Kim Macaulay is the Senior Vice President, Information & Data and Chief Information and Data Officer at IATA, where she has spent the past few years reshaping how the world's most influential aviation body manages, governs, and delivers data, technology and cybersecurity. We spoke with Kim shortly after the IATA World Data Symposium (WDS) in Singapore – an event she described as an opportunity for the C-suite to share strategies and vision and for the people who are usually behind the scenes to showcase their technology work on stage.
Before joining IATA, Kim built her career across the global banking sector, navigating the 2008 financial crisis and leading data teams through high-stakes projects, including the separation and stock exchange listing of two banks in South Africa, London and China. Her background in multiple industries, combined with deep technical expertise, gives her a distinctive leadership style – one built on stakeholder buy-in, competitive drive, and an unwillingness to settle for "it works, so why fix it?"
In our conversation, Kim shares how a headhunter's call she almost declined led to a career-defining move, and what keeps her up at night as a technology leader.
Key Takeaways
- Own your data – never outsource your brain. When Kim joined IATA, the organisation was predominantly an outsourced organization. She insourced core data, technology, and cyber capabilities while still working with strategic partners – the key is knowing what to keep in-house and what to collaborate on.
- Build once and reuse many times. Under Kim's leadership, IATA's shift to a microservices architecture delivered over $1M in savings and 80% data reusability – and the hardest part was not the technology, but getting business buy-in.
- CEO buy-in is non-negotiable. When data, technology and cybersecurity are on the agenda at the leadership table, it becomes a strategic asset.
- AI's real aviation impact is where the data is. Cargo operations, pilot training, and airports – anywhere with large data volumes and heavily manual processes – are where AI is already making a difference. But human-in-the-loop remains non-negotiable.
Your journey took you from banking in South Africa to leading the data and technology strategy at IATA. What made you switch industries?
Macaulay: It wasn't a planned change. I'm married to an airline pilot, and after living through the 2008 financial crisis, we always promised each other we'd work in different industries to protect ourselves. So when a headhunter reached out about a role at IATA, I was hesitant – I didn't even know who IATA was. I almost skipped the interview because I thought they were based in Miami, and I didn’t want to move there. But when my husband saw the logo, he said, "No, no – that's IATA." And I thought, okay, those are the guys that do IOSA audits. That could be interesting because there's a lot of data.
In banking, once you choose this industry, it's very difficult to get out. IATA gave me that chance.
But data is transferable. As long as you can understand and read data, it doesn't matter what industry you're in. And what's helped me most is the competitive mindset I built in banking – there's always somebody better, so you always have to push to stay ahead. That mentality stayed with me.
What did IATA's data landscape look like when you arrived – and how has it changed?
Macaulay: When I joined, two things frustrated me. One, we didn't have access to all of our data – we were giving it away freely, and then when we needed it back, we'd have to pay for it. Two, we outsourced everything.
As a strong IT person at heart, I'm competitive enough to want to do my own things. When I took over, the major change was to insource as much as possible. There's always going to be some outsourcing, but not your IP, your business knowledge, or your core data – that's what makes you an organisation.
You can work with strong strategic partners like Dreamix and build things together without giving up everything. It's about finding that happy medium.
IATA's data journey started around 2017 and moved slowly. When I took over, the priority was clearly to have access to all of our data, make sure the quality is good, and govern it ourselves. That's how you build valuable data products.
Over the last three years is where we really expanded, and not in isolation. The business teams are fully behind us because they need to feel confident that whatever we do from a technology and data perspective adds value to their products. Ultimately, everything we build has to serve our core customer – our member airlines.
Your unified IT framework delivered over $1 million in savings and 80% data reusability. What was the biggest barrier to getting there?
Macaulay: Getting business buy-in. When Willie Walsh had just joined IATA as a Director General, his vision was on insourcing (where it made sense). The idea was to build reusable components — because in any IT project, you need a frontend, a backend, somewhere to gather and transform data, and somewhere to visualise it. If you build those as microservices, you build once and reuse many times. You don't need third parties rebuilding the same thing, and you don't keep paying for it.
But the challenge was getting the business to understand what a microservices strategy actually looks like and what a unified data platform means. We had a lot of support from AWS, since much of our work runs there.
Today it's become almost second nature. If you ask our business people what they want, they'll say reusable architecture and microservices – technical terms that took us time to introduce. Once you start showing value and involving the business in the process, they feel part of the journey. And, business people are innovative, whether they realise it or not. Some are even more innovation-driven than our IT teams because they're always looking at how to make their products more competitive.
Where do you see AI having the most transformative impact on aviation?
Macaulay: AI has been around for many years, but ChatGPT put a huge spotlight on it. At IATA, we've done the research, selected our top platforms, and now it's time to deliver value. Every day, there's a new AI tool being launched – at some point, you've got to stop researching and start building.
Internally, the biggest impact is around productivity – removing mundane tasks and improving customer service. Airlines are already using AI for customer preferences and personalisation.
But there are two areas I'm particularly excited about.
The first is pilot training. During COVID, many pilots had to consider alternative careers, and now there's real momentum around using AI to support training and skills development.
The second is cargo. Cargo operations have shown a lot of early expansion into AI – there's exciting work around using AI and virtual reality.
Anywhere there are large amounts of data and heavily manual processes, that's where AI will expand. Airports, cargo, and the pilot space – all are fascinating.
That said, when it comes to whether pilots will ever be replaced by AI, the answer is no. This is one of those areas where risk management still requires a human-in-the-loop. No matter what we do with AI in aviation, there has to be a human-in-the-loop.
How do you actually achieve stakeholder buy-in in an industry as complex as aviation?
Macaulay: We got lucky at IATA. When Willie Walsh joined as Director General, he already understood the importance of data and wanted IT to have a strategic voice at the management committee level.
A lot of larger airlines are seeing this now, too. Many learned the hard way – they gave their data away and realised too late that it wasn't a good idea. Now they're establishing digital and data offices, and treating cybersecurity and IT as key assets.
But you need somebody at a very senior level – your CEO – who genuinely buys into why data and IT matter strategically. I saw this in banking. When IT is managed by the CFO, decisions are driven by cost, not by what makes sense for the organisation. Cutting costs leads to very different outcomes than treating technology as a strategic asset.
You've built a remarkable career at the intersection of two traditionally male-dominated industries. What advice would you give to the next generation of women in technology?
Macaulay: What I've always decided is to never be the best woman at something. I wanted to be the best person at something. I don't like to use gender as a barrier. We do have equal rights, and we can be and do whatever we want. Nothing is stopping us except ourselves.
With that mindset, any woman who wants to get into technology is going to have a lot of fun. Yes, there are still cases where people think you're not technical enough or don't want to include you in certain conversations. But we are extremely technical, and we're extremely competitive – and this comes out naturally.
My advice to young girls thinking about their future is: don't stop learning science and maths. Those are the two subjects that matter if you want to pursue a role in technology.
If you stop thinking about being the best woman and start thinking about being the best person, it changes everything. Get there first.
Looking ahead, what's keeping you up at night?
Macaulay: Two things. First, the multi-cloud strategy. With all the data privacy and data regulations coming in, how we set up our data environments is going to be a real challenge. The idea that putting data in the cloud means everything is fine – but that's not the case. We need more sustainable environments that can adapt to ever-changing regulations.
Second, cybersecurity. The bad guys are innovating at a rate that far exceeds our ability to keep up. We have to be on top of things and even ahead of what's out there. But we shouldn't be fearful, because being scared and being an ostrich is not going to save us. We need to advance – and that's why the cybersecurity team has to be at the table when we talk about innovation and transformation. We cannot do it without them.
