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ARTICLE by CAROL ODERO the lead

How To Make Government An Ally

Have you ever wondered about the bridge connecting tech companies with the government or asked yourself what, exactly, public policy is? Robert Condon is that bridge and that man.

How did you end up with an impressive title like Senior Director, Head of Government Relations & Public Policy? Someone once said ‘the longer the title, the less important the job’. Hopefully, that is not true! Prior to joining VMware four and a half years ago, I was the managing director of a consultancy firm. I started out working in public policy and strategic communication consultancy, in London. In fact, the person who hired me into that world was Liz Truss (now former Prime Minister, UK) in 2007. I first worked in government with the European Commission in 2006 in Luxembourg and Brussels, then agency and then moved to in-house with VMware.

I take it you didn’t train or go to school for this?

That’s something I am often asked. You get into public policy by being interested in government policy, how society works and political economics. If you are not interested in current affairs, policy or reading the newspaper, it might not be the thing for you. I studied history and economics and I wanted to work in that intersection of business, law, politics and public opinion. What brings you to Kenya? We are opening an extended office over here. Kenya is a forward-thinking country that is interested in tech utilisation and we want to enhance our relationships in the country. What, exactly, do you do on a day-today basis? I got this question a lot when I first arrived at VMware, I do any number of things. Government Relations’ main job is to protect the company and enhance the bottom line. We do this in several ways. We ensure VMware has a ‘license to operate’ when we go to a new country; good public policy allows us to do our jobs just the same way having great engineers works for our customers. We involve key government players who impact public policy. We ask, what is the right approach towards data, privacy, and security? What is our position on digital sovereignty – issues like that. We think about problems and try to solve them, using our partners to try and do this. In short, I am a corporate diplomat, working between VMware, governments, regulators and trade bodies around EMEA.

How distinct do you find the East African region? You cover three very diverse territories – Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and they couldn’t be more different.

I find the professionalism and talent that I get to meet around EMEA is very international and impressive. Kenya seems to be far ahead of many African countries when it comes to embracing technology and digital services. Of course, there are cultural differences. I think everyone knows they need to use tech for their citizens’ benefit. The future is bright, not just for VMware but business in Africa to say the least. We are quite optimistic. It sounds like you have some tech knowledge in your background. When you are meeting government officials who have no tech knowledge or context, how do you break down complex perspectives? I’ve noticed, and I think it is a truism, that businesspeople and government people speak different languages. They live in different worlds, and in a way, my team and I act as translators. We try to turn business speak, technology speak, and engineering speak into ordinary language, and convert government language into the language of the average citizen on the street because sometimes there’s talk at cross purposes. We’ve got to be able to explain complex things. That is part of the skills of the job. We try to do our best.

I simply need to know. What is the best way to change someone’s opinion? You need to be honest, clear, and have an explanation. You’ve got to always be evidence-based. The best way of impacting public policy is to understand the person on the other side whom you are trying to engage with. What are they looking for? How do we meet in the middle? Compromise is important, I try and understand the other side, as this is the essence of modern socialdemocratic systems. Policymaking is usually not a zero-sum game. You then bring in evidence, good technology, and good engineering. We don’t make up

our solutions on their own. They are designed to helps our customers and citizens.

Have you read The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene?

No, I haven’t but it sounds good. Tell us about it.

He talks about how to persuade people. That there is nothing sinister behind it. He also has one called The Laws Of Nature.

I’ll get on to Amazon straight away…! Just out of curiosity. Did our 2022 General Elections affect VMware in any way? We always stay neutral, obviously. But we are impressed by the desire the Kenyan government to harness technology. Kenya is further ahead than a lot of African countries. We are excited about the future in a pro-business environment.

That is a most diplomatic answer… I’ll move on. How do you handle the C-Suite across regions? There is an old saying in NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) that says, ‘In God we trust, but everyone else needs to bring data.’ My C-Suite is mostly engineers, and they want to hear from an evidence perspective. That does not just affect them or VMware. We try to put measurements along what we do and a lot of what we do is try to manage reputations and relationships. It is hard to put a measure on that, but we try, and that’s appreciated. A lot of people who deal with big bosses don’t want to take an opinion, they want to sit on the fence. Of course, at VMware we show the full context. We take decisions and make recommendations. The C-Suite need for things to be sure and to the point. It makes your life easier. As someone who is in public policy, how do you go about working with government without getting mired in their politics? It’s really tricky. And I’m just being honest. The key thing is not to go in and We’ve got to get more talented people, encourage faster public policy, and encourage industries to work better with government. There are tough times ahead when it comes to dealing with technology.

talk about what you want. You go in and talk about what the other person needs then try and meet each other halfway. We are also very careful about our compliance. There are rules and regulations in the way we operate. It’s ‘content, not contacts’ that win a debate and change opinions. If you present a good argument, with evidence, that positively affects society and citizens, then it will eventually take off. Keeping in mind how wide a surface and how deep public policy can get, what would you say is the last policy you influenced then communicated? We are working on the European Union (EU) Data Act. This is a huge piece of legislation. There are challenges and problems that need fixing but plenty of good things for businesses and European countries. For us, there is a cloud switching provision which we support in general. We are trying to push for interoperability in general, open multi- cloud systems, avoiding vendor lock-in. We’ve been talking that language for many years in Brussels, and we are happy to see a lot of those messages coming back in the form of draft laws and regulations. www.cioafrica.co | NOVEMBER 2022 | CIO Africa Magazine | by dx⁵

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The Data Act will certainly have a big impact so that’s pretty amazing. It wasn’t just us working on it. We like the direction travel. Our vision is multicloud, as a cloud computing player. We are very strong in private cloud, but we also allow our customers to move workloads into the public cloud and towards edge cloud. We are very strong in hybrid cloud environments. Without getting too technical, we see multi-cloud as the current reality businesses and governments need to get the best from their applications and data. Some workloads need the amazing power of public clouds to compute. Some workloads need to be protected by providers on-prem in a sovereign situation. We are big enablers of digital sovereignty and believe Kenya should be able to make its own rules about its data, workloads, and cloud, and we should stick with that. We are very happy to support that. You must need to play well with others. Who are some of the partners you work with and why? We work with trade bodies. When the Kenyan government is thinking about cloud policy or data policy, they want to hear from the whole industry. They want to know what the industry is thinking. We are big believers in trade associations; they allow for trade bodies and local, and international companies, to come to together and think about issues. We also seek out the best advisors on the ground, people who live in Nairobi and understand the ecosystem. It seems almost impossible to predict this, but what is the future of public policy? It’s going to be very interesting. The reason I work in tech is because I am fascinated by the issues we must solve. Take, for example, self-driving cars. They are still a few years away, but there will eventually be many millions of professional drivers without jobs. How do we deal with that? Those types of societal changes. They’ll need training

and support. We’ve got to get better at dealing with policy and political issues. We don’t have decades to deal with technological challenges we’ve got to speed up. We’ve got to get more talented people, encourage faster public policy, and encourage industries to work better with government. There are tough times ahead when it comes to dealing with technology. It will enhance jobs, fantastic new types of jobs will be created, but it will also take some jobs. How do we deal with that? You mentioned books earlier. There’s this book; ‘The Technology Trap: Capital, Labour and Power In The Age Of Automation’ by Carl Benedikt Frey. It analyses how we have dealt with technological change. Sometimes, we have dealt with it well, sometimes, not so well. We’ve got to get it right and technology is key. I need a prediction again from you. What is the future of cloud?

The future is multi-cloud. What we are seeing now is the previous idea that all workloads will end up in the public cloud, that we will pay of outsource our digital infrastructure, is gone. Multi-cloud is what businesses and governments want. We are noticing our customers having up to seven cloud partners. It is exciting. Most businesses are still not in the cloud, and it is fundamental to everyone. Isn’t VMware multi-cloud? Isn’t that where you are - going into the future? Yes. It’s landing. It’s resonating and governments particularly really like it. Considering what you do, would you consider yourself a VMware brand ambassador?

No… But. I am a VMware spokesperson. There are dozens of us, much better than I. We try to keep our values and strong culture. I try and represent us well as I go about my job. Public policy touches on a variety of things. Do you ever feel like your job is high-pressure? If you are prepared, and know what you’re talking about, I don’t think pressure is an issue. Traveling is exciting. It can be tiring, but no pressure. We are all good. The culture is such that we don’t feel negative pressure. What about you guys? Oh Lord…! It does come up because news comes is perpetual. It never rests, and we have to be on top of things. Speaking of Kenya, which has been your best country so far? Kenya, I would say. Which one has been your second-best country? What they’re doing in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is very interesting from the technological and business point of view. I’m not talking about politics and society. What they’re trying to do in Brussels is interesting because it is a completely new way of trying to govern 450 million people. What Germany is going through is also really interesting. Germany wasn’t really thinking of security, but now they have to because of the war in Ukraine. I think EMEA is a really fascinating part of the world to work in and it is getting more and more interesting. You work in a mix of territories with Europe which is first world, Middle East which is oil-rich and wealthy, and Africa which is a developing world. What philosophy brings EMEA together in your mind? The GDPs are all different, but it is interesting how you find smart, talented, technology-obsessed highly skilled people everywhere. It is very competitive. Kenya has some of the best and brightest. Dubai, Paris and Greece have brilliant people. When you travel, you feel much more confident about the future. That is not true of every country. I think there are places across continents that are outside EMEA that are not doing so well. In certain countries, governments have a huge role not just setting the rules and regulations, but also as investors and business owners. In some countries in the Middle East, the government is key. The government is also critical to key decisions in Scandinavia and much of Europe, but you can still get on with your business. In the last 10 to

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15 years, we have had economic and other crises where government has had to step in again and again to stabilize business and society. It’s an era of ‘big government,’ necessarily so. For example, with the COVID-19 crisis, with climate change, and with geopolitical issues with Russia and China where their decision-making is impacting business more and more.

You had mentioned VMware engineers when talking about the C-Suite. How has data and analytics pushed forward your enterprise and agenda? We are an engineering company started by engineers from Stanford University 24 years ago; and we are still run by engineers. Data and analytics are also part of our job; we are making arguments saying this is where this policy should go and why. We always need to present our own arguments. What has been your biggest, most influential decision you have made that has had a ripple effect? You mean like which coffee to order in the canteen…? We are strategic advisors to the business internally. At the end of the day, the company is run by engineers and salespeople. A lot of business life is just making good decisions. We help them to do that. I think I am quite proud of our work in digital sovereignty and multi-cloud and expressing our point of view. It is a very important thing in Europe, and we have worked hard to exert influence and make sure they understand the deal. Governments and companies want more control over their digital destiny and control. We can be an enabler, as is the case with a lot of tech companies. Public policy is gaining momentum as a career especially for tech companies. What kind of advice would you give someone aspiring to do your job? It is a very satisfying career option that is very interesting. There is constantly something new. It’s growing. Countries are really thinking around tech and issues to do with technology. On that note, we are always looking for talent. If you are interested, get in touch with us. What kind of talent, precisely? Engineers, salespeople, managers, software people. We are starting off small here, but we will be growing. VMware is a very good company to work for.

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During the Africa InsureTech held on 6 October at Radisson Blu, Upper Hill, Nairobi, CIOs, CEOs, insurance experts, technology vendors, start-up owners, and regulators, got to analyse problems affecting the industry and how digital transformation can be used to improve the sector. Some of the topics discussed at the Forum include the use of latest technologies such as AI and Data to fight fraud, the latest trends redefining the industry, automation, improving the customer experience, effective collaboration between start-ups and large insurance companies among other topics. There was an overall agreement among the CIOs, CEOs, speakers, panellists, delegates, and regulators that there is immense opportunity for insurance companies in Africa to improve penetration, processes, and customer experience through embracing digital transformation. Watch all the engaging and insightful discussions of the forum on our You Tube channel, dx5 group.