Over roughly two years, I helped grow a global fintech's technology function from around 100 people to more than 250, across Australia, Europe and Asia. The headline is a number. The real story is everything that has to change around the people for that growth to create capability rather than chaos.
This is a short, sanitised reflection on what I learned — written as a placeholder I'll expand over time, and as an example of the kind of writing you'll find here.
Hiring is the easy part
Doubling headcount sounds like a recruitment problem. It isn't. The constraint is rarely finding good people — it's having an operating model that lets good people do good work the day they arrive. Scale exposes every weakness in how decisions get made, how work flows, and how priorities are set.
Build the leadership layer, not just the team
The single highest-leverage move is building the leadership layer beneath you. A function of 100 can run on relationships and proximity. A function of 250 across three time zones cannot. You need leaders who own outcomes, develop their own people, and carry the standard when you're not in the room.
You don't scale a team by adding people. You scale it by adding leaders — and the operating model that lets them lead.
Governance is what makes growth trustworthy
As investment grows, boards need confidence that it's well spent. A clear delivery operating model, portfolio cadence, OKRs and a capacity-based funding framework turn "trust me" into "here's the evidence." Discipline isn't the enemy of speed at scale — it's the thing that makes sustained speed possible.
- Define value streams so strategy connects end-to-end to delivery.
- Make the portfolio visible — predictability beats heroics.
- Separate capital investment from BAU so investment decisions are honest.
Distance is a design problem
Establishing development centres in new regions isn't just procurement — it's culture, ways of working and trust, built deliberately. Treat distributed delivery as something you design, not something that happens to you.
That's the short version. If any of this resonates — or you'd push back on it — I'd enjoy the conversation.