Ever wondered how big companies like Nationwide Building Society handle big changes? Angela Lomas, an expert in making products better, joins us. She's worked at banks like Triodos and Royal Bank of Scotland. Angela talks about how important it is to focus on customers and understand how they feel during changes. She tells us about Nationwide's data platform, which helps them understand what customers want while being careful with their information.
Angela shares the ups and downs of Nationwide's journey from old ways of working to newer, agile methods. She talks about how important it is for teams to talk well and work together, even when they're different. She also talks about how different experts like technical, managers, and designers work together to make new ideas.
Join us as we learn how Nationwide deals with change, with Angela Lomas as our guide.
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Ever wondered how big companies like Nationwide Building Society handle big changes? Angela Lomas, an expert in making products better, joins us. She's worked at banks like Triodos and Royal Bank of Scotland. Angela talks about how important it is to focus on customers and understand how they feel during changes. She tells us about Nationwide's data platform, which helps them understand what customers want while being careful with their information.
Angela shares the ups and downs of Nationwide's journey from old ways of working to newer, agile methods. She talks about how important it is for teams to talk well and work together, even when they're different. She also talks about how different experts like technical, managers, and designers work together to make new ideas.
Join us as we learn how Nationwide deals with change, with Angela Lomas as our guide.
Visit AND Digital's website here for the latest episodes and to stay informed.
Follow us on:
Linkedin: and_digital
X: AND_digital
Insta: and.digital
We all hear a lot about digital transformation, but unless you've been there and done it, it's easy to feel that transformation is a significant challenge that might seem difficult to conquer. That is why we've launched the Good, bad and Ugly podcast series. Each episode we talk to people who've been at the heart of transformation and we get under the skin not just of what they did and how they did it, but how it felt to be at the centre of it. Welcome to our podcast being a Digital Leader the good, the bad and the ugly of digital transformation. My name is Wendy Stonefield. I'm the Hub Executive for London at Ant Digital and my Ant title is Dushan Fanatic.
Speaker 1:I am delighted to welcome to the podcast Angela Lomas, senior Product Owner in Customer Data and Business Transformation at Nationwide Building Society. Great to have you with us, angela, today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I know we'll traverse many different topics as we journey through our time together, but today we're also going to focus and talk about the role of agile in digital transformation. We'll chat about driving change in a highly regulated business and the need for managing and this is sometimes not really dwelled upon the more human, emotional aspects of large-scale change projects. So I'm not going to hesitate to jump straight in and get us going. But before I move to any questions, I really just wanted to, if you'll afford me the opportunity, just introduce you and talk about some of your experience.
Speaker 1:A little bit about Angela. You've got over two decades of professional experience as a senior product owner in customer data and, as I said, you are at the moment very specifically in a customer data and business transformation role at Nationwide. Angela has worked for Nationwide for eight years and in that time you've led multifunctional teams and I'm super fascinated by that because I think you bring about incredible change by doing that. Angela specializes in agile methodologies and performance motivation also another topic close to my heart and relationship development as well. Before joining Nationwide, angela made significant contributions to Triodos Bank and you can correct me, angela, if I did say that incorrectly based in Bristol as a customer operations manager and customer experience manager. Angela's career journey started at BT in Bristol where you headed up a contact centre as a team lead, and you further honed those leadership skills as a senior branch manager and stand at the Royal Bank of Scotland business. Throughout her career, angela has demonstrated a commitment and passion for fostering diversity and inclusion Again another topic very close and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:So um would love to touch on that as well, and so I mean, you've had a phenomenal career. Would you tell us a little bit about your career journey and um any kind of highlight, highlight moments that you'd like to um shine a spotlight on and tell us why?
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. Actually, I think everywhere I've worked has been eye opening and you know you just learn as you go, don't you? So everything has been a learning journey for me Back at BT. You know it made me realise you can't get anything done without the power of people Really really important and teamwork to drive things forward. So that was the key thing I took right back starting my career. Royal Bank of Scotland was a very interesting place to work. Leadership development there was fantastic Again, the power of people but lots of sales targets. When I was at Royal Bank of Scotland. Triodos Bank is a Dutch ethical bank and it has really fantastic values and that really made me aware that everything comes back to what you are doing for the customer and the value that you are delivering and that actually comes through and has carried on my career journey inter-nationwide and it's very much an agile methodology as well. What's the value you're delivering, what you landing for your customers and for the business?
Speaker 1:so certainly my last two career steps have been very much about attaching everything back to the customer what are you delivering and why that's really important for me yeah, fantastic, and I I think that's often and we'll come on to talk about it in an area that can, in the, in the pace of change and big transformations, bringing everything back to the customer can sometimes be something it's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely, but nonetheless sometimes overlooked. So it's brilliant to hear that, and can you talk to us a little bit more about your specific role that you're now playing at Nationwide, yeah, and really about some of the challenges that you have worked through in?
Speaker 2:that role? Absolutely so. I'm a senior product owner at the moment for a number of different data platforms. So data platforms holding core customer member data. So data platforms holding core customer member data. So that's things like name, address, that really core data that the business uses in everyday processes. So everything from change of address, opening an account you need that core customer data.
Speaker 2:One of the platforms I look after holds that data for the society, so really pivotal to the business, and another brand new platform we've just launched called Facts, which is a flags and choices tracking service, and that's whatever preference our customers have. So whether that's I need large print, or please phone me, don't text me, or please turn the radio off when I go to branch, it's about collating all of our customers' preferences in one place. Now that's really important because as a business, obviously we're very large. Those preferences can be held in different areas across the business and specifically when you're dealing with customers for example, vulnerable customers, people who maybe have a disability or have a specific need then we need to make sure those people are treated in the same way at every point they interact with the business, whether they're coming into branch just for a balance inquiry, opening a loan, opening a credit card or changing their address. We need to know how they would like to be treated at that point in time.
Speaker 1:So those two platforms are my main platforms at the moment yeah, and I you know you talking that through in terms of the customer experience and the importance of that, that single view of the customer and what those preferences are it? It sounds like such an easy thing to achieve, but yet I suppose if you spoke to most people they would have very personal experiences about where that hasn't happened for them absolutely, and maybe even when you've been asked what those preferences are, to then have them seemingly ignored actually creates a real friction point, I would think as well.
Speaker 2:People don't realise the way you deal with customer data actually has an immediate impact on the customer if you deal with it wrong. So where you deal with it right and you have that single customer view, you can deliver a consistent experience. Where you deal with it wrong, you can really cause detriment and harm to a customer and that can be things like getting a customer's address wrong or you could disclose an address to a third party, potentially to an ex-partner. You can actually cause detriment there financial and physical harm. So it's really important that data is dealt with consistently and, as you said, that single customer view is key.
Speaker 1:Fascinating and like when you joined Nationwide. I suppose this is where you are now. What does that kind of journey look like for you, as you've kind of from joining the business, the society, to moving through into the role that you are in now?
Speaker 2:It has been really interesting.
Speaker 2:So I joined in the customer experience team as a senior customer experience lead senior customer experience lead and that was working with a number of product areas primarily savings and current accounts to look at the customer journeys and look at how people were being treated as they came into the bank so either opening an account or the journey of holding an account with nationwide you know we want to get customers right when they're children and right, you know, up until you know we're dealing with their accounts until they're older.
Speaker 2:So mapping those journeys and seeing the issues that customers had, often they were based around process issues, data issues, technology issues in the back end of how we bank as a society, and those issues have also grown over time. Where you know, we've got quite an old infrastructure, old processes, things change, things develop. So being in customer experience really made me realize that the customer journey relies very much on the processes and the technology of the business. And if you haven't got that those foundations right so if the systems aren't right, the way data flows isn't right, the processes aren't right, you will not deliver a great customer experience or deliver the value that you're trying to deliver for your customers, and it will also be more expensive to run a business like that.
Speaker 1:I mean it's fascinating and I have very personal experience of your brand and your business because I never guessed. He's now 20, my son. But when I wanted to open an account for him, I naturally and I won't name your competitor that I approached because I've banked with them since I was a student approached them and wanted to open a bank account and I I had no idea how difficult it was to well, I basically couldn't do it with my own bank and I approached Nationwide and the process was incredible. I went through a digital onboarding application process with him in our local on my high street Nationwide Building Society entity and it was the most phenomenal experience and he continues to be a very loyal customer and we've done a lot to improve our digital journey, so our account opening process in branch is much more digital.
Speaker 2:over the last couple of years. We've got iPads in branches. Brand new digital journey was launched a couple of years ago and we've really seen improvements in our customer experience due to those digital journeys, which is great. We've also got our online journey. We've got our new banking app coming out soon, so digital experience is pivotal to Nationwide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely well. It's great to hear more about the roles that led you to where you are today. And I suppose Nationwide is an unusual story, because often when we're talking about transformation, we ask our clients and stakeholders that we're interfacing with. How they brought, how they you know, how they had to go along in terms of bringing senior stakeholders on the journey with them. How did they get senior buy-in? And that's kind of not relevant to Nationwide. Can you talk to us a little bit more about the setup and where the change has been driven from as well?
Speaker 2:So, we have a very structured change framework at Nationwide that everybody subscribes to, because we do an awful lot of change as a business and we have to make sure that's done in the right way, it's governed appropriately and also we deliver change at speed, at pace. So we do have that really structured framework. We also adopted Agile a few years ago. We were previously a very waterfall heavy organization, so agile coming in has been a real change for nationwide. We've adopted things like jira, um, you know, all those new ways of working, sprint reviews, all of that kind of stuff, which is great. It has been embraced, which is fantastic. There's been some elements of wagile, which is often discussed, but fundamentally it's about just, you know, delivering change at pace.
Speaker 1:So tell us you know you've referenced agile and that change from waterfall and sometimes wagile. Tell us a little bit about the good, the bad and the ugly, specifically, of bedding down agile as a methodology and a way of working. Were there moments that did have you tearing your hair out and also really the tipping point where you had moments of thinking, wow, this is really getting traction and I can see people are adapting to this new way of working?
Speaker 2:It's interesting. I wouldn't say there are any points of tearing hair out. That's good to hear, yeah, but changing a kind of delivery method, so getting teams to embrace agile, that they've never used Agile before. There's certainly an awful lot of communication that needs to happen. Some elements of persuasion for people that have maybe not worked in that way before are very wedded to other ways of delivering.
Speaker 2:Change like waterfall To then start to say we want to deliver value in a more iterative way rather than do a big bang in four years time, which you know programs have been dealt with like that previously in some organizations I've worked in.
Speaker 2:That's a real change of thinking for some people and it can be challenging. People are fearful of that very much. You know why do we need to change our ways of working when we've delivered big programs before and it's really being able to communicate and almost sell the benefits of working in an Agile way, and why delivering value more iteratively is important for customers, is important for the business. And then you'll have we had in the teams I've worked with that have adopted Agile. You have a broad spectrum of people who are very enthusiastic about it people who are in the middle and people who are potentially a bit more reluctant, let's say, and bringing those teams together to work together. There are benefits in all of those points of view, because sometimes Agile can just go off like a steam train and bring in those people who are like you know, we need to maybe be a bit more careful or or, you know, be a bit slower or need to think about this.
Speaker 1:That can really change the dynamic and deliver almost almost more value on occasion when you have that different, those different elements of thinking yeah, really interesting, and I think you know, gosh, I started my career over 30 years ago and everybody did work in a very agile sorry, in a very waterfall, not an agile way. Yeah, and you know, having spent the last period of my career working with clients in an agile fashion of you know, really a big fan, just in terms of seeing how it unlocks that speed to value, yes, fine organizations, um, and also, you know, you talk about customer centricity, being able to actually deliver, test, iterate and and everyone not being locked into and and hung up on something that was envisaged that it would work best in one way, but actually yeah, and it's that ongoing customer feedback loop, isn't it?
Speaker 2:that's key. So, getting that customer engagement, customer feedback throughout, make sure you deliver the right thing um, that's absolutely crucial and it makes it makes sure the team is then on board with what they are doing and what they're delivering, because when you've got that ongoing feedback, you've got that ongoing kind of satisfaction that what I'm doing is the right thing for the end result yeah, real validation, isn't it for the team as well? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what form does that customer feedback take for you as you're working through?
Speaker 2:It depends on the customer, so you can't say it's the same every single time, but it's having the ongoing. It's including them in as much as you possibly can. Obviously, at your sprint reviews you pay play back to your customers or your internal stakeholders, whatever they are, but it's the ongoing, you know, checking in on the requirements, checking in on what the need is, checking in on the problem statement has anything changed with the customer? Is this going to deliver the value they want? It's just that ongoing engagement that really delivers the right level of value.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds great and I think you know you've often spoken. I've heard you speak about how tech can't be built in a silo and again it does come back to the human aspect of this. You know, because the risk being and my other half is a great expression for it, for this he talks about, you know, the tail wagging the dog is the ultimate. If you don't get it right, you land up with that, and I've heard you describe it in a way of you know, you land up having to stick loads of plasters on to to. You know, get something to hang together, but it's really inefficient, etc. I mean, what? What are your if, if somebody, if I was about to embark on a transformation program, what is your advice? What would your advice be to avoid landing up in that situation?
Speaker 2:um. Well, as we've discussed, you need to always take it back to the customer. You need to test your customer journeys throughout. So, for example, when building data platforms, we need to make sure how that data flows is as per what the process and the customer and the business need. You can't just build a data platform and say that you know there, you go done, there's data platform, go and use it. That data has to flow in exactly the right way for the power of attorney process, for joint account opening, for children's account opening, for whatever customers you have. You know, in nationwide. We need to make sure it works for our customers, because if it doesn't, you know we've done it wrong. So that's the key is just testing, testing, testing with regards to the processes and the customers and how you use whatever it is you are building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I suppose you're talking about customer. There's a duality to that phrase for you, in that it's your internal stakeholder, customers in the variety of different teams that need to come together and stand up to delivering the customer experience, but then it's also your end customer, who's actually, you know, using your products and services and the experience Internal stakeholders, colleagues and customers.
Speaker 2:They all have the same weighting. Well, actually, that's not true. Your ultimate customer, your end goal, your ultimate customer, your, you know your end goal, your consumer of your product is the most important customer. But internal stakeholders and colleagues are absolutely crucial as well, because their experience matters and you need to deliver value for the business absolutely yeah, and I think you know I'm really interested in the multidisciplinary team aspects.
Speaker 1:I suppose, particularly in a regulated environment, there's probably another layer to that multidisciplinary team that you need to include. Could you maybe talk to me a little bit about your? You know how you approach that yes, a multidisciplinary teams.
Speaker 2:I think it's much more of a teams work like that nowadays, a lot more, I think. If you think about 10 or 15 years ago, where you maybe had teams of customer experience specialists or engineers or architects, you now need to have all of those people in a room working together to make sure you deliver the right thing. If you haven't got, you know somebody that's there from a customer perspective, a data flow perspective, how are we going to build this perspective, a perspective, a data flow perspective, how are we going to build this perspective? Then you again, we're kind of saying the same thing you won't deliver the value or you won't deliver the end goal. So those multi-functional teams are absolutely key and this you know the way those teams bounce off each other as well, and there's a real difference of dynamic. Bringing. Bringing people from across the business together is, um, it's, you know, it's fantastic yeah, because I think you're.
Speaker 1:you're really right in that those, those people who represent those disciplines, often will unlock something in one another, you know, and whether that's a tech, a technologist who can speak to you, know something that you could do from a technical perspective that unlocks a thought in a product person's mind, or a user experience expert, that's when the magic happens. Right? Not old school throwing things over walls, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you need, you know you need to bring people in from the branch, the contact centre. This is what our customers are experiencing. This is what our customers are experiencing, this is what our front line are experiencing. And then you know the, the digital people can decide how to change the user interface and you need that feedback from you know front line colleagues and customers to say well, that box isn't in the right place, or can we move that button there? It will save two seconds in this process and that's key. Those two seconds add up right, yeah and um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's key to have those different people in the room working together and I know I keep on mentioning regulated environments and and just my experience of working with people and clients, uh, who are in regulated environments, how do you, I mean, you know, does it add for you an additional layer of, sometimes, frustration? Or, you know, is there an element of your creativity that you feel you haven't been able to unleash? Or interested in your experience? It?
Speaker 2:can be a double edged sword sometimes. So governance is really important at Nationwide Building Society to make sure we deliver in the right way in a governed environment. It's absolutely crucial. We wouldn't want to not have that governance. Yes, sometimes it can slow things down. There can be an element of frustration there, but it's always there for the right reasons. You know you have to pass governance gateways to make sure you have done things properly from a regulatory perspective, from a customer duty of care perspective. Are we building technology platforms properly? Does our data move with regards to, you know, data guardrails? So it's it's. It's there for a reason, and that's not to say. Sometimes you might not want to move a bit faster because you're very enthusiastic, but it's really important to delivering the right product yeah, and I'm always interested for people who move between non-regulated and regulated.
Speaker 1:What advice? Because I think we'll have lots of people listening who are also evolving their own product careers. If, if you're somebody and you don't work in the regulated sector today, but you know you're thinking about applying for a role in a in a regulated sector, what would your advice be? Go for it or definitely go for it.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, any experience is good experience. Changing you know places you work is it's fantastic experience. I think working in a regulated, governed environment is a very interesting environment to work in. You will learn an awful lot. Um, the kind of governance you have to go through, especially in financial services, is very interesting, inspiring, can sometimes be frustrating, but I would say there's swings and roundabouts to both. I've worked in both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's really interesting and I think there are probably lessons from working in a regulated environment that are a really healthy practice, even in a non-regulated environment, particularly when you are as you say. You know you're working with data and um. You know there should obviously be rigor and governance absolutely around that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just makes sure you know everything is considered. You've got frameworks to make sure things are delivered properly. Um, and yeah, it's, it's really key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm I'm really interested in the and you touched on a briefly the the human aspect of this, because I think you know you. You spoke about almost the spectrum that people are on in terms of their um, enthusiasm and comfort level and confidence when it comes to changing their way of working, to agile, etc. What's your approach, maybe for some of those people who and sometimes it can be fear-driven are more on that side of the spectrum? Which side, sorry, more fearful, fearful of agile, of agile and, yeah, what it represents and how?
Speaker 2:do you get them comfortable with it? Well, as I said, a lot of communication and a lot of let's try it and see what happens. Let's give it a go. You still will find some people who will be quite resistant to that approach because you know, I want to do it the way I've done it before.
Speaker 2:It's always worked before and, yeah, I find it's just working together, putting a team together, taking the strength from those people and saying you know that the fact you want to stay in the old world, there's some strength there. How can we utilize that? And then sometimes you do need to take them on the journey with you and say, look, we are going in this direction. Sometimes you do need to take them on the journey with you and say, look, we are going in this direction. Sometimes you do have to pull people a little bit, but I've not found anyone yet who, even has been very reluctant to start off with, has not adopted Agile and seen the benefits of Agile. I've seen people who've seen the benefits and they might not like it, um, but they definitely do see the benefits in the end. I've not found anyone that hasn't yeah, really interesting.
Speaker 1:Um, and you know it is. I think for some people who've worked in a certain way for a long time, it can stir it can be fearful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, and that's you know, big change, yeah can be, but, um, it sounds like you've done a fantastic, but the one constant in life is change right A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's getting people comfortable with that as you say and that's just. I know I've said it about 10 times, but it's communication, trying to make people feel secure and they're on a safe journey. We're doing this for the benefits of our customer, for the business, for our colleagues.
Speaker 1:You can't really argue with that yeah, it's a really interesting point because I think it is almost being okay with being uncomfortable, yes, and knowing that you're not the only one who might feel like that, and and that's okay. Yeah, absolutely, we all want to feel super confident every day of the week and not grow, and it just doesn't those things don't go together so that element of vulnerability as well, but I think it does take from a leadership perspective.
Speaker 2:Being able to see people going through that and help them navigate through that, I think is really critical and sometimes you need to say to people you know, trust me, just you might not be fully on board, but but just trust me, let's, let's go on this journey together and let's, you know, regularly reflect every two weeks as we have a sprint review. Let's reflect together how it's going and just give me that time to show you that agile can work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think when we chatted ahead of meeting in person today, you know you'd reference the fact that you'd also allowed people to make it their own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of the language that they apply to agile as well, yeah, I'm very pro self-forming teams and I know that's one of the kind of agile agile, you know ways of working and I think it's really key that people own it and feel as though agile is something they are doing and it's not being done to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um. And then you know, I don't care if it's called a sprint review or you can call it anything you like, as long as we have those regular check-ins. We have a. We do it two weekly with some teams, three weekly with other teams, sometimes every week, um, but sometimes people get hung up on it's agile because it's a sprint review. It's a team meeting where we get together and we check in how's it going, what have we delivered this week and what have we got in plan for next week? Um, stand-ups I don't mind if they're not called stand-ups, um, as long as we've got that regular check-in. So language is, you know people get quite hung up on agile language. But, as, as long as we're adopting that way of working, you can call it anything you want in my book.
Speaker 1:I really love that and I suppose I'm interested in for you. You know we've obviously worked. Our organisations and Nationwide have worked together. You know what did that bring to you as a person who was driving this change in that team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we've talked a lot about how and supported nationwide in the customer data strategy specifically. So having and on board you brought a wealth of agile knowledge and really helped us embed agile I would say properly. So having that dedicated support to you know, help us write user stories, help us do those agile ceremonies properly, help us do retrospectives properly, really helped to uplift and train the whole team and people who had not worked in an agile way before.
Speaker 1:So it was so beneficial to have experts on board helping us improve, well, change our way of working and I love that you've described it as a real one team and I think that's so important as well.
Speaker 2:again, it it wasn't somebody coming in and doing it to you as an organization, it was very much us working very collaboratively to bring about that change absolutely and I was very passionate when I first sat down and spoke to and that the team wouldn't feel the nationwide team, wouldn't feel like it was being done to them and also that it was one team and the Andes felt like nationwide-ees. And you know, there was just that harmony and that's the kind of premise we went into the relationship with and it really worked well. So, you know, at some point people outside of our teams would say are they a nationwide employer?
Speaker 1:Brilliant sign yeah, really, really good, it was seamless. I would at some point people outside of our teams would say are they a nationwide employer? Brilliant sign, yeah, really really good.
Speaker 2:It was seamless, I would say, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:So, as you were traversing your journey, I'm really interested to know was there anything that came out that was a bit left field for you and surprised you, and that could be something that was good, bad or ugly.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a tricky one. Things I've learnt and surprised me you can move much quicker with a multifunctional team. So having teams as we've talked about, for me it doesn't matter what you call it, it's that constant, that regular review, that regular communication, that regular feedback from your customer make sure you deliver the right product. And you know you could have done that 20 years ago and called it something different. It's still the same today. It's that regular communication and review it's crucial. And it's still the same today. It's that regular communication and review it's crucial.
Speaker 1:And it's so interesting because when you describe it in that way, and especially when you think about the people who maybe are more sceptical, I'm sure that if you try to take them back and run a process that was old school, come we'll write out a 300 page document on your requirements and tell you exactly how the product's going to work. Yeah, and then we're going to go away in a black box and build it and you won't see it for two years. They'd probably be really horrified. Yeah, like nobody would really accept that as a way of working now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, which is probably indicative of how embedded the change already is in the organisation. Absolutely yeah, fantastic, thank you.
Speaker 2:And I think something maybe that surprised me about myself is that everything I do I'm very passionate about what does this do for the customer, passionate about what does this do for the customer, and moving from because my career has gone from a kind of very connected to the customer role, you know, with contact centers, I had teams who on phone to customers and I'm now, I'd say, a bit more removed, um, working in data and and data platforms, but fundamentally, everything you do has got. You've got to have that customer in your mind, otherwise you're not going to be delivering the right thing in the right way, and so that's something that I hope to continue to take through my career. It's very important to me.
Speaker 1:I mean I do love that because I suppose you've transformed your own career from being in those roles that are much more frontline with the customer but you've actually become the advocate for a customer in a really core way, that is, shaping the way that the organization meets the customer. And so you've kind of harnessed that experience and are deploying it in a very powerful way within the organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think if there's one thing I don't preach to anybody, that's not my style at all, but I'd always say to people think about what this means for the customer, because that's where you're really going to land business change that delivers the most value, which is obviously agile ways of working. Yeah, love that thank you, angela.
Speaker 1:Thank you for you. What, having gained this experience, which sounds phenomenal and I think there are so many organizations that are kind of trying to walk this path and bring effect to change, both in terms of what they do with their data, but also how they're working and putting their customers at the heart of what they do you know what's next for you. Well, what's next for you?
Speaker 2:Well, what's next for me? That's a really interesting question. I love what I do and I think we've got a really big. We've got lots of big tasks in front of us in the customer data strategy at Nationwide. So delivering that single customer view is a huge undertaking. So we are delivering a new core banking platform in the next couple of years. That's a really big horizon. One priority for us and the growth of the fax platform, as I said. So there's flags and choices. That flags and choices tracking service that's going to continue to grow. We've only we've just launched it 32 new flags in there. We need to broaden that out to capture all of the customer preferences across the society. So I'm very excited to be part of both of those projects, um, those programs, um, and then, yeah, see where that takes you absolutely, yeah, but I think it is this you know we're in a constant chain, a constant form of transformation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and to your point, that change will continue and as people evolve their maturity, they will be able to go that step further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely great, thank you, things I've learned, or surprise you Our answers.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I have to also ask you, because this is a key question that we ask our clients and people we work with what is your? What would your antitle be, Angela?
Speaker 2:My antitle would be gardening enthusiast. My Anne title would be gardening enthusiast. So at the moment I'm busy planting up my tulips and planting up my bulb lasagna, as Monty Don would say, I love it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm a gardening enthusiast, so not just a fair weather gardener, because it is very cold at the moment it is. So you're getting in there before the ground please, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I know, love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, angela. Thank you If you've enjoyed this episode. Please do remember to follow or subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode to enjoy. And Digital is on a mission to help close the world's digital skills gap. One of the ways we're doing this is by helping organizations deliver digital transformation more successfully through upskilling and reskilling.