David Horton, head of innovation at Synechron

I am one of those people who is a bit of a traveller; my parents moved around the world. I was born in Zimbabwe, and moved to South Africa when I was very young. My parents returned to the UK, then did a stint in the Middle East, so I did seven years as an ex-pat child here. I finished school and university then moved back to London where I worked for several years, before marrying, having children and moving back to the Middle East.

My background is really on the technology side of things — IT. Starting from being the guy you rang up on the helpdesk who helps everyone out, I found a few niche areas. I did some training and teaching, showing people how to use Microsoft Windows, which was valuable. Essentially showing people how to use computers, but in a very human way. I always think this helped me in many ways, particularly in the work that I do now.

When you speak with business users about innovation or technology, they want you to put things in business terms. Ninety per cent of what I do is around explaining technology in terms of how it will benefit businesses if they decide to invest in it. Otherwise it’s a difficult sell.

When I first joined I was known in the local banking community and one of the previous projects I had worked on was a ‘digital branch’, an innovative hub where customers would come in and service their bank accounts through digital walls or digital tables. When you show people around a place that is real, tangible and concrete it becomes an easy sell. It is not a presentation — people can experience and feel the new customer journey for themselves.

We have integrated ‘beacons’ into the Centre which demonstrate the potential for bank loyalty schemes. As customers walk past a particular point they get tailored ‘beacon’ alerts on their phone. This solution allows customers to walk into a particular restaurant, for example, and get an alert telling them they qualify for a special discount with their banking package.

Over the last few years there has been a convergence of innovation and it is really opening up doors to do things that were just not possible a few years ago. Products such as Amazon Echo — a wireless speaker and voice command device that uses natural language — opens up really exciting possibilities. Blockchain, although in its early stages, is another area that is definitely going to cause some disruption, not just in banking but across so many areas.

By doing lots of reading. The one thing that social media does is it allows you to follow and keep in touch with thought leaders. I follow five or six people on Twitter, particularly around FinTech, which gives me a good oversight of what is happening in London or Silicon Valley. LinkedIn is also a valuable place to learn.

Just be observant. Kids do things so differently, so watching them and looking at where they are shining their lights is also valuable. I try to observe as much as I can around my environment. I have a great team with a big imagination, so we often sit together and discuss opportunities and build prototypes which seems to work really well.