Ian Turnpenny is the co-founder of Malaysia-based Orgtomic, an employee skills mapping platform for growth companies and project teams.

He has been based in Asia for 15 years, mostly as an entrepreneur, building and selling two companies — one service company and one in SaaS.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

Orgtomic is a new startup in the HR tech space. We provide a visualization layer for structured employee data, including skills and competencies.

The Orgtomic platform enables you to view your Org by any business dimension, including agile teams and squads and to track employee skills against benchmark requirements and identify skills gaps and training needs.

We work with startups, growth-stage companies and engineering teams within larger enterprises to build a custom skills framework and taxonomy, aligned to their business needs.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

We're early-stage, so I do everything, and then some. I might as easily be talking to a new customer who has lost their login credentials, working with our CTO on product iterations, or managing payroll. It never ends, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

I've spent most of my career working in Asia, including a big stint in China. Setting up the office for a global recruitment brand in Beijing right before the Olympics was a lot of fun, and the opportunities then seemed boundless.

I also scaled my last company, Volcanic, to over 50 people in Malaysia before we exited — proving that KL is a great location for operating a global SaaS platform.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Gain early technical or professional domain expertise if possible. The structured way of learning will provide a life-long foundation.

I trained as an accountant initially and then moved more into sales and operations before stepping into tech/startups. Each step took time and constant re-skilling.

Ultimately, work hard, keep learning and enjoy what you do, and success will follow!

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

We've seen remote and hybrid disrupt the way we work in the last few years. That will accelerate in 2023 and beyond as we introduce more and more AI solutions to tasks, work and meetings. The human vs. non-human dichotomy will change so much around how companies hire, structure roles and teams and how employees can add value. It's going to be wild.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Wine. While drinking it, of course!

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

I have an 18-month-old baby — what is a movie?  

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Something with dark chocolate and salted caramel