Catherine Doran
Business Transformation Executive
http://www.catherinedoran.co.uk
“You are a superb leader with a great vision for what is really needed, a confidence and honesty to
stand up and say what you believe, and a great motivational for rallying people to follow it through.”
Of all the letters and emails I’ve had from colleagues, staff and customers, this most accurately reflects
what I’ve tried so hard to achieve in all my Business Transformation work. The people side is, in my
opinion, both the most important part and the part hardest to master; it separates those of us who can
breathe new life into a business in a sustainable way from the crowd.
Career Summary
20082006-2008
2003-2006
2000-2003
1994-2000
1983-1994
1976-1983
Director, Corporate Development, Network Rail
CIO, Network Rail
CIO, BT Retail
CIO (Europe), Capital One
Head of Department, Retail Systems, NatWest Bank
Programme Manager, BT Billing; Programme Manager BT Middleware
Trainee to Project Leader, Altergo Ltd and Data Logic
Awards
2010
2009
2008
2008
1991
12th Computer Weekly most influential people in UK IT
Winner, Silicon CIO50 CIO of the Year
Winner Computing IT Leader of the year
Winner Silicon CIO50 top UK female CIO (4th overall)
Winner British Telecom Chairman's Quality Award, the only Information Technology
project to have done so
2006-to date
Network Rail
2008-2010 Director, Corporate Development
Designing, planning and implementing the £multi-billion transformation of the entire company
A new role with company-wide responsibility for leading the Network Rail Transformation Programme.
This programme is designed to deliver £3.3Bn cost savings (to close a £4.1Bn funding gap) over a 5
year period, to be achieved through fundamental change to core processes, including deployment of
new technology; efficiency improvements, substantial headcount reduction combined with a company
wide culture change programme. This must be achieved whilst ensuring no degradation of business
performance.
After 18 months, the programme is on track, having achieved savings of £1Bn and headcount
reduction of c.1200 to date. Early success has seen the planned benefits grow by a further £300m; a
considerable achievement.
In addition to this, I sit on the 10-strong NR Executive team and retain executive responsibility for IT.
2006 – 2008 CIO
Team structure: Budget £180m, staff c.800. Responsibility to ensure that Information Management
(IT) delivers business and customer benefits to Network Rail.
Major achievements
In my first month, restarted the retendering process for the data centre contract and oversaw the
transfer of critical business services to the chosen partner, with zero adverse business impact.
Refreshed the IT leadership team; implemented resource management within IT
Reshaped the project delivery capability, moving to a culture of on-time, on-cost delivery. Implemented
formal service delivery management, tracking and reporting, to facilitate continuous improvement
Built strong technology awareness at senior levels in the company, where IT was not seen as a core
business asset. This proved to be crucial when devising the Transformation Programme.
2003-2005 CIO, BT Retail
Revitalised BT’s systems with 'new wave' products of Broadband, the new Mobile business and ICT in
response to the decline of the traditional fixed-line business
Team structure: Budget £500M, staff c.300, responsible for technology development and support for
BT retail; member of the Retail Leadership Team, charged with running the Retail business;
member of the Senior Infrastructure Forum that governed IT across BT Group.
Major achievements
Delivered the technology/logistics support which enabled the launch of BTs Mobile business
Built group-wide strategy for Siebel, reducing 9 Siebel instances to 2
Drove legacy systems closure, achieving 20% reduction (70 systems) in 12 months
Annual savings of £36m in support costs, through supplier rebalancing
Responsible for BTs internet strategy, business and technology
2000-2003 CIO (Europe), Capital One
As member of the European Executive Team and CIO, turned the UK business from loss to profit
within one year of joining
Team structure: Budget £45m, staff c.350. Responsible for all technology development and support
for Capital One's European business; member of the European Executive Team (EET), which was the
business leadership team; member of the Global IT Leadership team
Major achievements
In its first year of operation (2001), EET turned the UK business to being profitable
Introduced formal processes to IT to stabilise service and project delivery
Introduced and delivered a cost saving programme, to embed cost efficiency.
Integrated the UK/France IT teams, paving the way for a European IT platform
1994 – 2000 NatWest Bank
1996-2000 Head of Department, Retail Systems
A major component of the work was Retail Transformation, a multimillion pound restructuring of the
UK Retail Banking business
Team structure: Budget £175M, staff c.1,500; member of the Retail Management Board which ran
the retail bank business; chaired the Group IT Technology Board, which defined IT policies and
strategies for the full NatWest Group.
Major achievements
Delivered a major change in IT organisation when IT was devolved to the business. Established Retail
Information Systems as a project based organisation, merging 5 units into a single department.
Implementation was achieved in less than 3 months.
Established and led the IT Retail Transformation Programme (RTP). This included the year 2K
programme and a hugely successful legacy systems re-engineering programme including separating
front from back-office functions, moving the latter to regional processing centres, where speed and
consistency of service could be achieved.
Built an off-shore development capability in Dublin to augment the UK team (this was retained by RBS
for 8 years after the take-over)
At the time of the take-over, the programme was successful and the benefits (cost and headcount)
were coming through, as planned.
1994-1996 Division Manager, Retail Systems
Responsible for all the major accounting and clearing systems of the bank – the bedrock on which the
bank’s processing relied. When I joined, staff turnover was running at 25%, owing to the people being
demoralised and feeling neglected. After 18 months this rate had dropped to 7%.
1983-1994 BT
Provided Programme Management of applications systems, and managerial and technical lead in
major technological infrastructure, in Customer Service Systems, then the largest integrated systems
development in Europe.
1992-1994 Programme Manager, Billing
Joined BT as a permanent member of staff in 1992 as a Programme Manager. Assigned to work in the
BT Billing arena - a critical strategic priority at that time. Over the next 2 years, I was commissioned to
deliver several high profile, business critical projects. These included Per Second Charging, Family
and Friends One Bill and Low User Scheme.
1983-1992 Project and Programme Manager
Led the CICS support team and the Middleware team for CSS
Joined at the start of CSS, which was designed to replace the disparate, silo systems previously in
operation. Middleware was a home grown product – there was no commercial offering at that time.
Conceived, designed and managed Transaction Switching.
This product provided the ability for on-line users to switch automatically and transparently to any
of 29 separate mainframes, groundbreaking software at the time. Worked with IBM to make
necessary changes in the CICS base product.
The product saved BT £2m in its first year of operation
Won British Telecom Chairman's Quality Award for 1991, the only Information Technology project to
have done so.
1976-1983 Trainee to Project Manager, Altergo Ltd and Data Logic
From trainee, selected from many hundreds of Irish graduate applicants, through a full IT training
programme. Went on to being a technical consultant working on various development projects
exclusively in the IBM mainframe arena in England.
Other details
Date of Birth:
Marital Status:
Education:
Telephone:
11 September1956
Married with 3 children
BA Maths and Geography gained in 1976 at the age of 19
+44 (0) 20 8504 8267