Shay Cooper, head of visualisation and analytics, Reach

What has been your career path to date?

I started my career working with data within the NHS, analysing data looking for insights to improve patient care and quality of services provided. I had the good fortune of moving into a consultancy-based role that provided more opportunities and the option to travel and work abroad. Working across multiple countries provided insights into the use of data and how people’s backgrounds and data literacy had a big part to play. It was this exposure to the same data, albeit from different organisations, that highlighted some of the systematic data challenges we all face.

I worked my way up from an analyst through to product management, solution architecture, eventually becoming chief technology officer within a leading BI consultancy. I started my own business for a couple of years, contracting out services geared towards business intelligence, GDPR and ISO27001.

I missed working within a larger team and growing a team, hence I joined Reach in October 2020 to expand its BI function. I am working within a wider data team that has some exciting upcoming products to facilitate improved data use within Reach. Currently, I have three core teams focused on building out business intelligence dashboards, creation of a customer data warehouse and a data product surfacing insights into the web behaviours of our readers.