GROWING TECH IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

Martin Ward, Tech Commissioner for the West Midlands

Martin Ward is the first Tech Commissioner to be appointed for the West Midlands. With 35 years’ experience in B2B tech, from start-ups to well-established companies such as Fujitsu and Oracle, Martin has been at the heart of digital and technical acceleration for business. The West Midlands are the second fastest-growing tech sector to London in the UK, and with Martin we will discuss advocacy for tech businesses, national and global stakeholders, and boosting innovation and jobs in the West Midlands.

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Transcription
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Dom:
Hello and welcome to the F5 podcast brought to you by Intercity.
I'm Dom Wetherall, your host.
Today I am privileged to be joined by Martin Ward.
Martin is the tech commissioner for the West Midlands.
Not only is he the tech commissioner, he's the first tech commissioner the West Midlands have appointed.
Martin has had a very successful career over 35 years leading business to business, tech transformation and acceleration.
Martin, welcome to the podcast.
Martin:
Thank you very much Dom, it's great to be here.
Dom:
Thank you very much Martin.
I'd love to hear and I'm sure all the listeners would as well to hear more about your story, your journey and your career.
Martin:
Sure, yeah, well I've spent my entire career which is sort of, I think it's 36 years now since I got my first job in the tech sector and by that I mean essentially software and services.
So I'm a tech graduate, I graduated from Imperial College in London with a technology degree many years ago.
I've worked for some of the great and the good in the industry, so SAP, Oracle, Fujitsu mainly in sales oriented roles but I've also been a co-founder twice so I've seen businesses go through the full cycle from startup to scale up to trade exit and now I'm obviously a tech commissioner is my primary role but I'm also an associate partner in a M&A firm serving the creative industry mainly and I have a portfolio of companies I'm an angel investor in who keep me fairly busy and then I do bits of other non-executive and consulting work around that so life's fairly busy.
Dom:
Fantastic, brilliant.
Could you tell us a little bit more about your role as the tech commissioner of the West Midlands?
Martin:
Certainly, well it's a very interesting role, in fact you said I'm the first commissioner in the West Midlands that's true also the first and the only one at the moment in the UK although I hope there will be others appointed.
So essentially I've been appointed with a very broad brief, in fact a blank page brief which is great for me because it means I can shape the role however I want.
So what's my job?
I mean essentially I'm tasked with growing the tech and digital ecosystem in the region, that means economic activity, it means jobs, it means scale-up successes from the tech sector so that's ultimately how it's measured but from my point of view it's equally important that I'm tasked with taking accountability for getting stuff done so you know we can talk about things until the cows come home we really need to get things done and I see that as a key part of the job taking accountability for actually making things happen and I guess the other really important bit is convening all the stakeholders.
So we have this great tech ecosystem but it's pretty fragmented that's the feedback that you get from talking to everyone and I think my job is very much to be the convener of stakeholders and the advocate for the sector to bring everyone together so that we put in the best foot forwards and we you know convey the power of what we have here and we have a lot so that's essentially what the role is about.
Beyond that it's up to me to shape it and that's what's exciting about it.
Dom:
So you mentioned that that role didn't exist prior you're the first to be appointed what are the you know let's expand a little bit on some of the major catalysts that have led to the creation of that role.
Martin:
Yeah so the the role was agreed between Yiannis Maos who many of the listeners will know who at the time ran Birmingham Tech and the mayor Andy Street so they decided that as part of developing the digital economy a commissioner needed to be appointed and you know that that's where the the role came from in terms of how I got to be appointed so I mean I spent a lot of my career working in London which is often the case people are my generation you can live in the Midlands but when I graduated you couldn't have a tech job easily in the Midlands so you spend half your life in London but I reconnected in 2023 when I took an office here and I went to Tech Week and I was just blown away by everything that was there very very impressed so decided to apply for the role very much as part of giving back to to the community in the Midlands to achieve something that just wasn't here when when I graduated, I literally applied for it.
It was sold to me as two days a month honorary role and I remember standing up at Venture Fest in 2023 with Andy Street looking at the audience when he announced the role and I thought you've got no chance this is a full-time job I took a decision to go all in and the rest is history.
Dom:
Well thanks Martin.
So what is it that you know what is tech bringing to the local area you know why is the West Midlands a tech hub?
Martin:
In terms of what it's bringing to the area it's a massive contributor to the economy so our tech sector's worth well in excess of 15 billion that the data tells us it employs tens of thousands of people just as a tech sector but in terms of what it brings to the local economy that's the supply side so the tech sector if you look at the consumption the demand side and tech is everywhere these days you can't easily define what tech is it's becoming infused into everything so it's a critical driver of the economy particularly as part of the Combined Authorities Plan for Recovery so post-pandemic we all know the West Midlands region hasn't recovered its performance that it had pre the pandemic and so there's a long way to go and technology will be a huge driver of competitiveness and productivity across all the sectors in the economy.
I think West Midlands has always been the home of innovators it's the home of a thousand trades we have lots of very very smart people here we have several top class universities churning out tens of thousands of highly qualified people each year we have the sort of the raw horsepower and the culture to be fantastic in technology and that's why I think we're a hub you know combine that with the the culture of applying things which is what we do we're great innovators we're great at applying things and technology just cries out to be applied so I think developing a great tech economy is a very natural thing for the Midlands to do and we've got the raw horsepower to do with all the talent we have here so actually it's of no surprise to me that we have a great tech economy.
Dom:
So with that in mind then have you seen that you know the tech landscape and the tech scene within the West Midlands grow and change over recent times?
Martin:
Well I'm old enough to take a generational perspective on this so I said you know I graduated it was actually 1987 I graduated and it was very difficult to come back to the Midlands and have a job in what was tech so the software industry there are a few companies here but not many your choice was very limited which is why a lot of people of my generation actually live here but spend a lot of the time working in London.
If I look what the current generation has it's absolutely transformed.
If you then look at our performance across all the sort of public data points the West Midlands typically is part of upper quartile so what that means is you know we're not where London is but we wouldn't expect to be you've then got elements of the the southeast with sort of Cambridge Oxford and then you've got the Midlands so you know we are a very significant force to be reckoned with in the tech economy whether that's attracting investment or the quality of our ecosystem or our future prospects we are absolutely up there so we've come on a long way and the best example probably is just look at Birmingham Tech Week so in 2023 we had something like 8 000 people at Tech Week it's the biggest tech event outside of London.
Dom:
It's an amazing programme you know Intercity we're really proud to be a part of it and sponsor it.
Martin:
Absolutely and thank you for that and long may it continue but one of the one of the best stats that came out of it in 2022 the team measured six to ten million media impressions were generated through Tech Week.
In 2023 it was 70 million, ten times the media exposure so Tech Week has now sort of gone from being a passion project for Yiannis and thank goodness he did what he did that's made a transformational impact on the ecosystem it's now going into scale up mode so this year we're going to have lots more people and there's a big future agenda for where we're taking Tech Week which I'll talk about in a moment so in effect at a generational level we've moved from nothing to a massive really powerful tech ecosystem that's just a bit disorganised and that's where I come in as tech commissioner to move it to the next level.
Dom:
Brilliant can you elaborate then on the ambitions of the tech Westmids and what they're looking to achieve?
Martin:
Yeah sure so I think it's interesting here to go back to the origins of Tech Westmids so we had Birmingham Tech which you said you know Yiannis sort of nurtured but pretty much it was him and a few supporters around him.
We very consciously set up Tech Westmids when I was appointed because we needed a vehicle a regional development agency for the tech sector to actually get things done so Tech Westmids wasn't just a rebrand of Birmingham Tech it was a very conscious strategy to set up an organisation that was capable of executing on the strategy that we were developing so I've worked very very closely hand in hand with Yiannis and his team to set up Tech Westmids and effectively it's been a startup but what we've put in place is a business that is well funded it's largely funded by the private sector so it's the voice of the ecosystem and it actually has a degree of independence.
It's not a public sector body although it does enjoy the patronage of the combined authority which is a very powerful stake holding but it has the funding it has the strategy it has the platform it has the vision to actually get things done and that's so important. 
So it has a very clear operating model we can now invite sponsorship we can invite in private sector investment we can develop programs and projects and strategies within a clear operating framework we have an advisory board which has members of the House of Lords on it support from the London growth company London and Partners so we've got all the ingredients now to scale and it's actually fantastic what we're now seeing as of today Tech Westmids is absolutely starting to go through that process of scaling rapidly and that's exactly what we need in the region to get things done.
So what's the ambition and this is very much a personal ambition for me absolutely the West Midlands is going to be a globally recognised regional tech superpower by 2030 and some people smile when I sort of say that and say okay pat me on the head will you ever get there well I don't see us as the next Silicon Valley I mean the Chancellor speaks about the UK becoming that but if you look at the US I think there are a lot of lessons for us because in the US you've got lots of regions that have developed very powerful local tech economies so I was out in Austin at South by Southwest last week in fact there's a very powerful tech economy in Austin.
You have Miami you have Dallas you have Salt Lake City and these regional economies have grown up in the presence of Silicon Valley and it's not a zero sum game and I see it being exactly the same in the UK so we have London that's the gorilla in the UK tech market long may it continue it should be and we'll always look to London to be that and to lead the way but that doesn't mean we can't have powerful regional tech economies and you know we are a huge geographic region we have a lot of economic power and I'm absolutely certain we can be this globally recognised regional tech superpower now to get there we've got to be growing um certainly the fastest outside of London no question we've got to drive digital adoption that's benchmarked so there's some way to go so I'd like to see us right behind London in all the rankings which is no mean feat but by 2030 I'm absolutely certain we've got the strategy and the momentum to get there.
There's a few things that we need to do along the way the first is we've got to speak with one voice so we've got to reduce the fragmentation and start to amplify the power of a voice that we have and we have a project on the go at the moment to develop a narrative for the tech sector which is very exciting and that's something we can project on a national and international basis so that's the first thing.
Secondly and in many ways most importantly we need to get a fully functioning self-sustaining tech ecosystem in place so if you look at the best tech ecosystems in the world they're a circular economy when people found and grow and exit businesses they come back and they support that then attracts in the investment and attracts in even more talent and we've got to get that circular self-reinforcing process going in the Midlands we're on our way for example I've just set up an exited founders club we actually have many exited tech founders in the region no one's ever spoke to them as a group and asked them to come and contribute and I've had a fantastically positive response to that so that's going to be one of those parts of the ecosystem so that's the second thing.
Third thing we absolutely have to diffuse tech competence through to the wider economy this is about the competitiveness and productivity for the for the the overall plan for growth we absolutely have to develop a leadership position in AI we can't avoid this I don't personally think we're going to be the originators necessarily of brand new AI technology we may not be the leaders in infrastructure but we can be leaders in the application of technology and this is where we're starting to develop our narrative that's very exciting and the final thing we need to do is put ourselves on the global map so culturally in the west midlands we don't shout other regions like Manchester shout very loudly and I hear about Manchester all the while we don't shout about it.
But actually we have a fantastic story and we have to project it and one of the things that I'm really passionate about achieving if we can is to run a tech and digital festival in the region that looks to the future of technology brings in the fantastic creative and gaming sector we have the music and media sector that we have the tech sector and is a celebration of everything we do but is outward looking on a national international basis and to get there for that that's where I was recently in Austin at South by Southwest,
Dom:
I was just going to ask you about that Martin, I see you attended Austin what what was your experience like and what are the learnings you can draw from that to implement in the west mid?
Martin:
Yeah well it was a fantastic experience in our two levels first of all to see the festival that is South by Southwest it's in fact multiple festivals it's creative it's music it's technology hey everything we've got but also we went to understand how Austin has become such a tech powerhouse as a regional economy actually the look and feel of it very much reminded me personally of the centre of Birmingham it's very new if you look around centenary square you got lovely buildings you've got hotels you got the conference centre it actually it sort of felt a little bit like home and I genuinely mean that but I came away with an abiding sort of impression and that was it was impressive but not remarkable and what I mean by that is it was hugely impressive they get 300 000 people, it adds something like a quarter of a billion to the local economy just from that week, but it's not remarkable in the sense that it can't be done.
So they've been running South by Southwest I think since the mid 1980s it's had a 35 year run and it's pretty damn good but actually they've had plenty of time to get it right we can do this there's no reason we can't do it there was only one thing that would be quite difficult we're working on it but we've got to get the weather right, so there with that 30 degrees sunshine yeah does add a nice little sort of flavour to things yeah and you know we can try right you know.
Dom:
Sign me up I'm ready for those early bird tickets.
Martin:
Well yeah I think both Yiannis and I came away absolutely inspired that we can do this what we need to do is not simply take South by South West and bring it here we need to add our particular flavour we've got a unique culture we've got a unique heritage and we need to bottle that and add that flavour in the mix and then take that to the world and I'm absolutely certain we can do that and that's one of the key things the big things that I want to do so I want to position us on the national international AI scene we've got to get that right I want to run this festival that we codenamed Future Fest I want to run that in the region and that'll be two things that will again help us move to the next level of the ecosystem with all of that in mind why is it such a good time to be a tech business and where is the support for those those businesses whether they're starter, SME, medium, large enterprise well and it is a great time to be a tech business in fact it has been certainly for my whole career it's been an amazing industry and an amazing time to be in that industry but I think what we're seeing now is as I touched on earlier technology is starting to diffuse into every part of the economy every industry is being transformed.
It's very difficult to define what the tech sector is it's almost impossible in fact that means it creates so much opportunity you don't have to be a software geek to have a great tech career so I think it is a great time to be in tech because there's so much choice as to what you can do and what you can be also if you're interested in building something you can now achieve a huge amount with modest resources so things that when I graduated would take millions of pounds to achieve can now be done with utilities that are available on the internet so you don't have to be wealthy necessarily to do something very special in technology and I think so that for me technology can be a great social leveler so it's potentially accessible to all and that makes it a myriad of tools people can use but going in any examples or do we do we lead into the world of the buzzword of well I guess we do I mean this is you know chat GPT is the obvious one and and and I would be the last to say that sticking an interface on chat GPT means you got an AI strategy so let's not go down that rat hole but it's a great example you know you can achieve things now that you couldn't dream of a generation ago and they cost nothing or cost peanuts but tools for developing applications for example low code no code strategies you can get stuff done with modest resources and you can make a difference if you spot the opportunity so that makes it a great time.
And I think if you look at the midlands west midlands we do have everything you need to succeed so there are a huge amount of support resources available to you there is investment available for the the right businesses we need to still work on that as a lot a long way to go but investment is available and there are plenty of skills available for attractive businesses so it is a super super time to be in tech and this is one of the reasons that I'm doing this job and I've gone all in because a generation ago I couldn't dream of having everything that's that's here now and I really would like you know my son and his generation and ones that follow to have those fantastic opportunities to change the world and achieve something fantastic for them and the community and make the most of it so it is a brilliant time the support resources are there they are fragmented and I've talked about this is a key part of my job to defragment them and that's where tech west mids comes in as like a unifying force and a golden thread through the whole tech sector but one of the one of the first things we've done in tech west mids is to set up the concept of something called tech connect which is basically connecting the ecosystem together so in fact the whole strategy of tech west mids is based around connect amplify transform connect the ecosystem amplify the great stuff that's going on drive transformation so if you want to get moving go talk to tech west mids look on techwestmids.com go see them pick up the phone come to tech week and you you can be pointed in the right direction.
We've got plenty of accelerators plenty of people who will help we're not short of resources we just need to be a little bit more organised and that's a journey we are well on a way to achieving fantastic a lot of people most people end users of technology and a lot of people understand the the future of tech and tech being an enabler in our personal life and our work world as well work world as well but why should businesses integrate digital transformation into their strategies it's a good question and I think there's a long way to go on on that in terms of that integration so some have started the journey many many haven't I think it's because of the benefits fundamentally in terms of productivity competitiveness and customer value so technology can hugely transform productivity and competitiveness that's been true for the last 30 years since we've had the concept of enterprise type applications you add in ai and then all of a sudden entire industries get transformed so as an example you know the one of the industries that I work in the M&A industry waypoint partners has been experimenting with the application of ai to its business and even in the very early days it has a transformational impact on the way some of the processes work the speed at which you can do things the amount of resource you need to apply.
So I think I guess my my simple answer would be adopting technology is not optional you can delay it for sure but the chances are you get further and further behind and as technology moves on it goes faster and faster and faster so it's a journey that really businesses have to embrace and ai has really brought this to the forefront because it has such a transformative impact so I would say why should businesses do it well if you want to thrive if you want to survive you need to be adopting technology and you need to be developing what we talk about as digital mindset and this is like a whole philosophy that says individuals and organisations are prepared to step out of the comfort zone to experiment to try new things to innovate to look out for new possibilities and to find that edge and my personal conviction is that the winners of the future will be businesses that are able to adapt and can innovate and leveraging technology is a key part of that so you need to do it my challenge is to provide the resources and the ability to do that and we've started this journey already.
So I believe very strongly in a center of excellence model here and what I mean is support services that can educate about technology can show it in context what does it mean for your industry what does great look like but then can actually help you take the first step through proof of concept and very shortly fingers crossed I'll be announcing quite a significant project that will take some steps in this direction around ai where we'll be helping some SMEs in the region who are non-tech businesses to start to proactively adopt the technology so I think this is the sort of action orientation I talked about I think if we educate businesses that's only the first step they've still then got to go find the resources and the time to make something happen so I'm trying to bridge that gap get businesses on on their journey and then they hopefully will see the transformative impact and then they're on their way so if we can make that work and get a model for that then we can just scale it so that's one of the example projects that I'm working on as to how we make that sort of process happen in the support ecosystem.
Dom:
That provides a real real good insight into the opportunity in the future for tech in the west midlands.
Martin:
Absolutely because you know because I'm a tech person and my natural inclination is we start with the supply side the tech sector and I've talked about making that a fully functioning self-sustaining tech ecosystem that's a big enough job in its own right but the real economic prize yes it's partly from having great scale-ups in the tech sector that's that's a given but the real economic prize is when we actually diffuse the tech capability across to the demand side and we take all the manufacturing SMEs for example that we've got around the region and we turbo charge their businesses by making them productive making them competitive helping them improve the customer service they offer by applying digital technology that's the real economic prize so ultimately the success of the role of commissioner will be measured partly on the supply side but it'll also be measured on the extent to which we can stimulate the demand side economy so there's a very clear path here let's get the supply side sorted which we are well on our way to doing now we have a very clear strategy and let's start to diffuse the capability across to the non-tech sector and this is what I'm starting to work on as we speak.
Dom:
Thank you Martin.
Martin I've got one final question for you if you could see someone else deliver their story on this podcast talking about the human side of tech someone that's inspired you or or you've seen great innovations when doing a fantastic job in their current role who would that be?
Martin:
Well you threw this question in at the end Dom and I had to think long and hard because I mean there are so many people I could pick right and I think you're interviewing Yiannis anyway because he's someone who absolutely it should inspire us all and he's done a fantastic job but I've picked out a person who might find this a bit of a surprise but I'm going to pick out Mick Westman who's the CEO of an organization called Digital Innovators.
This is a not-for-profit that is helping young people learn the skills of innovation so all the things I talked about with digital mindset and these skills are so important they're more important in many ways than knowledge because you can always inject knowledge it's much harder to inject the right soft skills but that's a challenge Mick's working on he's had a lot of success with Digital Innovators.
He asked me for a coffee a couple of weeks ago we sat down and he wants to do more so he's put himself out there as wanting to lead this agenda so my challenge to Mick sat here right today is get yourself on this podcast tell people what you want to do let's make it happen.
Dom:
Mick we're coming for you.
Yeah brilliant Martin thank you so much for joining us today it's been really really interesting to hear about your successful career and then most recently everything you're doing as a tech commissioner at the West Midlands really really really fantastic work long may it continue thank you very much for joining us.
Martin:
My pleasure it's great to have been here and could I just add a special thank you to Intercity for all the fantastic work you do in the ecosystem and working of course with very close with Tech West Midlands it is very much appreciated it's essential and it's great to see a growing regional technology business so very much look forward to a productive relationship for the future thanks Dom.
Dom:
Thanks Martin.