01
People
Leading managers and engineers, 100+ people at the peak, and building teams that own their outcomes, put the customer experience first and keep growing.
VP Cloud Operations · Klipboard
Senior technology leader, scaling cloud operations, DevOps and SRE teams.
I'm Gareth Bradley. Over 23 years I've led the people, platforms, partnerships and budgets that keep enterprise cloud services secure, resilient and improving.
- 200+ customer-facing services
- 100+ engineers and specialists
- $60m largest annual hosting contract
- 23+ years in technology
The scale of the portfolios, teams and budgets I have led across my career
About
A senior technology leader with 20+ years scaling Cloud Operations, DevOps and SRE teams.
My first real taste of computing was helping my father set up a 10Base2 coaxial network in his dental practice. Then came the internet, and the buzz of building websites and learning alongside a community of like-minded people. The part of my brain that once held Novell NetWare now holds enterprise-scale cloud.
I joined a financial start-up pre-launch and helped turn it into an award-winning technology business. I then chose Sage to learn how enterprise does it, spending seventeen years there across software delivery, live services and Cloud Operations. In 2026 I joined Klipboard as VP Cloud Operations.
I do my best work in fast-paced, customer-centric places where technology and innovation are part of the culture. I work closely with executives, engineers and customer teams, and I like real accountability for budget and outcomes.
- Based
- North East England
- Education
- Northumbria University
- Focus
- Cloud Operations, DevOps, SRE
Career
Experience
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
Laing O'Rourke
Moneygate
Sage
Klipboard
- 05/2026 - PresentCurrent
VP Cloud Operations
Klipboard
Leading Cloud Operations at Klipboard.
- 09/2022 - 05/2026
Senior Cloud Operations Director
Sage
Led the team responsible for delivering high-quality, reliable cloud services to Sage customers.
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Led the team responsible for delivering high-quality, reliable cloud services to Sage customers.
I was accountable for driving innovation and excellence in cloud service delivery: optimising processes and costs, improving performance and strengthening the overall customer experience.
I led and developed a diverse team of managers and technical cloud professionals, working with cross-functional teams to turn business goals into strategy. Together we ensured every cloud service was delivered efficiently, securely and with high availability, in a collaborative environment that helped people grow personally and professionally.
I also owned budgets, resources and vendor relationships. The role demanded a strong technical background, which remains a particular passion of mine.
- 10/2020 - 09/2022
Cloud Operations Director
Sage
Responsible for Sage’s domestic online product portfolio, delivering resilient services and achieving Customer and Colleague success through innovation and leadership
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Responsible for Sage’s domestic online product portfolio, delivering resilient services and achieving Customer and Colleague success through innovation and leadership
Following a successful team transformation project, we rebranded as Cloud Operations. My position is now responsible for all online products and services that are sold within a specific country/region which equates to 95 services and 26 team members. I focus on the following areas:
People: I lead a team of DevOps specialists who are dedicated to providing the best customer experience possible through innovation and continuous improvement. We support their aspirations by investing in their development, which in turn, provides myriad benefits to Sage and our customers.
Partnerships: I am responsible for the key partnerships such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and LinkByNet (France). I lead the contract negotiations to provide the best possible value for Sage and I’m fortunate to enjoy outstanding working relationships with each partner.
Technology: My team collaboratively builds the solution design for our online products. Using the best available technologies (Infrastructure as Code and Continuous Deployment pipelines), we implement highly resilient, secure and efficient services. Once live, we monitor the service 24x7 through automation and drive continuous improvement.
Processes: I run Change Management and Incident Management processes for all services. I have a strong interest in streamlining and automating these processes as we take full advantage of Continuous Deployment approaches and self-healing services.
Strategy: I, like everyone at Sage, have a personal responsibility to deliver the Vision. I sit on the strategic boards for the products and in-country leadership teams to influence the direction of the services.
Finance: I am responsible for preparing and managing the Cloud Operations budget. Individual hosting contracts can range between £6m and £20m pa. and require sophisticated analysis and cost optimisation.
Compliance: Part of my role is working with our internal and external auditors on a programme of audits. Adhering to our policies is key to minimising the operational risk. We have achieved ISO27001 accreditation on key services in addition to GDPR compliance on all services.
On-boarding: Sage has grown through acquisition and maintained a decentralised model until relatively recently. This has included a large number of services that are run by domestic IT teams with little or no process embedded. My accountability is the migration of these services into my global team, assessing them for quality, migration of personnel, and embedding our processes. The goal is to provide the best possible experience for our customers.
- 03/2017 - 10/2020
Live Services Director
Sage
Responsible for Sage’s European online product portfolio, the on-boarding of domestic products and the successful delivery of Sage’s Vision through a diverse DevOps team
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Responsible for Sage’s European online product portfolio, the on-boarding of domestic products and the successful delivery of Sage’s Vision through a diverse DevOps team
Building on the Live Services Manager role, my portfolio has expanded to include 65 customer facing services. My role divides into distinct key areas:
People: I lead a team of DevOps specialists who are dedicated to providing the best customer experience possible through innovation and continuous improvement. We invest in their future by investing in their development, which in turn, provides myriad benefits to Sage and our customers.
Partnerships: I am responsible for the key partnerships such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and LinkByNet (France). I drive the contract negotiations to provide the best deal for Sage and am fortunate to enjoy outstanding working relationships with each business.
Technology: My team collaboratively build the solution design for our online products and using modern techniques (Infrastructure as Code and Continuous Deployment pipelines), implement those designs. Once live, we monitor the service 24x7 through automation and Customer Service escalations. We have a continuous improvement backlog for each service to drive improvements for our customers
Processes: I run Change Management and Incident Management processes for all services. I have a strong interest in streamlining these processes as we take full advantage of Continuous Deployment approaches and self-healing services.
Strategy: I, like everyone at Sage, have a personal responsibility to deliver the Vision. I sit on the strategic boards for the products and in-country leadership teams to influence the direction of the services.
Finance: I am responsible for preparing and managing the £25m Live Services budget. I perform this on behalf of the entire Live Services organisation due to my deep understanding of budgeting IT & hosting spend.
Compliance: Part of my role is working with our internal and external auditors on a programme of audits. Adhering to our policies is key to minimising the operational risk, so most recently, I have been working on an Incident Management audit and security controls audit. In addition, we are working to become ISO27001 accredited on key services in addition to GDPR compliant on all services.
On-boarding: Sage has grown through acquisition and maintained a decentralised model until relatively recently. This has included a large number of services that are run by domestic IT teams with little or no process embedded. My accountability is the migration of these services into my area, assessing them for quality, migration of personnel, and embedding our processes. The goal is to provide the best possible experience for our customers.
- 04/2012 - 03/2017
Live Services Manager
Sage
Responsible for the availability, security and performance of key online products and services
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Responsible for the availability, security and performance of key online products and services
In this role, I am responsible for the majority of Sage’s online product portfolio, including high profile applications such as Sage X3 Online (our most complete software solution for Enterprise businesses). My focus has been on migrating all services from traditional data centres to cutting edge cloud platforms. We take advantage of higher level cloud services to maximise the scalability and drastically reduce the management overhead.
I am responsible for the entire Live Services budget for all global services. Working closely with Product teams and Finance, we deliver value to our customers through innovation and efficiency savings. As part of this responsibility, I am heavily involved in the key partner alliances, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. I own the global support contracts, and predominantly involved in negotiations to drive value and improved service. In the last 12 months, I’ve saved more than £600k through data centre migrations and cloud platform cost optimisation exercises.
My key stakeholders are the Technology Executive, Customer Service teams, Product Owners, Product Delivery teams and Finance. Through these teams, we deliver an outstanding and unified customer experience. I champion the Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Control processes to minimise unnecessary disruption for our customers and mitigate any weaknesses. I am an advocate of Continuous Delivery, trending to Continuous Deployment, Containerisation and Infrastructure as a Service.
Achievements include:
- Accountable for four teams of Live Service Specialists and ~20 key online initiatives whilst embedding a DevOps approach and working environment
- Raised availability of domestic services from 92% to 99.93% and continue to run the European services with above 99.99% availability supported by an on-call specialist rota and 24x7 “eyes on glass” monitoring team
- Responsible for a budget of over £10M, covering all global services
- Launched Sage’s first European wide cloud-based ERP platform and associated applications in 2013
- Developed the first 100% cross-charge finance model in Sage which provides product owners with a truly accurate product profitability
- Consolidated 22 incident management processes into a single customisable process that is standardised across the European Live Service Management team. This increased confidence in our ability to run effective incidents without prior knowledge of the services
- 03/2011 - 04/2012
Software Delivery Team Leader
Sage
A transformation role: replace a 20+ year-old DOS sales order processing system (Sovereign) with an enterprise-proven, browser-based IBM / Sterling Commerce solution, with minimal disruption to sales and the central business.
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A transformation role: replace a 20+ year-old DOS sales order processing system (Sovereign) with an enterprise-proven, browser-based IBM / Sterling Commerce solution, with minimal disruption to sales and the central business.
I led permanent on-site developers and a team of remote contractors. I sat on the IBM / Sterling Commerce users’ community, taking part in invitation-only events to shape the product roadmap.
The solution was widely perceived as substandard, so the role involved a great deal of influencing. A programme of continuous improvement delivered major gains in performance and usability, presented in regular stakeholder updates. By the time I moved on, only one sales area remained on the old system.
- 03/2009 - 03/2011
Senior Business Systems Specialist
Sage
Led technically complex IT projects, aligned to the architecture roadmap and built to be future-proof.
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Led technically complex IT projects, aligned to the architecture roadmap and built to be future-proof.
The IT team owned all internal systems and company websites, including the web store for sage.co.uk. I worked with solutions architects, developers, business analysts, IT leadership and wider stakeholders to deliver business solutions, mainly across Sales Order Processing, HR systems and Finance transformation.
I went on to manage the design and roll-out of Oracle Hyperion across the whole Sage Group, replacing the Excel factory in every office with a single finance consolidation solution integrated with regional finance systems.
- 06/2006 - 03/2009
Head of IT
Moneygate Group (now Fairstone)
Designed and led the technology roadmap for an innovative, fast-paced financial start-up.
Moneygate (now Fairstone) was a start-up pre-launch. I joined a week before the public launch with no website and no IT infrastructure beyond workstations. In seven days I designed, built, tested and deployed a website, a case management application, a call centre system, a reporting and management application and all of the server architecture, for a very successful launch.
The platform went on to underpin the fastest growing IFA in the market.
- 06/2003 - 06/2006
Systems Engineer
Laing O'Rourke
Sponsored through my final year at university following a placement with Laing O’Rourke, and returned to work with them once my degree concluded.
Leadership
Eight areas I own, wherever I work.
02
Partnerships
Strategic relationships with cloud providers and key vendors. I lead the negotiations and keep the relationships strong enough to deliver real value.
03
Technology
Collaborative solution design using Infrastructure as Code and Continuous Deployment pipelines for resilient, secure, efficient services, monitored 24x7 through automation.
04
Process
Change and Incident Management that is constantly streamlined and automated as teams lean into Continuous Deployment and self-healing.
05
Strategy
A seat at the executive and product table, turning business goals into operating strategy and shaping the direction of the services as well as running them.
06
Finance
Owning Cloud Operations budgets and the largest hosting contracts, up to $60m a year, with rigorous analysis and cost optimisation.
07
Compliance
Programmes of internal and external audit, with ISO 27001 and GDPR standards held across services so security and resilience can be proven.
08
On-boarding
Bringing services, teams and processes into one operating model through change, assessing quality, moving people and embedding what works.
Beyond work
Outside the day job.
Contact
Let's talk.
Open to conversations about cloud, operations leadership and building teams that ship and stay up.
Message me on LinkedIn