Andy Green: The IT guy 'revitalising' Logica
A Day in the Life: The chief executive of LogicaCMG is a gadget-loving ball of energy
By James Moore Saturday, 24 May 2008
6.40am
Andy Green has just been picked up from his Enfield home and already he's at the gadgets, which is perhaps not that surprising for the boss of an IT company. While many people have a love-hate relationship with their Blackberrys – or Crackberrys – Green professes to love his, and also has an iPhone. The latter is used to keep in touch with his two elder children who are at university (he says cheerio to his youngest – a surprisingly early riser for a teenager – before he leaves). "I'm a device freak," he confesses. "We message each other with Facebook. I'm an Aston Villa fan, but my elder son supports Man U, so I'm getting a lot of grief at the moment."
However, his main business is to read the headlines, catch up on the overnight emails and make calls to those parts of the world which are already up and running, such as India. He calls the company's country head there to talk about the company's ideas log. "We have 39,000 people and we have to make sure we develop their ideas for clients."
7.30am
Mr Green has arrived at the Cinnamon Club to meet a senior civil servant. The UK Government is one of the company's biggest clients, so Mr Green makes a point of meeting them regularly. The Cinnamon Club, set in the Grade II-listed former Westminster Library, is extremely popular among the denizens of Westminster and Whitehall, and Mr Green, for one, is not going to complain. "I often have breakfast here," he says. "They do a great kedgeree.
"The UK Government accounts for nearly 10 per cent of our global business, so it is important that we keep in regular contact and ensure we continue to have good relationships. I need to understand how well we are working, to make sure we have the right focus and the right people in place to ensure we are in touch with what our client is trying to achieve. But yes, I pay."
From there, he heads to the office where he will hold a conference call with the company's executive committee. "Everything is on the move," he says, which is a good description of the way he seems to operate.
He appears to be blessed with tremendous energy – it's almost exhausting just talking to him. "When I came here, there was a monthly executive committee meeting, but I decided that wasn't enough," he says. "We needed to meet more regularly, so we have the conference call every week. It makes for much faster decision making."
The meeting considers how well the early stages of Mr Green's much-vaunted £110m reconstruction programme – announced last month with a bold statement that it would "revitalise Logica" – is progressing.
11am
Mr Green holds a second customer meeting after snatching 20 minutes to catch up with his PA. This time, it is with a commercial client, the Belgian brewing giant InBev. "I always try to see clients face to face, first off, but we can now do a video link. I want to know what they need my team to concentrate on, what we need to change to ensure delivery. We have a five to seven-year contract, but InBev is always changing, buying companies, and so you have to be able to adapt what you do and also deal with issues such as areas where we are not performing as well as we might – but also to make sure we are being rewarded properly where we are."
12.30pm
The meeting lasts until lunchtime, when Mr Green will catch up with Craig Boundy, the disturbingly youthful chief executive of Global Operations (he's just 33).
After the glamorous surroundings of breakfast, however, it's the rather more businesslike environment of a conference table, with snatched sandwiches. "I want to know how our off-shoring and inshoring plans are working. We have a different view on off-shoring to many companies," he says. "We always make sure that we front offshore operations with local resources."
This creates a problem, though, he says. "We are running out of skills in Europe, and this industry has high churn rates. There just aren't enough people, so we have to use offshore resources. This is one of the reasons I am on the board of eSkills – we are asking how do we get people more interested in IT. It drives the world but unfortunately, in Europe, people do not see IT as an exciting career and we are running low on skills. We have to work hard to develop that in the UK and Europe."
One of the consequences of Mr Green's programmes is that Logica is to shed more than 1,000 jobs, largely from the back office, as the company seeks to focus more heavily on sales and innovation. Despite this, however, Mr Green says he still needs to recruit 8,000 people a year. "We recruit in every country. In Belgium, we have a massive poster on the side of our office, saying come and join a great company. It's an ongoing problem."
The lunch meeting is followed by a get-together with Nigel Perks, the head of HR, to further discuss the issue.
1.30pm
Mr Green heads to the staff canteen for a "town-hall meeting" with staff. With jobs set to go from the back office, but a continuing need to recruit and retain people in many other departments, selling the new strategy to staff is probably just as important as selling it to investors. That is what he plans to do.
"I do a half-hour presentation with another half an hour for questions. It gives me a good opportunity to take the views of people and get good feedback. Logica is a graduate company, so you get good questions and a lot of them are involved with helping other companies with change management, so they know what they are talking about." It goes unsaid, but it is also quite possible many of them feel they could do Mr Green's job better than him.
Mr Green then heads off to City airport ahead of a flight to the Netherlands, intending to use his beloved gadgets to do more work on the journey and in the departure lounge. On one occasion, he got so engrossed doing this he missed his flight: "It only happened once and the carrier really had messed up with the screens. I wasn't at all happy, but it's been a close-run thing on several other occasions."
5.30pm
The evening will be taken up with a dinner with senior management from the Netherlands, including country head Paul Schuyt. He will also meet important customers such as KPN, the Dutch telecoms group. He says of the dinner: "I want to sit down with the team and go through the strategy. We need to get the team to be more ambitious and sales-orientated. I want to inspire them personally. We need the whole team to understand the aims and to pull in the same direction."
Mr Green will have to use his gadgets to stay in contact with his family over the coming weeks as similar such dinners and meetings are held around the world. "I have to travel a lot, but I do try to protect my weekends from working as much as I can," he says.
The CV
Name: Andy Green, chief executive, LogicaCMG.
Age: 52.
Family life: Married with three children.
Education: Leeds University, holding a degree in chemical engineering.
Career: 2008-present: appointed chief executive, LogicaCMG.
2007-2008: appointed chief executive of group strategy and operations of BT Group.
2001-2007: made chief executive BT Global Services.
1986-2001: joined BT, serving in various positions including chief executive and group dir