Hi, my name’s John and I’ve been a Solutions Architect here at FormusPro for going on nearly six years now.

As a Solutions Architect it’s my job to design, estimate costs and document our solutions based on a client’s requirements. Solution that are appropriate, cost effective, successful but most importantly, future proofed.

I then work closely with both our internal dev teams and the clients’ teams to make sure we deliver what I designed to the very highest standard.

Before joining FormusPro, I’d been a software implementation consultant for close to ten years, working on countless implementation projects, from kick-off all the way to completion and post go-live support.

That was within multiple different sectors, from car dealerships to HVAC organisations to Civil Engineering (sewage unfortunately but still a pretty cool solution build!).

But I found I was always getting frustrated by the software constraining what we could actually achieve for clients.

However, since working with the utterly amazing Power Platform and the wider Microsoft stack at FormusPro, I’ve found that I’m never constrained in that way. We can achieve almost anything… in fact the problem / fun with that often lies in determining the best / most appropriate solution rather than working around a problem with inferior tech.

One of the things I especially love is that there’s always so much that keeps improving or coming out that’s new in the Microsoft… it keeps things really interesting.

Moving away from the tech and on to my colleagues though, my favourite thing about working here is how we all strive to be transparent and honest with our customers and each other and how it’s such a talented and fun team to be part of.

As you can tell, I’m a big Microsoft fan, especially the Power Platform, but it might surprise you to learn that the coolest thing I’ve ever built with it (I think) is a Power Automate Flow that runs weekly to send our work’s current fantasy football league standings to an internal MS Teams channel.

It’s cool because it was way simpler than anyone would think it was and it prompted lots of fun football-based banter throughout the year.

Outside of work my wife and two young children keep me busy so I don’t have loads of spare time for extracurricular hobbies.

That being said, I try to play golf whenever possible, I like to play computer games, I like to think I play the guitar pretty well and I even brew brew (and drink) my own beer sometimes!

I also occasionally enjoy making things out of wood, I travel whenever I can and I’m a huge West Brom fan (and yes, I’ve heard all the jokes before).

Finally, the marketing team asked me to think about an imaginary dinner party, and who I’d invite if I could invite any three famous people, alive or dead…

Nick Offerman would make it straight to the top of my list as he’s not only a great actor, but also a great comedian, writer and woodworker so there’d be plenty of common interests to pick his brains on. (The woodworking that is… not sure anyone else would agree with me on the comedy!).

Next would be Felix White, a really talented musician and the former guitarist of the Maccabees. I say former, as he’s now a cricket pundit, again, oddly sitting across multiple interests in my life.

My final guest would have to be Jon Favreau… do I even need to explain this one? Marvel. Star Wars. A talented chef.

He just seems like a super varied and interesting person.