Nic Granger

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

Having worked internationally and in the UK, Nic has a portfolio of roles with a focus on transformation, digital and data.

In her exec role as Chief Information and Financial Officer, she leads an award-winning team delivering digital, data, technology and financial solutions for the North Sea Transition Authority.

She Chairs The Data Lab (Scotland's innovation centre for data and AI), is on the boards of CAST: the Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology, BCS: the Chartered Institute for IT and the Bat Conservation Trust. She was awarded an OBE in 2025 for services to digital transformation.

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

Using data and technology to transform the ways people work; and thinking of different ways to make people's days a bit better, or where data can add value to what people are doing.

Having a range of roles across different sectors is really interesting, but all organisations have a consistent element: how can we do things differently using technology to reach our purpose quicker and better?

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

Really look to understand the outcomes the project will help the organisation achieve. Focus on this outcome, rather than the outputs of the project so you can be more nimble and change quickly if needed.

Understanding this, and ensuring everyone understands what we're trying to achieve really helps to ensure you don't stumble over problems as the project progresses.

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

Data, mainly how we enable colleagues and other users to access the data: the ownership, so who's responsible for it; the governance that ensures quality; and the technology that enables the surfacing of data.

Getting this right will help us all be able to make better decisions and add greater value.

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

Noise-cancelling headphones, using technology to enable the ability to shut out the world every so often and focus.

Working in a digital environment all the time, having the ability to block out everything is sometimes needed

What excites you most about the future of IT?

The ability to use IT for priorities such as conservation opens up genuinely exciting opportunities. As a trustee of the Bat Conservation Trust I always get interested when people talk about ways tech is enabling better conservation; quicker, better identification of bats for example. Being able to use AI to identify bat species, and ways that cloud technology enables the scaling of processing tasks that would have taken many days in the past. Opportunities like this mean that more time and funding can be put into ensuring the protection of our wildlife.

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

I'm going to stick with bats! Last year I got a bat detector and started to record the bat calls around our house, followed by many hours of trying to identify them. Maybe not quite a full talent, but getting there.

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

Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are still the winners!