Matt Campana’s journey into the world of technology was a rather unconventional one.
In his early years, he studied to be a composer at Drexel University and Berklee College of music. There, he learned how to write music for an entire orchestra (something he still does to this day).
Now, in 2025, he orchestrates things in a different sort of way. As Vice President of Digital Transformation at The Judge Group (Judge), Matt is tasked with modernising a vast growing business, conducting the company’s evolution like a symphony.
While it wasn’t his first love, Matt was always interested in technology and became a Microsoft Certified Professional when he was 14. He took his first job in the sector to fund his music, digitising the electronic healthcare systems at Will’s Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, PA and converting Sunoco from Mainframe to cloud.
Quickly, though, he realised he was enjoying this new “side hustle” – IT.
“I decided, let’s go into the field of technology, be able to fund that music, and have fun with it,” Matt explains. That decision launched a career spanning healthcare, energy and enterprise automation, all of which led him to Judge.
The Judge Group is a global professional services firm that specialises in workforce, business and technology solutions that currently serves much of the Fortune 500 – a client list that any company would be envious of.
The organisation operates across almost every sector, including life sciences, healthcare, technology and telecommunications, aerospace, banking and financial services, government, manufacturing and engineering, and more.
Matt joined Judge in 2016 and initially set his focus on modernising its financial systems. Nine years later he has been an integral part in a period of rapid transformation, in which the firm has grown to three times its size in less than a decade.
Today, Judge employs approximately 4,000 contractors across its various divisions annually.
“Specifically at Judge, we pay thousands of contractors, and I think about each and every person,” Matt says. “That’s their day-to-day, that’s their groceries, that’s their mortgage, that’s their vacation. What we do directly impacts the lives of thousands of people!”
This human-centric approach is what sets Judge apart from the crowd. The company’s slogan is ‘People-Powered Business Solutions,’ which reflects its commitment to maintaining human interaction in an increasingly automated business world. Account representatives work directly with clients to understand their specific staffing and services needs.
But while the company’s focus on people is firm, it always has one eye on the latest technology. The company structures deals that allow businesses to outsource employment staffing needs, payroll processing and benefits administration, and Matt’s role centres on creating technology solutions that streamline these complex processes.
Managing so many employees can be incredibly challenging, with all manner of technological hurdles to vault. By overseeing enterprise automation using platforms such as ServiceNow, Box and Microsoft Azure, Matt has made that task simple, helping companies to integrate all their CRM, ERP, HRIS and automation needs, amongst much more.
“One of the things I love about what I do is I get to help people,” Matt reveals. “We create meaningful, actual solutions that help people do more meaningful work in their day to day.”
Starting with clean data
Data governance is right at the foundation of Judge’s digital transformation strategy. As the company has grown in stature in recent years, disparate data entry practices across systems have created some significant challenges when it comes to automation.
In 2025, the whole business world is awake to the fact that AI can help to solve issues with data, but Matt knows that even with all the AI and automation tools in the world, a company’s workflow cannot function properly without clean, standardised data.
“You can’t deploy proper AI and automation tools on top of your systems unless your data’s clean,” Matt states. “That’s the foundational step to successful AI and automation deployment.”
To address these fundamental issues, Judge has implemented a comprehensive data governance programme, standardising vendor records, customer records and potential client information across the applicant tracking system, customer relationship management platform and payroll systems. The company has also established clear data lineage protocols.
Data lineage identifies the “gold record” for each piece of information. This means knowing which system contains the authoritative version of any data point. Matt’s team has developed an internal middleware platform called the J-Hub. This system allows different applications to communicate through a standardised middle layer.
Judge has transitioned to cloud-based infrastructure, supporting the company’s growth while also reducing the technical debt associated with maintaining on-premises systems.
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