Duncan Ross, Chief Data Officer, Times Higher Education

What has been your path to power?

 

I’ve had an eclectic career, including a time as a city councillor in Birmingham, but from a data perspective I started out at the end of the second AI winter in the early 1990s, working with a neural network startup. From there I went on to join database behemoth Teradata, and for a brief time Experian. It was while there that I became part of the DataKind network, setting up DataKind UK as an independent but linked charity. Then in 2015 I was recruited by Times Higher Education to help transform them into a data business – collecting information on universities around the world.

What impact has the pandemic had on the role of data in your company/organisation?

 

Because we work with global universities, we obviously haven’t been able to meet with our customers and partners. We have however been able to see how their data has supported the amazing work being done across the world by universities researching the impact of and solutions to Covid-19. We’ve also seen how universities are shaping their response to climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Does data now have a seat at the table during strategic discussions? If not, what will it take to get it there?

 

Increasingly, the answer is yes. In our conversations with our owners, as well as with some of the other companies they own, it’s clear that data has become an important factor in evaluating the value of a company, as well as in its operations. If you’re part of a company’s value proposition, you deserve the seat at the table. In universities we see a much more mixed picture. In the Global North, institutions often have well developed data teams, but this is far from universal. In the UK, where we arguably have the richest university data set, we often forget that much of the world has relatively little data on higher education.

 

What are your key areas of focus for data and analytics in 2022?

 

2022 is going to be an interesting year in higher education. How will universities shape themselves after the pandemic? Will students start to travel internationally again? Above all, will universities take the challenge of sustainability seriously? Data will help us to understand that.

 

Tell us what leadership means to you in the context of your role as a senior data leader.

 

I need to be able to communicate upwards, and outwards, but I also need to be able to help my team members to grow as potential leaders of the future.

What key skills or attributes do you consider have contributed to your success in this role?

 

Communication skills are the number one. I’m assuming that all of us data people have great analysis skills, but the ability to translate between groups with very different backgrounds is vital.

 

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

 

Practice, and a degree of humility. I work in an international setting, and it is far too easy to forget that different people have very different understandings of the world. We need to understand this as we interact with different disciplines and cultures.

Is the data tech you have keeping pace with your goals and requirements? Are your providers leading or lagging behind your demands?

 

It’s always tempting to jump on the latest technology or algorithm, and it can also be a lot of fun, but you can do a huge amount with available tech. We focus on PostGres and Python, with a scattering of other technologies, and most of the time that works perfectly well.

Duncan Ross
has been included in:
  • 100 Brands 2022 (EMEA)

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