Mehul B Shah, interim chief data officer, Guardian News & Media

Describe your career to date 

After graduating with a computer science degree in Australia, I started my career building a new data products suite, which has helped our client organisation to proactively monitor the health of their data assets. This data-driven product development experience at an early stage of my career really helped me to relentlessly focus on identifying value opportunities using data.

Over the following 20 years, I held various data roles across media, insurance and electronics sectors around the globe. It was quite fulfilling to be part of some amazing data journeys which had enabled successful transformation of these organisations. Few key milestones I will always cherish are; when Acer became number two laptop vendor in the world; when The Times newspaper turned profitable after over a decade of losses; when BNP Paribas UK Insurance business turned around to secure a prestigious B2B partnership after nearly collapsing due to PPI losses; and finally, being listed in Data IQ 100 for the past three years.

In 2021, I joined The Guardian as director of data because I’ve always admired The Guardian brand, its progressive perspective, global reach, and unique ownership structure.

The Guardian has a global reputation for holding power to account, so it is quite important to develop a financially sustainable future supported by its readers. Last year, we reached a great milestone of having more than 1 million supporters and double-digit revenue growth. I am quite proud to be part of this data journey to build a loyal relationship with our readers and help build a sustainable future for The Guardian.