The IT Kit Podcast

Lauren Tibbs is the current Global IT Director at KeepTruckin with a history of creating thriving technology environments in forward-thinking companies. She’s worked across industry foci, from one of the largest identity management companies, to finance disruption, and now in AI-driven fleet management. We talk with Lauren about her history and path in IT, how her work has evolved and her desire to focus on IT strategy, how she’s woven that into the fiber of cross-functional IT representation at a leadership level, and her predictions for the future of IT in the changing landscape of opportunities. ♫ Intro music provided by Purple Planet.

Here's a hypothetical (that isn't hypothetical for any of us): you join a company, roll your sleeves up to breathe new life into their IT, annnnd someone hands you a business-critical compliance deadline. You have no MDM. You have no anti-virus selected. You've got... a greenfield. @#%$! James Tommey, Director of IT at Disco uses his years of IT experience in greenfield and growing organizations to walk us through what to tackle first, evaluating time, effort, and responsibility under deadline pressure, and how to break down a behemoth project into the minimum viable product.

Inventory management. It ain’t pretty, but you’ve got to do it. Tom Bridge talks about the need for a good, thorough system in place, what systems are out there (and are the right size for your people power and organization), how to partner with Finance for discovery, and why your MDM can, but shouldn’t, be the only source of truth for your assets. ♫ Intro music provided by Purple Planet.

ITKit is back and kicking off Women’s History Month with a special episode. Listen in to Erin Merchant, askSpoke, Ashley Owens and Rosanna Schaefer of Fleetsmith, Freda Kreitzer, Facebook, and Kerry Buckley, of Greylock Partners' virtual panel on always trending topics: security culture, humanist IT and human-centric design, self-care and combating burnout in the profession, and their desire to empower their customer. There was wine. They kept it professional.

👋New things to come. Literally. Right after this. Tune in!

For episode 8 we are taking some time to address feedback from our listeners and changing things up from our normal episode format. We realize past episodes have introduced you to several leaders in the IT space, but haven’t properly introduced you to our very own co-host. In this episode Tim Burke returns to interview our co-host, Manuel Bernal, Head of Technology at Greylock,  and sit down for an open dialogue on Manuel’s career, the path he took to get into technology, how his interest in tech led to a career in IT, some of the jobs he had along the way and where he’s at now in a Head of Technology role at Greylock.

For episode 7, Manuel Bernal, Head of Technology at Greylock, welcomes Kyle DuBose of Brandless to the podcast. Kyle is Manager, Workplace Infrastructure at the health- and environmentally-conscious e-commerce company and we were thrilled to book him for a great chat with Manuel. Kyle and Manuel discuss how scale an IT team, including what to look for in an early hire, and when you need an IC versus a more senior hire. Then the fun begins... the two discuss their biggest screw-ups as IT pros, how to handle them, and what you can learn from your mistakes. To learn more about Brandless or to buy some of their awesome products, visit brandless.com.

Tim Burke is back as host, and sits down with Ryan Bacon, IT Support Engineer at JumpCloud. Ryan has led IT at the Directory-as-a-service company for the last year-and-a-half, and beforehand spent time at the Larimer Human Society and Google. Tim and Ryan chat about their first computers, the importance of asking “why”, how to scale an IT team alongside a company, and their most difficult customers (and it’s not who you’d think). You won’t want to miss this one! To learn more about JumpCloud's Directory-as-a-Service®, visit jumpcloud.com.

We're excited to publish the first episode of our new series celebrating influential women in the IT industry. For this episode, we welcome Sarah McDowell, Senior Manager Enterprise Engineering at ASAPP in New York. Sarah has 10 years of experience in IT across several different verticals. Listen as host Susan Tran, head of Customer Success at Spoke, talks to Sarah about how she got started, her various experiences in the industry, and what it's like to be a woman in IT. 

For our fifth episode, Spoke’s Tim Burke has an awesome chat with Tony Saldanha, President of Transformant. Tony has spent more than three decades in the IT and shared services industries, and is an expert in digital transformation and organizational change. Tony has led GBS design and operations, held CIO positions, created industry-wide disruptive innovation structures, been named as Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Professionals, and brings a wealth of experience to Transformant. He also has a new book out “Why Digital Transformations Fail” which is at the top of Amazon’s new releases for organizational change. Listen as Tim and Tony discuss the role culture plays in digital transformation, the importance of checklists, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and a lot more great stuff.  Order Tony’s book here: https://spk.to/2ONPxKM To learn more about Tony and Tranformant, visit http://transformant.io/.