Martin Aylward, head of data and CRM, EDF

What has been your path to power?

After a few interesting early roles at the Lord Chancellor’s Office and the Medical Research Council in London, after moving back to Brighton, I did what most people do in Brighton and got a job at American Express. I then moved to Royal & Sun Alliance where I managed to get onto its global digital leadership initiative at the peak of the dot.com boom, which led to me getting a job in the fledgling e-commerce team and a lead role in the creation of MORE TH>N. It was in this role that I cut my teeth on all things digital and data and set up the rest of my career.

Then, a love of all things French led me to EDF Energy where I headed up in first the acquisition and then the customer marketing teams, taking a lead role in re-launching the brand and building the direct and digital marketing capability. Then I led EDF’s smart metering programme which spanned digital, IT, data, operations, marketing and, for the first time in my career, physical assets. EDF installed over 2m smart meters during this time building a key part of the UK’s net zero infrastructure. Finally, last year, I landed the role of leading all EDF’s data teams in a newly set up data and CRM centre of excellence.