Chris is a corporate strategist, specialising in investing in change and IT.  That's not, of course, how he started out. His early career was in Customer Service, firstly hands-on then as a manager.  In 1986, he was picked for a three-month secondment in IT.  As Chris often reflects, it's been a long three months!

Starting out in IT as Systems Designer, his career followed the then-traditional path of Senior Designer, Senior Business Analyst, Project Leader and Programme Manager.

In 1994 he established the first formal Enterprise Architecture (EA) capability in the company he worked for.  This kick-started Chris's interest in corporate strategies, including the differences and independencies between strategy, architecture and investments, and how enterprises create value by investing in invest in change and IT. 

Before long, together with the CIO he was treated as one of the corporate strategy community, leading initiatives in business scenario planning, business strategy formulation, business design, and portfolio management of investments in change.

In late 1999, Chris left his last role as an employee and became an independent practitioner and mentor.  Speaking engagements rapidly followed, with his first public seminar in October 2000, together with requests for articles from publications such as Computer Weekly, Conspectus, CIO Magazine, and the Journal of Enterprise Architecture.

Now, Chris works with CIOs, executives, Enterprise Architects and Portfolio Managers around the world.  He speaks at, and chairs, conferences.  He still presents the seminar that he first delivered in 2000, although it has evolved a great deal.  He has also served on the judging panels for the CIO 100 Awards in the USA, and the Top CIO Strategy Award in the Middle East.  Chris also delivers visiting lectures at New York University, IT-Universitetet in Copenhagen, and City University in London.
 

His first book, a business novel called "FruITion" and narrated by a CIO, Ian, was published in February 2008.  Later that year he was presented with an Honour Award by the vibrant IT community in Luxembourg, the previous year's recipient of which was Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Skype.

The sequel to FruITion, "RecrEAtion", narrated by an Enterprise Architect called Simon, was published in November 2010.  The third and final book (working title simply "FruITion Three") is slated for publication in 2012.

Chris passionately believes that strategy, architecture and investment are forms of self expression - whether intentionally or not.  As the narrator of "FruITion" observes, "Strategy is not what you write down, it is who you are, what you actually do and what you influence others to do."