Keynotes and Speakers for ITx 2018
Beca
Jane has recently moved to New Zealand and joined Beca, New Zealand's largest professional services company, from Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), part of the UK Ministry Of Defence, where she was Head of the Information Management and IT Function and the CIO.
Jane has held a number of roles during a career spanning 25 years. She brings experience of delivery at both a strategic level and an operational level to drive business transformation; leading and influencing at senior levels in Defence and UK Government.
In her last role as the Head of IM&IT and as part of a wholesale transformation of Defence Equipment and Support, Jane’s role was to lead the 470-strong IM&IT Function and deliver improved shared services to the MOD’s procurement projects. This included the development and delivery of IM&IT vision and strategy; function design documents; new process architecture; operating framework, IM&IT Service Catalogue; ICT Governance.
She designed the IM&IT Function, professional profiles and sub functions covering the whole lifecycle of information: from analysis, design, architecture, through development, operations, and delivery, security accreditation, knowledge and information management, MI and data analytics.
In her previous roles, she developed and implemented strategy and plan for the DE&S Information Behavioural Change Programme to achieve Cabinet Office Information Assurance Maturity Model.
She also led cross-Government work, on behalf of the Government CIO, working with British Computer Society and Skills Foundation for the Information Age Foundation, to deliver Government IT Skills Framework. Used by most large UK Government Departments as framework to deliver improved IT professionalism.
As Jack Welch said: “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near”.
What does this mean for the CIO of a professional services company in New Zealand who is trying to move up the maturity curve from commodity service supplier to an innovative anticipator?
How does he, or she, help to digitally transform the organisation, not just the IT department, but the whole business, especially in the world of consultancy, which has traditionally relied on selling talented people’s time and expertise?
Jane Wharton from Beca, a former CIO and Head of Information Management & IT in the UK Ministry of Defence, reflects on what a digital enterprise looks like, describes some of the less well-known disruptors and poses the question: how do we transform our transformers? We all talk about the innovative power of ICT, but we do so from a technology perspective, rather than talking about the people who will make this innovation happen.
How do we grow our people capability in the ways needed to enable the transformation? Jane presents two case studies from the UK; one from the Ministry of Defence as it tried to become a digital business and another from the wider UK Government IT profession in response to a number of high profile Government IT failures through the introduction of an ICT Career Framework.
She talks about raising the profile of the Information Management & IT function and how, in doing so, it helped to improve the self-confidence of IT professionals. She also touches on some of the current worldwide trends for digital and technology jobs.
Turning to New Zealand, she explores some of the themes emerging from the Ministry for Business Innovation and Enterprise 2017 Digital Skills Survey and suggests some of the emerging roles needed in digital transformation.
Finally, she explores the disruptive nature of analytics and artificial intelligence and the impact this will have on the workforce of the future: anything from the biggest threat to jobs to the biggest opportunity. What are the threats and opportunities for CIOs making the change to Chief Digital Officers?