Kathryn’s work has been featured in publications such as Vogue, Wired, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Die Zeit, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, The Times and beyond.
In recognition of her achievements, Kathryn was awarded an MBE for services to education from The Queen. She was also named FT’s Top 30 Women in Tech, British Airways Top 100 Britons, Global Impact Entrepreneur of The Year, The Veuve Clicquot New Generation Business Women of the Year and entered the Computer Weekly Hall of Fame.
Financial Times - Top 100 Business Schools - Executive Education
“Decoded is a training business founded in 2011 with the goal of demystifying the online world. Its courses are designed to explain complex new technologies to workforces in accessible ways, helping them become more productive…
Dutch food retailer Ahold Delhaize signed up Decoded to train about 350 of its senior leaders on four digital-awareness workshops, designed to demystify developers, hackers, data scientists and innovation, and to help technical and non-technical staff understand one another. Ahold Delhaize also sends executives on leadership programmes at Harvard Business School but did not see the Decoded contract as a choice between a traditional executive education institution and an alternative provider, according to Ben Wishart, Ahold Delhaize’s global chief information officer. However, the company warmed to Decoded’s unconventional style.
“What made Decoded different was that the people doing the training are active practitioners,” says Wishart. “When they are not training they are delivering digital initiatives. The delivery style is more the Ant and Dec of digital transformation than it is formal theory-based education,” he adds, referencing the upbeat UK reality television show hosts. “The participants could not do anything but be drawn in and learn.”
Although Decoded trades on a more informal style of teaching than traditional institutions, clients expect the company to be just as rigorous in proving the business case for short courses as a business school, according to Parsons. “The pressure to deliver a measurable return on investment, not just to the learner but to the business, is becoming increasingly important,” she says. Decoded’s “Data Academies” are now being run for more than 30 organisations worldwide.”
The Financial Times - M&S aims to turn staff into data scientists
“M&S expects to train more than 1,000 employees in the first 18 months of the academy’s operation, from board directors and members of the finance department to the buyers of new product lines and store managers. Successful students will gain a data analytics qualification accredited by the British Computer Society and the training will be funded through the apprenticeship levy, a UK government scheme that forces companies to set aside an equivalent of 0.5 per cent of their payroll for staff training. “This is a pioneering and inspiring commitment to life-long learning and future-facing skills,” she said. “Every leader in business today should take note.”
Harpers Baazar - The Shock of The New. AI & The Workplace.
“Kathryn Parsons, the entrepreneur behind the technology education company Decoded, is currently working with companies across multiple sectors, from Citi and HSBC to Kering and Christie’s, to help them navigate some of these pitfalls and use AI to their best advantage. ‘There’s a common feeling among leaders that someone else knows more than they do – but in fact, very few businesses have so far found a good use for many of the tools,’ she says. ‘The smartest companies those where the leadership is trusted – are allowing their teams to learn about the technology and play with it, while reassuring people that their jobs are safe.’ At the. insurance brand Aviva, she has been collaborating with management on a programme that aims to upskill tens of thousands of employees, giving them the potential to occupy future positions that might otherwise need to be hired in from outside. ‘It means that even if AI does replace some parts of their existing jobs, there’s the chance to co-create new roles for these individuals.’”
Vogue Codes
“The impact of Parsons and Decoded is felt widely across the international technology industry: Parsons speaks at conferences, introducing people to digital learning and campaigning for coding to be added to the school curriculum, a feat achieved in Britain in 2014, making it the second country after Estonia to take the lead.”
“Parsons is a powerful voice in encouraging women to embrace the technology sphere. “The world has been changed by technology. Every single product we use is impacting our behaviour, our lives, and it’s pretty much predominantly been encoded in lines of code written by men. So I want women to be a part of it.”
(left to right) Harpers Bazaar, The Guardian, Management Today, Vogue, Women in Data