Interview: Rebecca Smith-Kettle, Primark, Women in Tech Excellence Awards finalist

‘Leadership can take many different forms, and you should be ambitious about where your career can take you’

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.

Rebecca Smith-Kettle is Director of Technology Planning, Governance & Delivery at Primark and a passionate advocate for women in technology. She leads strategic planning, transformation and governance, helping turn ambition into meaningful business outcomes. Rebecca also champions Women in Tech at Primark, creating greater connection, visibility and opportunity for women across the organisation.

Her leadership combines commercial focus and delivery with a strong commitment to inclusion, developing talent and creating opportunities for others. She is passionate about breaking down barriers and building an environment where women can thrive, progress and lead, while inspiring the next generation of female technology leaders.

Rebecca is a finalist in the Role Model of the Year category

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

A big part of what motivated me was also the opportunity to represent and encourage other women in technology. I’ve been really passionate about creating an environment where women can see a path for themselves, build confidence and have access to opportunities, whatever their background. Being involved in Women in Tech at Primark has reinforced that for me.

So it's not just about personal recognition, it's about showing that there are lots of different routes into technology leadership and hopefully encouraging someone else to put themselves forward too.

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

It would be a huge personal honour, but I’d see it as recognition of the people around me as much as anything else. Technology is very much a team sport. The outcomes I’m proudest of have come from people working across traditional boundaries, whether that’s Technology, the wider business or our strategic partners.

For my team, I’d hope it reinforces that the work they do matters and is being noticed outside our organisation. For our partners, I think it demonstrates the importance we place on genuine partnership, shared accountability and delivering outcomes together.

Particularly for women in our organisation, I’d love it to send the message that leadership can take many different forms and that you should be ambitious about where your career can take you.

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

One of the things I’m proudest of is how Primark continues to evolve its technology capability while staying incredibly focused on the customer and the business.

There is significant change happening, and Technology has an important role in enabling that change while maintaining the resilience, governance and controls expected of a business of our scale.

For me, though, the achievement isn’t any single programme. It’s the growing maturity of Technology as a strategic business partner: connecting investment, delivery, risk, suppliers and people much more closely to Primark’s priorities.

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

The biggest challenge has probably been navigating the volume and complexity of change while still delivering the day-to-day priorities of the business. When you have transformation, cost pressures, governance, risk and major delivery commitments happening simultaneously, prioritisation becomes incredibly important.

We’ve tackled that by creating greater clarity around priorities, strengthening governance and having much more transparent conversations about risks, dependencies and trade-offs.

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

One of the biggest lessons is that technology cannot operate separately from the business anymore. Technology strategy is business strategy. AI has obviously accelerated that conversation, but I think the more important lesson is that technology alone doesn’t transform an organisation. You need the right skills, governance, data, operating model and culture around it.

Where I think we still have work to do is diversity, particularly in leadership. We have to move beyond simply talking about representation and create the conditions that allow different people to progress: visible role models, sponsorship, meaningful development opportunities and leaders actively opening doors.

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?

I think the biggest opportunity is moving from experimentation with AI and automation into using them to genuinely change how organisations operate. But I don’t think the winners will necessarily be the organisations that adopt the most technology. They’ll be the ones that are really disciplined about where technology creates value.

That means having strong foundations: understanding the technology estate, being clear about investment choices, managing strategic partners effectively and having the right governance around areas like AI, data, cyber and risk.

For me, the opportunity is to bring those things together, so that Technology becomes simpler, more intentional and more focused on the outcomes that matter to the business and ultimately to our customers.

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