We at Digital Nation are again levelling up our core team, and with that, we’re thrilled to welcome Karin Rits.
While Karin has already been part of many of our projects through the Digital Nation expert pool, it's time to make it official. She now joins our core team as a Digital Governance Expert, bringing with her a rare blend of digital policy, hands-on implementation, and international advisory experience.
Karin worked over a decade at Estonia’s Government CIO Office, helping shape and deliver several of the country’s national digital strategies. Over the years, she has worked across the full spectrum of digital governance – from designing policy and strategy to rolling up her sleeves and building systems both in the private and public sectors. At the Estonian Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (TEHIK), for example, she served as a product owner helping develop one of Estonia’s social welfare information systems.
More recently, Karin has also been advising governments across diverse contexts – including Romania, Kenya, Tanzania, Ukraine, and the UAE.
Drawing on her experience across policy design and system delivery, Karin highlights a few principles that stand out:
🔹 Governance is what turns digital ambition into delivery. Governments routinely invest in strategies and technologies while underinvesting in the governance structures, mandate arrangements, and coordination mechanisms that make those investments actually work. Governance, however, is the hidden force that determines whether the transformation succeeds or stalls.
🔹 There’s no 'best' digital governance model – only the right fit for a specific context. What looks like a replicable model is usually a set of choices that made sense under specific conditions. So the real value of good digital transformation advice starts with asking the right questions.
🔹 Ownership counts. Projects get managed. Products and services need to be owned. The difference is accountability for outcomes, not outputs – for whether the system actually serves its users, not just whether it was delivered on time and on budget. Getting that ownership dynamic right is among the most underrated and most difficult-to-achieve levers in digital government.
Outside the world of digital government, Karin is most often found outdoors – walking, running, hiking, or behind the lens of her camera. A passionate photographer, she proudly carries her old (and heavy) Canon while the rest of the world documents life on their phones. If it means getting the perfect shot, you might find her lying in the mud, scrambling along a mountain ridge, or hiding in the bushes.
Welcome to the team, Karin!