John Bradshaw

John Bradshaw

Technology Leader · Field CTO · Speaker

Background

I believe that technology leadership is about business judgment, not technical skill. The technology is the easy part. Building the right thing, for the right people, at the right time, with a team that stays and grows — that's the hard part.

Currently Field CTO at Akamai Technologies (opens in a new tab), where I champion cloud, edge, AI, and security solutions across EMEA. I also serve as Board Advisor to HealthGuardian AI (opens in a new tab), advising on product, GTM, security, and cloud strategy.

Previously Head of Cloud at WPP, where I led a $300M cloud transformation programme with P&L ownership of $70M annual cloud spend. I grew a global team from 8 to 150 in 18 months, introduced a FinOps culture delivering $2M savings per quarter, and reduced operational costs by ~50% while accelerating releases by 75%.

Before WPP: Technical Director for EMEA and APAC at Skytap, then solutions architecture at a hyperscaler cloud provider and a global collaboration platform, both on government and large-enterprise accounts.

I speak at industry conferences across Europe and the Middle East — from WeAreDevelopers World Congress to The AI Summit London — on cloud economics, AI adoption, security, and the future of infrastructure.

Track record

$70M annual cloud spend, P&L ownership
$300M transformation programme
8 to 150 team built in 18 months
~50% operational cost reduction
$2M/qtr FinOps savings delivered
75% faster release cadence

What I work on

  • Cloud economics and FinOps — moving organisations from cloud-bewildered to cloud-deliberate.
  • AI infrastructure — where API economics break, where self-hosting wins, and how the edge changes the answer.
  • Edge computing — distributed inference, low-latency experience, and the architectures that make global products feel local.
  • Cyber security — API security, zero trust, and what agentic AI does to the threat model.
  • Build vs Buy — the decision framework every CTO eventually has to defend in a board room.

Where I've worked

Industries Public SectorDefenceMediaRetailHealthcareTech
Organisations HyperscalersVendorsSystems IntegratorsMSPsAgenciesStartups

Get in touch

Interested in working together, speaking at your event, or just want to talk about technology leadership?

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