NETWORK RAIL'S IT CHIEF VOTED BEST IN UK

Friday 12 Jun 2009

NETWORK RAIL'S IT CHIEF VOTED BEST IN UK

Region & Route:: National

Britain's largest and most influential companies have voted Catherine Doran, Network Rail’s IT chief, as ‘the UK’s most influential technology leader’.

Catherine, director of corporate development (including responsibility for all IT) at Network Rail, beat off tough competition to win the silicon.com CIO50 award that celebrates the most influential and innovative tech chiefs in the UK across all industries and organisations, large and small, public and private. The list is compiled from the votes of UK chief information officers plus input from a panel of experts.

Doran, who also won Computing magazine's IT Leader of the Year in November 2008 is leading an IT revolution at Network Rail, which has just published record results. It has also just begun a new five-year funding period which will see some £35 billion invested in Britain’s railway. The company is charged by its regulator to cut a further 21% of running costs over this period (having already cut 27% in the previous five years) and so having the systems in place to achieve these efficiencies are crucial.

On winning the award, Catherine Doran said: "Good IT is critical to running a successful railway – and it is successful – but it’s not just about the technology that runs the trains. It’s about understanding what the company as a whole is trying to achieve and how all the individual parts of it work together to make this happen – and then getting IT to help make it work better. If this award shows I’m doing a good job, then I’m of course honored that I’ve been recognised, but it's a tribute to everyone in my team who work really hard to make this company a success."

Praising his director, chief executive Iain Coucher said: "Train performance is at an all time high, the railways have never been safer to travel on, millions of pounds are being saved from the cost of running the network and billions invested to make further improvements. Catherine’s dedication to helping us achieve this is significant and I’m thrilled and extremely proud that she has received this tremendous recognition from her business peers."

Notes to editors

About the award This year's top list was compiled using the ballots of nearly three dozen of the UK's most prominent IT chiefs, including CIOs and IT executives who have featured in the list in previous years, as well as votes from members of silicon.com's CIO Jury community and a panel of CIO experts. The CIOs who voted this year include executives from some of the largest organisations in the UK, from retail and financial services companies through to central and local government bodies. CIOs were asked to judge their peers anonymously on the basis of the CIO's leadership ability, delivery and execution record, innovation and influence. Doran topped this year's CIO50 list as she heads a programme to transform the way Network Rail operates, in order to support a £35bn revamp and expansion of the UK's rail network. Catherine Doran is joined in the top five this year by: • Neil Cameron, global CIO, Unilever • Christine Connelly, CIO, Department of Health • John Suffolk, CIO, UK government • Darrell Stein, director, IT and Logistics, Marks & Spencer Visit: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/cio50-2009/list-top.htm For more information Catherine Doran – Career History September 2008 to date Director, Corporate Development – Network Rail June 2006 – August 2008 Director, Information Management - Network Rail 2005 – 2006 Head of Delivery/Chief Architect – LCH Clearnet 2003 – 2005 CIO BT Retail/Director of Transformation & Technology 2000 – 2003 European Chief Information Officer - CapitalOne 1994 – 2000 Head of Development – NatWest Retail Bank 1992 – 1994 Head of Billing Development – BT 1983 – 1992 Technical Consultant & Project Manager – BT 1976 – 1983 Graduate Trainee – Altergo Ltd and Data Logic

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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

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