Interview with Nic Granger, Corporate Director and CFO of the North Sea Transition Authority

Nic Granger, the director of corporate and CFO at the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), is not your typical digital leader. With a background in IT and experience working with penguins in the Falklands Islands, she has found herself in a unique leadership role. Granger believes that her roles in finance and technology are actually quite similar, as they both involve delivering data to support better decision-making. She didn’t initially plan to become a CFO, but her career has always had a finance component. After spending almost a decade in the Falkland Islands, Granger joined NSTA in 2016 to lead their digital and data efforts. Her team is focused on making data openly available to accelerate the UK’s energy transition. They have created a cloud-based platform called the UK National Data Repository (NDR) to hold industry data and make it accessible to industry leaders and academics. However, Granger emphasizes that the quality of the data is crucial, and her team has been working with companies to ensure the data they submit is usable. They are also in the process of transforming NSTA’s legacy systems and developing a Digital Energy Platform. Granger believes that technology is just one part of digital transformation and that having the right data skills within the organization is equally important. She has established a digital academy at NSTA to provide training for employees. Looking ahead, Granger envisions a future where self-service data is readily available to everyone in the organization. She advises professionals to pursue their interests and not overplan their careers. She also notes that there is a demand for professionals with digital and data skills in the industry, as many organizations feel they are lacking these capabilities. Outside of work, Granger serves as a non-executive trustee for Falklands Conservation, a wildlife conservation organization. She says that penguins are inquisitive creatures and often break the rules by sitting on the white stones meant to keep them away from humans.