Voices of IT: Seth Steward, Bloomerang’s VP of IT

As part of Console’s ongoing Voices of IT series, we sit down with IT leaders to hear how they’re building, scaling, and reimagining IT within their organizations. In this edition, Seth Steward, VP of IT at Bloomerang, shares how automation has impacted his career, how simplicity guides Bloomerang’s IT stack, and why AI is becoming an increasingly important lever for growth and efficiency at Bloomerang.

How I ended up in IT 

My first exposure to computing was in the late 90s, when my mom bought a Windows 95 machine. It had 16 MB of RAM and a 166-MHz processor; that’s megahertz, not gigahertz.

That computer was my first real experience with modern computing. I started tinkering with web development, chat rooms, and whatever else I could get my hands on. I didn’t think of it as a career at the time, but looking back, that curiosity never really left.

Getting pulled out of class to fix things

IT became a more serious part of my life in high school. My mom taught at a small school in Indiana that happened to be one of the only schools in the state offering a Cisco Networking Academy. The program was designed to teach enterprise networking from the ground up, with a clear path toward a CCNA.

I went through the program during my freshman and sophomore years, and shortly after, was strategically poached by the school corporation to help with their IT. 

Teachers would literally pull me out of class and say, “Hey Seth, this thing isn’t working. Can you fix it?”

I spent summers wiring networks, configuring routers and switches, and learning how systems actually behaved in the real world. By the time I graduated high school, I had several years of hands-on experience; the kind most people back then didn’t get until after college.

Automation became important early, and it stuck

Right after college, I joined West Monroe Partners in 2007. That’s where I really started exploring automations in a serious way.

At the time, Microsoft System Center was taking off. Products like Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and Orchestrator had a visual, canvas-based way to build workflows. You’d drag a few blocks, configure conditions, and build workflows like monitoring an inbox and taking actions when specific emails appeared. 

It’s night and day between what automation could do back then and what it can do now. I never imagined we’d be interacting with tools like Console using plain English. 

Two ways to think about automation 

Over time, I noticed a consistent theme across teams I worked with. People tend to fall into one of two camps: 

1. Some hold onto knowledge tightly. They avoid automation because they’re afraid that if they’re not the one clicking the buttons, they’ll become replaceable. 

2. “Then there’s the other mindset. The growth mindset. People with this mindset think: “if I automate this, I become more valuable, not less.”

There’s a saying that I’ve heard from a few people and I’m not certain where it originated but it rings true to me -  “AI won’t take your job, but someone who uses AI will.” I’ve always believed this.

I can’t say that automation has directly led to me getting promoted, but it has consistently changed the way I do work. And I’ve definitely promoted people on my team because they leaned into that shift and made real positive measurable impacts instead of just fighting the change.. 

Building Bloomerang’s IT stack from scratch

When I joined Bloomerang almost five years ago, there wasn’t an IT team in the traditional sense. Private equity had come in, Bloomerang had acquired Kindful, and we were merging two companies with different tools and workflows.

My overarching principle was that things needed to be simple, and the first problem I tackled  was identity.

Okta was our foundation. From there, things like Slack, Google Workspace, and HiBob fell into place. For every tooling decision, we really focused on both the technical and human aspect. A big part of the job wasn’t just choosing and integrating tools, it was explaining to people why these choices were being made and helping them understand the benefits.  The less resistant people are to a change, the more impactful that change will be on a shorter time horizon.

My ultimate goal was to reduce friction wherever possible 

One thing I’ve always cared deeply about is friction.

I’ve seen IT teams create unnecessary red tape and processes: meetings just to get basic access, slow approval processes, and a default posture of explaining why something can’t be done. Sometimes there are valid reasons, but oftentimes it’s just resistance to change. I wanted to build an experience where people felt supported and where IT actually made day-to-day work across the organization easier.

Automation changed how people viewed IT

About a year ago, our IT CSAT was around 84%. Six months later, it had risen to 94%. One of the main reasons people cited was the ability to get answers immediately (this was a result of Console’s IT agent).

What’s interesting is that our team was already fast. For urgent tickets, response times were under a minute, and issues were often resolved within five minutes. But immediacy changes expectations entirely.

People notice when an urgent request is handled immediately. The difference between fast and immediate had rippling effects throughout the organization. 

What this means moving forward

Do more with less. 

Instead of hiring more analysts, we’re turning to AI tools that can level up how we use AI.

Many people still treat tools like Gemini or ChatGPT the way they treat Google; providing short prompts with little context, and then wonder why the results aren’t great. That’s a skill gap, not a tooling problem.

Six months ago, daily AI usage across the company was around 30%. Last month that number had nearly doubled to 58%.  I want that number much closer to 100%, because the people who know how to work effectively with AI will be the ones who move fastest.

Parting words 

What I’ve learned over time is that leverage doesn’t come from just working harder, but rather from building the systems that remove unnecessary work.

When automation is applied thoughtfully, it reduces friction, improves experience, and helps teams operate at a higher level. But tools alone don’t do that, people do.

That’s how you give everyone a promotion.