Graham Lyle joined Allied late-summer of 2025, bringing a wealth of experience in IT management and cyber security from a wide range of industries. We sat down with him for a chat about his career highlights, his plans for Allied’s IT infrastructure, and to find out why his team call him “The Allied John Wick.”
What does your role involve, day-to-day?
I’m responsible for the Infrastructure and Operations teams and the Service Desk.
We look after all the technology that you use every single day, and from seven o’clock in the morning until half past six at night, we are available to support the team. We look at the tickets and plan our activities for the day, and we also deliver a lot of high-profile technology projects across the group.
Tell us about some of those projects.
One of the best projects we’ve had is to move all our server and technology infrastructure to new cabinets, with new infrastructure to host that.
We worked until two and three o’clock in the morning on several occasions, as a team. We removed over 3000 metres of redundant cabling and took away nine server racks and replaced them with three unique state-of-the-art self-cooling racks.
We’ve also recently supported the modernization and refurbishment of the LSK Supplies building and put new fibre technology in there to allow the Parts department to expand.
We’re also working very closely with our colleagues in Sirus to bring them onto the Allied network over the coming months. That’s going to be a huge project for the team, with quite a bit of travel, and a lot of new technologies to work with and implement.
You’re still quite new to Allied, how long have worked here?
Just over five months. Before this I was Head of Digital Technology for Caledonian MacBrayne Ferries, and prior to that I was the Group Head of IT for Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Southampton Airports.
Glasgow Airport was a fantastic job. I got to drive down the runway in a fully marked up Volvo Jeep with flashing orange lights, and marshal planes.
And with CalMac I developed the ticketing system and their website, and a lot of the day-to-day technology that allowed the ships to actually sail, and I got to see huge amounts of Scotland over the time that I was there.
Was there a lot of pressure, dealing with technology that planes rely on?
It’s incredibly high pressure. We used to practice getting called in for emergencies, and we had maybe two emergencies for every one practice we did. We were the subject of many attempts at being hacked; around 27,000 attempts a day on the infrastructure that supports the airport.
Thankfully, in my tenure, we weren’t successfully hacked, and to my knowledge they haven’t been since. But it’s great organization; they’re a small team with a big supplier behind them, and they do a fantastic job. Very similar to Allied.
How involved have you been with Allied’s cyber security implementation?
I lead that function with Derek Baillie, with support from our IT Director, Steve Faull. Derek recently graduated with his Masters in Cyber Security, and I have a strong background in cyber security.
We’ve run test scenarios, and had external contractors try to penetrate our network. They described it as the most frustrating three days of their life, which was good to hear. We’ve also had the Cyber & Fraud Center come in and test us and deliver additional training, and we made an AI deep fake video of the company owner, Gerry Facenna, to prove just how easy it was to do.
It was quite obviously fake, but it took five minutes to make with one picture and one audio file. If we had used multiple sources and spent proper time on it, you would never have known.
So, we’re well positioned in terms of cyber security, and well ahead of a number of our peers in our cyber posture.
Having come from big national operators, how does Allied compare as an employer?
It’s been really welcoming, really friendly. I’ve worked in small companies where I was employee number two of five, right through to multinationals like Capita with 50,000 employees in the UK alone. At Allied, you feel valued, you’re not just a payroll number.
Steve’s probably the calmest boss I’ve ever had. He trusts you to get on with the job you’re doing, and I think that’s crucial—you don’t hire an expert then tell them how to do their job.
Likewise, in my team I don’t dictate how they do it, just what they need to get done. I’ve got a fantastic team that makes my job so easy. They’re genuinely one of the best tech teams I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. They’re a great bunch, they go way above and beyond, and nothing’s ever a problem; even working at two and three in the morning.
What’s the next big IT project for Allied?
Standardisation of the technology kits that we use day to day, so that it’s less of a challenge for the team to look after it and manage it. Also just keeping up to date in terms of applications and keeping our Microsoft estate up to date. Those are big challenges.
There are a few other things on the go technology-wise and security-wise, so some big projects for the team. I think the biggest one, certainly in the first quarter of 2026, will be Sirus, and getting all that technology managed and updated centrally.
Do you currently have a goal or an objective that you’re working towards, either personally or professionally?
Professionally I’d like to up-skill the whole team. I don’t have a specific objective in that respect, but I want to make sure the team are up-skilled to the best that they can be, and drive ownership of their own tasks and their own projects.
Personally, I would like to buy a used Porsche and restore it, but that’s a later in the year project for me.
What does life look like for you outside of Allied?
I live in Ayrshire. I have four dogs, and my wife has a horse called Milo. It’s a huge animal – think Black Beauty on steroids – and I have a 23-year-old daughter who’s training to be a nurse, so life’s pretty busy. The world seems to revolve around the dogs more than anything else.
What are the dogs’ names?
There’s a Staffy/German Shepherd cross called Finn. Then there’s a wee Jack Russell called Tess. We have Willow, who’s a German wire-hair pointer puppy, and Ferne who’s a black labrador puppy.
My wife had 15 Huskies at one point; she used to race them and she was the chair of the Siberian Husky Federation in Scotland. But thankfully we’re down to just four normal dogs now…
When the dogs give you the chance, how do you like to unwind?
I love cleaning my cars. If this IT stuff doesn’t work out, I might ask Gerry for a job as a Valeter. I absolutely love cleaning my cars. I’ll spend four or five hours on a Sunday getting them back to almost showroom condition.
So that’s my downtime – headphones and music on, clean the cars.
You can’t spend all your spare time cleaning cars though?
Well, another passion is shooting. I shoot at a decent level and compete with shotgun, air rifle, Down The Line and Double Olympic Trap clay pigeon shooting, and pistol shooting. I’ve got all the disciplines and hold all of the licenses that you can hold in the UK.
My team have called me the Allied John Wick on a few occasions, but it’s probably not something that’s commonly known throughout the business.
What’s something that your team might not know about you?
That’s a difficult one because we recently did Two Truths & A Lie in a team-building session.
Maybe that I’ve had the privilege of working in India for long periods of time, and I am an obsessive Indian food fanatic. Cooking it, eating it, trying different restaurants.
What’s your favourite Indian dish?
My pal, Ajay Kumar, owns Grilled in West Regent Street and he does a butter chicken which is my absolute favourite. It’s made with chicken thighs, not chicken breasts, so it’s more tender. Ajay is an absolute culinary genius.
If you hadn’t ended up in IT, where would you think you might have ended up?
Some sort of business relationship management role. I like talking to people. I think that’s quite apparent when you see me walking around the business, talking to people. I’ve had a few jobs where my role while managing IT was more about managing the relationship with customers and stakeholders.
I love having that people relationship, and that’s why I love doing this job, because I get to speak to people every day and check that they’re happy with the technology they have.
