Chris Taplin

Chris’ career started in the Pharmaceutical Industry where he held many roles, but it was during an SAP implementation he discovered that he had the useful ability to understand and translate the needs of a business to the technical requirements for IT solutions and back again– which has proved to be extremely valuable throughout his career.

Naturally, Chris moved on into the SAP and the IT industry where he had leadership roles at SAP, Oracle, Adobe plus start-up Unicorns and pre-IPO companies. Though mainly in Presales leadership,over the last 25 years Chris has amassed a wealth of experience in Sales and Professional Services both in EMEA and globally. Chris has experienced the many vagaries of business life with companies experiencing high hopes and tough moments. From hyper-growth and accelerated recruitment to the harsh realities of redundancy programs and efficiency measures Chris has seen it all – working in those significant moments of change; those companies who had to mature their businesses, prepare for the scrutiny of public listing,or the perilous move from on-premise software to Cloud/SaaS payment models. Chris was always at the heart of these transformations, driving the change, introducing improved processes, coaching the people and showing what good looks like.

Outside of work Chris has always been keen to keep fit and loves all sports. He took up athletics a little later than most and found he was rather “good for his age”. He has competed all over Europe and has been European bronze medallist for 400m, and is currently British champion at 400m for his age category! His passion for athletics is surpassed with his love for his large family, close friends and being outdoors as much as possible.

Chris is Chair of trustees for a small charity focused on poverty relief.