Interview: Beks Yelland, Centrica, Women in Tech Excellence Awards finalist

‘I’d love the award to shine a light on what those teams achieve every day, often behind the scenes, building and running technology that millions of customers depend on’

The Women in Tech Excellence Awards celebrate the outstanding contributions of women in all areas of technology, from software development and engineering to AI, cybersecurity, and beyond.

Beks Yelland is Director of Retail Core Platforms at Centrica, leading the engineering and technology teams responsible for the core platforms that underpin services used by millions of customers across the UK.

With more than 26 years' experience in technology spanning global banking, high-growth start-ups and large-scale enterprise transformation, she is passionate about building high-performing teams and using technology to solve complex business challenges.

Outside of her role at Centrica, Beks runs a not-for-profit organisation running events and mentoring for 900 members worldwide, dedicated to promoting inclusive leadership in technology and creating opportunities for underrepresented talent to thrive

Beks is a finalist in the Digital Leader of the Year category.

What prompted you to enter the Women in Tech Excellence Awards this year?

I’ve spent more than 26 years in technology, and I’m incredibly proud of the career and teams I’ve built along the way. But for me, entering wasn’t really about individual recognition. I wanted to show that you can build a successful technology career while staying true to who you are and how you lead.

I’m also passionate about improving representation in our industry, so if being visible encourages someone else to step forward, take an opportunity or believe they belong in technology, that matters to me.

What would winning this award mean to both your people and your customers/partners?

It would be a fantastic recognition of the people around me. Technology leadership is never an individual achievement. It takes brilliant engineers, product teams, partners and business colleagues working together to solve difficult problems. I’d love the award to shine a light on what those teams achieve every day, often behind the scenes, building and running technology that millions of customers depend on.

Personally, I’d also hope it demonstrates the importance of creating environments where different people and different perspectives can thrive.

What would you say was your company's proudest achievement of the last year?

I’m particularly proud of the transformation underway across the technology supporting our field engineering workforce, the backbone of our organisation. My teams build the software that helps our engineers deliver for customers every day, so getting that technology right has a very tangible impact. We’re modernising platforms, increasing automation and resilience, and changing how we engineer our services.

It’s not simply about replacing legacy technology. It’s about making life easier for our engineers and creating the foundations to deliver better customer experiences.

What have been the biggest challenges of the current year so far? How have your people or partners helped?

The biggest challenge is balancing transformation with stability. When technology supports services used by millions of customers, you can’t simply stop everything while you modernise it. We’ve had to change platforms, engineering practices and ways of working while continuing to deliver reliably every day.

The answer has been collaboration. Our engineers, product teams, business colleagues that we partner with all bring different expertise and perspectives, and creating an environment where people can challenge assumptions, surface problems early and solve them together has been critical in so many of our successful deliveries.

What lessons do you think the industry has learned over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

AI is definitely going to be a core part of how we successfully transform as a business and how we show up for our customers. The opportunity is huge, but simply adopting AI isn’t enough. We need to think about how we embed it into the way we work, the products and services we build and the experiences we create for customers. For me, the real opportunity comes from combining AI with great engineering, strong technology foundations and, most importantly, our people.

What do you see as the main opportunities for your industry in the coming 12 months? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

The biggest opportunity is bringing together AI, automation and modern platforms to transform how we support our field engineering workforce. For me, AI is most exciting when it solves real problems: removing complexity, making work easier for our engineers and ultimately creating better experiences for customers.

That means getting the foundations right first, from resilient platforms and trusted data to strong engineering practices and teams equipped to work differently. The opportunity isn’t simply to adopt AI, but to use it responsibly to fundamentally improve how we operate.

The Women in Tech Excellence Awards takes place on 26th November in London. Click here to view the list of finalists!