Helen Gerling

Helen Gerling has a substantial work experience history, starting as an IT Engineer at MBI in Chicago from August 1998 to June 2003. Helen then moved on to various ICT and Business Change roles at Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council from September 2003 to August 2007, including Service Desk, Security, Infrastructure, and ITIL implementation.

From August 2007 to January 2010, Helen served as an IT Project Manager at Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, where they successfully transformed IT operations to achieve annual savings of £1.2 million. Helen then took on the role of Business Transformation Project Manager at the same organization from January 2010 to January 2011, leading a commercially smart and sustainable APSE award-winning transformation of Greenspace and Street services, resulting in budgetary savings of 34% per year.

Helen's career then took their to Rochdale Borough Council, where they held the positions of ICT Strategy & Planning Manager from January 2011 to December 2012, responsible for renegotiating outsourced IT contracts and successfully bringing IT services in-house, saving £2 million annually. Helen also served as Head of Business Solutions from December 2012 to April 2013.

After a brief stint as an Independent Consultant from March 2013 to October 2013, providing IT consultancy to the public sector and education, Helen joined Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) from October 2013 to December 2014. In this role, they implemented strategic relationship management and a commercial approach to the procurement function, leading to significant efficiency savings from outsourced back-office transactional services.

Helen then transitioned to techUK, where they held various committee positions from January 2019 to present, including Vice Chair of the Local Public Services Committee from September 2019 to August 2021 and Committee Member of the Cloud Leadership Committee from April 2022 to present.

Currently, Helen serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Shaping Cloud since November 2020, where they lead the company in delivering intelligent cloud solutions and acting as a trusted technical partner to enterprise organizations. Prior to their CEO position, they were the Managing Director of Shaping Cloud from November 2019 to October 2020, successfully turning the company around within six months by introducing recurring revenue streams, transforming back-office operations, and initiating the development of an innovative product.

Throughout their career, Helen has demonstrated expertise in technology consultancy, digital strategy creation, cloud technology, and project management. Helen has worked with a variety of organizations across sectors such as health and social care, public, and education sectors.

Helen Gerling attended Kingsmead School from 1982 to 1991. After that, they went on to West Kirby Grammar School from 1991 to 1998. During their education, Helen did not obtain any degrees or specialize in any specific fields of study. Additionally, they have received several certifications, including PRINCE2 Practitioner from APM Group, Azure from Microsoft, ITIL V3 from ICMB, and MCDST and MCTS 2008 from Microsoft. The obtained month and year for these certifications are not provided.