Charles Ewen

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

Charles (Charlie) Ewen works at the Met Office, enabling one of the most advanced weather and climate forecasting services in the world. There, he is responsible for the development and implementation of the Met office's IT strategy and for the internal technical teams within the Technology Information Services Directorate - and works closely with the Science teams to operate the organisation's High Performance Computing capability.

How did you get into IT?

I was trained as an electronic systems engineer a long time ago in a universe far, far away. As 'mainstream' IT became a thing, I became IT.

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

We have worked extremely hard in ED&I with testing measures for protected characteristics, which are based on achieving a level that represents society. We have almost eliminated our gender pay gap and all measures are doing very well.

The exception is ethnic diversity, whereby whilst we broadly reflect our local community in the South West, we are not near national representation. To address this we undertake outreach events (such as STEM and Careers Fairs) nationally, and are using flexible working to remove the obstacle of moving to the South West if that is a problem.

Inside the organisation, we support communities that represent all aspects of ED&I, an example being my sponsorship of the neurodiverse community.

We have embedded Impact Assessment into our change playbook such that ED&I is considered as a part of any significant change. An example of this is work area modernisation, whereby significant work was undertaken with our people and communities to ensure that the new working space designs supported diverse needs.

Which technology are you currently most excited by?

Recent advances in machine learning have been absolutely stunning. We are active in both research and operations in ML, and some of the advances in generalised models and LLMs (Large Language Models), are set to change the world.

Personally I think that, over the next 5-10 years, ML advances will have at least as big an impact on society as the arise of the public internet.

Like the internet, there will be advances for good but also less desirable social and economic impacts; however, there is huge potential for the generation of public good.

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

That I do little that is really IT. We run a very diverse estate that ranges from world-leading supercomputing to one of the most visited web sites and apps in the UK. This diverse range makes my job about knowing enough about a lot, and whilst I believe that having a detailed technical background helps, most of my work is about joining dots and systems thinking. Creating value from technology requires an end-to-end perspective - not just about the technology, but also the people and process systems.

I have worked hard on developing my understanding of enterprise design and as an organisation, we have made very good progress at looking at this holistically to deliver change and improvement. That said, there are times to 'roll the sleeves up' and right now is one of them as we implement our next generation supercomputing and storage platforms.

What's your secret talent?

Dot joining and making links.

As my career has developed, my vista has widened and whilst in early career, my work and decisions were all about the tech, I find myself now thinking about all of the interdependencies involved to create value - and only then about what approach to take to the technology.

I have always seen technology as the vanguard of change - the clue is in the dictionary definition! It is natural therefore to take a stance that is always thinking about change and the 'next thing'. This is often triggered by scientific or technological advances; however, I have certainly got better by adding the pragmatism and experience of being able to join dots that take many other factors, such as organisational maturity in a given area, into account.

At the same time it's important to be progressive, always trying to improve the wider organisation and create value, whatever that may mean in a context. Working in a world class science organisation has certainly helped me there as I try to use evidence, data and experimentation to do this and recognise when my personal hypothesis is wrong - which it often is when we set out on something new!

What makes you laugh?

There is a lot that makes me smile at work, but the real belly laughs come from a good film, a good book or a good joke (or a good TikTok these days!). At home I have three dogs, three kids (all no longer kids) and one wife; I like triads, but not that much (see what I did there!).

Home and family bring most of the laughter to my life and I think that this is just down to the trust and honesty that you have with family members. I try to take this to work and develop as much trust and authenticity as a leader that I possibly can. When this works and when you can laugh, or at least smile at the mistakes that we all make, have not caused ill to anyone and have learned some lessons, then that is a happy place to be.