Understanding the culture that drives retail innovation: A conversation with Microsoft Canada President Kevin Peesker

Recorded live in the Purolator Podcasting Studio at STORE2019 just as he stepped off the Main Stage, Kevin and I talked about his journey to the leadership role at Microsoft, and perspectives on retail transformation, technology and the culture necessary to drive innovation.

TVOR: Let's talk about yourself and your role at Microsoft.

KP: I will say that it is an absolute honour to be the leader of Microsoft in Canada.  I'm the first Canadian in 12 years that's held the post so I it's an incredible honour. I've been able to have a few experiences which have prepared me so I was very deliberate in my career. I started in finance, went to marketing, operations, strategy, sales, supply and demand, regional management, country management, multi country management. And, and for me, to become a President, I always had this view that I'd like to lead a company, I felt it was important to understand the various functional areas of business.

TVOR: I’m trying to wrap my head around the impact of phenomenon like AI and machine learning. I’m coming to think that we're actually underestimating the impact of some of these things. 

KP: I actually sit on our global leadership team: my boss is responsible for 183 countries. And there's five of us who run regions of the world that are basically make up the totality of Microsoft…absolutely every industry - doesn't matter if it's in manufacturing, it's in energy. It's in the financial sector, it's in healthcare, every single industry, small to large are feeling the impact of this rather unique point in time. I mentioned that I've been in tech for a long time: it's 30 years for me in tech. And in tech, you kind of get used to the speed of change. And you know, if you aren't willing to be on a continuous learning path, you shouldn't be in tech, you should be in some other industry, pick another career, pick another career path, otherwise, it will burn you out.

TVOR: It feels like is a renaissance of Microsoft around the world. And Azure is, I don't know if it's the leading element, but it certainly is indicative of a different perspective for your organization.

KP: From a Microsoft perspective, the next wave of innovation is the cloud. But the cloud is a platform, when you apply with the cloud, on top of it, services that allow for the application of decades of research around AI and others, you then have breakthroughs,

For the full-length interview with Kevin tune into The Voice of Retail™ podcast available on Apple iTunes or wherever you enjoy you podcasts at https://the-voice-of-retail.simplecast.com/episodes/store2019-special-edition-no-1-featurin