This is a profile from the 2022 version of the DataIQ 100.
The latest list is available here.
Adebayosoye Awonaike, head of data, Legal and General Capital
What has been your path to power?
I have had quite a journey with a National Diploma in Electrical Electronics Engineering, bachelors in Geology, masters in Geographical Information Systems with Remote Sensing and awaiting the conferment of my doctorate in Data Science degree later in 2022. Beyond the academic qualifications and as a teenager, I launched my working life as an electrical engineering associate in downstream oil and gas, then moved on to a sales and marketing role in telecommunications, banking associate in financial services, GIS technician in renewable energy, GIS analyst in highways asset management, and then asset data leader in highways asset management in a local authority.
At this point, I decided to focus on the “data” end of my skillset and became a data consultant in utilities, started my Doctorate in Data Science, became head of data service, then head of data and analytics, and now head of data in my current role at Legal and General Capital. However, outside of work and career, I am a community leader, I run a local job club to help long-term unemployed get back into work and I am an entrepreneur. My journey wouldn’t have been the same with the support of my family as a single and now, my wife and children.
What impact has the pandemic had on the role of data in your company/organisation?
Legal and General Capital has been successful year-on-year since its start-up as a division of L&G, and this is predicated by the capacity to make business decisions based on data-led insights. However, the pandemic is an accelerator elevating the value that we place on data and how we manage, store, and analyse it. The fact that team members are not just sitting next to each other in a traditional way and had to work remotely to deliver same services meant that we couldn’t continue to work the way we did.
Does data now have a seat at the table during strategic discussions? If not, what will it take to get it there?
Having a seat at the table is not really enough, at Legal and General Capital, data has always had a seat at the table during strategic discussions, however that has scaled over the past year and I’ll say data has an active seat at the table.
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