In the world of enterprise architecture, we often speak in terms of systems, integrations, dependencies, and capabilities. Yet the most defining architecture we build throughout our careers is not found in a blueprint or a solution design. It is the architecture of relationships. The modern workplace is volatile. One day you may be leading a major transformation program; the next day, market shifts or organisational restructuring may force you to start again. Global instability, economic uncertainty, and technological disruption all remind us of a timeless truth: your real career capital is who you know, what you can do, how you show up, and how hard you are willing to try.
Achieving strategic goals is often framed as a grand pursuit, a bold vision, a multi-year transformation, a sweeping program to reshape the organization. Yet, in practice, strategy rarely fails because the vision is unclear. It fails because the path between the present and the future is too abstract for people to act on. Leaders speak in outcomes; teams operate in tasks. The gap between the two is where momentum is lost.
The role of the Enterprise Architect (EA) sits at the intersection of business strategy, technology direction, and organizational change. Yet when it comes to defining goals and KPIs, many organizations struggle to articulate what success looks like. Unlike delivery teams where progress is easily measured in terms of completed tasks or shipped features, the EA operates primarily in the domain of outcomes. These outcomes are multi-dimensional, interdependent, and influenced by forces well beyond the architect’s direct span of control. The value of the EA is real, but it is often indirect, systemic, and revealed over time.
Cloud has fundamentally changed how organizations consume technology. In the traditional IT world, engineers would submit infrastructure requests that flowed through long procurement cycles. Capacity was purchased upfront, often with estimates based on peak demand, and the result was frequently over-provisioned resources that sat idle. Cost was predictable, but it was also disconnected from actual usage and the pace of innovation was slowed by waiting for hardware approvals and manual provisioning.
This year, I returned to New Asia College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a mentor in the Mentorship Programme. More than a decade has passed since I graduated in 2012, yet walking back onto campus still feels familiar and different at the same time. During my student years, I received support, guidance, and encouragement from professors, seniors, and alumni. Now, it feels meaningful to give back and to walk alongside younger students who may be feeling uncertain about their direction in life, stressed about academic expectations, or anxious about the future.
In many large organizations, it has become almost instinctive to bring in external consulting firms whenever challenges arise. Firms like Accenture, Deloitte, or PwC arrive with polished slide decks, ready-made frameworks, and a promise of quick impact. And indeed, they often deliver rapid results. But the pace at which these “wins” are achieved, and the incentive models that underpin them, can lead to deeper structural issues that only surface after the consultants have already moved on.
In a world obsessed with technical mastery and digital transformation, one truth remains unchanged: organizations are made of people. For Enterprise Architects, the challenge is not just about designing scalable systems or aligning technology with strategy; it is about managing up.
Transitioning from a Solution Architect to an Enterprise Architect is not merely a career move; it’s an evolution of perspective. It marks the point where technical mastery must give way to strategic influence, where depth of knowledge is no longer enough without breadth of vision. In this role, the measure of success is not how much you build, but how effectively you align, enable, and inspire across an organization that never stands still.
Every conversation about the future of work circles back to one undeniable truth: the world of jobs is transforming faster than ever before. Automation, AI, and digital platforms are redefining what it means to be employable. The anxiety is real, and many worry about mass unemployment if machines can replicate human tasks. One speaker at a seminar I attended once warned, “If you can write an algorithm for your job, your job will be automated.”
In today’s business landscape, data has become the most underutilized asset on the balance sheet. Organizations often collect it in abundance, yet struggle to translate it into measurable impact. The question is no longer whether companies should use data, but how they can unlock its true value in ways that improve sales performance, drive productivity, and shape better decisions.
Southeast Asia’s banks are at a pivotal juncture, transitioning from decades-old legacy cores to modern platforms built for the digital age. Most banks in the region still run on aging technology – 90–95% of banks rely on on-premises, mainframe-based cores averaging 20+ years old [1,2]. Only a small minority operate fully cloud-native cores, mainly among digital-only entrants [1]. These systems are expensive to run and hard to change, making modernisation a strategic necessity [1,2].
Convincing a bank to replace its core banking system should be easy in theory. After all, the promise is huge: a safer, more reliable, and compliant engine that could save banks and their customers millions. Yet, in practice, it is one of the hardest sales in technology. The reasons go far beyond technology—they lie deep within the human, political, and regulatory fabric of the banking industry.
Recently I had dinner with a friend, and she mentioned that she wants to start her own business. I shared my experience that there are really two types of startups: one is the SME, or small and medium enterprise, which focuses on building a profitable business; the other is the venture capital-backed startup, which is a completely different game. Many people don’t realize how stark the difference is, and this misunderstanding often leads entrepreneurs to chase the wrong kind of funding.
Leadership is never just about knowledge or strategy. It is about character, conviction, and the ability to inspire. Skills may help you solve problems, but it is your personal qualities that determine how far you can go, how resilient you will be, and how deeply you will influence those around you.
Building agentic applications with Azure AI Foundry can feel like stepping into a new world for a solution architect. The promise is huge, an entire ecosystem for creating, deploying, and managing AI agents at enterprise scale, but it requires rethinking how we design architectures, plan adoption, and integrate security and governance. Coming from a background of traditional solution design, I quickly realized that approaching this space with the right framework makes all the difference.
Banks must develop major innovations to prosper, but they don’t know how to. Many still try to build them with an old producer model. In that model, vendors publish roadmaps, banks write long requirement documents, and system integrators deliver projects after months of work. Academic research and field practice point to a different path. Important innovation often come from users. These users share and improve ideas in communities. Breakthroughs scale when a platform gives them simple tools that turn designs into live products without friction. In banking, many “new” services begin as user workarounds before they become official. The next growth line is often being tested by customers and frontline teams already.
Life often feels like a crab bucket. The moment you try to climb higher, someone pulls you back down with criticism, doubt, or even envy. It’s exhausting to fight against this invisible weight. The Stoics, philosophers who lived more than two thousand years ago, left us with a timeless brainhack that can help us rise above not only the crab bucket but almost every obstacle life throws our way.
We’ve all experienced it: that inner voice that won’t let up, the one that criticizes, doubts, and questions our every move. Sometimes it whispers, sometimes it shouts, but its message is always the same: you’re not enough. Ironically, even though research shows that self-criticism fuels stress, anxiety, and depression, many of us keep falling back into it as if it were helping us. The truth is, self-criticism is not a weakness. It is a survival mechanism that our brain and culture have trained us to adopt. But here’s the good news: what’s learned can also be unlearned.
When many entrepreneurs first start their journey, they face the same dilemma: no money. The seemingly easy solution is to take on outsourcing projects to generate cash flow. On the surface, it feels like a practical way to survive, but beneath that surface lies a dangerous trap. Outsourcing is not about selling technology; it is about selling time. The painful truth is that time can only be sold once. Unlike building a product that scales, outsourcing leaves you with nothing more than hours traded for dollars.
Enthusiasm is not something we are born with or something that appears out of nowhere. It is something we can build, nurture, and strengthen. It is the fuel that drives us forward, even when the path is difficult and the obstacles feel overwhelming. Without it, work becomes routine and uninspiring. With it, even the simplest task can feel purposeful and rewarding.