Trailblazer

Uniting TECHNOLOGY and the BUSINESS

NAME: Belinda Finch JOB TITLE: Chief Information Officer COMPANY: Three

Increasingly, the stratification of companies into business - including everything from marketing and customer experience to organisation - and the IT department is being recognised as the method of a bygone era.

In 2022, the technology and telecom sector is expected to see a continuing evolution of the relationship between these elements of modern businesses.

One of the thought leaders driving this change - not to mention figuring out exactly what it looks like, as well as what it means for the CIO role itself - is Belinda Finch, a telecom industry veteran and Chief Information Officer at Three.

“I think we’re on the cusp of something here, from a technology point of view,” she said in a recent interview. “The future of the CIO role is becoming more and more embedded in the business. We should not have this culture of technology versus the business. IT is the business; the business is IT.”

Finch arrived at Three in September of 2020, with the demanding goal of enacting the “final stages of the company’s digital transformation”,

London, United Kingdom

20+

Years experience

as well as bringing together all the existing IT functions at Three UK under one management team made up of 130 employees. Seeing that the transformation programme she inherited was hobbled by a continuing schism between IT and the business, Finch elected to forge a new path for Three’s digital transformation programme. She has spent the past year and a half bringing the company’s technology functions firmly in line with the telco’s business objectives. “We restructured our transformation programme, and “ moved completely away from a technology-based transformation and moved towards a digital, business transformation programme,” Finch explains. This unity involves more than simply pushing IT departments towards a more business-focused model. “You can’t run a successful business without technology, and everyone needs to become much more tech-savvy.”

The future Finch envisions is “a team of multi-skilled individuals who not only understand the business, but also the technology.”

When executing this sweeping change of attitude and approach, Finch maintains that “As a leader in technology in this day and age it is massively important to be collaborative and work closely with all areas of the business, to empower your teams to do the right

thing to get things done and above all trust. I honestly believe if you trust and respect and communicate openly and authentically to your team you have a fabulous winning combination that will succeed no matter what.” The confidence to enact sweeping IT reform that touches every aspect of a major telecom operator stems from Finch’s 20 year-plus career throughout the technology sector, with an emphasis on telecommunications. Finch has brought the benefits of THE FUTURE OF THE CIO ROLE multiple executive roles at industryleading firms to her IS BECOMING position at Three, including working as a

MORE consultant for KPMG, a senior manager AND MORE EMBEDDED IN at Accenture, several project leadership and digital THE BUSINESS transformation roles at Vodafone, and ” most recently a yearand-a-half stint as CIO of UK energy firm Centrica. She is also a vocal advocate for women in the technology and telecom sector. Women are vital in the technology sector and I encourage everyone to have the confidence that your leader will trust that you can absolutely do the job,” she says. “This is especially important for maternity returners. Whether it's been 6 months or 10 years, trust that your leader has your back and trusts you in return. It's amazing to see these women fly in their careers when this happens and I have had many many examples.of this in my team who I am so very proud of.”