From navigating regulatory change in a corporate law team to leading transformation programmes at Lloyds TSB, PwC and now the Pensions Regulator, Vikki Szymanski 🪩's career shows that the most valuable transformation leaders are not always the ones who trained as engineers.

We spoke with Vikki on episode 19 of the D365 Insights podcast about what it really takes to lead successful transformation, why programmes stall and why she believes the fix always starts in the same place. As she put it herself, this episode is a look inside the mind of a transformation leader with a thousand tabs open.

Here are a few things that stood out from the conversation:

1.     A career that started in law, not tech

Vikki spent seven years working in law at a large retail bank before moving into technology. What began as reviewing terms and conditions for regulatory change turned into a curiosity about how the underlying systems actually worked.

That curiosity – and a habit of asking the tech team why they did things a certain way – slowly turned her into the go-to person on the business side. From there, the move into a business analyst role felt less like a leap and more like the next logical step.

2.     Being technical does not always mean building the system

Vikki is quick to say she is not an engineer. She does not build the solution herself. But one of her former IT project managers pulled her aside and told her to stop saying she was not technical, because she had the ability to translate business needs into something the tech team could act on and translate tech constraints back into something the business could understand.

It is a different kind of technical skill and one she now owns fully.

3.     Being the bridge is about more than translating language

Vikki describes her role as sitting between business and tech, but she is clear that this is not simply passing messages between two teams. It is helping both sides see the value in what the other is trying to achieve and working through the trade-offs together.

4.     Misalignment stalls transformation more often than technology does

Having led major programmes across banking, consulting and now the public sector, Vikki is clear on what usually causes a project to stall. It is rarely the technology. It is the business, the tech team and leadership pulling in different directions without realising it, because each group thinks it has agreed on the same outcome when it has not.

5.     Bring testers and trainers in early, not at the end

One theme Vikki returned to was the value of involving testers and trainers from the beginning of a programme, rather than bringing them in to validate the solution once it is already built.

Testers are good at challenging assumptions early. Trainers can tell you quickly if something will be too hard to explain to end users. Both, she said, help shape a solution rather than simply signing it off.

6.     The real shift is building the right thing, not just building it right

Teams naturally focus on output, on hitting milestones and delivering what was asked for. Vikki's role is often to slow that down and ask whether the thing being built is actually what the business needs.

As she summed it up, the question is not whether we are building it right, but whether we are building the right thing.

7.     The contract market now rewards proven value over generalist experience

Vikki has been contracting since 2009, and she has seen the market shift significantly. Where roles once rewarded broad, transferable skill sets, clients now scrutinise cost, IR35 status and exactly what system experience a candidate has in their last few contracts.

Her advice for standing out in a tougher market is to be deliberate about showing the impact you bring, rather than assuming your value speaks for itself.

8.     Underestimating your own worth is a pattern that crosses every sector

Vikki now mentors more than a dozen women in tech and she sees the same pattern come up again and again. Talented women wait until they feel fully ready before putting themselves forward, downplay their achievements and take on work that does not reflect their level because they are capable of it.

Her advice, both to her mentees and to herself, is simple: know your own worth, say what you do clearly and stop waiting for permission to claim the value you already bring.

It is fitting that Vikki's single piece of advice for any organisation starting a CRM or ERP transformation echoes everything else she shared in this episode. Focus on the problem you are trying to solve, not the system you are buying. Get that right and the technology becomes an enabler rather than the whole story.

This episode is a reminder that great transformation leadership has less to do with technical expertise and more to do with alignment, communication and knowing where your value really sits.

🎧 You can listen to the full episode on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search D365 Insights by Source & Connect.