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Chris Gartside, Director of Data and Analytics, Pepsico Europe

Chris Gartside, Director of Data and Analytics, Pepsico Europe

Describe your career to date

I’ve always been interested in how consumers behave and how businesses can influence that behaviour for the better. After graduating with a Master’s in Chemistry, clear that chemistry was not my final destination, I began exploring the graduate job market looking for opportunities to convert my interests into a career.

During this time I was introduced to Dunnhumby and they wowed me from the beginning with an exciting and unique combination of data, analytics, and an opportunity to be part of a revolution looking to influence consumer behaviour. It also helped that this was a career that my mum could almost get her head around.

During 13 years with Dunnhumby I was lucky enough to work with a fantastic, intelligent and challenging selection of people, both colleagues and clients across multiple markets, sectors and verticals. Within that ecosystem I took the opportunity to constantly develop and learn, both in the commercial world and the data world. A combination of constant learning and seeing my work being turned into real world activation kept me engaged for a long period.

Post Dunnhumby, I took a role as chief data scientist at Starcount, and used this opportunity to use data to drive change with new clients as well as go back to the small start-up mentality that I had enjoyed when I first joined Dunnhumby.

I’m now working at Pepsico within the Europe sector advanced analytics team, where we are landing and scaling data products into our business with great impact. Over the last 2.5 years we’ve accelerated rapidly from a nascent capability with potential value to an in-demand capability with multiple established and embedded products and a strong aligned roadmap to build and scale this success within Europe and globally.

What stage has your organisation reached on its data maturity journey?

Within the European sector, Pepsico is now in the develop and deploy stage of data maturity. We are clear on what our essential existing data assets are and have in place multiple products and processes to leverage their value, aligned with the priority of the business.

In parallel we have identified a multi-year roadmap for the evolution of and creation of data products and have teams focused on achieving that vision both through acquisition and creation of new data assets and data products.

While there is still headroom for the integration of data and data products into our processes, we’re confident that we are on the right path, with the right pace.

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

Personally, I am responsible for 18 resources across the different role types within Pepsico; data scientists, data engineers, product owners, product deployment team etc. Given the European focus of my current role these heads are based in multiple markets, with core groups found in our digital hubs in Barcelona and Hyderabad.

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your organisation and on the industry as a whole?

From a Pepsico perspective we are primarily focused on two main fields of data; consumer data and commercial data.

For consumer data, I foresee two challenges: legislative and awareness. As the world wakes up to the power of data, especially PII data, I can see that incremental restrictions and guidelines will be introduced. In parallel I am expecting that consumers will be more wary about sharing their data, making clearer choices on where and with whom they are willing to share data and for what purpose. Staying within the legal restrictions and continuing to engage consumers in a positive way will carry a series of new challenges for all.

For commercial data, I expect more tension between data value and data availability. As needs move beyond the classic commoditised data-sets so businesses like Pepsico either need to generate the next generation of data or source them from nascent players. Finding a balance between these options that supports the current rapid pace of development but that is also cost effective will be something we will all be looking to solve.

Have you set out a vision for data? If so, what is it aiming for and does it embrace the whole organisation or just the data function?

At a global level our data executive leadership team has done a fantastic job in setting out a vision for data for the business; highlighting the opportunity and the importance of data in the future state of Pepsico.

This vision is all-encompassing, setting out a roadmap for the role of data, the role of the data function and the role that data and data products will play in shaping the future of Pepsico.

Have you been able to fix the data foundations of your organisation, particularly with regard to data quality?

We’ve been very targeted in our work to address this critical issue, focusing very clearly on those data-sets that unlock incremental value for the business, both in the short and long term.

Leveraging multi-functional teams across the data and commercial space, a number of automated processes have been developed and deployed to track and flag data quality in these data-sets to ensure issues are trapped and resolved upstream in a timely manner.

Chris Gartside
has been included in:

100 Brands 2023 (EMEA)

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Chris Gartside, Director of Data and Analytics, Pepsico Europe

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.