Damien Judge, Head of Data, RBS International

From starting out as a Junior Software Developer coding in Pascal and COBOL to Heading Data, Analytics and Cloud for an offshore bank, it has been an interesting and exciting journey. Shortly after starting coding, I discovered SQLServer databases and realised the significance of data in any organisation. BT enabled me to explore and design early versions of Single View of Customer (I called it customer repository) as more and more products were introduced, and customers and staff wanted access to information in an instant. This access to data meant customer support teams felt empowered, customer experience improved, management had means to measure productivity, and sales opportunities spiked.  

In Ulster Bank, I combined the Data and Analytics team with the CRM team and discovered the analytics we were producing now had a portal in which improve customer experience. A world first artificial intelligence (AI) driven next best product recommendation engine was implemented. This almost instantly provided targeted leads driving vastly improved sales figures.  

I get enthralled every time data solves or uncovers insights that benefit our colleagues or customers. I want to empower my team and organisation to use data in the most productive and safe way possible. The speed of change is getting faster, customer expectation rising, governance increasing, technology improving, and AI is going to exponentially change just about everything. As exciting as the last 25 years have been, I truly believe the best is yet to come.