I bring heart to technology

I have worked with Ward at 3 companies, we have worked together as peers and he was also my direct report at RealSelf. Ward is one of the smartest humans I have ever met. From a work perspective, he is an expert architect, a great engineer and a fantastic people leader. I have seen him break apart monolithic infrastructure into SOA, and I have seen him completely rebuild teams from the ground up to. I would gladly recommend him.

Ward's one of the unicorns in the executive technology ranks leading from a place of empathy and compassion with great talent as a technologist and forward thinker. He's self-aware, humble but confident, a people first leader, and has great emotional intelligence that he applies to complex business situations. Anyone who brings Ward in as a board member, technical advisor or senior leader will be better off for it, raising their collective consciousness of their organization as a result.

Wicked smart, collaborative, engaging, thoughtful, authentic, always delivers — that's Ward. His combination of expertise (the “what”) and leadership style (the “how”) is truly remarkable and I saw it in action every day at RealSelf. He will make your organization and products better for customers (internal and external). Run — don't walk, to work with him.

As a technical and leadership advisor to Allakando, Ward is always super honest in his opinions and he is always pushing for what's best for the company. He is amazing at both the high-level strategic questions as well as the important details in our work. On a personal level it's also an absolute joy to work with Ward and I can't recommend him enough!

Ward is someone who makes me think in new ways. Ward is someone with whom I enjoy sharing time. In my time working at Varsity Tutors with Ward, I learned the importance of being authentic, open, and vulnerable. Ward made every meeting better. Ward made every person better. While the great divide of a continent and very different industries now separate us, I look forward to continuing to learn from Ward and hope we one day are able to share a meal and drink.

Ward has been a fantastic leader, mentor, and friend. He embodies the servant-leadership principles and leads with love. Ward believes in empowering teams to move quickly, to make mistakes, and to learn from (and celebrate!) those mistakes. Utilizing his deep wells of technical, product, and leadership experience, he is able to support any team or leader to achieve greatness. Ward is an excellent coach and mentor, providing kindly-candid, and thoughtful feedback. I have become a better leader thanks to my experience working with Ward — I consider myself truly lucky to have worked with him.

Ward, is a natural leader who goes out of his way to help. When you meet Ward you'll quickly realize he knows his stuff from product and technical strategy through to leading and growing people. You'll learn a lot from him!

I have great respect for Ward not only as a technology leader, but as a people leader. He cares fully about each and every member of his team and anyone he comes in contact with for that matter. Ward feels strongly about making available information that can successfully set people on their journey. Ward not only builds strong teams within the organizations he works for, he helps connect good people with the companies that he feels are a match as he believes in everyone being in the right place. I have partnered on many people-based projects with Ward and, even though I have been doing this for a long time, I learned a ton from our partnerships. Ward continually strives to be the best person he can and never stops learning and growing.