Orbit - An Hg Podcast
35 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 months ago -Hg sits at the centre of a universe of tech and software knowledge and expertise. We are constantly surprised by the ideas generated by these satellite minds and we want to share some of it with you.
Join us for conversation with the experts, leaders and founders in our orbit.
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Episodes
What drives business quality in an era of AI and digital platforms?
November 30, 2023 10:20 - 32 minutes - 30 MBTime for a conversation with one of the greats. As Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia, former senior banker at both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and currently Senior Advisor at Evercore Partners, Jonathan Knee’s thinking is held in high regard across the business world. His recent book, ‘The Platform Delusion’, dismantles the long-held belief that a platform business which provides connections rather than creating products is inherently valuable. So how should we assess bus...
Pace of innovation: Nick Crowne speaks to Rod O'Reilly
October 09, 2023 11:28 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBThe advances in technology on the clinical side of healthcare were shown convincingly in the speed of our response to Covid and in the new discoveries and improvements we continue to see. Covid may have also had a part to play on the administrative side - breaking down old habits and prompting the green shoots of innovation - but there is still a long way to go as legacy systems continue to be expensive, opaque and inefficient. In both cases, there is a huge opportunity for new ideas, new ...
Harnessing a new superpower: Chris Kindt speaks to Guido Appenzeller Part 2
October 02, 2023 12:38 - 16 minutes - 15.3 MBAfter a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have. Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology. In part two of our conversation with Guido, we look at the ways the new generation of AI applications will effect the business world. How do you best capture the value of...
LLM AI, the fourth pillar of software: Chris Kindt speaks to Guido Appenzeller Part 1
October 02, 2023 12:14 - 26 minutes - 24.8 MBAfter a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have. Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology. In part one of our conversation with Guido, we discuss where AI fits into the existing software universe, what phase 2 might look like, the potential limitations – regula...
Life as a service: Dr Katherine Wiles speaks to Kara Marx
September 07, 2023 09:59 - 28 minutes - 28.4 MBAlways at the forefront of scientific progress, the world of healthcare continues to advance as technology and software are drawn in and adopted. But its uptake is uneven at best with some doctors having to cycle across cities with floppy discs in their bag while others experiment with artificial intelligence. With tightening budgets, the efficiency that comes with software and automation is vital but, in the world of healthcare, the ability to process and share results quickly can also mean ...
Insuring the insurers: Andrew Land speaks to Elliot Richardson
July 04, 2023 10:17 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBThe world of reinsurance may seem obscure to most of us, but it is an elemental ingredient vital in keeping the wheels of business turning. Insuring the insurers; managing the risk of those who manage ours and allowing them to react to the world with more agility. This is ever more important as covid has given way to increasingly frequent catastrophes, high inflation and disruptive world events. Elliot Richardson, Vice Chairman of reinsurance challenger Howden Tiger, engages the head of Hg’s...
Future ancestors: Dr David Dempsey speaks to Caroline Löfgren
June 20, 2023 15:58 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MB“From this absolute belief that we could democratise an industry, to the belief that we can also help to democratise the society we live in.” A co-founder of Salesforce Europe, Dr. David Dempsey has been a standard bearer for sustainable business for many years. Taking a moment at our recent ESG Forum, David talks to Hg’s CSO, Caroline Löfgren, about the responsibilities of a “future ancestor” and the unique position of business as a changemaker: more flexible than government and more powerf...
The modern data stack: Tim Harrison speaks to Tristan Handy
May 30, 2023 12:39 - 37 minutes - 34.7 MBAs CEO of dbt Labs, Tristan Handy finds himself at the centre of the "modern data stack" of many leading businesses. But what defines the modern approach to data, what came before and where is it likely to go next? Tristan speaks to Hg's own data expert, Tim Harrison. The past saw big data projects fail under their own weight: taking so much resource to build and redirect that needs could move on before results were available. The modern data stack is more nimble, value-centric and without ...
What does AI mean to you? : Amr Ellabban speaks to Jon Krohn
February 28, 2023 17:35 - 27 minutes - 26 MBA catch-all term sweeping the tech world, 'Artificial Intelligence' couldn't be more exciting, daunting and, inevitably... vague. Thankfully Hg's Head of Data & Analytics, Amr Ellabban, learned his trade alongside Nebula.io Co-Founder and the host of the SuperDataScience podcast, Jon Krohn. From AlexNet's deep machine learning, to the human bias against self-driving cars and on to the opportunities and threats brought by the evolution of ChatGBT, should we be thrilled or concerned? Should al...
Investors in Enduring Growth: Matthew Brockman and Nic Humphries look back at 2022
December 14, 2022 09:44 - 25 minutes - 23.9 MBHg sees the continued growth of software and technology as still just the early stages of a multi-decade trend. Combining ever-increasing performance, productivity and automation, this industry will make our work lives richer and more fulfilling for years to come. Nic Humphries, Senior Partner, and Matthew Brockman, Managing Partner discuss how the short-term fluctuations of economies are not to be ignored but they're confident that the sectors in which Hg invests will provide organic growth...
Poacher turned Gatekeeper: Steve Burn-Murdoch speaks to Pirum's Philip Morgan
November 02, 2022 11:35 - 21 minutes - 19.8 MBA born problem-solver, a career spent around the trading desks of large banks meant that Philip Morgan’s efforts were often hampered by the status quo. Now, as CEO of Pirum, he has the freedom to address the inefficiencies of the industry from the outside in. From the days of wandering the City of London with a folder full of contracts; to the lessons learnt from the collapse of Lehman Brothers; to what he sees as a new & improved, agile age of fintech innovators: Hg’s Steve Burn-Murdoch is...
The Pace of Automation: Hg's Matthew Brockman and David Toms talk it out
October 06, 2022 12:41 - 14 minutes - 14.5 MBIn the second of our conversations between Hg's Managing Partner, Matthew Brockman, and our Head of Research, David Toms, they once again dive into the state-of-the-market. With macro trends starting to bite, will the recent successes of B2B software and tech services show themselves to be cyclical or structural? How should investors in the industry adapt their approach? Is 2023 the year of the P2P? The one thing that doesn't seem to be in question is the continued growth in the pace of busi...
Insurance, the O.G. Data Business: Max Dewez speaks to {Carpe Data's Max Drucker
September 20, 2022 12:01 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBEver since the mortality tables of the seventeenth century, the world of insurance has been a very early adopter in using data to illuminate the world. And yet, in spite of that, it has taken its time to fully catch up with the vast and complex current methods of applying it to the industry. From inferring the presence of a swimming pool based on seemingly unrelated factors, to the unexpected ways a Yelp review or LinkedIn account can have an effect on your policy decision, to predictions o...
Building a Growth Engine: Mark Fulford and Jolanta Pilecka discuss Hg's Growth Framework
August 31, 2022 23:00 - 21 minutes - 19.8 MBThe role of a software Chief Growth Officer encompasses a range of functions, from product marketing to pricing to sales. Getting these functions to work together can create a growth engine for your business. But how do you measure it? How do you optimize it? In a dynamic digital world, we can look at revenue growth right through from lead to revenue, but many businesses are stuck reporting function by function. In this episode of Orbit, Hg's Head of Portfolio Growth, Mark Fulford speaks to ...
Unravelling the Orthodoxy: Andrew Land speaks to George Netherton of Oliver Wyman
August 18, 2022 12:24 - 35 minutes - 33 MBEven the notoriously resistant world of insurance has felt the influence of technology, data and software. Most recently, it has thrown open the doors for smaller operators to carve out particular specialisms or niches from the large providers, allowing them to nimbly push things forward and succeed where scale players are slower to move. From the low-cost digital distribution only too familiar to UK customers to the world of cyber protection, utilising the availability of highly detailed da...
To be of Value: Mark Fulford speaks to Mark Billige of Simon-Kucher
July 28, 2022 09:00 - 19 minutes - 18.7 MBHow do you talk about value in an inflationary environment? A new challenge for many who work within the shifting boundaries of sales, marketing and pricing. Specifically for those selling software-as-a-service, there are myriad ways to determine the price of your product but which models come closest to matching the value delivered to your customer, and which achieve high quality of revenue for your business. In this episode of the Orbit podcast, Mark Fulford, Head of Hg’s Portfolio Growth...
Sustainable IT and IT for Sustainability: Caroline Löfgren speaks to Amazon Web Services' Christopher Wellise and Visma's Robin Åkerberg
July 13, 2022 09:00 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBThere can be no businesses left not having to address the challenges of climate change but the larger you are the broader and deeper your impact on the world. When faced with the complexity of a company of many parts, what do you do to clean your own house and that of your myriad supply chain. In this episode of the Orbit podcast, Hg’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Caroline Löfgren, speaks to Christopher Wellise, Director of Sustainability at Amazon Web Services and Robin Åkerberg, Head of S...
Unlocking real-time behavioral data in SaaS: Tim Harrison speaks to Snowplow Analytics' Yali Sassoon
June 15, 2022 14:59 - 42 minutes - 98.1 MBToday, nearly all businesses are using some form behavioral customer data to drive insight. There is a wide spectrum of sophistication emerging, from small businesses using basic website analytics to understand customer journeys, to SaaS businesses putting behavioral data in the heart of their product, processes and decision-making. In this episode of the Orbit podcast Tim Harrison, a specialist in Hg's data science and analytics team, speaks with Yali Sassoon, co-founder at Snowplow Analyti...
Why Tech is Deflationary in an Inflationary World: Matt Brockman speaks to David Toms
April 14, 2022 09:59 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MB"Tech is deflationary in an inflationary world…” in an Hg Orbit Podcast Special and the first of a quarterly conversation, Matthew Brockman (Managing Partner) and David Toms (Head of Tech Research) review trends observed across the tech sector during another eventful period in the world. They discuss a clear divergence of sentiment in tech markets, during which growth in earnings has proved to be powerful protection against the volatility. Both guests also reflect on the longer-term secular...
The Feedback Loop – Part 2 of a conversation with Cal Henderson, Co-Founder of Slack
March 03, 2022 16:00 - 23 minutes - 21.6 MBAn incredibly reactive and evolutionary software, Slack is constantly learning from its users and challenging its creators’ view of how it is used. Changes between different types of customer layered over changes in the wider world means continual vigilance and a continually refreshed approach. This episode sees Cal Henderson, Co-Founder and CTO of Slack, talk to Hg’s Jason Richards about how to judge the success of innovation, the explosion of feedback enabled by Twitter and how playfulness...
The Death of Email? – Part 1 of a conversation with Cal Henderson, Co-Founder of Slack
March 03, 2022 15:59 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBInitially developed as a direct digitisation of the inter-departmental memo, email has been long embedded into our work lives. The emergence of a new generation of workplace communication tools aim to get closer to how human beings actually interact and the exceptional growth of these solutions brings a host of challenges for their creators. This episode sees Cal Henderson, Co-Founder and CTO of Slack, talk to Hg’s Jason Richards about the unlikely birth story of the app, the value of knowin...
The Digital Construction Site: Trackunit’s Soeren Brogaard on transparency and connection
March 03, 2022 15:59 - 20 minutes - 18.5 MBTrackunit is quietly revolutionising and illuminating the construction industry. By bringing data and analysis to a world where high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability lead to low margins, operators can finally see where their inefficiencies lie and even increase safety levels. In this episode, Soeren Brogaard, CEO, talks to Hg’s Florian Wolff about the internet of things, sudden international expansion and the ways that transparency and connection drive the success of both their pro...
Never a better time than now: team.blue’s Jonas Dhaenens and his Founder’s journey
March 03, 2022 15:59 - 13 minutes - 12.8 MBHaving founded Benelux-based web services group, team.blue (then Combell), at the age of 16, Jonas Dhaenens has stayed with his business through growth, outside investment, international expansion and industry consolidation. In this episode, Jonas talks to Hg’s Joris Van Gool about the development of his initial ideas, how local knowledge is key to international success and his model of bringing together founders and entrepreneurs to share experience and resources. Hg invested in team.blue i...
The Future of SaaS - Part 2: Input is Error
March 03, 2022 15:58 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MBPart 2 of our miniseries: 'The Future of SaaS' The benefits of the SaaS model is increasingly well recognised and is well placed to be the next move for the majority of B2B software. In this episode, Øystein Moan, Executive Chairman of Visma and an Industry Advisor to Hg, discusses the trend of the immediate future: automation. With over 80% of software inputs already coming from APIs, the subjects of machine learning, optimisation and NLP are just the tip of the iceberg in removing human e...
The Future of SaaS - Part 1: Visma’s Øystein Moan on the advantages of SaaS, the challenges to get there and how much road there is left
November 10, 2021 10:44 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBPart 1 of our miniseries: 'The Future of SaaS' The benefits of the SaaS model is increasingly well recognised, but the pain and challenges to successfully achieve a SaaS transition is now being felt by the millions of businesses who are still in the early stages of this journey. In this episode, Øystein Moan, Executive Chairman of Visma and an Industry Advisor to Hg, reflects on Visma’s multi-year journey to SaaS, discussing with Hg’s Nic Humphries, who joined this journey on every step o...
Data Science in Drug Development: Evaluate’s Jon Moser on what biopharma learnt about data science in 2020
November 10, 2021 10:42 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MBThe COVID-19 pandemic has been incredibly disruptive for people all across the world, but has really thrown the spotlight on pharma companies. We’ve seen drugs designed and developed in record times. We’ve seen more collaboration between scientists, pharma companies and regulators than ever before – collaboration that has seen sharing of science, approaches and data. This has accelerated an ongoing trend in pharma, as pharma companies have become more and more data-centric and data-savvy. I...
The Art of Cross-sell: Peter Sherlock on how the Citation Group built a cross-sell engine
November 10, 2021 10:41 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBAs a fast-growing business, with many business units newly added through M&A, Citation had huge cross-selling opportunities. But taking cross-selling from opportunistic to strategic took a whole host of measures to set up their teams for success. In this episode, Hg’s Chris Kindt speaks to Peter Sherlock, Group Commercial Director of The Citation Group, discussing their journey to creating a winning cross-sell strategy and gives some advice to companies looking to do the same. The Citation...
You are only as strong as your weakest point: cybersecurity risk in the M&A process
November 10, 2021 10:41 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBAs software companies come together, often across geographical lines where different rules may apply, the spectre of cybersecurity issues often raises its head. Even if your own house is in order, how can defend yourself against problems that may be lying dormant in your new partner? With the possibility of undisclosed attacks in the past, data breach fines in the future and a potential present where a criminal organisation may already be opportunistically present in a system, waiting for ju...
“I choose me”: how the latest generation in the workplace want to own their destiny
November 10, 2021 10:41 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBWith the workplace currently containing at least five different generations of employees, each with their own priorities and expectations, how can businesses attract and hold on to the leaders of the future? Everyone has heard about The Great Resignation and how Gen Z is re-evaluating their life in light of the pandemic, the gig economy and increasing demands for authenticity, inclusivity and entrepreneurship. But did you know that they already outnumber Gen X? In this episode of Orbit, Ton...
Purpose vs Profit: Benevity’s Bryan de Lottinville on the new era of corporate purpose
November 10, 2021 10:41 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBAs the lines between our professional and personal lives increasingly blur, the desire to connect with something bigger than ourselves through our work is rising. Purpose needs to become part of the fabric of your company to attract and retain both employees and customers. In this episode, Bryan de Lottinville, Founder & Executive Chairperson, Benevity discusses with Hg’s Nic Humphries, the role of purpose in a tech or software business and how company leaders can balance focussing on growt...
Volcano Cat Bonds and Other Innovations: Charlie Langdale of Howden on New Applications for Insurance
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBThe convergence of technology and data with traditional insurance activity, and the appetite from institutional investors in the non-correlated returns on offer from insurance, has created a range of innovative ‘risk-transfer’ products in recent years. Hg’s Andrew Land is joined by Charlie Langdale, Head of Financial Lines for Howden Group Holdings and a leading innovator in the insurance sector, to discuss the latest trends in areas such as parametric insurance, insurance for ESG and susta...
The Scandinavian Question: Merete Hverven of Visma considers how the Nordics became a tech powerhouse
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 24 minutes - 22.3 MBThe last century has seen Scandinavia switch from a fishing and oil economy to become a major centre of innovation in tech and software. Is there something in the water? Merete Hverven is the CEO of Visma, one of Europe's foremost software companies and one of Hg's longest and most successful investments. She speaks to Nic Humphries, Senior Partner at Hg, on what's behind this success, reflecting on her HR background and what it's like to grow up Scandinavian.
Navigating Change in US Tech: Andy Hovancik of Sovos
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBThe last year in the United States has been a year unlike any other. As software businesses dealt with a changing landscape, the importance of purpose was brought sharply into focus by the pandemic and social justice movements. Andy Hovancik has navigated this period of change as President and CEO of leading US-based tax software company, Sovos. In this episode of Orbit, Andy speaks to Dawn Marriott, head of Hg’s Portfolio Team about what has changed over the past year, what will last, a...
Respond, React & Adapt: Tech Transformation at McDonald's with Phil Le-Brun
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 19 minutes - 17.9 MBNow an Enterprise Strategist at AWS, Phil Le-Brun's previous role saw him tackle transforming the technology landscape at the global fast food behemoth, McDonald's. Phil took some time to speak to Hg’s Head of Portfolio Technology, Jason Richards, and reveals that the experience of deploying 20,000 e-commerce restaurants in one year is as much about people as it is about the tech.
Born in the Cloud: a new breed of tech entrepreneur with Joris van der Gucht & Tim Vandecasteele of Silverfin
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBTo be ‘born in the cloud’ is a status to be envied in the software sector. But what real advantages does it have, and are there any downsides? How difficult is it to create a competitive and disruptive business in the cloud today? Joris van der Gucht & Tim Vandecasteele are true software entrepreneurs, having co-founded Silverfin, a leading cloud platform for accountants. Joris and Tim speak to Joris Van Gool, Partner at Hg, about tech entrepreneurship, whilst also discussing the benefits o...