Lauren Walker, Chief Client Solutions Officer, Annalect

Describe your career to date

My data career kicked off with political polling and survey research, which led me to the Clinton White House, after which I joined ChoicePoint (now a division of LexisNexis). Through that experience, and even since, I worked on data product management, product marketing, and corporate strategy. At ChoicePoint, I learned how to turn data from a raw asset into value-added insights, which banks, insurers, and law enforcement used to assess risk and take appropriate action. I left ChoicePoint to attend Yale University School of Management, where I received my MBA. Upon graduation, I embarked on a decade long career at IBM with senior roles in global marketing, sales leadership, consulting and M&A. Some highlights include leading the MDM business, launching the big data and analytics business in Europe, and creating the Watson customer analytics partnership with Acxiom. My first official role as Chief Data Officer was at dentsu International EMEA, where I harmonised data and digital experts to improve our clients’ customer centricity. A few years later, as COO EMEA and later Global COO of growth transformation, I helped drive the transform dentsu. I then spent nearly three years leading Data and Analytics for Accenture Song in both Europe and the UK&I. Recently, I have joined Annalect, as their first Chief Client Solutions Officer. At Annalect, we build the data driven products that the Omnicom agencies and clients use to harmonise, activate, and analyse the media and marketing data across the customer lifecycle.