Hot Seat: Nick Masterton Jones

Nick Masterson-Jones is IT director at financial services company VocaLink, where he manages a team of 260 people

What was your first job and how did you get into IT?
I was a graduate trainee at JP Morgan, working in investment banking and IT. My (potential) mother-in-law told my girlfriend that I couldn’t get a job. So I applied for one and got it. I was going to be a barrister.

Which IT vendor has been the most influential in the past 20 years?
Sun, for making Java so ubiquitous. We are a big Java shop and the ability to write something once and have it run everywhere is great.

Which IT professional do you see as being the most influential?
Steve Jobs. Despite some of the hype around his products, he has made geekiness rather cool and improved the public perception of IT as a whole.

Which mobile device do you use?
I have a rather battered BlackBerry that I check whenever my wife isn’t looking. I am a complete addict but I do realise that looking at it all the time is not conducive to a happy marriage.

What piece of technology would you save from a fire?
I would grab my backup drive with all my family photos from the past 20 years. I’d already be carrying my BlackBerry.

What piece of technology would you most like to have invented?
The longbow would have been a good one to invent. It had a remarkable impact on the balance of power between feudal knights and yeomen. The longbow is a remarkable piece of technology.

Is now a good time to enter the IT profession?
Yes. Now we focus less on how to make IT work and more on what it does. That’s rather nice. We are moving to a world where you can see that a lot of things we rely on actually work.