With over 30 years’ experience in a broad range of roles, Richard utilises his extensive technology and management expertise within his role at Insife.
It all started with a ZX81
Richard was always interested in computers. His father was a computer operations manager and Richard was lucky enough to visit his office as a child and see the large IBM mainframe computer he worked on. It was enough to develop his interest and he was bought a ZX81 which he loved and with which he taught himself to code. However, when he told his school’s careers advisor that he wanted to work in computers, the advisor told him it was too narrow minded an option and he needed to broaden his horizons. How things have changed!
Richard did look to another horizon, as he had aspirations to become a semi-professional footballer. Sadly though, it seems his footballing talents weren’t quite good enough (as his father had told him) and he had to put that particular career choice aside.
Football’s loss was technology’s gain
After a time working in administration in the UK’s Ministry of Defence, Richard got his first role in computing, as a Junior Operator working on another IBM Mainframe. Then he got his first junior programming role at his local council. The council was not rich and could not afford to buy in software, so they wrote all their own. This was really beneficial for Richard’s development, as he stayed at the council for 9 years and grew his programming and development acumen. Whilst there, he wrote the council’s own software for its Council Tax and Benefits system, which was bought by some other councils and later by Saffron Computer Services. After 10 years at the council, Richard went on to join the company that had bought his software, Saffron. His time there was spent leading the development, sales and deployment of the software and was his first experience of managing the full life cycle of a product.
Computers are easy, people are hard!
Richard joined Counterpoint next, developing bespoke software for many varied commercial clients. His role grew within the company and it was here that he started managing a team, looking after the developers rather than necessarily doing the development himself. It was a big change.
‘It was a big learning period for me. Getting to learn how everyone works differently and managing developers who have varying understanding of requirements and how to develop, test and release software properly for each client. Managing a team gave me the huge realisation that computers are easy, its people that are hard! Managing people is a constant learning process as there’s always something, or someone to surprise you.’
After three years, Counterpoint was acquired by WCI Consulting and this meant more personal development for Richard. He starting consulting, predominantly in healthcare, automotive and in pharmacovigilance. His team grew too and as they increasingly used Sharepoint as a tool, Richard’s understanding of using tools as opposed to bespoke development grew also.
Another acquisition
After two years, the healthcare section of WCI was acquired by Ascribe, the healthcare software specialist and Richard moved too. Working solely in healthcare, he started to work with and meet many people in UK healthcare. As Head of Consulting, he now managed a team of 40 people, so had become very hands-off from the software itself. After a couple of years, he was offered the role of Operations Director for the whole company, so moved from the world of consultancy into that of product and delivery. It was a completely different way of working and needed a new way of thinking and approach.
‘Ascribe had acquired eight different companies, so my role was crucial in working out how they all could work together as one unit to deliver the software. This included me learning more about the right processes and of course how to motivate and manage people.’
Richard worked hard to make sure that the people in the company thrived.
‘It’s key to a successful business to understand what makes people tick, how they engage and how they’re motivated. In my opinion it’s not only about money, it’s about autonomy. Let people do their job and give them the independence to make their own decisions.’
The move from healthcare into PV
After a period at EMIS Health, who had acquired Ascribe, Richard’s next move was to Foresight. As Programme Lead, Richard was in charge of delivering Argus upgrade projects. This was a fascinating role for him as it took him out into the global PV arena. His projects included clients in France, the US and two in Japan which were particularly interesting for him because of the cultural differences. Although he had a local Japanese project manager to support him, learning how to work within Japanese culture was essential for getting the project right and having a smooth working environment. Foresight also had a big team in India, so his four years in the company (which was later acquired by IQVIA) expanded Richard’s global experience and understanding immensely.
A move to Devon and to Insife
In 2021, after a family relocation to Devon, Richard felt like a new start in his professional life too.
‘I’d heard about Insife and was really drawn to going back to a smaller company as it had only about 25 staff at the time. They were looking for an MD for the UK, and I happily joined.’
As well as running the UK company, Richard realised quite early that he could be a great help in delivering projects. The company was growing so fast and this area was one he had a great amount of experience in. His role has continued to be a dual one ever since. He still manages the UK team of currently 17 people, but he also oversees how the Insife products, HALOPV and HALOPV Enterprise are managed, evolve and released, making sure that these are all done in the most effective and timely way.
‘It’s still the same challenges, managing people and processes in order to satisfy our clients’ needs. I like to manage on the ground, getting involved across all areas.’
Since he joined Insife, Richard has been utilising that involvement heavily in the MHRA’s SafetyConnect programme, which has benefitted from his experience of delivering large programmes of work and is now successfully live. And now that it is live, Richard has more time to work on HALOPV and its deployment for multiple clients. Upgrade and enhancement requests are regularly received, as well as ongoing improvements and regulatory updates. All need managing to be ready for release post testing and validation.
Richard is keen to make sure the Insife product is working for all sizes of user, from a small company with two users and tens of cases, up to a vast organisation, like the MHRA, who has hundreds of users and 16 million cases.
‘We have to provide a product that meets all of those needs and thankfully I think we’ve got the right team in place to manage that. My team needs to manage the life cycle of the product until it’s live and then support any issues that come after release.’
At his level in the company, Richard is not hands on with the software development anymore. However, it’s his diverse career background that has given him the broad range of experience and knowledge base, to successfully manage Insife’s revolutionary technology.
‘Having come from a hands-on development background, run consultancy projects and managed product delivery, I’ve had a really broad set of experiences over the past 30 years to cover the whole life cycle of software development.’
One press of a button and it’s there
Moving forward, it’s the multi-tenant HALOPV that really excites Richard, particularly how the innovative design in the architecture has made the system accessible to smaller companies.
‘Taking the power of the software that we’ve got and allowing us to deploy it in a way that is affordable for very small clients is really exciting. It’s available for them in an instant, one press of a button and it’s there.’
At the other end of the scale, he’s keen to make sure that HALOPV Enterprise can give the very best to Insife’s large clients. With both versions, Richard wants to make sure that they keep evolving and using the most up to date technological advancements to offer the best service to the clients.
‘Whether it’s AI and machine learning, or other technological advances, we need to embrace anything that augments our software and enriches the experience of the users, so that working together we can ultimately improve patient safety. Because that’s what we’re doing this for.’