Clare Evans

“Clare champions low-code and AI-enabled technology to improve resident outcomes, freeing staff to focus on vulnerable residents and complex cases"

Part of the Tech Women Celebration 50, a curated list of some of the most inspirational women working at all levels of tech

Clare Evans is Transformation Director at Tewkesbury Borough Council, leading digital, data, technology, communications and customer experience for a local authority punching above its weight nationally. Since establishing a dedicated transformation directorate, Clare has built a culture rooted in digital leadership, experimentation and in-house capability, reducing reliance on external suppliers by investing in developers, analysts and apprentices.

She champions low-code and AI-enabled technology to improve resident outcomes, freeing staff to focus on vulnerable residents and complex cases.

Beyond Tewkesbury, Clare supports digital transformation across the sector. She chairs the Local Government Association's DDaT Network, sits on the MHCLG Digital Horizons Group and mentors emerging leaders on LGA and Solace programmes. She also leads Gloucestershire's LGR Digital and Customer Experience programme, ensuring digital drives improved outcomes for the new unitary organisation or organisations.

A regular speaker at events including the LGA Conference, she is a widely respected advocate for practical, people-first transformation.

Tell us about the nominee's biggest achievement to date

Clare's most recent standout achievement is transforming Tewkesbury Borough Council's customer contact service by replacing an outdated phone system with Netcall's AI-powered contact centre. It uses integrated live chat and a natural language model trained specifically for local government. Instead of navigating rigid phone menus, residents describe their query in their own words and are routed instantly to the right service or self-service option.

The impact has been significant: a 50% reduction in customer wait times, a 42% decrease in abandoned calls and a 38% shift towards automated online interactions. The results were strong enough for Netcall to adopt Tewkesbury's natural language model as a template for all new local government customers nationally.

The work also earned the council an IESE CIC Certificate of Excellence, recognising the proactive, customer-focused and innovative approach taken by Clare's Transformation team. Clare is quick to credit her wider team, reflecting a leadership style built as much on trust and collaboration as on technology.

This achievement complements her broader five-year record of building the council's nationally recognised transformation service from scratch since 2020, including a wider low-code approach to digital delivery.

What is the most significant challenge the nominee has overcome?

When Clare set out to transform Tewkesbury's services, the typical local government route would have been to outsource the work: bring in agencies, buy off-the-shelf systems and let external suppliers carry the risk. Instead, she built a transformation directorate from scratch, investing in developers, analysts and apprentices so the council would own the capability long term.

That meant slower initial progress and some scepticism from colleagues unfamiliar with low-code technology and accustomed to buying in solutions. Clare did this as one of relatively few women leading a technology function in local government. Rather than adopt the more assertive leadership style common in the sector, Clare has led with kindness and trust, creating a culture where people feel safe to experiment and make mistakes.

Five years on, Clare leads a transformation team whose approach attracts interest from unitary, county and district councils, while delivering tangible outcomes that make a difference to residents' lives. The in-house model she believed in from day one made this possible.

Tell us something about the nominee people would find surprising

Although now fully committed to changing how local government delivers services, Clare originally trained as a journalist. That background gave her sharp communication skills, an instinct for a good story and the ability to translate complex technical work into something people want to read. She uses those skills today, whether presenting at the LGA Conference or making the case for digital transformation.

Clare is also a working mum of two, balancing director-level responsibilities with raising her children and being present for them. She shares her experience with female colleagues to show that ambitious, sector-leading change, family life and challenging the status quo do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Outside work, Clare is a keen gym-goer and runner. She sees exercise as crucial to physical and mental resilience, especially following a breast cancer diagnosis when her son was born.