Ecaterina Harling
Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2024.
Ecaterina Harling is Head of Design and Transformation at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where she considers herself a leader in change for good. She believes in the power of digitalisation when it comes to changing societies and having an impact on people's lives. She has over two decades of experience working in consulting, public services organisation and international organisations which includes running tech innovation teams, change and transformation teams.
Outside of EBRD, Ecaterina is a coach, as well as advisory board member at the Strategic Infrastructure Foundation.
How did you get into IT?
Twenty years ago I was working for a charity that had the aim of matching refugees with mental health professionals. The challenge was that the therapists required interpreters, which delayed access to service for one of the most vulnerable segments of our population. Whilst my language skills came in handy, I realised that having a database that matched providers to clients would speed up this process. I had taught myself Access and put together a database. I became curious about how digitalisation can enable outcomes. I then pursued a career at Accenture, then in a tech company and subsequently in IT at the EBRD.
What do you consider your greatest IT achievement of the last 12 months?
Bringing IT closer to the business. Just under five years ago I supported the then-Managing Director for IT in putting together a multi-year multi-million investment plan into our legacy technology. The conversation was largely around better hardware and upgrading software. Over the last few years I have focused on ensuring that we create a better understanding of technology change and the impact it can have on the business, across all business units.
This meant:
- Building more awareness about change and technology within the business, with the right tech stakeholders in the room
- Working on adoption of change - rolling out new technology is relatively easy. Ensuring it gets used is the real deal
- Building a diverse team (diversity in terms of experience, gender, diversity of thought, amongst others)
- Use of advanced, data driven modelling capability to understand the impact of technology on processes
- Improving on design frameworks
The impact: in addition to ensuring we significantly reduced technology legacy, the transformation has impacted every business process at the Bank for the better and introduced new ways of working and capabilities that are championed by the business. Crucially, we have future proofed our change methods.
How do you ensure diversity is taken into account in your IT recruitment?
I have managed to build a design and transformation team that has over 50% of women, diverse mindset and skillset.
- Grow from within - we have seconded colleagues from within business units
- Consistent approach to training - we have created three change pathways available to everyone at the Bank. This makes change attractive within and enables diverse learning avenues, which has meant higher retention.
- Choose the right recruitment partners - challenge partners to provide diverse talent.
Which technology are you currently most excited by, and why?
First, scaling our proprietary technology. It was the first one for which we've introduced Agile Ways of Working some time ago and are now seeing the benefits of the approach at scale. Second, generative AI for productivity - it is enabling new use cases, as well as evidencing where we can improve our core data sets.
What would an outsider find the most surprising part of your job?
The EBRD is an international financial organisation - this means that in spite of being a Bank, employees are international civil servants.
What's your secret talent?
I can write poems in four different languages. Two have made it into songs!
What makes you laugh?
My children. I have two mornings a week that I block out for LM time - loving mummy time. We tend to make pancakes, including flipping them in different ways.