Every industry has its myths. In business, one of the most stubborn is: you can’t measure behaviour or culture and they are slow to change. For decades, organisations have leaned on annual surveys, post-mortems and lagging indicators, snapshots that arrive long after the climate has shifted. By the time leaders have data in hand, the moment to act has already passed.
Tech Tales exists to challenge these myths, spotlighting the people and products rewriting the rules. SolasOS is one of them. Co-founded by Ian Gourlay and Iain Hamilton, its very name comes from the Gaelic word for “light.” That’s its purpose too, to make the hidden dynamics inside organisations visible as they unfold, giving leaders the chance to act before small fractures become systemic issues.
Where SolasOS changes the game is clear, going far beyond the once-a-year engagement survey that tells you how people felt months ago. What it offers is a live picture of cultural health, a way to surface sentiment, trust and alignment as they’re happening. The benefit is practical as well as human, leaders gain an early-warning system for risk, employees see their experience reflected and acted on, and boards can track cultural effectiveness alongside productivity and profit.
In that sense, SolasOS is less a tool than a new myth in the making, that culture is not abstract or elusive, but something leaders can actually understand, measure and shape. At its heart, SolasOS is a system built not to manage people, but to reveal the patterns shaping them, to make culture visible in ways leaders can finally understand and act upon.
Laura: For someone who’s never heard of SolasOS, how would you explain the problem it’s here to solve?
Ian: Behaviour and Culture have always been difficult to grasp. Leaders know these matters, but they’ve had to rely on backward looking performance appraisals, annual surveys or gut instinct, and by the time any results come through, the picture is already out of date. SolasOS was built to change that. We wanted to give leaders a way of seeing human dynamics as they’re happening, not six months later, so they can support people in the moment and prevent small issues from becoming entrenched problems.
Laura: What’s the biggest misconception about workplace culture or people’s data that SolasOS is proving wrong?
Ian: The myth is that culture is soft. I’ve always seen it as the frame people lean on when things get difficult. It shows up in how effective we are, in how decisions are taken, in whether pressure divides or unites. SolasOS brings that frame into view, so it can be managed as deliberately as any other part of the business
Laura: If SolasOS were a character in a story, what quest would it be on, and who are the people it’s here to help?
Ian: I’d see it as a guide. Not a hero that swoops in with all the answers, but a companion who helps leaders and teams see themselves more truthfully. Its quest is about illumination, helping people notice patterns, moments of risk, strain or opportunity that they might otherwise overlook. The people it serves are those in leadership who want to make good decisions, and those in the workforce who deserve to be seen not just for outputs, but for their experience and potential.
Laura: Can you share an example where the platform can change the outcome for an organisation or a person?
Ian: We’ve worked with many organisations going through integrations, often as part of a merger.. Traditionally, leaders rely on instinct and subjective feedback from a few trusted advisers to gauge how people are coping. With SolasOS, they can see where teams are genuinely struggling, not just where the loudest voices are. That visibility allows them to intervene early, to support those under strain, and to nurture trust through a difficult process. I know from my experience how quickly conversations improve once people feel heard. It is more than chasing numbers; it’s about making a shift from survival into growth.
Belonging is a daily practice, not a slogan
Laura: How does this technology go beyond performance metrics to actually shape fairness, inclusion, and belonging?
Ian: Belonging isn’t something you declare in a mission statement. It’s created through the small, everyday exchanges between people. SolasOS enables these moments to grow, be more visible and more connected, not only for executives, but for teams, managers, and individuals trying to understand how their interactions land.
It might reveal that women in a function feel less included in decision-making, or that new joiners in a particular office are struggling to find their place. Opportunities lost in both cases! It can even help raise the effectiveness of communication, like how an email is likely to be received, which can be especially supportive for neurodivergent colleagues. With that knowledge, fairness becomes less about written policies and more about lived experience: clearer communication, more equal opportunities, and workplaces where people feel safe enough to bring their whole selves.
Laura: When you think about your own journey and SolasOS’ journey, what connects them at the core?
Ian: For me, it’s listening to grow insight. My own career has been shaped by listening — to colleagues during times of disruption, to teams under pressure, to individuals finding their voice. With that comes the insight that makes decisions stronger. SolasOS is built on that same principle. It takes listening, something deeply human, and gives it scale. That’s the golden thread that ties it all together.
Perhaps that is why the platform carries the name Solas, “light” in Gaelic. What Ian Gourlay and Iain Hamilton are building is not another dashboard but a reframing of what leadership attention should rest upon. It asks leaders to look beyond the surface, to move past slogans and survey scores, and to see culture as it truly is, the daily experience of people navigating uncertainty, pressure, and possibility.
SolasOS does not seek to perfect that experience, it seeks to reveal it. To bring into focus the frictions that, left unseen, corrode trust. To highlight the moments of strength that, if nurtured, can transform performance. Every organisation is built, sustained, or broken by the behaviour and conversations within it, and SolasOS gives both of these conversations form.
If there is a promise here, it is not control but presence, the chance to notice earlier, to listen more deeply, and to act with greater care. In an age where culture is too often treated as intangible, SolasOS makes it tangible. Not by reducing it to numbers, but by making the human patterns that hold organisations together impossible to ignore.
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✨ Introducing Tech-Tales
Every industry runs on stories. Some endure because they’re true, others because they’re convenient. Finance has had more than its share of the latter, myths of exclusion, scarcity, and control.
Tech-Tales exists to challenge that. To ask whose stories are being told, and whose are missing. To capture the revolutions happening in regtech, finsec, data, and climate tech, where systems once built for gatekeeping are being re-imagined for trust, access, and resilience.
Our first edition turns the spotlight on SolasOS, a platform that refuses to mistake culture for a feel-good Friday. It reveals the dynamics that usually stay hidden, where trust holds firm and where it iIunravels. In doing so, it reminds us that every organisation survives, or fails, on the strength of its conversations.
Our first edition turns the spotlight on SolasOS, a platform that refuses to confuse culture with false comfort. Too many organisations cling to the belief that an annual survey is proof of belonging, that an initiative signals inclusion, or that silence in a meeting means everyone is aligned. SolasOS shows otherwise.
What it makes visible are the lived realities, who speaks and who doesn’t, where trust holds and where it breaks, how conflict is handled, and whether people feel their presence matters day to day. In that light, culture is no longer an abstraction. It’s a map of conversations, decisions, and dynamics that reveal whether an organisation is thriving or fracturing.
Tagging: @Ian Gourlay | @Laura Walker | @Ian Davey | @Iain Hamilton | @FinTech-Tables | @SolasOS |
Read the first Tech-Tales x SolasOS below.
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I specialise in bringing about change and behaviourally-led growth at organisation, team and individual level.
After 13 years in FS at what is now Aviva, I emerged as an ACII, MBA and senior manager from its multiple mergers. I was determined to apply my learning from these transformative changes to help people and organisations grow through disruption.
24 years later, my work in that has taken me to 15 countries across multiple sectors, including Financial Services.
My businesses in Leadership (Actif4) and Change (Initiate) challenge people and organisations to be future-focused, spiced with applied learning from the past.
With SolasOS, alongside Iain Hamilton, the next stage of development is underway — applying next-gen technology in providing deep insight on very human challenges — all to help people and their organisations to grow and bring about successful change.
It is great to see the Financial Services embracing the FinTech sector, and I am excited by the potential that we bring with Solas-OS to broaden the FinTech impact more fully across Financial Services’ people and cultures.
