Juan Villamil

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK

Juan is an experienced IT leader, having held senior positions for multiple large organisations. He is currently the CIO of Imperial College London, and has worked as CTO for the Department for Work and Pensions and BT Sport. He has extensive experience managing large teams, setting organisation-wide IT strategies and managing infrastructure.

How do you ensure diversity is taken into account in your IT recruitment?

The College and the ICT team support all activities to improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). We ensure our job descriptions are written in a way to attract the best tech talent, from all people from all backgrounds. We ensure our interview panels are diverse, and we have an ICT EDI champion who works to promote equality and to seek out the best tech talent from the industry. We are partnered with Everywoman in Tech and other companies to create a community where everyone can flourish.

We have core values of respect and integrity that we embed into the interview process, and an apprenticeship scheme for people looking for experience and a way into IT from any background. We create a culture of openness, fairness and opportunity to ensure a diverse team who can go on to create and implement tech for everybody.

Which technology are you currently most excited by?

I am really excited about the future of education, not only for my daughter who is currently studying, but for all the students I work with at Imperial. AI and ML have huge potential to transform the education experience for everyone.

What makes you laugh?

I get a lot of joy and happiness from being alive, and having an amazing and supportive family...plus being tickled!

How did you get into IT?

I worked part time in a shoe shop as a young man to enable me to buy a Commodore 64 ...and the rest is history! I really enjoyed coding, and went on to study for a BSc (Hons) in Applied Computing, an MSc in Information Technology Security, and after that an Executive MBA from Imperial College London and an MPLA from the Said Business School (University of Oxford).

My work history includes; Senior Manager at Accenture in the Communications and High-Tech part of the business, as the CTO for BT Sport, the CTO at the Department for Work and Pensions and now as CIO of Imperial College London.