comes from having the right technology, people and culture to innovate and enter new areas of the market, but Australia is largely unprepared for the shortage of technical talent.
“Broad misconceptions about unlimited pools of international talent are going to impact the Australian Industry. Technologists in what have been seen as traditional offshore countries now have lucrative and exciting opportunities to work for fast-moving local start-ups, which are far more compelling opportunities compared with what can be offered in markets like Australia. We’re not prepared for that reality.
“Organisations want to insource more and outsource less, but they are already struggling to find the resources. Rather than seeking tech skills, which can be learned, we need to be accessing talent from diverse, non-traditional backgrounds to build broad skills and autonomous teams around cohesive, continuous learning and growth. And, diversity remains key – we need diverse workforces ideating and developing solutions because they represent societies who will use them.”
ThoughtWorks has realised higher than industry average global growth in the last 12 months, which it attributes to organisations understanding the need to leverage technology in order to build and maintain a competitive advantage.
“For the last 25 years we’ve worked globally with hundreds of businesses to turn technology into a powerful competitive advantage, and from that we’ve developed many strong, long-standing customer partnerships including clients such as Real Estate Australia Group, NAB and Kmart in Australia,” said Vingrys.
“In the next 12 to 18 months we see several things happening. Firstly, the 2019 election year means we could see changes in government and regulations. Businesses need to prepare for that uncertainty and have the capability to respond to change at speed – customers expect it and the economy relies on it.
“Secondly, leadership constructs will adapt to a new reality based on digital and organisational transformation. Mindsets around how to lead, make decisions and engage talent will need to change otherwise businesses will struggle to compete. That business transformation will need to come from leaders – with technology the core enabler for that change.”
Under Vingrys, offshoring will also continue to be a key play for ThoughtWorks as an innovation accelerator with access at-scale across the region to AI talent, data experts and scalable custom software deliver. To date, customers such as REA and Guide Dogs Victoria have benefited from ThoughtWorks innovation at scale model.
About ThoughtWorks
ThoughtWorks is a global software and digital transformation consultancy with 25 years of experience partnering with clients where technology is a key differentiator of their business strategy. We design and deliver custom software solutions to transform organisations into modern digital businesses. Our diverse and passionate technologist thrive on solving complex problems with an engineering mindset, a culture of innovation, and delivering value quickly.
