Utility Week

20 www.utilityweek.co.uk/fLeX Q How did you approach being a newcomer to the sector? You have to have a ton of humility and really be understanding. e other thing is to think not just technology but also renewable technology. We're going from a world of coal, oil and gas to solar, wind and power. And a combination of all of those. So really understanding what the trends of the future are – micro grids, distributed energy, and the services around that. Q Can you give a standout example of what's been developed through the NG Digital Labs this year? We've got several but one that's pretty exciting for us is how do we apply technology to be able to do much better asset management? Where the assets have sensors and can have some edge computing that will allow us to call out, without having to do all the manual inspections or drone inspections. To be able to have those assets actually do what I call, "phone home". Q Do you feel that National Grid is keeping up well with today's challenges? I joined the company because the vision and the optimism and the opportunity are there. I think we run a really tight ship. I think we have our priorities in the right place. I wouldn't have joined if I didn't think that. Equally, there are huge opportunities for technological innovation across the industry – and I think National Grid is there as well. We have started pulling together these use cases, and how we marry technology through things like National Grid Ventures and our digital labs. We're not just talking about it, we're doing it. Q What do you see as the biggest challenges? I think the first-off challenge that we will never lie down is cyber-security. Also, the onset of new technologies – how do we understand and leverage them? Technology changes and is ubiquitous in every industry. Almost daily there are new technologies hitting the market, and everyone wants to talk to us about them. Q How do you think the transformation work has gone so far? Very well; I am fortunate enough to have a set of colleagues who recognise I'm very cautious and am making sure I learn the business, but who are very supportive in cultural change and in driving further. Our board asks about digital and what we want to do. So I'm very pleased. We've got a great set of people that have been here for a long time who are actually helping with the understanding of what the journey's been. And I've brought in some new leadership to help with outside-in thinking and making sure we end up with a very balanced team. at's helped with the culture change of embracing the new technologies and thinking about the future and where we need to be – which the company's always done – but with the base of how technology is really shaping these things. Q How key has the team been? e team is everything. I see that at every position I've gone to. No one person can do everything, and if they think can, they're mistaken. I spent a considerable amount of time in my first year ensuring that we formulated a great leadership team. I've added some new roles to that – data management is one, and a chief enterprise architect to lay out the enterprise architecture to match with the business architecture. Q Is there an important lesson you've had at any point in your career about dealing with cultural transformation? Yes – a very important lesson. You have to consciously think about moving at the speed of the business, especially if you come from outside the business. If you move too slowly you're incompetent, incapable and not effective. If you move too quickly you're not listening. Be very, very conscious of deciding which way you need to push… but don't get over your skis. And technology is different for every business. When I was in the tech industry, every three months there was something new. In the auto industry 24 months was the product development life cycle. In biotech it takes 12 to 15 years to bring a drug to market, so you have to literally understand the industry and the company you're in to say "move fast, let's go, let's do", whether it's regulators or risk management. You really have to appreciate that and be very thoughtful. Q What will success look like to you in a year's time? It would be a fully vetted digital strategy. Very strong use cases on where we are. And good delivery. It would be a greatly improved system, being able to execute to our plan and show that it has been executed. It would be a team that is hungry and looking for what new technologies can bring to this industry. I hope to be able to say our teams know where we're going, we've achieved our objectives, we're cyber-safe – to the extent of what our cyber-security strategy has said (because we're constantly on the move there) – and we've adopted more technology to be able to do more for our customers and consumers. Q What would be your one piece of advice to other utility executives overseeing tech change and wanting to capitalise on it? Try to think a little differently. Continue to try to drive improvements. ough it's very real, don't get tempered by the folklore of "what we used to be able to do". Really embrace the new technology, the opportunity to work with regulators on future vision. Because I'm seeing it on both sides of the Atlantic. e regulators are looking for the same thing we are – best cost, best efficiency, best customer experience. So don't get bogged down, respect the history and learn from it, but really look to the future. And look outside the industry, too. It's so easy for any industry to say "we're different", and the truth is we are different. But there's so much that we can glean from other industries. We should really take the opportunity to do that. I N T E R V I E W &a Q Adriana Karaboutis

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