About this site
Operating with Intent is a space for leaders, operators, and technologists who care about how work gets done, not just what gets delivered.
I write about leadership, operational excellence, and modern cloud platforms from the perspective of someone who has lived at the intersection of people, process, and technology. My focus is practical... building teams that trust each other, designing systems that scale, and turning strategy into outcomes customers actually feel.
This isn’t theory. It’s learned through running platforms, leading teams through change, and being accountable for reliability, cost, and delivery in service‑provider environments.
Why “Operating with Intent”?
Because outcomes don’t happen by accident.
Great teams, resilient platforms, and effective operations are the result of deliberate choices:
- explaining why, not just what
- designing systems instead of relying on heroics
- measuring what matters
- building trust through clarity and consistency
Operating with intent means moving away from reaction and toward repeatable, intentional ways of working — especially in complex environments like private cloud, managed services, and platform engineering.
What I write about
You’ll see four recurring themes here:
Leadership
How leaders build trust, communicate intent, and create environments where people can do their best work.
This includes transparency, empathy, feedback, and the small daily habits that compound into strong culture.
Operational Excellence
Designing delivery systems that scale: improving change quality, reducing manual effort, strengthening knowledge management, and using automation and metrics to support better decisions not bureaucracy.
Service Provider Realities
Practical perspectives on governance, compliance, commercial guardrails, and vendor change.
How program updates, licensing shifts, and contractual constraints translate into operational action without killing momentum.
Platforms & Technology
Thoughts on private cloud, VMware/Broadcom ecosystems, platform engineering, and emerging infrastructure (including AI platforms) — always through an operator’s lens, not marketing brochure.
Who this is for
- people leaders responsible for outcomes, not just intent
- service provider and platform leaders navigating scale and complexity
- engineers and operators who want systems that support good work
- anyone trying to balance trust, speed, and reliability in real environments
If you’re looking for vendor hype or abstract frameworks, this probably isn’t for you.
If you’re trying to build durable teams and platforms that stand up under pressure, you’re in the right place.
How to use this site
Most posts are written to be try and be useful on a Monday morning:
- clear framing of the problem
- what changed or what didn’t work
- what I’ve seen help
- practical takeaways you can adapt
I aim to keep things honest, anonymised where needed, and grounded in real operating experience.
About me
I’m Josh Penfold, a technology and operations leader based in New Zealand, currently working across private cloud and platform services in Australia and New Zealand. Over time, my role has become as much about business operations as technology — shaping operating models, governance, and decision‑making so platforms can scale sustainably.
My background spans infrastructure engineering, platform operations, and senior leadership roles in service‑provider environments. Along the way, I’ve learned that sustainable performance comes from combining strong technical foundations with intentional leadership and well‑designed operating models.
This blog is where I share what I’m learning — openly, thoughtfully, and with intent.
Build trust.
Design systems that scale.
Operate with intent.