I'm David Torre

I turn CIO ambitions into reality

Trusted by global brands

If Only You Could Clone Yourself

As an IT executive, you have no shortage of obstacles. Technical debt, security vulnerabilities, software sprawl, and cross-functional cooperation to name a few. You want to focus on high value activities, but are often stuck fighting tactical fires that never seem to go away. At times like this, you wish you could simply clone yourself. That is to say: obtain a counterpart with similar tenure and experience to help you divide and conquer across the IT landscape.

Working with me, this aspiration becomes a reality. As a true CIO partner, I can take the reins on the most complex challenges, building both the strategies and the tactics to make your vision become an actuality. Alleviating these tremendous loads allows you as an IT executive to breath. To approach other priorities in a calmer fashion. To lend the precious focus each priority deserves.

Areas of Expertise

I work directly with CIOs, VPs, and select directors in the IT domains of:

  • Business applications – designing and roadmapping critical SaaS systems in the ERP, CRM, and ESM spaces. 
  • Enterprise data – Building and scaling enterprise data warehouses, data lakes, and democratizing AI/ML capabilities.  
  • Automation – Designing microservice, API, RPA, and natural language processing systems.
  • Infrastructure – Data center reductions/migrations to Amazon Web Services and IaaS governance.

Having been an information security officer twice, information security is a particularly deep domain of expertise for me. Yet security isn’t a standalone domain. It’s applied to all other domains; from applications to data to infrastructure.

How Large Consultancies Falls Short

Large consulting firms have their place in the world; especially with respect to execution of large projects. But do these firms really design solutions that are in your best interest? 

Common challenges with large consulting firms include:

  • Promoting solutions based on products and services they resell (conflict of interest)
  • Rotating talent (sometimes it’s merely talent churn, other times it’s “bait and switch”)
  • Failing to understand your current-state architecture (the “greenfield assumption”)
  • Pushing tools as solutions, when cultural and process changes are required

Even when large consultancies bring plentiful subject matter expertise to the table, there’s often a missing piece: the overarching architect. I’m not referring to a technical architect, but rather, an individual who can stitch together the entire holistic picture. In other words, meld business processes, people, and technology into an existing enterprise already moving at 100 miles per hour.

Center Mast is Different

In addition to 20+ years of business and technology experience, I stand apart from the crowd by offering:

  1. Rapid enterprise observability – one cannot make sound recommendations without a thorough understanding of the existing environment. I bring years of enterprise architecture experience to the table which enables me to quickly assess the current landscape, capabilities, standards, and tooling to make recommendations that are complementary to the existing ecosystem. This approach is exponentially faster and significantly more cost-effective than the usual “rip-and-replace” paradigm. 
  2. Additional value streams – many consultants charge additional fees for deliverables such as business application portfolios, capability maps, and infrastructure landscapes. Providing paramount visibility into your existing enterprise comes standard with my engagements. 
  3. A single point of accountability – I work directly with your IT leadership, stakeholders, and project managers so that my overhead is low, and your standards and processes are leveraged from the get-go. In return, I focus on strategy and tactics, and you have one and only one person to work with. 

Find Relief in Just Five Minutes

There are no hard sells during initial conversations. Trust precedes deals, and trust is built over time. Take five minutes to get to know me, and test my abilities with the hardest challenges on your plate. A five minute conversation may change your life.