BT DEFENCE
Some find it conceptually challenging to think about defence in terms of the private sector – and even more so when it comes to the relationship between the public and private sectors in this regard – but the parallels between them are striking enough , and the potential reciprocity significant enough , to force them to rethink their longheld biases .
“ When I look at BT and the Ministry of Defence ( MoD ), roughly speaking , they ' ve got a similar sized workforce : both have a global footprint ; and both , of course , also have all the advantages and disadvantages of being large organisations ,” says Cole .
“ For me , it was a really valuable learning experience on how to operate and thrive inside a large organisation . The focus of my secondment was really to prepare me for my next job as the Army Chief Information Officer ( CIO ), and , at that time , it didn ' t really occur to me that I would end up working at BT . But actually , as it happened , I had to sign a contract – as did BT – with the understanding that they wouldn ' t try to recruit me ( and that I therefore wouldn ' t leave the army ) within a given time period , in order that the MoD got a return on the investment of letting me go for six months .
Cole joined BT seven months ago , having spent a full military career in the British Army . He was a Major General and had joined the Royal Corps of Signals ( the Army ' s specialists in IT , Cyber and Information ). Towards the end of his military career , Cole was the CIO for the Army , working at board level – involved in strategic-level decision making – as well as programme leadership and delivery .
Now at BT and running BT ’ s Defence team , his expertise in light of the cyclical nature of IT , cyber and information in relation to the ever-integrative public and private sectors renders him a fine asset for the position .
“ I have a team of people in BT who are established to be really customer-facing , focused on the MoD as our customer , but drawing from the wider Enterprise business in order to deliver the products and services to meet our customer needs ,” he says . “ What I find really exciting is that , having grown up in defence and spent a full career there , I principally , passionately believe in the outputs and the outcomes of the MoD . So , even though I ' m in my second career , I now find an opportunity to keep contributing , and our role is really to deliver and operate a whole range of IT services to the MoD .”
98 October 2022