welcome

career

photography

personal

childhood

John Linwood

Welcome to my Home Page

My Career

A global Technology leader with an unparalleled track record for successfully delivering global scale technology and services for the biggest names in the world.

In addition to delivering a number of successful, large scale ($150m upwards) software and IT infrastructure projects, John has delivered a host of global, online products and services at Microsoft and Yahoo serving hundreds of millions of users each month and generating significant revenues. John's 30 year experience including over 15 years delivery of Internet based services to global audiences allied with effective management of large technology organisations (up to 1600 staff) and proven track records of major IT project, product and service delivery make John a unique leader in the IT world.

A founder of 3 successful startups and having been a key and valued senior leader in 3 of the world's largest players in the technology space (Microsoft, Yahoo and BBC), John has a high degree of technology, commercial and leadership ability on a global scale that has proven itself repeatedly throughout his impressive and distinguished career.
My LinkedIn profile

Chief Technology Officer (CTO, includes CIO function)

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

2009 – Present (2.5 years)
Responsible for technology direction and delivery for the BBC including all broadcast and IT based technology. Managing an organisation of over 1200 staff and a technology spend of £450m per annum.
Key achievements to date include bringing the BBC's DMI digital production project (£139m) back on track, BBC North technology deployment recovery, ongoing delivery of key major technology projects, development and publication of BBC's Technology Strategy for the next 5 years and stabilisation of BBC core IT platforms including LAN, WAN, telephony. On the vendor management side the key achievement is bringing the BBC's key technology provider (£250m/year contract) in line with contractual and business requirements.
I sit on the BBC's Operations Board, BDG and Technology Boards as well as the board of the BBC's Academy. I chair the Technology Board, the Technology Training board and the DMI Steering Group.

Senior Vice President, International Engineering

Yahoo inc.

2004 – 2009 (5 years)
I ran all of Yahoo's international engineering (i.e. all engineering outside of US). Before I left Yahoo I was managing an organisation of 1600 staff (developers, testers, service engineering, etc) across 22 markets internationally in Europe, Asia and and Emerging markets as well as localization and internationalization functions based in California. The Yahoo Software Development Centre in Bangalore also reported to me.
Key achievements include development of Yahoo Answers which started out as a pilot in my engineering team in Korea and went on to become one of Yahoo's most traffic'd services with over 130m unique users/month.
I also introduced Service Management and ITIL based service delivery into Yahoo to deliver stable, scaleable and resilience services to Yahoo users globally.
I championed the delivery of global products by Yahoo building up both the Internationalisation and Localisation capabilities for the company.
I led a major project to explore the creation of engineering centers of excellence around the world.

General Manager MSN

Microsoft

1993 – 2004 (11 years)
I was responsible for Software and Service engineering for MSN (Microsoft's online consumer service) outside the US and for delivering the MSN Content Management platform globally. I took MSN from inception to delivering high quality, scalable and resilient services to hundreds of millions of users around the world. Prior to the 7 years with MSN I was a Principle Architect in Microsoft's Consulting Division where I led a number of high profile projects in the Finance, Commercial and Defence sectors.

CTO

The Dodge Group

1991 – 1993 (2 years)
I was a founder and CTO of the The Dodge Group, a software and services company set up by the founder of McCormick and Dodge (later Dunn & Bradstreet software), Frank Dodge. I was responsible for the development and delivery The Dodge Group's portfolio of products targeted at large, multi national corporations.


CEO

Omega Software

1989 – 1991 (2 years)
I was a founder and CEO of Omega Software, a specialist software company delivering middleware software to connect PC front end systems with mini and mainframe servers. This company was acquired by the Dodge Group in 1991


Technology Director

Mega Systems

1983 – 1989 (6 years)
I was a founder and Technical Director of this software company delivering commercial, packaged software for Financial and Management Information based on DEC Vax and Data General MV super mini's
 

Analyst/Programmer

Systemsolve Systems

1983 – 1983 (1 years)
Commercial and financial software development
 

Analyst/Programmer

C.F. Tulley Assoc

1981 – 1983 (2 years)
Financial and payroll systems development
 

Programmer

Zimbabwe Treasury

1980 – 1981 (1 years)
Software development on mainframe and mini computers for Zimbabwe Treasury
 
Follow @johnlinwood


This is the personal website of John Linwood.  The views expressed here are my own personal views.