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Welcome to The Executive Exchange, a premier podcast series for on-the-go senior executives. Each episode features short, impactful podcasts where industry leaders share key insights and experiences from the water industry.
[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15 minute podcast, in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:10] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark and my guest today is Martin Jackson, the new CIO, Chief Information Officer at Northumbrian Water in the UK.
Martin, wonderful to be connected with you.
[00:00:22] Martin Jackson: Likewise Piers, really looking forward to it and really excited to get into it.
[00:00:27] Piers Clark: We always start with a little bit of background on the podcaster. So, let's learn a little bit about who Martin Jackson is.
What were you doing before you did this role? How did you get into the water sector?
[00:00:38] Martin Jackson: Yeah, it's roughly been a career of two halves, really. So the first part was in the automotive sector working for Nissan in a global role in IT, transformation change.
[00:00:51] Martin Jackson: So I started life there actually as an apprentice which is very apt given its National Apprenticeship Week, and I've just been meeting some apprentices there in our organization. And I kind of grew through that organization, starting life in more technical roles and then eventually culminating in more program management.
I then changed gear and an opportunity came for me to join Northumbrian Water Group and move into an entirely different sector in utilities. The role I picked up at that point was focused on relationship management. And since then I've done a raft of different roles in the organization. I've done strategic roles, I've covered service management for a period.
[00:01:32] Martin Jackson: And then as you've alluded to, more recently in the summertime, the role of CIO became vacant from Nigel retiring our previous CIO and I picked up that role. So the last six months, I've been part of the executive team working as a CIO in Northumbrian Water Group.
[00:01:48] Piers Clark: Excellent. Now, you commented that you had just been mentoring some apprentices and it's really good to hear why you enjoyed doing that because it helps the listener get a sense of who is the individual. So just repeat for me why you so enjoyed doing that apprenticeship.
[00:02:05] Martin Jackson: One of the key ingredients I think of innovation is diversity of thought, and that comes in all sorts of forms. Honestly, I think the apprentices absolutely represent that. So they are bringing fresh perspectives, new ideas.
[00:02:19] Martin Jackson: It feels like a long time actually since I was apprentice myself. But it is quite relatable 'cause I've got kids of my own and my son, my eldest is rich in those kind of years now and I think getting tips from them actually and learning about their experience, it helps you as a father as well, doesn't it?
[00:02:35] Piers Clark: Well, thank you for that. And yeah, every day is a learning day.
Now, let's talk a little bit about Northumbrian Water. Where are you? How many people do you serve? What sort of activities do you do?
[00:02:45] Martin Jackson: Yeah, so we are split into two regions of operations. So, we serve water and wastewater customers up here in Northumbria, which is in the northeast of England. We also have Essex and Suffolk Water, where we deliver water services only to the northeast of London. We've roughly got about 4.5 million customers across those areas.
[00:03:08] Martin Jackson: And in the UK, the water industry is vertically integrated. So, what I mean by that is we do abstraction, we do treatment, we do distribution, and we do retail. So it is an organization that is multifaceted and has lots of different dynamics from customer experience, right way through asset management and everything in between. So, really diverse organization.
[00:03:31] Piers Clark: And it's drinking water and wastewater in particular. You do both sides of the water cycle.
[00:03:36] Piers Clark: Excellent. Now, We are recording this in mid-February 2026. So you are sort of six months or so into the role of Chief Information Officer. Six months means you are out of the honeymoon period now. The decisions you make, you can't blame on your predecessor, you've gotta own them.
[00:03:51] Piers Clark: And the beauty of talking to you is that you are not a water man. You are not an engineer, you are not a scientist. You are not from water, you are from infrastructure. But you've come in with a very different perspective to that is typical in the water sector.
[00:04:04] Piers Clark: So, the conversation I want us to have here is to try and get a sense of a CIO's perspective of the water sector.
[00:04:11] Piers Clark: I'm really keen to hear what are the things that you worry about? What are the things that excite you?
[00:04:16] Martin Jackson: Yeah, I mean, we are going through unprecedented times in the UK water industry, aren't we? We've had the Cunliffe review throughout last year, which published its recommendations in the autumn period, and then more recently we've had the governmental white paper emerge with their viewpoint on how they're going to take forward those recommendations.
[00:04:34] Martin Jackson: And I think in times of significant change in any industry and any walk of life, actually, that brings opportunity. And I think the key opportunity here is the ability to almost reinvent our industry and how we approach very traditional work and practices and drive innovation.
[00:04:53] Martin Jackson: So I think, working in the field that I do, which is obviously about digitalization, it's about digital transformation, and I'm also the exec sponsor for innovation, there's no better time to leverage that toolbox and those capabilities and those opportunities than we are seeing right now in the industry. So I think for me, I look forward with excitement.
And I think as an organization, we are invested heavily over the last five or six years in technology capabilities. So the foundations are there in place and that enables us to really focus on how can we differentiate ourselves through things like AI, through smart systems, and other innovations.
[00:05:34] Piers Clark: Can you give me some real practical examples of things that you've done that have delivered that impact?
[00:05:41] Martin Jackson: The key example we are working on right now and actually implemented is our smart sewer in Tyneside. We've got a huge investment plan that we are implementing over this five year period so for 2025 to 2030, that is about three times the investment of the last five year period.
The idea here is how can we optimize the capacity in the existing sewer network using AI, digital twins and sensor capabilities before we even pour any new concrete to enhance the storage capacity in that network. So, this is taking leading thinking from across in the US where this kind of approach is being used in multiple cities across America and bringing it right into our own context in Tyneside.
And the really unique thing is we are taking it a step further so it doesn't just analyze the network, it also simulates what will happen in a storm event and shows how we can manage the flows and capacity in the network. It then feeds that directly back into our control systems. So we've got the human in the loop. So the human still reviews the strategy and goes, yes correct. So, we have some level of guardrails in place for that.
[00:06:51] Piers Clark: Brilliant. Can you share how much did it cost to do this sort of smart network and how much do you think you've saved? And is it actually being used at the moment or is it still a project in plan?
[00:07:02] Martin Jackson: So it's live. There's essentially multiple legs in that sewer network. We've got a number of those legs now that are live with the control points, fully active in place. We've got other legs where we still have some control points to put in place.
[00:07:17] Piers Clark: When you say "legs", do you mean parts of the sewer network?
[00:07:22] Martin Jackson: Yes exactly. It's a little bit too early to say exactly the benefits that we're getting. We were actually hampered somewhat by the summer being particularly dry so there wasn't enough flow in the network.
[00:07:33] Martin Jackson: So yeah, we're still collecting data on that, but the initial results are looking very, very promising to us.
[00:07:39] Martin Jackson: I think the other side of the coin is about offsetting investment needed in infrastructure projects as well. And what we are seeing is we are taking that thinking and we're now applying it to other parts of our operations in other regions. And we're seeing that can be in terms of tens of millions of pounds of benefit in terms of offsetting capital investment needs by optimizing what we've got there in place.
[00:08:01] Piers Clark: Yeah, you can eke out a sort of 5, 10, 15% operational saving which is hard to capture in budgets because there's so much volatility in general operating budgets. The really big saving with these sorts of things is if you can eliminate or curtail or reduce some big capital scheme because you now can either find an alternative way around that problem or divert the money to other places.
That's where the real saving gets captured.
[00:08:26] Martin Jackson: Yeah, it's also obviously reduction in carbon from offsetting the capital work as well. And it's kind of multifaceted in terms of the value it can bring and speed of delivery as well. Of course, you can deploy a digital solution a lot quicker than you can engineer a solution.
[00:08:42] Piers Clark: Excellent point. Now, you're a CIO, but you are not an engineer and you are relatively new to the water sector. So when you are looking at the things that the water sector's doing, where do you see better information in the day-to-day operations of a water utility?
[00:08:56] Martin Jackson: Yeah, I think one of the key things that I reflect on is that there's more of a requirement than ever for collaboration across the industry. So I think when we are shaping the future of the industry, obviously coming together to create that shared vision is important.
[00:09:12] Martin Jackson: But I think what underpins that is how we can collaborate through data and technology and innovation as well. And I think one of the key enablers for that is the work that we've been doing on open data through Stream. Stream is the UK Water Industry Open Data Initiative. We're all participants in that organization individually.
[00:09:32] Piers Clark: When you say "we all", you mean all of the water utilities in the UK?
[00:09:36] Martin Jackson: Yes, the water utilities publish their data in the Stream and then that can be used to innovate, to build new AI models, to drive new value for our customers.
We've got data sets available through Stream that people can access. Some of that is about transparency so it underpins, for instance, the National Storm Overflow hub. So if you go online, you can look at the status of all of the storm overflow across the UK from each wastewater organization.
A lot of application around is where smaller SMEs or innovators are using that information then to develop new products and services as well. So I think that's a key differentiator for us as an industry, and I think it's a real opportunity that can help shape the future of new innovation and new products and services for our customers.
[00:10:23] Piers Clark: Martin, you are so right. Collaboration across the sector is vital. If I remember correctly, one of the major things that came out of Northumbrian Water's Annual Innovation Festival was a underground mapping of assets, not just within the water sector, but actually across telecoms, gas, electricity, and water.
[00:10:41] Martin Jackson: Yeah, this is a perfect example of a convergence of the innovation DNA that we have as an organization, but also how we can leverage open data as an industry for new opportunities.
[00:10:52] Martin Jackson: The National Underground Asset Register actually was formed in one of our innovation festivals. And it's actually recently received Royal Assent in terms of organizations are now mandated to share their information through this platform. And the idea of it is each individual entity, organization, utility, all have their own asset registers of underground assets. This brings all of that together on a one combined view, which is then shared, so we can all gain access to that information to see where other assets from other utilities exist.
The benefits for that, there's two. One is obviously health and safety. So it removes, power strikes in our context, which is obviously a big risk for our field workers, but also it drives efficiency because we can have a lot more certainty on exactly where those assets are.
Obviously this is something that Nigel Watson was close to and help develop and he would be a fantastic person, I think to delve into that topic on.
[00:11:51] Piers Clark: You know what? I think Martin, I think we're gonna try and line him up to be the follow on podcast. We could have new CIO talking about the things you are facing and old CIO talking about some of the successes that he brought together.
[00:12:03] Piers Clark: Now, what worries you? What keeps you awake at night when you look at the sector? Are we ready to embrace machine learning and AI?
[00:12:10] Martin Jackson: I think we do need ensure that the right guardrails are placed around AI. So as an organization, we reflected ourselves on this a few years back and we felt, we want AI to act as we would expect our people with the same values and the same ethics.
[00:12:27] Martin Jackson: So we created a framework for AI at that point, which had some key principles around how we could ensure that it was adopted safely and it represented all the things that we would want it to represent in our organization. I think there is an opportunity to expand that out onto an industry level and share some of those common practices.
The next progression for the industry is potentially to start sharing some AI models as well openly and publishing those and developing ideas around common architectures and frameworks in AI. I think that's where we are heading as an industry. And you are already starting to see some of that happen through the OFWAT Innovation Fund, which stimulates collaboration.
[00:13:10] Martin Jackson: I think it is important though, that we do have some common principles and we each have the same values across the industry and how this information's being used.
[00:13:20] Martin Jackson: How do we protect our customers? How do we ensure we continue to enhance the environment?
[00:13:25] Piers Clark: Excellent. Well, we're running out of time and we always finish with a cheeky question.
[00:13:31] Piers Clark: So Martin, if you could go back 20 years, what advice would you give your younger self?
[00:13:36] Martin Jackson: This is a perfect question because I've just had the apprentices in and doing some mentoring, and this is the exact thing that we were talking about.
The question I got from one of the apprentices there was how do you overcome imposter syndrome? And I said the only way to get comfortable is by first being uncomfortable.
[00:13:53] Martin Jackson: And how do you do that? Well, you break it down, don't you? When you see it as smaller steps and each step brings more comfort. And I think my career reflecting on it, it's been a series of smaller steps moving into new roles, taking on new experiences for the first time and learning.
[00:14:11] Martin Jackson: And then ultimately then you would get to the point where you are at the CIO level and you reflect back and you can see very tangibly all of those small steps and how they've accounted for where we are today.
[00:14:22] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me Piers Clark, and my guest today has been Martin Jackson, CIO at Northumbrian Water. Thank you to our sponsors, and until next time, keep asking questions, keep sharing, and keep safe.