Nicholas Hodder

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2024.

Nick's journey in technology has spanned over 25 years, and he has had the privilege of working with companies such as Google, EY and Sun Microsystems. In recent years his focus has shifted toward the non-profit sector, where he has specialised in digital transformation.

As the Director of Digital Transformation at the Imperial War Museums, Nick's role involves understanding the nuances of emerging technologies, such as AI and blockchain, and understanding what they will mean for the cultural sector. Equally aspects of change such as organisational culture and human-centred design have become much more important areas that he continues to work on.

How did you get into IT?

I was awful at school. I suspect I have / had ADHD, but in the 1980s the average teacher diagnosed this condition as acute idiocy. Academia clearly wasn't working for me. I scraped by with some GCSEs and attempted college before quitting due to abject boredom. I'd been a keen amateur filmmaker for a few years at school, borrowing (without permission. Also known as theft), my dad's new camcorder (his pride and joy, mainly used to film steam trains). I realised I could turn this into a job and start a video production business.

I applied to the Prince's Trust Young Enterprise scheme. They gave me a grant, and a mentor who helped me to write a business plan and apply for a loan from NatWest. I ran the business for nearly four years, and eventually got a contract with a start-up who were attempting to stream video over the early (very slow) internet at 56kbps, using a new codec they'd developed. I got obsessed with chroma subsampling, and the programming behind it. Then I realised that software paid a lot more than video production. I eventually wound up my business and started working on web applications full time.

What do you consider your greatest IT achievement of the last 12 months?

It's a period of significant change for our organisation, but the biggest achievement has been to refocus our digital transformation from something focused on software and discrete business needs to a process that is more focused on our vision: a process that's holistic and requires a culture of growth mindset and collaboration in order to achieve good outcomes for both the organisation and its customers. This change isn't easy and it isn't finished. Sometimes it feels like we haven't budged an inch, and that we are so far away from our goals.

When we have our team away days, I get everyone in the team to shout out all of the things they've achieved in the last quarter. It starts out slow because we're all very English and we don't celebrate winning anything other than football matches (that we watched and didn't participate in). But the momentum builds and we end up with whiteboards and flip charts full of great stuff that in isolation looks small, but taken together means that we are building lasting and significant.

What did I do? Made sure they had everything they needed. Hopefully control, confidence, clarity. Then I got out of the way.

How do you ensure diversity is taken into account in your IT recruitment?

We try to really focus on aptitude rather than hard skills or knowledge written into a CV. There is a bar that needs to be set for technical expertise, but we are much more interested in how you approach problem solving over and above certification or bullets on a CV. This means that we open ourselves up to a wider pool of talent, and recent hires have all been from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in IT. We are also conscious of neurodiversity, and have started to send out interview questions in advance to give people time to prepare.

We let candidates know that they can spend time thinking about a question before they answer. Interviews shouldn't be an agility test. You can't charm your way through an ERP implementation (if only you could). We want people who can think deeply and carefully about problems, not people who can come up with a passable answer in 10 seconds or less. Is it perfect? No, but we're getting much better at it, and I think we're building a great team, who I'm really proud of. I know they will always try to make things better.

Which technology are you currently most excited by, and why?

I feel like everyone will say AI, and they are probably right, but that's like saying you like the Internet or computers. AI is going to be everything. I think one of the most exciting technologies to emerge in recent years is blockchain. Not bitcoin, crypto bros, and non-fungible primates, but the technology that lives underneath the crypto culture that doubtless puts entirely normal humans off. The technology enables secure, decentralised transactions, and the concept of "smart contracts": self-executing agreements written directly in code.

Beyond theory, blockchain actively transforms industries. For instance, J.P. Morgan's Quorum platform simplifies payment transfers. EY's OpsChain connects business with blockchain. These are not small players, and they are probably perfectly happy for the rest of the world to assume blockchain is internet bingo, while they get the first mover advantage.

NFTs are also way better than you think. They are indivisible and unique tokens, capable of representing anything digital - art, music, property or collectibles - each one distinct. It's a powerful tool for asserting ownership. Artists, musicians, and content creators can prove authenticity, ensuring their work isn't duplicated or misrepresented. If you're concerned about AI half-inching your IP, blockchain may well have the answer.

What would an outsider find the most surprising part of your job?

Most people think that its just about replacing old technology with new, but it extends way beyond and before technology. I have to try to understand the vision and reason for being of an organisation, the landscape in which we're operating and what my might change. Anything we implement needs to be meaningful and long term. Yes, the existing digital infrastructure is important, but not as important as the organisational culture, and building an understanding of the culture required to implement that meaningful change.

Collaboration is critical across IT as we need to ensure secure, resilient infrastructure while managing large-scale projects, but it's the collaboration outside of IT that is even more critical; not just with internal stakeholders but directly with customers.

I'm a big proponent of human -entred design. We try to foster a culture of innovation, encouraging the adoption of digital through involvement in the full process. Measuring the impact of our initiatives is a blend of data-driven decision-making and validation with real humans. It's a journey of continuous learning and adaptation. Sometimes I get the question, "When will the CRM be finished?". I have to say never. But I assure you that's a good thing.

What's your secret talent?

In 2006 I won two BBC New Talent competitions. One was called BBC Funny Hunt, for which I wrote a comedy sketch. At the time of writing this I still honestly can't remember what this sketch was even about, so it can't have been that good. This was followed by a commission for a sketch that was used in the BBC Radio 5 Live Christmas Special, "Freddie Flintoff Ate My Ashes". In that same year I also won the BBC Big Screen Best Comedy award, for a short film I made called "Gloves". It was about a football goalkeeper struggling to keep up with the physical demands of the game in the twilight of his career. I can relate to this character a lot more today than I could back then. The award was judged and presented by my hero Mark Kermode.

My writing career was very downhill after the highs of 2006. Until suddenly the editor of Computing called, and I realised... perhaps it's not over yet?

What makes you laugh?

I think it's when something is true, but nobody has yet been willing to say it. It's the moment when the tension is released and in that moment there is both relief and joy. If the timing is good and its delivered well, it also helps a lot. I feel like this is even more important in times of crisis or conflict, when people need opportunities to find joy and happiness. These are also the times when we least expect to laugh, and they're also often the times we laugh the most. Also, that time Robbie Savage fell over coming out of the tunnel. They're both equally valid.