Employee Spotlight: Foster Hardie, Executive VP of Digital Platform Architecture

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive employee is Foster Hardie, Executive Vice President of Digital Platform Architecture.

Foster is a hands-on enterprise software veteran and the technical leader for the Thrive Digital Platform, powered by ServiceNow. He manages the architecture, development and administration of ServiceNow to customize it for our clients’ business purposes. Foster has gained industry recognition for his leadership in customizations and rollouts of ServiceNow’s IT Services Management (ITSM), Customer Service Management (CSM), Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and other modules in multi-domain MSP implementation.

Foster spent his early years in California and New England but now lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, just outside Charleston. He is always up for an outdoor adventure and enjoys tennis, fishing, boating, hiking, and literally long walks on the beach. Years ago, you might have even spotted him hang-gliding over Massachusetts! When Foster isn’t exploring the Great Outdoors, he’s devouring the latest headlines as a self-described political news junkie.

Hi Foster! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

I’ve been in development and IT since the late 90s. In the early 2000s, I worked at a small IT shop where Thrive’s CTO and my boss, Mike Gray, was an intern for us. I moved on to hold several software leadership positions and had a consulting business. Mike and I kept in touch throughout the years, and he reached out to me for a new developer role; the rest is Thrive history! In 2008, I started as the Director of Software Engineering, and in 2020 was promoted to my current position.

Where did you go to school or get training?

You might be surprised to learn that I got a degree in philosophy and music from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. After graduation, I quickly learned that there aren’t many jobs in philosophy and music, so I dove into computers. I did a lot of self-training and went back to school, pursuing a degree from The Citadel in Technical Project Management. However, my learning hasn’t stopped there. I have since gained several industry certifications, including ServiceNow, Scrum Master, Project Management and Microsoft SQL.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

I enjoy that everybody I work with is committed to Thrive’s mission. Our team spirit is powerful, contagious and exciting as we grow the company by leaps and bounds. The people at Thrive aren’t just here for a job – they’re here for one another.

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