Defining the technology strategy for an international defence joint venture.

Why this mattered to me

GCAP is a big part of my story. I had to help people find a shared direction while much of the business around us was still being defined. That meant working through differences across three countries including culture, experience, and language, as well as designing the technology and organisation we would need.

The challenge

GCAP was an opportunity to help shape how three countries would design and build a new combat aircraft. We were starting with a blank sheet from an IT perspective in a highly ambiguous environment: the digital strategy, team and ways of working all needed to be built. This was a once in a generation programme and ways of working from previous programmes were no longer suitable for today.

My role

As Head of Digital Technology Services, I worked with the Managing Director, CFO and CHRO to establish the digital organisation for the new international venture. This was effectively a business-unit CIO role.

What I did

• Built an 80-person team in the UK and coordinated approximately 150 people across the partner organisations in UK, Italy and Japan. Much of this depended on agreement and trust rather than a single reporting line.
• Wrote the digital strategy and target operating model working with our international partners, including the architecture, ownership of data and how decisions would be made.
• Developed a five-year roadmap and led the development of a business case for a £500m+ technology portfolio, covering 15 years of implementation and running costs.

What changed

• Established portfolio governance and secured funding for the first delivery programmes.
• Onboarded digital partners to support technology delivery.
• Created a shared basis for technology investment and capability development across the international partnership.