About Groundswell Consulting

ABOUT

Groundswell Technology Consulting is the consultancy vehicle for Marc Woolward. Marc has tremendous technical leadership experience as Technology Fellow and CTO of Networking and Telecommunications at Goldman Sachs. Groundswell offers highly commercial and deeply technical architectural guidance to our clients, specializing in operational and technological transformation, innovative product design, and risk mitigation.

Marc Woolward

CEO and Principal Consultant

Marc is a seasoned network engineer and architect with 26 years industry experience. He was with Goldman Sachs for 16 years where he led engineering and security teams before being named Technology Fellow in 2007. For the past 5 years he acted as Chief Technology Officer of Networking and Telecommunications. During this period he also served on the Technical Advisory Group of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), also founding and leading the Security expert group. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Marc managed networks at Coutts & Co and Cantor Fitzgerald. Marc also worked as a consultant with Dimension Data where he designed networks and formulated strategy for large clients in both Private and Public sectors. While at Chernikeeff, Marc achieved the CCIE qualification - one of the first 2000 such engineers on the planet.

Marc's proven track record and specific areas of expertise include;

Core network architecture and design.
Cloud computing architectures and migration strategies.
Roadmap and strategy to adopt Software Defined Networking (SDN) practices and principles.
Network Security reviews and assessments.
Development of innovative network products, including functional specifications and standards body proposals working with network operators and technology providers.
Application resilience patterns and recommendations.
Application performance assessment and tuning.
Operational and technical risk assessments.
Engineering processes and principles assessments.

Marc is as Comfortable troubleshooting complex IO performance issues as developing strategic architecture or designing innovative new products.

Marc is a keen waterman, and the surf is his second home. He is 2014 Surfkayaking World Cup champion, and a regular in international competition.

Caroline Woolward

Company Secretary, Marketing

Caroline has a professional background as a fine artist and IT support expert. She has a degree in Fine Art, Business and Computing.

Kim Bailey
VP Marketing

Kim loves to make things, from pixel-perfect web graphics to screen printed posters. She has a soft spot for arts & crafts, and Italian wine. In her spare time, she likes to do yoga and take photographs of her dog Cheeta.

Why 'Groundswell'?

A ‘groundswell’ is energy bestowed upon the ocean by weather systems thousands of miles away, which manifest in perfect waves breaking with powerful forces. Such forces might be perceived as a metaphor for the incredible transformations being felt within technology infrastructure right now, driven by the move to software definition, dynamic cloud technologies and complex security threats.

A groundswell’s energy is organized into clear and distinct patterns of waves, unlike the noise and unpredictability of localised ocean swells. Like a groundswell, our expertise provides our clients with a clear understanding of the relevance of complex new technologies to their business removed from the noise of the marketplace.

A groundswell is also unique in that its energy extends to the deepest reaches of the continental shelf, interacting with objects at incredible depths. Like a groundswell, we have dedicated our careers to obtaining deep and extensive knowledge of key technologies: networking, security, and the emerging software defined infrastructures.

Groundswells are much sought after by surfers for they offer the purest and clearest representation of the energies imparted on our oceans. Groundswell technology consulting offers unsurpassed technical depth and business focused clarity.