Tom Arbuthnot
Founder
Empowering.Cloud
Tom Arbuthnot
What has been your business/work highlight of 2024 so far?
My favourite thing is speaking at events and getting to catch up with everyone. This year I have really enjoyed Enterprise Connect and Comms vNext. I look forward to more events later this year.
Who is your business hero and why?
I could name a number of people who have influenced me, particularly in terms of content and sharing. Gary Vaynerchuk has had a big influence.
I also think you can’t help but be impressed with how Satya Nadella has driven Microsoft to be a cloud-first, multi-platform, open-source embracing and now AI-leading company.
What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?
I generally think of all mistakes as learnings, and I try to move fast and learn, so there are quite a few to choose from.
With Empowering.Cloud it is probably some of the tools we tried to use on the platform that ultimately didn’t pan out, but again, it’s hard for me not to see that as a necessary step to learning what works.
What’s the most inspirational book you’ve ever read and why?
The Go-Giver, it aligns well with my beliefs in community and sharing information. It’s a great business parable.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role in 2024?
Between the website, the newsletter, podcast, research and events, knowing where to spend our time for maximum impact.
What technology will have the greatest impact on your business this year and why?
As someone who creates and curates a lot of content, undoubtedly AI. Both in the sense of covering how it works in the Microsoft Ecosystem, but also as a tool for content and video creation. We also use Open AI in our ChangePilot Microsoft 365 change management solution and it’s proving to be very useful.
