Meet our people

Landry Ndikumasabo

A Senior Technology Lead in the Nordic Strategy & Solution group function is a part of the Network & Technology Strategy team. The scope of the team covers the full spectrum of the parcel segment in terms of network infrastructure, production processes, products and technology (IT, robotics & analytics), so it’s a multidisciplinary team in terms of the profiles of the team members.

In the role as Senior Technology Lead you are primarily responsible for the data layer of PostNord’s parcel business from a Group/Nordic strategy perspective; with a focus on two major components: the data platforms which leverage various IoT technologies and advanced analytics where we build intelligence into our business processes.

Why did you choose to take the job as a Senior Technology Lead? What is best about your role?

Before I joined PostNord, I was in management consulting for nearly ten years. Over the course of my consulting career, I developed management experience mostly related to assignments for the CTO/CIO/CAO organisations. Essentially, my client engagements revolved around strategy and change in the context of emerging technologies. Even though I enjoyed the consulting life, I decided that it was time to consolidate my experience and apply it in a sustained manner. I therefore looked for an industry and a company with challenges and opportunities where technology has a critical role to play; I also looked for a role where I would be able to apply my experience with significant impact.

There are many good aspects about the role, but I would say that the most satisfying aspect is that it requires me to think strategically while also engaging in a practical, hands-on sense to bring the strategy to life.

Can you describe how a normal work week looks like in your role as Senior Technology Lead?

It varies from week to week but generally, my time would cover a wide range of topics which I would group as follows:

• Strategy: as a member of the strategy team, I participate in the strategic planning activities where I bring in the data/analytics perspective as part of the wider discussions. I also spend some time on analytics strategy, either to review if we are on course or to identify aspects that should be refined – for example our MLOps strategy is one such topic.
• Strategy Implementation: A substantial amount of my time is typically spent on steering several concurrent initiatives. Besides ensuring that we make good progress, I also engage with the project teams, who are typically subject matter experts in various domains, to ensure key decisions are in line with the bigger strategic picture. For example, how should we best architect our image analytics models to be GDPR compliant.
• Networking: Stakeholder management is an important part of my role. Typically, I aim to maintain a continuous feedback loop to understand and deliver what business stakeholders need. I spend a significant time acquiring domain knowledge to feed into the development process. In addition, I often engage with other stakeholders with whom I have common interests such as the data lake team responsible for our development environment, product owners of the systems that generate the data we use, enterprise architects responsible for PostNord production environment where we deploy our models and so on.
• Supplier relations: We rely on external suppliers for certain things. I therefore spend time to ensure that we work within the frames of the supply agreements and that we continue to nurture our partnership for our mutual benefit. I also try to keep up with technological developments to spot potential opportunities for partnerships or collaborations.
• Socialising & team building: when time permits, I try to join my colleagues for a virtual social meet-up, usually Friday afternoons.

What kind of persons would fit and thrive in the role of Senior Technology Lead with us at PostNord?

I would say that the role requires the ability to translate business strategy into technology strategy, followed up with strong execution skills. In addition, the ability to draw the best out of people is essential, everyone has something good to contribute but you must be able to put the puzzle together. On a personal level, in order to drive the strategic agenda, it helps to be self-driven and to see things your own way while remaining open to outside perspective.