Richard Pugh, chief data scientist, Ascent

What has been your path to power?

As a trained statistician and data scientist, my early career was all about fitting mathematical models to data to drive decision-making. However, I was always far more interested in the outcome than the analysis itself, which led to a move into consulting with Insightful. This allowed me to work across a range of industries and to understand how data could add value in a variety of situations.

Inspired by the potential for data to drive value and underpin more modern business models, I co-founded Mango Solutions in 2002, growing it into one of the most recognised data science consultancies in the UK. We became trusted partners to some of the largest organisations in the world (such as HSBC, GSK, Shell, Lloyds and S&P Global), delivering professional data science solutions across a variety of sectors. My business partner and I built Mango to 75 people, winning the DataIQ data and analytics team of the year award in 2020. 

In November 2020, Mango was acquired by Ascent, an established data and software engineering company. At Ascent, I have built and now lead the data consulting practice which focuses on helping organisations better understand their data opportunity (through data strategy, ideation and data literacy).