UK Parliament CDIO Tracey Jessup to join DeMontfort University

Tracey Jessup, CDIO (Chief Digital and Information Officer) of the UK Parliament, will take on the newly created role of CTO (Chief Transformation Officer) at DeMontfort University in Leicester.

The directors of digital, cybersecurity, human resources, marketing and communications will report to Jessup, who will in turn report to the university’s vice chancellor, Katie Normington.

“Aligned with De Montfort University’s Empowering University Strategy, I will lead, develop and manage comprehensive changes in the way DMU operates its business, including delivering a multi-year strategy to align technology, people and ways of working” says Jessup. She added that she chose the role over other opportunities because of the “convergence of people, process and technology” and the opportunity to be “an integral part of executing such a strong corporate strategy.”

Normington explained in an email to university staff that Jessup’s appointment would help better serve the university’s communities.

“Tracey’s role will be absolutely critical to the success of the transformational journey we have begun and our determination to become the ’empowering university’ that the communities we serve deserve,” Normington wrote. “With her wealth of experience, I know Tracey will bring fresh, focused thinking and strong, authentic leadership to shape our sustainable, digital future, while unlocking and expanding transformational opportunities for students and staff.”

An online ad for the position, posted by staffing agency Perrett Laver late last year, says the university is seeking a chief transformation officer who can help the institution answer and evaluate questions related to the education of the future , how the institution is aligning with the city and new ways of working, and examine how deMontfort could provide an inspirational or “uplifting” education for students.

“We are now seeking a new Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) who can answer some of these questions and help us become a university of the future,” the ad reads. “As digital technology and mobile platforms increasingly push physical and geographic boundaries, creating new opportunities for our students and staff to engage, we need a CTO to help guide and develop our new academic and corporate strategies to ensure a successful and sustainable future for our university and our offer.”

The university searched for records of the company’s transformation

The ad also said the university was looking for a CTO with a track record of business transformation in public or commercial organizations to serve at the director level and someone who would bring experience in “transformative change of large customer-centric digital and information systems.” . within a complex environment and governance framework’.

Jessup has been CDIO of the UK Parliament since October 2020 and focuses on how the institution works with the Parliamentary Digital Service to deliver services more efficiently.

Her recent achievements included getting Members of the House of Commons and Lords to work remotely via Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and enabling secure remote voting on bills. By September last year, Jessup said there had been over 19,000 remote chamber contributions from MPs and peers using Zoom and over 1,000 special committee meetings.

“As the pandemic hit the UK and the population headed towards lockdown, we had to find a way to enable democracy continuity virtually,” she says. “And this in a two-week timeframe when typical outreaches of this nature last about 15 months, and when members, colleagues and staff were all accustomed to a personal and deeply traditional work environment.”

Jessup had recently worked to set up a digital academy to ensure the two chambers understand the implications of digitization, develop a new program team and define a new operating model for the technology function in Parliament.

Jessup, a CIO UK 100 member who sits on the Governing Boards of the House of Commons and House of Lords, has been promoted to the CDIO role, having previously been CIO, Chief Executive and Deputy Director of the Parliamentary Digital Service, which is responsible for is the strategic direction of Parliament’s digital offering to transform the way citizens can engage with Parliament. This included building a new website for Parliament, providing and managing parliamentary digital platforms and providing technology services to Members and staff in Westminster and across the UK.

Her rise as a digital executive is a far cry from where it all began when she worked as a clerk in the House of Commons in the Committee Office, Public Bill Office, Overseas Office and Table Office in the Department of Chamber and Committee Services (DCCS). Jessup was also the domestic servant’s private secretary and manager for three years.

“One of the great things about Parliament is that we just have such a wide range of disciplines and colleagues working in all kinds of areas,” she said at last year’s official CIO summit. “And when you are in Parliament there is a great opportunity to move, work and learn within this internal labor market.”

“I came to Parliament on the graduate program over 20 years ago, as a case officer working with Members in Parliament [House of] Commons,” Jessup said. “And I’ve played a variety of roles in the last six or seven roles. I’ve been in digital since 2014… my entry into digital was actually being a big part of a design and digital project we did here in Parliament called ‘Print to Web’ and it was about the huge amount of papers from Parliament to run both chambers and see how we could start digitizing that.”

The UK Parliament declined to comment on plans to replace Jessup at the time of writing.