CIO Series: Paul Feldman, Cancer Research UK

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Describe your role in three words.

Beating cancer with IT. (Ed: That’s four, but we’ll allow it!)

How did you get to where you are today?

Most of my time has been spent in IT over the 30 years I’ve been working. I was at Nationwide Building, Barclaycard and First Data.

How do we adapt processes and make them appropriate so we take lots of good out of them without overkill or bureaucracy? We shouldn’t be employing people just to manage processes.

I actually had some business roles there. At Nationwide, it was the banking, savings and mortgage portfolios. At some point, it was time to move out and actually learn the business I was trying to support.

When I left Barclaycard I had a desire to actually spend some time giving something back. I started working in 1981 and thought it would be nice to do something for the country or the world rather than necessarily just looking to make money all the time. It really was that altruistic goal.

What's the biggest challenge of being a modern-day CIO?

The challenges I face are pretty similar to any organisation Cost is a key factor, and how we deliver things on time and on budget. How do we get the quality right, what’s the appropriate level of governance?

How do we adapt processes and make them appropriate so we take lots of good out of them without overkill or bureaucracy? We shouldn’t be employing people just to manage processes.

Then there are people challenges. How do you motivate people? I have a great asset in that I can motivate people from the cause.

Putting IT people face to face with cancer sufferers [is amazing]. Techies are interesting people to read. You can tap into that drive. That makes it almost easier to motivate techies with something like this than people in operational teams.

There’s a whole transformation we’re going through here in trying to make this a modern, effective, efficient and passionate IT environment. That’s a big focus.

And the most rewarding thing?

When we do things that you can see are making a difference. They can be little tings , for example, unbeknownst to be the team launched a new website called Help Harry. It’s for a 12-year-old cancer sufferer who is making beats to raise money. It was four weeks from the moment we were asked to delivering a website.

That’s what we’re about. People just got on and did it. Those sort of things make it really rewarding,

When you get can sufferers who say “I used your website and it was really helpful.” That’s when you know why you’re here.

[It’s also rewarding] when the team take on challenge and achieve it. When they do things quicker or better. When they go that extra mile. It makes it worth coming into work every day.

…It gives you faith in human nature when you hear people and their determination to beat disease…

Recruitment is never easy. But we probably have a higher quality of people working here than we would deserve from our size or capabilities. People will genuinely work here because they want to be here. Not just IT teams, but I’ve got some great people and great capabilities.

What is the biggest mistake you think you’ve made? And your greatest success?

When I started I was told there would be four big projects. Three of them landed in one week. In October last year, our IT team was stretched to its limits. We did all that and are able to celebrate.

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