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Begona Nunez-Herran, Data and Student Analytics, Director, The Open University

Begona Nunez-Herran, Data and Student Analytics, Director, The Open University

Describe your career to date

Data, data and more…data. Since my first work experience, I have used data to deliver analytics. I believe this profession is the most exciting and interesting out of all because the job does not start or stop at the doing part and this means you are constantly feeding and learning from others.

In financial services I learnt to empathise with the many customers an organisation has. It all starts there, understanding your customer and reading between the lines of what they say they want and what they actually need. Having a background in business management and marketing also helped me develop my commercial acumen, which I describe as the ability to get to the heart of things. This is the ability that drives best in class analytics. These things, mixed with good influencing skills, have been the key ingredients to my career progression.

About five years ago I joined the Open University, a world full of opportunities to help our society. My team and I are on a fantastic journey, having been successful at securing a multi-million pound investment programme to build up the AI capability of the university with machine learning and MLOps at the heart of it. Exciting times.

Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for

We are the data and student analytics team at the OU part of the CDO. We are about 50 people working on data science, reporting, deep dive analyses that support strategic decision making, research, marketing analytics, and a delivery function that connects the dots with the data technology and management teams. At present, the big focus is to drive staff efficiencies through automation and reusability, as well as to improve our conversion and retention. For that we lead and support our stakeholders on the procurement of downstream technology that will also scale up the usage of machine learning.

Tell us about any ambitions you have in terms of becoming a data leader

My vision for the team is that our deliverables become part of the OU’s product proposition, that we deliver these products with the right speed to market and that we keep optimising the impact the products generate in the P&L. If we get to this stage, we can also become a profit centre and monetise some of the fantastic applications we are in the process of completing.

What key skills or attributes do you consider will be essential to your success in this role?

And the ingredient list is….

1 Spend time knowing your customer(s) and become empathic.

2 Build your business and commercial acumen.

3 Understand the art of the possible.

4 Know your blockers to delivery to manage expectations.

5 Set up targets and measure on performance and achievements.

6 Prioritise teams’ backlog effectively.

7 Influence your stakeholders to use/act on recommendations.

8 Close the loop to improve customer/user experience.

How did you develop – and continue to develop – your current skills or attributes?

Anywhere, anytime, with anybody you can learn about the skills you need to master this profession. Have your eyes open. There are so many resources available and channels, but I like the people and network channel. Don’t be afraid to ask the odd question to anybody. Use mentoring. Use DataIQ. Google it. LinkedIn it. Every interaction is an opportunity to develop.

And what about the skills of your data teams and of your business stakeholders? How are you supporting their data literacy?

One of the best things that we have accomplished in the team is to learn to ask the right questions and teach our stakeholders to bear with us in the process. To achieve this, developing stakeholder management and influencing skills as well as business acumen is critical.

Today, our stakeholders are learning what they need and ask for it. The trust has gone up to the point where they widely use our slides and other collateral to support their objectives. This is thanks to continuous improvement in soft skills.

Data literacy can be promoted by talking about data, by using what we know in the data teams and quoting numbers, by having good visualisations and by illustrating what we can achieve in partnership with our stakeholders. The data team should also use the products they develop.

Data literacy is an ongoing objective, and it never stops because the art of the possible continues to move on. For that reason, it is critical that the teams have time to prioritise their development but data leaders need to get the buy-in so the organisation invests in keeping the data architecture up to date. Data governance also has a big role to play in setting definitions and empowering staff in this process across the organisation.

How do you keep pace or stay in touch with your peer group? Do you see it as important to have an active professional network?

Life usually gets in the way, especially when you have young children, but don’t underestimate what can be achieved when you put your kids to bed. One thing that helps me a lot is to use friendly reasons to engage… “it is Christmas”, “there is this movie”, “this is happening and I know such and such colleagues in my network would like to comment or share thoughts”… so stay in touch. I personally like the one-to-one approach and it feels so good when people respond, because we are all sailing on the same busy ship.

Begona Nunez-Herran
has been included in:

100 Brands 2019 (EMEA)
Future Leaders 2023 (EMEA)

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Begona Nunez-Herran, Data and Student Analytics, Director, The Open University

Join our membership network of over 250 global senior data and AI leaders.

The trusted global collaboration and intelligence platform for data leaders.

Join our membership network of over 250
global senior data and AI leaders.