David Lister on smart grids and why he left RBS

David Lister has held senior IT roles at Boots, Reuters and RBS. He talks to Nick Heath about why he left RBS and how he will meet the challenges ahead as group CIO for National Grid.

Wherever David Lister goes, change almost always follows.

During his career, the National Grid CIO has overseen more transformations than style guru Gok Wan, building a global tech platform and cutting IT costs for news agency Reuters and bringing home a £300m technology modernisation programme for Boots.

It was on a change ticket that he joined Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as chief architect in April 2008, where he was brought in to provide the technology to support the bank's ambitions to become a global player and streamline back office services.

Unfortunately for Lister this transformation agenda soon had to take a back seat after RBS was revealed to be saddled with toxic assets and had to be bailed out with money from the UK government.

"I was brought into RBS to lead the transformation growth agenda.

"But today the challenge at RBS is about addressing its cost base, de-risking the business and moving back to a far less exposed organisation.

"In the next two or three years the focus at RBS will change around ensuring that they pay back the government's investment. That's two or three years that would have made my job less interesting than when I joined.

"It was the case of, do I stay and help? Or look for something that's more exciting in line with my career goals that is delivering growth and building businesses," he told silicon.com.

It was this shift that drove Lister to leave RBS after less than a year in the job, joining National Grid as group CIO in March of this year.

"Many people have looked at my career and argued that David is about cost cutting but I would argue it's the other way round, it's about delivering capability that enables business growth.

"Being a CIO is as much about people and capability as it is about technology, it's about understanding how you can innovate and how technology can support that. That's what I'm hoping to bring to National Grid over the next four to five years," Lister said.

It was Lister's passion for change that led him to the power industry, a sector grappling with the twin challenges of rebuilding electricity grids around clean power generation, and providing smart technologies that allow consumers and businesses to manage their energy consumption.

"It's a great time to be joining National Grid. There are so many dramatic changes in this industry that make it an exciting time to get on board," he said.

"We are at a confluence of changes: for instance, the move towards the renewables and nuclear agenda and the need to develop smart grids and smart metering.

"That will demand work infrastructurally to put in place the network of the future."

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