Could you introduce yourself – who is Giles Sirett?

I’m the CEO and founder of ShapeBlue. I founded ShapeBlue in 2011. I’m responsible for overall strategy, strategic partnerships, sales, and finance, and I have oversight of the various teams within the company.

Before ShapeBlue, I’d been in the industry for 20 years. I was CEO of a managed service provider in London, and before that, I served on the board of a listed technology investment company.

In your view, what distinguishes ShapeBlue in the IT industry?

The one thing that distinguishes us is the word open. We’re a company based on open-source technology — we live and breathe it. One of our company’s values is openness.

We are incredibly open with our customers, partners, and staff, and we believe that fosters a much more organic, long-term relationship with all of them. Our metrics show that to be true.

Looking back, what would you consider ShapeBlue’s most significant success to date?

I could point to every large customer we’ve gained over the last 10 years — we work with some of the world’s largest companies, even though we’re still a small company ourselves.

If I had to distil it down to one significant success, it would be our ability to deal with large organisations and explain the benefits that Apache CloudStack and open-source can bring. These are companies that traditionally relied heavily on the proprietary vendor model, and we’ve been able to show them how open-source increases innovation, reliability, and often reduces costs.

Our biggest success has been our ability to do that time and time again and showing organisations a different approache to how they run their infrastructure.

What has been your greatest leadership challenge, and how did you navigate it?

My biggest challenge came before I started ShapeBlue. At that time I was running a managed service provider in London, during the 2008 global financial crisis. Our income relied heavily on the financial services industry, and our sales pipeline vanished within the space of just a few weeks.

We were in a very difficult financial situation, and I had to restructure the company quickly. I had to make tough decisions that I never want to have to make again, including letting team members go. We also changed some of our service offerings to support clients who were themselves struggling.

It was a very stressful period, but we came out stronger, and most of our customers did too. It was the greatest challenge of my career. Business is not always easy – you sometimes need to make tough decisions, but those moments ultimately help you improve and come out stronger.

Which key metrics or indicators do you prioritise in your role as CEO?

It’s no surprise that, as CEO, I look at all the standard KPIs — sales figures, service levels, and customer satisfaction.

But I also have one personal metric: how many times I hear the word thank you. To me, that’s a sign that the company is running well. It could be a thank-you email from a customer, or from a colleague saying “thank you for helping me.”

That tells me we’re a company running with little friction, collaborating well, and functioning smoothly — and that’s a really important KPI to me.

How do you foster a culture of open source and innovation within your team?

The short answer is — we don’t have to, because it’s ingrained in us. When I found ShapeBlue, I realised we were so deeply connected with open-source technology that we needed a company ethos, culture, and structure to match it.

We built ShapeBlue to mirror the open-source community where our people work — empowering them and giving more responsibility than in a typical company structure.

That approach came right from the beginning and means we haven’t had to actively promote it. We hire people who want to work in this kind of environment, and it comes naturally to us as a company.

What led to the decision to transition ShapeBlue into an employee-owned business, and how was it received internally?

A few years ago, after steady financial growth, we reached a point where most tech firms would either IPO or get acquired. As the founder holding nearly 100% of the shares, I felt we needed to move to the next stage.

An IPO wasn’t really an option — we had steady, not explosive, growth, so we didn’t need external capital. We had several acquisition approaches, but I was concerned about protecting our mission around open source and Apache CloudStack. Most potential acquirers didn’t share that commitment.

So, I explored the idea of employee ownership, where the company’s ownership is shared equally among all employees. It took about a year to implement. Now everyone in the company is an equal shareholder, giving them a real connection to ownership. We didn’t have to change much culturally — we were already a very open company.

How do you measure the impact of leadership in ShapeBlue?

It’s simple. I can go on vacation for two weeks and not take a single call — though I usually do but don’t need to. So can the other leaders in this company.

That’s the true indicator of strong leadership — the company can continue performing and driving forward without the leaders present. It’s about empowering and building strong teams.

What is the future of open-source?

The future of open-source is very strong. The traditional model of enterprises relying on proprietary vendor technology has been broken in the last few years.

People now want openness — to innovate faster, to avoid vendor lock-in, and to reduce associated risks. I see open-source becoming the de facto software consumption model.

What is your observation on the impact of open source on companies that adopt it?

The biggest impact is the ability to innovate and control their own destiny by removing vendor lock-in. Companies can move faster because they’re not waiting on vendors to support new strategies — they can just go ahead and do it.

Other benefits include long-term stability. There’s a misconception that open-source is less stable, but that’s not true. A strong open-source project provides more long-term stability than software controlled by a single vendor who might make sudden commercial changes.

And, of course, there’s value. Open source isn’t “free” — it’s free of licensing costs, but companies can spend their money on what really matters instead of on proprietary software licenses.

How do you ensure ShapeBlue’s long-term vision remains aligned with industry trends?

In short, we listen — to our customers, partners, and the open-source community through our team members. By listening, we see trends developing in the industry.

We also do a lot of R&D, but where we invest our time and resources comes directly from that listening process.

What do people not know about ShapeBlue and its mission?

When people see ShapeBlue, they see a 100% open-source company — and we are. We live and breathe open-source. We’ve never created our own distribution of the technology we work with; we believe completely in the open-source model.

But what people might not realise is that behind the scenes, ShapeBlue is a very serious organisation. We run a service desk with a near-100% SLA record and have never had a customer complaint in 11 years.


We also do a huge amount of R&D and stabilisation work to make sure releases are seamless. So, while we present an open-source face to the world, behind it we’re a very serious organisation.

And finally, who is Giles Sirett beyond the professional sphere?

I used to answer this question by saying I have two young children — but they’re not young anymore. Both are now at university, so my wife and I are dealing with empty-nest syndrome and all that comes with it.

I like hiking, travelling, sailing, and being outdoors. I’m also still a passionate technologist — I was a software engineer 25 years ago, and I still enjoy experimenting with technology in my spare time when I’m not leading the company.