Steven Hemmings

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2023.

Steven works in enterprise architecture at EV lorry maker Tevva, having moved there from the public sector: he previously led IT at Southend Borough Council. He is an energetic and hard-working professional who frequently evangelises technology.

How did you get into IT?

Originally it started as a hobby, with encouragement from my parents that this could be a job opportunity in later life. This was then supported by my fascination with the Enigma code breaking computer and processes adopted at Bletchley Park during WW2. My grandfather (ex-Royal Navy) explained the vital role, this sparked further interest.

As the home hobby grew from Amstrad to building my first computer, so did the technology advances that encouraged me to pursue this further in school and college education. For me it was always what can technology do to help, assist or enable and deliver change, whether it be a small personal project, or a market differentiator like our Tevva products.

My first role in IT was as a first-line support technician in a fast paced, highly intense trading and brokerage house. I had become fascinated with how connectivity and computing technology were changing this traditional market and equally intrigued by the opportunities this would create. The role allowed me to combine both interest in tech and finance together; I loved the pressure of the environment, opportunity to learn quickly and put my practical knowledge to use.

As I progressed, I become conscious that there were wider aspects of technology and business to learn. My colleagues and clients encouraged me to pursue higher education, resulting in my attending the University of Portsmouth for BSc Business Information Technology, followed by MA Economics for Business.

How do you ensure diversity is taken into account in your IT recruitment?

I've been fortunate to be part of and led a variety of teams in a different situations and environments and always found that diversity is crucial to ensuring perspective, creativity, productivity and innovation - and vital to maintaining able and successful architecture teams. As a result, I value the importance of the recruitment process, and with experience in this sector, know what works and doesn't.

The process I follow starts with the preparation of the role description. I make every effort to assess multiple market descriptions and use internal and available external recruitment aids to assess the drafted description. This description will be supported by a detailed overview of the recruitment process steps, and available support and assistance.

When going to market, I make every attempt to utilise a variety of recruitment sources, or at least prompt my agencies to do so on my behalf. When candidates are filtered, I opt to redact key identifiers that could offer insight or lean towards an unconscious bias.

Once into the candidate process, I favour diverse hiring teams (individual and function) and utilise a combination of structured and unstructured questioning techniques as a means of providing fair and considered assessment.

Throughout this stage of the process, every attempt is made to create relaxed and comfortable interview environments; I opt for opening with a telephone or video conference to briefly introduce myself, the role and opportunity then encourage open dialogue to build acquaintance and familiarity.

If rapport and mutual feeling is built, the next stage would be face to face. These would usually be split into three parts

1. Prepare a preferred form of response to a problem statement, followed by presentation on something of interest.
2. Value and behaviour based questions based on experienced and theoretical examples
3. Role and company based questions to assess knowledge, preparedness and energy for the role.

These allow me to equally assess knowledge and personal fit. I also use scoring carding to maintain a reasonable and fair assessment. Throughout the process, I put effort into:

• Maintaining an active dialogue and listening
• Adopting inclusive language, primarily focusing on skillset, qualification or skillset sought
• Recording notes for constructive/helpful feedback and evidence
• Utilising available training to prepare and enhance the hiring teams ability to recognise and avoid biases, and appreciate the benefit this can have to the organisation they are hiring into
• Assessing standard metrics to ascertain whether gaps, improvement and opportunity are being missed.

Which technology are you currently most excited by?

I suppose I cant say "All of them"! Given the role and sector I am currently operating in, I can answer by splitting the question into two categories.

First: Disruptive. In this category, technologies that I am excited by because of the opportunities of their application to disrupt and improve are:

• The metaverse - as a means of taking sales, marketing, brand awareness and customer management further into a virtual-personalised experience
• Generative AI coupled with industry & market data models - particularly applicable to Tevva and our intended use of data to disrupt existing and build new markets
• ChatGPT has theoretical application to support several crucial functions including customer services, predictive maintenance, supply chain management and autonomous capability, whether it be the vehicle or manufacturing.
• IoT and connectivity - as a means of forming our Smart City and rural ecosystems together without those objects operating within them to create a connected mass
• Digital twins - as a means of exploring and developing next generation engineering, manufacturing and marketing product process interoperability

Second: Enablers. Whilst disruptive technologies have application and promise, there is a need to recognise how the components are architectured together. In this case microservice architecture, integration and zero-trust security technologies are fundamental and maybe don't receive the recognition and attention they deserve. This said, it's my belief that any technology that can disrupt a market, bring improvement and value all have equal merit and offer an exciting prospect.

What would an outsider find the most surprising part of your job?

The variety of work and opportunity to influence all aspects of the company.

Unfortunately it is common for Enterprise Architects to be misrepresented by the role and responsibility they hold. I have been able to break this condition and through the several Architect roles I have held, all at differing levels of seniority and across a variety of sectors. I have sought and gained the opportunity to access and participate in multi-faceted and cross-functional work teams to share the value and direction of strategic technology use and investment.

This also applies for my role with Tevva. For this, I am required to cover all the bases - strategic, tactical and operational - in an attempt to provide direction and support to ensure the management and development of the overall architecture is considered.

At Tevva, I am empowered to lead, take decisions and engage and this has allowed me to build an excellent partnership network across a wide range topics to ensure the company is continually heading towards its objectives with all functional maintains their understanding of the broader context and the role they play.

I enjoy being able to consult, lead and deliver across a very broad range of business, tech and business tech workstreams equally, creating the opportunity to learn across a range of topics and subjects than would otherwise exist. I am empowered to define, support and deliver transformational organisation change.

What's your secret talent?

Putting my mind to something; whilst it is not necessarily seen as immediately exciting, it does apply to all facets of life. Whether it's creative, theoretical, practical, fitness or skill, if something strikes my interest or need I apply myself to the task, this "talent" helps me to achieve the outcome I seek.

In the workplace, this ability is valuable; I'm able to balance value, quality and performance equally which at my stage of career is recognised as a strong trait to carry. This has certainly shown its positives with Tevva as I've been able to develop meaningful relationships with partners and bring benefit to all parties. Admittedly, such "talent" has its downfalls, for example managing against perfectionism or doing too much at once, but this is equally part of the talent in that I maintain reasonable balance.

What makes you laugh?

Nothing noteworthy and probably rather typical - I can't be without a wide selection of British TV series, whether these are comedy, satire and sitcoms spanning a range of themes and decades. I can't say I have an absolute favourite, but over the years I've acquired reasonable knowledge of the lines for all the main series that I can now have it on in the background when working as a source of reality and balance when work is busy.