Headline Partner

Jonathan Saunders, Group Chief Data Officer, Direct Line Group

Describe your career to date

I started my journey as a Research Scientist in the space of drug discovery. I wore a lab coat, safety specs, and I was running experiments that produced phenomenal amounts of data.

Drug discovery is a volume game: find an interaction that leads to illness and throw every compound on the planet at it to see if it stops or slows it down. During this process, I found myself spending more time writing computer programmes to process the data and extract signals from the noise.

I then joined JP Morgan and used the same techniques to build pricing models for derivatives. From there, I ran various technology departments for investment banks and moved into managing large-scale change and transformation programmes in the areas of technology, data, and business change.

Having a background in technology, data, change, and transformation set me up well to take on the role of Chief Data Officer for Direct Line Group. I have been in the role for nearly four years, and it has been challenging and fun in equal measure.

Among other things, I am accountable for data strategy, data operations, governance, ethics, and AI across the group. I am lucky to work for a company with an executive leadership team that truly understands and advocates the need to become even more data driven. Our purpose is to give peace of mind to our customers, and the effective and responsible use of data is a vital ingredient.

Data literacy is a key enabler of the value and impact from data. How are you approaching this within your organisation?

Three years ago, I gathered a team of people who were passionate about data and learning and established a data academy working group. Six months later, we launched a data academy for Direct Line Group. The academy runs events as small as lunch-and-learns and as large as teaching hundreds of people how to write SQL. There are defined learning pathways with training, either in the classroom or self-paced online learning. We have a mentoring programme, a data champions programme, and much more.

There are two broad cohorts of learners at the academy. The first are the data specialists from our data, pricing, and other analytical-heavy areas. The second cohort is the bulk of our organisation, who are our front office staff serving our customers. We have learning pathways for everyone, and our mantra has always been that the academy is for everyone, and it is free to all; line managers do not need to get funding approval. To date, we have run hundreds of events, set up many mentoring relationships, and have trained over 2,000 people in data literacy.

The last and possibly most important part of the academy is our apprenticeship programme. Apprenticeships are open to everyone at DLG, and currently we have nearly 200 people completing them; in everything from literacy training through to degrees in data science.

Finally, we are about to launch our virtual data academy, in which people can learn together in the Metaverse. Alongside having real value in improving data literacy, this is helping us get people excited about learning.

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?

When I started in my current role, I set out a vision for data at DLG. The vision starts with our frontline staff, who serve customers for some of the biggest insurance brands in the UK. Our mission was – and still is – to make data the primary driver of our customer service, and our competitive advantage. To achieve this, we needed to provide our staff with the data they need to offer the best service to our customers.

Our data teams had to undertake a significant amount of engineering, analysis, and data science work in order to provide the data products for our colleagues. In parallel, we needed to train all of our staff in the use of data; all of us need to be data literate. This meant that our data vision and strategy had to be for everyone.

A few years later, we have new cloud-based technology, federated data platforms, data experts deployed across the organisation, machine-learning models deployed, strong governance and ethics frameworks, and a data literate organisation. Our key businesses and functions now have data autonomy in a well-governed environment.

The job is never done; things are constantly changing. One development which has really made us look at the vision and strategy is generative AI. It has gone from zero to sixty in a matter of months, and we are working on exciting use cases.

It presents new opportunities, many challenges, and brings a whole new level of governance, ethical considerations, and the need to further upskill everyone in the organisation. Our vision is holding but we are constantly adapting to keep pace with new opportunities and challenges.

Jonathan Saunders
has been included in:

100 Brands 2023 (EMEA)
100 Brands 2024 (EMEA)

Enabling the success of Data and AI leaders and their teams.

DataIQ is a trading name of IQ Data Group Limited

DataIQ INC is a wholly owned subsidiary of IQ Data Group Limited

Registered office: 6^th Floor Charlotte Building, 17 Gresse St. London, W1T 1QL