Katie Nykanen

Council Member

Katie is a Chief Technology Officer with broad industry experience in Retail, Telco, Advertising and Education. She is a customer and user focussed CTO, prioritising the use of technology to improve experience, grow businesses and drive operational efficiencies. She has spoken for many years about the importance of getting more women into Technology leadership roles and is a regular panellist at industry events.

During her time as Group CTO at QA Ltd, the UK’s largest provider of corporate learning, Katie became even more interested in innovative ways to develop and train people at all stages of life and from truly diverse backgrounds to learn technology skills. She is also an advocate for the importance of learning (safe) digital skills from a young age and finding a balance between tech for good and maintaining a healthy ‘offline’ life.

QA also run the outsourced operation of a number of UK HE establishments and Katie’s interest in Universities was peaked when she saw that the student digital experience was pretty poor and organisational operation could be much improved by bringing in smarter tech. Katie wants to support The University of Buckingham’s digital transformation programme and look at further opportunities to use technology solutions to improve the day to day lives of students, faculty and all members of the UOB team.

Katie is a working Mum of 4 tweens and teens and chairs a charity supporting education for women and children in Ethiopia. She spent 11 years working and living in Dubai before returning to the UK in 2016 and is a keen runner.