Mike O’Donohue, chief data officer, Saga
Describe your career to date
I have worked at the intersection of strategy, marketing, and analytics and data for the past 30 years. After completing a PhD in psychology at Queen’s University in Belfast I started my career working in market research in Northern Ireland before relocating to Hong Kong.
I spent the formative part of my career at consulting firm McKinsey & Co. I left in 2007 to join Tesco where I was director of customer insight and latterly also director of pricing and promotions.
Following a spell at Centrica, I joined National Lottery operator Camelot, where I was the CDO and part of the management team that delivered six years of consecutive sales growth and record returns to good causes. I joined Saga in October 2022 as the organisation’s first CDO.
What stage has your organisation reached on its data maturity journey?
Saga was one of the original pioneers of data-driven marketing. It understands the value of data and has well established capabilities for it. The opportunity is to adapt and evolve these to compete in a more digitally driven operating environment.
Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for
I report to the CEO, and a member of the executive team. Our team comprises 36 people working in data governance, engineering, analytics, modelling, and marketing effectiveness. We have recently completed a major project to re-platform our data and build a single customer view, which has meant adding a lot of engineering capacity. Over the next few years, we are planning to strengthen our capabilities in analytics, modelling and data science.
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