Nicholas Metzgen, Director, Transaction Advisory Services, EY
Path to power After studying for a Master’s in electronic engineering, I wanted to learn more about business and finance, so I began my accountancy career focusing on private equity due diligence at one of the Big Four. After many late nights and long weekends in this job, I realised that I could apply the […]
Steve Rooney, Director of Address Management Unit, Royal Mail
Path to power I started work for Royal Mail back in the 80s as a counter clerk and quickly moved into a number of different customer service and sales roles, taking a keen interest in developing and deploying new solutions and designing new ways of working. I joined the Address Management Unit in February 2010 […]
Vijay Sharma, Vice President and Senior Partner, IBM Global Business Services
Path to power Originally from India, I came to the UK for higher education. After completing my computer engineering degree and a couple of graduate roles, my first career defining move was joining Cisco Systems. Working ground up, I spent over six years delivering various data related projects, building data-driven closed loop marketing solutions, micro-segmentation […]
Ian Thomas, Chief Data Officer, Publicis Spine
Path to power I’ve been involved in data and analytics for most of my career, in both the UK and the US. In 2000, I co-founded one of the world’s first web analytics firms, helping to shape the industry in its infancy, and pioneering techniques in digital media and marketing analytics. In 2006, I […]
Anna Spender, Director of Actuarial and Data Analytics, Psyon
Path to power Following my degree in mathematics at Exeter University, I began my career as an actuarial trainee mixing on the job experience with the further study needed for qualification. I quickly found my way into life and health insurance, where I could combine the technical side of actuarial pricing, analytics, and modelling with […]
Nick Whitfeld, Partner, KPMG
Path to power I started out as a manufacturing engineer, which I studied at university. This gave me a valuable insight into the intimate relationship between good data and good business process: they are perfectly symbiotic. Many of the challenges organisations face today when exploiting their data stem from a lack of […]
Richard Lees, EVP Solutions EMEA, Merkle
Path to power My career started at Siemens in 1986, developing pattern recognition and image processing applications. I then went on to lead the introduction and expansion of the Unix capability, moving into GIS software development and implementation. All this experience provided excellent technical grounding. Following Siemens, my next move was into retail banking, […]
Lindsay McEwan, Vice President and Managing Director EMEA, Tealium
Path to power I’ve been deeply embedded in the marketing technology world for several decades. Finding my niche within an industry I’m passionate about has really enabled my personal and professional growth. It’s a cliché, but if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. My career path to […]
David Lloyd, Head of Data and Insight, Wunderman Thompson
Path to power I left university with little concept of, or interest in, data and marketing. Like many, I fell into the industry by accident, landing an analyst role in the data production team at Wegener DM on the strength of having played with some databases during temp work. At Wegener, I had access […]
Dinanath Kholkar, Vice-President and Global Head, Analytics and Insights, Tata Consultancy Services
Path to power Having graduated as an electrical engineer from VJTI, in Mumbai, I joined Tata Consultancy Services as a database technology specialist over 30 years ago. During this time, I have worked on numerous client engagements across India, France, and the US as a systems engineer and IT analyst. I have also worked […]
Steve Mattey, Planning and Analysis Director, Blueberry Wave
Path to power I have spent my entire working life in data – 30-plus years and counting – and I still love it. Lucky me. Starting out with HSBC in direct marketing, I then became the “data bloke” for some big agency groups working across the globe, before starting my own thing. I founded […]
Rob Davis, Vice-President of Product Management EMEA, MicroStrategy
Path to power My first appreciation of the power of data came in the form of trying to find an almost imperceptible needle in a multiple terabyte haystack. As a physics graduate student at the OPAL experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, I was charged with the search for the Higgs Boson using Artificial Neural […]
Neil Currie, Head of Data Management, Crowe
Path to power As a career data professional, I have been fortunate to see years of change in the adoption, collection and use of data. Every day brings a new use case and I love being in the middle of those conversations and the mental stimulation of being able to participate in these conversations. […]
Florian Douetteau, Chief Executive, Dataiku
Path to power My studies were driving me to research in formal logics and type systems, when I fell into start-up world in 2000. I was 20 back then, and I started working at a search engine company, where I was managing engineering. Neuro-linguistic programming was for me a great way to learn about data […]
Nick Halstead, Founder and Chief Executive, InfoSum
Path to power I’ve been an entrepreneur within digital industries for many years, with 12 years in the gaming industry under my belt before moving into data and analytics. During my time as CEO of DataSift, we were the first to realise the value of social media data for understanding personal preferences, which we […]
StJohn Deakins, Founder and Chief Executive, CitizenMe
Path to power Since 1996, I’ve helped companies to successfully drive digital transformation in sectors from publishing to travel to telco but I’m now taking on the most impactful digital transformation project of my career. In 1996, I helped the world’s oldest daily international newspaper, Lloyd’s List, go digital. Previously, subscribers waited days to […]
Andy Crisp, Global Data Owner, D&B
Path to power I have worked in the data industry for two decades, starting my career with Dun & Bradstreet back in 2000. I have held senior leadership roles across various functions of the business, including sales, project management, data management and data strategy. I’ve also been fortunate to have worked across various regions, in […]
James Eiloart, Senior Vice President EMEA, Tableau
Path to power Disruptive companies that are leading the way in their domain have always appealed to me. My career path of nearly 20 years in data technology is certainly testament to that and I’ve been privileged to witness some of the most fundamental, exciting shifts in technology during my career. When I joined […]
Pamela Cook, Chief Executive, Infoshare
Path to power I joined Infoshare as employee number five to help set up its sales and marketing processes. I spent the first ten years on the road, meeting local authorities, regional government offices and police forces across the UK and growing the revenue and profitability of the business. In 2010, Infoshare was at […]
Paul Davison, Head of Data, Royal Mail
Path to power I think like a lot of people in our industry my entrance into the data world was in some ways accidental but also exciting. I started my career building a database for a small print broker before joining Claritas 20 years ago. I had the pleasure of working across many different areas […]