Senior Spotlight: Senior Spotlight: Catherine Myszka, Transformation Consultant
Welcome to Senior Spotlight, where Crimson’s Head of Customer Engagement, Chris O’Brien, interviews senior technologists across the UK. Discover what drives these individuals as we delve into their careers, their most exciting projects, and their tech predictions for the future. Join us as we explore these IT thought leaders’ inspirational stories and interesting lives.
Today’s conversation is with Catherine Myszka, a strategy and finance transformation consultant. She supports finance leaders and leadership teams to design and deliver transformation programmes focused on growth, efficiency and culture. In today’s chat, we delve into the all too human challenges that come with risk and change, as well as Catherine’s views on the future of tech and the workplace.
Chris: Welcome to Senior Spotlight, Catherine! Please tell us a little about yourself and your career history.
Catherine: I’m Catherine and you could say I’m a transformation consultant or a transformation programme director. Many moons ago I qualified as a chartered accountant and then quickly moved over into transformation which I’ve been doing for about 20 years now.
Despite being a chartered accountant, I personally find the general BAU (business as usual) accountancy pretty tedious - the month ends, the year ends, the planning cycles. It’s just not my bag. So, I got involved in a lot of change projects, and I’ve since been involved in doing things like integrations, acquisitions, disposals, implementations, and transformations.
Chris: Cool, an interesting range! In terms of the roles and projects you’ve been involved with over your career, what would you say has been your biggest challenge?
Catherine: Well with my expertise, I can slot into a lot of different roles within transformation. Usually under the umbrella of finance but also often within strategy, technology, and delivery. . But as a chartered accountant, I tend to normally sit with the CFO and CEO.
Now this might ruffle a few feathers amongst your readers, but it can sometimes be quite frustrating when a transformation is being led by the IT department. Sometimes IT Directors and CTOs can have a quite simplistic approach to change that just isn’t helpful. I’ve been brought in multiple times to fix an approach like that.
You have to remind these individuals that “No, no, this is a transformation.” You’re not just unplugging an old system and plugging a new one in. You’re changing processes, data structures, the way people work, what your capabilities are, what your culture is, the direction of the business. You need to think about HR, user journey, and even things like the property portfolio - and you need to think about the system, the accounts, the data.
True transformation is far wider reaching than some leaders (regardless of department) realise. When some people rise through the ranks and become undeniable experts in their fields, sometimes they start to feel like they know everything!
Chris: So, what makes a good leader in your view?
Catherine: Well, if you’re going to be an effective transformation consultant, programme director, or C-Suite executive, the most important thing is to be humble, be authentic, and be willing to learn.
Stuff is always going to happen that you could not possibly foresee. And leaders who arrogantly think they know everything, shutting out other expert voices, are going to get blindsided by some black swan event like, say, a cyberattack.
Chris: Right? We’ve seen a lot of high profile cyberattacks in the news lately. Aside from the rise of cyber risks generally, do you think this arrogance could be a contributing factor?
Catherine: It’s possible. Through my network, I’ve heard horror stories of really big organisations seeking cybersecurity consultancy services but really playing on price and MVP (Minimal Viable Product) - to the extent that those cybersecurity efforts would really become a tick box exercise.
The issue is that some organisations don’t take risk management seriously enough until it’s already too late. But risk management is like being a goalkeeper. It’s your last line of defence between you and disaster.
Chris: That’s so true! Cyber is obviously a massive hot topic at the moment, but what tech trends do you feel are going to dominate in the next few years?
Catherine: I suppose there is lots of stuff that’s deadly obvious that people might say in response to that, like cyber or AI, but I’m going to go with data. Anything that relies on AI relies on data behind the scenes.
Everybody shouts that AI is this amazing new era of tech, but “garbage in, garbage out” is really truer than ever. My concern is where Generative AI tools are using existing (perhaps erroneous) data to pump out new data, which is just going to be fed into another AI tool or process, and it’s just going to go round and round in a non-stop conveyor belt where bad information is going to be layered on top of already bad information.
So, it’s not just data - it’s data quality, data governance. I think everyone should have an element of data-savviness about them now, not just tech or finance people.
But in terms of wider business and staffing trends, one thing that I think is really important (and closer to my heart perhaps than others) is EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion). If you think about the proportion of, especially younger, individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+; or individuals who live with things like autism, ADHD, or mental health issues; it’s creating a real cultural shift that would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago.
These individuals want to work in organisations where they can see other people like them and where they're accepted for who they are. There’s a lot of trend data that shows that younger employees won’t hang around at an organisation that doesn’t align with their own morals or ethics.
Trend-wise, you can talk about AI and cyber and data all you like. But in the “war for talent”, if you have a young professional who is neurodiverse or LGBTQIA+ and the rest of the team is - excuse the generalisation - but middle-aged white straight men, then that workplace just isn’t going to work for them.
Chris: No, it won’t, you’re right. That visibility is so important. There’s a lot of talk about the gender disparity in tech at the moment, especially when it comes to highly specialist roles. How do you think we can push through that?
Catherine: I think we need to look at it like a pipeline. To use another football analogy: how do you get more girls into professional football? Well, if girls only ever see boys and men playing football, then they’re going to think that only boys can play football. You’re not inspiring those girls at 6, 7, or 8 years old that “I can do that” - there’s not even football academies for six-year-old girls!
Exactly the same thing is happening in the tech talent world. When women can’t see people like them in specialist or tech leadership roles, then they start to subconsciously rule themselves out of the running. They go and do something else because that visibility for female techies just isn’t there.
Chris: You’ll have to join us for one of our Women in Tech sessions! But yeah, normalising these things is such an essential step.
Catherine: I’m really big on this kind of visibility, actually. It’s important for people to confidently share their own truths and be that visible individual for others. For example, I make no effort to hide my being queer, or being menopausal, or the significant health challenges I’ve had to overcome.
When people are able to be a figurehead and stand up and publicly claim their LGBTQIA+ status, their health status, their neurodiversity, or whatever else, that can really help others. To frankly state that “These are aspects of my life, but I’m here, and I’m doing alright!” That can help embolden those who are less confident about those matters. It’s really important.
Chris: Definitely. So how do you see yourself developing - both as a professional and as a person - over the next 3 to 5 years?
Catherine: Well, it sort of follows on from the point before. I’m in my late 40s now and I used to try and fit into the suited and booted corporate mould with some success, but it just made me really miserable.
So, I decided “Y’know, I’m just going to be me. I'm going to swear. I'm going to wear my joggers. I'm not going to hide my sexuality.” And ultimately, I realised that the more authentic I was, the better I delivered for my clients
Chris: It’s so true - even something as simple as when I used to try and hide my Brummie accent!
Catherine: Absolutely! Say you’re spending 30% of your effort changing or hiding something about yourself because you feel that’s culturally the right thing to do in that working environment, then that’s 30% of you that isn’t available to do your job. And some people can tell that you're not being your fullest self.
It might sound like a bit of a trendy thing to say, but there’s real benefit to being authentic and open. Like I say, I’ve been through a surgical menopause, I also had to have life-saving surgery, and when you go through these things, there are naturally times when you aren’t feeling great emotionally. And when you’re open about that, people have your back. We're all human beings and there's no point pretending otherwise.
Chris: To finish, looking back at your career, what successes stand out to you?
Catherine: I don't really like to be like, “aren't I great?” because there’s a lot of people in the spaces I’ve worked in that will give you all that, “I’ve done this, I led that, I’m blummin’ fantastic”. It’s all BS anyway.
Y’know, I've done loads of things that were really cool. I've done lots of things that… weren’t. I've done loads of things where I've learned. I've done loads of things where I've done an amazing job, I got it right.
It sounds really naff but for me, the biggest achievement is always that you leave your client better off. Because in the world of interims and consultants, the previous one usually gets the blame for everything! But if people remember you and feel that you provided a positive impact - whatever it is you do - then that’s always the greatest achievement.
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