Name: Roly Smoldon Title: General Manager IT Services, Ricoh New Zealand Twitter handle: @RicohNZ What business technology issue is your role focusing on? Making the complex (i.e. technology) simple and predictable so our customers can focus on their business. What are your interests away from work? My daughters, aged 7 and 10, take up a great deal of time with sports and activities. I’m a long suffering Warriors season ticket holder and I’ve recently encouraged my daughters t accompany me to share the pain. Keeping active, gym, cycling and indoor football (soccer). What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? From my great Grandfather: “Always spend money on good shoes and a good bed as that’s where you spend most of you time.” I also like the saying: facta, non verba, which translates as deeds, not words: “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds” Professionally, who do you admire most? No one professionally springs to mind, but Muhammad Ali is a person I admire greatly for his unwavering self-belief and ability to challenge the thinking of a generation. He is the ultimate self-starter. Muhammad Ali: He is the ultimate self-starter. How long have you been working in your field? How did you get into your role? I’ve been working in IT for 20 years. I started in sales working for 3Com in the UK. If you weren’t working in your field, what would you be doing? I’d be a business advisor and/or a board member. I’ve had the pleasure of being a director for a few not-for-profit organisations in the past and I really enjoyed providing input and direction to help the organisations grow and transform. Send news tips and comments to divina_paredes@idg.co.nz Follow Divina Paredes on Twitter: @divinap Follow CIO New Zealand on Twitter:@cio_nz Sign up for CIO newsletters for regular updates on CIO news, views and events. Join us on Facebook. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe