Exclusive: Phil Pavitt reveals why he's leaving Specsavers
'I am the designer, the creator of the revolution - that has been my experience and history,' Pavitt tells Computing
Seasoned CIO Phil Pavitt last month announced that he was moving on from his role as global CIO of Specsavers after three years at the company.
Pavitt has been focused on digitally transforming the retailer in his time at the company, leading numerous large-scale projects. Most recently, Specsavers brought in IT services giant Fujitsu in a £17.6m deal to help it to make better use of customer data in its 1,179 stores. The ultimate aim is to improve the customer experience.
The former CIO of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) told Computing that he was leaving after three "very enjoyable years" because his experience is better suited to creating a strategy and beginning an implementation stage, rather than completing the implementation itself.
"I am the designer, the creator of the revolution - that has been my experience and history.
"I'm the person who has the vision and then when we get about a year into the implementation when everything is underway, that's not really where my skill set is - and both the company and I recognise that, and knew that from the outset," he said.
Pavitt explained that the company already has a team in place, but will hire a new CIO whose role will be to "complete the revolution".
He added: "That means not to start it again, or rethink it - but to complete the delivery of the revolution."
Pavitt has been an IT leader for several decades. He was group CIO and integration director at NTL Group, one of the predecessor companies to Virgin Media, in the 1990s and became CIO of NTL in 2003.
In 2007, he moved from retail gas and electricity supplier Centrica to Transport for London (TfL), where he was group CIO, and after nearly three years moved-on to HMRC as director general of change and CIO.
He moved back into the private sector with Aviva in 2013, and became global CIO of Specsavers in 2014.
So where next for the experienced CIO?
"At this point I genuinely don't know - I'm in the market talking to a number of people; retailers and government, for example - and we'll see which one of them has the biggest revolution they want to undertake and who wants to achieve the biggest difference in the market - that tends to attract me [to a role]," he said.