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 Head of Software Engineering for Client Delivery and Head of Delivery Enablement, responsible for the infrastructure, intelligence and engineering standards that let Sand’s globally distributed delivery teams ship client value fast, safely, and together with clients. Sand Technologies delivers data intelligence using the latest in data and AI technology, with impactful solutions deployed across 5+ industries, running on AWS, Azure and GCP as well as private clouds and on prem.
Prior to this role, I built Sand’s engineering and platform capability from the ground up following the ExploreAI acquisition in late 2023. Before that, 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
- kevintrethewey
- kevint
Experience
– present
Head of Software Engineering for Client Delivery and Head of Delivery Enablement at Sand Technologies
Delivery Enablement is a horizontal capability within Sand’s Delivery function that provides the infrastructure, intelligence and professional capability enabling client delivery teams to ship value fast, safely, and together with clients.
Highlights
- Head of Software Engineering for Client Delivery, setting the hiring bar, ways of working and cross-team engineering standards across Sand's Delivery function
- Head of Delivery Enablement, forming and running a core enablement strategy and capability across the Delivery Intelligence, Delivery Capabilities and Delivery Infrastructure workstreams
- Steward of the Sand3 Ontology, the Sand Cowork plugin and Sand Organization Skills, the system-layer artefacts underpinning Sand's delivery intelligence
- Jointly runs the Sand-wide Delivery Forum with the GRC function, providing technical review per workstream every 4 weeks
–
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.
- Supported and implemented the successful acquisition and integration of ExploreAI's enterprise division with Sand Technologies
–
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, then stepped back in 2025 and handed it over to the community.
Highlights
–
Organiser, Sponsor at Coderetreat South Africa
Local events in the style of the global CodeRetreat.org movement, run from 2012 to 2018.
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
Publications
Time, Truth, and Ontology: The three axes your knowledge system is probably missing two of by kevintrethewey.com
On the three axes (time, truth and ontology) that most knowledge systems get wrong.
Agents, Paradigms and Strange Loops: Toward Emergent Digital Intelligence in AI Agents by kevintrethewey.com
On emergent digital intelligence and the paradigms shaping AI agent design.
An Engineering Leaders Guide to Recalibrating for the Agentic Era by kevintrethewey.com
On how experienced engineering leaders should recalibrate for the agentic era.
The Spine Model by kevintrethewey.com
A framework for applying organisational-design thinking to leadership challenges.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Languages
- English
- Fluency: Native speaker
Interests
- Pottery
- Keywords:
- Model engines
- Keywords:
- Marine Reef Aquariums
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