Senior Spotlight: Steve Prendergast, Tech & Transformation Leader (Ex-AOL, Sky, JLR)
Welcome to Senior Spotlight, where Crimson’s Head of Customer Engagement, Chris O’Brien, interviews senior technologists across the UK. Discover what drives these individuals as we delve into their careers, their most exciting projects, and their tech predictions for the future. Join us as we explore these IT thought leaders’ inspirational stories and interesting lives.
In this edition of Senior Spotlight Chris sits down with seasoned IT and transformation leader Steve Prendergast. From humble beginnings as an East London telecoms engineer, Steve’s career has taken him all over the world, with transformation and leadership positions at the likes of AOL, Sky TV, and Jaguar Land Rover.
Steve Prendergast | Tech & Transformation Leader | Ex-AOL, Sky, JLR
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn
Chris: Hi Steve, thanks for joining us for Senior Spotlight! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Steve: Thanks Chris, I’m Steve Prendergast, and I’ve worked in IT and telecoms all over the world at companies including Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Sky TV, and America Online (AOL). I’ve worked in a broad range of sectors at some brilliant companies and for more years than I'd like to own up to! I’m an experienced IT, Operations, and Transformation Director and currently looking to embrace a new challenge.
Chris: Sounds like a fascinating career history! Please talk us through your story.
Steve: Well, I grew up in the East End of London and my dad and my elder brother were both electricians, so there was always a certain pull towards things with a technical grounding. I started out by getting an apprenticeship at BT at the age of 16, actually at BT Tower (or Post Office Tower, as it was then). Following their excellent engineer training programme, I spent a good many years as an engineer at numerous companies.
I eventually found myself in the financial services sector, delivering services such as trader networks to dealer boards. This led me to join a New York-based start-up as their fourth employee, and their first outside the US. I worked with them to help build the company in Europe - recruiting people, acquiring licences, building a telephone exchange and a data centre - it was a phenomenal experience.
Eventually, I found myself at America Online (AOL), the internet provider, in the early 2000s as an Executive Director. It’s incredible to think in our current world of social media and connection that AOL was doing that long before anyone else!
Chris: Gosh, I remember coming back from school, getting on the “big computer”, and going on AOL chatrooms - chatting with football fans from around the world!
Steve: Yes, AOL was a trailblazer for socialising online! After AOL, I moved on to service delivery and operations director at Sky TV - and after nearly a decade there I became IT Director at a small challenger bank in the City of London.
Less than a year later, I got the call from a recruiter at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). They were looking for Digital and Transformation skills, so I uprooted to Warwickshire and spent 7 years with them. They are a brilliant company, but at this point in my career, I want to stay somewhat closer to home, although I still have a passion for travel. I’m currently looking for a senior position where I can make a difference using all of the experience I bring to the table - and have some fun along the way!
Chris: What an incredible journey! So, tough question, what would you say was the most challenging project, programme, position, or problem that you’ve faced in your career? Or the most interesting!?
Steve: Oh gosh, well, all of the companies I worked at were great. Though working for the New York company so early on was challenging. Because it was a startup the budget was limited and it was all hands on deck - and for a time, mine were the only hands in the UK! I found myself getting involved in areas of business I’d never touched before - licensing, HR, you name it. I even had a team event in charge of decorating and kitting out the first London office.
At AOL it was fascinating to see the internet change from the basics of networks and hosting towards internet advertising, content, and user experience. It was all totally new to me - because it was new to everybody!
We achieved a lot at Sky TV while I was there. The brand was moving from this historic first broadcast satellite operator in the UK, more towards the online media space that we know today - and doing so at an unprecedented rate. While I was there, we spun up six new UK operations data centres and public cloud, as well as ones in Germany and Italy. In that time Sky launched the telephony and broadband services we know today.
Working for the bank felt less challenging as the financial sector is a familiar place for me. But JLR was totally out of leftfield, I’d never worked in manufacturing… though I am a keen Range Rover driver!
Chris: I did think that was a bit of an about turn - what was the first thing you got your teeth into at JLR?
Steve: Well, here’s the thing; JLR were specifically looking for someone who didn’t have a manufacturing background - they’d realised they needed to be a technology company in addition to being a manufacturing company. They already had the incredible product quality and desirability, but they knew it needed to move into a more digitally aligned space.
There were a lot of brilliant people at JLR who had been there for decades, so they specifically wanted someone like me to come in and change their technology, organisation, and behaviour. And given that I had experience with deploying and implementing new programmes like the ones they needed, I got the role of heading up technology transformation and operations.
One of the big projects there was working out how to improve and modernise their back-end IT systems. These systems are in constant use, running the factory floor 24-hours a day. You know, how do we bring them up to date from a data, cybersecurity, and supportability perspective?
I happened to be there during a tricky few years for the company. It’s no secret that there have been significant pressures on the automotive sector in the UK. And amidst that storm, Covid hit. Thankfully leadership did an excellent job of steering the company through those conditions, but from Covid came the semiconductor crisis; we had the US tariff challenges to contend with; global unrest; and other challenges bringing us up to today.
Leadership had to be really diligent to ensure we secured the investment we did, and to frugally put it into the right places. You know, how do we seize the big opportunities and get the best - whilst also keeping the lights on? And running securely too?
So, my priority was to create a cyber-secure environment, but also to help position the business in the direction it is today with connected applications, connected vehicles, EVs, autonomous driving - all of that. I’m tremendously grateful for my experience there and at all of my positions over the years. It’s given me this richness of experience that I’m hugely appreciative of.
Chris: Absolutely. Moving from leadership to individuals who are just starting their higher education and career journeys - is there any advice you’d give to the younger generation?
Steve: Yes, definitely! I never went to uni myself, but I like to think my career has been a success. But that came through hard work, focus, and determination. And that comes from finding your true calling. Yes, degrees show that you’re intelligent and motivated, but they don't always give you the linear leg-up into the career you expect to achieve.
My son works in IT sales. He never went to uni - as much as we encouraged him to go! But he’s found his calling and is doing well. My daughter explored her options, starting at drama school and then became airline cabin crew, and after a while she decided she wanted to go into nursing, so she’s at university now, studying to be a nurse. I think she’s really found her vocation in life.
So, my advice is not to get too hung up on getting to university straight away. You’re young, you have time on your side. If you’re unsure what to do and you're able to take time out, then take your time. See some of life before you nail down what you want to do.
Chris: With some of the work Crimson do with universities, and some of the solutions we provide for student wellbeing programmes, it really hits home how hard it can be for a young person at uni.
Steve: Exactly, don’t consider uni the only option. There are many more opportunities to build careers and learning and experiences than university nowadays; JLR offers great opportunities for early careers, for example. If you’re smart, you can learn, and you have drive, opportunity is out there if you keep your eyes open.
I wish we as a nation would talk more about hands-on skills too, like tradespeople. Even with the advent of AI and automation, we’re still going to need people to build houses, fix washing machines, install boilers, and so forth.
The key is to find something you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you’re not going to get fulfilment from it. But if you do something you believe in and that you can have fun with, that’s where you belong. Don’t follow the pack - follow your dreams. You’ll never regret trying things out.
Chris: You’re so right! Complete tangent here: we’ve talked about a few trending topics here, EVs, AI, cyber - what IT trends do you think are going to dominate over the next couple of years?
Steve: Well, the IT world moves fast - but sometimes not as fast as it appears. Though things like big data and AI have been around for a while, they are now starting to be properly used, together, for good. For the next couple of years, I think we will still be discovering new and interesting - and niche - use cases for these technologies.
Decision making will be totally overhauled as attitudes to data mature and AI can help us pinpoint trends and meaningful outputs - and at a faster rate, too. And not just in corporate settings, the ability for AI to diagnose medical conditions is fascinating. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how the existing tech carries us into the future.
Want to be our next Senior Spotlight guest? Get in touch with Chris at chris.obrien@crimson.co.uk
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Crimson is a digital transformation consultancy, Microsoft Solutions Provider, and IT recruitment agency operating throughout the UK.
