Inside Talon: Anant East
Inside Talon: Exploring the Professional Journey of Anant East
Outside thinking – it runs in the Talon family. We pride ourselves on being a company built on people with big ideas. People who constantly challenge themselves and the industry to re-imagine and re-invent the possibilities of what Out of Home can be.
In this series, we’ll be getting to know more about the people of Talon, their roles, advice and what they get up to outside of OOH. This week, we sat down with Anant East, Chief Technology Officer at Talon.
Explain your role?
As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Talon my role covers the delivery of both the support and development of the tools Talon use to operate the business, as well as the many products we have developed to plan and manage campaigns for our customers.
Fortunately, I have a talented team that helps me to do this. My team is responsible for providing this to all the companies within the Talon group, covering:
- Our Microsoft 365 applications, laptops, phones and the corporate networks
- Finance systems such as NetSuite
- Our data warehouse and MI reporting
- The products we have built: Plato, Atlas, Ada, Radius, and TIM
- Cloud hosting in Azure and AWS.
What does a typical day at work look like for you?
A typical day is a mixture of ensuring the software developers and support teams have everything they need to deliver the services we provide and build new features. This includes unblocking any obstacles they may have, thinking about the future shape of the teams, helping to manage the product roadmaps and the resolution of any incidents.
What do you enjoy most about working in OOH?
As an industry there is still a lot to do to make use of the appropriate technology for all sides of the industry; all the way from the customers and agencies through to the media owners and suppliers involved in the planning, booking and operations of media campaigns. My role allows me to play a role in the implementation of technology to deliver value to our customers and owners.
Most memorable moment or achievement from your time in the industry?
I’ve worked on both the selling side and buying side of the industry and my most memorable achievement is working together to deliver the automated trading the industry must adopt to remain relevant and more importantly, give access to new customers to OOH.
Any tips or advice for someone interested in joining the industry or pursuing a similar career path?
Having worked in manufacturing, finance and retail domains I can honestly say that media and OOH is just as challenging and rewarding, with the added advantage of your friends and family seeing the campaigns you help to deliver.
What do you get up to outside of work?
Sleep, but on the weekends and in my free time I like to hike and am a member of a large walking group. I have walked the West Highland Way three times, most of Wainwrights lakes, the Welsh 3000, Hadrian’s Wall, Jurassic Coast, SWCP, several 100km walks, and that’s just in the UK. I have also hiked in Africa, South America, New Zealand and the Himalayas. Most Sundays I walk 10 to 15 miles usually in the Chilterns.
If you could quickly and easily learn any new skill, what would it be?
Plumbing as you can never find one when you need to.
Share a memorable adventure or travel experience you’ve had during your free time. How did it impact your personal growth or perspective?
When you trek through remote places such as the Himalayas and see how happy everyone is with the very few possessions they have it always reminds me to keep things as simple as possible.
