Piggybacking on the trip to Texas for FinOpsX, I decided to extend my stay and attend Cloud Wars Expo in San Francisco, a three-day event focused on the latest innovations in cloud, the greatest growth market the world has ever known. 

The agenda was packed with content designed to help organizations make great decisions for their Cloud and digital strategy. 

As a highlight from day one, two Fireside Chats stood out. The first one was the Luncheon Fireside Chat between Bob Evans, Cloud Wars Founder, and Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform. They talked about innovation in major financial institutions and Fintechs and defined a cloud future that is optimized by vertical industries with a focus on growth acceleration. 

The second Fireside Chat was with Julia White, SAP Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer, as her and Bob discussed the role of Sustainability in our collective future. 

Day two continued to emphasise the sustainability aspect as Microsoft’s Senior Director of Sustainability Product Marketing Rosie Mastrandrea commented on the idea lot of companies foster, which is that sustainability can detract from financial results. It is not the case, as she explains. Rather, it’s an opportunity to transform and rethink business processes, as sustainability initiatives can lead to innovation. 

The most memorable event of the third day was the Fireside chat with podcaster, author and CMO Christopher Lochhead and Christian Anschuetz, Principal Advisor with SF Digital. They weighed in on the future and the “Death of the S&P 500”.  

Christopher Lochhead talked about Native Digitals, aged 35 or under, whose experience with everything in life is digital first. He brought forth the example of companies like Netflix and Google who pushed for employees to return to offices on the premise that the best work, and innovation, must occur in the office.  

“That’s absolutely wrong and it’s been proven wrong in the case of those companies”, says Lochhead. Rather, it’s the increasing number and importance of native digitals that presents the opportunity for innovation. 

Christian Anschuetz brings his views on the future of Fortune 500, stating that the reason for the significant churn in those companies is because they fall more in love with what they do than the people they do it for. “One of the reasons digital transformation efforts fail to reach their target is because the target was never understood well in the first place.” Anschuetz dispenses his advice to those in attendance by saying that the way forward is to remain customer focused.  

You can find many more resources about the content and the Expo itself on their website. 

As for me, the most impactful concept, the one thing I will be bringing back home from CloudWars, is sustainability. As more and more companies move to cloud to reduce their carbon footprint, CloudVane will be there to reduce the financial cost, thus adding to the sustainability efforts. 

Do you have an idea or a great example how to use cloud to foster sustainability? Let’s start a conversation on LinkedIN.