In today’s environment where businesses are undergoing rapid transformation, and with technology fuelling the pace of change, PwC is bringing its business expertise alongside its long-standing relationships with technology leaders to drive value for its clients.  

A former AWS Executive with 25 years in cloud tech, Nicola has implemented cutting-edge technological solutions for clients, with a strong emphasis on co-innovation and delivering value at scale. Prior to AWS, Nicola worked at Microsoft for 10 years, and she co-founded and managed a sales and marketing consultancy. 

Interestingly, she says she had come to tech almost by accident. “I studied law, then I travelled a bit. When I needed a job to fund my post-graduate studies, I ended up in IT sales and found that this was much more fun and more creative. So, I decided to continue in the technology sphere,” she says.

Accelerated transition through alliance partnerships

Amazon Web Services is PwC’s valued alliance partner– in September 2023, PwC announced a three-year global strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to accelerate innovation, improve operational efficiency and transform the way business is done. The move enhanced PwC’s strong expertise in using the cloud to power business, while allowing the two firms to deliver approximately $800 million in value to clients, according to a joint release.

Nicola’s task is to unlock the potential of PwC’s alliance with AWS, merging PwC’s extensive EMEA expertise with their market knowledge. This positions PwC as the preferred collaborator for clients seeking transformative, innovative, and cloud-focused solutions.

She says: “One of the reasons I joined PwC was the leadership principles that are aligned with my values as well as my personality. In terms of culture, AWS has a lot of similarities with PwC, the most important is that we start with the client and work backwards from there. We help build businesses achieve ambitions rather than sell ready-made products.”

Nicola, who is positioned in PwC’s EMEA Alliances Impact Center, further points out that PwC is leveraging strategic alliances with the world’s leading technology and data companies to help accelerate innovation and power the client’s business transformation. With PwC’s industry insight and technology expertise, clients get tailored and best-fit digital solutions that simplify their systems and amplify their results.

Transforming the industry

PwC’s 27th Annual Global CEO Survey confirmed that many companies are taking steps to reinvent themselves within the digital transformation sphere to stay viable in at least 10 years’ time.  Specifically, the survey looked at generative AI, which has all the hallmarks of a technology that could significantly change how companies operate, transform business models, redefine work processes and overhaul entire industries. 

Nicola points out that although AI has become a hot topic, it has been used in industry for a long time. “What I really love about IT is that it almost enables you to see into the future – the things you’re working on now will probably hit the market in three to five years. And what we are going to see is digital innovation leading business, and industry, transformation.”

PwC has long solved complex problems in industry. The results of the CEO survey, where 45% of CEOs feel their business model will not sustain them in their current paths, lend themselves to PwC’s business transformation services. Here, the company works with clients to look into their future, build a strategy, design or refine structures, build solutions to quickly test in market and optimise and ensure success of new model operations, while taking a holistic approach, which includes the technology solutions as well as the business and process layers to ensure smooth adoption and long-term benefit.

As an example, she mentions PwC’s strategic partnership with Engine by Starling, software-as-a-service (SaaS) subsidiary of Starling Bank that launched in 2022. Starling Bank was founded in 2014 by Anne Boden and launched in the UK in 2017.

“Starting with business transformation with Starling to build a digital banking solution they could leverage in the UK, the client realised the benefit was much wider across the whole banking sector,” she says.

“Engine brings modern banking technology to banks around the world. The Engine platform, built to power Starling Bank, is modular, API-based, cloud-native and proven at scale. The ones who ultimately benefit most are the banks’ customers.”

Sustainable progress

Nicola reflects that it is not just the product that PwC and AWS are willing to present to clients but also a novel idea and delivering on that. “It’s about talking about the art of the possible, about making clients think in different terms.”

“With technology, you can literally shape the future. We can start with an idea and then figure out how to get there. Sometimes that takes time. And it takes incredibly clever people. But the amazing thing about technology is that if you can dream it, you can achieve it.”

In terms of current market trends, she affirms that sustainability is just as important as digitisation for business leaders, and the two go hand in hand. “All of the alliance partners we work with have a strong sustainability message, and specifically Amazon has set themselves very, very aggressive goals and tasks in terms of sustainability and carbon neutrality. “

Statistically, an AWS data centre is typically five times more efficient than a typical data centre in Europe. They are water-positive – billions of litres of water used to cool the data centres are returned to communities.  By the end of 2022, 90% of AWS energy came from renewable sources.

“AWS systematically work with suppliers to improve efficiency for hardware, and where possible they use sustainable fuels. They also use the technology for longer. So overall, AWS are reducing their own carbon footprint, which means their customers using the data centres are getting the benefit in terms of their sustainability goals.”

Growing in diversity

Diversity is another major topic and Nicola affirms that this is one of her big passions. “Both AWS and PwC have implemented progressive diversity policies. However, I believe it is necessary to go deeper, to help raise interest in STEM subjects for girls or disadvantaged children already at schools, help them think about technology or engineering as their career choice.”

“Why am I so passionate about diversity? In my experience, the best ideas come from teams that have different perspectives, with members coming from different countries, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different cultures. That makes the biggest impact. And I also think we owe it to the next generation to do better. If we are not feeding into diversity that is representative of a community then we will continue with biases and with discrimination. “

PwC has recently pushed diversity strongly, she says, noting that the company has opened up the gateway for non-traditional PwC candidates, and introduced apprenticeships and internships, bringing people in from various backgrounds.

“I myself am a great example of that attitude – I didn’t go to the “right” university and I definitely don’t fit the mould of what you would consider a traditional PwC partner,” she says, adding that the alliance teams that PwC has built with members from different parts of the world and diverse career experience is another great example of where that non-traditional version of a PwC partner is really delivering value to the organisation.

“That can only be achieved by team effort.  The value of PwC and its alliance business is that collection of people who want to innovate and work together and drive for a common outcome. And that really aligns with AWS. My overriding belief is that we have a lot of very, very talented people, and the real magic happens when we come together as a team,” she concludes.