How aware were you of data as a career opportunity during your education or early work experience? Does this need to be heightened?
Contemplating Y2K (and the fear around it!) made me realise how much data and technology had an influence on our lives. However despite this, when looking at careers when leaving university, I can’t say that I was that aware of data in an advertising/marketing context. And if I had been aware of it, I’m sure my perception would have been different to how data is perceived now (data was definitely not “sexy” when I first started at Experian!) and probably tainted by the references to databases used for banking processes, etc. The perception of mainframes from my early Experian days did nothing to help that either!
Hopefully now, with data proliferating through all parts of consumers’ worlds and it being something that every consumer has control over and creates through all their interactions, data will be perceived differently. However, this is certainly something that could always do with more positive and appropriate positioning for young adults considering their career.
What are your key areas of focus for data and analytics in 2022?
So after the numerous years of mobile and the years of GDPR, it feels like 2022 is the year where we can return to data really adding value. At ITV, we are lucky to not have to worry about the changing landscape of third-party cookie restrictions, so we actually have a relatively stable external landscape to work in.
For me, 2022 is a hugely exciting and transformational year for our data strategy, allowing us to focus on the application of our first-party data and that of key partners (in a secure and compliant manner, obviously) to driving the most value for our stakeholders, our clients and our business. Empowering our commercial teams to leverage the power of data (for insights, targeting and effectiveness) integral to their day-to-day jobs without friction or undue data-complex processes will be a key focus for this year. And this particularly resonates with me as I’ve always felt that the power of data is not the data, but how people understand what they do with what they’ve learned.
Tell us about any ambitions you have in terms of becoming a data leader.
Being a data leader is not about being able to bamboozle people with complex data terminology, or knowing every single analytical technique, or having carried out the most significant data technology change. Of course, these are all great challenges along the way, but my ambitions are more about accessibility of data understanding to all. Being able to lead a team or people who are clearly data specialists, but are able to apply that expertise to achieve the best possible business outcome. Being able to see the influence of our knowledge infiltrating every business conversation so that the whole organisation has access to and can confidently understand insights in order to have data-led conversations with their clients. Being able to innovate – data is changing and exciting, so having a team which embraces this to maximise both its own and our business value.
What key skills or attributes do you consider will be essential your success in this role?
Data democratisation is a bit of a buzzword, but having the skills to be able to translate data, in all its complexity, into tangible and understandable business value is probably the most important thing for me this year. Also, embracing change and having the courage to step back and evaluate what’s needed in our data strategy for commercial success.
How did you develop – and continue to develop – your current skills or attributes?
I feel lucky that through natural tendency or my education (not sure which!), I have been blessed with an inquiring and logical mind – fuelling that is an important way to keep developing. I also have a helpful and perfectionist tendency, which can lead to me trying to do more things than is sometimes humanly possible, but also means that I expose myself to a huge variety of different situations. So while I would not recommend that people say yes to everything all the time, it is worth commenting that I feel that we learn the most from new circumstances, especially when we put ourselves outside our comfort zone.
