What I Do
Over the years, I have published a few articles outlining my job and approach to my career.
However, through my engagement with early career professionals, I still receive questions regarding my background and responsibilities as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). These questions often extend to the role of IT and the responsibilities of my team
Therefore, I thought I would share a high-level summary of my background, whilst also including a few examples of key initiatives that I hope provide additional context regarding the role, responsibilities and impact of IT within an enterprise business.
In addition, my LinkedIn profile includes more detail, including links to other public publications, etc.
Background
I was born on the Isle of Wight (UK), where I completed my primary education, including a two-year engagement with Cisco Systems as part of their IT and cybersecurity education program. This is where I was first introduced to business-centric technology concepts.
I graduated from Bournemouth University (UK) in 2007, with a 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Business Information Technology. In 2018, I completed my executive education at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (US).
Since 2018, I have been the global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Elanco, expanding my role in 2022 to be the combined global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer (CIO).
In 2023, I was externally recognised as the “Silver Globee” winner at the Globee Awards in the category “Chief Technology Officer of the Year - IT Services”, as well as named a CIO 100 Awards UK 2023 winner, which aims to “recognise the best and brightest technology leaders in the UK”.
I started my career at Eli Lilly, where I joined as a graduate in 2007, following a successful student placement year at Bournemouth University in 2005/2006. I worked at Eli Lilly for twelve years, where I held numerous engineering and architecture roles across Infrastructure, R&D, Commercial and Global Services.
I closed my tenure at Eli Lilly as the Lead IT Architect for Global IT, which covered Emerging Technologies, Cloud, Hosting, Workplace, Networking, Messaging, Collaborations, Service Management, Data, Financial Services, and Data Centres.
Elanco
Founded in 1954, Elanco is a global leader in animal health, providing those who raise and care for animals with products and services that empower them to address global challenges. Elanco has a strong focus on innovation, both in scientific research and daily operations.
Elanco supports two primary markets, specifically:
Pet, covering Pet Owners and veterinarians, promoting the unique and loving bond pet parents share with their companions, and delivering products, services, and insights to ensure every pet can live a long, healthy life.
Farm, covering Beef, Dairy, Poultry, Swine, and Aquaculture, where raising healthy animals limits the potential for disease spread, supports farmers’ livelihoods and provides nutrient-rich meat, milk, fish, and eggs to nourish and support human health.
In summary, Elanco believes healthy animals are key to solving some of the world’s most pressing issues, like food security and nutrition, mental health and social isolation, and environmental sustainability. It all starts with healthier animals!
Elanco IT enables a secure, reliable, and efficient IT ecosystem for approximately 14,000 users (employees/contractors) worldwide, covering approximately 65 physical locations and 18 24x7x365 GxP-compliant manufacturing facilities.
In addition, Elanco IT delivers value through innovative digital products, services, and insights for our customers across 200 brands and 90 countries.
Role and Responsibilities:
Elanco IT is positioned as a market differentiator, delivering value through the creation of innovative digital products, services and insights that help to transform the well-being of animals, people, and our planet.
The role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) aims to bridge the gap between business and technology, supporting business development and being accountable for the overarching technology strategy, including investments, architecture, engineering, and external engagement.
Responsibilities include Enterprise Architecture, which is comprised of Business Process, Solution, Data, and Domain architects, covering all Business Functions (e.g., R&D, Manufacturing, Commercial, Global Services, etc.)
The architecture community maintains a framework of authority and accountability that defines and controls the outcomes of information technology, ensuring that prioritised initiatives have the required sponsorship to succeed.
Alongside the architecture community, I provide leadership across engineering, which covers the design and delivery of IT infrastructure, Industrial Control Systems (Operational Technology), and digital products (internal/external).
In addition, I lead the enterprise governance for the use and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), reporting directly to the Governance Committee, as part of the Board of Directors.
As Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), I lead Information Security and am accountable for cybersecurity governance, risk and compliance, architecture, and operations, covering detection and response, data protection, vulnerability management, and digital forensic analysis.
In partnership with Privacy, Legal, Audit and Compliance, I am accountable for company-wide cybersecurity awareness and education, including regular engagement with Executive Leadership, the Board of Directors, and investors.
Finally, the combined role includes a focus on innovation and external engagement, helping to identify and realise strategic investments that position Elanco as a leader in the animal health market.
Elanco IPO and Bayer Animal Health Acquisition:
In August 2018, Eli Lilly announced that its subsidiary, Elanco Animal Health, had filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock.
As part of the IPO process, I transitioned from my role as Eli Lilly Global IT Lead Architect to Elanco Chief Technology Officer (CTO), accountable for the design and delivery of the IT Vision and Strategy.
Before the divesture, Elanco was completely reliant on IT services from Eli Lilly, covering Identity, Networking, Hosting, Human Resource Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Productivity, Collaboration, Data, etc.
The divestiture presented Elanco with the unique opportunity to rebuild IT from the ground up, including a new architecture, technologies, processes, and talent.
This unprecedented situation, where the weight of legacy and technical debt was lifted, enabled a “quantum leap” forward through the creation of a modern IT ecosystem.
Simultaneously, in August 2020, Elanco demonstrated its ambition as a standalone company by closing the acquisition of Bayer Animal Health. The transaction, valued at $6.89 billion, positions Elanco as the second-largest independent animal health company globally, unlocking a diverse and comprehensive product portfolio as well as unparalleled service and support.
Considering the scope, time, and budget pressures associated with these large-scale, complex initiatives, alongside the challenges associated with the macroeconomic environment, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, Elanco IT achieved what many external consultants and research analysts described as “impossible”.
Throughout this process, I led the design and recruitment of a world-class IT team, that successfully built an entirely new IT ecosystem, including all foundational capabilities, achieved in approximately 18 months. Delivery highlights include:
- Recruitment and onboarding of approximately 270 IT employees across the US, UK, Poland, and India.
- Creation and delivery of the IT organisational structure, methodology, processes, etc.
- Migrated approximately 14,000 users (Identity, Productivity, Collaboration) during a global pandemic, including a Microsoft Office 365 to Office 365 tenant migration.
- Deployed approximately 14,000 devices across 65 countries, following an autonomous (home) deployment methodology.
- Migrated approximately 65 physical sites, including 24x7 manufacturing facilities and R&D labs.
- Migrated/modernised approximately 1101 applications/services, supporting key business processes.
- Enabled SD-WAN globally, exclusively over Internet circuits, significantly reducing network costs.
- Achieved 95% cloud adoption, covering SaaS, FaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
- Enabled a new Enterprise Data Foundation, enabling data-driven decision-making and driving data-powered products.
- Standardised, and migrated to a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Human Resource Management (HRM) environment across approximately 45 countries.
- Enabled a new approach to Service Integration and Management (SIAM), delivering support efficiencies.
The modern IT Ecosystem established through this journey primed Elanco as a digitally native business, ready to seize the opportunity as a newly independent company.
Business Innovation:
Powered and supported by Elanco IT, Elanco has begun to deliver new innovative products and services to the market across pet and farm.
Elanco has a robust and exciting innovation pipeline, which aims to launch multiple blockbuster products between now and 2026.
Two recent innovation examples include:
Pet: Canine Parvovirus Monoclonal Antibody
Canine Parvovirus Monoclonal Antibody is the first and only USDA-conditionally approved monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatment that targets canine parvovirus (CPV).
While canine parvovirus (CPV) vaccinations are highly effective and widely available, canine parvovirus (CPV) is still a real and ever-present threat to all dogs, with unvaccinated and young puppies the most at risk.
On average, 900 dogs are diagnosed with canine parvovirus (CPV) each day, with an estimated 92% fatality rate if not treated with timely and aggressive supportive care.
Alongside the ground-breaking Canine Parvovirus Monoclonal Antibody treatment, Elanco launched “The Defenders Fund”, with a bold commitment to save one million puppies from canine parvovirus (CPV) by 2030.
Farm: Livestock Sustainability
The world has until 2030 to reduce climate warming or face irreversible harm.
60% of people are getting the wrong nutrition, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Action Against Hunger.
We’re seeing 50% more demand for protein in the next decade than the last.
Livestock sit at the intersection, animals can help be part of the solution to solving some of the most pressing challenges while giving consumers the protein they want.
Elanco has launched multiple first-of-its-kind products and services that reduce cattle emissions, targeting a reduction of up to 40-50%.
The initial focus is methane. Through enteric fermentation, cows generate methane that is released. Methane lasts approximately ten years in the atmosphere, but it is 25x more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat – so smaller reductions create a greater impact on temperature.
If the world can reduce methane emissions by just 20-30%, we can make a real impact and reduce climate warming, making climate-neutral farms a possibility this decade.
Alongside the new products and services, Elanco helped create a digital business startup called Athian, which is creating a marketplace within the food system to inset carbon credits and create economic value for farmers and reputational value for protein products by keeping the carbon value within the food system.
The goal is to help ensure Elanco customers can realise the value of their efforts at the farm level.
IT Innovation:
Alongside the discovery, development, and delivery of life science products to support pets and farms, Elanco IT also incubates, powers, and supports digital/data initiatives, enabling improved productivity for employees and customers.
Two recent digital/data innovation examples include:
Generative AI for Business
In early 2023, following the market hype associated with Generative AI, Matthew Bull positioned Elanco as a leader by launching ElancoGPT, a Generative AI chatbot, designed to accelerate productivity by streamlining common business tasks.
ElancoGPT can be compared to ChatGPT, capable of understanding and generating human-like responses.
Uniquely, ElancoGPT is private to Elanco, with specific business features and controls to ensure security, privacy, legal, and compliance.
For example, Identity Access Management (FIDO2 Compliant), Individual Session Management, Custom Personas, Business Data/Context Ingestion, Logging/Monitoring, etc.
Thanks to the established Modern IT Ecosystem and talented engineers, ElancoGPT was developed internally in two weeks, leveraging a decoupled architecture that includes a custom user interface and middleware API. It can connect to multiple large language models, specifically the GPT Family, Google PaLM2/Gemini, Imagen 2, etc.
In addition, to enable autonomy and scale, a feature, like OpenAI GPTs, enables business users to securely create their own Generative AI chatbots (known as a custom persona), primed for a specific use case, with configurable context.
Finally, business data/context is ingested through an embedding engine (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), including the ability to scale for multiple use cases, whilst remaining compliant with our security, privacy, and legal policies.
Following an early adopter phase, ElancoGPT was made available globally to all viable users (approximately 7,000), targeting a wide range of common business tasks. For example:
- Answers (Information, Knowledge Articles, Guides, etc.)
- Ideation (Brainstorming, Storyboarding, etc.)
- Content Creation (Documents, Policies, Processes, Communications, etc.)
- Content Review (Literature, Journals, Papers, Press Releases, etc.)
- Summarisation (Executive Summaries, Key Messages/Findings, Reports, etc.)
- Research Analysis (Qualitative, Observations, Deductive Reasoning, Survey, etc.)
- Software/Data Engineering (100+ Programming/Scripting Languages)
- Translations (85+ Languages)
Since its launch, ElancoGPT has been used by 5,470 unique users (78% of the viable audience), with approximately 1200 logins per day. That includes 623 active custom personas.
Based on conservative estimates, this usage has driven over 19,000 hours of timesaving, which is the equivalent of $946,424 of savings through productivity enhancements and cost avoidance.
This adoption has been organic (no formal organisational change management) and the service only costs approximately $300 per month to operate (all users), delivering a compelling return on investment.
Sustainable Computing
The world produces more than 50 million tons of e-waste per year. On average, that is 6kg per person, per year.
This e-waste has a direct impact on the well-being of animals, people, and the planet, contributing towards global issues such as climate change.
Supporting the Elanco Healthy Purpose, Elanco IT is continuously exploring new ways to minimise our environmental impact, prioritising partnerships that improve sustainability.
In June 2023, Matthew Bull established a partnership with Framework, launching a pilot that aimed to unlock sustainable computing for enterprise businesses.
The desired outcome is to fundamentally change the model for end-user computing, delivering greater user flexibility and lower costs, whilst reducing the environmental impact.
This model can replace the legacy approach to lifecycle management, whilst also delivering a “near zero waste” process that encourages reuse and longevity.
In partnership with Framework, the pilot, delivered across the UK and US focused on the processes, capabilities, and architecture across the following areas:
- Enrolment (Microsoft Autopilot, Intune Compatibility)
- Supportability (Repair, Maintenance)
- Lifecycle Management (Upgrades, Recycling)
- Global Distribution (Value Added Reseller Support)
- Security (Hardware, Software Controls)
- User Experience (Performance, Usability, Durability)
Results from the pilot have been favourable, highlighting a compelling return on investment, with a potential ten-year total cost of ownership saving of $18M and Co2 equivalent savings of up to 34,000kg.
In November 2023, the pilot was approved for phase one scale, targeting the UK and Europe in 2024.
People Leadership:
Elanco strives to foster the inclusion of all employees, customers, and stakeholders around the world, and celebrate the diversity of its individuals. Elanco unequivocally condemns hate-based violence, which targets people because of their differences, be it disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Currently, Elanco IT has approximately 270 full-time employees and 170 contractors. There are also approximately 890 outsourced roles from managed service providers (e.g., Service Desk, Site Support, Application Management, Network Management, etc.)
Approximately 100 of the employees are focused on engineering, architecture and/or cybersecurity, which either directly or indirectly report to me as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
I provide leadership, coaching and mentoring across this community, encouraging curiosity, and helping to support individuals’ development/career progression.
I am also a sponsor of the Student Internship Programme, with specific engagement across the UK, US, and India. The goal is to identify STEM talent early, offering individuals an opportunity to learn/develop as part of an industrial placement (lasting up to one year). This programme has proven highly successful, including direct engagement from Bournemouth University, resulting in approximately 45% of all UK IT employees being recruited via this channel, with excellent talent retention.
Finally, I sponsor and mentor the global Elanco Women in Leadership programme and proactively engage the external community, for example, a partnership with the UK Charity Wonderseekers through the Elanco Global Day of Purpose, whose mission is to create a fairer world where all children can treasure science and are ready and able to improve lives and protect and heal our planet.