Kevin Trethewey

Technology & Innovation Leader

I enjoy the challenge of designing, leading and growing capabilities of large scale, multi site software product and platform efforts for organizations during their scale-up phase, and my career and personal experiences reflect this over my 25+ year career.

My current deep focus is on the practical leverage of AI and agentic capabilities.

At Sand Technologies I am accountable for software and AI engineering across the organisation, which operates remotely, and has a global customer base. SandTech delivers data intelligence using the latest in data and AI technology. We have deployed impactful solutions in 5+ industries, running on AWS, Azure and GCP as well as private clouds and on prem.

Prior to joining Sand (via the ExploreAI acquisition), I was Director of Engineering at Jemstep, a Silicon Valley based fintech scaleup acquired by Invesco, an S&P500 listed company.

In 2008 I founded and ran a software consultancy, Driven. For 10 years we enabled blue chip orgs to deliver software effectively, focussing on the technical practices required for high impact agility.

I’ve been in the industry since 1998. Below is a summary of some of my experience.

Location
Sandton, 2146, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Phone
+27 (0) 82 579-9154
Website
https://linktr.ee/kevintrethewey
Twitter
kevintrethewey
LinkedIn
kevint

Experience

present

Head of Engineering & Platform at Sand Technologies, EnterpriseAI

SandTech’s EnterpriseAI division builds AI-driven software and digital twins for global companies.

Highlights

  • Built a world class, remote-first and globally distributed software engineering capability from the ground up
  • Delivered complex, cloud native, data intensive applications and services across multiple cloud providers and technology stacks.
  • Created and delivered a strategy for growing socio-technical data ecosystems at scale across multiple industry domains.

Director of Engineering at Jemstep by Invesco

Based in Silicon Valley, Jemstep provides a digital investment advice product to large retail banks in the United States.

Highlights

  • Led software delivery teams across 3 continents and 4 time zones
  • Delivered a complex, innovative fintech product to multiple large banking institutions in the USA.

Founder, Principal Consultant at Driven

Driven was a consulting and coaching organisation that provided corporate clients with access to deep technical skills and experience, whilst also being a very active supporter of the local development community

Highlights

  • Started the company in 2008
  • Grew Driven to becoming a recognised name in South African software development circles

Volunteer

Organiser, Sponsor at Drivenci Unconference Johannesburg

An all weekend invitation-only unconference. I organised 10 annual events.

Highlights

    Organiser, Sponsor at Coderetreat South Africa

    Local events in the style of the global CodeRetreat.org movement.

    Highlights

      Organiser, Sponsor at SisonkeRising

      An impact and value driven community outreach programme that focused on teaching young people life skills through the vehicle of software development.

      Highlights

        References

        I have the greatest respect for Kevin who continually impresses me both with his knowledge of his industry as well as his commitment to nurturing and growing developers. It has been a privilege working with him.

        Morag Evans

        Kevin may work in the technology field, but he believes results come from motivated well functioning teams. He has made a vast impact to the way technology is approached and implemented at my employer. We have had huge successes primarily as a result of Kevin's input.

        Hendrik Briel

        I thoroughly enjoyed Kevin's workshops and presentations at FirstRand. Kevin was instrumental in instilling a culture of unit testing and practicing other good software dev principles (eg. SOLID, agile, etc.) at FirstRand. He is passionate about software and I am sure he will continue to be a success.

        Daniel Cabral

        Kevin has very sound knowledge on technical practices related to writing good quality software. Is works very closely with developers and they always have a lot of respect for him due to the knowledge and approach he takes. An asset to any engagement.

        Tania van Wyk de Vries

        Working with Kevin is as insightful as it is inspiring. He is driven and has an unending passion for teaching and driving others to teach. The breadth and depth of his technical and management knowledge far exceeds what has come to be the norm in our industry and this has pushed me to up my own game in terms of knowledge transfer and technical excellence. I would gladly work with him in the future.

        Johann de Swart

        I worked with Kevin at De Beers. I found Kevin to have a wealth of technical knowledge which he is eager to share. He was early in the South African market to adopt the agile approach to development which is now becoming a mainstream movement. I am sure he will be a valuable asset to any company or team wanting to implement an agile approach to their development strategy.

        Cheri Way

        Kevin provided us with the insights needed to transform from a traditional 'waterfall approach' systems development team to an Agile SCRUM methodology that produced 3 times the output previously achieved. I have made use of Kevins services more than once and will most certainly recommend him.

        Chris Rheeder

        Kevin has a keen eye for detail and a great ability to understand our business needs and provide training and solutions to meet them well.

        Paul Sainsbury

        Kevin is technically very astute, is pragmatic in his overall solution recommendations and really comes into his own in a team leadership/mentor role. Over the years I have become accustomed to handing him and his team a business problem, knowing that he will deliver the optimal solution with no intervention necessary.

        Ridz van Wyk de Vries

        Languages

        English
        Fluency: Native speaker

        Interests

        Pottery
        Keywords:
        • Ceramics
        • Raku
        • Wabi sabi
        Model engines
        Keywords:
        • steam engines
        • nitro engines
        • model aircraft design and construction
        Marine Reef Aquariums
        Keywords:
        • Marine Biology
        • Chemistry
        • Aquascaping

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