May 18, 2023 | 2 min read

Building Platforms and Patterns for Innovation

By: Patrick Emmons

Building Platforms and Patterns for Innovation

Deploying the most critical systems to the cloud first was a bold strategy for Fitch Group. It’s an approach Derek Ferguson, Global Head of Enterprise Architecture, and Chris Lalor, Senior Director – Technology Enablement, believe was essential to the successful transformation to the cloud for the Group’s companies and is how they continue to manage complex, new technology to date.

In this episode, Derek and Chris dive into avoiding friction in the development process, enabling developers to innovate, and embracing the possibility of failure while reducing potential failure points. They also share their perspectives on service mesh, creating functionality that scales, and the exciting innovations ahead in 2023.

  • (01:23) – Fitch Group
  • (07:58) – Journey to the cloud
  • (11:31) – Reducing friction for developers
  • (15:25) – Avoiding bottlenecks
  • (20:19) – Reducing points of failure
  • (23:33) – Key innovation of service mesh
  • (28:14) – Expanding the tech team
  • (30:36) – Looking ahead in 2023

About Our Guests

Derek Ferguson is the Global Head of Enterprise Architecture at Fitch Group, Inc. Derek is an experienced head of technology professional with previous roles at JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns.

Chris Lalor is the Senior Director - Technology Enablement at Fitch Group, Inc. Previously, Chris led cloud and compute architecture at Viacom MTV Networks.

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Podcast episode production by Dante32.

About Patrick Emmons

If you can’t appreciate a good sports analogy, movie quote, or military reference, you may not want to work with him, but if you value honesty, integrity, and commitment to improvement, Patrick can certainly help take your business or your career to the next level. “Good enough,” is simply not in his vernacular. Pat’s passion is for relentlessly pushing himself and others to achieve full potential. Patrick Emmons is a graduate of St. Norbert College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. Patrick co-founded Adage Technologies in 2001 and in 2015, founded DragonSpears as a spin-off dedicated to developing custom applications that improve speed, compliance and scalability of clients’ internal and customer-facing workflow processes. When he is not learning about new technology, running a better business, or becoming a stronger leader, he can be found coaching his kids’ (FIVE of them) baseball and lacrosse teams and praising his ever-so-patient wife for all her support.

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We interview leaders from early-stage start-ups to billion-dollar enterprises who distill their lessons from their victories and their failures. Learn how these high-performing leaders organize their teams, establish a growth-minded culture, and leverage new technologies such as DevOps and Cloud.