Meet the Masters - Thierry Bedos, Expedia Group

THIERRY BEDOS

For this week’s Meet the Masters Interview series, we spoke to Thierry Bedos, SVP & GM of Development Platform and Infrastructure at Expedia Group. Thierry shared his thoughts on leadership, engagement, and diversity.

In your opinion, what are the key attributes that you look for in a tech leader when you are hiring?

Enterprise leadership is an important attribute; someone who can establish a network and collaborate across different divisions is not easy to find, and it is often what sets great candidates apart, especially in large-scale organisations. I put a lot of emphasis on leadership and the importance of being able to create an open-minded environment where people can share ideas, innovate, and encourage development.

A solid technical background and an understanding of how to apply that knowledge is also important. One of the questions I ask is: ‘Tell me about the criteria you would use when choosing whether to buy or build a certain piece of technology’. It helps us understand how they apply technology to a business environment and the processes they go through in deciding what they need to build, and what they need to leverage from others.

How do you approach interviewing and assessing someone who does not have a traditional technical / Computer Science background?

We are more interested in the appetite to learn and discover new things, so we run a couple of assessment days to recognise the individuals and understand their thirst for learning and problem-solving skills. At the end of the day, as an engineer, one of the fundamental skills that you will need is the ability to solve problems and the best way to do this is through real situational assessments.

Do you think the role of a Chief Technology Officer has changed during your career?

For me, leadership and stakeholder management have become more crucial parts of the role. It is now more important than ever that management teams and organisations need to be able to engage with and motivate their teams, and make them feel like they are supported. London has become so congested and competitive so being able to create an environment where technical people want to work and are supported to develop is an extremely important aspect to being a CTO.

Over the years, because there are so many disrupters coming into each market, organisations are paying more attention to new technologies that can accelerate their business’ growth by shortening their time to value or time to market. CTOs need to be able to articulate the value of such investments to business stakeholders, as well as evaluate how they can best equip the organisation with the right tools to contribute to value creation.

During your time in the Hotels.com organisation, what do you think you and your teams did well to keep people engaged in a competitive and rapidly changing market?

We saw our team as a start-up within a larger organisation, establishing a certain level of autonomy which people seemed to like. Employees really value being able to work on interesting projects and in non-hierarchical structures. The fact that we had a very engaging CEO in Johan (Svanstrom, now a Partner at EQT Ventures) was great and we encouraged a fun working environment.

We also worked very hard on providing our employees with an established Individual Contributor (IC) career path as well as the management route. We understand that a lot of our engineers want to move to the higher levels but not all are suited to – or interested in – a managerial role, so we encourage them to take the IC path and invest in their development to become a more experienced, more senior, more effective engineer. We have had very positive feedback as employees feel that we are offering them a progressive route that is taking care of their ambitions, and one that is not found in every tech company.

In your opinion, why does diversity matter?

There is more and more evidence that to successfully innovate and create a high-performance culture, businesses need to build diverse teams. I think it is a business imperative to have diversity on all levels. We have been experimenting with apprenticeships to bring more diverse people into the company to encourage diversity of thought. We have noticed a significant impact in terms of the range of interesting ideas that are coming through and – subsequently – the different products that we can build.

What do you think tech leaders can put in place to solve the challenge of limited diversity across leadership teams?

Focus on mentoring and sponsorship, which we find works very well. We have an executive sponsorship programme for women in management whereby senior leaders can sponsor high potential women in our business, to coach and provide them with opportunities and introductions to other people in the business who could provide them with support and guidance about how to move into a leadership role in the future. We find that retention in this group is much higher, as they feel a real sense of investment.

What have been the most important leadership lessons you have learnt over the past year?

The last year has re-emphasised the importance of relationship building, and it takes far longer – and is far more complex – to establish a meaningful relationship over Zoom. Being able to build true building blocks and spend quality time with your team takes a lot of effort and personal investment. But the result of doing so is a more engaged, more effective and happier team. So I think that – post-pandemic – I want to make more of a conscious effort to make my interactions more meaningful, and create positive experiences across the group.

The pandemic has made me re-think my leadership style, too, and highlighted the importance of making teams feel like we are here to support them. I have opened up a lot more to my team and shared my struggles with them to help reduce any stigmas attached to challenges they may be going through, particularly around mental health. As a leader, it is my job to show my team that it’s okay to struggle, and that I am here to support them.

Have you got any suggestions of great books/podcasts/content?

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith is great and I have given copies to many of my colleagues. It focuses on personal development and encourages the mindset of always seeking to develop new skills to get you to the next level.

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and the Podcast Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman are also great.