Steve O'Donnell

Businessman, Consultant, and CIO in London, United Kingdom

Read my book

An award-winning and highly regarded, business-focussed executive who has global-scale experience in digital transformation, M&A, and separation as well as in building and restructuring businesses, teams and processes within the Banking, Payments, Wealth Management, Insurance, Savings, Professional Services, Telecommunications, and the Utility industries. He has significant experience in the Private Equity area, having worked with several PE and VC-backed businesses creating exceptional results.

He was CIO at The Peoples Pension (B&CE), and volunteer CTO at Women in Banking & Finance, with a focus on diversity and inclusion. He was CIO at Coventry Building Society, the second largest Building Society in the UK.

He was CIO at Gallagher, the global Insurance Broker, as well as Transformation Director at Wolseley, an FTSE 30 firm.

Prior to that, he was CIO at G4S plc, the global Security firm. He was CTO at MS Amlin the international Insurance Carrier. He was CEO at GreenBytes Inc. (acquired by Oracle), a US-based, storage software firm and CEO at MEEZA, a Qatar-based Data Centre firm. He was Managing Director at Boston, USA-based, analyst firm ESG, Global Head of Data Centre Operations at British Telecom and has held senior positions at Barclays, Cable & Wireless (Vodafone) and Deutsche Bank.

He is an active non-executive as Chairman at Hydra Aesthetics Ltd, a medical start-up.

Steve is the author of "What Every CIO Wants - a guide for high technology salespeople" and is credited as the initiator of the Green Grid Data Center Maturity Model (DCMM), now well on the way to becoming an ISO standard for data centre efficiency and best practice.

He is an accomplished speaker, moderator, analyst, and commentator in how high technology impacts business. He is an active angel investor and business leader, working in Blockchain, Solid State Storage, IT Security, Smart Grid, Sustainability, Data Centre cooling technology and the IT Services sector.

In 1999 one of the companies he led as CEO won a Fast 50 special award from Deloitte & Touche for rapid company growth. Steve is an entrepreneur and global businessman. He has a successful experience in six trade sales, two MBOs and an IPO.

He is an active participant in social media with a loyal following on Twitter as @stephenodonnell

  • Work
    • Digital Cognate
  • Education
    • Harvard Business School Executive Education