Tech Talks

Latest Episodes:

Language Still a Barrier? Not for Much Longer. Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

DeepL's Gonçalo Gaiolas is building the Babel Fish for real: voice translation that captures tone, emotion, even your own vocal fingerprint, live and at near-zero latency.

He explains why DeepL isn't racing the frontier labs, shares a story about a silent colleague who finally spoke up once a language barrier disappeared, and makes an unusually candid case for talking more openly about what constant technological change is doing to our heads.

As we mention in today's show, we'd love you to complete( our Digital Leadership Report. Just click here.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

What Do You Need to Sacrifice to Succeed? Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

Stuart Fenton, CEO of Ingentive, joins David to discuss why the AI cost conversation is broken. Everyone asks "how much will the tokens cost, Stuart says that's the wrong question; the right one is how much you'll save.

He unpacks the real economics of AI transformation, the relentless discipline it takes to stay current, and the personal sacrifice behind every entrepreneurial bet. A blunt reframe of cost, risk, and what building something real actually demands.

As we mention in today's show, we'd love you to complete( our Digital Leadership Report. Just click here.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

Can Governance Actually Keep AI's Toddler Phase in Check? Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

General Mills' Sanchit Srivastava (Senior Manager Data Analytics) joins the podcast to talk about why unstructured data isn't the hard part of implementation, governance is.

He compares AI to a toddler ("it'll get there, but a lot happens on the way"), unpacks why token costs are about to explode, and makes the case that AI should be sold as an amplifier, not a replacer.

Today's episode is a sharp, practical look at where enterprise AI actually breaks-down.

As we mention in today's show, we'd love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. Just click here.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

The Borehole That Built a Rocket Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Moletsane Mophethe grew up walking to boreholes for drinking water in Lesotho.

Now he's founded Metal Morph, recovering critical minerals like aluminium and iron straight from wastewater instead of landfill, cutting reliance on a global supply chain split between mines in Africa, Australia and Russia, and manufacturing concentrated in China.

From childhood scarcity to a £700k pre-seed raise and deals covering 56% of UK water, this is what happens when you've lived the problem you're solving.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.

AI Broke the Career Ladder. Did It Build a Replacement? Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

AI is thinning out the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. There are fewer entry-level roles, fewer easy starts inside big organizations.

OpenAI's Global Head of Founder Experience, Laura Modiano, doesn't dispute that. But she thinks the conversation stops one step too early...

On this episode, David pushes her on the trade-off directly: if AI is closing doors inside large companies, is "just start your own business" a genuine answer, or a convenient one? Laura argues young, digitally fluent builders aren't consolation-prize founders , they're better equipped to build and launch than any generation before them.

Whether that's a real opportunity or a reframe of a real loss is the question the episode leaves open. What do you think?

As David and Michelle discuss, our annual Digital Leadership Survey is open for submissions, and we'd love you to add your voice to the report: ⁠Just click here⁠.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click ⁠here⁠ to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist ⁠Lemzi⁠.

Is the UK Crippling Talent with a Funding Crisis? Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

Patrick Smith, the founder and CEO of Zally, returns to Tech Talks with an update on building the world's first foundational model for human behaviour.

Zally is a business that's grown from a Manchester ambition into a San Francisco-headquartered company with a research lab still rooted in the North of England. David and Patrick talk continuous authentication, the ethics of training AI on consented human behaviour, why the UK keeps losing founders to the US ecosystem (and what it could do differently), and Patrick's own hard-won view that technology should adapt to humans, not the other way around.

If you're in San Francisco next week, get in touch with David!

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

Forget the Regulation: Why the EU AI Act is an Operational Maturity Test Sep 10, 2026

Show notes

Is the EU AI Act keeping you up at night?

Box's Global Head of Public Policy, Leah Perry, argues that organizations are looking at AI governance all wrong. It’s not a legal hurdle; it’s an operational maturity test.

In this episode, we unpack why regulated industries are ahead, the real threat of ignoring employee upskilling, and how to build a cross-functional framework that keeps your business agile.

We are also discussing a press release sent to us on the 9th of September, it's a statement by ControlAI in repsonse to concerns over the threat posed by superintelligence AI. Here is the statement by Connor Leahy, US Executive Director of ControlAI:
“The leading AI companies are explicitly racing to develop superintelligence, fully autonomous AI systems powerful enough to completely outcompete humanity, and which we have no ability to control. Unless governments step in to stop the creation of superintelligence, the industry’s dangerous arms race will surpass the limits of human understanding and lead to human extinction.
“Jacob Coxon’s resignation must be a wake-up call about the danger superintelligent AI poses to humanity. There is still time to act to address this threat, and the bipartisan political coalition is growing. The only way forward is for governments to negotiate an international “trust but verify” regime prohibiting superintelligence now, while we still have time. Human life depends on it.”

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

Managing the Hyper-Confident Machine: The Reality of AI Code Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

AI agents write code faster than we can review it, shifting software developers from builders to managers of virtual colleagues.

Chris Plowman, Director of Enterprise Architecture, Data and AI at Slalom, joins David to unpack this existential shift. Why are we returning to the age of the generalist? And why are CIOs discarding business fundamentals in a rush to implement AI?

As we mention in today's show, we'd love you to complete our Digital Leadership Report. Just click here.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

Is Your Period Data Already Being Sold? Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

Amber Vodegel built Pregnancy+ to 150 million users before selling to Philips. Now, she's back with 28x, a women’s health tracker tackling a massive risk: the monetization and exploitation of intimate health data.

In this episode, Amber shares why she's ditching cloud servers and central databases entirely for an on-device architecture, the reality of 'return on mission' funding, and why AI-driven hiring platforms make data privacy a matter of survival.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

The "Silent Sabotage" of AI Adoption (And the Industry Lies We Tell Our Teams) Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

AI adoption isn't a tech problem; it's a profound organisational shift.

Wesley ter Haar, co-founder of Monks, joins David Savage to expose the uncomfortable realities of AI: the "silent sabotage" from teams on the fence, the paternalistic industry lies about job losses, and why most enterprises are set to fail the transition. It’s a raw, honest look at what it actually takes to rebuild an organization at the speed of Silicon Valley.

WhatsApp us your comments and questions on +447392087344

Tech Talks is powered by Harvey Nash, the leading global provider of technology and talent solutions. Click here to learn more about our services.

The music on Tech Talks is created by London artist Lemzi.

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