On the cover: Open goals

www.opencastsoftware.com
LinkedIn: Opencast

Words by Colin Young
Photography by Mike Sreenan

A couple of years ago, Evie Lawson, youngest daughter of Opencast chief executive Tom, started taking an interest in football and playing in goal.

Goalkeeping, though, isn’t the easiest of jobs for an eight-year-old.

Last summer, before the start of Evie’s first season in competitive football, her dad was asked if he would help out the Gateshead- based team.

One DBS check and a training course later, and Tom found himself managing the side.

As chief executive of one of Newcastle’s leading technology companies, Tom doesn’t need to prove he can run a business; managing a young girls’ football team, though, was a different challenge.

He says: “I was asked if I would help out on matchdays, and I thought, ‘why not? I’ll be at the games anyway’.

“Next thing, a box full of kit arrives, all the gear, and I thought, ‘that’s very generous for helping out’, and then I looked on the club website and I’d been named as the gaffer.

“We have coaches who organise the training – I’d say my primary roles are matchdays, admin and squad discipline.”

And how’s that going?

“It’s quite a challenge,” says Tom.

He adds: “We’ve had to ban cartwheels, screaming and anything that we just find weird.

“I’m not sure my performance review for the last season would be a good one.

“It was our first season in the league – we had two wins and many defeats.

“But we’re learning and trying to create a very good culture in the team.

“As you would expect, the club is very much centred around learning and enjoyment, and that’s the most important thing.

“You do get drawn into wanting to win and see that side of it, but what you’re really trying to do is help these kids develop and learn.

“It’s also an alternative way of practising different forms of leadership.”

Five years ago, Yorkshire-born Durham University graduate Tom was approached by

Charlie Hoult and Mike O’Brien, co-founders of technology consultancy Opencast, to become chief executive.

This promotion may have been more seamless and traditional than a kids’ football team, and obvious too, but Tom’s principles are the same.

People come first.

“I often say, we lease some buildings and we own a few laptops; that’s it – everything else is people,” says Tom.

He adds: “We don’t really have any IP, other than knowledge and experience; we don’t sell a fancy magic widget.

“It’s people. And prioritising how we look after those people is really central to our whole mission.

“We’ve built a lot of our reputation on doing the technical things well.

“But it’s the how that’s the difference.

“How do we go about doing it? How do our people show up? How do they work with the clients?

“What skills and methodologies do they use?

“What are their values and their behaviours?

“When clients start working with us, they say, ‘oh, your people show up differently’.

“And that’s because we look after them.”

Founded in Byker in 2012, Opencast had already established itself as a tech company prepared to go head-to-head with the likes of IBM and Accenture, and transformation came in the form of the pandemic.

Opencast helped deliver projects such as the Government’s self-employed income support scheme within eight weeks.

The company’s reaction to the crisis set a precedent and a standard, and its critical systems and services continue to support the Government and NHS, delivering improved digital experiences for millions every day through tech innovation and data.

Today, Opencast continues to work with HMRC and DWP, two major employers based at Longbenton.

Tom says: “Demand for the services we deliver grew during the pandemic and gave us a platform to continue on beyond that.

“Despite some volatility in the market last year, we’re still seen as a real challenger to those really big global firms.

“We do what we do well, and clients prefer doing it with us.

“We moved gradually from being regional to being national, and now we’ve established offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, with a presence in Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham – although we haven’t invested in physical space there.”

Opencast remains firmly headquartered in the North East, which is very much to Tom’s liking.

He says: “The co-founders were looking to scale the business, and I thought it was an amazing opportunity to take everything I’d learned elsewhere and do something differently.

“I’ve always had a slightly belligerent streak; I wanted to prove you could still build a career up here because I’m a Northerner, and I love livingand working in this region.

“There’s a bit of personal determination to go, ‘why do you have to go to London to do that when you can do it here?’”

When Tom took over five years ago, Opencast was based in a small office in Hoult’s Yard, employing 80 people with around £6 million turnover.

Today, it employs nearly 500 people across the country, with half based through the arches in The Kiln, a purpose-built office.

Turnover stands at more than £50 million.

The Kiln, tucked away on the site, is brimming with awards, stand-up desks and a large Shaun the Sheep model kept back from a Newcastle street art trail.

Opencast used extensive research to establish an office which would be the envy of many companies of any size; they have quadrupled the amount of floor space from their original home, yet only doubled the number of desks.

“We did a lot of our own research on design,” says Tom, who previously worked for competitor Capgemini.

He adds: “We asked questions like, ‘what would make people come to the office?’, because when we were building this we had to think about what the post-pandemic world might look like.

“How would we get people to want to leave the house and come to work?

“There are things we knew were good for them to do at home, so it was about designing space to support face-to-face meetings.

“We were very clear we didn’t want to go fully remote, so we stayed hybrid, because there are certain high-value interactions that have to be done face-to-face, internally and externally.

“For all the space we have, we don’t have lots of traditional desk space; we have lots of collaborative areas, meeting rooms and little private cabins.

“A big thing was having a social space where our people can connect with folk they don’t see in their team and be able to talk to them.

“There are different types of spaces, so it’s still an office, but you might feel like you’re almost working from home.”

And the people-first ethos extends to employees and clients which, in this region, as well as DWP and HMRC, has included NHS Business Services Authority, Sage, The Alnwick Garden, Recyke Y’Bike and the International Community Organisation of Sunderland.

And with Opencast becoming a B Corp last year, it joined more than 1700 businesses across the country to ensure high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

Tom says: “I think people want purpose in what they do.

“They want the work and the life they lead to have some sort of meaning to it.

“If there is some meaning to what we do, people will want to come here, they’ll want to stay here.

“They’ll show up and do things differently that can have a hugely positive impact on the clients we work with.

“And through their role in the world, whether it’s government, healthcare or purposeful private sector organisation work, we’ll create positive impact in the world.

“That is a self-reinforcing cycle.

“Then you say, ‘we did that growth, so let’s go do more’, so we can create a meaningful difference through what we do.

“I think it’s exciting and more meaningful work and type of employment to be in, and we’ve got the opportunity to create that.”

Last year, Opencast was recognised as the fastest-growing large business at the North England/Scotland Northern Tech Awards, on top of two consecutive wins for growth from Dynamo North East and 75th place in the Sunday Times 100 list of the UK’s fastest- growing businesses.

But for the team, Tom and chair Charlie – who introduced share schemes for all employees – there is no danger of resting on any laurels, with the leadership team now implementing a strategy for 2028.

Tom adds: “It’s about creating something meaningful in what we’re doing, looking after our people, who’ll then go do great things for clients impacting the world.

“And we keep doing more of it.

“It is an easy thing to say, but not many do it.

“We see government departments as really key; they serve the country and there is a lot we can do to create a better experience for citizens.

“Health is huge, and the NHS needs transforming significantly if it’s going to deliver the outcomes people need.

“We think about how we put people at the centre of that journey and deliver the maximum impact that’s positive.

“Philosophically, how do our people show up in those environments, caring about what they’re doing, so that we make that difference?

“That’s what we want to create.

“To win across government and healthcare settings you need to be technically very good at what you do and then be able to tell that story.

“We can do that.

“You’ve also got to be really socially impactful as a business.

“You have to show you provide greater impact in society.

“That’s a critical part of our business model.”