Melanie Foster

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2026.

Melanie is a CIO with close to three decades of experience. In her current role she leads technology strategy, operational excellence and enterprise transformation & change for a fast-growing, forward thinking professional services organisation.

Melanie is recognised for modernising platforms, strengthening cyber resilience, and aligning technology investment tightly to business outcomes. She is known for her pragmatic, people-centred leadership style.

he consistently translates strategy into high impact solutions that enable growth, agility, and long-term value.

What's the most exciting part of your current role?

Rolling out AI in a considered way, ensuring we harness the general energy and momentum created by people wanting to be involved in this new revolution. Making sure we have the appropriate guardrails in place and that we approach AI the same way we would any other project ensuring the business case and ROI stack up.

What do you do in week one of a new project to avoid pain in month six?

Ensure that everyone involved in the project knows what their role is and what the expectations for delivery are; that we have a solid business case, an appropriate plan and a sponsor that believes in what we are doing.

What’s the part of your estate you most want to simplify in 2026?

Accountancy has a lot of legacy technology, which creates a raft of issues for allowing the business to be future focused.

When I first arrived, I reviewed what we had and looked at what we could replace, how well we used the existing software and what we could do to either integrate it or extract the data to allow us to make data driven decisions. I created a small power platform team, and we have trained in house people to help us deliver automation.

2026 is the year where we supercharge our estate by creating Power automate flows and power apps, which will enable us to gain efficiency and free up peoples' time to do real value add work. It's a really exciting tie in the accountancy world.

Excluding smartphones, what piece of technology could you not live without and why?

I'd have to say my old Fitbit that tracks my steps for me, I've had people tell me I need to change it out for a smart watch but I like the fact that, when I am wearing it and walking, if I leave my phone at home I am instantly disconnected from the world. That allows me to think and plan next steps on things without a constant focus drain.

What excites you most about the future of IT?

I hate to say it but with the rise of AI and the daily momentum being gained I'd have to say that the possibilities now seem endless in terms of what we will be able to do.

I think it will be a few years before the doom-mongers' predictions of everyone losing their jobs comes true, but it will very definitely change the landscape of what we see as work now.

I love being involved in the conversations on how we train our apprentices when the work they currently do disappears, although I would argue that a lot of that was never really teaching them very much anyway so the current climate means we will have to be more intentional about on the job training.

What talent are you quietly proud of that would never show up on LinkedIn?

I think it would be related to emotional intelligence, EQ often still isn't as highly prized as it should be. Things like creating psychological safety for the team and knowing that they are free to be themselves; learning, making mistakes and growing. It's a great way to be able to work and leads to a really strong team.

Or, staying calm in high stress environments.

What’s your most-used keyboard shortcut or command that you wish everyone knew?

I'm afraid my old favourites are Ctrl +V and Ctrl + c, which isn't very exciting, but I honestly think there are a lot of people out there that don't know that they exist. The time they save even now is great.