Admiral Group’s Pankaj Kane a finalist for Software Leader of the Year at AI and Software Development Awards
Admiral Group’s chief engineer Pankaj Kane has been named a finalist for Software Leader of the Year at the AI and Software Development Awards, with winners set to be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday, 14 May. Kane, Chief Engineer at Admiral Group Plc, has more than 28 years of technology leadership across India, New Zealand, Denmark and the UK.
He is known for building high‑performing engineering cultures and leading large‑scale transformation, focusing on strengthening engineering capability, advancing automation and tooling, and using data‑driven approaches to improve quality, delivery pace and long‑term operational excellence.
He said awards of this kind matter because they create space to pause in a fast‑moving sector and highlight the people and practices turning emerging technologies into real‑world impact—responsibly and at scale, with humans firmly in the loop. They also offer a chance for collective learning across industries, he added, helping teams share lessons and raise the bar for software leadership.
Kane described being shortlisted as an honour because it recognises leadership rather than a single product or technology. For Admiral, he said, recognition would reinforce the belief that investment in engineering excellence, people capability and responsible AI pays dividends in productivity, trust and long‑term outcomes.
He stressed that any accolade would belong to the wider team of engineers, product leaders and platform specialists whose willingness to experiment, learn quickly and share openly has underpinned progress. Among the achievements he highlighted was scaling AI from experimentation to everyday practice across the software development lifecycle, with clear guardrails around quality, security and ethics.
He said a deliberate focus on enablement—demystifying AI, building confidence and making it accessible to engineers at all career stages—has delivered measurable productivity gains, faster feedback cycles and teams who feel empowered rather than replaced by the technology.
On industry trends, Kane noted a shift from debating AI’s potential to grappling with responsibility: the question is no longer, “Can we?” but “Should we—and how do we do it well?” He called for moving beyond tool‑centric thinking to consider how AI interacts with people, processes, regulation and organisational design, and for greater honesty about failure and unintended consequences so the sector learns faster.
Looking ahead, he said his focus is on AI‑enabled software engineering that strengthens, rather than shortcuts, good practice. Tools that improve code quality, testing, observability and knowledge sharing, he argued, will have a more durable impact than those aimed solely at speed.
He also sees significant potential in combining AI with systems thinking. The awards’ winners are expected to be announced in London on 14 May.