Open Tech Calendar

We're excited to announce Mode 2 Meetup episode 13, sponsored by SolarWinds!

Mode 2 is a regular meetup about IT innovation within large companies across central Scotland.

Each meetup will feature two short talks and a chance to connect with IT innovators in a relaxed environment with free beer/wine and pizza. The talks for this meetup are:

1: Samantha Bedford, Head of Innovation and New Ways of Working, CYBG

Samantha has 20+ years experience working in digital innovation and transformation in both the US and UK. Samantha was the first UK Managing Director of Match.com which she grew exponentially, making online dating acceptable and developing a new category. She led digital at Vodafone bringing new experiences and services to customers to help them to self serve and buy online. She has consulted with a number of start-ups helping them to identify technology to develop innovative business models and mentored a number of accelerators.

How to be a start-up on the inside of a corporate

Samantha currently leads new ways of working at CYBG (Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank Group). With a broad remit Samantha’s role straddles technology and innovation using agile start-up methodologies to deliver new customer experiences at pace.

2: Eileen McLaren, COO - Cognitive Geology

Eileen McLaren, Chief Operating Officer at Cognitive Geology is one of the best known faces in the Scottish IT scene. Previously VP of Engineering at FanDuel and Development Manager at Skyscanner, Eileen joined Cognitive Geology as their VP of Software Engineering in 2017 before being promoted to COO and joining the board.

Eileen was short listed for the prestigious Women In IT Awards 2018 Business Role Model Of The Year.

How to scale a Unicorn - or ‘lessons learned from the start-up roller coaster’!

Eileen will share some experiences and lessons learned from her early days in SkyScanner and Fanduel, and her early experiences from Cognitive Geology. These will focus around the possible growing pains and how to avoid them. This should lead to plenty of discussion!