Lauren Walker, managing director, consumer data and experience, Accenture Song

At the time of compiling the list and writing this article, Accenture Song was Accenture Interactive.

What has been your path to power?

My data career kicked off with political polling and survey research, which led me to the Clinton/Gore White House, after which I joined ChoicePoint (now a division of LexisNexis) in a marketing role. While in that role, I was promoted to build a new identity solution, for the public sector. Through that experience, and even since, I’ve been bringing together data, technology and strategy to solve business problems. I also learned how to turn data from a raw asset into a monetisable revenue stream.

I left ChoicePoint to attend Yale University School of Management, where I received my MBA. Upon graduation, I embarked on a ten-year career at IBM with senior roles in global marketing, sales leadership, consulting and M&A. Some highlights include leading the MDM business, launching the big data and analytics business in Europe and creating the Watson customer analytics partnership with Acxiom.

In 2017, I joined Dentsu International as EMEA chief data officer, where I harmonised data and digital experts to improve our clients’ customer centricity. As global COO for sales and transformation, I built a growth eco-system (people, process and tech), which will set the foundation for delivering a superior customer experience.

Now at Accenture Interactive, as leader of the consumer data practice (CEDO), I’m helping brands transform to become truly data-driven in their advertising and marketing by teaming with them to determine the optimal consumer data technology footprint, data-driven marketing strategies and ways of working to allow them to harness the growth that the explosion in digital commerce and “death of the cookie” has created. It is an incredible opportunity to be able to partner with so many CDOs and marketing leaders on this journey as we bring our joint expertise together to tackle these challenges and open the opportunities.