Steve Westgarth
Global Head of Software Engineering
I am currently Global Head of Engineering at Haleon where I head up the Engineering function across UK, Poland, India and USA.
Haleon is a FTSE100 company having separated from GSK in 2022. In my current role I have direct responsibility for circa 150 Engineers executing upon an investment portfolio of £20 million with an expectation for this to grow during FY23/24.
Our focus is on connecting consumers with healthcare professionals and driving the organisation to develop a digital platform business that enables local community pharmacy in Europe to engage with patients in a data driven way which drives omni channel personalisation at scale. Initiatives delivered by my function in the last 12 months have enabled double digit % growth in US Direct to Consumer Sales and have facilitated £10 million of annualised Opex savings through a programme of automation efficiencies and a drive to simplify the technology landscape by moving to shared cloud infrastructure underpinning our SPEED strategic API initiatives.
As a strategic technology leader I have significant experience in corporate agile transformation having driven technology change at Boots and within my current organisation.
In my role I have been responsible for the design and operationalisation of our agile operating model; taking inspiration from Spotify, SCRUM, Kanban and numerous scaling frameworks including SAFe, SaS and LeSS. Our Engineering chapters are organised around technology with cross functional squads aligned to products embedded within business focussed value streams. I have focussed on the need for engineers and business stakeholders to take a customer centric view ensuring that the technology we build seamlessly integrates into life of our users measuring success using OKRs aligned to value driven outcomes.
This work along has resulted in my being named as part of the Digital Leaders 100 in the UK for 2023 and also being named runner up in the category of Digital Leader of the Year. My nomination video is available to view at https://youtu.be/o8eR_O7eq0w
