Paulette Watson

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

Born and raised in Newham, Paulette understands the need for quality education for children and young people from all backgrounds. As the head of Academy Achievers, she advocates for high-quality support in schools, having spent more than a decade working with students from disadvantaged backgrounds as a computer science teacher, Head of E-learning, and Director of ICT.

Paulette specialises in tackling inequality. Using her community projects, she analyses the mental inequality in STEM and explores the real-life experiences of children and young people in the school system and with the Police.

Paulette's expertise ranges across non-executive director, strategic planning, organisation design, digital transformation and leadership development. Her industry experience encompasses technology, software architecture design, professional services, engineering, financial services, people management and organisation development.

She is actively looking at inequalities newly created by lockdown (the digital divide) and the potential inequalities stemming from the widespread use of AI. She is also writing a book on black girls' experiences in getting into the UK tech industry.