Witad Awards 2021: Above and beyond award—Helen Packard, Bank of England

The Bank of England (BoE) committed in 2019 to becoming more efficient by using data and technology in supervisory processes and judgments. And in 2020, the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) implemented artificial intelligence (AI) that, among other benefits, allows supervisors to easily find information with a Google-style search.

Helen Packard, head of Brexit and digital transformation at the BoE, led the implementation, which began in March 2020 and was completed in just nine months—despite being disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“To deliver this fintech tool during Covid in nine months, in a secure environment with at times as many as 70 people working it, all with different working patterns—well, it was a testing time,” says Packard, who leads a team of 50. “We decided it had to be an Agile project: We needed daily scrums, we needed to be very focused, and we needed to deliver, deliver, deliver.” 

Packard says the team emphasized proactive and pre-emptive actions—trying to approach the project in a way that actively improved the journey, while anticipating the future needs of the team. “Those two aspects really helped us go through a very complex journey,” she says.

The tool has heralded a major shift in how the PRA works, Packard says, as it makes finding relevant information much more efficient. 

The financial industry is shifting to the digital economy, and regulators must adapt, she adds. “The team I sit in—the regtech team—is an interesting example: We’ve never had one before, and now we do. We have data scientists and all sorts of different skills that are now embedded across the PRA. And I think that is great. It shows that we are not transforming in small ways, but that this is part of how we supervise now,” she says. 

Packard is also proud that while implementing this tool, she also completed a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and innovation, in November 2020, while homeschooling her seven-year-old daughter. “I did it because in the 20 years since my first degree, technology has changed massively, and I need to stay relevant and have time to think and learn properly,” she says.