00:00
Speaker 1
Welcome to Let's Get Digital podcast and we are live today. I usually don't do this, but I had to take this opportunity. And we are at the Infrastructure Summit in Las Vegas sponsored by Structure Research and it's a fantastic show, so you have to attend next year. But I'm really excited because my guest is also a new friend of mine and she has a family. Fantastic company. I cannot wait to share with you, Elia McLeaf. She is the founder and CEO of Innovorg.
00:33
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me here. I mean, what a great time to be in Vegas. The weather is beautiful and I mean, the conference is the biggest it has ever been with 600, I think, plus people attending.
00:46
Speaker 1
It's. I've never been to this before. It's a really good show. And you are a sponsor?
00:52
Speaker 2
Yeah, we're one of the sponsors. I mean, I don't know if you could see our logos around, but this is our third year sponsoring this event and I would say if you have never been to Infrastructure Summit, this is the event to visit. 100%.
01:05
Speaker 1
It is, it is. So let's talk about you.
01:08
Speaker 2
Yes.
01:10
Speaker 1
I just want to know your story and I've spoken to you quite a bit about your background, but I don't think went as deep as I want to go right now. So tell me, you know, tell me your journey. How did you get here to. To this incredible place of entrepreneurship?
01:28
Speaker 2
Wow, that's a very deep question, Carrie. And we could spend a lot of time talking about my journey, but taking a step back a little bit, I was born and raised in a country called Uzbekistan. I don't know if anybody of your audience have heard about that country, but it's kind of on the border of Middle east and Eastern Europe, I would say. I immigrated to Canada and my first job actually in Canada was in cloud and hosting. Like in early days, back in the day, I was a frontline engineer and then I grew through the ranks, eventually becoming an executive running everything post sale for the cloud and data center companies. And I've served almost 20 years in the industry before taking the leap of faith and around eight, nine years ago starting my own business.
02:20
Speaker 2
I initially started a consulting agency and basically was serving the industry. But in the background I was validating the market fit for a software solution which eventually became Innovorc. Innovork is a workforce intelligence platform that was built for the sector where we serving the data center sector, helping them to shape up and build the best workforce they can have.
02:47
Speaker 1
Okay, so let's get into Innovorg and tell me what problems that you solve for companies. I mean, I want to hear all about it.
02:57
Speaker 2
Innovorg initially, this is our fifth year in business, we started with a foundational product which called skills module, skills management, where we would come into the companies and basically inventory, catalog all of their skills, build their competency frameworks, and we evaluate the skill gaps for the company. So imagine the organization that has no visibility into their skill gaps, their expertise, and with the help of Innovorc, all of a sudden they have this tremendous data set of what skills are required, what skills, emerging skills are there with future skills, what the people need, where they're lacking, where the hiring gaps lie, right. Where they can actually train. So all of that gets unlocked with the skills catalog. But more so you also identify training gaps, of course, for your staff.
03:52
Speaker 2
And then our next product was the training module where based on all of the data, we pull in the content and we bring the content, we aggregate it across the Internet. We partner up with multiple training providers, but we also are content provider ourselves. So we build content through AI on demand for our clients. And then later we brought other products to the market called certification management. So we also certify the staff, we have career pathing, leadership development. And the most important, I think kind of secret sauce for the company now is the KPIs being linked to the learning activities, where we could link the business KPIs to the learning activities and basically deliver real data on what's the impact of the learning and training on the business and the bottom line.
04:46
Speaker 1
Tell me some success stories or one success story.
04:49
Speaker 2
Specific customer. Success.
04:51
Speaker 1
Yeah, specific customer. You don't have to say the name of the company, just take me through.
04:55
Speaker 2
We actually have had few use cases that are public online, which the audience can definitely look up. But I would say one of the really tremendous stories we had where we partner up with a company that was going through a lot of acquisitions. Nemona, that was one of our early clients, still a customer. And they were acquiring maybe two, three new companies per year. And one of the challenges they had was really identifying the integration points between the teams, right. As they bring the new team in, how do they integrate? Where the synergies lie, where the opportunities for optimization lie and the training. Right. They also wanted to sustain the workforce of the companies that were getting acquired and they had to reposition them into the new company. So we worked with them to basically build their master skills catalog.
05:48
Speaker 2
But also every new company that got acquired was also evaluated and we helped them to successfully integrate. And they're still going through quite a bit of acquisition activity. But now it's such a smooth journey for them to be able to integrate new companies seamlessly. So that one of the kind of use cases on the M and A side. But we've done a lot of work with operators that don't necessarily acquire, but they grow a lot and they hire a lot of new people.
06:15
Speaker 1
It's gotta be a benefit for retention, right?
06:19
Speaker 2
Oh, big time.
06:19
Speaker 1
And engagement.
06:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean one of the things I think a lot of companies dealing with is the staff does not necessarily feel that the company is invested in their future and their development. That's why the career pathing leadership development programs are so important. Where employees see the next step into the future. How do they fit into the company right now and how does that trajectory look like in a year or two or five? Right. And that's can be systematized, it can be structured and that's exactly what we do in platform is the career pathing showing them the way, but also exposing employees to the expectations for the next role. Like what are the skills associated with the next role? What is your skill gap towards that next role?
07:06
Speaker 2
They can look at the skills across the entire company and see how far are they off from the roles that are available within the company. Right. And then they could pursue that path and start upskilling toward that particular role within the platform, which is quite fantastic.
07:23
Speaker 1
I think every company needs this. I mean, that's what I think.
07:26
Speaker 2
Yeah.
07:26
Speaker 1
You work primarily, you serve the data center space. Right. So I mean, I'm just thinking about like the size of a company. So what would be your sweet spot with company size?
07:39
Speaker 2
You know, we started with cloud and hosting companies back in 21 when were founded. So our sweet spot always been kind of companies above 500 employees. But since like a couple years ago, we started really working up the stack into enterprise market. So we've been very fortunate to work with some of the hyperscalers now and their staff size. I mean it's in tens of thousands. Right. So we've worked with companies that had as little as maybe 50 employees now into companies that now tend to have tens of thousands of employees. And every company has unique expectations. I think if the company is smaller and they're still developing, I think a lot is about specific programs being implemented. Maybe they want to get security and compliance program set up. Maybe they want to have a more effective onboarding program which we can unlock. Right.
08:40
Speaker 2
But the larger companies, they're More about the data points that they want to collect around skill gaps. They want to cover the entire company. They want to see where everybody stands and what upskilling opportunities are there. Most of them are preparing really for the future. They're kind of looking into two, three years ahead and a lot of focus is now on those emerging skills around AI, around data. And essentially leadership is also a big trend, like a lot of companies upskilling their technical talent on leadership skills as well.
09:14
Speaker 1
So what are some emerging AI skills that you're seeing?
09:18
Speaker 2
You know, right now, what we're seeing across multiple departments, they're looking for AI tooling application for increased productivity and that's really integrating the AI applications into their day to day life at work. Right. So every department is unique when it comes to data center companies. Right. There's certain application of AI tooling. When it comes to, let's say legal finance, it's something different. Right. So a lot of it from a skills perspective, it's essentially foundational understanding of AI technology, familiarity with the tool set that's really relevant to their job role. And the tool sets definitely vary. And as you know, from AI application perspective, there's a lot of them on the market right now and they're coming up really fast. Right.
10:08
Speaker 2
So a lot of it just kind of being exposed to the most popular applications out there and also being able to apply them into day to day jobs. I mean, as you know, those are very new skills that are just emerging. Like some of the foundational expertise are just being built as we speak. So we're keeping up with that trend ourselves and basically developing deeper expertise around AI ourselves as well as, you know.
10:35
Speaker 1
I mean we've got a major problem with, you know, talent workforce. There's just not enough people skills gaps, I mean, all over the industry and it's only going to get worse. And I mean, we hear about it at every single conference that we go to. So. And what I keep hearing as a solution is obviously upskilling, reskilling, upskilling, reskilling. And it sounds like that, you know, your platform is a solution for that, right? Because it organizes that process of upskilling and reskilling. So what, you know, what do you feel? Do you see some solutions that maybe other people are not seeing? Or you know, what do we do about this massive talent issue that we face?
11:22
Speaker 2
I mean , upskilling and reskilling as part of the puzzle for sure. I think there's the recruitment aspect of it that I think you can weigh in on more as well. Because fundamentally, the. There's the generation that's aging. A lot of people are aging and exiting the industry. Right. So upskilling and reskilling alone will not address the gaps in the sector because we're talking now hundreds of thousands unfilled jobs in this sector. Right. Pushing into 500,000 unfilled jobs. Right. So I think upskilling, reskilling, definitely part of the puzzle. And that's where we come in. We help the companies to identify where the workforce is right now and where they need to be, and we help them to guide the employees in that right direction and build the skills that the employees need.
12:14
Speaker 2
But there's another, bigger problem, I think, in the industry is attracting the younger generation to the industry, educating that next generation around the data center industry, opening up the doors to the sector, and of course, improving our recruitment practices as well. Right. It's a really intimidating industry to join. Like, I don't know how you fell into this sector, but I mean, I can tell you that I actually was recruited purely accidentally into. I kind of fell into the industry by an accident. And most of the people I know that built successful careers here just happened to fall into it completely by accident. So did I design. Okay.
12:55
Speaker 1
So. And I feel like it is the same story. And I hear those exact words, I fell into the industry. And I think you're right. I mean, we have to change that. The other thing that really resonates with me is that there's, you know, our workforce is aging and retiring.
13:15
Speaker 2
Yes.
13:15
Speaker 1
So we've got this gap.
13:16
Speaker 2
Right.
13:17
Speaker 1
We've got the people who are aging out and retiring, but then we've got the new entrants coming in. Right. Which we're trying to get more and more young people. But there's this gap in the middle that, yes, you know, we're going to have people trained in three, four or five years. But what about now? You know, there's this gap and it's just this, you know, we talk about it all the time, and I, you know, I try to think of, okay, what are some solutions to this? Right. There's, there's people being displaced because of AI, and their jobs are being eliminated. And I think that's going to continue to happen.
13:58
Speaker 1
I'm not really certain that's going to happen long term because I think it's going to adjust and there's going to be new jobs, new that AI is going to create that are, you know, and there'll be people that are going to be upskilled and reskilled and then there'll be some that won't. But I think there are going to be, you know, part of this middle portion, right? There's the people retiring and the young people coming in. And that middle portion, the people that are losing their jobs to AI, those are the people can be, that can also be brought into the industry at any age and reskilled and upskilled and taught the industry. But they've got to know about it. And I think that's the area where.
14:37
Speaker 2
We'Re weak and clear expectations as well, right? That's one of the elements why I always preach about the skills catalog skills management. Because it creates clarity, employee facing on what the expectations of the business are, right? And I can tell you in all of the companies we've worked with, it doesn't matter the size of the company. In fact, the smaller the company, the more loaded the skills catalog are. Fully loaded, meaning they're very large. Our average client today has 150 skills per role. You can imagine, right? We have clients that have to wait.
15:15
Speaker 1
Wait, 150 skills per single role For.
15:19
Speaker 2
A single role in that's an average number. We have clients that have 250 skills per role. So if you think about that, the expectations that the sector has for employees are tremendous. And I can tell you, five years ago our average skill catalogs were 80 skills per role. Now five years later, we're at 150 skills for role. What does that tell you? The skills catalogs per role are growing. And you know why? Because technology is, are evolving. More products are coming to the market, more services and all of that innovation is being pushed towards the staff. They need to keep up with that innovation. As more tools coming up, they need to absorb the tools. The more systems, more processes, more procedures, of course, all of the products and services. And that puts a lot of pressure on the staff. And guess what?
16:15
Speaker 2
If you are not succinctly clearly explaining to the staff what the expectations are across those skills, right? And what are the priority skills are the optional skills. Where do you start? What are the foundational elements that you have to build? First imagine how intimidating and difficult it is to enter the sector and actually keep up with the expectations. And then if to talk about women in the industry, right, like why women fell out of the sector and don't come back. A lot of times when they start families, you know why? Because when they left, maybe there were 50 skills. Now they're coming back, they're like 200 skills. And they're completely out of the loop now and they don't have a direction on what their expectations are and where do we even start?
16:59
Speaker 2
So I think that's maybe from a middle sector as you're talking, that middle layer. I think a lot of it's just creating that clarity on the expectations and being able to guide your employees through that process of upskilling. Right. And process of building those additional skills, but also being selective of what you add to your skills catalog. Right. So some companies are kind of shiny balls. They go after every single product. And I'm not discouraging from that. But it's a revenue generation, of course, activity where a lot of new products and services being pushed. But I think we have to just make sure we remember that it has an impact on operations and performance of your team. Right. Sales would sell, they throw it over the fence to ops. Right. They have to execute.
17:42
Speaker 2
And if your services team does not have the skills, they won't be able to satisfy the client. At the end of the day, it all will come down to revenue impact. Right?
17:52
Speaker 1
Yes. Companies are in the data center world, are making, you know, they have all sorts of priorities, right. Power being one big priority. And I mean there's so many. But it feels like that talent and workforce and the problem we're talking about doesn't feel like it's a high enough priority just yet, surprisingly.
18:14
Speaker 2
I don't know what.
18:15
Speaker 1
I know it's crazy, but. And I think it's the number one priority obviously, you know, in my world. But, you know, we're looking at companies and their training programs and their commitment to what you're talking about. And I think I was reading a statistic that like 60% of companies don't have training and development programs. They don't even have anything like you're talking about talking, you know, expectations and career pathing and these are all the things that we have to think about.
18:42
Speaker 2
So.
18:42
Speaker 1
So what, you know, what to. I guess, how do you convince the end? Or let's get the urgency. Right? The urgency out there. Like, you've got to start, you've got to do it. But you know, what would you. What advice would you give to companies, no matter what size right now, that they have to start taking this serious, putting at the top of the priority chain and implementing some of these programs like inavorg or Innavorg. I think, I think it's pretty cool. But what would you say?
19:14
Speaker 2
You know, I think the industry is evolving really quickly. The next Five years. I think we're going to see tremendous growth, of course, as we are expecting in the sector, the competition for talent is fierce. If your staff, your best staff is not being poked and poached yet, they will for sure. I can tell you most of the companies we're working with right now, they're looking for talent. They have unfilled jobs that go unfilled for months that they cannot find the right talent. So if you are not investing in your people, you're not developing your people, you definitely will gradually become obsolete. Right. Culture is an important element, of course, as well. It can keep your people around, but it only can go so far if your staff will realize. And there's some, of course, comparison that you can do.
20:02
Speaker 2
The companies that are investing in their future, that have the programs for career pathing and development, that are helping them to build those emerging skills that they need to propel into the next decade, of course they're going to choose those employers. Right. I think fundamentally it's also war for talent and it's war for the right talent. Right. That's how I see it. I think it's such a foundational decision for any company to make. And I mean, we are seeing some emerging companies of even smaller size that are investing in their staff. But majority of the programs like that we of course see in hyperscalers like Fortune 500 companies. They're very deliberate about the programs that they run and they invest a lot of time and effort, of course, in those programs.
20:48
Speaker 2
But I think even a smaller company can start with just a simple skills cataloging. Right? Mapping the skills to the roles, presenting the expectations to their staff, and then showcasing how that progression ladder looks like. Of course, I would love that to be done with inner work system in mind, but it can even start as simple as Excel spreadsheet. It's very difficult to maintain. We've taken over some of that models in the past. But you can start slow and small and then gradually evolve into systematized platform like Innovorg.
21:22
Speaker 1
How is Innovorg using AI?
21:25
Speaker 2
So Innovoric uses AI in multiple facets of the platform. We are fully AI integrated platform. We of course, fundamentally using AI for content generation. So we as a content provider, we generate all of our content through AI. And since of course, OpenAI came out, we've started taking advantage of that technology. And I can tell you that the content quality, the last two years came such a long way. We're able to stand up content on any subject. And when I say content, it's not just the written content, we're talking audio and video and podcast style narration, we're talking about images like you name it. It's a multi topic, full fledged courses, right, that generated by AI. And I think the next, I would say couple years, the content provider industry will evolve quite a bit.
22:22
Speaker 2
I always believe that the content should be free, I don't think content should be paid. And I think as we progress forward, most likely that's where we're going to head. Content will be available, readily available, and it's more about packaging that content. Another way of course we use AI is the roles to skill matching. Right. We are able to build skills catalogs against any role and it's all done through AI. We can essentially take and build a fully fledged roles ground. We use AI for of course, indexing of the content, right. We are generating aggregated content catalogs for our clients. So aggregation is done across multiple sources and it is AI enabled where we evaluate the content providers, we present those content providers, we add quizzes. On top of that we add challenges. Lab works everything through AI.
23:17
Speaker 2
The next really evolution for us will be using AI more as a coach, as a virtual coach. And that's coming in 26, where you can just prompt AI and AI is trained on Innovor's framework where clients will be able to get content stood up on demand within the platform, get the role and skills catalog stood up on demand and the programs built within a matter of seconds. Right. And then of course we're also looking into AR VR generated content as well. That's for the data center technicians, kind of on site training, but the virtual training for them through virtual reality. We see that's kind of like the next stage for Innovor in terms of content design and content generation.
24:07
Speaker 1
Speaking of next, let's talk about your big vision. Where do you see in EVORG in a decade from now?
24:16
Speaker 2
Wow, that's a good question. You know, I would love inner work as a workforce intelligence platform to be in the hands of every single employee out there. I would love because I come from a humble beginnings myself. I built my career from level one engineer into executive and now of course entrepreneur. And one of the things I always struggled with is ability to figure out how do I progress and how do I build up to that next level. And I had to spend decades literally to learn and figure things out based on my own research. Maybe a little mentorship or I've had more mentorship in some companies, but I always struggled with that kind of progression pathing Right. And Innovor from a social construct. Why I was excited about this business, why it was built, is actually helping people to unlock their potential.
25:14
Speaker 2
That's what I'm all about. And we are an education technology company, as you know. I see NAVORG really being enhanced of every single employee out there. If I. If I dream beyond even data center industry, I'd love to go beyond our sector into, like, telco sectors, of course, healthcare, government. There's like, so many opportunities for innovation there, but our sector alone, I think, can keep us busy for many years to come. I would love to be the company that really powers up the workforce intelligence for the data center sector and beyond.
25:50
Speaker 1
Okay, I'm holding you to that. By the way, you are such an inspiration to me. I mean, ever since I met you, every time I talk to you, I just get excited and I'm like, I can do anything.
26:00
Speaker 2
I'm still bushy tail 20 years later, you know, Terry, but I have to tell you the same thing. You're an absolute superstar, and it's such a pleasure to know you and be associated with you. And I am always rooting for you, and I'm really excited about the future. Hopefully we'll get a chance to work together in the future and do more projects together.
26:22
Speaker 1
Well, we have a panel together tomorrow, and I want to do more of that. More speaking and getting the word out and educating everyone and making sure that all companies and all leaders place workforce and talent and development as a top priority.
26:37
Speaker 2
So because at the end of the day, we're working towards the same direction. Carrie is all about finding the right talent. We're all about making sure that talent is successful once they join the company and they maximize their potential within that company. So it's the pieces of the same puzzle at the end of the day.
26:53
Speaker 1
So true. How can we learn more about innovorg? How can we contact you?
26:59
Speaker 2
You can find me on LinkedIn. Elliotmacleaf. You can, of course, reach out to me. You can email me emcleithnowork.com and of course, our website, innovork.com you can look us up. Read more about us. We would love to hear from you. Any feedback or questions, always welcome.
27:17
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Let's do it again.
27:21
Speaker 2
Yes.