Chief Information and Financial Officer at the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), Nic Granger, was awarded an OBE for services to digital transformation in the King's Birthday Honours on Saturday.
Granger joined the NSTA in 2016, following her work as Financial Secretary of the Falkland Islands Government. Throughout her career she has blended her background in finance and accounting with the digital skills she learnt from completing an IT degree.
One career highlight for Granger has been leading the team who set up the National Data Repository (NDR) which now holds over a petabyte of data. NDR data is reported by those with a petroleum license or owners of offshore infrastructure and informs carbon storage and offshore wind locations, driving forwards the energy transition.
On learning of the honour, Granger commented that “it never even crossed my mind that something like this was on the cards." Reflecting on her team's work she said "I think our successes have been approaching our work with a mindset that we need digital solutions that work for people and businesses and serve a real-life purpose."
She emphasises: “the tech solution is the easy part. It’s bringing people along with you that’s the challenge – and brings the real change. You can put in a new system, but it only
works if it works for the people that use it.”
Granger sits on a number of key transformation organisations including chairing the Offshore Energy Digital Strategy Group and the Risk, Audit and Finance Committee for BCS which is the Chartered Institute for IT. She is also a non-executive director of CAST, the Centre for Acceleration of Social Technology and sits on the Transformation Advisory Board, here at Government Transformation Magazine.
Having been included in the 2024 and 2023 CIO100 list, a finalist for Digital Leader
of the Year 2021 and included in the 2025 OpenUK honours list for open data, Granger's OBE comes after years of successful, transformative service.
Stuart Payne, Chief Executive of the NSTA, said: “on behalf of everyone at the
NSTA I am delighted for Nic. In addition to her day job, Nic has given significant
amounts of her time in support of communities, conservation and her profession.
Through her work on numerous boards and committees as well as mentoring and
coaching individuals, Nic has consistently worked to make a positive difference.”