My Personal Retrospective 2021

After moving abroad and leaving my family in Spain at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, and after closing 2020 with the announcement of the spin-off of IBM Global Technology Services into an independent company, Kyndryl, all the plans I could have made before joining the global solutioning organization in Dublin, immediately went down the sink.

However, this stint has been the most exciting of my over 20-years IT career so far.

During 2021 I’ve been directly involved as Solution Architect and Technical Coach in multiple deals with clients in Europe: Caixa Bank, BMW, Salling Group, Mapfre and Luminor Bank, to name only a few.

I’ve also participated in sales and engagement activities with some of the largest banks and insurance companies in Europe, and with large corporations in multiple industries: AXA, Danske Bank, LVMH, ABN AMRO, Teva Pharma, BBVA, Naturgy, Lloyds Banking Group, Etihad Airways, AP Moller Maersk, Deutsche Bank, Allianz, and many other.

This has also been the year that I’ve finally submitted to the dictatorship of professional certifications, and I have achieved certifications in Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Honestly, I don’t know now more than what I knew before getting certified, but it was fun and fulfilling sometimes.

Having an intimate experience and knowledge of Cloud-native technologies, following closely all Cloud-related trends, and participating in dozens of conversations with clients, have allowed me to lead and contribute to very interesting initiatives for Kyndryl:

• I’ve co-created a point of view of the emerging platform-centric operating model that would allow IT organizations to scale Cloud adoption and deal with “shadow IT” / “rouge IT” / “business unit IT”.
• I’ve co-developed a Cloud-native Managed Services Provider (MSP) services framework and commercial model that would streamline the solutioning process of managed services opportunities over Cloud Services Providers (CSP).
• I’ve also participated in multiple activities to build up Kyndryl’s global partnerships and alliances, especially with Red Hat, VMware, and Google Cloud.
• I’ve worked with our global teams and offerings to help them understand better what the market demand is, which are the challenges clients face, and what are the Cloud opportunities for Kyndryl.

I don’t have a crystal ball, neither I’m infallible (just the opposite), but I personally believe that 2022 will see lots of companies struggling, and probably failing, with accelerating the inevitable Public Cloud adoption, due to the constantly ramping-up complexity and the lack of enough skilled practitioners. 2022 will be the year we see IT organizations trying to do more with less, getting the most of their current professionals, seeking for new ways of unlocking their existing talent pool and incentivizing their people to try new approaches and adopt new ways of working.

I look forward to helping companies of any size and industry overcome the challenges on their Cloud adoption journey along 2022. It’s going to be a lot of fun!

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Sincerely,

Sergio

PS: In 2021 I had to say goodbye to lots of colleagues that either retired or went to other companies, some of them left me truly orphan:?Julien Lavayssiere, Frederico Mu?oz, Brad DesAulniers, Sahana Mathapati, Tiziana Trova, …

Although I still hold some that did their best to keep me busy and intellectually challenged: Doug Kinnaird, Michael Madner, Brendan Fitzgerald, Carsten Franck, …

And I had great fun with the Iberian gang too: Prado Molina, Noel Bravo, Jose Cesar Lopez, Raul Mu?oz Serrano, Ruben Luengas, Alexandre Soares, …

Many thanks to all of you!