Steph Bell, director of analytics, Sainsbury’s

Describe your career to date

My career in analytics started straight out of university when I was lucky enough to stumble across a role in a consultancy that focused on marketing and customer analytics as a fledgling graduate.

The pace and variety of agency life gave me a wealth of truly valuable experience both in the technical aspects as well as across industries and products. It also opened my eyes to the sheer power of data and analytics and the value that can be driven from it. And there began my journey to get ever closer to the impact, truly being at the wheelhouse of putting that insight into action.

My next stop was at Nectar, the company behind the largest coalition loyalty programme in the UK which leverages not only value for its partners, but also uses data and analytics to drive its own business forward.

Nectar360, as it is now known, manages Sainsbury’s shopper marketing services, utilising its own insights and media expertise to connect the Sainsbury’s businesses, FMCG brands and their customers. Reinforcing my love of customer analytics, my time at Nectar was a brilliant opportunity to understand how loyalty influences customer behaviours in a unique blend of both internally facing analytics and client partnerships. My final leap took me to my current role at Sainsbury’s, where I lead an exceptional team of analysts, data scientists and visualisation specialists. We are a multi-faceted function that supports many of the core operations across both Sainsbury’s and Argos.

Looking back on my early career aspirations to be ever closer to the action, it’s a role where even the smallest analytical discovery can end up being shared with millions of customers every day.