James Smith
Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder
Our award-winning CEO and Founder, James, is well known amongst the DevOps and business community and is widely regarded as a thought leader in the field.
About James
Being a proud Welshman, James based the DevOpsGroup business in Cardiff creating over 70 new jobs.
For James, training the next generation of talent is vital to growing the company and helping to close the skills gap in IT; he has been instrumental in the creation of DevOpsGroup Academy and the strong partnerships with the local universities.
This contribution has been recognised by DevOpsGroup winning two Welsh Start-Up awards, Wales Technology award Best Tech Workplace, Computing DevOps Excellence award, Cardiff Business award and James personally being awarded Wales Technology Leader of the Year and IoD Director of the Year (Wales).
Prior to co-founding DevOpsGroup, James worked as a software development consultant and Chief Technology Officer for over 20 years.
Over this time he led teams that have designed, built and deployed some of the UK’s most popular eCommerce websites for organisations such as Dell, Pizza Hut, KFC and the RAC.
Between them, these websites transact millions of orders worth over £150m in revenue every year. James frequently publishes his opinions on the DevOpsGroup blog and his contributions have been quoted in research by Gartner and Forrester.
More About James
Favourite Food?
Ribs & Wings
What one book should everyone read?
The Score Takes Care of Itself
Favourite Tv Show?
Wheeler Dealers
What is the best thing about working at DevOpsGroup?
Working with wicked smaaht people who do awesome things for customers.
Read posts by James
12 Factors: Building for DevOps Success. #1 Identify the outcome
In a series of 12 blogs DevOpsGuys CEO James Smith explores the most important factors for DevOps adoption. Blog #1 "Identify the outcome”
I’m C-Sick. Stop it with all your cultural bulls**t!
DevOpsGuys CEO James Smith looks at our need to hang our accountability on a term 'culture', and explains why this is masking the real issues.
Leading experts bare all about the DevOps movement
We discuss the new e-book from Rackspace - highlighting insights from tech leaders, and how to implement your own DevOps practices within your organisation.