National Grid is turning analogue to digital - Ctrl Alt Lead podcast

'We can't do what we've always done, just more efficiently'

In season 1, episode 3 of Ctrl Alt Lead, Tom talks to Sarah Milton-Hunt, CIO at National Grid, about how she's modernising a 70-year-old tech stack.

IT has changed a lot since the 1950s, but some organisations are still running on the back of legacy, analogue technology. What does a safe move to digital look like when the UK simply could not function without you?

That was the question facing National Grid CIO Sarah Milton-Hunt as she started to look at bringing the operator, which carries electricity and gas around the UK, into the 21st century.

In the latest episode of Ctrl Alt Lead, the IT leader podcast from Computing, I talked to Sarah about how the Grid still relies on technology now approaching 70 years old – and how she and her team are having to future proof systems again as the energy sector moves to renewables.

"With the scale of what we need to do to meet the energy transition, we can't do what we've always done, just more efficiently... We fundamentally need to transform to do that, and digital's key to the transformation."

We also talked about the challenges modern IT poses to the Grid today, and practical steps every IT leader can take to help.

To access the full podcast, watch the video, use the web player, or find Ctrl Alt Lead now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.